By Dan Smith

D: Your name is?

R: Rick Collins.
D: Where were you born?
R: Oakland, California, just across the bay.
D: Tell me about your Mother and Father/
R: Father was stationed at Alameda during World War 2; Mother was born and raised there. They met at the officers
club and were married in 1954. I have one younger brother, Ron who lives in San Carlos. He and his wife have
appeared in local community theater.
D: Is there anything about grade school that stands out in your mind?
R: I had a paper route in junior high. With earnings from it I bought my first watch. I took it to biology class where
they put it under a Geiger counter and it was radioactive. Everybody said, “Oh, he’s hot!”
My passion in high school was ballroom dancing. My job was to play records for the ballroom teachers.
Realizing how much fun that was I started collecting 45s as a hobby. I made up ballroom steps and showed them to
the ballroom teachers who showed them to the group they belonged to and I got to join that group. I was the only
young one; that was between the ages of 14 and 18, although it did stretch into college.
D: Why was ballroom dancing interesting to you?
R: Well for several reasons. I liked the patterns, I liked the music. It was the popular music of the late 40’s and 50’s
and I just liked the way it felt to be moving around on the dance floor. It was very peaceful for me.
D: Did your ballroom dancing during school lead to any trips?
R: Yes actually. The group of ballroom dancers I was associated with would send their teachers on cruse ships. In
1970, while I was in the middle of law school, I got a chance to go on a cruse to the orient, 6 weeks. I was Assistant
Recreation Director; a glorified baby setter for the teenagers aboard the ship. We went from San Francisco to LA,
Honolulu, Yokohama and Osaka where the World’s Fair was going on. At the World’s Fair I learned that the
Japanese line up very close to each other so that their heels are right on your
toes.
That trip was my first significant contact with gay people. The ships
bandleader bought me a drink and asked me all kinds of personal questions the
point of which I wasn’t to sure but basically he was trying to find out if I was a
virgin; rather I had any religious objections to having sex outside of marriage
and all this sort of stuff. He was about 30 and wanted to get into my pants. I
told him I had a girlfriend. He said, “I don’t care what you say. By the time
you’re 30 you’ll know”. That was very prophetic because that’s when it happened.
In the meanwhile I met Sue and we married. She’s always been a career
gal; she went to business school, undergrad at Berkeley. We’re still on good
terms and keep in touch about once a year.
D: What did you do after finishing law school?
R: I was a practicing attorney for 28 years. Working in Criminal Appeals at the
State Attorneys Generals Office for 13 years; then represented defendants in
private practice for ten years.
While I was working for the State Attorneys Office Dan White got
convicted of killing Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk. And I walked into my boss’s
office and said, “If Dan White appeals and he appeals on sentencing grounds I
want the case.” I was a sentencing expert in the office. Sure enough he did and
I got the Dan White case. Rick puts centers in with
He was convicted in the spring of 79 and I wrote my brief in the summer Tony Attard
of 1980 and I argued the case before the California Court of Appeals in, I think, November of 1980 and the Judges
decided to uphold his conviction in May of 81. The prison guards at Soledad Prison where Dan White was housed
reviewed all his correspondence and he basically called me a scumbag for the arguments I was making, (Rick
chortles) which I took as a compliment. That was the biggest highlight of my professional career.
D: Impressive. When did you begin square dancing?
R: 1981, the same year that Russ King did and we both started with Foggy City Squares as it was called then with
Skip Beret. The club danced at the Trocadero Transfer, a big Disco south of Market. They had like 10 or 12 squares;
it was huge. They were lots of fun. It wasn’t really done according to Caller Lab definitions. It was Skip Beret and he
sang the same songs and you did the same steps in the same order to those same songs.
By the mid 80’s I actually dropped out. I didn’t resume square dancing until 1997. That’s when my friend
Don said, “You know El Camino Reelers are starting a class in Palo Alto and it’s a nice big open space?” There were
lots of people there, Andy Shore was the caller. My Mother was alive at the time and living in San Carlos so I would
drive from San Francisco to Palo Alto, have diner with Don, go square dancing come back halfway to San Carlos and
spend time with my Mother and then drive home the next day.
D: How did you end up at Western Star?
R: I joined Western Star in probably 2007 after I realized that Western Star was quite vibrant. Now I’m a tri-clubual
dancer. I pay dues to Midnight Squares, El Camino Reelers and Western Star. I’m happy to say that my primary
focuses in live are my Mac Consultant business, square dancing, movies and of course my boyfriend John.
D: Thank you Rick.
R: You’re welcome.