A trip down memory lane - 1972

[juanjo]

I ran across these photos which were done by a gentleman named Bill Yates when he was a senior in college studying photography. What struck me was how these look exactly like some of the guys I grew up with and how we were all just that young, dumb and full of cum. In 1972 I would have been 19 and well, running with a bunch of guys who would have been happy to pose for photos for this guy, just like these photos here.

 

[juanjo]

Here is a second photo

 

[tampa24]

They really are a time capsule of sorts just for the "look" and attitude of the younger 70's generation. I would have still been too young to pose for those kinds of photos in 1972. I was only 9 y/o that summer. haha

 

[johnny]

That was a Great time to be Young And Gay in San Francisco.No where like it.Starting to go downhill about 78,

 

[tampa24]

That was a Great time to be Young And Gay in San Francisco.No where like it.Starting to go downhill about 78,

But then the 80's arrived with a vengeance and the party was over.

 

[ChristopherRobin]

I'll say the party was over. I dropped out of The Scene on the North Side of Chicago when the rumors of the gay plague were rife. I'm most probably still alive today because of it. I knew people who weren't so lucky. For those of you who weren't around then, get your hands on a documentary, made about 10 years ago, titled, "Gay Sex in the Seventies." What you see in the movie: That's exactly what it was like.

 

[nobelegg]

Try being a junior-turning-senior (graduated HS in 73), frail (I weighed only 120 lbs.), and gay in an Indiana state children's home/institution (I spent fifteen wonderfully horrid years there, starting at age 2) where the word of the day was not "gay"; it was the ever-biting "queer"! 'Taint funny, Magee.

 

[tampa24]

Try being a junior-turning-senior (graduated HS in 73), frail (I weighed only 120 lbs.), and gay in an Indiana state children's home/institution (I spent fifteen wonderfully horrid years there, starting at age 2) where the word of the day was not "gay"; it was the ever-biting "queer"! 'Taint funny, Magee.

Wow. That does sound pretty horrid.

 

[juanjo]

Try being a junior-turning-senior (graduated HS in 73), frail (I weighed only 120 lbs.), and gay in an Indiana state children's home/institution (I spent fifteen wonderfully horrid years there, starting at age 2) where the word of the day was not "gay"; it was the ever-biting "queer"! 'Taint funny, Magee.

I knew kids who were wards of the state. I am sorry you went through that. It must have been rough. I have an idea of what that was like growing up in those places from the stories my buddies told me. They were good guys but living in a rough place through no fault of their own. It was interesting how many of them went on to blossom into good folks after they left that place. Sadly not all. One of them was my boy friend for 2 years of high school and 3 years of college. He went on to marry, have three children, get divorced and raise his kids on his own with his lover. He was an amazing person, witty, intelligent, a writer of poetry and short stories [some of which was published], a prolific drinker and carouser and the most loyal friend anyone could ever ask for. He died last year of a bad heart, apparently some defect he inherited from one of his parents and never properly diagnosed. I always said that if Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac had a gay child, Mark was that child.