TO EUROPE

... WITH

one

AN ACCOUNT OF THE 1965 TOUR CONDUCTED BY ONE'S SOCIAL SERVICE DIVISION.

by James Kepner

Early last April, ONE's chairman, Dorr Legg, suggested I represent the corporation (at reduced fare) on ONE's forthcoming second tour of Europe. I almost flipped! Though leary of guided tours, I had yearned for Europe the way a Fundamentalist yearns for heaven. And to receive such an offer from an organization which I'd huffily quit four years earlier! I quickly accepted, and with three weeks till I takeoff, began scrambling for financing, passport and vaccination.

ONE had long wanted to get a representative to Europe who knew the American movement intimately enough to make a useful report on European homophile organizational problems. ONE might as well have sent someone else. It was a great trip -but as an inside-dopester, I fizzled.

As I was late notifying the European clubs of our arrival, we were unsure where we'd be met with last year's lavish hospitality. Still, there was no lack of preparations. Chuck Thompson, who organized the tour, and whom I was to assist in shepherding the group, had arranged full schedules in each city, and we were generally met, wined and dined by locals, or at least hospitably received at the clubs

and bars.

The last night in April found me, still not quite believing it was happening, jet-bound east. Chuck had preceeded us to Europe, so I corralled our group in New York, with the dubious help of the hotel switchboard, and a few of us ventured out for an excellent dinner, hosted by Ed (a Friend who'd visited us in Los Angeles some years back) and window-shopping East midtown. Then off from Kennedy Airport next afternoon.

Four of us were from California, four from the East Coast, six from the Midwest, including a doctor originally from China. Florist, bank clerk, professor, computer programmer, hairdressser, a strikingly handsome state patrolman, cab driver, hospital attendant, etc. One, a chief supplier of clippings for "tangents," was born in Germany. Another, a grandfather, had been to Europe many times before. Harold and Ben had started last year's jaunt, and fallen out due to illness or accident. Dick and one Howard were very young, but two or three others had been voters in Al Smith's day. Some were quiet, some not, but none necessarily "obvious."

Crossing the Atlantic, Dick kept the stewardesses vying for his lap-just to keep some of the rest of us out of it,

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