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here stark naked and shoved all that beauty right in
my face.”

This came mid-way in a conversation wiwu Eddle
- K., an elderly homosexual who enjoyed a shortspan
_ of fame as a female impersonator during the 40’s.

He was now in his 70’s, living on a small social
security pension and city relief when he really got up
against things. When his health was up to par he
took baby-sitting jobs and brought along his sewing
at which he kept constantly busy.

What he did with the sewing no one was ever quite
sure. It was his eccentricity. But seeing Eddie without
 a sewing basket seemed strange—that and a casket
of spangles which he’d affix to bits of brightly col-
ored cloth. When you asked him about the pastime,
he’d glower, “Pastime, my ass. You never know
when your mother’s going to be called to the foot-
lights. Remember she headlined in Brooklyn—twice.”

Eddie, who prefers to be called Myrtle, belongs to
the ultra-swishy, campy school of homosexual whose
language, manner and habits were the products of
the gay set of the twenties. Referring to himself in the
third person and with the feminine personal pronoun
had become as much a part of his personality as
the sewing basket.

“Mother” is the way elderly homosexuals referred