Video Interview, Bill Valenti, April 11, 2012

  • KEVIN INDOVINO: So it's a conversation between you and I.
  • BILL VALENTI: Yup.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: The audience is not going to hear my questions.
  • So try and incorporate the idea of my question
  • into your answer.
  • BILL VALENTI: Got it.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Tell me about breakfast this morning, Bill.
  • Well, today when I was thinking about having breakfast--
  • that kind of thing, OK?
  • If you stumble, or lose your train of though, just stop--
  • BILL VALENTI: OK.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: --start again.
  • OK.
  • So it should be almost kind of in the mode
  • of telling a little mini story.
  • BILL VALENTI: A little story?
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, the story always start with a beginning,
  • then there's the content, and then there's the end.
  • CREW: Good to go?
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.
  • CREW: OK.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Bill, I want to kind
  • of first just kind of broach very briefly
  • here a little bit about your own coming out experience.
  • You came out a little bit later in life than some people.
  • More interesting, particularly, the passing by of Dick's
  • 43, and that whole experience for you.
  • BILL VALENTI: Well I came out at the age of 35.
  • So I was fully formed, and had been married
  • for 10 years at that time.
  • Now I had always been interested in men,
  • even though I never really understood the signals,
  • or what that was really about.
  • Because in those days, there were no role models,
  • and gay life was just undercover.
  • I remember, I worked at the National Clothing Company
  • in high school.
  • It was a big men's clothing store
  • at the corner of East Main and Stone Street.
  • And the employee entrance was on Stone Street, next to 43
  • Stone Street, which was Dick's 43 Club.
  • Now, when I started to work at the national,
  • I didn't really know what that was about.
  • At least, not at first.
  • I knew it was a bar of some kind.
  • And the manager in the clothing department where I worked
  • was a gay man.
  • Of course, I suspected at the time, but didn't really--
  • No, but he would tell me about his experiences
  • during World War II, and he really
  • didn't leave much to the imagination.
  • He would describe the whorehouses
  • in Havana, where you ordered your boy by the inch.
  • That was the first time I had heard that kind of talk,
  • but during the discussion he also told me about--
  • or hinted about-- what was going on at Dick's 43 Club next door.
  • So I began to keep an eye out for what
  • was going on there as I left the store at night, after work.
  • And would either walk by to try and get a look inside, or stand
  • across the street, and see what that was about.
  • Now, that was--
  • I was about 17 at the time.
  • So, curious, but of course never acted on any of that.
  • Two years later, a group of college buddies and I--
  • guys who lived in Rochester, even though we
  • were at UB in Buffalo--
  • were out on the town drinking, and ended up downtown,
  • and decided to go to Dick's 43.
  • And I can't remember how we decided to do that,
  • but if my memory serves me, I was
  • the one that thought that might be a good idea.
  • And the others went along with it, because in those days
  • you made fun of gay people.
  • And laughed at them.
  • And I was right there with them.
  • But I had another reason, of course,
  • for wanting to go in there.
  • So, we all went in.
  • And I saw men dancing with each other,
  • and I had never seen that before.
  • And thought that was kind of interesting,
  • and filed that away.
  • And we walked in a single file across the room--
  • across the dance area, and near the bar.
  • And there were men at the bar.
  • Some of them kissing.
  • I had never seen men kiss like that before, either.
  • But two of the men, as we walked by, were in a clutch.
  • One of them said to the other, I'm yours tonight.
  • And two of us heard that.
  • And when we got outside, he said to me, did you hear that?
  • And I said, yeah.
  • But was just totally thrilled by the experience.
  • And then filed that away, but never really acted on it.
  • Again, no role models, no point of reference.
  • Because in those days, Dick's 43 Club was undercover.
  • And if you went there, most people
  • didn't tell anybody about it.
  • So it took me a while to figure that out.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: What were your--
  • you say you were filing all of this information away,
  • what were your biggest fears?
  • BILL VALENTI: Well, the biggest fear for me
  • was the stigma of being gay.
  • Because in those days, there was a stigma,
  • which I think is different than today, because gay people today
  • are out there and visible.
  • Out to different degrees, and in different ways.
  • But in those days, it was much more of the post-Stonewall era.
  • In those days-- during my high school days--
  • it was a pre-Stonewall era.
  • That was the era when people really did keep it under wraps.
  • They talked in-- their conversations were coded.
  • Friends of Dorothy being the one that I remember.
  • Oh, she's a friend of Dorothy, called men by female pronouns.
  • So I was very reluctant to do that.
  • And of course, didn't want to disappoint my parents at all.
  • Because they had very clear expectations of me, and for me,
  • and that was not part of the discussion.
  • I mean, sex and sexuality--
  • those discussions were limited.
  • And being gay-- in addition to being stigmatized--
  • for me, was hardly on the radar screen,
  • other than being a part of the stigmatization of people.
  • I don't think that, in those days,
  • I had either figured out what was going on in my head.
  • And was probably as much a part of the problem for other kids.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: So as you said, you kind of
  • filed that away for a while.
  • You obviously went to school, and such.
  • I'm going to move right to your residency
  • at the U of R. What was going on with you at the U of R,
  • and what kind of work were you doing?
  • BILL VALENTI: Well, my time at the University of Rochester--
  • finished a residency, did a fellowship
  • in infectious diseases.
  • That was three years of residency,
  • and two years of infectious diseases.
  • Then I joined the faculty in 1977.
  • So I was a young, enthusiastic assistant professor
  • of medicine in the infectious diseases unit.
  • And one of my jobs was to be the physician
  • manager of the hospital's infection control program.
  • And I also saw patients.
  • I rotated on the infectious disease's service, took a call.
  • And I did it a month at a time, mostly hospital,
  • but there was a little bit of activity going on
  • in the infectious diseases unit.
  • And I also saw some students in the University Health Service.
  • So I was seeing patients, and doing some research,
  • and writing papers, and doing that academic thing.
  • And enjoying it.
  • And it was fairly uneventful, at least in the beginning.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: And then, a couple of years
  • later, this mystery popped up.
  • This mystery disease.
  • BILL VALENTI: Right, the--
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me about that first time that you--
  • I believe you told me you actually
  • read it in a journal of medicine, or something.
  • About this new virus that popped up.
  • Or the first time that you first heard of HIV.
  • It wasn't called HIV then, but--
  • and what your initial reaction to that was.
  • BILL VALENTI: Well, the first time
  • I heard about the disease, AIDS, was June 5th, 1981.
  • And that was the report from the Centers for Disease Control,
  • in their weekly report called Morbidity and Mortality,
  • or MMWR--
  • report came out weekly, in hard copy.
  • And I was, again, in the infectious diseases
  • unit on the faculty at Strong, at U of R.
  • And read this weekly, because this
  • was part of the infectious diseases activity
  • that we were all involved in.
  • They described five cases of pneumocystis pneumonia in LA,
  • and several cases from New York City.
  • Now, I had never seen a case of pneumocystis prior to that,
  • and I've been doing infectious diseases for a bit,
  • and just never saw it.
  • The other interesting thing about that report,
  • is it was written by a physician named Michael Gottlieb in LA.
  • And Mike Gottlieb was a U of R student,
  • and a resident at Strong, and had
  • rotated on the infectious diseases service with me
  • a couple years before that.
  • So we knew him.
  • I mean, he was part of the Strong family, the culture.
  • And so we noted that Mike Gottlieb now
  • has reported these cases.
  • What I did was I read it, and I read it twice,
  • because I couldn't figure it out.
  • And it was something that we had never seen before.
  • And I kept my files in manila folders,
  • and I started a new file and I called
  • it Infectious Diseases: Other.
  • And put it away in the back of a file cabinet,
  • because I didn't think I'd ever use
  • that kind of miscellaneous stuff again, or have a need for it.
  • And about, oh, three weeks to a month later--
  • something like that-- we were asked to see a patient
  • at Strong--
  • in consultation-- who sounded and looked very much like what
  • Mike Gottlieb had reported just a month earlier.
  • So that got the wheels in motion,
  • in terms of what was then called GRID, the gay related immune
  • deficiency syndrome.
  • Because it was mostly in gay men,
  • and some in injection drug users.
  • So that was the beginning of our experience in '81, '82
  • in our sleepy infectious diseases clinic
  • that we had only on Friday, that didn't see too many patients.
  • All of a sudden, started to get busy.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Do you remember that moment
  • where it dawned on you, this is something serious,
  • this is something that's going to be detrimental?
  • BILL VALENTI: Well, during those days that started in June '81,
  • once that first report came out, and we started
  • to see cases coming into Strong, there
  • were a number of reports that followed.
  • That continued.
  • That seemed as though every week there
  • was an additional series of cases being reported.
  • We were seeing similar things here.
  • And it was looking like, first of all,
  • that it wasn't going away.
  • That it looked like a sexually transmitted disease,
  • and the pattern of disease in terms of who got it,
  • and how they might have gotten it,
  • looked very much like hepatitis B. Something
  • that we had seen, and had been seen, for many years.
  • So there's all this new activity now that's happening,
  • and just the volume of patients being referred
  • in to either the inpatient side on the hospital side,
  • or coming in to the infectious diseases clinic.
  • Because a lot of people--
  • in those days-- when they were sick, started coming home.
  • Leaving New York, or LA, or San Francisco,
  • and coming back to Rochester to live with their families,
  • because they were sick.
  • So the volume of activity sent off these signals
  • that, well, there's not only something going on,
  • but it doesn't look like it's going away.
  • In fact, it looks like it's gaining steam.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: At some point, with all the
  • work that you were doing in the infectious disease unit--
  • and everything that was going on at Strong--
  • at some point you had made the conclusion that there was
  • more--
  • or different work-- that needed to be done.
  • As far as care of AIDS patients.
  • Can you just talk to me briefly about the beginnings
  • of that thinking.
  • That there needed to be something outside
  • of the infectious disease unit at Strong that needed
  • to be done for this community.
  • BILL VALENTI: Right.
  • The community response to what was now the AIDS epidemic,
  • and caused by HIV--
  • the volume of activity just continued.
  • It just continued to come in and exploded.
  • And the infectious diseases clinic
  • now was operating five days a week, morning and afternoon.
  • And I was seeing patients in many of those sessions.
  • And that was all I was doing in addition to seeing people
  • in the hospital.
  • The area planning group, the task force--
  • Rochester Area Task Force on AIDS--
  • had been going now for a while.
  • And they projected that the number
  • of AIDS cases in the area would double over the next 10 years.
  • And there were a couple things going
  • on at strong that told me that the infectious diseases
  • unit wouldn't be able to handle it all.
  • The other thing is, there were some fundamental differences
  • in terms of style, in terms of how we managed patients,
  • and how we approached patients.
  • And what we thought--
  • what I thought, and Dr. Steve Scheibel, my fellow fellow
  • in infectious diseases--
  • what we thought needed to be done
  • in terms of approaching this.
  • One of the things that we thought needed to happen,
  • was that we needed not only more drugs, and better drugs,
  • but earlier treatment.
  • And that made the most sense, if you really
  • understood what AIDS was.
  • Which is getting sick with HIV first, and then many years
  • later--
  • after the immune system was destroyed--
  • you get the disease, AIDS.
  • So we thought that with these differences in approach--
  • and the number of cases that would be increasing over
  • the next 10 years--
  • it seemed like a good idea to take it out of the hospital,
  • and try and form some kind of office.
  • What we thought at first was really a physician practice,
  • a private practice.
  • But realized very soon that that wouldn't cut it
  • in terms of being able to deliver the care that
  • needed to be subsidized.
  • Because in those days, not everybody had insurance.
  • There weren't any federal programs like the Ryan White
  • Act, and those kinds of programs, to support HIV care.
  • And a lot of people were uninsured,
  • and we would have gone out of business very fast,
  • so we settled on a not-for-profit model that
  • became Community Health Network.
  • Now that was in 1989.
  • We left the university and took about 110 patients with us.
  • But it really wasn't a competition,
  • because the number of cases continued to increase,
  • and it just kept getting busier.
  • It never peaked then fell off, that didn't happen until 1992
  • when we had more drugs.
  • So those early days were a lot of flying
  • by the seat of our pants, because we
  • didn't have the right drugs, or enough drugs.
  • But we did develop an understanding
  • of what might be going on, and the early treatment thing
  • was the part that made the most sense.
  • Now, not everybody agreed with us on that.
  • And the university approach-- more
  • of a data driven approach, in terms of,
  • if there aren't data to support this, then you can't do it.
  • Which is one of the reasons why we left.
  • Because it's one thing to sit around the table
  • and talk about theories, and hypotheses, and conjectures,
  • but it's a completely different thing,
  • and it was a completely different thing.
  • Because Scheibel and I were seeing the patients
  • in the clinic, and were confronted with real people.
  • Real sick people right in front of us, and we
  • needed to make some decisions.
  • So, if you waited until the science was there
  • to figure out what to do, the patient would be dead.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Just recap for me then,
  • what were you doing at the HN that was different than what
  • was going on at Strong?
  • BILL VALENTI: What we were doing at Community Health
  • Network, right from the beginning,
  • was what we called early intervention.
  • Which became a buzz phrase in HIV world much later than 1989.
  • But we always thought that if we had the right drugs, and enough
  • of them, that you should be treating people with HIV
  • right in the beginning.
  • And stabilize the immune system, keep them from getting sick.
  • So we were treating people much earlier.
  • Instead of waiting for their T cells--
  • or immune system measures--
  • to fall off, we wanted to treat people much earlier.
  • And in those days, there started to be the release of new drugs,
  • so we could use them in combination.
  • We were also using drugs in combination--
  • we were doing that at Strong too, nobody knew it.
  • We got drugs from Japan and San Francisco,
  • and were using them in combination
  • with the drug EZT, which was the first drug that was licensed.
  • Scheibel also is a brilliant clinician, just understood HIV.
  • The big picture, as well as the microscopic picture.
  • He had a vaccine project, and he was making
  • vaccine in the back room.
  • We had a water bath and a sterilizer,
  • and he was taking the cells of people with high T cells
  • with HIV.
  • And injected it into himself, and a number of others.
  • Some of those people are still around,
  • Scheibel's still around.
  • So we were on the edge.
  • In those days there was nobody that looked over our shoulders,
  • in terms of what we were doing.
  • Now there's regulation, and structure, and all of that.
  • But it was like a Mash unit.
  • People were sick, and you had to do something.
  • So we did what we could, which was combining
  • drugs that might stand some chance of working
  • when they were put together.
  • And playing around with Sheibel's vaccine.
  • We even went to Trance, the religious supply store,
  • and bought communion wafers.
  • And he had a pipette that he delivered--
  • (Indovino laughs)
  • BILL VALENTI: Yeah, I know.
  • --measured in specific amount of interferon,
  • an immune system booster.
  • And we were giving out communion wafers impregnated
  • with interferon, and people were putting them under the tongue
  • once a day.
  • And they never would have allowed that at the University.
  • So we had a reputation as being kind of roguish,
  • and a little bit off the deep end.
  • On the other hand, there are people
  • that I'm following today--
  • 27 or 30 years later-- who are still around,
  • for what that's worth.
  • But the other part of the story is
  • that, there is universal agreement
  • here in 2012 people with HIV should
  • be treated as early as possible in the course of their illness.
  • You can draw your own conclusions.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Yup.
  • If you can, briefly talk to me about working with people
  • like Sue Cowell, and with the formation
  • of AIDS Rochester, and--
  • BILL VALENTI: Sue Cowell.
  • I met Sue Cowell before AIDS, when
  • we both worked in the University Health Service.
  • She was a nurse practitioner, a young nurse practitioner--
  • I think that was her first job.
  • And this was my first job in the health services,
  • this young eager assistant professor.
  • We didn't know each other very well in those days.
  • I was kind of puzzled by Sue, because she was out.
  • A lesbian woman who was out, and that was in 1977 or so.
  • We quickly got to know each other though.
  • I liked her kind of quiet determination, the way--
  • I liked her style.
  • And when it came time to step up to the plate--
  • when HIV first hit--
  • she and one of our docs in infectious diseases--
  • Tom Rush-- began to do a survey of sexual behavior
  • in people with AIDS.
  • And tried to-- if I remember-- tried
  • to correlate their behavior to T cell accounts,
  • the immune system function.
  • And thinking back on that, that was
  • one of the first pieces of HIV clinical research anywhere
  • on Earth.
  • I mean, they were right on top of that.
  • And we were struggling upstairs with trying
  • to figure out how to take care of all of these patients.
  • But very, very early, she and Tom Rush
  • put this survey together to try and begin
  • to answer the questions.
  • Now a little bit after that--
  • see, I missed the front porch meeting at Sue's house,
  • where AIDS Rochester was formed.
  • But that's kind of a legendary--
  • it's a milestone in HIV history around here.
  • Because that meeting with those key people
  • on Sue's front porch on Harper's street resulted in--
  • this was another part of the community response to HIV--
  • which was the formation of AIDS Rochester.
  • And I became involved with AIDS Rochester a little bit
  • after it was formed, and was on their board of directors.
  • Once the organization got moving,
  • and the number of patients increased,
  • and there was New York State funding, our committee--
  • including Sue and I, and John Altieri--
  • was also working on the AIDS task force--
  • the Rochester Area Task Force on AIDS--
  • hired Jackie Nudd as the first executive
  • director of AIDS Rochester.
  • So now there was an organization that could provide some service
  • to people who were sick.
  • The medical care piece wasn't nearly as advanced
  • at that point, because there was only one
  • drug that came along later.
  • And what we were really doing in those early days,
  • in terms of treating HIV, was treating AIDS.
  • The end stages of that, and treating
  • the multiple infections and cancers
  • that went along with it.
  • So our tool box was kind of limited--
  • no, our tool box was very limited in the beginning.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, I'm just going to throw a couple
  • names out at you.
  • You already mentioned one, and I just kind of want
  • to get a sense of who these people were,
  • and what they were like.
  • Jackie Nudd.
  • BILL VALENTI: Jackie Nudd.
  • I remember sitting with Jackie Nudd when we were recruiting
  • an executive director for AIDS Rochester, because she had been
  • working on the task force and then a couple
  • other capacities, some projects.
  • And she said to me, I really want this job.
  • And she meant it.
  • And I'll tell you, she was exactly what we needed.
  • Tough.
  • Just didn't take anything from anybody,
  • she was just like a steamroller.
  • And for the AIDS Rochester formation,
  • she was just what we needed.
  • Somebody who didn't care about what other people thought
  • about her, didn't want to deal with AIDS stigma, and just
  • very--
  • she was very in your face.
  • This is the job that needs to be done, and we're going to do it.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: So what then are your feelings toward what
  • happened to her in the end?
  • BILL VALENTI: Wow.
  • See what happened in the end, is that the organization
  • outgrew Jackie.
  • That her skill set didn't quite match up to the new era of HIV.
  • And what needed to be done in terms
  • of taking the organization to the next level,
  • she was very grassroots.
  • And very effective.
  • And did a good job.
  • But in terms of leading the organization to the next level,
  • in terms of grants and financing and program, she fell short.
  • And that's what resulted in her leaving,
  • and Paula Silverstone coming on board.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
  • Good.
  • Tony Greene.
  • BILL VALENTI: Oh my gosh, Tony Greene.
  • I met Tony Greene before HIV.
  • When I was first coming out, this young--
  • remember the young assistant professor--
  • in 1980 decided that this is time to do it.
  • So I was doing it.
  • And as a part of my coming out process,
  • I decided that I would visit every gay bar in town,
  • and get some experience in terms of going into bars and meeting
  • people.
  • Now the problem was, of course, that I was married at the time.
  • So I didn't have a lot of time to go out to bars,
  • so I would do it after work.
  • And it would be sort of a cocktail hour time
  • at 5 o'clock, or 5:30.
  • And went to Friar's, where Tony was the bartender.
  • And there weren't a lot of people there,
  • so it was kind of quiet.
  • And I sat at the bar, and the bartender came up to me
  • and started hovering around me and asking questions.
  • He was almost like a psychiatrist.
  • So, I finally revealed myself.
  • And what he told me was something like,
  • Doc, it's going to be OK.
  • You'll be OK.
  • Gave me great reassurance in just a few words
  • that, you know, this is really--
  • it's OK, just relax.
  • So I did.
  • Now, I met him later on when he became an AIDS activist
  • and developed HIV, and became his doctor.
  • And I can remember his last days.
  • Lived down Union Street in an apartment building there.
  • And I would make a house call every Saturday,
  • he couldn't leave the house anymore.
  • And even though he couldn't leave the house
  • and was bedridden, he was just so upbeat, and so funny.
  • He had an amazing attitude, a very positive attitude,
  • and he knew he was dying.
  • But he really made an effort in terms
  • of doing the best he could to stay positive.
  • The other thing he did was he mobilized a lot of people.
  • He had the kind of personality that brought people together,
  • people liked him, they respected him.
  • And he was able to cut across personalities
  • and other barriers that would otherwise keep people
  • apart, and bring them together.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Good.
  • Wrap things up here, I think.
  • BILL VALENTI: You want to do a memorialize John
  • Washburn for a minute, or has somebody already covered him?
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: No, not yet.
  • You were the only one that had earmarked maybe even talking
  • about him.
  • If we can, yeah, let's just talk about who John Washburn was.
  • Because his notoriety in Rochester,
  • because he was one of the first public officials
  • to be diagnosed with AIDS.
  • BILL VALENTI: Yeah.
  • John Washburn was the first real face of AIDS in Rochester.
  • He was a friend before he was a patient, like a lot of patients
  • in those days.
  • I met him about 1981 or so, I was
  • separated from my wife and living in an apartment,
  • and then moved to a house.
  • We were invited to a garden party that--
  • guy who mowed my lawn, Kraig Pannell was a friend
  • of John's--
  • had show off his work, his creativity.
  • And I had heard of John, but never met him.
  • And in those days, didn't know a lot of people, so I was always
  • looking around to make the right friends, and get connected.
  • And he approached me, and it was the beginning
  • of a very interesting, eye opening kind of experience.
  • Because I was just totally inexperienced at the time.
  • But he was smart, he was witty.
  • It took a bit to keep up with him
  • in terms of the wit, and the repertoire,
  • and the back and forth.
  • But he was an interesting role model for me,
  • because he was a professional guy,
  • he was smart, versatile, all of those things.
  • And was fairly well known, and out to a lot of people
  • who didn't seem to mind.
  • Superintendent of Brighton schools who moved here
  • from New York in the late '70s.
  • And then by the early 1980s--
  • by about 1983 or so--
  • was starting to get sick, and became a patient.
  • Now, what he did--
  • and this was at a time when HIV and AIDS
  • were totally stigmatized, because of the gay men,
  • IV drug connection.
  • People were fearful of the contagion
  • piece, and all of that.
  • But he decided around 1985 that he would retire
  • from the Brighton schools.
  • And then begin to map out what he called
  • his exit from the planet.
  • But included being public about his AIDS status,
  • and trying to teach people--
  • be an educator, an AIDS educator--
  • for schools, teachers, school districts.
  • And he did that.
  • And when he went public with his disease, it was--
  • we still published the Times Union, the evening paper,
  • in Rochester-- and it was in the Times Union.
  • And I stood with the nurse who worked with us at the time,
  • we were still at the Strong clinic.
  • And just sort of looked at each other,
  • because he was a patient there.
  • And kind of wondered, well, what next?
  • What comes next for him?
  • And what he did was he just kept going.
  • And he was a very effective communicator, very articulate,
  • very funny, and very smart.
  • And got the message across to a lot of people in the next four
  • years or so, after he retired.
  • Because he died in June 1989.
  • So, from about 1985ish to '89, he was on the road constantly.
  • And just did it, and made a real impact.
  • The other impact it had on me was
  • he was the first man I ever saw in drag.
  • Never saw it before.
  • Just opened my eyes to a lot of things.
  • The dubious distinction of.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Two last questions here.
  • The first question is, I want your thoughts
  • on what it says about the Rochester community--
  • and I don't mean the gay community--
  • but I mean the city of Rochester, the Rochester
  • region, and it's prompt and strong reaction
  • to the AIDS crisis.
  • What does that say about-- because we're pretty well known
  • as being one of five cities in the world who
  • is a very strong proponent about research,
  • and care, and treatment.
  • BILL VALENTI: The Rochester response to HIV.
  • In a lot of ways, I really wasn't surprised.
  • Based on some of the people I knew, industry around here--
  • a fairly well educated workforce--
  • and people who get it.
  • And I think that Rochester, the community response,
  • was really remarkable.
  • And is a reflection on what's really underneath this place.
  • And you can say, oh, downtown is shot, and Kodak is gone,
  • and all of that.
  • But it's the people that really made a difference.
  • And it was really gratifying to be
  • able to mobilize people who got it.
  • Because when we first started to approach people
  • about the Community Health Network idea of moving out
  • of Strong into this community HIV setting,
  • there were a lot of people who signed on before there was even
  • a door to walk in.
  • And we were able to sort of act as catalysts to get people
  • mobilized, and made a clear case for what was going on.
  • But it was really the people that responded.
  • But Rochester, I think, has the reputation
  • of being philanthropic on many levels,
  • and they were with this.
  • Because people got it and, in fact,
  • understood that this was serious business.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Good.
  • Considering where we are today, how far we've come--
  • not only just related to AIDS and HIV, but just in general
  • as a gay community, the achievements
  • we've made so far--
  • gay marriage and domestic partnership benefits, and all
  • that stuff.
  • What would your message be to the generations coming up?
  • BILL VALENTI: To the generations coming up.
  • I would say that you have the opportunity
  • to do some good in the world, some way, somehow.
  • Think about it.
  • Because the climate is better than it's ever
  • been in terms of allowing you to be yourself,
  • do what you want to do, and do some good,
  • without holding you back the way people were held back--
  • or stigmatized-- in years past.
  • So take advantage of the opportunity, do it.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
  • All right.
  • That's a wrap.
  • BILL VALENTI: Fun.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: You're one of the other people
  • I could interview for probably three hours.
  • But we don't have three hours.