“INTERVIEWER:

How did you meet other people?

PAT:
Initially it was really kind of funny. I had this childhood friend that I had grown up with who was a lesbian, and who, once I decided I was coming out said, “alright.” We started going places. We started going to places in Dayton, and we started going to places in Cincinnait. There was a bar…that you’ve probably heard of called Adam’s Rib, that was the first place she took me. That was wild. It was smoky, there was a lot of alcohol, there were a lot of laughing and joking and the women were having fun…It was small. It was a hole in the wall, but the music was always good…That’s pretty much what I wanted to do. Dance and have a good time and meet other people…That’s how I eventually came into the community. 

INTERVIEWER:

What’s the community?

PAT:
Well, that’s just it. The community was a select group of women. It really was. To find the door into it was somewhat mystical. You hear, or you’re going to hear if you talk to women of that period, that is was really hard to break into. It was. It was particularly hard if you were another color. You had to know somebody, who knew somebody, who knew somebody else. I knew somebody, who knew somebody, who knew somebody else. That’s how I ended up in it.”