We were instructed to park our cars by backing tightly against the building so that sheriff deputies could not record our license plates (Kansas doesn’t have front license plates). There was also one gay bar in North Topeka, near the river, called The Other Side. I still remember slouching down in the dark Jayhawk Theatre in 1974 to see Boys in the Band. I would occasionally take a bus to Kansas City for a weekend of ‘coming out’ in the bars.
I moved back into my parents’ home in Topeka, Kansas and continued at Washburn University Law School. After graduating from SMU in 1973, I enrolled in law school at SMU, but after the first year could not afford to stay.
