IT WAS 1984, or maybe '85. I was a young reporter, and the president of the Harvey Milk Lesbian/Gay Democratic Club, a young activist named Carole Migden, had called to invite me to speak to the club about the latest election. I showed up at the Women's Building on my beat-up Norton, wearing the ancient beat-up leather jacket I had salvaged from a friend's compost pile and carefully restored (with lots of saddle soap and mink oil) to look like it had been through a couple of world wars – which is the way any motorcycle jacket ought to look.

I made my speech, took a few questions, and went back to my seat – to discover that my jacket was gone.

Migden was mortified. So was everyone else in the room (except whatever scumbag had stolen it). They apologized profusely, told me they'd try to find it (lotsa luck), and thanked me for speaking.

After I left, I decided to walk up to Castro Street and hit a few bars, just on the odd chance that I'd see some guy walking around in my coat. I hadn't been on the street for more than 10 minutes before two people – neither of whom I knew – came up to me and told me they were sorry about my jacket. Several more told me the same thing in the bars. I don't think all of them were even at the Milk Club meeting.

And within a few hours, Migden had called me to say the jacket had been reclaimed (I don't want to know how) and I could pick it up at her house.

The Castro back then seemed at times like a small town, where everyone knew everyone and an affront to one was an affront to all. It was overwhelmingly male, predominantly young – and largely unaware of the impending world-changing crisis.

Queer San Francisco is very different today, for better and for worse. As Lynn Rapoport writes on page 18, the city is not entirely the gay mecca it once was (in part because young queers can't afford to live here).

And today (thanks to hard work and activism) queer people are welcome in a lot of cities – many of them far cheaper places to live. Gay people can move to suburbs to raise families. Someday, Rapoport notes, we may not need to be a queer mecca.

But I'd miss it.

Tim Redmond