SF Polk gay bar (1365)

The Cinch, the last remaining gay bar in the Polk Gulch neighborhood. The bar is particularly memorable for me because it is where I spent an evening talking with a young man who had just ended a year, in the late 1980's, as an openly gay man, camping from the Midwest, across Canada and the AlCan highway, and in Alaska.

His experiences were significant in disproving the stories of gays in those times being at high risk of getting beaten and killed when in rural and politically conservative areas. His sense of safety, combined with his wonder at what he saw, were important in my later decisions to make long camping expeditions across the country.