I stayed in Provo Utah until June 1968 when I got a ride home with some fellow students on their way back home to New York State. Upon my arrival home I watched in disbelief at the television coverage of the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. I watched the television in horror and shock since Senator Kennedy had just visited B.Y.U. and I had seen him up close.
I got a job, through my father, at his plant but it was unbearable. I hardly related with my mother. She was on the verge of a third marriage. My sister was on the verge of divorce. There really wasn't much left of the family I knew. I moved into the home of a member of the Buffalo Ward. I attended church in the Buffalo Ward where the Bishop told me he knew what had happened to me at B.Y.U.
There wasn't a night I did not awaken in fear, remorse and guilt for turning in the people on the list. I went from fearing the persons on my list to fearing Church security. I became more paranoid and mistrusting of people than anytime before in my life.
Then I was drafted into the army. I went to the physical with instructions to declare myself a homosexual as the leaders of the Church felt in the service I would find more temptation than I could resist being with men constantly.
As I stood in the induction office with over 200 other naked men I knew I was a gay man. Then after checking the box on the form I went through the further humiliation of standing in a line where many people could see my file which was marked Sexual Deviate in large letters.
Weeks later I was interviewed by a psychiatrist to determine whether I was qualified for deferment or that I simple was avoiding the service. The therapist informed me that he was Jewish and was upset about how I was treated by the Mormons.
I told him I loved my country. My country had given me freedom and liberty but my Bishop had advised me to be deferred to avoid further contact with temptations.
Apostle Kimball sent me a copy of his newly published book The Miracle of Forgiveness. I recall a conversation by phone in which I requested to return to Utah and attend B.Y.U. He thought that it would be better if I attended the University of Utah.
Nothing was really holding me to New York State. While I had been through such trials I still had a testimony of the Church and the Restoration so I returned to my spiritual home. I thought I would have family in the people who believed like I did.
In January 1970 President David O. McKay passed away. He was the only prophet of the Church I knew. The minute I learned of his death I felt compelled to return to Salt Lake City, Utah.
The first thing I did upon arrival in Salt Lake City was visit the grave of President David O. McKay. I stood there and wept. I read the poem over his grave which I had sent him when I was baptized. I went to KSL television station requesting to view the tapes of his funeral. I was informed they would not show them for just one person.
I visited Elder Kimball a few more times in his home and at other times in his office. He always counseled marriage as the cure for my homosexuality. I met with him in his home and finally paid him back the thirty dollars I borrowed. I told him I was irritated that he had divulged my name to the other B.Y.U. students I had turned into him. He told me that it was not his intention to do so.
I had been threatened both at B.Y.U. and at the University of Utah. At the University of Utah, I was threatened by the Church security guard, ( a Kimball relative ) with whom I stayed with in Salt Lake City after I was expelled from B.Y.U. He threatened that I would not be able to gain entrance to the University of Utah. I applied to the University of Utah. I was accepted without any incident.
The University House was a boarding house for foreign students, the very poor, and other students. I secured a job washing dishes in exchange for my room and board there. I made friends. None of them were Mormons. Applying for entrance into the University of Utah I was accepted into the School of Fine Arts. I received National Defense Loans to make the schooling possible.
I met a young man named Maurice, he was a member of the Sons of Levi or Order of Aaron, a break off group from the Mormon Church. I was interested in all religions so I attended their Saturday Sabbath meetings. We took a trip to southern Utah, into the desert to a place called Eskdale. I stayed there several days eating in total silence as was their custom, working for my keep singing in their choir and visiting their homes which were consecrated to a communal law of possessions belonging to everyone. A similar practice of things in common is called the United Order in the Mormon Church. I enjoyed the atmosphere of nature and spirituality. Most of all I felt their love for me.
Many of my University classes met in the old barracks art buildings on the University of Utah campus. I took beginning painting from Earl Jones a local renegade free thinker, 17th Century Flemish painting from Grace Vlam, and Creative writing. One day I was so hungry for lack of money, I ate the bottle of canned cherries and other food items from our still life in the classroom.
Elder Carter from my missionary days whom I had expressed my attraction was an art student
there at the University of Utah and I saw him almost everyday that first quarter. I saw him with
his girlfriend and felt embarrassment each time I saw him. I think I was surviving.