Video Interview, Dan Meyers, November 1, 2012
- KEVIN INDOVINO: There's a fine line there.
- DAN MEYERS: Absolutely.
- Yes.
- We're really sort of conservative Midwesterners,
- but we have a little progressive streak in us.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to say we're a big town that
- likes a big world fix it.
- DAN MEYERS: Yeah, yeah.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: We're just a big town that likes advocacy.
- If you can, pull the back of your jacket down a little bit.
- DAN MEYERS: OK.
- A little wrinkle there?
- Yeah.
- That better?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yep.
- DAN MEYERS: That good?
- Yeah.
- I'd better sit up, too, because sitting up is always better.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Always better.
- Whatever you're comfortable with.
- DAN MEYERS: OK.
- CREW: We're rolling.
- DAN MEYERS: You like that?
- All right then, as long as we're good.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I'm looking at you.
- You're looking good.
- DAN MEYERS: OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: First question is
- correct spelling of your first and last name
- as how you would want it to appear on the screen.
- DAN MEYERS: Dan, D-A-N. Meyers, M-E-Y-E-R-S.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So Dan, the first thing I'm going to do
- is start out just very generally about gay life in the 1970s.
- What was it like?
- If I remember from the interview we
- did it was kind of period where you yourself
- had just started to come out.
- Describe for me, what was the gay community
- like in Rochester?
- What was it like to be a gay man in Rochester
- in the late sixties, seventies?
- DAN MEYERS: As I think about my own journey of coming out,
- I chose to live in two worlds, and I'm not certain
- that it was possible to only live in one.
- CREW: Sorry to interrupt.
- I'm sorry.
- (pause in recording)
- DAN MEYERS: Start over.
- CREW: (unintelligible).
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's take it from that angle.
- I mean, living as a gay man in the sixties and seventies,
- you're almost living a double life.
- DAN MEYERS: As I think about my own evolution and understanding
- and coming out, I knew that I was gay in college.
- I didn't understand exactly all the dimensions of that.
- And I chose to be much more active after college
- and was able to find places in the community
- where I could go and be accepted for who I was
- and meet people and form friendships.
- And actually, some of my very best friends to this day
- are the people that I met as we were sort of all young
- and coming out together.
- You lived in two worlds, though.
- You lived in your nine-to-five world.
- You lived in your neighborhood world or your church
- or synagogue kind of world or whatever.
- And you also, then, lived in your gay-friendly world
- that was mostly evenings and weekends because you had to pay
- the bills other kind of ways.
- My guess is I lived in that world longer than I needed to,
- but there wasn't a pressure to do it any other way.
- And when it became obvious that it didn't matter
- or it was more important to be who I was as opposed
- to quasi something or other, that, too,
- happened as naturally as my evolution
- from thinking I was gay to doing something about it
- and beginning to live as I was gay.
- The seventies in Rochester were a gay man's sort of paradise,
- I think.
- Was it easy and happy?
- Not every minute.
- But was it full of adventure?
- Yeah, it was full of a lot of adventure.
- And there was an energy by being something other.
- And if I had to say sort of what I think might be missing today
- for young gay, lesbian, transgendered, questioning,
- ambivalent, bi folks and so on, I'd
- have to say that we've lost a little bit of that specialty
- feeling.
- And the reward for that is there is general acceptance
- and there is access to everything.
- The loss of that is a very special sense
- of community and bonding.
- So while I certainly don't think anybody should go back and live
- under a cloud, I think there ought
- to be ways that we try to build in that sort
- of special identity and connection
- that there was in those days.
- Way too much of it was in the bars.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.
- That's what I was going to lead to.
- DAN MEYERS: Way too much of it was in the bars,
- so way too much of it was about substance.
- And way too much of it was about too much.
- And I think things are much better today
- and much more evolved in that understanding.
- On the other hand, I don't know how much of that
- was going to happen with sort of hormonal twenty-year-olds
- and how much of that was happening
- because we were hormonal twenty-year-olds who
- happened to be gay.
- But there was almost no other place
- that you could be gay than a bar.
- So the bars became the clubhouse.
- The bar's social events became sort of our social events.
- The bar's celebratory events became our celebratory events.
- And you followed the progression of bars
- as sort of a movable feast because, if one
- ran into trouble or one was closed or whatever,
- somebody else opened and you just kept moving along.
- And you didn't really need to read
- about it in the Empty Closet.
- You heard about it, and it was all word of mouth.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to talk a little bit about alternatives
- to bars in those early days.
- What were the alternatives?
- Were there alternatives?
- DAN MEYERS: Well, there were college and university centers.
- And for at least a time anyway, I
- was young enough to be able to still socialize
- with college folks and so on and not be unwelcomed or whatever.
- So I think those were helpful.
- Certainly, the beginnings of the Gay Alliance
- were a place where folks could go for more serious,
- but there wasn't really any health-related service.
- So you sort of had to navigate that on your own.
- On the other hand, the worst thing that could happen
- was venereal disease.
- And as traumatic as anyone's first episode with that
- would be, it wasn't life threatening,
- and there were things that could be done.
- So that's, I think, when GRID and AIDS started
- a decade later.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's not move to that point yet.
- DAN MEYERS: Alright.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I just want to make sure we
- covered all the bases here.
- In the 1970s, there's the whole let
- it be movement and free love, and all of that stuff.
- But yet, you talk to any gay man or woman that
- was out socially in that time period,
- there were still challenges.
- There was risks going to a gay bar.
- There was a risk that a coworker might find out
- or your employer might find out.
- Can you talk to me a little about some of the fears
- and some of the challenges that you were still
- faced with even though you were in this decade of free love?
- DAN MEYERS: You certainly didn't want to be out at work
- unless you worked in a very unusual and supportive
- environment.
- You didn't want to necessarily be
- out to people you grew up with.
- For me, I didn't want to be out to my family
- for many, many years.
- So you didn't want to run into neighbors
- or the kids of friends of your family or whatever.
- Even though, in hindsight, I'm thinking,
- so what was that all about?
- If they're at a gay bar, aren't they
- already part of this secret and so on?
- But you were guarded, and you were maybe even
- a little paranoid.
- And at varying times, you were more.
- And at varying times, so were the people
- you were running into.
- And so there was this almost chemical imbalance
- of not knowing whether you were on an equal footing
- with somebody or not because you didn't know whether they were
- going to turn later that night or the next time
- you ran into them.
- And how open you could be was always a matter of negotiation.
- So was it delicate?
- Yeah, it was delicate.
- Did you have to be smart about navigating that?
- Yes.
- On the other hand, compared to the life I grew up with,
- the lid was off.
- I mean, there were just some pretty remarkable things
- that I just had never even thought might be possible.
- What I haven't probably conveyed very well
- is it was a damn lot of fun.
- I mean, there was a lot of stuff going on.
- I hope that young people today have
- a whole lot of stuff going on and it's a lot of fun for them.
- I hope it's smarter and safer than maybe our behavior was
- because we didn't know any better.
- But I hope there's still that same good energy.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Can you just briefly
- maybe talk to me about some of the places that you've
- socialized in, some of the bars that you went into?
- What were they like?
- What was it like walking into these places?
- Describe for me the environment and what they looked like.
- DAN MEYERS: So Jim's was the very first bar
- that I walked into.
- And I think I drove around three or four different nights.
- I think I even parked by Washington Square.
- And I couldn't get out of the car.
- And I don't exactly remember how I got out of the car the night
- I did, but there was a wonderful big bookstore
- right next door that was sort of the best
- bookstore in Rochester.
- And I think I just stayed till closing and went next door
- and thought that that might be comfortable.
- Jim's had an energy about it.
- Around the corner and down a dark alley was Dick's.
- That had an acceptance to it, but not an energy.
- It was almost the generation before's kind
- of expression of a bar.
- And there was an understanding of what
- the code was if police were thought to be around
- and what happened.
- And Martha would give the word, and everybody
- would start talking about the football game
- instead of whatever it is they were talking about.
- Jim's moved several times.
- The crowd moved with him until he wound up
- on what's now Liberty Pole Way, and that
- moved the center of gay life over into that direction.
- It was probably eight, nine years later
- that Friar's opened.
- And Friar's was a very different experience.
- Friar's really was the clubhouse.
- It was Cheers for gay men mostly,
- and mostly young gay men.
- And while there was a little tiny dance area,
- it was really about this great big bar
- area and the conversation and the being
- with your friends and meeting new people
- and a good energy, a really good energy.
- And you didn't feel like you had to slink in the side door
- at Friar's.
- I think some of that was just the social evolution
- and awareness and probably my own age and the age
- of the people that were going.
- But I think some of it was the energy and the environment that
- sort of made this nice.
- It was a really nice place.
- I have many friends who say they'd love to have it
- back again because they'd still be going out.
- They don't go out anymore.
- I think about how good this would
- be for younger, professional folks
- to have that kind of spot.
- They've found that in other places, I suspect.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: What are your thoughts in regards to the fact
- that most gay men's coming out experiences started at a bar?
- What were the bars offering other than just a place
- to go get a drink?
- DAN MEYERS: It was home.
- It was a place you could be yourself.
- It's a place where it didn't matter who you were
- or what you did or whatever.
- You could be that sort of essence of yourself
- that was a gay man or a gay woman.
- And there was almost nowhere else you could do that,
- except maybe in the shower.
- I mean, it was that sort of intimate.
- It was safe, and it was fun.
- It wasn't like going to church.
- It was just a place you could let your hair down.
- And it was the only social expression.
- So how lucky are we today to have so many other expressions
- to create that opportunity.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, then we got into the eighties.
- Things changed a bit with the social scene
- and the onset of AIDS.
- Talk to me about first time--
- not only the first time that you heard about AIDS,
- but really the first time that you realized that Rochester was
- going to be impacted by this.
- DAN MEYERS: I had colleagues through my work who were very
- active socially in New York.
- And as good as Rochester was, the New York City gay scene
- was sort of remarkable.
- And I remember visiting them in the early eighties,
- and there was this sort of quiet talk at dinner about friends
- going to this or that hospital and having this pneumonia-like
- set of symptoms and not coming out--
- and people dying in days, weeks.
- And I remember on a subsequent visit somebody saying GRID,
- the Gay-Related Immune Disease.
- And I thought, well, thank god I live in Rochester.
- This is clearly something that happens in New York.
- That probably was a matter of months
- before you started quietly hearing that somebody was sick
- and they didn't know exactly what it was and they weren't
- getting better.
- And it pretty clearly sort of just
- rolled over us that something was different,
- something had changed.
- And I don't think any of that thought process prepared us
- for the just avalanche of sickness and loss and death
- and just the rawness of this.
- As exciting as those early days were, this was so devastating.
- And we were still young.
- These were young, beautiful people
- that were just being torn down in the absolute--
- I mean, they weren't even in their prime.
- They were just getting started.
- They were just blooming.
- And there was so much talent that was just being lost.
- It was heartbreaking.
- And you didn't know whether you were next.
- And it happened randomly, and it happened like that
- with no pattern.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Rochester's response to it, I think,
- in some ways is unique.
- I mean, we could have easily put the blinders on and said,
- oh, this isn't a Rochester problem.
- But we, particularly the gay community,
- didn't let that happen.
- AIDS almost, kind of in a way forced gay men and women out
- of the closet.
- DAN MEYERS: Yeah, it did.
- It absolutely did.
- And, you know, the women led the way.
- I often say that I think women are better people than men
- just sort of generally.
- We certainly give women all of the big responsibility
- in our social structure.
- But I mean, Jackie Nudd and the people that
- put AIDS Rochester together were watching the same thing
- and seeing the same thing and said, dammit,
- somebody's got to do something about it.
- And thank god, you know?
- Now, the boys came along.
- But it took one of the girls to get it going.
- And while I think there's always been a good relationship
- between the gay men and lesbian women in Rochester.
- AIDS sort of pulled that tighter.
- And then, Bill Valenti identified
- that there were things that could be done
- and that there could be a clinic in the infectious disease
- area at Strong.
- And so you didn't have to think about flying
- to New York or a major city to find out
- about what was going on.
- You could at least get to talk to somebody here and get
- some care.
- And even though many people had to seek
- that treatment with a veil over them, that was very powerful.
- And it was really that that led a group of us
- to say there's treatment available here.
- We need to raise some money to make that more available
- and to try to advance that.
- And it was that simple an understanding and awareness
- that led to helping people with AIDS.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's pick it up there.
- DAN MEYERS: All right.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me about the beginnings of HPA
- and the core mission behind it because it
- was a little different than what AIDS Rochester was doing.
- DAN MEYERS: Yeah, it was.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Tell me what the clinic was doing.
- DAN MEYERS: Yeah.
- It was clearly the idea that we needed
- the outreach and the sort of social service and the advocacy
- piece.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Set it up for me.
- DAN MEYERS: OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: A couple of us came up
- with an idea for helping people with AIDS.
- DAN MEYERS: So Bill Valenti, Jerry Algozer, and I
- sat in a booth having breakfast.
- And Bill said, "You know, we really
- need some money for the clinic at Strong."
- And Jerry and I said, "So why are you talking to us?"
- And said, "Well, I thought maybe you
- could help figure out something that we could do."
- And there had been small fundraisers for AIDS Rochester.
- There was a need for that kind of support
- for the advocacy and the outreach effort
- and the social service beginnings of a response there.
- There certainly needed to be some more attention paid
- to the clinic, and that needed to expand and so on.
- And those were happening.
- What wasn't happening was a mechanism
- to sort of mobilize community support.
- And so Helping People with AIDS--
- and we probably took two or three meetings
- to come up with that name.
- And in the end, it was let's just
- call it what it is, Helping People with AIDS.
- And it was nothing more than we couldn't stand by and not
- do something to help.
- And I think it was that simple.
- So we called a group of friends.
- Some of those friends called some more friends.
- There were probably ten or twelve of us
- who sat around a table every Monday
- or Tuesday night for several weeks
- as we were trying to think what we could do.
- We came up with eight million ideas.
- We were probably a little attention deficit disorder
- folks, and we were probably a little bit disorganized
- in finding our head.
- But we came up with auctions and raffles and events
- at bars and cocktail parties and all that sort of thing.
- After we did a couple of these and realized
- how much time it took and how much energy it took
- and how little results there were, we said,
- "You know, we've got to come up with something bigger,
- and it's got to be something that's a big enough wrapper
- to get a lot of these ideas working together to really do
- something sort of more significant than raising
- five hundred or one thousand dollars at a time."
- So that's where Dining for Dollars came from.
- There was a ridiculous TV show called Dialing for Dollars
- that had a very long life on daytime television
- with Ann Keefe.
- She was terrific, but it was a really simple kind of premise.
- And I think it was Ron Andres who said, "You know,
- we ought to call it Dining for Dollars."
- And he went on to design the logo.
- And then, everybody just fell in step
- as to who was going to do what piece of it.
- So we decide to have a party.
- What else would we do?
- And we decided that we weren't going
- to spend any money, which was a big step in our evolution.
- Because, you know, one of the things that fundraising support
- organizations quite often do is get
- sort of all caught up in the razzmatazz of the event,
- and the only way to make an event bigger usually
- in your thinking is to spend more money.
- And of course, the more money you
- spend, the less money you raise.
- And so we started off being really,
- pretty conservative folks saying we
- weren't going to spend a penny that we didn't have to spend.
- We set the goal of not spending any money to raise this.
- So how do you save on food costs?
- You ask people to host dinners and let
- them take the cost of the food.
- So that's what we did, and that was really the premise that
- Dining for Dollars.
- I don't know whether--
- I think the Community Foundation had done their evenings out
- at home, and so we might have piggybacked on that idea.
- But it was all going on at about the same time.
- And then, we thought about having a big party afterwards,
- and that party needed to have dessert and drinks
- and entertainment and dancing.
- And we knew how to do that, and we
- had people that were good at all of those sorts of things.
- And so we begged, borrowed, and stealed desserts
- from all the best bakeries, many of whom
- were either run or staffed by our friends.
- Gary Sweet from the Avenue Pub took on the bar.
- We told them that this was going to be
- a la-di-da kind of evening and we
- needed to have after-dinner drinks because people
- were going to come from these nice dinners
- that people were hosting.
- We got a really good DJ, and Jerry Algozer
- put the best entertainment package together.
- He was running the downstairs cabaret.
- Nunsense had not premiered yet, and so
- didn't the good sister appear on the stage in a promo
- for Nunsense and didn't the house just fall apart
- with laughter.
- And all the good drag queens came
- to do their very best work.
- And we didn't know how many people might show up.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: More than you expected?
- I would--
- DAN MEYERS: Way too many people showed up.
- I mean, the room was like this.
- It was just-- and the poor bartenders and bar I mean
- got just hammered because people weren't
- coming for a little after-dinner cordial.
- They were coming to have a really good time because they
- didn't know where they were going
- and they didn't know who else was going to be there.
- And it was like, oh my goodness, isn't this sort of wonderful?
- And memory clouds things, but I think
- we wanted to raise ten thousand dollars.
- And I seem to remember that we raised closer to twenty.
- And we had to knock it out of the park,
- successful event on our hands.
- And it just kept getting better.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So I want to kind of get in your head
- at that moment with that first Dining for Dollars event
- at Village Gate.
- And you stand back and see these throngs of people.
- What were you thinking at the time?
- And when did it click with you, OK, we've got something here?
- DAN MEYERS: I think it was, you know how parties sort of start,
- and the beginning of a party is sort of that Neverland of is
- this going to work, are people really going to show
- or whatever?
- And of course, gay folks aren't going to arrive early.
- I mean, this is going to be backloaded and late.
- And so it was especially slow, especially because we didn't
- go to dinner because we were the committee
- and we were all working.
- So it seemed like this baby was just never going to get born.
- And then, the parade started through the door.
- And I don't think it was more than forty-five minutes
- into it that we were all looking at each other saying,
- this is really, really good.
- And then, I think several of us started fussing about some
- of the arrangements that we hadn't prepared for.
- So they weren't going to be just sort of perfect.
- And after a short time, it dawned on us
- that it didn't matter.
- People were having such a good time that it was just fine.
- Let it go, and have a grand time with it.
- Neil Paracella took this warehouse kind of room
- and made it into a supper club.
- There was more black plastic than probably any fire marshal
- would allow because he had to cover the walls with something
- to mask the cinder block.
- I mean, it was an awful spot in Village Gate.
- And honest to god, with that and some uplighting
- and a focus on the stage and a black-and-white tile floor
- that we put down to be the dance floor,
- the place looked terrific.
- But that's the magic of, you know.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: What does it say about Rochester in general
- that you can get a community energized
- like that for something like AIDS, which at this point
- it was obvious how tragic was going to be, or was.
- Not every community responded to it like Rochester did.
- DAN MEYERS: And not as soon either.
- I mean, we responded like the big cities.
- And while the impact was extraordinary for us,
- it wasn't like it was in the big cities
- and the metropolitan areas.
- This worked because it was a network of friends.
- And not everybody knew everybody,
- but everybody knew somebody.
- And that's what sort of created that natural kind of network.
- So I think that's how this community works.
- The gay community reflects how the greater community works.
- We're small enough that you really do connect
- and you really do know people.
- And if there is something worthy and something
- that needs support, you can mobilize folks.
- And the first year, it was clearly
- the gay men and some good women who made this all happen.
- There were a few community friends, but not many.
- By the next year, there were a lot more community friends
- because people were concerned about what AIDS was doing.
- And by the third or fourth year, this was a community-wide party
- that people couldn't wait to get to because they knew
- the gay community was going to throw a good party
- and this wasn't going to be another sort
- of fuddy duddy gala.
- And we delivered and had a great run, just a great run.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So then, talk to me about how the funds
- you raised doing these events, how did those funds
- help this community?
- What were kind of some of the programs that were
- being supported by those funds?
- DAN MEYERS: Well, the first couple of years, everything
- went to the AIDS clinic at Strong.
- It was the major health care provider,
- and we felt that's what this needed to be.
- When the clinic was formed, the event went to the clinic.
- And sometime around there, we also gave some money
- to AIDS Rochester.
- And then, there became some more events,
- and there was another fundraising organization.
- And things became a little bit more dispersed and diverse,
- and then things came back together again,
- as you would sort of expect.
- So the clinic at Strong, the AIDS Community Clinic,
- got established.
- AIDS Rochester grew.
- And there were, on occasion, grants
- to other organizations for outreach or special initiatives
- or whatever.
- The Quilt came a couple of times during that time.
- The AIDS Show came to Rochester, And there
- was great corporate support for that.
- This little town performed, and performed in a way
- that was remarkably admirable.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So let me throw some names out at you.
- DAN MEYERS: OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Just some of the people
- that you had to work with.
- These names come up with everyone that I interview.
- Obviously, the first person that comes up
- whenever you talk about HPA and AIDS
- awareness, and that is Tony Green.
- Talk to me about Tony.
- DAN MEYERS: You know, he was the town crier.
- He was the court jester.
- He presided over the bar at Friar's in a way
- that sort of made it clear to you that you were either
- in the right place or that you needed
- to get your act together and come
- in the door a different way so that you could be your best
- self.
- He treated everyone with a remarkable openness
- and acceptance, and people returned that to him.
- And he was a real good confidant.
- He was a real good judge of character.
- He was a real good connector.
- He was probably a confessor for an awful lot of people.
- And all of that, some of it pretty serious stuff,
- done with great humor.
- You couldn't take yourself too seriously
- around Tony Green for more than a second.
- And he wasn't afraid to use that connectivity
- that he had to mobilize folks and to make something work.
- So when he got behind something, hundreds of people
- just followed right along.
- So in lots of ways, he was the Pied Piper
- for the growing success of the AIDS-related events.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: John Washburn comes up often.
- And if I remember right, you were actually
- good friends with him?
- DAN MEYERS: Very.
- One of my dearest friends in the whole world.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Tell me about John a little bit
- because John being a public figure basically
- took a great risk coming out with his HIV status.
- DAN MEYERS: John Washburn came to this town in the early 1980s
- to be superintendent of the Brighton schools.
- Brighton has always been a leader in education,
- and the new superintendent bore watching
- is what the word on the street was
- because this was a smart guy who was going to change things.
- And you watch him and watch Brighton.
- There was an underground report that
- said the new superintendent might be gay,
- and so the word was out in the gay community.
- This man bore watching as well.
- John and I served on the Arts Council board together
- and I think sort of looked at each other a little bit
- out of the side of our eyes.
- And didn't take us too long to meet at one of the bars.
- And with John, it was sort of electric.
- He had a terrific, terrific mind.
- He had a terrific sense of joy in life and wanting to have fun
- and wanting everyone else to have fun.
- And when he was out, he was fully out.
- But when the darkness disappeared,
- he went back to being the superintendent.
- And even though he wore cowboy boots,
- he didn't really ever drop a hairpin, as he would say,
- in that circumstance.
- He was one of the folks that helped start HPA.
- He was one of the folks to really start
- mobilizing the community.
- I don't know exactly when he knew that he was sick,
- but I suspect he suspected sooner
- than he let on to any of us.
- I remember when he first got sick and had
- to be hospitalized, and he almost died.
- It brought it all home for me in a way that it just hadn't been.
- He was also one of those people who
- understood that he had to take control of his illness
- and he had to manage it even though he
- relied on some very good doctors,
- and he had fabulous doctors.
- And in that way, I think he helped an awful lot of people
- understand what you have to do to be as well as you can be.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Hold that thought.
- (unintelligible) Unfortunately, there's nothing
- we can do about it except (unintelligible).
- DAN MEYERS: Sorry.
- This has got to be a long day for you
- listening to all these stories.
- CREW: (unintelligible).
- DAN MEYERS: Yeah?
- CREW: It's fascinating.
- It's a history that not many gays have actually heard.
- DAN MEYERS: Yeah, exactly.
- Yeah.
- CREW: (unintelligible).
- KEVIN INDOVINO: (unintelligible).
- We'll give it a second there.
- (pause) (unintelligible).
- CREW: Obviously, a math class.
- (pause in recording)
- DAN MEYERS: Are we?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.
- We're rolling?
- CREW: Yeah, we're rolling.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's pick it up with John.
- We picked it up somewhere around he was out at night,
- but when the sun came up--
- DAN MEYERS: Yep.
- So as the episodes with his illness
- became more frequent and affected more of his life,
- he had to make a decision about whether he
- was going to continue to function as the school
- superintendent or not.
- He had a very powerful experience
- of talking to the school superintendents
- group about AIDS.
- And it made it clear to him that he could give up
- one platform, if you will, and that there
- would be other ways in which he could
- work with society for its good.
- And so he evolved this presence that he took around the country
- to educational forums to be sort of the first person to speak
- out about what AIDS is.
- And with his Harvard PhD, with his school superintendents,
- with his national consulting role in education,
- he had access to platforms that most people just didn't.
- And he was a respected peer.
- And he couldn't have been a better spokesperson
- for putting a face on this disease
- that everybody wanted to pretend was something else
- and there was a demon somewhere.
- And it was really hard to demonize this man.
- So I don't think it ever occurred to him that that's
- where he was going to maybe make his greatest contribution,
- but it's really clear that he put a face on AIDS in Rochester
- that people couldn't ignore.
- And he put a face on AIDS in the national educational forum
- that people had to pay attention to.
- I went with him to speak to the National School Boards
- meeting in New Orleans.
- He was pretty sick.
- This was probably a year and a half or two years
- before he died.
- And he had a terrible episode of a fever while we were there.
- And it was really not clear whether he
- was going to be able to make it onto the stage or not.
- And Bill Valenti worked some magic.
- And this was an auditorium of eight to ten thousand people.
- And he started telling his story.
- And I don't think there was a sentence of more than five
- words, and I don't think there were any words bigger than two
- syllables even though this man had a fabulous vocabulary.
- It was a human story.
- And he was crying, and so was everyone else in that room.
- And the applause was thunderous.
- That applause alone probably added months or years
- to his life.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I had a question,
- and it's just kind of flew right out of my head.
- I remember.
- So he came forward with his HIV status, his illness.
- And he didn't retreat.
- He just got up in the forefront.
- Rochester's reaction to it--
- and I'm trying to just recall from my own memory of what
- I read in the newspapers at the time--
- it was kind of two-fold.
- There were some pretty strong criticism of him.
- It was the Brighton school superintendent, scandal.
- DAN MEYERS: And it was front page Sunday paper.
- I mean, you couldn't hide from this.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: But on the flip side,
- the community eventually embraced him, I think.
- Talk to me a little about it.
- Talk to me about the two sides of the reaction
- that Rochester had to his situation
- and how he brought it to the forefront.
- DAN MEYERS: Well, it's a whole lot easier
- if something bad can be other and it
- can be about someone else.
- And it's even better if you can blame somebody for it.
- And there was a whole lot of that side of the column going
- on with AIDS.
- And so initial reaction from some people
- was trying to get that over into them,
- and they did this and this is, and so on.
- And yet, you couldn't stay over in that column very easily.
- You had to begin to see that this
- is about disease and illness, and disease and illnesses--
- are there some contributing factors?
- Yeah, there are.
- But the fact of the matter is this is a virus,
- and it's going to do--
- and you know what?
- It's not safe for anybody I mean,
- this can happen to anybody, and this can happen
- in lots of different ways.
- And this isn't them.
- It's us.
- And I think there was a lot of work building up to it,
- but John Washburn was the crossover
- that this became us instead of them.
- And it was a remarkable gift to the gay community in Rochester
- and to the community of Rochester
- that AIDS found a place at the crossroads.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Again, we can't speak to him, obviously,
- but can you share any of those early conversations
- with regards to this journey that he was going to be
- embarking on and becoming--
- I hate to say this, but becoming a poster child for AIDS?
- You know, some of these concerns initially?
- I can't imagine that he didn't go into this without some fears
- and some apprehension.
- DAN MEYERS: He was scared to death of it.
- But this was a very smart man who
- put his plan together well in advance
- of the implementation of it.
- And so he needed to line up his family.
- He needed to line up his friends.
- He needed to line up the school board.
- He needed to line up his staff.
- And this is somebody that worked through every one of those
- in a very clear-headed, proactive, and advanced kind
- of foresight way.
- His thought process had so much integrity that, by the time
- it happened, he was way far ahead
- of where everybody else was because we were
- all just catching up to him.
- But I remember saying to him, "You
- know, you've got to think about your own health in this
- if you're going to use all of this energy to do this."
- And he said, "I can take care of that."
- And he said, "And besides, I don't know
- how much time I've got anyway.
- I've got to get this done."
- And he was taking care of himself.
- I mean, he not only arranged for an orderly transition
- in the Brighton schools, but he sold everything here
- and he moved to Santa Fe because that's
- where he wanted to be eventually in his life,
- and he decided he better go now.
- And so he had a terrific year in Santa Fe living the life
- that he had always wanted to do.
- He happened to be forty-nine and fifty instead of sixty-five,
- but he made that happen as well.
- So not only did he share the pain and the understanding
- and the education of this.
- He shared the good life of this and said, "Look folks,
- it's not over.
- I'm going to get on with my life."
- And that's pretty powerful.
- And that's my friend that taught me that.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: You know, we're thirty-plus years
- since AIDS appeared.
- Late eighties into the nineties, we had pretty strong troops
- gathered here in Rochester, confronting this, educating
- people, increasing awareness, taking care of people.
- Not so much today.
- I mean, we still have organizations.
- We still have care facilities.
- It's a different beast today than it was twenty,
- thirty years ago.
- But when you look back at what you
- were doing at the height of this and what
- we're faced with now, what are your thoughts about what
- our greatest challenges are right now, particularly
- with AIDS and still keeping people safe?
- DAN MEYERS: I remember Bill Valenti talking to a group
- saying that AIDS could become a chronic illness that people
- would manage through an extended period of life.
- And as awful as that might have sounded
- as sort of a sentence for people,
- I remember feeling such hope that this
- wasn't going to end up with these awful final days
- and these funerals one after another.
- I mean, funerals, there was a time
- in the eighties, early nineties when funerals
- were our major social events.
- And there were just way, way, way too many.
- So the idea that this could be managed
- and that, even though this probably
- wasn't going to be easy or pretty,
- that folks could survive was just remarkably hopeful.
- And those first drugs were just awful things.
- They did terrible things to people.
- Now, it's not easy, but it's manageable,
- and people are living a full and long life.
- So we're at a much different time,
- and AIDS has got to find its place against the other kind
- of chronic conditions and illnesses and challenges
- that people have.
- And it's hard to get air time for that.
- And then, it's hard to galvanize a new generation-- or two
- really now-- of gay men and women and bi and transgendered.
- So thank god we don't need the same mobilization.
- On the other hand, we best not forget
- because this isn't going away, and this is now
- everybody's problem.
- And we've got to make sure that young people today,
- there is no reason for them to have to deal with HIV.
- We know enough to prevent most of it.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: As history reflects back on your life,
- what are you most proud of?
- What do you want history to say about Dan Meyers
- and what he contributed to the Rochester community?
- DAN MEYERS: Rochester is an amazing little microcosm.
- This community has always taken very good care of its own.
- And it has always had a little bit
- of a brighter eye for where progress might
- lie than other communities.
- And we've always figured out our own homemade way of doing it.
- So I think other communities get more credit,
- beat a bigger drum about their kind of things.
- I don't think we care so much about that as long as folks
- are getting taken care of.
- So for me, my work at HPA, my work for Al Sigl,
- my work for other community causes
- that I care about has been nothing more than my adding
- my thread to that fabric in Rochester in hope
- that it makes it a little bit stronger
- and makes life better for a few more people.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I think we're going to go with that.
- DAN MEYERS: Is that good?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.
- Definitely.
- DAN MEYERS: Alright.
- You're sure you don't want anything done over
- that you didn't like?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Nope.
- DAN MEYERS: You're alright?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I think we're done.