Three Loves: Three Losses by Phillip Hoyle

I tell of Ted, Michael, and Rafael.

I tell of Kaposi’s sarcoma, Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and Hepatitis C.

I tell of the loving effects of all on me.

Ted’s illness eventually became the focus of my relationship to him, a kind of maturing friendship that clarified my need to take care of another person who was dying. I wanted to attend to him at the end of his life and realized I’d willingly take a leave of absence from work to do so. This seemed a great change for me. It also clarified my anger at the church and society for their often callus response to gay folk in general and specifically to those living with and dying from HIV-related diseases. It seemed that in our society to debate long-held fears was more important than to support people—the real places of life and death.

I found meaning as well as satisfaction in letting Ted teach me more about the issues and about myself before his death. The last time we were together—a several-day stay at his home in San Francisco—we visited San Francisco General Hospital, and I walked around Pacific Heights while he met with his psychiatrist. We heard Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” together, and he taught me how to smoke marijuana.  He told me that when his KS lesions so distressed him, he complained to his HIV physician. “I just can’t stand to look at them.”

“Then don’t,” she responded. “Wear long pants.”

Ted wore long pants but was not doing well on that last visit. I wanted to return to be with him. Although I volunteered, I wasn’t called in at the end, which frustrated me. Still, I was able to attend his memorial service, an experience of balloons, tributes, music, and love.

After I moved to Denver I gave massages at Colorado AIDS Project as a kind of memorial to my long-time friend Ted. There I met Michael, a man who came to me for massage. I noticed that he was noticing me. He wanted more massage. When later he came to my home studio to receive one, I was pleased and served tea at the end of the session. Then he wanted more than massage. We began seeing each other socially. Of course, I knew he was HIV positive. What I didn’t know was that he was losing weight rapidly and that his numbers were going in the wrong directions. When I realized these distressing trends, I suggested that at his next medical appointment he show the swollen lymph nodes in his neck and groin and insist that someone touch them. He did so and the tests that ensued pinpointed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I started spending most nights at his place when he started chemotherapy and discovered just how much I had come to love him in our short time together. As he sickened I did more and more of his yard and housework. I wanted him to be comfortable and I wanted to enjoy his company.

Michael taught me some rather genteel approaches to breakfast, to eating out, and to living with another man. I was an avid learner. He also was the occasion for me to see the down side of some gay relationships particularly as relates to family complications. When his brother and elderly mother were coming to see him after his chemotherapy had to be discontinued, he asked me to move back to my apartment during their stay. I was confused but also realized we are what we are: he was who he was, I was who I was, both imperfect when coping with the extremities of life. I made sure I dropped by to meet his family, to be for them one of Michael’s friends. I never knew what they understood of our relationship.

I did for Michael in his last weeks what I couldn’t do for Ted: made him comfortable, showered him with my love, sat by him while he took his final breaths. My sadness mixed with love at his death. I was so pleased that I had cleaned up after him, prepared his food, and loved him in the most practical ways possible—the work of family and of gay lovers in the face of AIDS. In it all, I came to appreciate the effective work of Denver Health’s clinics and staff. I appreciated the attentions of other friends of this lover of mine. His memorial service brought together a wide variety of folk who celebrated his life, friendships, and love.

Some months later I met Rafael at a bus stop. We talked; we liked each other. Eventually we got together after a frustrating courtship characterized by my wondering where this cute man was. We came together with an emotional intensity that surely would have entertained both Ted and Michael and that surprised me. It also thrilled me to my innermost gay self that I was still discovering.

Rafael told me he was HIV positive some weeks into this intense relationship. I said that was fine and told him about Ted and Michael. We set up housekeeping, but in a few weeks he was growing ill. He too was a client at the Infectious Diseases Clinic at Denver Health. I warned him I might cry when we went there because of my memories of going to the same kind of appointments with Michael.

I felt somewhat like a veteran and told him I wanted to meet his family before he ended up in the hospital. That didn’t happen. I met his brother in his room at Denver Health. Later I met his parents and sister at the same place. I stood by him and helped his family as his illness worsened. We waited during a surgery on his aorta, made visits to the Intensive Care Unit, the Intensive Care Step-down Unit, and other floors where he was treated. Finally, a diagnosis of full-term hepatitis C emerged. Two weeks later, after a one-day home hospice attempt, the Hospice of St. John took him in. There he died.

I liked that at the end he was surrounded by family. I was pleased to be included. He had told his parents they’d not be welcome in our home if they in any way excluded me. This frail man of indomitable spirit took care of me with his family as I took care of his daily needs. Our love’s intensity sustained and wrecked us both at the end. I let go gently, deeply saddened, and with startlingly grateful respect for this man’s life and death. But I was also afraid of the effect the loss of such an intense relationship would bring. The resulting low I experienced was as intense as the heights of the love we shared. I survived. I felt as if Saints Ted and Michael attended me in my adoration of the beautiful and strong Rafael.

This awful disease with all its science, social ramifications, and family trauma and drama continues to affect my life daily. Friends and clients still live and die with its effects. Memories seared deeply into my brain and body accompany my every move. I continue to hate the disease while I love those with it, both past and present. 

About the Author

 Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”

Dis-ease by Donny Kaye

Smile.  The threesome posed with an apprehensive grin as their buddy taking the picture commented on the potential FaceBook caption he would assign to this particular photo op, “My buddies waiting to get tested at the STD Clinic”. 

And then, one-by-one each of the buddies was called into the clinic offices  for their chance to fill one of those plastic containers, complete a blood draw,  and finally, meet with the counselor. 

“Have you had sex in the past 48 hours?” questioned the counselor. 

“Yes.” 

“24? ”

“24 what?”

“Hours”

‘”Uh, yes.”

“More recent than 12?”

With a grin and a deep sense of satisfaction, “Yes.”

The counselor then proceeded to demonstrate, using his finger, how a condom rides down the organ, exposing the shaft and consequently exposing the base, you know—The BASE, to potential infection.  It seemed like the lead into an infomercial for some type of device, much like a garter that could be attached somewhere on the body to hold the condom in its appropriate location for $19.95 (and if ordered within the next while, the order would be tripled).  Just what was needed for the threesome who had been waiting in the outer office for their time for direction and instruction in safe sex. 

Upon leaving the Clinic, the buddies compared the stash of condoms each had been given proclaiming there was agreement that they were safe for the next while, at least 48 hours. 

A week later at coffee there was a sense of relief and satisfaction knowing that each of the three had gotten his tests back.  All was OK. 

“No syphilis,” the first proclaimed.

“All is clear with me,” stated another; only to be joined by the third, “I’m clean.”

There was a deep smile and hug shared by the three, as they raised their mugs to their mouths and cheered this most recent reporting.  Something they have committed to on a routine basis.

AIDS, has become the focus of health considerations for the GLBT community since the early 1980’s when the death causing syndrome at the time was first identified.  Especially for men, AIDS was thought by some to be God’s judgment and retribution for “unnatural relationships between men.”  This particular disease for a while ravaged the bodies and lives of many of our brothers and sisters, as well. 

As a result of the focus on AIDS since the 80’s, the disease is better managed within the culture.

AIDS has become part of my life.  Knowing that each of us to some extent live with AIDS daily, even though it is not in my body, it has become part of my culture and day-to-day existence.  AIDS exists all around me and I don’t want it in me. 

Understanding how AIDS has become part of our culture, and my day-to-day existence, I’m also drawn to the realization that much of my reaction to life actually creates Dis-Ease.  

Dis-Ease actually occurs within each of us as we experience the contraction that comes with judgment, be it judgment about something or someone outside of me, or more commonly, judgments against my own self.  It has been suggested by some researchers that there is a physiological reaction within the bodies various systems to the contraction that is experienced within when judgment occurs.   Judgment causes the very cellular structure to break down.  The cells within the body vibrate in a completely dissonant way.  There is contraction.  The fluids do not move through the cells as they were created to move.  The nutrients do not become transported or delivered to the cells.  The waste matter is not processed properly.  Everything gets clogged up, and there is dis-ease.

Dis-ease exists within me in a very physiological way.  Its cause may result from actual physical infection or from the contractions within resulting from my judgments against myself and others.  Certainly there are measures that I must take to protect myself from external causes of infection resulting in disease, such as those recommendations of the STD Clinic staff.  Equally, I must pay attention to the contractions and disruptions to my bodies various systems that occur when I experience judgments against myself and others.

I entered the office alone.  There were no buddies, no photo op.

“Have you made any judgments against yourself or another in the past 48 hours?”

“Yes.” (I mean, after all, do I want that politician representing me as a gay man?)

“24?”

“Yes.” (Well, the person in the express checkout line had more than ten items.)

“More recently?”

“Yes.  Actually in the moments before sharing this writing.”  Stated without a grin or sense of satisfaction.

Oh for an infomercial offering some type of device that would help me to self-monitor the judgments that occur in my mind, moment-by-moment.  The judgments that create contractions and dis-ease within that can serve to be more lethal than actually contracting some other dreaded disease, such as AIDS.  The remedy?  Hmmmmmmmm! 

The remedy, self forgiveness.  For each time I am judging another, even the driver in front of me or the customer in the express checkout ahead of me, I’m actually judging myself.  Certainly those judgments against myself about being unworthy or in some way, not enough; ripple through my body in the form of contraction that disrupts the various systems within my body creating dis-ease which can be as life altering as other forms of disease. 

I am learning what to do to protect myself from dis-ease.  I take my vitamins, practice safe sex and even wear my seatbelt.  The consideration that begs my attention is Am I as vigilant about monitoring the judgments that can exist in my life experience in a very inconspicuous way?  The judgments that are life altering especially when I withdraw and step aside out of a sense of unworthiness.

Dis-ease.  I live with it silently.  Separately.  Alone.  

Hey, what was that 800 number again?

About the Author

Donny Kaye-Is a native born Denverite.  He has lived his life posing as a hetero-sexual male, while always knowing that his sexual orientation was that of a gay male.  In recent years he has confronted the pressures of society that forced him into deep denial regarding his sexuality and an experience of living somewhat of a disintegrated life.  “I never forgot for a minute that I was what my childhood friends mocked, what I thought my parents would reject and what my loving God supposedly condemned to limitless suffering.” StoryTime at The Center has been essential to assisting him with not only telling the stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood but also to merely recall the stories of his past that were covered with lies and repressed in to the deepest corners of his memory.  Within the past two years he has “come out” not only to himself but to his wife of four decades, his three children, their partners and countless extended family and friends.  Donny is divorced and yet remains closely connected with his family.  He lives in the Capitol Hill Community of Denver, in integrity with himself and in a way that has resulted in an experience of more fully realizing integration within his life experiences. He participates in many functions of the GLBTQ community.  

NEVER-never Land by Gillian

I completely inhabit a never-never land all of my own making.

Growing up in remote farm country I said I could NEVER be happy living in the city,

and here I am living happily in the middle of three million people in the Denver metro area.

With that same rural attitude I said I could NEVER be happy working in some big corporation,

and here I am retired after thirty wonderful years with IBM.

After I got divorced I said I shall NEVER get married again,

and here I am after 25 wonderful years with Betsy.

And we know we are married even if the Government does not.

So if ever you hear me say I could NEVER live …

wherever,  just look for me there.

Never-never land seems where I’m destined to be!

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

Neverland by Ricky

           I first went to Neverland in 1953 at the age of 5 when my parents took me to an indoor theater for the first time to see Walt Disney's animated movie Peter Pan, which begins with the narrator telling the viewing audience that the action about to take place, "has happened before, and will all happen again", only this time it is happening in Edwardian London, in the neighborhood of Bloomsbury. 

          The movie is an adaptation of Sir James Matthew Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up.  In 1935 Walt wanted Peter Pan to be his second film after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but he couldn't get the rights from the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London* until four years later and then WWII interrupted production.  Barrie's 1911 novelization of the play is titled Peter Pan and Wendy. 

Cover of the 1911 Novel

          1953 was the year that my parents bought me the large Disney book of Peter Pan complete with text and lots of pictures of scenes from the film.

          The next time I remember going to Neverland was in 1955 at age 7, when my family watched the NBC television broadcast of the Broadway musical of Peter Pan; starring Mary Martin as Peter and Cyril Ritchard as Captain Hook, which had earned Tony Awards for both stars in 1954.

          Soon after the TV broadcast, I visited Neverland yet again that same year after the opening of Disneyland on July 18th.  My favorite areas of the park are Fantasy Land and Tomorrow Land.  From that visit on, I have probably lived in a fantasy world and the world of the future; jumping into either one of them alternately and refusing to live in the present reality.  My favorite rides have remained the same over the years; the Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland rides.  Both are fantasy related but to me were the most beautifully crafted and colorful rides.

          The Peter Pan ride begins with one sitting in a small pirate ship flying out the window of the nursery following Peter's shadow into a nighttime scene flying over the city of London and around Big Ben.  The city below is aglow with lights brought out by overhead “black lights.”  The illusion of flying was most impressive to me.  The ride continues through the night sky until you circle around the Neverland portrayed in the movie.  It then continues through various dioramas from the movie and ends at the opposite end of the starting point.  I loved it.

          The Alice in Wonderland ride is similar but featuring scenes from that movie. In spite of the Queen of Hearts, the ride is beautiful, colorful, and mostly non-threatening except the short part in the scary nighttime forest.  I liked the peacefulness of the ride.

          Another ride in Fantasy Land is the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ride.  I wanted to go on that ride but my parents continued their refusal to ride on what they perceived as a “kids” ride (either that or they didn't have the money to spend).  I have always maintained that kid or adult rides are absolutely no fun to do alone.  As with the previously mentioned rides, this one began benignly with lots of good music and colors in the scenes from the movie.  The part where the ride goes into the Dwarf's mine was especially nice with all the multicolored gemstones lining the tunnels.  Then there was the exit, which was suddenly blocked by the evil and ugly witch and the vehicle turned down a dark side tunnel.  Another exit appeared only to be blocked and another turn down yet another tunnel; only this one held a nasty surprise.  Dangling in the dark were black threads, which slid across my face and felt like spider webs.  It didn't help any that at that moment a large glowing spider appeared on the wall just ahead and to the side.  Well, I lost my joy, happiness, and composure right then.  As the song asserts, “I don't like spiders and snakes and that ain’t what it takes to love me...”  Mr. Disney.  I panicked and was really scared that there were spiders in the vehicle and on me.  By the time the ride ended, I was crying and ran to my waiting parents, probably yelling something about spiders.  I had forgotten that this was a ride and that everything was fake.

          Looking back on that event all I can think of to account for my behavior is one of two things.  Either I was a “scaredy cat” or my parents' warnings about the Black Widow spiders (found around the outside of our house) being poisonous had really been taken very seriously.  I still hate spiders and I don't like snakes.

          From 1958 thru 1965 (ages 10 to 17), I went to Neverland whenever I visited my dad for his one-week-at-Christmas visitation rights.  We always went to Disneyland and I rode my two favorite rides among others.  I only rode the Snow White ride once again when my wife and I went there and I told her the story of my panic.  That time there were no black threads.

          Perhaps the trip to Neverland that had the most impact on my life was in 1960 at age 12.  That was the year my toy box from when I was 7 reappeared in my life and I found the large Disney book on Peter Pan.  When I began to read the book I returned to Neverland.  During the reading I mentally wished that I would not grow up and would stay 12 forever (a version of the “Peter Pan Pledge”) and I internalized the wish. 

The Peter Pan Pledge

“I pledge allegiance to Peter Pan and the Land of Never Never, to stay young in mind, [and] in spirit; to grow old and grouchy never!”

          If you don't count the opinions of my children, most people who know me really well would say that I've done a good job in keeping that pledge.

          In 1953, I went to Neverland for the first time.  In all truthfulness, I never left.

Sir James M. Barrie, 1st Baronet

*  “In 1929, J. M. Barrie donated all rights in Peter Pan to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital.  In 1987, fifty years after Barrie's death, copyright expired under UK law. However, the following year a unique act of Parliament restored royalty income from all versions of Peter Pan to the hospital, which means that very sick children will continue to benefit from J. M. Barrie's generous gift for as long as the hospital exists.”

© 12 March 2012

Illustration from 1911 Edition



 

Illustration from 1911 Edition



"Never say goodbye, ..."

 

About the Author

Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, CA

Ricky was born in June of 1948 in downtown Los Angeles.  He lived first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach both suburbs of LA.  Just prior to turning 8 years old, he was sent to live with his grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years while (unknown to him) his parents obtained a divorce.

 

When united with his mother and stepfather in 1958, he lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After two tours of duty with the Air Force, he moved to Denver, Colorado where he lived with his wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after 9-11.

He came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.  "I find writing these memories to be theraputic."

Ricky's story blog is “TheTahoeBoy.blogspot.com”.

The Strangest Person I Ever Met by Colin Dale

I'm going to introduce you to a villain.  I thought of a bunch of good strange people I've known, but none tells you much about me, and telling you about me is what I strive for in storytelling.  So I'm going to introduce a villain—but first . . .

I sat there, as we all did, probably, trying to think of the strangest person I ever met.  Imagining we've all lived good, full, rich lives, and been open to all sorts of experiences, we each can think of, as I could, dozens and dozens of strange characters we've crossed paths with.  Sometimes they were brief encounters, like the man I met on a broken-down Trailways bus in the Poconos when I was a teen, the man who was dressed in full 19th century British military garb, the man who turned to me and said his experience of being on a broken-down bus reminded him of the Crimean War. Sometimes our brushes with strange people are more prolonged, like the homeless man—and Donald may remember this man—who, when Donald and I were in visual merchandising at the Denver Dry, would stare fixedly all day long into the big display windows, rocking from side to side, taking a break every so often only to place small balled-up bits of aluminum foil under his upper eyelids.  He was a sad case.  Nothing funny about  him.  Then, too, there are strange people who are part our lives from childhood--oddball aunts and uncles—and others who enter our lives—neighbors, coworkers, even lovers sometimes—strange people we then spend weeks, months, and even years trying to get back out of our lives.  I once had just such a lover, Lyndon (I'll call him), obsessive-compulsive to a fault, who was impatient with my normal-guy's sense of order, who one day thought signposts might help: I arrived home one night, switched on the lights, to find our apartment a snowstorm of white rectangles, hundreds and hundreds of them, white adhesive mailing labels stuck to everything: on the tableware drawer, Forks only this compartment, tongs facing north; on the floor lamps, Sixty-watt bulbs only; on the glass-top coffee table, Current magazines go on top; on the toilet tissue dispenser, Paper unfurls from bottom-rear.   That was 30 years ago.  I still have a old bureau in a spare room that today holds odds & ends; on the top drawer, now faded: Paired socks to the left, folded underpants to the right. 

Too many strange people to pick from.  Certainly too many from which to pick the strangest.  As many of us do when stuck in neutral, we pop open the dictionary.  Or the thesaurus.  That's what I did, and I found, among synonyms for strangest: weirdest, oddest, most peculiar, most uncommon, most off, most irregular, most unaccountable.  I was happy to see that my thesaurus popping was leading me away from the merely weird and more toward the disturbing.  That opened up all sorts of fresh possibilities for title of Strangest.

The first guy I thought of was Bill Reese.  I nominate Bill Reese for the Strangest Person I Ever Met.  No, wait, I don't nominate him—after all, each of us is running his own contest—I award Bill Reese the crown.  Not just as the Strangest Person I Ever Met, but also the Meanest, Most Upsetting, Most Damaging.  Bill Reese—or Dr. William Reese—was my English Department advisor at City College in New York. Advisors were usually the youngest among the professors, a chore dumped on them by their seniors.  Reese was maybe 30, but maybe not even that.  He had the face of a cherub, but the voice of high rpm machine long overdue for oiling.  Cocky and aloof, his head pitched to one side, his eyes never on you, Reese's delivery was a rapid-fire stream of "The truth of the matter is . . . " and "You'd be well advised to . . . " and "Among your shortcomings are . . . ".  To my eyes, a kid from a working class family who had serious doubts about whether he even belonged in college, Reese was Authority.  He was Judge.   He was Erudition.  Reese was Gatekeeper to a life I wanted but for which I wasn't sure I was qualified.

In awarding the title of Strangest, Meanest, Most Damaging to Reese, I'm doing it not as Ray of 2012, Ray who's tested, tried, and pretty much worldly wise, but as Ray of 1962 who was nervous and naive.  Ray of Today finds it difficult to believe that Ray of 1962 couldn't figure out what was going on when Bill Reese would say at the close of one of our advising sessions, after he'd turned me into a dishrag of insecurities, "What do you say we have dinner this Saturday and I'll explain more of what I've just told you?", or "I'm sure I can get Dr. Hitchings to up your grade to an A-minus.  What say we have a drink and talk about it?  I'm done a 5."  Ray of 1962: dumb, dumb, dumb!  Needless to say, I failed to see the obvious.  I never took Reese up on his dinner offer.  Or drink offer.  I took my honestly earned B-plus and let it go at that.

Before I finish my story of Bill Reese, I want to award another crown; this one to One of the Most Understanding Persons I Ever Met: another professor, this time one of the "elders," Dr. Frank Teige, also of the English Department. Dr. Teige was nearing his retirement.  Short, round, with an explosion of white hair and a beard to match: if you were to phone and ask Central Casting to send over a Santa, they'd send Frank Teige. There are countless reasons why I would award the crown of One of the Most Understanding to Dr. Teige; one was the day after class when, for a reason I can't explain, I let it all pour out, how I'd had my fill—nine months' worth—of Bill Reese's arrogance and strange behavior.  I remember Dr. Teige letting me vent, then, after a theatrical pause, saying, "Ray, let me tell you what's going on here. . . "

My final meeting with Bill Reese—I imagine I was pretty rigid, eager to get the year over with so I could move on to another adviser—Reese leaned back, his head cocked to one side (I remember this very clearly), saying, "It's been a year.  A rough year, but you made it through.  I feel it's my responsibility, at this our last session, to give you the best possible advice I can.  Advice, not just for next year, but for the long haul.  (I remember him saying 'long haul.')  If I were you, Ray, in life, I wouldn't aim too high."

I wouldn't aim too high.  Had Reese used a chisel to channel those words into my flesh, he couldn't have made a more lasting impression.  That was 1963.  I've lived 49 years since, and not one day have I not remembered Reese's words.  And struggled against them.  Another time and place—in answer to a different storytellers' prompt—I could tell you what that struggle was like, but I've said enough to explain why—using strangest in the sense of peculiar, irregular, and unaccountable—I'm awarding Bill Reese the crown of the Strangest Person I Ever Met.

By the way, the names are real.  Frank Teige's name is real because I care.  Bill Reese's name is real because I don't.   

Finishing up, this has been an interesting prompt, remembering the strange characters I've met in my life.  Returning briefly to the stage of my memory: being in a broken-down bus in the Pennsylvania mountains with a seatmate who was reminded of the Crimean War, seeing again the homeless man I saw most every day outside the Denver Dry—the deplorable man who placed aluminum foil under his upper eyelids, and Lyndon, my short-term lover, who thought mailing labels would prevent me from putting my socks in with the knives, forks, and spoons. I also met again the damaging, the disturbing.

 What's odd about this prompt, too: it's a one-way prompt: me, looking at all of them.  But what about me?  Am I not strange in some ways?  I'm sure I am.

          This week's prompt has been—at least for me—the kettle calling the pot strange.  It's possible when I'm toting up my life, when all of the actors will have had their entrances and exits, if on that day I try to think of the strangest person I ever met, I may after all decide it was me. 

About the Author

Colin Dale couldn't be happier to be involved again at the Center.  Nearly three decades ago, Colin was both a volunteer and board member with the old Gay and Lesbian Community Center.  Then and since he has been an actor and director in Colorado regional theatre.  Old enough to report his many stage roles as "countless," Colin lists among his favorite Sir Bonington in The Doctor's Dilemma at Germinal Stage, George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Colonel Kincaid in The Oldest Living Graduate, both at RiverTree Theatre, Ralph Nickleby in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby with Compass Theatre, and most recently, Grandfather in Ragtime at the Arvada Center.  For the past 17 years, Colin worked as an actor and administrator with Boulder's Colorado Shakespeare Festival.  Largely retired from acting, Colin has shifted his creative energies to writing--plays, travel, and memoir.

The Fluffo Flotilla Revisited by Pat Gourley

One evening in the fall of 1978 I was at the Empire Baths. It was a rather slow evening as I recall and I was in the showers thinking I might head out when I noticed a bearded middle aged fellow just my type with a very impressive penis. Shower cruising is of course an ancient gay male art as old as showers themselves and it was always accelerated when taking place in a gay bathhouse. There was no need to worry about offending any straight male sensibilities in such an establishment.

The ensuing sex was great and as was my want on the occasion I tried to get the fellow to reconnect with me soon outside the bath. He was very hesitant but I was at my persuasive best and he reluctantly agreed to come by my house the next evening. And did I mention that the sex was pretty damn good!

I initially assumed, correctly, that he was married to a woman, which was the only option in those days. That however was not the reason for his reluctance. He did relate that he would look much different and when I pressed him on this he said he would have all the hair on his body shaved off when I saw him the next evening.

This turned out to be the case and I assumed it was not a part of a sexual scene at all, especially since I did not do any of the shaving. He said he was going to Texas the next day to take part in some sort of “experiment” in a sensory deprivation tank though I never got many details on this and did not push it since my main interest was getting this man in bed again.

The house I lived in and a couple of my roommates whom he met that night were I think quite foreign to him. We were that rare breed of “queer hippies” into the Grateful Dead and the communal décor of the house was eclectic to say the least, largely furnished with alley cast-offs. I do remember that he made a point of opening a briefcase he was carrying before we went upstairs. In addition to papers and a few personal effects there was a large handgun, which I remember he made a point of making sure I saw.

I elected not to comment on that probably thinking I hope he fucks me before he shoots me. The sex again was great and he was really more naked than a jaybird, not a hair anywhere to be found. He did not spend the night and I did not see him again for many months after that. I recall a few details of our subsequent meetings but they involved the cultivation and nurturing of a loving friendship outside the bedroom that lasts to this day. I learned that he was involved in a business on the Western Slope that ran river raft trips and had a wife and several adopted children. Oh and he was a conservative Republican. Remember though that conservative Republicans of that day were similar to the centrist Democrats of today. There was certainly a mutual sexual attraction but I think he thought of me as truly exotic in many ways other than in bed and I thought of his right wing worldview as quaintly misguided but tolerable.

In the fall of 1979 he persuaded me to come visit and do a raft trip down the Yampa River. I brought along several friends perhaps because I still was not totally comfortable visiting a gun-toting Republican on his turf by myself. The trip was a several day affair and very much fun. I slept in his tent and the rather unbelievable story presented to his crew was that I was his personal nurse and he was not feeling well. No one I think bought that story for a minute. The sex of course remained wonderful though I did learn the hard way that river sand and Vaseline are not a good combination.

The relationship continued albeit sporadically and the next year I met the love of my life, David Woodyard, and he moved in with me in a shared house here in Denver in the Five Points neighborhood. These were peak Radical Fairie years for me but even that level of esoteric queerness did not seem off putting to my western slope Republican friend. He loved being in the company of openly gay men and in the late summer of 1982 organized another raft trip of several days this one involving a larger group of friends. The first trip had been a gentle float but this one involved some real white water rafting through Desolation Canyon in Utah on the Green River.

I was happily partnered on that trip and not having sex with my friend though several of the folks I brought along I think accommodated his needs just fine. Being 1982 AIDS was still on the horizon especially for Denver so this trip proved to be quite the debauched event. My friend loved entertaining a large group of campy queens and there was plenty of fucking, booze, what passed for good food in those days and LSD to go around and though I was off the hallucinogens by that time many others were not.

A running joke amongst the group to the innocent confusion of the largely straight crew centered around a cooking shortening called Fluffo that was used to fry every meal it seemed. I don’t think any of us had heard of Fluffo before but we quickly incorporated it into our ongoing gay banter when we realized it was a cheap knock off of Crisco. Crisco was of course a lubricant of great renown in certain gay male circles at the time.

The final evening of the trip was a big party involving some very bad gender fuck drag and tasteless camp. This event was immortalized on our own return in a large spread in Out Front Magazine in an article called The Fluffo Flotilla accompanied by several photos. It helped of course get this sort of publicity by having the editor of Out Front at the time along on the trip.

Before eating and posing for pictures in our bad drag, and holidng a can of Fluffo strategically in the middle of the photo, my dear friend the raft company owner humored me and helped organized a group reading of selected poems from James Broughton’s just released Graffiti for the Johns of Heaven. To this day I wonder what several of the young straight crew thought of Broughton’s bawdy gay verse celebrating Nipples and Cocks, along with many other irreverent tomes, being read aloud in the Utah wilderness of the banks of the Green River. I would like to think it fostered future tolerance of gay people and perhaps even facilitated a coming out or two.

About the Author  

I was born in La Porte Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I am currently on an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

I'll Do It My Way by Betsy

There are a few issues which are of minor importance to some, but about which I have remained steadfast in doing it my way.

 Growing up I was not spared from being bombarded with advertising directed at young women.  Products such as cosmetics--eyeliner, mascara--foundation garments designed to enhance your breasts and diminish your waistline, crippling high heels, cancer causing hair removal products, etc, etc. I decided early on (even before I knew what a dyke was--much less that I was one) early on I decided these products were not for me.  It probably helped that I did not enjoy reading “girlie” magazines with their come-on ads sucking in girls who were trying to hurry up and become women.  Perhaps this earthy attitude toward life was the influence of my Quaker grandmother--a very earthy person indeed--and a person I admired very much. 

Yet, as a youngster, I had a strong tendency and still have a slight tendency to want to “fit in.”  It was important to me to be accepted by most of my peers, especially the popular ones.  I cannot say I never wore high heels--I did.  I cannot say I never wore lipstick.  I relented when it came to lipstick and I still on special occasions put on the stuff.  The point here is that I refused to be taken over, sucked in, controlled, if you will, by the industry.  Who are they to tell me I need to enhance my natural appearance?  I cannot say I never tried some of the products out.  But one painful pluck of an eyebrow hair, one glance at dripping mascara, one attempt to run in those spiked heels and I knew none of it was for me. When I came out, I found that as a lesbian I was much more at home with this rebellious attitude and stubborn refusal to contribute to Ms. Elizabeth Arden or Mary Kay.

Along those lines, one other practice that I refuse to submit to is wearing those tight-fitting, skin-clinging, indigestion-inducing women’s pants with no pockets. I have to say, in the stores they look great on the manikins, but the manikins are always holding their breath and never sitting down.  Nor do the manikins suffer the long term effects of gravity on the body.

 Also, I will not buy a pair of women’s pants if they have no pockets.  That’s partly because my way is to not carry a purse.  It is a nuisance and something to lose, leave behind, or have ripped off.   How did this purse-carrying practice come about?  I suppose it’s because long ago women could not own property, including money, so there was no need to have a safe place like a deep pocket to carry it.

Here’s the thing with little teeny-weeny, everyday issues.   I don’t always do this, but I try most of the time to not let ego or stubbornness get in the way of doing the other person’s way.  For example questions like, shall we take this route or that route?  Shall we travel to this place or that place for vacation?  I have often found that the other person’s way turns out to be a better way; and besides, if it turns out not to be the better way, I don’t have to take responsibility for making the wrong choice.

          Then there are a couple of issues which are of major importance and about which I have been steadfast, albeit not throughout my entire life.  It was not until I was willing to live my life honestly that I started doing it my way.  

What I have in mind here is life style.  Well actually, not just life style but, living a life according to who I really am, in other words, being true to myself.  When I was in my late forties, my children were almost grown and I had been married for nearly 25 years.  I finally realized that being attracted to and falling in love with females, rather than males was not a fleeting, temporary phase of my development.  Instead this was my true nature and was part of who I was.  I also came to the realization that sexuality is a huge part of who a person is.  If I was going to ever be true to myself, I needed to come out. This would not be easy because I had been married to my best friend, and a good person.  I came to understand, however, that I would not survive if I did not do it my way and come out.  That other woman whose role I had been playing all my life might have survived, but, it would have been in an unhappy and depressed state and that was not my way.

My way is to be comfortable in my skin.  Although it has taken the better part of a lifetime to get there, now I can say with assurance I am just that--comfortable, happy, content, and at peace--and that is my way.

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus,  OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change).  She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years.  Since her retirement her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.