HOTLINE!

From the diary: “March 10, 1981

“We did oral reports in English today and yesterday based on our nonfiction book reports. I did mine on HOTLINE! by Margaret O. Hyde. I got an A.”

I just did a google search for HOTLINE! as the title means nothing to me now. Margaret O. Hyde has written such books as Mind Drugs and Living with Asthma and Know About Gays and Lesbians, among other possibly useful books for young people.

I found a description for HOTLINE!: “Describes a social service through which people in need of help receive advice and encouragement over the telephone from trained personnel. Includes a chapter on runaways and suggestions for setting up such a service.”

I remember a childhood friend who would call a sex info hotline in San Francisco. It creeped me out that he was so obsessed with sex, particularly homosexual sex. “They told me that a gay guy’s colon will fall out if he has a lot of sex.” Who knows what the hotline actually told him? Anyway, when I spotted him at a gay bar several years later he said, “What are you doing here!” I shrugged. “Dancing,” I said.