"In those days, if you were from central Maine and not one hundred percent heterosexual, you tried like hell to pass for it. That was the only choice there was, outside of moving to Greenwich Village and wearing a beret and spending Saturday nights in the kind of jazz clubs where they used to applaud by snapping their fingers. Back then, the idea of ‘coming out of the closet’ was ridiculous. For most of us the closet was all there was. Unless you wanted a pack of liquored-up fraternity boys sitting on you in an alley and trying to pull your face off, the world was your closet."