Turning Gay

 I was always showing up and befriending the people I wrote about. I never wrote hatchet jobs, whether for a newspaper or magazine. I never would hang around people I disrespected. It’s too hard to write well. It would be impossible to write about somebody well if you didn’t like them at all. I think back a lot, but I don’t think of myself as changed except by ailments that restrict me now. As for how I live and operate, it’s the same now as it was when I first became a copy boy for the Times in 1953. I like knowing people. I like asking questions. I ask questions in a way that would never suggest gossip. They suggest a sincere interest because I have a sincere interest. A lot of journalists are very purposeful. They have a story, they want you, then they don’t want you anymore. They got their story. But I always go back. I like to revisit stories after I finish them, as I did for Floyd Patterson and the men of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.