Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive
Jul 9, 2026 · 31 min · 10 segments
Raised in a religious home in 1920s and ’30s Texas, Jim Kepner pieced together a sense of his identity where he could—a homoerotic suggestion read between the lines here, a secretly acquired booklet…
Eric MarcusHostI was aware from the time I was four years old that I had a special feeling for males.
My father took me to the beach just before my fourth birthday, and out on the beach pavilion there was a band playing while fireworks were going off across the waves, and I was down in the middle of the crowd, knee-high to the crowd, My father stepped away for the third or fourth time for a double boiler maker, leaving me holding a post.
maker? Two shots of whiskey and a can of beer.
This was during Prohibition, of course, and liquor was not available anywhere, except everywhere.
And a young man picked me up, and I was just... excited by the silky hair on his wrists and wanting to
and knowing that you weren't supposed to do that.
You hit four.
I knew you weren't supposed to do that.
I knew you weren't supposed to let strange men pick you up, but this was just so wonderful.
And the band was playing a song, Dear Old Pal, How I Miss You, I'm Lonesome Tonight.
Dear old pal, just to kiss you would make things seem right.
Dear old pal, how I wish you would come back again.
I would hug you once more tenderly.
One of dozens of songs like that, popular at the time.
And I knew I'd never see him again.
I knew that it was necessary to get him to put me down before my father got back or he'd get a tongue lashing for being so nice, holding me up where I could see everything.
I was in heaven.
And I had visions from the time I was 10 of meeting a guy named John, of having his family have a fatal accident.
I was aware from the time I was four years old that I had a special feeling for males.
My father took me to the beach just before my fourth birthday, and out on the beach pavilion there was a band playing while fireworks were going off across the waves, and I was down in the middle of the crowd, knee-high to the crowd, My father stepped away for the third or fourth time for a double boiler maker, leaving me holding a post.
maker? Two shots of whiskey and a can of beer.
This was during Prohibition, of course, and liquor was not available anywhere, except everywhere.
And a young man picked me up, and I was just... excited by the silky hair on his wrists and wanting to
and knowing that you weren't supposed to do that.
You hit four.
I knew you weren't supposed to do that.
I knew you weren't supposed to let strange men pick you up, but this was just so wonderful.
And the band was playing a song, Dear Old Pal, How I Miss You, I'm Lonesome Tonight.
Dear old pal, just to kiss you would make things seem right.
Dear old pal, how I wish you would come back again.
I would hug you once more tenderly.
One of dozens of songs like that, popular at the time.
And I knew I'd never see him again.
I knew that it was necessary to get him to put me down before my father got back or he'd get a tongue lashing for being so nice, holding me up where I could see everything.
I was in heaven.
And I had visions from the time I was 10 of meeting a guy named John, of having his family have a fatal accident.
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