Jimmy had known that he was attracted to boys since he was six or seven years old. But he didn't know what it meant, or that there were other people who felt the same way. His earliest memory of a gay man was a character who hung out at the local poolhall, an outcast among grownups and bogeyman to the local kids, rumored to have physical deformities such as female genitalia in his throat. The kids were warned to never allow themselves to be alone with this "evil man" who would certainly do unspeakable things to them given the chance. Jimmy remembers thinking, "I'm like him."

And yet, there were physical encounters with other boys--kids who would grow up to be husbands and fathers, pillars of the community. So Jimmy started to realize that he wasn't alone.

He also realized that if he were to ever be happy, he needed to get out of Hutchinson, Kansas. After a year of living at the YMCA, he spent a summer in California where he stayed with an aunt and uncle and worked at a produce market. The living arrangements were far from perfect: his aunt and uncle had never had children, and complained about how much food sixteen-year-old Jimmy ate. He would hide a loaf of bread from his store in the hedge outside the house, and eat sandwiches in the middle of the night to avoid their censure.

An older man that Jimmy worked with took him under his wing, and offered to let Jimmy stay with him in his small apartment so he could get away from his aunt and uncle. The man was kind, generous, and gay; and Jimmy describes this time as a "great experience." But when summer was over, Jimmy either had to go to school, or get a work permit. Because his aunt and uncle weren't his legal guardians, they couldn't sign the work permit, and Jimmy couldn't afford to stay in California without a job. So he returned to Kansas.

Jimmy stayed in Kansas until he turned 18, at which point he joined the Navy. His stepbrother had served in the Navy in World War II, and had gotten Jimmy interested in the service. Mostly, Jimmy just wanted to get away. "I just wanted to be anywhere where I could be more comfortable," he said. "There, I felt like I was walking a tightrope. If I made a move, I would be tarred and feathered."

Jimmy went to boot camp in San Diego in 1948, and then spent most of the next four years on a ship in the Far East. His primary MO was as a sea-plane tender, but he also worked in the food service.

He recalls one sailor aboard the ship, "Joe", whom he describes as "the most out guy I've ever known."

"Well, after a month or two on the cruise," Jimmy told me, "I don't care who it was--married guys with five kids, whoever--they would come around looking for" him. Joe and the other sailors would sneak into the storage area where they kept the potatoes, and Jimmy would lock them in and stand watch. "He would give me five dollars to use the locker for fifteen minutes," he said. He "was getting paid. I mean, he was a prostitute."