Along with the actual "fans," a number of other persons were innocently using these magazine letter columns to find romantic Pen Pals. I got several introductory letters from nitwit small town girls, who had no interest in science fiction, but who hoped perhaps for a letter from Prince Charming.

One such new correspondent, from a Dakota town, sent a snapshot of himself, young, elegant, softly handsome, with an introductory letter so poetic, so glowing in its offer of friendship, that I responded quickly and at unusual length. His first letter came soon after I first discovered the meaning of the word homosexual. Two or three letters passed before it became clear that we were "brothers under the skin." Gene had not been "out" long, but was every inch a a queen. I was hardly that type. Perhaps we wouldn't have gotten on at all in person. I had read a little on the subject, and Gene had briefly tasted big town gay life-which I was soon to see much more of. Our information trading helped us both. We wrote almost daily for three years, while he flitted through a war, and I moved from San Francisco to New York to Los Angeles. We never met, but I shall always cherish the memory of "Princess Gina."

Ten years ago, an L. A. paper featured lurid "Strictly Personal" ads in which egocentrically described gentlemen wished to-meet-the-lady. Others ambiguously suggested something else, in "Tolerant-worldly-youth-

interested-in-arts-wishes-to-meet-older-companion," and in apartment share and travel-companion ads. I don't know how many of these were homosexuals, but I knew several who were. One was a charming young hustler, who hardly needed to advertise, but who profited by it, even if all his "customers" didn't.

Daniel, an engineer I knew well, placed one of these ads as a joke, de-

scribing himself as a prize catch. The answers gave us several evenings of laughs, but the laugh was on us. One answer came from an eighteen-yearold cripple, an impossibly shy kid from the sticks. I don't know how Johnny got up enough nerve to write. He was throwing money and time down the drain trying to study law in a phoney night school. His father was a drunken tyrant-the family on relief. Some unattractive people have enough push or personality to get on, but not Johnny. He put off meeting Daniel for two years, for fear it would be all over once Daniel saw him. Daniel was handsome, and well off by Johnny's standards. Both were awkward when they met, but that wore off. Johnny blossomed outchanged completely. He looks quite dynamic now, if not pretty. They've been together six years. Johnny just passed his bar exam with flying colors.

I met Hannah, an invalid, through such an ad. She had just moved from an Alabama farm with her husband, a nice clod of a man. She placed an ad, drew several friends, and began having weekly poetry readings at her home. Her poems weren't classics, but they were vibrant, imaginative and sensitive. She became a sort of "mother superior" to young girls she met through ads in various publications. Some of them came to her from across the country. Some are now gay. Some happily married. But all are happier and more stable for having known Hannah. Her house is still a center for troubled girls. I'm sure her devoted husband has never imagined she is lesbian. She gives him no cause for jealousy.

Chad, buried in a large office, a large family and a large circle of family friends, was less successful with his ad. His homosexuality was like a canker. He could neither accept nor ignore it. Perhaps he had read too many books by guilt-pro-

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