In the winter of 1974, fresh out of the Peace Corps, I was living alone and working in Chicago at Hull House daycare as a preschool teacher, while completing my master’s degree at night. Most of my free time I spent cruising every public men’s room in the vicinity for some romantic notion I had of finding my “heart’s desire.” I did find him—Bob, my soul mate of thirty-seven years—but that came later, after graduation from De Paul and after I’d moved back home to California. For the time being, I threw myself into the hunt for a partner with great vigor. It was the 1970’s for chrissakes, and I was gay and out. The bushes in Lincoln Park were ripe for the picking and I wasn’t planning on missing a meal.
I met Greg—that’s not his name but what I’ll call him—on one of those sweltering Chicago
