"The Party Never Stops"

(I wrote this in 2010 as part of a reflective journal I needed for a school project. I needed to discuss current events, and that was the week that the CBS special aired with Sal and Claude. It sums up everything Sal meant to me)

I was really fortunate to work with a guy named Salvatore Defalco. He turned 54 this year, but he still bartended. My nickname for him was old man! Oh, the stories. He knew every famous person there was to know, blah, blah, blah. It wasn’t until he asked me for some help finding pictures from Studio 54 that an internet search showed so many stories I didn’t know. He was a fashion model, he was on magazine spreads, and he was in the Advocate, a gay periodical, twice. He won a first of its kind lawsuit in Atlanta against a nightclub that fired him for being HIV-positive.

The stories quickly changed from gossip to history. He knew people who rioted during Stonewall. He showed me movies I had never seen. Funny Girl! I grew up being open about my sexuality, but I wasn’t gay until I saw Funny Girl! He taught me about *my* culture, *my* history. And he helped me and many others when we found out our own HIV status, over the years.