For me it seems like yesterday that it was happening all around me. Every day I would wake up to another death; like being in a war zone - but without the sounds of bombs making it much more eerie.

I remember hearing the rumors around 1981, despite being in a small town. There was something called "the Gay disease" or sometimes "gay cancer". I remember thinking, "what makes it gay?". But somehow, at the time, not really worrying about it. It seemed so distant; happening in places far away like the Castro neighborhood in San Francisco or the Village in NYC. Not here, in the South, in a small town.

But before long I was hearing about people that I knew who were rumored to have it. By 1985, two of my teachers left school under mysterious conditions, and I now know it was to seek some sort of treatment. People who were well known were dying, Rock Hudson and 10 days later, Ricky Wilson of the B-52's. By the summer of '86 I was living in New York City and it was all around me. People walked around like ghosts. Whole dance companies were closing due to the loses. I was hearing rumors of "who's got 'IT'". The pages of the NY Times obits had grown larger. Our President, Ronnie Reagan, was elected in 1980 when the disease was in full force but refused to speak of it, not one word, during his first term. His friend and advisor Rev. Jerry Falwell was making his name - and money - by spreading his brand of hate, fear and discrimination off of this crisis by saying "This is the Wrath of God upon Homosexuals". The extreme Christian wing of the Republican party had the Moral Majority, which was called upon to rid our nation of this blight - the homosexual. By his second term, with people literally dying in the streets Reagan had to say something about it. By May 1987 nearing the end of his 2nd term, he finally mentioned it publically. By then 21,000 people had died in the US and up to 50,000 were dying.

By 1988 it was hitting me hard. Many of my school mates were infected or rumored to be infected. Everyone was expected to get tested before entering a relationship. Condoms were handed out at Diners and Gas stations. In 1988 I saw death first-hand, when my friend, Bill, called me in a panic when he couldn't wake up his roommate. When I walked in the door and saw his body, I knew what it was. One year later, I would be spoon feeding Bill as he lay in bed in a diaper. His family would eventually take him home to California to die of AIDS.

They would keep dying. It got to be easier to say goodbye to people. I remember seeing a man that I'd worked with sitting in a wheelchair, his body pale and ravaged by the disease. His skin had the tell-tale signs - Kaposi Sarcoma or KS. There was no white-washing anymore. I told him "Goodbye". I told him that I respected his work and that he would be missed in the world. He wouldn't be the last person I said that to.

Thankfully, some have lived, thanks to doctors and science. One of my best friends, who I'd already said goodbye to, lives on today! So for that, we can be grateful. But for those we've lost, the world has lost some great folk - many who didn't get to finish their dreams. We remember them in the Quilt - the AIDS Memorial Quilt. A large work of art and memorial which weighs ---- 54 TONS. And which, if you have the time, can be viewed online. It comes with a warning however, it will take you over 1 month to view all the panels of it.

And so today on World AIDS Day, we remember:

A random section of a random block of a random panel of the Quilt Project: