I grew up out in the foggy western neighborhoods of San Francisco. We may have been close in distance to the Haight-Ashbury and Castro neighborhoods with their exotic hippies and queers, but culturally, we might as well have been on different planets.
When I was in high school in the mid-70s, I was riding the streetcar downtown with two of my friends, no doubt to spend some of our babysitting money at one of the shops on Union Square. As we emerged from the Twin Peaks tunnel, a man got on the streetcar. Lots of people seemed to know him; I had no idea who he was. He shook some hands, laughed and joked, and introduced himself to the three of us.
"I'm Harvey Milk," he said, and shook our hands. He said he was running for something, but I didn't pay much attention, since I wasn't old enough to vote yet.
I won't say that lightning struck, or it changed my life. I'm sure my friends and I, in our little pleated Catholic schoolgirl skirts and knee-highs, just giggled at his big ears and odd name.
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