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During October 1972, I wrote a politically incorrect letter to the Express  -- a free weekly in Long Island, New York - complaining about a "Jesus Freaks" column that hounded gays.  The newspaper called me up and asked if I would like to write a gay column for them, and Straight on Gay was born.  No small feat in the early seventies; a mere five years after the Stonewall Rebellion.

The column - a blend of political jabber and Dear Miss Lonelyhearts -- was really suited to me, a rather non--political guy with a big ego and mouth.  Young, innocent, and all puffed up, it gave me a forum with which to express myself.  I was gay and I didn't seem to care who knew it.  I was also a poet and writer, a student, and I liked people.  So, onward (and apparently without a dictionary and editor) I began to forge.

It seems odd today that I wrote that column for nearly a year under the pseudonym, Smitty. Counseling readers in print to "come out of the closet," myself. Why? You have to understand that in those days (Long Island in the Seventies) was different than it is even today. As gay and proud as I was, I wasn't brave enough at that point to put my life on the line; at least not alone.  I lived in the dorms of Hofstra University -- the same building in which the New York Jets football team lived in when they were practicing.

I remained hidden until the February 8, 1973, issue of the Express.  Then I boldly went where few had gone on Long Island before. I came out in print and faced the consequences. During the same period of time I co-founded Hofstra University's gay organization, Hofstra United Gays and joined other organizations, such as the Gay Activists Alliances of Long Island and New York.

Now, some twenty odd years later, I am resurrecting Straight on Gay here at writer_mike's world. It's time to finish what I started and to let today's generation of Gays in on some of what we had back when.  Though I gave up the gay political agenda for a few decades, I also managed to live in all the gay capitals of the world, the ghettos.