In the Time of HIV/AIDS
I had no particular reason to go to San Francisco in 1975, but a friend had moved there and was feeling very much at home, so I decided to join her. I had dropped out of the PhD program at the University of Washington, having decided that teaching college English was a cutthroat business and not what I wanted to do. Spending some winter months in Montreal convinced me that it was not for me. I was at loose ends, and San Francisco was as good a home as any. My work experience up until then was editing engineering journals and law books, so I started sending out resumes to any company that was remotely connected to those fields. I landed a job as a “technical editor” at large engineering firm, which meant I was responsible for writing proposals in response to requests from prospective clients. The technical editing department was quite large, about a dozen of us, managed by a staid man, who I later learned was gay, and he had hired several gay men and a bunch of women and a f