11-7-25
Dear Jim,
I was recently asked to write a letter to a loved one about my activism on democracy and climate issues. I immediately thought of you.
You knew my democracy work, of course—we met at the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1987. I watched your bravery as you railed against a White House that couldn’t even bring itself to utter the word AIDS during a rampant epidemic. I was a total newbie to this kind of noisy crusading with banners and bullhorns, where we demanded basic civil rights and a federal ban on discrimination.
My earlier activism had been much quieter. After the first Earth Day in 1970, I became president of my junior high school’s Ecology Club. Advocating for a clean environment and joining weekend cleanups around my Missouri town felt safer—more fitting for an awkward young teen who preferred harmony to confrontation.
Your kind of dissent, though, was something else entirely. It was loud, fearless, unapologetic. Yet you were patient with me … and a little sly. You invited me to crash on your sofa while I was visiting the West Coast. When I arrived you teased, “You might want to find something else to do tonight, I’m having this boring organizational meeting.”
Of course, I stayed. And I watched your living room transform into the birthplace of the Los Angeles chapter of Queer Nation—a national movement that schooled me in the how-tos of direct-action protest. You showed me that change starts exactly like that: a few determined people in a small room deciding the world can be different.
I wish we’d stayed closer after that. I still have that correspondence you sent me, along with that smiling photo of you hugging that adorable collie dog. You told me that you’d moved back to your family’s Iowa farm.
I was still too naïve to understand that this was your goodbye letter.
It wasn’t until after your death that I realized that you’d gone home so your family could care for you as AIDS took its toll. Like so many of my friends back then … gone far too soon.
I wish you were here to see that so many of the issues we fought for have seen so much progress. HIV can be managed. I can’t be fired just for being gay. I even got married—a federally-recognized marriage!—to a wonderful man.
Not only that, but the ozone layer is healing. Electric cars, solar panels and wind turbines are everywhere, furthering clean energy. There’s even less smog over your beloved Los Angeles.
So much of that progress feels fragile now, under threat from those in power. So I’ve had to dust off those in-your-face protest tactics you once tried to teach me. Even at 68, I’m still that timid, overly polite Midwestern kid who finds confrontation hard. But I’m trying.
You’d be proud to know I have pushed myself outside my safe bubble—talking with folks about threats to democracy at local farmer’s markets, organizing gatherings at my home so friends can learn about the work of Third Act.
I think of you when I’m protesting in front of banks to stop their funding of Big Oil, or when I’m at a No Kings! rally to defend our democracy. I can almost hear your voice—half laughing, half prodding—telling me not to give up, not to play nice when so much of what we fought for is on the line.
It’s hard to believe 30 years have passed since your last letter. But you’re still here, Jim—in every march, every rally, every act of hope. I keep working for the world we dreamed of, because you showed me how.
With love,
Tom
Third Act SoCal’s “Letters to Loved Ones” project invites members to write letters about their efforts to ensure a healthy planet for their children and other loved ones. Read all about the project here. Consider writing a letter of your own and sending it to: socal@thirdact.org