My new neighbor edited my article in the current Glen Cove Community Association newsletter. Funnily enough, he was introduced to me by friends in common at my birthday party earlier this month who realized we hadn’t met. We figured out soon after that he was the same guy who had been the president of GCCA and was still editing the newsletter, including my own article. However all the while with the article passing between us we did not know we had friends in common and that we were also both gay and would be meeting within days of finalizing the article!

This is a link to the issue with my article starting on page 6. I’m very proud to still be fighting Big Tobacco more than three decades after my father died at the very young age of fifty from smoking. His mother had died from smoking and drinking at the same age twenty years before him. I’ve now outlived them both.

Please check out LGBTQ Minus Tobacco‘s site as well. I recently learned about this organization through local political organizations. It was wonderful to find a local advocacy group that is fighting for a cause I’ve believed in for decades, especially since I specifically knew Big Tobacco targeted queer people long before I even came out to myself.