As for me

Some of us wonder, sometimes, whether the words of ONE accurately hit that target for which they are aimed: the common understanding. It is gratifying to us to have received and to print the following. letter:

To ONE Magazine and its readers:

Where to begin and what to say? Perhaps at the beginning and tell the whole story.

I'm not homosexual and don't ever expect to be. I started buying your magazine for laughs. I'm a bartender in a small town on L. I., and I used to read passages out of ONE and got a real charge out of the laughter I'd receive. Yeah, I was a real clown.

I'm writing this letter to say how sorry I am. To apologize and beg your understanding as you have begged mine. What brought this on is the article in the June-July issue of ONE entitled, "I PASS.”

Perhaps I don't have to explain any further but I want you folks to try and understand how hard it was and is for me to stop and start thinking and finally to realize what to say next? I don't know you and that is probably my fault. But one thing keeps floating around in my head is, "They (you folks) can't be all bad, all corrupt, all evil." I didn't have the chance to hold up to ridicule any seemingly "funny" statements in the bar tonight. It's been raining like hell here and I closed early.

I went to the diner for my usual cup of coffee and except for the cook, that too was left bare of people because of the rain. I thumb though ONE's pages looking for anything to catch my eye which might prove to be a laugh, when I started to read "I PASS."

Perhaps it was the rain or the long hair junk on the radio, or both, or even just the beer I drank tonight. I don't know all I remember is the salty tears and realizing that I, me myself was crying and feeling sorry for some nigger queer I didn't even know or worse yet maybe I did know him.

How horrible to stop and be made to think, "If this guy is passing as white and straight he could be any one of the Boys from the bar and I never knew." The nigger jokes I've told and the queer jokes I've told don't seem funny any-

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