Camping by Ricky

In the summer of 1986, I was in the Air Force and stationed at Little Rock AFB in Jacksonville, Arkansas. While there my wife, Deborah and I got the irresistible urge to buy a tent trailer in which to go camping with our three children. We looked at several models and finally decided to purchase the top-of-the-line Coleman tent camper. We were mesmerized by the quality and creature comforts built into the unit.

It had a queen size bed at one end and a double bed at the other. The table could be converted into a space for one or two small children. The refrigerator could be run on propane, electricity, or the battery. There was an outside compartment for the Coleman stove as well as a stove on the inside. An electric air conditioner was mounted in the roof along with a fresh air vent. The hot water heater ran on either gas or electricity. Besides plenty of storage space, there was a room for a standup shower and another room for the indoor port-a-potty. Completely prepared for travel, the unit was slightly longer than our Chevy Astro van.

We promised each other that due to the cost, we would go camping at least twice a month. That promise was easy to make but hard to maintain in the short to long term. My duty schedule enabled me to have weekends off but not consistently. So, gradually our commitment to camping waned.

Deborah and I loved to visit and camp in state and federal parks. Our thought was that the camper was a good deal because many parks do not have motels or hotels within their boundaries so the camper would be our portable home at a park.

In February 1987, Deborah became pregnant with our last child and that spring, I received orders transferring me to Ellsworth AFB, near Rapid City, SD. We were all excited to go but me most of all, as I had finally “had it” up the “ying-yang” with a completely incompetent commander and really “could not wait” to get away from there.

We left Jacksonville in late May or early June enroute to Ellsworth. Deborah was feeling pretty pregnant and enduring morning sickness, fatigue, and gestational diabetes. Greatly adding to her discomfort was the oppressive muggy heat. We only made about 150-miles that day and spent the night in our camper in northern Arkansas in a “mom & pop” tiny campground where other RV‘s were parked within 3-feet on either side.

The next day we only went about 50-miles because Deborah was so stressed and uncomfortable. We camped in a Missouri state part a few miles off the main highway. Our spot was under a canopy formed by overarching trees which kept out the direct sunlight and provided much shade to keep the temperature way down. There was even a children’s play area close by.

The next morning, Deborah was feeling better and we and the kids all took a walk along one of the park nature trails. This one was about ¾-mile long and remained in the forest mostly under the trees where it was shady and cool. Along the trail we discovered wild strawberries and raspberries. We stopped and ate a few each then finished our walk. The trail began and ended very near our campsite. By this time Deborah was a little “tuckered out” and wanted to rest quietly (i.e. without the kids making noise), so she made an offer we did not want to refuse. Deborah suggested that while she rested, that all of us go back along the trail with some small buckets and pick as many strawberries and raspberries as we could. She said that when we got back, she would then make us some pancakes with the berries included. She didn’t need to say it twice. In a couple of minutes we were off and she was asleep.

We stayed at that campground another day and Deborah recuperated quite well and the kids had fun playing in a new environment with other kids whom also were camping overnight. The next day, we continued our journey to South Dakota without any further significant problems except for the “Are we there yet?” and “How much longer?” routine as the endless miles of the Great Plains rolled by.

© 17 March 2014

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

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

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

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

Feeling Different by Phillip Hoyle

As a young adult in seminary discussions I realized that sometimes students and professors alike didn’t know what I was going on about. A professor would listen to my ideas and respond, “Very interesting, Mr. Hoyle.” I took it he had no clear understanding of my perspective. That was okay, something I had encountered most of my life. I was talking about one of these seminary “interesting” instances with my mentor Katherine Williams. “They must think I’m strange,” I concluded.

“You are strange, Phillip,” she replied without hesitation.
Strange was not new to me. Although I didn’t feel particularly unaccepted or unacceptable as a teenager, I was aware that my sexual yearnings were unusual enough that they could get me into a lot of trouble or at least make my life a problem to other folk. Besides that, I was mildly nerdy but found my niche in music. If any musician fits in, I fit in easily enough singing in church, school and community. I was a reluctant leader in a couple of school organizations. I felt different; I was different: for instance, I didn’t know any other kids my age who organized music groups; I didn’t know very many guys who studied as attentively as I did although I admit I didn’t over-do it; I was physically rather uncoordinated, but not so much as to be made into a fool; I had good humor; I was independent and happy to be so. My feeling different didn’t make me feel particularly bad since I was easily entertained, easy going, and tolerant of groups and different kinds of people. By that time in my life I was reconciled to the fact that I was quite different and that the difference was acceptable to me if not to anyone else.

In college, I felt attracted to three guys: Todd, Dirk, and Chad. Todd and Chad seemed straight. I assumed Dirk was but now wonder if he was bisexual. He seemed somehow attracted to me as if he knew I was do-able. We never went beyond touching disguised as wrestling. Straight Chad was rather needy, and I fell for him. He was the first person I ever lost sleep over. But I was on an earnest straight road toward marriage. After seven years of marriage, I had a one-night stand with a gay friend. Our friendship continued. After nine years of marriage, I fell in love with a man and forged a friendship that after five years added a sexual element. The sex was sporadic, yet the love and interest remained constant.

While living in Albuquerque, a mid-life crisis led me into two homosexual affairs. I conducted these contacts with less care than before as I explored an increasingly gay world. The feelings had changed; my feelings.

Around that time a gay friend said to me, “No one can grow up gay in America without developing some neurosis.” His assertion would mean all gays need psychiatric help. I objected to the notion but then recalled hearing a lecture by a psychiatrist who reckoned ninety per cent of his patients didn’t really need his help. He judged they needed trusted friends to talk with. He laughed at himself saying he was a highly paid substitute friend. The neurosis, if that is the accurate term, subsides when one is accepted in love.

My Albuquerque affairs seemed that to me: the friendships that could sustain me and my sanity. They also were sexual. The first one would never be more than sex play, play I found exciting and that helped me understand so much about my own needs. It afforded the sexual contrast, the complement I desired. The second affair had an emotionally complicated excitement the first did not proffer yet it was sexually boring: the techniques my partner initiated were always the same. I realized sex in my marriage had measures of all these experiences, but the feelings of the homosex offered an amazing contrast. I discovered needs and joys that thrilled me when with these two men. (No, there was never a three-way. Oh well.)

Much of my life I have felt different. I continue to feel different. I’m sure it’s not just because I am gay or that I was always homosexual. It’s the whole package of my life, my different and strange life. I love it. I love myself. I love life.

© Denver, 2011

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.” 

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

Lavender University by Pat Gourley

My involvement in the Gay Community Center began back in 1976. My first volunteer duties started very shortly after it opened at its first location in the 1400 block of Lafayette. This was an old brick two story duplex that I think was owned at the time by the Unitarian Church on the corner and the Center was renting the space from them. My main duties initially involved phone volunteering and coordinating other phone volunteers along with building our database of referrals, which we kept on a single Rolodex! A majority of our calls were for social referrals to local bars and bathes and the emerging number of local LGBT organizations, and also not a few requests for gay-sensitive therapists and health care providers. We referred men frequently to the Men’s Coming Out Group still in existence today, which met early on in the Unitarian Church itself, their library I think.

1976 was the year I started nursing school and eventually did my Community Health rotation at the Center. One of my nursing student activities was participating, as a tester, in a weekly STD clinic at the Center on Friday evenings. I am not sure why it wasn’t on a Monday rather than a Friday since the business would have probably been more brisk after a busy weekend in the late seventies, the age of thriving bathhouses. These clinics involved a fair amount of counseling on STD’s and how you got them and how to possibly avoid getting them. Unfortunately, though, we gay men rather cavalierly thought of STD’s as just the cost of doing business and not something to particularly strive to avoid. We drew blood for syphilis and did throat, penis and rectal cultures for gonorrhea. HIV was still several years away.

My Center volunteer activities drifted from phone work and coordination to milking penises and swabbing buttholes to the much more highbrow efforts involved with a program of the Center called Lavender University. Where or from whom the name came has been lost in the mist but it was a queer take off at the time on the very successful Denver Free University. I was a member of the Center’s University Staff from its inception until probably early 1984 when The Center kind of imploded around a variety of issues including extreme tension between some community-based organizations, the tumultuous resignation of Carol Lease and the demands and urgency of the emerging AIDS epidemic. I do believe much of this tumult was fueled in no small part at the time by often-blatant sexism and an at times over the top focus on the perceived supremacy of the penis within the gay male community but that is a topic for another time.

Our quasi mission statement read as follows: “Lavender University of the Rockies is a free school by and for the lesbian and gay communities of Colorado. It is dedicated to the free exchange of ideas, to the examination of diverse points of view and to free speech without censorship.” In addition to being on the University staff I was an occasional instructor offering often erudite classes including one called: Evolving Queer Spirituality or The Potential Significance of Paganism For Gay Men further subtitled “might Christianity just be paganism with the gayness taken out.” In only three of the course catalogs I managed to keep I also see I offered a class on the Tarot and one year a November 1st celebration of the Harvest Sabbat. Yeah, what can I say this was certainly my “witch-phase?”

The most fulfilling repeated offering I made though was one for gay men and involved a series of writings we would read and dissect by gay visionaries including Edward Carpenter, Gerald Heard, Harry Hay, Mitch Walker, and Don Kilhefner among others. These offerings were usually weekly and involved spirited group discussion around that week's selected piece and food. Most of the sessions were held at the Center or my house up in Five Points. Many of the attendees were budding radical fairies and some friendships were made that last until this day.

These were probably the peak years of what I will rather presumptuously and ostentatiously call my Queer-Radical-Phase. These years of my life involved hours and hours of community work and play with many other often very receptive comrades in arms. It was a very exciting and challenging time for me personally and I think for the larger LGBT community, the world was truly becoming our oyster. It was constantly being reinforced for me on a daily basis that Harry Hay was right-on that we were a distinct people and a real cultural minority.

It is my belief that it was the slowing emerging AIDS nightmare that derailed this truly grassroots revolution and really forced a refocusing of our energies into survival. The tensions created by that little retrovirus locally nearly led to the end of The Gay and Lesbian Community Center and certainly to lots of soul searching and critique of the rich expressions of much of the gay male world we had come to know and love in the 1970’s.

I like to fantasize that if AIDS had not come along we would have seen a much more radical queer community and force for seminal social change than we are today. The community might have led a nationwide revolt that would have tossed Ronald Reagan out of office in 1984 and reversed the countries unfortunate slide into oligarchy. Perhaps igniting a re-election of Jimmy Carter and a return of the solar panels to the roof of the White House. We might well have been in the vanguard of the dissolution of traditional marriage, replacing it with a much more polymorphous and rich arrangement of human interaction and loving support.

A severe curtailing and redefinition of the American military into a force truly devoted to peace on earth would have been another goal. Instead of the race to the local recruiters office for those with no other economic choice everyone would do two years or more of service to the community that would have been of great benefit to the entire world and health of the planet. But perhaps I am putting way too much on our plate or …. hmm … maybe I did do too much LSD in the 70’s.

© April 2014

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 have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

On Boredom by Nicholas

A woman I know tells me that she cannot sink. She dives into the lake and just pops right back up to the surface. She tries to dive down head first into the water and her feet stick out on top kicking air. She has even worn weights to help her plumb the depths. All to no avail. She just buoyantly pops up and floats on.

That’s similar to my experience with boredom. I can’t seem to get bored. I can’t sink into a quiet melancholia that comes with having nothing to do, nothing of interest or amusement. I have almost forgotten how to softly sigh in sad ennui. Oh, for some emptiness, I pine.

This is a problem. I envy those who can avail themselves of such delights. I wake up some mornings and say to myself, this is it, this morning I am going to do nothing, just get bored. Mope around the house with nothing on my mind except that there is nothing on my mind. Time to gaze at the ceiling or my navel and try not to think about it.

So, I head off to the coffee shop with my New Yorker and there’s the mistake. I’m sitting there all blank and bored and, idly leafing through the magazine, I find a piece about something I didn’t even know I was interested in. I can’t put it down until I’ve finished reading about people who spend weeks underground exploring deep caves a mile and a half below the surface of the earth. Oops, there I go again not being bored.

There’s always something to do--something I want to do--that I can’t find the time to get bored. Or should I say, I can’t find the interest in getting bored? I’ll go for a bike ride on a sunny, warm day down along the river. I’ll start a project in the yard like getting the garden ready for planting. I’ll draw diagrams of what I want to plant where. There’s always something in the house needing doing or cleaning or fixing. I have to get the guest room ready for my mother-in-law’s visit. And then there’s yoga classes, writing classes, preparing stories to tell on Mondays, and volunteer work at Project Angel Heart on Thursdays. And there are books to read, trips to plan, friends to have lunch with or coffee or dinner, plays to see, and art exhibits to stand in awe of.

When am I ever going to get around to being bored? Do I need to write it down in my day-timer? It’s set then—1 p.m., Tuesday: get bored.

It must take determination to get bored, I think, and I just don’t have it. But that seems counter to the whole idea. Isn’t boredom supposed to happen to you, like flu, not something you can plan and manipulate? Boredom is supposed to be unwanted, not sought after. Something to get over, not luxuriate in.

Maybe I’m easily distracted and easily entertained or just plain shallow and shallow people don’t get bored because we just don’t get it at all and go on being easily entertained.

Now, I’m not saying I’m always happy. That’s another issue entirely. In fact, I spent most of last year unhappy though not bored. That was the January my husband nearly died in surgery. His recovery was slow, long and difficult and for two months we didn’t know if he was going to make it. It wasn’t until one day in September that I realized that he had actually made it and recovered and therefore, so could I and a little happiness crept back into my life. I might even have gotten a bit bored then when I realized I was no longer a 24-hour, on-call nurse and had to find something else to do, like get back to my life. What did I used to do, I remember asking myself one day.

My quest to be bored doesn’t mean that I am against happiness. I don’t march around the house like Lady Macbeth saying, “Out damned spot of happiness, out!” although happy people can really get on one’s nerves. Like Starbucks caffeine jockeys who always want to know how my day is going so far. It’s none of your business and you don’t care, I want to say, and besides I’m trying not to be chipper because I’m trying to be bored and just hang and let my mind dry out in the breeze. Maybe caffeine isn’t a good idea here.

When I was a kid, I remember getting bored late in the summer when it was really hot and the thrill of summer vacation had faded like the lawn I wasn’t interested in watering. Of course, we, the kids on my block, weren’t about to admit that we were ready to go back to school where we at least had something to do, so we just hung out and did nothing until one of our parents caught on and they always had a million things to do, like water the lawn. You never complained about being bored to your parents. That was dangerous and, besides, defeated the purpose of being bored.

Boredom seems to me to be a tremendous luxury. It’s not merely a matter of quiet time—though that’s hard enough to find. It’s more like a psychological desperation, a sense of being at the end of a rope. Nothing appeals. Nothing excites. It lets you empty your mind, let it go dry.

And then when the psychic rain does fall a new seed will sprout and you’ll go, “That’s cool,” and you’re off on a starry new trail of fascination. Boredom can turn around to a path to happiness. Find a new book to read, a new project to write, a new recipe to try for dinner. Something, anything to get out of the doldrums, put wind back into my sails and get my little boat moving.

But right now I need to stop moving, let the wind die down, let the clouds gather. I’ve been retired for five years and—though nobody believes me--what I need is a day off. To get bored.

© June, 2014

About the Author

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.

Hmmm, Strange by Betsy

I have an in-law, a cousin, who, himself is not so strange, rather his world of knowledge and know-how seems strange to one who does not study physics. Bill, and his wife Marion, my cousin, are a couple of those spoon benders you may have heard about. Because of his knowledge and belief in the world of quantum physics, and, shall we say some sort of a heightened awareness, Bill and his associates are able to bend heavy spoons with their bare hands, no tools. They twist the handles into cork screw shape using nothing but 10 frail digits and the power of their minds.

Now, you may be saying, “Well, it’s some sort of trick, perhaps a visual trick.”

Trust me, it’s not a trick. Gill and I witnesses the feat with our own eyes.

My cousin gave us the spoon as a souvenir, or as a reminder of the power of the mind. The twisted spoon was carefully laid away amongst our most prized possessions, but somehow is not making its presence known when we most would like to put our hands on it. Perhaps we hid it too well or the magic continues and it has vaporized into a billion particles, but the tortured tool is not to be found in the house. Hmmm, strange.

Bill did the spoon bending as a demonstration of a concept of quantum physics. The fact that it works, perhaps is the result of synchronicity. The phenomenon is based on the theory of quantum mechanics which explains the synchronization of the vibrations of the particles that make up energy with matter. Now apparently, if you can synchronize these things, you too can be a spoon-bender. Hmmm, strange.

String theory is another subject on the agenda of these scientists. String theory has to do with particle theory. I do not speak the language of physics and do not have the concepts and therefore can neither understand nor attempt to communicate what any of it is about. Only that it has to do with the make-up of subatomic particles--the make-up of all matter. The recent discovery of the so-called God Particle has brought much of this to light recently. Even the popular explanations are mind-boggling, I find.

Subatomic particles leave me cold. I cannot see them bouncing around when I look at something and, therefore, am not terribly interested in them.

The theories of quantum physics are to an unsophisticated mind such as mine are, well, strange. Take for example the concept that time is not moving. According to some physicists the idea that the past is gone, the present is here now, and the future is yet to come is but an illusion to us earthly creatures. All of time, all that ever was and all that ever will be is actually present now.

We’ve all heard the advise given that we should live in the NOW, not worry about the future or live with regret for the past. The idea that the Now consists of the past and the future as well as the present moment in time, that the flow of time is an illusion, I find, presents problems when trying to apply this simple advise, live in the now.

All I can do is continue to try to live in my illusionary world and try to focus on what appears to me to be the NOW, hopefully learn from the past, and look forward to the future, but mind you, stay focused on the NOW-- and right at this particular NOW I can’t stop scratching my head when I think of my cousin and all those twisted spoons. Hmmm, strange.

© July, 2014

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.

Birth Experiences by Will Stanton

Unlike much of the rest of the world, I have no first-hand experience with this topic “Birth Experiences.” I never was married, and I never sired children, not even as a randy sailor sowing his oats in various foreign ports. I never watched a human birth, and I certainly never was a pediatric physician. So again, it looks like I'm limited to writing something just for fun, which I enjoyed doing.

Let's assume that some people can actually remember being born. That's a bit of a stretch, no pun intended. That was for me in 1945, a date now seeming to be in antiquity. Well, that doesn't make much of a story. So, let's assume that people claiming to remember previous lives is factual and legitimate. I never have put much stock in that; however, to my surprise, there are some reputable people who claim to have become converted believers.

I was reminded of the topic of reincarnation by today's TV news interview with psychiatrist Dr. James Tucker. He states in his book “Return to Life: Extraordinary Cases of Children Who Remember Past Lives” that he has researched many convincing cases. He described one of his cases about a very young boy who kept dreaming of the exact details of being shot down in his fighter-plane and also mentioning the name of his close friend and wing-man. Dr. Tucker thoroughly researched all the details related by the boy and found that they were factual. Apparently, Dr. Tucker's many remarkable cases have converted him to being a believer to the extent that he had the courage to announce it and to write about it.

All this reminded me of a book that I had read several years ago by the head of the psychiatric unit in a Florida hospital, Dr. Brian Weiss, who, later in his career, employed for the first time therapeutic hypnotic age-regression for one patient. He was astounded that she claimed to recall, not one, but several lives spanning over many centuries and reported them in great detail. No, she did not claim to have been the Queen of Sheba, but, rather, she recounted lives of hardship and, sometimes, of illness and death.

At the time that I was reading this book, I mentioned that fact to my friend, a psychologist, who surprised me by stating that he coincidentally was reading a similar book, “Suggestive Reincarnation,” by psychiatrist Dr. Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia, who had been engaged in careful, scientifically conservative research ever since the 1950s.

All of this is very interesting; however, my being a “Doubting Thomas” by nature, I can not become particularly excited by it. I can, however, feel mildly curious and interested in the topic considering the fact that such reputable medical scientists have expressed such surprising findings.

So for fun, what birth years and lives can I claim to remember? How about 344 B.C.E., 1705, 1845, 1904, 1934, 1943, and 1945? There seem to be several gaps there, especially in the early years. What's wrong with my memory? Why can't I remember? Regardless, apparently I'm not sufficiently motivated to run right out and engage in hypnotic age-regression. My current life is more than enough to try to contend with.
© January, 2014

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

Great Performances by Ricky

Part 1 - Ballet

I am not a connoisseur of ballet. My experiences with ballet being limited to a television performance of The Nutcracker, a portion of Swan Lake, and a glimpse of what it takes to become a ballet dancer in the movie Billy Elliot. You can understand then when I say I basically have no vast collection of ballet memories upon which to evaluate any ballet, let alone enough knowledge to judge one performance as being “great” compared to all the others. Having explained my lack of background, I will do it anyway.

This past week, I did watch a ballet that I had recorded on my DVR off the Rocky Mountain PBS channel, a ballet performed by the Milwaukie Ballet that is titled Peter Pan. Many of you already know that Peter Pan is my favorite childhood story and should not be surprised that I would want to watch it. I desired to watch this ballet not because I love ballet, but because I didn’t think that with such a varied and complicated story background, anyone could adequately stage and perform a ballet to do justice to the story. I wanted to see how the choreographer and composer along with all the other persons involved in the production could actually create a decent performance of a great story.

Put together a great performance they did. I can’t comment on the quality of the dancing or compare the dancers to other ballet performers, but I can say that I loved their skill and the talent displayed in this performance. The choreography, music, costumes, and set design were appropriate. The technical application of flying was skillfully done and Peter’s dance with his “shadow” was creative, unexpected, and very well done. Another technical achievement was Tinker Bell’s costume of multi-colored lights and the occasional transitions from live dancer to traveling balls of light sometimes on the walls and sometimes in Peter’s hand.

Another unexpected treat was the interesting way the audience was involved in the “Do You Believe in Fairies?” scene. Ballets being void of speaking (at least in my experience), the scene had to be silent and yet the audience was able to participate by waving small fiber-optic flashlights at the appropriate time.

All-in-all, I believe this was a great performance.

Part 2 – Summer Sausage

From about 1989 until 1997, I worked for the South Dakota Division of Emergency Management, the state equivalent of the Federal Emergency Management Agency known by its acronym, FEMA. My position was titled the State Hazard Mitigation Officer. South Dakota had several federally declared natural disasters during the time I was serving there. The disasters were mostly flood, drought, and tornado related. By the time I departed, I managed about $50M in disaster mitigation project funds.

After local government jurisdictions submitted their project applications and the “state” selected which ones to recommend to FEMA for approval, FEMA would send a team of two young grant professionals to visit each proposed site and further evaluate the proposed project in relation to the site to verify that it was not only feasible but also would actually mitigate the problem caused by the disaster.

On one such visit by the FEMA team, I was part of a “great performance.” I will call the two team members Bill and Ted because I am reporting their “excellent adventure.” We all traveled in their FEMA rented car to visit project locations throughout the state. Our first stop was in Yankton. We stopped at the motel in which we would spend the night and began to check-in. I went first, followed by Bill and then Ted. We were all chatting with the clerk and Ted most of all. When the clerk slid Ted’s credit card back to Ted, I was standing by Ted’s side and reached in and slid the card off the counter and gave it to Bill who was standing behind me. (Anyone who knows me well enough will not be surprised by my action.)

Ted never noticed and put his wallet away. While still standing at the desk, I suggested that we go to dinner next, and Bill, while putting Ted’s credit card in his wallet, said, “I’ll even buy dinner.” I choked back a laugh and the clerk started to smile and laugh quietly also. Bill did buy Ted’s dinner, but on Bill’s own card. I bought my own. The next morning we all left for our next destination with Ted still not knowing that Bill had his credit card.

Once again we arrived at a motel and Ted, Bill, and I went in and registered. Ted was first to register and for some reason he could not find his credit card. Bill and I suggested that perhaps he left it at the previous night’s motel and that he should call the motel and check. Ted used his cell phone to do just that but to no avail. I finally suggested that maybe he just overlooked it in his wallet. Ted had checked his wallet several times before I suggested it, but it still wasn’t there when he checked again.

Bill and I were just dripping with empathy, sincerity, and concern for Ted. It was a great performance up to that point. I suggested to Ted that perhaps the card had somehow fallen out of his wallet and was somewhere around the driver’s seat in the car. Ted, being desperate at this point, went out to check and left his wallet on the desk as he did so. Bill immediately put Ted’s credit card back in the wallet, at which point the desk clerk cracked up laughing. We even had time to explain how we had gotten it away from Ted the night before.

Ted returned from the car totally crestfallen and defeated. Bill suggested that he check his wallet one more time very carefully. Ted resisted but then looked and found his credit card almost immediately. Of course the clerk, Bill, and I were appropriately happy for him, again dripping with sincerity. Ted never did catch on. I was the last to register so the other two had gone ahead to move the car and to locate their rooms. The clerk gave me 10 extra coupons for a free small French fry at a hamburger chain because we had given her such wonderful entertainment. Yes, this was a great performance, but nothing like the one the next day.

We were on the way to a very small town in NE South Dakota when I decided that another great performance was needed. So, I told Bill and Ted that we were going to a small town in a part of South Dakota where people were not fond of federal officials and that a couple of them had “disappeared” in the past two years while in that region and suggested that they be very polite and agreeable. I told them that we were going to meet with the mayor of the town to visit and discuss the project. I also told them that we would meet the mayor at his butcher shop.

Upon arrival, the mayor was in the “workroom” in back of the shop so we waited in the lobby-display or sales area. Ted noticed a display of Summer Sausages and we all began to discuss how much we like summer sausage. I made a small comment that maybe the missing federal officials had been turned into summer sausage. Bill and Ted suddenly got very quiet and thoughtful.

The mayor finished his business in the workroom and we all went outside and walked around the town for a while viewing the proposed projects various locations. The mayor explained his vision on how the project would mitigate some flooding in his town. The tour ended up in front of his butcher shop where it began. About that time, a butcher’s assistant came out the front door and told the mayor that they were ready for him. The mayor asked us to wait as he had to go butcher a hog and he went inside. After a minute, Bill said he had never seen a hog butchered and wanted to watch. Putting words to action, he began to walk along the side of the building towards the rear of it. I called to him and said, “Stop. Haven’t you ever seen the movies where someone is told to wait but doesn’t and sees something he shouldn’t have seen and gets killed over it?” Bill stopped dead in his tracks and looked back at me. Before he could say anything in rebuttal, there was a gunshot from behind the building and Bill came back to where I was faster than when he left.

We then went in the shop’s front door and waited for the mayor to return, which he did momentarily. We all made a bit of small talk and prepared to leave for our next destination. The mayor said wait a minute I have something for you and went back into the workroom. I said, “Oh oh” and obviously but slowly moved away from Bill and Ted in the general direction of the front door. I could tell by their faces that they were not calm but not sure what to do. The mayor came back about then and handed each of us a tube of Summer Sausage. We thanked him and left.

Once in the car, I made a comment that since this appeared to be fresh sausage, we didn’t need to worry about eating those missing federal officials. I never did tell Bill and Ted that I made up the whole background story. It was a great performance even if I do say so myself.

© 20 April 2014

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

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

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

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

Drinking by Phillip Hoyle

Socially speaking—like at most Friday night happy hours—

• the first beer numbs my lips,
• the second beer elevates my vocal volume and brings on laughter, 
• the third beer helps me become very friendly.

Which leaves me wondering about my friend Little T who years ago was so freaked out when, in such a friendly moment, I slid my bar stool in behind his and affectionately put my hand on his shoulder. Within minutes he left the bar all upset. I followed him out to see if he was okay. He claimed to be okay but wouldn’t afterwards answer or return my phone calls. A mutual friend intervened and paved the way for Little T and me to begin talking again. She encouraged him not to turn down a friendship with me and warned me not to call him for a couple of weeks. When Little T and I later talked about the event he said he assumed I was sex addicted like so many other gay men he knew, whereas he was a love and romance guy. I had thought at the time I was playing a love and romance move so to speak. But in the ensuing months of our relationship by getting to know him much better I found out much more.

Little T was addicted to drugs, an assortment of marijuana, mushrooms, and probably more. He had long before given up using LSD, but a couple of years after that reconciliation between us he started using crystal meth with his boyfriend. By then Little T and I had developed a wonderful, supportive friendship sharing our loves of music, literature, and wide-ranging conversation.

Then he disappeared. Finally, several years later he told a friend to give me his phone number. I waited a number of weeks—or was it months?—and finally contacted him to discover he was living out of state. Eventually he moved back to Denver. Of course, I remained understanding in the light of his challenges. I loved the man, still do, appreciate our friendship, and look forward to it continuing many years. I accept his addictive personality. I applaud his quitting the drugs. I want the best for him.

Still when we are together I can get confused. Sometimes Little T encourages me to drink more, even a third beer. I wonder silently, “Don’t you recall the night I so freaked you out? Surely you don’t mean for that to happen again.” I tell myself either he has a bad memory or I am just not going to “go there.” I guess I just don’t know. I do recall another friend, Big T, saying to me, “Oh Phillip, you just aren’t paying attention.” Now I pay attention but cannot for the life of me figure out what behaviors are meaningful enough to respond to. This drinking stuff always seems to leave me uncertain. Perhaps I should just stick to the Coca Cola I was weaned on although they don’t even make that kind anymore. © Denver, 2013

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

Where Was I in the Sixties by Pat Gourley

May 2014. Pat Gourley

In hindsight the sixties were clearly the decade of my most dramatic and far reaching spiritual, political and social changes. I went from being the “best little boy in the world” in 1960, a devout virginal Catholic altar boy living on a bucolic rural Indiana farm to a card carrying member of the Democratic Socialist Party, a connoisseur of good LSD, a practicing homosexual (yes, I was still “practicing” at getting it right in 1969) and a budding Dead Head intent on avoiding a trip to Vietnam.

In retrospect I guess I was lucky my head didn’t explode. My hair went from a buzz cut with just a swipe of Brylcream to a shoulder length mass of reddish brown curls. My world in 1960 had great order, comfort and certainty that was only beginning to have cracks in it due no doubt to my budding sexuality, which seemed to be very much out of step with other boys my age. There was a God in heaven and all would be taken care of in the end. Well that worldview had certainly had gone out the window by 1969.

From 1960 to 1965 the event that sticks out most was that fall November day in 1963 and the Kennedy assassination. I clearly recall the day and the event. We were let out early from class that day. I was attending a Catholic High School in Michigan City, a nearly thirty mile one-way daily ride back and forth that my parents, at great economic sacrifice, felt was necessary I suppose to keep me out of the clutches of the Protestant heathens in the local public schools. The day of Kennedy’ s assassination resulted in having to spend a few lonely and frightening hours in the Michigan City Public Library before I could catch the bus home. It was not a school bus but a greyhound bus-type of Transit Company that went within a mile of my home. I would be left off where our country road met the highway and one of my parents, usually mom, would pick me up.

The Kennedy assassination was a particularly hard blow to my parents. I mean on some level I think they thought his death was a conspiracy since an Irish Catholic in the White House really was an insult to many who had a different version of social order and that could not be tolerated. We did have a T.V. and were of course glued to it for days, so much for the Pope coming over to take on the reins of the U.S. government.

The most significant event of the decade for me personally though was in March of 1965 when my family sold our small Indiana farm and moved to another farm northwest of Chicago just outside of a small town called Woodstock. It was this move that facilitated many of the most impacting events in my life. Many of which I have written about or at least alluded to for this Story Telling Group.

It was this transplantation that would result in my first sex with another man one Good Friday afternoon in 1967 in the biology lab of the Catholic High School I was attending, the beginning of an affair that would last into the early 1970’s. It was also while attending this high school that I encountered the truly radical Holy Cross nun who would forever change my political and worldview and to whom I am eternally indebted. A decade later I met Harry Hay who was always admonishing me to look carefully at my most dearly held “unexamined assumptions”, but it was this little nun who really got me doing that in very life changing ways starting in 1966. She was my muse for sure encouraging me to “not trust leaders or put my money into parking meters” to badly quote Bob Dylan.

The move to Illinois also meant that I would attend the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana and though this college was no Berkeley it was still much more progressive than many of the public Universities in Indiana. There I fell in with the Democratic Socialist Party leader Michael Harrington, the renowned author of Poverty in America, and became the dyed-in-the-wool socialist I remain today, only now with more of a small “s”.

It was in 1968 that I moved out of the dorm, discovered LSD and met a bunch of hippies with whom I lived collectively in a variety of settings for years to come including a relocation to Denver. They were the dastardly influence of course that introduced me to the music of the Grateful Dead.

And in addition to launching my sexual life as the big homo that I am the sixties probably much more importantly provided me with a strong foundation for becoming the out proud queer man dedicated to furthering the Homosexual Agenda that I became. I owe this strong foundation in no small part to my loving parents, a great civics teacher, and a philandering old socialist and not least of all my first lover a man 20 plus years my senior. The ensuing decades have really just been a building and expansion process on the values and beliefs seared into my soul from 1960-1970. Hopefully they will carry me to a peaceful and content death satisfied that in some small way I have impacted this very transient world of ours for the better.

© May, 2014

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 have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

One Summer Afternoon by Nicholas

One summer afternoon I went to the Botanic Gardens to see what was in bloom and to watch the plants grow. They didn’t grow much while I was there so I sat in the Asian garden and jotted down some notes for future stories.

One summer afternoon I remembered the bike ride I took that summer morning to Washington Park going past Ray’s apartment, making a loop around the park past Steven’s house, and then back home.

One summer afternoon I took a writing class on how to put together a memoir that might interest readers. The instructor guided us through exercises on how to construct a narrative with plot, characters and dramatic tension. Just like writing a novel except you’re not supposed to make it up.

One summer afternoon I went to Cheesman Park and saw young men without shirts on running along the trails and playing volleyball. They did not seem to be having as much fun as I was.

One summer afternoon I took the bus into downtown to run some errands and hang out, read the New Yorker and have a really good coffee at Common Grounds on Wazee Street. Downtown is always full of people busy doing their things.

One summer afternoon I took a nap in our cool basement on the sofa that Jamie and I call “the couch of narcosis” because it will put you to sleep, guaranteed.

One summer afternoon I walked into the hospital to see Jamie for the umpteenth time and had a flash of familiarity as if this was just normal life. I told myself to stop that, I don’t want to think that going to the hospital is our normal life.

One summer afternoon Jamie and I stood in front of our house chatting with a neighbor about changes on the block and then some other neighbors who were walking their dog stopped by and filled us all in on some other gossip. We like our neighbors a lot.

One summer afternoon, I discovered that PrideFest is pretty irrelevant to my life. It seems that the crowning achievement of lesbian and gay liberation is skinny hairless young boys walking around in public in their underpants beneath the colorful logos of many huge corporations that want to sell them those underpants and other things.

One summer afternoon I picked fresh arugula from my garden for dinner that night.

One summer afternoon I cut the grass. Don’t mow your lawn in the afternoon; it is too damn hot.

One summer afternoon Jamie and I just fell into bed—and we weren’t sleepy at all.

One summer afternoon I flew into San Francisco International Airport, got on a train into the city, and spent a week of summer afternoons and evenings visiting friends and family, feasting on fabulous meals, going to museums, walking along the ocean, breathing fresh sea air, and eating chocolate cake.

One summer afternoon I went to the shopping mall not to do any shopping but just to wander through a cool environment on a hot day.

On this summer afternoon—and on many summer afternoons and in other seasons as well—I am sitting in a small room to hear what other people do with their summer afternoons.

© 17 June 2013

About the Author

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.

The Recital by Betsy

It was 1944. In Europe bombs were falling; in London, but mostly in Berlin. The Allies were preparing to invade Normandy. I didn’t know any of this at the time. My parents didn’t think it would be good for a 7 year old to know about the horrors of war--not the details anyway. Everyone knew there was a war going on across the ocean. I knew about rationing, I even had my own book of savings stamps, there was never enough gas to go anywhere, but otherwise the war didn’t really effect my life. Life for me in 1944 was pretty normal.

I had recently started piano lessons. My grandmother, an accomplished musician, had hoped that the talent she had perhaps had skipped a generation and maybe all the music genes had descended into my being.

Life was normal until I got into my piano lessons. My teacher had escaped the war in Europe and, I suspect, had escaped the Holocaust. Of course, at the time we didn’t know there was a holocaust going on, and if we had known, adults certainly weren’t going to talk about it in the presence of children. The war in Europe had effected my teacher’s life all right. I suspect she still had loved ones suffering in concentration camps, or maybe they were already dead. Maybe for her making a living in a strange country in hard times was barely endurable. But I sensed my teacher’s insecurity and volatility. I did not want to make her life more difficult by being unable to perform.

"You must count!" screamed my teacher. "One and two and three and one and two and three and. I turn on the metronome, yes?"

"Tick, tock, tick, tock," chanted the metronome. "We are running out of time. Recital coming, recital coming," chanted teacher.

"Maybe my mother will tell me it’s okay just to play the right notes. Don’t worry about the counting at the same time," I thought.

Am I ready for a recital? Mommy will know.

My mother assured me I was ready for the recital. After all. My velvet dress was back from the cleaners and we would soon go to the city to buy some Mary Janes and socks with lace cuffs. My hair was the perfect length for braiding. Everything was in perfect order for the recital, my mother assured me.

Everything but the music. I was to play three pieces: Marilyn Dances, A Soldier’s March, and In an English Country Garden. I actually had no idea whether or not I would be able to get through those pieces. I have to wonder if my teacher had any idea if I could get through them.

My mother was confident that everything would be perfect. After all, she was in charge of seeing that I was properly clothed and she herself would be doing the braids.

This particular occasion called for braids with rolls. The first step is to divide the hair in 1/6th’s perfectly symmetrical and each 6th--that is, each hank--being perfectly equal in volume. Mother would then roll the front hanks to form rolls of hair directly above the ears. The remainder of the hank is then braided into the other two hanks. “One and two and three and,” as she deftly wove the hair together into two smooth, perfect braids. I could only hope that in a few hours my hands would move as smoothly and deftly over the piano keys as hers moved as she worked my hair.

The day arrived. I was ready--braids with rolls in place, velvet dress with lace collar, shiny patent leather Mary Janes, socks with lace cuffs. I couldn’t have been more ready--except for being scared stiff. Would Marilyn dance, would the soldier march, would the garden flourish? Or would they all just die there on the stage in front of all those people.

Interesting that I remember such detail about my outward appearance. What I don’t remember is how I performed the music and how I felt after the recital. I guess to my mother--and therefore to me--that was an incidental of minor importance. And perhaps that explains why this was my first--and last recital.
© 8 Oct. 2011

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.

Favorite Literary Character by Will Stanton

When I decided to join the Story-Time group in submitting stories and essays to the blog, I needed to decide whether to use my own name as author or to create a pen-name. I considered the fact that, in some of my stories, I use the names of real persons and real places, which may not always be advisable in a blog. Also, some of my essays speak of especially unusual experiences. As a consequence, I decided to use a pen-name.

Fellow Story-Time member John was showing me how to join the blog, and I had to choose a name and avatar right on the spot. Rather than taking a long time to ponder those decisions, I quickly went with my instincts for both. What immediately came to mind was the name “Will Stanton,” the main character in one of my favorite books. There are a number of Will or William Stantons in the real world; it's a fairly common name. One even was an author of humorous fiction. Yet, the character I thought of is totally fictional, unless the author knows something that I don't know.

The author, Susan Cooper, is a graduate of Oxford University and a brilliant British scholar and writer who has a very deep knowledge of ancient British mythology, Arthurian legends, Celtic and Norse mythology and their connection with each other. She won the Newbery Award and the Welsh Tir na n-Og Award for excellence. In 2012, she won the lifetime Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association. In many ways, I consider her books superior to those of J.K. Rowlings, but unfortunately they preceded by a generation the Potter genre and its highly successful marketing and, consequently, were over-shadowed.

The first time I that I read “The Dark is Rising,” the second volume of her series by the same name, I felt an immediate connection with Will. I saw in myself many of the same character traits as Will. I also was very moved by the humanity of some of the central characters.

I do not know why I am the way I am, why I have such discernible aspects to my personality, feelings, and values. Like most of us, I have tried throughout my life to understand myself, to try to figure out what experiences might have influenced who I am. I gradually have grown to understand that much of who I am is in-born as well as learned.

I have an ingrained sense of right and wrong, and I feel terribly uncomfortable with the idea of anyone, including myself, being tempted to do wrong. Even if there appeared to be great profit or benefit in doing wrong, I feel that I just could not bring myself to engage in it. I also care very much about the good people of the world and feel pain and sorrow if they are harmed or suffer loss. I would like to be able to assist them, to prevent their hurt, wish to undo any hurt, or to heal them if I can not.

There are, however, far too many evil-doers in the world. I am terribly dismayed by the dark side of human nature, the lack of empathy, falsehood, physical and verbal violence, the readiness to harm others. Such negativity seems to affect me more than many other people.

So apparently, I seem to have had throughout my life a powerful connection to Good (with a capital G), often referred to as “The Light.” The concept of “The Dark” that embodies all that is negative and destructive repels me. The two factions of Light and Dark repeatedly struggle to determine the destiny of mankind. The Light fights for the Good, for freedom and free will, whereas the Dark fights for chaos, confusion, subversion, and control of humankind. I actually recall vivid dreams where I joined The Light to battle black, shadowy entities of The Dark. Somehow, I knew that I had the capacity to do battle with Evil. It felt natural to me.

 

The character “Will Stanton” discovers his true role in life upon his eleventh birthday. I suppose that this is pure coincidence; however, I always have had an unexplained, deep connection with the number eleven, my favorite number. When I was very young, I looked forward to becoming eleven, just like Will.



I never have regarded myself as particularly special, no more or less than any other human being. The literary character “Will,” however, does turn out to be special. He is the last of the so-called “Old Ones,” those of the Light whose mission is to prevent the rise of the Dark. When I read that passage for the first time, a deep emotion welled up inside me. Being one of the “Old Ones,” Will does possess some remarkable abilities that are supernormal that help him defeat the Dark.

As for myself, I never have been presumptuous enough to claim special abilities, although I have had upon past occasions, especially when I was young, some rather exceptional experiences that are hard to explain. Occasionally, I have spoken of them, but I realize that some listeners may dismiss them as unreal or at least exaggerated, perhaps because they have had no similar experiences or, perhaps their minds just don't work that way. I'm not aware of any such notable experiences in my later years. Perhaps that is because I became so focused upon trying to deal with the demands of daily life that my my mind was hindered in functioning in a natural manner and without stress.

I hesitate to mention one other comparison; but, to be sincere, I do need to mention it. Will bears the sign of the Celtic cross on his forearm where hot metal of that shape touched his arm. In my case, a professional palm-reader brought out a very large book showing lines found in people's palms, telling me that I have crosses in the palms of my hands, signs that are extremely rare, signs supposedly that indicate, as the books stated, “divine power.” I am too much of a “Doubting Thomas” to be particularly impressed. I dismissed her revelation as unscientific and of no practical significance, whereupon she showed me the pages with the lines and description stating that such signs are, in fact, very rare. Still, it would have taken much more than that to convince me to go bounding off trying to do marvelous things. For the sake of the argument, if I was somehow granted a few special abilities, I can't say that I have found a way of putting them to good use, at least not in any recognizable way.

One major difference between Will and myself is our families. Will is a part of a large, happy, close-knit family that is wonderfully loving and supportive of each other. As you have learned from some of my previous stories, my family was not. So, I was very attracted to the homelife enjoyed by Will and felt that I would have loved to have been part of Will's family, too. As far as the image that I selected for my avatar, I now realize that it coincidentally matches the appearance of Will. That had not occured to me when I chose it. It just turned out that way.

So, although I would not be so presumptious as to claim that I am like Will, one of the “Old Ones,” at least I can identify with part of that term. I feel rather old.

© 8 November 2013

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

Self Labeling by Ricky

Interestingly enough this topic is so two sided in the sense of positive and negative labeling (three or four sided if you consider the options of secret labels or deceptive labels). Perhaps a better way to describe labeling would be: uplifting, destructive, or even empowering. I leave it to each of you individuals to discover or categorize labels into whatever groups you desire.

When I was serving as an officer in the military in the position of a Flight Security Officer in charge of 40 enlisted nuclear missile security guards, at one point I was assigned to lead a flight of personnel who were not pulling together to get the job done smoothly without interpersonal problems. I was not the typical air force officer so, I did not impose “severe punishment” for trouble makers right off the bat when I took over. Instead, I did the following to defuse the problems by emphasizing the similarities between everyone.

At my first “guard mount” I had the men repeatedly organize themselves into different groups as I called out the categories (i.e., one group over here, another stand over there, etc.). The categories (labels) were: Republicans here, Democrats there, others by me; blacks to the right, whites to the left, American Indians across from me, others next to me; Catholics to the left, Protestants to the right, Jewish across from me, others next to me (and so fourth through…); enlisted vs officers; NCO’s vs non-NCO enlisted; rural vs urban origins; Western vs Central vs Northern vs Confederate states; high school vs junior college vs college graduates; 4 year vs 6 year enlistees vs lifers; 18-20 vs 21-25 vs 26-30 vs 31+; married w/no children vs married w/children vs single vs widowed/divorced; action films vs chick flicks; and so on for about 15 minutes. At the end I reminded them that regardless of rank or position or psychological temperament, we all belong to different groups with different people we work with at one time or another; we all have something in common with others that perhaps we didn’t get along with prior to today. So, lighten up and see if you can’t become friends rather than enemies because we are all “stuck” together in the Air Force on this flight.

I am happy to report that as far as I could tell, all the interpersonal problems became non-issues and the flight became the best performing flight in the missile security squadron. Naturally, it was not all my doing, I happened to have an extremely well qualified Flight Security Sergeant as my second in command and most of the credit goes to him.

So moving on to a more personal level, I was quite naïve about many things dealing with sexuality growing up. I engaged in what has been labeled as “age appropriate” sex play/experimentation with both boys and girls as I hit puberty but the only label applied was “this is fun, but don’t let mom, dad, older brother, or anyone else know what we do.” There was one member of my Boy Scout troop who was my main sex play partner but we never did anything while on scout campouts or events. After he moved and I was in high school, my naivety continued to confuse me and I began to wonder why I was not attracted to any girls. Mentally, I was fantasizing about sex with boys (and rarely girls) but noticed that I was not attracted to any particular girls but I was to a few school mates. I just never thought of or realized the implication.

It wasn’t until I was in the Air Force as an officer that the possibility of being gay crept into my mind on a few occasions, but since I was married with kids, I put that thought out and eventually accepted that I might be bi-sexual. Ultimately, after my wife died and through the years of depression and self-evaluation I realized that I am (or at least have a large percentage of gay orientation). With the acceptance of this dual labeling, the stress in my life (and the confusion that went with it) disappeared and I feel much more relaxed and comfortable in my skin and around other men regardless of their orientation. In other words, I now know who/what I am.

So, some labeling can be damaging if it is “true” but denied and acceptance can be liberating but under many circumstances can still be damaging if one is not living in an environment where “truth” is tolerated. I’m pretty sure many of you have had experiences that demonstrate the accuracy of my last statement. Even if you have not, you must know of others who have had those negative experiences of revealing the “truth” to those who don’t tolerate or can’t accept it.

© 11 September 2011

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

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

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

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

The Sprint by Phillip Hoyle

Morning Pages excerpt, September 19

… I’m writing my Morning Pages, the daily exercise I’ve employed the past fourteen years. I am at the beginning of Page 3. So here I hope to sprint. Get into racing position. Put pen to paper. Ready, set, go. The gun sounds. I bound down the college ruled lanes filling each line with words, phrases, sentences. Eventually they form a paragraph, but that doesn’t seem so important while I sprint.

It’s speed I pursue, a record for swift writing. I want to write faster than I can process what I’m doing, to get caught up in the action of it, to open my mind, to disconnect through the physical movement, to discover my writer’s second wind as it were, but how can I sprint writing such complicated sentences? So I write. I don’t care about anything but the speed. Write, write, write. This is no texting with buttons to push, no Twitter, no Facebook, no images except written, but I write, ink runs along the track, a wild spewing of images, ideas, even ideals, like the ideal of being the best, somehow perfect in this sprint, a record-setter. Oh well. I have finished this short jaunt. My page is full. The tape has broken. I pant. I am an artist in a hurry. I am doing the work. I write; I paint; I massage. Life is good. My life is good. Yes.

September 20

…I’m having a slow morning with watering the lawn out front, playing cards, stretching, making data entries, eating fresh-baked cookies, drinking coffee, talking with Ruth, and now at this late morning hour (it’s 11:30), writing my Morning Pages. Perhaps I’ll try sprint writing like I described yesterday.

I work in spurts. Always has as far back as I recall. My lack of physical coordination may have contributed to this style or need. Even more influential are the speed of my thinking and feeling and my fast-changing interests, call this last my tendency towards multi-tasking. Or ADD. Whatever.

I’ve been sitting here attending to this writing.

I hope to be bitten by the inspiration bug so I can successfully write about my most Unusual Day, this week’s challenge in my storytelling group. I still haven’t settled on a topic—a particular day—although I have listed several possibilities. I want to write on something I’ve never before tried to describe. The realization that I have fallen in love is my topic now. I’ve worked on it before, but I don’t think I’ve looked at each instance. Somewhere I wrote a list of such experiences. But I don’t want a list; I need to make a decision for a particular experience. 

I’m thinking about Michael O., the two of us looking at each other. I found the realization of his interest quite moving. When I saw him again I thought, “Oh that guy.” I was pleased. Invited him to stay for tea. Pleased when he called to talk. Then to meet for coffee. I recalled my first impression of how clean he was. I heard his nasal voice and thought of Steve, my longtime lover. I wasn’t especially attracted to Michael’s voice, but I liked his offbeat humor. I liked his kind manner. I was confused when another guy answered Michael’s phone. Later I asked. Michael told me it was Chuck. I didn’t understand. He told me they had been partners but that he was in the process of moving out. He had already been searching for a place to live. We had dinner with his friend Frank. Leaving the restaurant I met Chuck although I didn’t put it all together until later.

Michael brought me gifts: lotions and lubes for sex. I was really pleased. I liked the open signal that approved of and encouraged our love making.

My most defended self speaking.

I accompanied him to an eye appointment. I didn’t understand why none of his friends arranged to go with him. 

“I always go alone,” he said. 

“Not when you’re having your eyes dilated,” I protested. I drove the car home. I didn’t like the inattention of his ex-partner and current friends.

February brought bad news. I had information; I observed swelling lymph nodes. I asked him to be sure to have his nurse palpate them. They started tests. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He would have to start chemotherapy.

Chemo started. I agreed to stay at his house on the nights following his treatment but preserved several days to stay at my own apartment. I didn’t want to signal to his friends that he didn’t need them. But I felt manipulated by the fact no one volunteered to stay with him. I realized Michael was unable to ask. Still I defended some of my independence and looked forward to being alone, to have coffee and walks with Tony, and so forth. 

I had worked downtown giving massages that day. It was one of my free nights. I walked home up Capitol Hill. As I turned south on Downing, I realized I wanted to be with Michael. When I got to my place I called. “What are you doing?”

“Not much.”

“Would you like if I came to spend the night?” I asked.

“Yes, I’d love that.”

So I got on a bus and made my way out to his street. I realized on that unusual day I’d rather be with Michael than preserve my precious independence.

But I realize that while I have been writing without stop, it was not a sprint. I actually took time to feel into what I was recalling. Fortunately I liked the topic. I’ll sprint tomorrow or some other time I need entertainment.

I am an artist. 

Life is good; my life is good. Yes.

© Denver, 2010

About the Author 

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com