Friday, October 31, 2014

Hallowe'en Dinner by Betsy

I was only trying to be a good mother. Back in the 1960‘and 70’s liver was considered to be the best, most nutritious food available. No other food had all the goodness of beef or calves’ liver. That is, nutritionally it was the best, aesthetically, well, pretty awful, in my opinion.

During that time I was very conscientious about giving my young children the best in nutrition. The only question about liver was how to get them to eat it. I, myself, had a hard time, indeed, getting the slightest morsel down. The texture and the taste, I thought and still think, are rather repulsive. But a good mother feeds her children well. So I determined that once a year, at least, liver would be served at the dinner table and consumed by all--even if it were to be a very small amount. But how to get them to eat it. What was a mother to do.

Hallowe’en offered the perfect situation. The children typically would do their trick or treating as soon as they had finished their dinner. Well, you know the rest. “You may go trick or treating after you have finished your liver,” said I to the three sweet, little, adorable faces with blinking eyes looking at me in anticipation of the excitement of going out with their friends for Hallowe’en fun. Ooow!! That was hard. Was that cruel, or what. Oh well, I wouldn’t make them eat much. Even just a couple of bites! After all, it’s for their own good. That’s why I’m doing this, isn’t it. Isn’t that what any good mother would do?

Interesting that when my daughters, now old enough to be young grandmothers, recently reminded me of these Hallowe’en dinners of many years ago, I replied innocently, “I don’t remember any of that!. Are you sure that really happened? You know, I wouldn’t touch the stuff even if I wanted to. It’s full of cholesterol and toxins!”

The reality is that I do remember, now that my memory has been tweaked. And, yes, this did happen, but I think only once or maybe twice at most, not the many, many hallowe’en dinners that they remember. 

At the time those liver dinners on Hallowe’en were not so funny to any of us. Eating liver was serious business. Now we know better. Now 45 years later, every Hallowe’en, we get lots of laughs remembering the liver dinner--or was it dinners? I get teased a lot about this. I guess my kids grew up and came to understand what it’s like to be a parent wanting to do the right thing for their kids. 

But as I look back on it now, I realize I have mellowed a lot. I don’t think I would make my kids do that now, especially on Hallowe’en. Every once in a while, in spite of the laughs, a vague, nagging feeling from deep inside emerges and suggests that maybe that was kind of mean--making them eat liver. But, then, didn’t someone say that Hallowe’en has its dark side.


© 31 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.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Mirror Image by Lewis


Mirror, mirror on the wall
Who’s the feyest of them all?
Surely can’t be said of me
I strive so hard to manly be.

Oft my image makes me wince
Asymmetric from birth hence;
Discolored lips far from lush,
Eyes that skew, no hair to brush.

Yet, altogether not amiss
Or with a trace of feminess,
I pass as straight among the crowd
No cry of “fag” is heard aloud.

I wander any milieu,
Yielding not a single clue
What physique might catch my eyes
Or give a hint I might like guys.

Perhaps it shouldn’t matter
What veggie I dip in batter
But if something’s going to fry,
I’d as soon it not be THIS guy.

© 22 June 2013


About the Author 

I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn't getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth.

Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband's home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Right Now by Gillian


Right now, I could die happy. We don’t exactly control, at least consciously, what thoughts and feelings flit into our psyches and this came unbidden into my head as we drove east on California Highway 78, leaving San Marcos where Betsy and I had been married a couple of hours earlier. First the thought flooded me with emotion, but then it seemed a strange reaction when I thought about it. Why DIE happy? Shouldn’t it be, live happily ever after? Nevertheless, that is what I thought and felt at that moment, and much of it is still with me. Maybe age has something to do with it: it affects most things. I’m not a twenty-one year old running off to get married, but a seventy-one year old who has waited 26 years to marry the love of her life.

Right now, as we head at top speed into the Holiday Season, I’m sure I shouldn’t have any thoughts of death in my head. I should have visions of birth and rebirth and focus on how wonderful life is. Which it is; at least mine is, and it’s the only one I am qualified to discuss. And for the wonder of my life I am most sincerely thankful, and more grateful still for my awareness of that wonder. Many many people in this world do not live wonderful lives, for many many reasons. But others do live, are living, wonderful lives and do not know it. How sad is that? All those, many of them already rich, who constantly seek more and yet more money, and all that it will buy. They are stuck with this illusion of some future wonderful life which will magically be available if they get that extra car or if they buy a bigger house or if that multi-million dollar bonus comes through. “When the terrible ifs accumulate,” Winston Churchill once warned, disaster looms.

And speaking of a wonderful life, the movie will be on TV several times in the next couple of weeks, I’m sure. I used to watch it faithfully every Christmas, first with my kids and then without them. Now I am over seventy and have reached the stage that I can lip sync every word, it has rather lost it’s appeal. Familiarity has bred, not contempt, but perhaps a little boredom. But both “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and “A Christmas Carol,” in it’s many movie iterations, present the same theme; accepting the reality that you have, right now, without the addition of one single thing, a wonderful life. And perhaps, then, it does make sense to feel that you can now die happy. After all, if you have lived a wonderful life, what more can you possibly want?

I haven’t always known that my life was wonderful. Being GLBT in an overwhelmingly straight world tends to skew somewhat your view of your life and yourself. But many years ago I turned a huge corner on that. It suddenly came to me one day, as unexpectedly as the blazing newsflash, “Now I Can Die Happy.” Not only was I, at that moment, OK with being gay, but much more I was actually grateful for it. And I have been ever since. Why? Perhaps you ask, or perhaps you have no need to. Well, right now is the perfect example. Can you take this Monday story telling group that we so value, and put it into a traditional straight setting? I can’t.

Right now, a friend of ours and her partner are meeting with Hospice. She has been diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Will she, after a time of adjustment, be able to feel she can die happy? I wish her that kind of peace, but it’s not easy to “go ... gently into that good night,” as Dylan Thomas expressed it. We want to kick and fight and scream. It’s fine for me to have that overwhelming sensation of being ready to die happy when I’m not, as far as I know, facing death in the immediate future. Last year I had just enough of a cancer scare to make me realize that, right now, any sentence of death would be very hard to face with equanimity, whatever inspiration might have hit me on that California highway.

I guess it’s one of life’s paradoxes. When our lives are the best they have ever been, we are able to feel that right now we could die happy. Like quitting while you’re at the top of your game. But in truth I want to enjoy my wonderful life a little longer. I think perhaps I could die happy, but preferably not right now!

© December 2013



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.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Favorite Fantasy by Will Stanton


I can address this topic of “Favorite Fantasy” either in a short, half-page essay, or I can go into complete detail in a much longer, thousand-page essay. I think I'll go for the short one. That way, it won't try our patience, either in my having to write it, or in your having to listen to it.

It's not that I have one favorite fantasy; I have eleven thousand fantasies. They all have, however, just one, consistent theme. I'm not going to be maudlin about what I present, but I will be truthful, no matter how personal it is.

You already have heard from my previous presentations that I would have wished for a better childhood, a much more loving family, a much better up-bringing so that I would not have had so much baggage to drag along with me throughout my life.

In each of my fantasies, I see myself as indisputably worthy of being loved. I find the most compatible, loving partner. The partner is part of an ideal family. And my not having such a family, they fully accept me into their family.

In reality, it is far too late for me to experience my fantasy as I ideally would prefer it to be. I can imagine, however, that such a scenario actually could be possible for some younger people. The one, major element of my fantasy that seems to have no way of fitting into the real world is that, if I could achieve such a fulfilling fantasy, somehow I wish it could be permanent, that nothing could change for the worse, that such a wonderful life could go on forever.

I realize that this would be asking far too much, that my fantasy is far too removed from reality. I guess that's why such dreams are called “fantasies.”

© 11 October 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.

Monday, October 27, 2014

Solitude Began Long Ago and Far Away by Ricky


          In my opinion, there are three types of solitude: of the body, of the mind, and of both the mind and body simultaneously.  There are two sub categories of solitude: self-imposed and externally imposed.  Each of these categories and sub categories have degrees of effect and affectation upon a person.

          The following are examples:

TYPES
SELF-IMPOSED
EXTERNALLY IMPOSED
Solitude of the Body
Shutting oneself away from contact with others; a hermit like existence.
Imprisoned; trapped by a natural disaster; shipwrecked on a deserted island.
Solitude of the Mind
Tuning out distractions while reading or watching a movie; being in a crowd but feeling alone.
Being alone (not by choice) with no TV, radio, telephone, or other common objects to occupy one’s thoughts; being deaf and blind; being in a coma; Alzheimer’s Disease.
Solitude of Both the Mind & Body
Becoming a hermit and eschewing all means of communication with the “outside” world.
Being stranded somewhere without resources or companionship.

          On a personal note, I have experienced self-imposed solitude several times in my life beginning long ago and far away in 1953 at the Hawthorne Christian School in Hawthorne, California.  My withdrawal from personal contact with other peers occurred as the result of being punched in the stomach by someone I thought was a friend.  I learned that my peers were not safe.  Since my father was the disciplinarian in our family, I already knew that I was not safe around adults either.

          In December 1957, I was living on my grandparent’s farm when my father informed me of his divorce from my mother.  In spite of two loving grandparents and a sympathetic uncle, I realized that I was alone in a world where nothing is safe, secure, or permanent.

          By June of 1958, my self-imposed solitude of the mind and moderate solitude of the body became complete until I left home for military service.  From the time my mother and step-father came to Minnesota and returned me to Lake Tahoe, California, I have been what most people would classify as a “loner”.  Living for my first summer at the Emerald Bay Resort, I had no peer interaction except for the occasional young passengers on my step-father’s tour boat.

          Having unintentionally proved to my mother that at 10-years old I could properly care for my infant twin brother and sister, I became the live-in babysitter for the next 9-years, which severely limited my after school social life.  Still, I was not lonely but I did learn to entertain myself with books and games with my siblings.  If I was not reading or playing, I entertained myself in other ways.  If anyone else had been around, they would have said of me that I was the “poster child” for the saying, “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop.”  I engaged in many risky behaviors.  The only reason I did not eventually end up in reform school, was that I joined the Boy Scouts.

          Even in the scouts I was still alone.  As the oldest boy in the troop and the Senior Patrol Leader, I had to set an example and thus did not have any close scout friends.  I was closer to the scoutmaster than any of the boys.  He was my “father figure” in the absence of my real father and step-father.

          In college and the Air Force I had few to no close friends and continued to remain aloof from others (still being in the closet didn’t help).  My philosophy on friendship (due to all the situations previously mentioned), was “I will be a friend but the other person had to make the first move”.  Apparently, nearly everyone I liked was doing the same so friendships failed to materialize.

Eventually, I met Deborah and we became good friends before we married.  I had a good life with her, but I still was not thriving and was playing a lone hand.  After she passed away, I lost my joy of life and withdrew from everything I loved to do for 10-years before I finally came out of depression.

My solitude did begin long ago and far away, but it has followed me even to this day.  One other thing I’ve learned about solitude — I don’t like it one little bit.  I crave companionship for everything I like to do by way of entertainment.  I have only minimal fun doing things alone.  I am beginning to thrive but still have a long way to go.  Perhaps if I live long enough, I will be able to state, “I left my solitude long ago and far away.”


© 23 September 2013 

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.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Lonely Places by Ray S


The irony of this subject’s title when I first thought of it is, if you replaced the letter “n” with “v”, would the subsequent story be more readily at hand or mind?

Have you ever been in a lonely place in a crowd? Aloneness can be desirable when you need peace and quiet. Then there are those contemplative times and places like the September day when you go halfway up the pass to the glorious splendor of a grove of golden aspens bordering the rushing creek where once upon a time they scattered your loved ones’ ashes.

This lonely place belongs to everyone at one time or another and then maybe it is not so lonely. It is God’s place, if you might be a deist, or perhaps the realm of Mother Nature, whenever you’re there alone with your memories and thoughts, and of course, those of the “creator” of your choice.

Here’s the point, you are never alone or lonely when you’re able to get your head and heart in the right place, He/She is always there, just open your eyes and heart.

There is another lonely place too. Think of a great big box or room so big it has no visible boundaries, not even a little closet to crawl into. It is so lonely in there, except you’re in this space with all of the smallest personal to largest imagined or real horrors of how we have totally messed up our life with miserable choices or world shattering war and corruption.

Strange bedfellows for a lonely place, and facing these apparitions simply reinforces how lonely and maybe helpless it all is. If this has all the hallmarks of depression, you’re well on your way to finding space in this vast lonely place. Is there any way out?

Should you sometime find yourself pondering all of this, then that will make two of us in this lonely place and then we won’t have to be lonely.

© 11 Aug 2014



About the Author 








Thursday, October 23, 2014

Veteran of Wars Foreign and Domestic by Phillip Hoyle


A Meditation on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

I first met my Vet buddy at a bar during Friday night Happy Hour. Friends that my partner Jim and I meet there had met the Vet a few weeks before. I found my emotions drawing me to this rather dark-skinned Mexican-American man. He was fine looking, shorter than I, with spiky black hair, excellent vocabulary, effective humor, and sparkling dark eyes—all things I tend to find attractive. The talk that evening was superficial, but I did discover he was about my age. Over the course of several months, I learned more. He was reared in a startlingly rough place, had an abusive father, served the US in the jungles of Viet Nam, married after the war, fathered several children, received a college education, divorced over his homosexuality, and had lived several places around Colorado. I was thoroughly enjoying a new friendship with an unusual and intelligent Veteran.

I watched the Happy Hour group in relationship to this intriguing man. He was in and out of the group, sometimes not showing up when he said he would be there. His unpredictability irked some others in the group, placing him on the outer edge socially. I noted his alcohol consumption and its effect. Gray Goose and Mojitos seemed his preference. “No wine,” he’d say. “You don’t give wine to an Indian.” He introduced several other folk to our group: a younger man of great beauty, a middle-age lesbian who seemed quite bright, a male prostitute, and other occasional passers-by. Then there were family members: a sister, her husband, a son, a nephew, a niece and her husband.

When he was absent, I yearned. My mind and feelings and eventually my body reached out for this man. My partner was jealous, angry.

I heard my mojito drinker say:
“I’m not going to his apartment with you two…” He was cautious.
“My granddaughter is so beautiful…” He felt family pride.
“Come to my birthday party…” He extended hospitality.
“Can we meet for coffee? …” He greeted me with openness.
And one night when he was so drunk as to be falling off the barstool, “want you…” desire.

As much as I liked him, I thought, “No way.” Well-defended me, I wanted more of this man but was aware such a relationship would demand treatment with kid gloves in order not to be a disaster for my partnership, the group, and this Vet’s life. I did nothing regretful; my partner and I weathered the feelings.

Still my Vet and I shared a feeling of accord. So we occasionally continued to meet for coffee. We talked, joked, sipped our coffee, and in general developed warm personal feelings without the aid of alcohol. There were phone calls, mostly voice messages, and some email contacts. Ours was a low-intensity courtship of like minds, of disparate life experiences, and of mutual attraction.

In this man I observed traits of:
“An educated culture”
“A pursuit of Aztec identity”
“Alcoholism”
“Disintegration” and
“Pain”

From him, I eventually heard diagnostic words his medics used:
“Depression”
“PTSD issues”
“Disability”
“A change of meds”

I ached with sympathy. Realizing I was privy to information the rest of the Happy Hour guys didn’t know, I carefully and indirectly doled out illness information to keep my Veteran of Wars within the circle.

War. In my years of church work, I had observed how war often defines the spirituality of men who went to war young and became men by becoming soldiers. With my Vet, I saw how war can wreck the physical and psychological health of folk and often does. I saw how its effects bring conflict into families and into one’s broader social relationships. I saw how its traumas amplify the already existing distress of an individual’s life. I realized one can be reared in the war zone of a family and then go to war for one’s nation. My vet suffered the effects of PTSD from wars both domestic and foreign.

We met the other day, my Vet and I, for coffee and conversation. Still something smolders in our relationship, but neither of us moves to fan the flames. We sipped our coffee, talked, laughed, listened, and smiled—no, beamed—at one another. We bear small gifts of concern and love. I hugged this beautiful warrior in parting. I hope the rest of his life will somehow honor the conditions at war within him, helping bring him security, balm, hope, and healing. I’ll continue to offer my friendship and love. What else? “Qué sera, sera.”
© 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

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Reframing Reality by Pat Gourley


“There’s a quality of exultation in our differences. 
We just have it and its part of our nature. 
There is a kind of flagrant joy that goes very deep and 
it's not available to most people. 
Something about our capacity to live and let live
 is uniquely foreign.

Paul Monette

Quoted in David Nimmons’ The Soul Beneath the Skin


Reframing reality seems to be the heart and soul of being queer. In fact we could as easily substitute “I am reframing reality” for “I am coming out”. If we don’t create our own queer reality we often live very unhappy and sometimes tragic lives. This reality-reframing can be perilous and the odds stacked against us are formidable which may in part explain our rather inordinate amount of suicide, the use of mind-altering drugs, tobacco and alcohol or our preoccupation with Broadway musicals, opera, show tunes and/or women’s basketball and golf.

My own early coming to queerness in my late teens in rural Illinois while attending a Catholic prep school involved seeking out one of the male high school counselors, there were several, for “guidance” around my budding sense of difference. ‘Gay’ was not a common word in the vernacular at that time, certainly not in Catholic High Schools in Illinois, but I was possessed with the thought that maybe I was a homosexual.

Looking back with a bit of honest hindsight I sought out this particular counselor not because I wanted to be re-assured that I was really as straight as the next guy but rather because I was drawn to his masculine looks, demeanor, large hands and the intoxicating smell of his aftershave, it was Old Spice, which can to this day still conjure up an olfactory hallucinatory hard-on. I really wanted to just have “flagrant sex” with him!

That of course did happen and after that first encounter which was essentially a mutual masturbation session resulting in an orgasm that was so intense I am sure I saw Jesus winking down at me from the crucifix on the wall over our heads. I was then able to leave town the next day for Mound Bayou, Mississippi in a state of “flagrant joy”.

One of several things plaguing my adolescent mind in those years was why I was not experiencing the same excitement and obvious obsession in exploring relations with girls that my male peers were. What was wrong with me? Was my life to be a series of very unsatisfactory experiences with the opposite sex ending in a joyless marriage perhaps further complicated with offspring? Remember this was 1967 and there was no local LGBT Center in town to provide guidance.

Well that first orgasmic encounter with my counselor in one burst of “flagrant joy” totally reframed my reality. Life was not going to be a joyless, sexless drudgery after all.

I did have another lapse into self-doubt about my newfound queer reality a couple years later at college when I again sought out counseling to address the ‘homosexual issue’. This probably followed a couple of frustrating experiences with other men – I mean reframing reality is not all endless flagrant joy. This counselor was also male but not someone I found attractive physically and we ended our therapeutic relationship after the second session when he insisted that I start with incorporating more masculine behaviors into my life including ending our time together with a manly handshake. I guess the logic was if you wanted to be a man for Christ-sakes act like one – now that is a futile attempt at reframing reality if there ever was one.

It was shortly after the sessions on manly behavior that the opportunity for heterosexual sex presented itself. Perhaps it was simply a reflection of the power of the all-pervasive and suffocating reality of the heterosexual dictatorship or more likely my own well-honed neurosis but I made one more very short stab at the straight male thing and had sex twice with one of the woman in our circle of friends. Despite my obnoxious sexual performances this very strong woman was in many other ways very influential in my life and my own development of a feminist sensibility. She went on to have a great life and family obviously unscarred by my sexual ineptitude. She was very sweet and patient but in the end honestly told me that I was really bad at sex. Both times involved trying to perform with my eyes being tightly closed, relying on her guiding hand to find the entrance and thinking the whole time this is so wrong and unnatural to boot! I won’t even get into how it felt to me physically and that when my orgasm did actually occur it involved a very intense, albeit transient, reframing of reality.

The sexual part of my queer reframing of reality has been only one small part of my life however. My innate sense of difference I really do think has freed me up to reframe all sorts of realities. Realities foisted upon me by the politicians, priests, pundits and really society in general. The great life adventure that is being queer is all about reframing reality and you know it really never ends. When the world attempts to lay their realities on to us though we can always wiggle free because we have the great gift of “flagrant joy that goes very deep and is not available to them ” (Paul Monette).

© June 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.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Bathing by Nicholas


I like bathing. I like luxuriating in a hot bath after a vigorous bike ride or before going to bed. It’s relaxing, soothing, and comforting in ways that showers aren’t.


I like bathing at baths even more. It’s always nice to bathe with other bathers. At communal baths, like Lake Steam Baths on W. Colfax Avenue, tubs or pools are bigger than mine at home, the water hotter, the sense of luxury greater. Sinking into hot water to completely submerse my body feels absolutely primordial. To adapt the common Biblical phrase: From water I came and to water I shall return.

My favorite bathing establishment is the Kabuki Spa in San Francisco and I was there just last week. It is one of the must-do things whenever I am in San Francisco. The Kabuki is an old Japanese-style communal baths in the heart of an area in SF called Japantown. Japantown used to be a thriving Japanese-American community until the U.S. government rounded all Japanese Americans and sent them to concentration camps in Colorado and elsewhere in 1942. But some of the community returned and the neighborhood is still called Japantown.

When I first went there, the place had all the tackiness of post-war Tokyo—cold tiles, garish colors, 1950s modern décor; cheap looking like a Japanese monster movie. Then it got bought up by some New-Agey California operation and became a spa, not a bathhouse. All the lights were dimmed and colors softened to mellow earth tones and though it was quiet before, now quiet became meditative silence with meditative music in the background.

The new owners spruced up the place but kept all the main features—the hot pool, the cold pool, the steam room, the sauna, and, best of all, massage. There are alternating men’s and women’s days but clothing is not optional, you go naked once you hang up your clothes in a locker.

I must point out that this is not a sex palace. Sex is prohibited and staff (i.e., monitors), while they refill water pitches, trays of fruit, and towels, are constantly bustling about to make sure nobody is misbehaving. This is not to say that the atmosphere is not erotic. I mean, you can’t put 20 to 40, naked, wet, steamy men (or women on other days) in one room and not have certain interests rise. Once in a while, one man will discreetly touch another but no sex ever happens. It’s kind of refreshing.

But I digress. I have my ritual at the Kabuki. First, I take a Japanese bath. I sit on a low stool and pour buckets of water over my head, soap up and then pour more buckets of water over my head. Then I head for the steam room to warm up and loosen up and breathe hot humid air to clear out my sinuses.

Then the main attraction. After a little break, I step into the hot pool and suddenly every inch of my skin tingles as I slowly slide down into the hot and wet. It’s big enough to stretch out in and even do some bending and stretching. It is the most totally relaxing feeling I have ever had.

Usually when I go to Kabuki, I sign up for a half-hour refresher massage. You can get all sorts of massage and other body treatments lasting forever and costing a fortune if you want. I used to request this one woman masseuse because she had big soft hands that kneaded my flesh like bread dough. The massage usually takes me past the relaxation phase and into the re-invigorating phase with a calm energy returning.

When I walk out of the Kabuki two hours later, I feel not only rested but energized.

This bathing establishment is all about the real pleasure of bathing—washing, soaking, steaming. Getting clean is a pleasure all its own. Getting wet is truly a sensuous gift to your body. Water is an amazing substance. It is plain but powerful in its ability to stir our senses as well as ease our minds. Water, that most pliable of substances, can also be a source of strength and vitality. Try it. I think you need a bath.

© 22 Oct 2012



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.

Monday, October 20, 2014

One Summer Afternoon by Lewis


When I was a child, my parents didn't take a "family vacation" some summers. Instead, they sent me off to summer camp, which was enough vacation for them, I guess. On one such occasion, they sent me off for an interminable ten days to a YMCA camp called "Camp Wood". I was about nine years old and an only child. I was introverted and a non-swimmer. For me, swimming was, to quote Bill Cosby, "staying alive in the water". I had allergies and my sinuses were constantly inflamed. If chlorinated water got up my nose, it felt like someone had set my snot on fire. Therefore, if I was in water more than four feet deep, out came my nose plugs. It was swimming that kept me from getting beyond a "Star" rank in Boy Scouts.

When I got to Camp Wood, I soon discovered that it was organized a little like a country club. The lake had two beaches--the shallow one with the kiddy swings for the non-swimmers and the cool beach with the deeper water and the water slide for the swimmers. I was a few years older than almost all the kids on the kiddy beach and was going to make myself absolutely miserable unless I could graduate to the older boys' beach. To do that meant that I would have to swim from the edge of the kiddy beach out to a floating dock about 50 yards out into the lake. From where I stood on the edge of the water at the kiddy beach, the dock looked to me to be only one or two strokes closer than hell itself. Not only that, but there would be kids and adults nearby watching me. Who knows if they were rooting for me to make it or were hoping to see something their parents would be most interested hearing about?

There was a lifeguard standing on the dock. He looked to me to be a young man of about 17. I'm not very good at judging these things, as I never had an older brother or even a male relative under 21. I suspect that it was only the prospect of that young man coming to my rescue that gave me the courage needed to attempt to swim toward the raft.

I would give anything to see a home movie of my valiant effort to look graceful while flailing all four skinny limbs in a desperate attempt to keep from consuming too much of the lake. By the time I reached the dock, I was totally exhausted, a fact that I'm sure was obvious to the young man looking worriedly down at me. Nevertheless, one got no credit for merely reaching the dock. No. One had to swim back to the shore from whence I had come.

I'm sure the lifeguard offered me his hand. But I was too embarrassed and determined to pass the test, so I turned back toward shore hoping against hope that I would find the strength somehow to make it all the way. Well, I only made it a few yards before I started to flounder. The lifeguard was on me in a couple of seconds, lifting me up and putting me under his arm to sweep me back to the safety of the dock.

"This must be what it feels like to be Sleeping Beauty", I thought. No, not really. But it did feel pretty sweet, though humiliating.

None of the other campers ever mentioned my fiasco, nor did I ever tell my parents about it. Camp ended on a much higher note, when I placed first in the broad jump in the track meet on the last morning of camp. Somehow, solid ground just seems to suit me better.

17 June 2013

About the Author  


I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn't getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth. Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband's home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.


Friday, October 17, 2014

Mushrooms by Gillian


I thought of writing about mushrooms the other week when our topic was “Magic” but that led too inevitably to the psychedelic connection, which is far from the kind of magic I personally attach to mushrooms. They bring, for me, a nostalgia for the magic of innocent childhood days.

One of my very favorite things was when my mum and dad and I would go off together into the fields and woodlands to pick mushrooms. My vision of it is my mother with the basket on one arm and me swinging from the free hand between her and my dad. Perhaps this happened for just one instant, once, but you know how it goes. These things from the distant past expand themselves until they occupy vast stretches of time, and in my memory every time we went what we called “mushrooming,” I clasped each of them by the hand and swung my feet off the ground between them. We were not a touchy-feely kind of family and holding both their hands is a thing I cannot remember doing at other times or in other circumstances. It was just part of the magic of mushrooms.

Mostly we went in autumn, early in the morning, though I think occasionally we went at other times of the day and year. I associate mist with these morning jaunts, though again this might, in reality, have been just once. We looked for the mushrooms in open grassy meadows among sleepily grazing cows and sheep, and in glades of old oak trees where they grew happily on old rotting stumps. I have no idea what kind they were, though the ones from the fields were different from those in the trees. We worried little about accidentally picking poisonous ones, but I have no idea whether we were simply lucky or whether my parents had some learned or inherited knowledge about such things. Even I knew that you never picked toadstools, but they were easy to tell apart from mushrooms. Every child knew that fairies only live in toadstools; never in mushrooms! Though mushrooms do form what we always called “fairy rings,” growing in clear circles on the grass. Even when the mushrooms were not there, the rings still were visible as mounds or depressions in the grass, and as the mushrooms tended to grow again in that same ring, it was always a good place to look. These circles were sometimes just a yard or so across, but some were huge, ten to twenty feet in diameter. No-one knew why they grew in these circles so of course who else was to be held responsible but the little people? Stones the size of a pinkie or a fist or occasionally a football were also sometimes arranged in circles, always called “fairy rings” for the same reason. I loved to imagine these little creatures busily pushing and tugging at the rocks to get them arranged correctly, but was never too sure how they got the mushrooms to grow that way. Perhaps, I thought, they planted the wee seeds in a circular trench, the way my dad planted the potatoes in a straight trench.

For me, mushrooms were all about the gathering. I rather lost interest in them when we got the overflowing basket home, though I enjoyed eating them well enough. Had they been readily available in stores via mushroom farms as they are now, I probably would not have liked them, as many children do not, but back then they were rare enough to be attractive.

These days, sadly, in my opinion, picking mushrooms has, like so many things, lost its simplicity and become hugely complex. For one thing, of course, you can no longer wander freely over your neighbors’ fields and woods and help yourself to anything growing there. For another, mushrooms have fallen victim to TMI. We have way Too Much Information about them, as about most things. Did you know that there are an estimated 10,000 different species of mushrooms in North America; that a mushroom specialist is called a mycologist? Do you care?

On Google Earth, I find, you can see mushrooms from space, honest! Well, not the mushrooms themselves, but the tell-tale fairy rings left by some species. These rings are clearly visible satellite images, so you can select likely fields to visit whilst sitting at your computer. Talk about taking all the fun out of things! How can that possibly compare with tucking cold hands into Mom and Dad’s warm ones, watching the frost turn your breath to fog? How can finding something on the internet bring you memories to last a lifetime? And the rings themselves have some completely scientific explanation to do with fungus, and have lost all their magic. Worse than that, they sometimes appear on a pristine lawn and no amount of digging will destroy them so the Web recommends destroying them with chemicals. The poor old fairies are in big trouble in the modern world. And their fairy stone rings, apparently, are causes by the continuous winter freeze/thaw cycle pushing the rocks, not the little people at all, at all.

In Britain, where of course my childhood memories originate, mushrooms have become big business; not only via mushroom farms where they are cultivated en masse but also the picking of wild ones. Far from the “mushrooming” of my youth, it has now gone upscale and is invariably termed mushroom “foraging.” It seems that in order to partake of this, what at least used to be, simple pleasure one first needs to buy some expensive basket via one of many international online boutique such as fungi.com, (yes, there really is such a place!) along with an equally costly knife, the purpose of which escapes me as we always pulled them up and they exited the wet ground with a wonderfully pleasing plop. One then arms oneself with a variety of books and maps and charts so as to identify what one is searching for, and to identify the best place and time to search for it, so as not to waste valuable time and to avoid the hazard of poisoning oneself, even though only about one percent of all mushrooms can be lethal. And after all that, of course, you’ve run out of time and simply hire a “Mushroom Foraging Guide,” to lead you by the hand, instead. (Yes, there really are such people!)

Just reading about it all on WildMushroomsOnline.co.uk wore me out.

And d’you know what upset me most; the worst thing I discovered in my researches way down in the TMI depths? There is actually no scientific basis for differentiating so-called toadstools from mushrooms. They are just variations of the same thing. Oh no! Haven’t those poor fairies suffered enough? How are they to know where to live? I tell you one thing, if I ever suffered from little people envy, I’m cured. The last place I want to live in these challenging times is down at the bottom of the garden with the fairies!

And so the magic goes; the magic fantasies of fairies and the magic moments of mushrooming. It’s partly my age, of course, and partly the age. The world has changed so very much in the time that I have inhabited it, and I would be the last one to claim that it is all for the worse. Those days gone by were not necessarily better, but there’s no denying they were simpler. I have to wonder where the children of this fast-paced electronic era will find the magic, but I try to keep the faith that they will, and fortunately I shall never know.

© December 2013


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.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Parental Warnings by Betsy


I’m sure my mother was thrilled when she saw that her second born was a girl. Her first was a boy and now this would round out the family perfectly.

However there was a down side for my mother to having a girl child. I think the warnings started about the time in life when a baby starts understanding verbal language. When is that? About age three months, I believe.

“Girls are vulnerable, boys are not.” This was my mother’s ever-present unspoken thought.

Growing up I never felt very vulnerable. Tomboys never do. Tomboys see themselves as strong and adventuresome, not puny and vulnerable. And why in the world was my brother always allowed to do adventuresome things that I never was allowed to do?

“You’re a girl and that’s life,” was the simple answer to that question.

She never actually said the words, but the next warnings came through loud and clear starting around my fifteenth or sixteenth year of life.

“It happens.” Or, “A girl can easily lose control.” Or, “A girl can easily be swept off her feet.” Or, “A little smooching can lead to more intimate contact and before you know it, it happens.” Or, A boy will take advantage if he is given the slightest chance.” Or, “Boys are driven more than girls.”

So the message “Until you are married do not get pregnant” or rather, “Until you are married don’t do anything that would get you pregnant,” came through loud and clear until--well, until my mother became too ill to worry about it any more.

My mother never knew that I was homosexual. She died before I myself acknowledged my sexual orientation. Little did she know that there was virtually no chance that I would lose control while smooching with a boy. After all, I was barely interested in any smooching at all. I wanted to go to the dances, be with friends, etc. But being alone with my boyfriend really did not appeal to me at all. This was something to be avoided.

Spending the night with my girl friend was what I wanted to do. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, my girl friends were not inclined as I was and so sexual activity was off limits, even the thought of it was taboo. I never allowed myself such thoughts.

I wonder what my mother’s warning would have been if she then knew what I know today. I can only imagine: “You will end up a lonely woman without a husband and a family. Even if you have a partner, you will never be fulfilled. Who will protect you? Who will take care of you?

It must have been hard enough for my mother to accept that her daughter was somewhat of a tomboy. But to her credit I never, ever got the message from her that I was not valued just as I was, or that I should be more feminine or different in any way from what I was. In the end that positive message was much stronger than her warnings. I was loved and valued just as I was.

© 5 July 2012

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.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Do I Have Your Dutronic Veebleveetzer Transmogrifier? by Will Stanton


I hope that whatever idiosyncrasies I may have are not off-putting and that, perhaps, they even may be at least mildly charming. Throughout all the years of my life, I do not recall ever having met anyone who was not at least somewhat idiosyncratic. Some people were far more than that; some were downright strange. I think some of them really should have had help.

When I was in college (when was that, 1902?), I was living in a dorm my freshman year. Just in that one dorm, there sure were a lot of peculiar people.

The strangest one of all was the poor fellow who thought that he had traveled several times to other planets around the vast universe. I do not recall from his lecture in the student lounge exactly how he managed interstellar travel and certainly not just by himself. Perhaps it was through the use of a unique machine, the Dutronic Veebleveetzer Transmogrifier. Or, perhaps he simply could instantaneously zap himself from point A to point B anywhere in the universe without any danger or damage to his mortal self. That's a pretty good trick, if you can do that.

He adamantly did maintain, however, that he could prove his claim by demonstrating some of the powers taught him by aliens. One of the supposed powers that he had learned was the ability to walk through solid objects such as walls. I should not have to remind everyone that people, especially young thoughtless people, can find humor in the afflictions and misfortunes of others, and this was the case here. The laughing, jeering students demanded a demonstration, whereupon the fellow walked headlong into the cinder-block wall, knocking himself out. The students, thinking that they were quite clever, quickly picked up the stunned fellow and moved him to the other side of the wall. When the dizzy space-traveler woke up, he naturally was convinced that he had proved his claim. The students thought that this was all great fun, but I felt very sorry for the delusional kid. I hope that he did receive the help that he needed.

The dorm proctor apparently felt that at least a dozen of his charges were weird enough to house them all in a few rooms along one short hallway apart from the other students, rather like a psych ward. He did have one diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. I'm not quite sure how he made it into college or whether he actually remained.

It was Joe, however, that I'll mention next. He was one hunk of a masculine freshman whose natural, great physical strength usually was not noted because he looked so young. No one could beat him in arm-wrestling. He sometimes made money with that ability. He had a habit of traveling out of town to rural road-houses where the inebriated laborers liked to display their masculinity by challenging each other to arm-wrestling. Joe had perfected his hustler act, appearing to be innocent and losing some small wagers. Once enough beer bottles had been raised and enough cash had been placed on the table, Joe suddenly overpowered his very surprised, final opponent. Joe would do that hustle in each roadhouse only once. Scooping up the cash, he made a discreet exit before the mystified losers decided that they had been taken and became angry.

Then there was Ted S. I'll be mentioning him again in my October 28th reading. Apparently, Ted had developed several bad habits long before he became a freshman. One of them was a frequent overindulgence of alcohol, which I suppose was not too unusual for a party-school. What made Ted different was that he physically looked to be only fifteen, although he actually was eighteen; and he looked deceptively innocent. The trouble was that he lost all control when he drank too much. His distressed roommate finally had enough when Ted arrived back at the dorm room late one night and mistook the clothes closet for pissoir. The next day, Ted was moved to the weird ward.

The surname of one kid was Love, and he obviously thought that he was cut out to be a great lover. Although he was extremely cute and sexy and drove a Corvette, he was not quite so handsome as he thought that he should be. Being blond, he thought he should have a year-around tan, which is virtually impossible in that part of the country. So he spread generous portions of fake tanning lotion all over himself. We could spot him a block away because he was orange. At one-half block away, we could smell the lotion.

Sagmeister was probably the only true sex maniac I've ever met. He was a handsome twenty-something, but he really had a problem. I recall his standing in the lounge in front of a TV, talking with someone. A TV commercial with a pretty, buxom blond came on, which caught his attention. His speech slowed as his eyes became glued upon the delectable image. Then his speech trailed off completely and was replaced with loud, heavy breathing.

Sagmeister seemed to have a steady flow of guests to his room. As long as the guests were female, age did not seem to be a problem. I recall that, on one occasion, a pretty sixteen-year-old girl came out of his room and was wearing only a long, white, man's shirt. On another occasion, however, he linked up with the well known town whore “Black Julie.” She was fifty-five and not what one would call attractive. As a matter of fact, she looked like (as the Texans say) “She was rode hard hard and put back into the barn wet.” That did not seem to bother Sagmeister. I guess that there's no substitute for experience.

Now that I think of it, I am reminded that there were a bunch of other students with strange personalities. And now that I think of it, I guess whatever idiosyncrasies that I might have had just were not weird enough for anyone to pay much attention. Thank goodness for small blessings.

© 6 September 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.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

For a Good Time... by Ricky


For a good time, lobby the Boy Scouts of America to change their discriminatory policy of prohibiting openly gay/lesbian adults from becoming leaders. Once the change is made, (unless you are a pedophile) join a scout troop as an adult leader of some sort. The time you donate helping a scout troop or Cub Scout pack will either add years to your life or wear you out sooner. In either case, you will have a wonderful time being around cub or boy scouts and participating in their activities.



Inasmuch as the Boy Scouts of America have now changed their policy of discrimination of barring openly homosexual adults (who are not pedophiles) from being adult leaders in scout troops, to allowing individual units and sponsoring organizations to choose whatever policy they will follow, it is now appropriate to lend your individual and financial support to whichever unit that chooses to not discriminate.

It is also fitting that religious sponsors can also choose a policy for their membership to follow. 

I will not support any sponsor, district, or troop/pack individually or financially if their choice is to continue discrimination at the "local" level.


© 12 August 2013 / 19 July 2015

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.


Monday, October 13, 2014

Travel by Train by Ray S


Sometime between 3:30 and 4:00 AM you can you can hear the low but urgent call of the diesel coal train winding its way from Wyoming through Denver to somewhere south on the Santa Fe (now Burlington-Northern-Santa Fe) railroad line.

That familiar horn brings to my mind the first time I thrilled to that same sound.  It was the year of the “Chicago Century of Progress” World’s Fair 1933.  The CB&O ( Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Rail Road) ran west through my hometown, a suburb of the Windy City and every day that new sound of the diesel horn warned the passing of the “City of Denver” Zephyr.  It was a custom for the kids, unbeknownst to their elders, to place copper pennies on the track anticipating the arrival of the premier silver streamliner, and then retrieve the flattened coin as a souvenir of the great new advance in modern passenger rail service.

Many years and various national and international conflagrations, marriages and births our family rode the Zephyr from Denver to Chicago to visit family.  That train carried the four of us as well as all the other passengers on the final run of the CB&O Denver Zephyr.  The tracks were the same but the advent of Amtrak and “The California Zephyr” had arrived and were different.  Chicago’s Union Station marked the conclusion of a long and marvelous historical railroad train trip for us and the Zephyr. 

Another time, another place and another train trip.  Just a kid, barely 18 years old and almost Christmas in 1943.  The “bigger war” had been going on since Pearl Harbor and ’41.  Either wait for the draft and whatever fate it held or enlist in a military service of your choice.  What could be more glamorous, adventuresome and heroic than becoming an air cadet in the United States Army Air Corps?  None of the above adjectives quite fit my personality or abilities, but “Off We GO, Into the Wild Blue Yonder,”  or went.

After necessary induction processes at Chicago’s Great Lakes/Fort Sheridan installation the newly hatched cadets were outfitted with all the appropriate clothing necessities, either on your back or in the ubiquitous barracks bag and off to the south side of Chicago and the Illinois Central Railroad station.  Then my first and only really troop train adventure.  No, not cattle cars, a great number of coach cars and even some of Mr Pullman’s sleepers, but no porters to make up your births.  A mess hall was in a converted coach car and you passed through it to receive whatever they prepared in the way of portable food to be carried back to your respective car.  The I.C. (Illinois Central R.R.) rolled on and on finally depositing the potential air warriors at a cold, dank, coal smoke clouded (potbellied space heaters in each barracks were the only means of heating) Gulfport Field, Mississippi.

The trip continued to cover needed physical exams and intrusions, shots, and. of course, six weeks plus of basic training and then as they say, “at the convenience of the government,”  the cadet program was declared over-subscribed to.  The hundred or so fledgling flyers were assigned to various other Air Corps tasks and dispatched to their new homes for various “military careers.”

So the story goes of this train trip--from potential “fly boy” to guard duty in a Military Police company.  The closest thing to flying was midnight patrol of a deserted flight strip in North Carolina.

A train trip never to be repeated and hardly ever remembered.


© 25 Aug 2014  

About the Author