Once in a while, I like to break out a true story from my annals, something about which the kids know zilch. Here's one that I'm pretty sure even my Chuck doesn't know anything about. That's how long ago this happened.

Before I came out while working at ESPN, I nearly began the gay face of one of the most notoriously anti-gay companies in American history.

It was back in the late 90s, and me and my 70s porn mustache were living in Denver. I fancied myself a writer, but I didn't write that much. I worked as a waiter, a recruiter for a truck driving school, even a sales consultant for US West -- now Qwest. I was lost spiritually, emotionally, and geographically. I liked Denver a lot, but had no idea what my life was going to be. And any time an opportunity presented itself, I jumped at it with a mixture of sincere enthusiasm and the fear-based mania, figuring maybe this was the answer I so desperately needed.

Around that time, I got involved with the so-called gay softball league in Denver. It consisted of one team, and they went to the World Series each year. They were talented on the field, but -- in my experience -- mean off of it. In my adult life, I can't think of many experiences where I was treated with as much disdain as I was while playing for them.

They also scared away others who might otherwise have been interested in a gay softball league. I heard, over and over again, how such a league wasn't possible in Denver. So I gave it a shot. With one of the few members of that team that I actually liked, Paula Cline, we began DASL in 1998. I was the first commissioner, and within a year, we had, if I recall, six teams. Now, there are 22.

Anyway, part of the fundraising experience I got from that experience was to get to know the gay liasions to all the beer companies. Each of them was just beginning to market to the gay community, and the one I knew best was the guy from Coors.

Call me naive back then. I knew about the history of gay boycotts against Coors, a company that was seen as funding anti-gay groups. But I believed the gay liaison, who told me that Coors was now committed to cleaning up that image.

Thirteen years later, I understand that the company was interested in continuing to fund right-wing groups, while throwing money at gay bars so that their product would continue to be purchased by beer-swilling gay folk. But that's a story for another time.

The point is that my friend the liaison was going to leave his post, and they began to search for his replacement. I jumped at the opportunity, and campaigned hard. As the head of the gay softball league, I explained, I would be able to fix their image throughout Denver's gay community like no other.

It came down to two of us. I was wrong that I was the perfect person for the job. The perfect person was Mary Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney, at the time known as the former Republican congressman from Wyoming, and secretary of defense.

It wasn't a hard decision, I'm sure.

Mary got the job, and I wound up working fairly closely with her, securing Coors' sponsorship of the league for its first season. I thought she was nice and easy to deal with. We were friendly with each other. I admit now that I didn't know almost anything about her dad at the time. I'd like to think that wouldn't have made a difference in how I treated her, but I'm sure if my eyes had been even remotely open at the time, I wouldn't have wanted that position in the first place. I'm not really a Coors type of gay.

I guess it's a mixed (albeit obvious) message to say about Mary that I have respect for her, but hate her father. That sounds mean, but there's no way around it, since her father is a total ass. Hey, she might not like my father, either, although that seems unlikely, since my father is frickin' delightful. Here are just some of the differences between my father and Dick Cheney:

My dad makes up puns.
Dick Cheney makes up reasons to start a war that will greatly benefit his company.

My dad shoots in the low 80s in golf.
Dick Cheney shoots fellow pheasant hunters in the face, and then gets them to apologize to him via the media.

My dad has a heart.
Dick Cheney doesn't. (This used to be figuratively true -- now it's literally so).

My dad snores.
Dick Cheney snarls.

My dad would never, if asked to head a search board for a vice president for his South Florida condo board, come up with a shortlist headed by himself.
Dick Cheney did that for his country.

So it's not exactly a fair comparison, I suppose. Mary would probably love my dad.

So that's my one-degree-of-separation-from-history story for today. Remind me to tell you about the time I went to school with the grandson of Hitler's foreign minister. Again, story for another time.