Drifting by Phillip Hoyle

In a very important sense I was drifting through life back then. Oh I had goals in my career and a highly structured schedule, but I was living into the common cultural expectation of marriage with children. I appreciated that my ministerial work afforded me the luxury of reading, researching, teaching, and the like. I easily tolerated the work conditions. In regard to family, I lived with a wonderful woman and by then two very interesting and creative children. I floated my way downstream keeping in the current but letting it move me along well-worn channels.

Then Mike A drifted into my life. He showed up one afternoon at the church where I worked, out on Camp Bowie Boulevard in west Fort Worth, Texas. I didn’t know what he expected, but there he stood looking a little beat down yet clean in cowboy boots, western shirt, Levis, and sporting a tooled leather belt with a big metal buckle that announced in all caps STUD. I was amused as well as concerned. We talked. He wanted help getting his life back together.

I don’t remember if Mike had his equipment with him but he told me he was a welder and needed to get a job. He may have had his welding mask and gloves and probably a suitcase or a box of clothes. He did have a rather pleasant manner and spoke working-class Texan with a distinct twang, drawn-out syllables, and what seemed to me, strange pronunciations. He also had a sense of humor and a charming smile. He was down on his luck but he wasn’t done with life or with living it.

Mike assured me he would be able to get work if he could just get to a particular place to apply. Realizing he’d have to rely on me for a few days, I drove him to a fabrication shop way out in east Fort Worth where he secured a job. Maybe he’d worked there before; I didn’t know. In fact I knew nothing about this world, but Mike did start work at that shop the next day.

Mike knew his trade. While returning to our apartment, he said my car was “arkin’” and asked me to pull into the grocery store and give him a dollar. He’d fix it. I knew there was something draining the power from my car and had wasted quite a bit of money paying mechanics who didn’t repair it. I had no idea what was wrong, nor had I ever heard the word “arkin’.” For 89 cents Mike bought electricians tape and wrapped the places where the insulation had worn off a couple of spark plug wires. He knew the sound of an electric arc; after all he was a welder. And his fix held for many years!

Mike went home with me to my wife and two kids and stayed for a week. I gave him a ride to work and picked him up at the end of his shift—what in the church office I called my paper route. One parishioner overheard the reference and asked the secretary if the church wasn’t paying me enough to live on. That week as we traveled back and forth across the city, I picked up random details about his life, his loss of job, his estrangement from his wife, their two girls who lived with her. I felt like I’d gone down this road before; assisting someone, wondering if my efforts would really help.

Within a week Mike arranged two-way transportation for work. It didn’t occur to me that he was probably back into a network of relationships he had known for years; I was too busy with my life to worry over his details. Mike met church people at our apartment. For him being around educated folk may have seemed odd. One of them perceived Mike’s alcoholism. I knew he drank; she knew of his disease. Her insight made sense of some things I had observed.

One night Mike called me. He had burned his eyes at work—a common hazard for welders. “Could you get some eye drops and bring them to me?” he asked. “Of course,” I answered inquiring just what kind he needed. I drove over to his by-the-week motel, knocked on his door, and administered the eye drops. That’s when Mike gave me one of the most precious gifts I’d ever received. As the sting was abating from his eyes he looked up and said, “I love you, Phillip.”

“I’m happy to help,” was my defended reply to this rather crass, beer-guzzling, Texas cowboy stud. But I was stunned. No man had ever said those words to me, not even in my family.

I knew about love. In college years I had learned to speak words of love to my girlfriend, who became my wife. Actually she taught me how. Saying such words seemed a requirement to get married. I’d said “I love you” many times to her, to my son, to my daughter, and I meant it. A couple of years before Mike drifted into my life I realized that I had fallen in love with a male seminary classmate. I refrained from saying “I love you” to him lest it seem manipulative or, worse, scare him away. Now this drunk said “I love you” to me. I took it to mean he deeply appreciated my help. At the same time I realized I was not interested to explore any further dimensions of its potential with him. My heart was already elsewhere—way too committed to my family and to the one male friend I adored.

I also came to realize my patient and caring help to this man who may have been starved for any kind of love—that along with his lowered threshold of defenses due to his drinking—left him open to say whatever he felt. I received his drifting expression with deep appreciation and realized how much I wanted, even needed to be loved deeply by a man, especially one who might open his non-alcoholic heart to me.

It took twenty more years of maturing for me to do what my heart of hearts desired: to live with a man I loved and who loved me. But I wonder how many more years may have passed if I had not heard those words from my Texas cowboy STUD. His gift to me far exceeded mine to him, and I continue to appreciate that Mike A. had drifted my way.© Denver, 2014

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

Believe It or Not, This Really Happened to Me by Lewis

In 1954, when I was eight years old, my family embarked upon the most ambitious vacation of my childhood. All four of us piled into my granddad's 1952 Packard and headed northeast to Washington, DC; Lynn, Massachusetts; New London, Connecticut; and New York City. The sights and delights of that trip will perhaps be the subject of another day but today I begin my story with what happened a few days after we arrived back home that summer.

What began as a persistent itch at the back of my scalp that kept spreading turned out to be ringworm. I had not even heard of the condition and as soon as I did I had to wonder--as did my family and doctors--how I ever came to be exposed to a condition caused by a fungus that is usually spread through skin-to-skin contact with an infected animal, often a cat (we had none), or another human (I was an only child and was not a wrestler). I remember thinking that I might have "self-infected" in a sense by putting the end of the vacuum cleaner nozzle against my cheek but was told by the doctor that that was unlikely.

The early 1950's were the days when medical science was just discovering the many ways in which x-rays might be used therapeutically. I went in for a few x-ray treatments on my scalp, which I learned much later had increased my risk of having cancer of the thyroid years down the road. (It was x-ray treatments for an ear infection which eventually took the life of Roger Ebert from thyroid cancer.)

When the x-rays didn't do the job, we moved into the next "therapy"--an ointment which had to be applied directly to the skin. This meant that I had to sit in front of my mother for five or so minutes every day while she pulled out every hair from a 2" diameter circle of my scalp with a pair of tweezers. Until water boarding was invented, this was the most effective method of extracting information from an enemy. It was a lot to ask of any mother, even mine. But we made it through.

The worst part of this entire ordeal was yet to come, however. That fall, I entered the Third Grade at Morgan Elementary School in Hutchinson, Kansas. Because the salve used to treat the ringworm could dry out if unprotected, I was required to wear a scalp cap made from one of my mother's old nylon stockings over the top of my head to school. To make matters worse, I learned that the x-rays had killed the hair follicles, which meant that it would never grow back. Now I suspect that most--if not all--of us can recall the social pressures that every Third Grade student is under to "fit in". I already was trying to cope with eyes that did not coordinate and now I felt that I must look odd both coming and going. It had been, up until then, the worst year of my short life and, looking back, I would have to say, it still is. The only good thing is that, after 60 years, the hair on the rest of my scalp has also decided to bail out, making the look more uniform.

© October 6, 2014

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.

Angels by Gillian

Angels apparently abound.

Angel Falls and Angel Island. The Blue Angels, fallen angels, guardian angels, angel cake, angel hair, angel wings, angel dust, angel eyes and angel sharks; the Los Angeles Angels, Angels in the Outfield and Angel on my Shoulder. Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Angels We Have Heard on High. Not to mention innumerable men in Spanish-speaking countries named Angel.

In spite of the word's popularity, I had a friend who couldn't even recognize it, though I wouldn't class it as a very difficult word, and his native language was English. (If you can say that about someone from Minnesota.) He was a devout Lutheran, and seemed to have no difficulty with the word in prayers, or the Bible, or Xmas carols, but he was incapable, apparently, of recognizing it out of context. The famous U.S. navy flight squadron became the Blue Angles, and remained so even after he had been to see one of their displays. There was angle food cake, angle hair pasta, and angle dust. But then, this came from the person who unfailingly called the old Alpenglow motel in Winter Park, now a Best Western by the way, the Al-pen-gull-o. I amused myself one day trying to get him to say angle iron, wondering if it would have become angel iron, but failed to elicit the word at all.

I don't have a problem recognizing the word, but I'm not too sure I would recognize the real thing. Although, in hind-sight, at least, I'm getting much better. There are many of them (or us) about. I firmly believe that most, possibly all, of us, have a bit of angel somewhere within. The amount varies from person to person, time to time, place to place, and in the eye the beholder. For many fortunate children, like me, parents are at least partly angels. They are our guardian angels, keeping us safe and helping to guide our early ventures in this new world. For many fortunate parents, as they age and the roles begin to reverse, the children become the guardian angels of the parents. For many fortunate adults, again like me, a spouse or life partner provides some glimpses of angel. Often we get a briefer glance at an angel; that friend who uncomplainingly moves in for a month to take care of us after surgery, or that neighbor who never talks to us but who unfailingly keeps our sidewalk shoveled free of snow simply because he sees that for us it is no longer a pain-free activity.

Sometimes it's a complete stranger. Several years ago I observed an old woman leaving a homeless shelter. A fresh flower lay on the sidewalk, looking as if it had just fallen from someone's button hole. She tried to pick it up, but it seemed too hard to bend so much, so I swooped in and picked it up. She looked ready to cry, then pure joy glowed in her face when I handed it to her.

"Oh bless you," she muttered, "I did want that."

Her shaking fingers held it up in the sunlight.

"All that beauty!" she said.

"And all for nothing"

She will never know it, but she was my angel for that moment, and returns to me as such quite often. I see a beautiful sunset or colorful bird and I hear her voice again,

"All that beauty! And all for nothing."

Perhaps I too was a momentary angel that day, for her. Perhaps the fact that someone not only did not cross the street to avoid her, but actually acknowledged her existence and for two seconds offered a hand in kindness, meant as much to her as the encounter did for me. I shall never know, and that will never matter.

I used to be a champion Dumpster Diver. You'd be amazed at what perfectly good items end up tossed in the trash. I don't do it much now; not because of any newfound dignity but because of newfound aches and pains. One morning I surfaced from a promising dumpster to see an old face just surfacing beside me. A possibly homeless, certainly poor, old woman with a sad face which looked about to cry.

"No doughnuts nor nothing." She leaned back down over the rim, rummaging as far down as she could reach. I gazed hopefully with her, but could see no sign of wrapped food items.

"Monday morning," she declared knowledgeably, "I can mostly find some breakfast in here."

She sank dejectedly down on the pavement, again looking close to tears.

"Don't go away," I called as I hurried off into the store, "I'll be right back."

I bought a dozen assorted doughnuts and rushed back out.

Another old face lit up. She thanked me profusely and set about stuffing the things into her mouth.

She was, and is, among my angels. She reminds me of my extreme good fortune in this world, that I can go dumpster diving for fun whereas she, and all those many like her, do it out of necessity.

I doubt most, if any, of my angels, dream they are so important to me, a person who, to many of them, is a complete stranger; someone they have probably completely forgotten. In the same way, I don't know if I have ever been, or am, anyone's angel. Only one person has ever actually told me I was an angel, and that was my oldest step-son. He was, as usual, deep down in a Bourbon bottle at the time, so I should probably not let it make me too proud of my inner angel.

But I do believe I have one. I believe everyone in this room has one. In fact, someone in this room might be an angel to someone else in this room. We can become an angel to someone at any moment anywhere, and we can find our own angels any moment anywhere.

All we have to do is open our hearts and spirits, and receive with joy whatever comes.

© 15 December 2014

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.

Acting by Betsy

“ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE 

AND ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN 

MERELY PLAYERS.”

One interpretation of this quotation from As You Like It by William Shakespeare, albeit taken out of the context of the play itself, is that the only difference between acting on stage and life itself is that on the stage an actor plays many different roles attempting to portray another individual, other than himself, and this is a professional endeavor. In life we play many different roles expressing who we ourselves are--not who someone else is.

One can be many things at one time or the roles can change. Daughter, son, sister, bother, wife, husband, mother, father, executive, homemaker, social butterfly, recluse, quiet, boisterous, studious etc, etc. Most of us do act according to the role that has been assigned to us and/or the role that we choose. The roles for us early in life are written largely by our culture and the environment which molds us.

As adults other circumstances have an impact on how we play our roles. For example, one can find himself in a particular profession or job in which he/she is expected to drive a certain car, wear certain clothes--necktie, high heels. In this case often the individual must act the part if he wants to be successful and accepted in his profession or to keep his job.

Hopefully most of us act our roles honestly and with integrity; that is, we are acting but at the same time being true to ourselves. Most of us in the GLBT community know quite a bit about acting. As for me, once I convinced myself that I had done nothing wrong and that I simply wanted to act the person that I am--that is, that I wanted to be honest and live with integrity--once I understood that, it was not difficult to play the role. What’s more it felt oh so good and so easy and natural. Instead of acting the part of the person I was not.

New meaning is given to the word “acting” when we apply the connotation of “taking action.” There’s “pro-acting and re-acting.” Again, those of us in the LGBT community are very familiar with the concept of taking action when we decided to be true to ourselves in our lifestyles. This is not always easy to do and often takes a great deal of courage.

In general I think most of us are reactive most of the time. Proaction comes when things are not going so well. Hopefully proaction is taken based on the correct information. When the word on the street is that everything is just fine when it really isn’t, one must determine how things really are. Then take action.

© 19 March 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.

Wisdom by Will Stanton

We selected this topic “Wisdom” two months ago, and I've been stymied the whole time since as to what to say. I considered saying simply, “I don't have it,” but, that comment would not explain much to the listener. So, I've put a bit more thinking into the topic and finally realized the reason for my roadblock. I am not wise.

How can I say that? Understanding my response first requires understanding what wisdom is. Wisdom consists of two essential parts. The first is the ability to think, that is, to have good critical thinking skills based upon a solid base-core of knowledge resulting from good education, worthwhile experience, clear insight, and understanding.

To some extent, I suppose that I can claim a modicum of good thinking skills. But, perhaps that claim is mostly by default when contrasted with many other people. That possibility exists based upon what I see and hear far too often from many people in positions of power and influence who, despite their egoistical self-perception, are, in fact, bloviating ignoramuses. They confuse ego and delusion for wisdom. To quote Shakespeare from “As You Like It,” “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

I must admit that, throughout my life, I often have perceived and understood some things that might have escaped other people's attention. At times, I have shared my perceptions with thinking people, and they might have thought me wise. I was not; however, for I too often lacked the second criterion that defines true wisdom: action. I may have understood a situation but, unfortunately, did not know how to put that understanding into action.

Wisdom, in Western thought, is considered to be one of four cardinal virtues. To be a true virtue, however, requires one to put perception and understanding into the most worthy and optimal course of action with the highest degree of adequacy. In retrospect, I cannot claim that ability, at least not with any regularity. Being appropriately reactive, or better yet proactive, never seemed to be my strong suit.

Ironically over the years, many clients and friends have felt that I have helped them by imparting words of wisdom to them. A few, thinking me unusually perceptive, even jokingly have called me “wizard.” Of course, it is easier to suggest wise paths for others to follow than to walk them oneself. “Physician, heal thyself.” Without this second part, action, how can one claim to be wise? Without taking optimal action, understanding is of little worth.

Lacking action too often in my life, I cannot claim either wisdom or self-actualization. I finally have come to realize that fact. Socrates said, “The only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing.” A few weeks from now, we have another topic, this one “Drifting.” What I have written for that topic pretty well explains my substitution for wisdom. Had I possessed true wisdom, I undoubtedly would have lived my life more fully. So, I'll end by speaking wise words to others, words that I would have benefited from had I followed them. Quoting Jonathan Swift, “May you live every day of your life.”

© 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.

A Meal to Remember or Rather Forget by Ricky

Sometime in the 70’s, around the same time as the gasoline shortages, there was also a drastic price increase in the price of beef. My spouse, Deborah, decided that we needed to stretch our meat budget by using less meat by adding protein “fillers” to recipes that required meat. She saw a billboard advocating the use of peanut butter as a protein substitute. It sounded reasonable to her so she decided to try it out; on me.

Thus, one day when I returned home from a very hot Arizona day “fighting crime”, she already had dinner prepared. She told me of the billboard and the idea it gave her so I was forewarned about the experimental cuisine, but I was also somewhat excited to try it. After I had taken my place at the table, Deborah brought out our meal. There was salad, vegetable, baked potato, and meatloaf. More accurately, peanut butter meatloaf. Five-star cuisine it was not. In fact, the meatloaf was awful.

Until that evening, neither of us knew just how powerful the peanut oil flavor really is. Two tablespoons of peanut butter added to the meatloaf completely overpowered all the spices added to the hamburger and the flavor of the beef itself. The taste of peanuts combined with the texture of ground beef just did not pass the taste test. It was edible, but not desirable. If we would have had children at that point, I’m sure I would have had to arrest my wife for child abuse. Even if I didn’t, the kids may have gone looking for a foster family.

© 31 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

Lonely Places by Phillip Hoyle

The young man who came into my office that afternoon seemed restless as well as earnest. He had stopped by the church, asking to talk with a priest I suppose. I don’t recall the specifics—perhaps the two ordained ministers were out making calls or attending meetings—but like most odd cases not involving members, he ended up in my office. I shook his hand and invited him to be seated. He was shorter than average, a lightweight, dressed in slacks and a summer shirt, his light brown hair buzzed short.

I asked him, “How can I help you?”

He replied, “I need to make a confession.”

My mind rushed through spontaneous although unexpressed thoughts, “Oh they do that at the Cathedral just a block away,” “He doesn’t know much about churches,” “I need to hear this from his point of view,” “I hope he doesn’t think I’m a priest.” I said, “What happened?”

As he hesitated, I realized that whatever the problem was, he thought of it as a sin.

He spoke the unmentionable quickly, “I was with a man last night. We had sex. I didn’t like it.”

I heard his choked out words. He was nearly shaking, ready to cry. I wondered just how old he was, not because I was thinking of the legality of the act or of who initiated it, or why it had taken place. I didn’t assume he was asking for council. He had used the word confession. I felt sorry that whatever happened made him feel so badly. Also I didn’t know if he was playing me for financial support, but I did know he was upset.

I engaged him in further conversation, the content of which I do not recall. Perhaps we prayed together. I’m sure I gave no sacramental words of absolution (we just didn’t do that in our church), but I may have prayed with him in such a way that he could open himself to a sense of forgiveness and self-acceptance through an idea of God’s infinite love. The office was getting ready to close. I asked him if he had transportation home. I offered a ride.

We engaged in more talk during the ride to the south end of the city. Although I have no memory of the conversation, I do recall my feelings and thoughts. I didn’t find myself attracted to him. I wondered at his family life. I realized he might not be asking me for anything but simply needed to tell another human being about the upsetting event. I didn’t know what he thought.

Really I was not much older than he: I twenty-four or five, he nineteen or twenty I supposed. I thought of him as being younger. I was a college graduate; I didn’t know if he had finished high school but thought he may have dropped out.

We must have talked about his need for a job, something I’m sure he brought up. I told him if he needed a ride to a job interview to give me a call. He did so a day or two later. That’s when I met his mom and was in their house. He was not waiting for me so I went to the door and knocked. He came to the door shirtless and invited me inside. He was in the front room ironing a shirt in preparation for the interview while talking to his mom who was in the kitchen. I put myself in neutral, so to speak, listening and watching. While he wasn’t handsome, he did have an attractive body and fine enough verbal skills. I could see he lived in a family with few resources. The new thing for me was their conversation about relatives and friends who were in and out of jail. I was surprised. This was no movie script, and there seemed to be no consciousness of their topic being strange. I concluded that this distraught young man faced more problems than simply his sexual crisis I heard about in my office. In fact, in the weeks I knew him, he too, was in and out of jail. I know because he called me to give him a ride home when he got out. We talked about the experience for him. I don’t recall why he was in jail, perhaps just following in his familial footsteps. He didn’t seem too upset by it except for the boredom of life in jail with nothing to do all day except play cards with other prisoners incarcerated there. I had listened, accepted, talked, and in our brief time offered him transportation. I never heard from him again.

I wondered how conflicted he might be over his homosexuality, but for me his needs seemed more basic: to get and keep a job, build a life, and have a goal. With all my middleclass assumptions, I was unable to touch him in his lonely place or even approach the events that pushed him to show up for confession at the wrong kind of church.

Of course, now I know his lonely place met mine. My work at an upper-middle class church of professionals often left me feeling alone. I fit in but only because of my sense of ministry, my work in music and education. I told another minister of my contacts with the young man without the detail of what he was initially upset about. I told him about how strange I found the conversation between him and his mom when talking about uncle so and so who had just got out of jail or just went back in. I had never been exposed directly to such a world and saw how disadvantaged a youngster in a family with that as daily conversation could be. The minister responded, “O, I bet he was probably as surprised by your world as you were by his.”

That seemed a good perspective. At least I thought it helpful especially as no lines were inappropriately crossed by me or the young man. Yet his voice that appealed across experiential boundaries spoke powerfully to me. I was learning much more about myself. With more knowledge I then saw in our church indications of young people who were conflicted homosexuals and felt a kind of heart for them during those years. I knew adults, too, about whom I wondered, especially when they would tell gay-deriding jokes that I learned gently to counter. But in so doing I realized I was walking a dangerous, lonely edge. I hoped they’d see my appeal as pastoral rather than self-revealing. That fear left me in the most lonely place of my life.

Denver, © 2014

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

Terror by Pat Gourley

I have fortunately never really experienced terror certainly not in any sustained fashion. Anxiety about something or the other that progresses to what I guess could be called a ‘panic attack’ has certainly occurred in my life but even that phenomenon is quite rare these days. I am lucky not to be living in Syria these days, or a young woman in Afghanistan trying to go to school, kids trying to play outside in the Yemen countryside with American Drones constantly hovering above or a black teenager on the south side of Chicago simply wanting to walk down the street without getting gunned down.

None of these situations though are anything more than things I read about and they are far from my life. I have had no feelings of terror with any of the current boogeyman-issues like Ebola or Isis. I suppose though I could put myself into a fearful state of agitation if I spent much time thinking about the upcoming senatorial term for Cory Gardner here in Colorado, but he too will eventually go away or quickly fade into irrelevance hopefully.

Being white, male and middleclass in America has many built-in safeguards that make experiencing any terror short or long-lived for me extremely unlikely. The afore mentioned panic attacks I have experienced were in actuality more my own escalating emotional reaction to something that usually could be brought under control by a bit of mindful focus on the moment and a few deep breathes. I have been very lucky in that regard I guess since I do know some people who do suffer from ongoing bouts of near debilitating anxiety. Certainly not a few men and women who have been in combat in our country’s often fabricated wars experience recurrent post-traumatic stress for example.

I am sad though about how much of the terror in the world is fostered and supported by the U.S. government on so many innocents abroad. It must be terrifying in the minutes or just seconds before you become collateral damage from a drone strike. No amount of mindfulness and deep breathing is going to deflect the incoming missile. War is a great source of terror for those experiencing it firsthand and the simple truth is that the U.S. is far and away the largest arms merchant on the planet. A fire always needs fuel.

I am though these days running into folks some of whom are experiencing what I think is real terror in their lives and these are the homeless I work with in my current nursing job. Being homeless is always a scary challenge but all the more so when the temperature outside is below zero and you can’t get to a shelter or refuse to go to one because your mental health issues make being enclosed with a bunch of strangers more anxiety provoking than facing the brutal elements.

A fellow I took care of last week during the coldest of the current polar invasion is a prime example. This guy was very streetwise and as is the case often with the homeless these days was carting and wearing everything he owns. He was a frail little guy but managed to look twice as big as he actually was because he had no fewer than four large coats on. He unfortunately suffered from a chronic bladder problem, which has resulted in his having an indwelling urinary catheter for over two years. The presenting issue was that he was leaking urine around the catheter and his pants and boots were totally saturated with piss. Now this is something that would be an obnoxious occurrence whenever it might occur but think about trying to sleep outside in 10 degree below weather sopping wet from the waist down and unable to make it stop.

My intervention depended somewhat on where he planned to spend the night with temperatures again forecast for well below zero. He is a fellow well know to the system and having a rather prickly and at times obnoxious, or perhaps just independent, personality he was persona non-grata at several homeless resources, not an easily accomplished record on his part actually but certainly working to his detriment on a cold night.

As it turned out the problem was easily fixed with a bit of catheter irrigation. Like many folks with long-term catheters he had issues with permanent ongoing urinary tract infections with bugs resistant to plutonium including some yeast that could survive a trip to Mars. It was our best guess that these yeasts were what clogged the end of his catheter so it didn’t empty his bladder and the buildup then leaked out the path of least resistance, which was not into his leg bag but rather into his pants, and eventually down into his shoes.

So after fixing the issue, at least for the time being and administering some peanut butter, graham crackers and apple juice and getting a pair of dry pants he was ready to go. He was not going to part with the boots, piss or no piss. I ask if he was going to sleep outside again that night and he said empathically that he was. Always a bit curious about these things I ask where that would be. His response was a bit cagey but rather spot-on I guess when he said it was a “safe but secret place”.

For me personally it would have been terrifying to venture into the cold with wet boots and a catheter in my penis that could get plugged again any time. For this really hearty soul it was just another night and he had only needed help fine-tuning a few things to make it happen and still be around when the sun came up the next morning hopefully terror free.

I have had the privilege of traveling and spending a few weeks in several European cities. Most notably Paris when during a combined stay of over two weeks I only saw one homeless appearing individual begging on the streets and he wasn’t French! I am sure there are many more but I find it depressing that an almost universal observation of European tourists staying at the B&B in San Francisco I help cover regards the sheer number of homeless on our streets. They often relate that the homeless problem was so much greater in the U.S. than than they had ever imagined. Actually I suspect they hadn’t even thought of it until confronted around nearly every corner with someone begging with a sign or asleep or passed out on the sidewalk in an area with some of the priciest real estate in the world. Terror inducing maybe not but it is certainly a terribly unnecessary phenomenon in the world’s richest nation. The issue really isn’t a problem with the homeless but rather the society that creates the situation on the scale we see today. That is the real terror.

© November 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.

Clothes by Lewis

[I would like to begin by looking back at what happened last week with the topic being "The Person I Fall in Love with Should Be...". As we were leaving, I was feeling disheartened for two reasons: 1) I realized that the topic I had been responsible for was not inclusive of those in the group who are in a committed relationship. It essentially left them with almost nothing to say. I apologize for that and will not allow that to happen again. 2) One of our participants made it very clear that they were not at all happy with the word "should" and made quite a point of saying that "should" is a word that should never be used as part of a topic. I wonder if we want to engage in such disparagement of a topic, especially if, as was the case last week, the originator of that topic is present.

One more comment: We have been very clear that no one is required to write on the "topic of the week". However, I think that it is conducive to the creative process to make those deviations the exception, rather than the rule. Hearing diverse perspectives on the same topic is what makes for a stimulating hour-and-a-half and also forces us to channel our creative forces in constructive ways. 'Nuff said about process.]

Clothes are worn for many purposes: style, status, and modesty for three. I'm going to talk about a fourth: body image. People tend to model what they think is going to "surprise and delight" the casual observer or, perhaps, significant other. Popular opinion has a way of letting someone know when they have stepped over the line of decorum and/or vogue. As a repressed exhibitionist with an eroticized libido, I have been an avid follower of these taboos for most of my life. There exists in modern American society a very distinct double-standard when it comes to the line between dress that titillates and that which commits sensory trespass.

I would like to share with you a letter written to Annie's Mailbox advice column that was published in the Denver Post on June 29, 2003, along with the response from the columnists, Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, --

[Read letter from photocopy.]

The key to understanding the present state of our society is in the first paragraph of the response:

"Most 14-year-old boys would not be willing to put up with the teasing that Jonah is getting from his peers. Stylish or not, they would stop wearing the swimsuits. Either Jonah has tremendous self-assurance or he is enjoying these bikinis on an entirely different level."

I have to wonder--what level would that be? The same level upon which girls of that age might enjoy wearing a bikini? I don't think that is what is meant at all. As the responders also write, "Bikinis and thongs usually indicate something more sensual. Exhibitionism and cross-dressing are possibilities but they aren't the only ones." What, exactly might the others be? Homosexuality? Pedophilia? Has anyone ever asked models for the Sports Illustrated swim suit issue if they are exhibitionists? And to even suggest that "Jonah" might be a cross-dresser is to imply that thongs and bikinis are the sole province of the female gender, which is begging the very question that I am asking: Isn't what is good for the gander also good for the goose?

When I was about 10 years old, I took a swimming class at the Hutchinson, KS, YMCA. The rules were that swimming suits were not allowed in the pool, as they might carry germs. We had to shower before we got into the pool, as well as after. I was terrified but soon got comfortable with letting it all hang out. By the time my own children were about that age, boys did not even take their swimming suits off to shower after swimming. Why the vast difference? I would welcome any and all ideas on this.

In 1990, my wife, kids and I set out for Disney World in Orlando. Wanting to appear "with it", I bought my first pair of "surfer-style" swim trunks just for the occasion. When we went to the water park, the first thing on the kids' agenda was the huge, serpentine water slide. Not wanting to appear skittish or square, I enthusiastically joined them. Just one problem: about 6 feet down the slide, my ridiculously bulky "trunks" grabbed hold of the slide and held on for dear life. I had to "scoot" down the remaining three stories of slide while trying not to get "rear-ended" by an unsuspecting kiddie. I have worn nothing but trusty Speedos ever since. Yes, sometimes I do feel a little "over-exposed" but at least I don't carry a gallon of water with me whenever I get out of the pool.

[As an illustration of the fact that America's discomfort with the male form is not universal, I am passing around a copy of Down Under: To glorify the Australian lifesaver. I have flagged a few pertinent pages.]

© September 22, 2014

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.

Naturally by Gillian

I can think of only one activity in which I would possibly describe myself as artistic, and that is writing; at least if I'm going with the definition, "having or revealing natural creative skill."

The key here is the word "natural."

I can paint. I can draw. I could create pottery vases or even carve wooden figurines. I could play the harp in readiness for my audition for angelhood. But these are, or would be, learned skills. If you try hard enough, you can learn to do just about anything. What you cannot do is make it come naturally.

Betsy and I spent some time in Taos with her daughter, Lynne. We all painted and sketched. Mine were mechanical reproductions of the scenes before my eyes; Lynne's, very evidently, came naturally. They had a feel, a soul, to them, that mine lacked. Even had mine more adequately reproduced the subject, though I'm most certainly not making that claim, hers would still have been more artistic.

When I write, I am, to adopt a modern expression, "in the zone."

No, not always. Of course not. But when the result is good; good to me, which is all that matters,

I don't even feel that it is me writing. Or, if it is, it is some other me. Some subliminal me.

When that happens it is indescribable. Perhaps it's like some drug-induced high from the '60's, though I cannot say from personal experience.

Maybe all of us, when we are truly creative, feel that high.

There's another definition of the word which I also like, "aesthetically pleasing."

I love to take photographs. This is not an artistic endeavor! Especially today, with digital cameras which do all the work. But it has it's own creativity.

It's kind of on a lower scale.

I see, naturally, what creates a good image.

The camera does the rest, but I point it!

I hope my photographs are aesthetically pleasing, because that's my goal. But I hope, sometimes, for more than that. Some of them I am simply looking for the beauty that is abundant in this world. Sometimes that is enough. But real artistry should surely engender emotion, not simply beauty. Seeing it, and then capturing it, that's the trick.

Just last week I was driving down Colfax to Story Time at The Center, when two figures rushed into the street in front of my car. A young Hispanic woman dragged a little boy of perhaps five by the hand. Under her other arm she clutched a huge plastic basket piled high with laundry.

In the boy's other hand he hauled an immense plastic bottle of laundry soap. In a second they were gone, safely across the street and out of sight as I moved the car forward. Of course I didn't even have a camera with me, and if I had, everything moved too fast and too unexpectedly for me to have had any chance of capturing that wonderful image; one of those pictures worth a thousand words in the stories it tells. But, "thinking like a camera," if you like, I did capture the shot. It is burned in my brain. I can look at it whenever I want, and seeing it I can describe it to others.

One of the greatest gifts of one's own artistry is, at least for me, that it changes for ever how I see what I see. When I'm driving, or standing in line, or doing the dishes, I feel the words of some imaginary writing come into my head, or I'm framing the perfect photo.

If I reach the stage of life where I no longer raise a camera or a pen, I hope that gift remains with me, and continues, forever, to lighten and enlighten my life.© September 2014

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.

When Things Don't Work by Betsy

When things don’t work, I try to figure out why. Then, I figure out if I can 1) fix it and make it work, 2) decide it’s unfixable and throw it out, 3) determine that it’s fixable, but not by me, so take it to an expert, or 4) in the case of electronic devices, sit and stare at it and hope it will magically fix itself.

In the old days this type of problem was much simpler. If I had a mouse trap that didn’t work, for example, I could look at it and see why it didn’t work: a wire is bent, the cheese was not put in there securely enough, the mouse is too smart for this particular design of trap. One could clearly see what the problem was. The solution that followed was also clear: bait it more securely, use a different type of trap, or get out the pliers, screw drivers, hammer, wire cutters, whatever tool was called for, make the adjustments until the thing works. The point is that it was all so clear and right there in front of your eyes to see.

That was in the old days. We gradually then started building better mouse traps--electronic ones, battery operated, factory sealed ones, or devices that have so many bells and whistles that the basic operation of it is hidden and its fundamental purpose is virtually forgotten.

Take any electronic device. Almost everyone now not only owns a computer or a telephone, ipad, ipod, blackberry, blueberry, or blue tooth, but we have all come to depend on our electronic devices. I am ashamed to say that if my computer stopped working, I would be lost and so would a ton of information that I need from day to day. Unlike the old days, in this case I don’t ever try to figure out why it’s not working. If I can’t read on the screen the magic message sent to me by...whoever sends those messages, the message that tells me why it’s not working and what to do about it--if I can’t read it on the screen, I’m lost. Fortunately this hasn’t happened to me yet. But I can see how easily it occurs. I’ve seen my spouse spill coffee on her lap top computer. Result: life as we know it comes to a screeching halt. The next two weeks of her life (and a bit of mine, too) was devoted to getting the thing fixed by one of those computer geeks. Life returned to normal when it was finally fixed.

Now, modern battery operated devices can also be a source of frustration when they don’t work. These are the rechargeable tools that we once worked by hand. For example the electric toothbrush. Things like this are always factory sealed, the innards are not to be touched by human hands--ever, under any circumstances. Don’t even THINK about fixing it. Throw it out, get a new one. Don’t fight it. It’s a waste of energy. Trust me, you’ll lose the battle. Oh well, at least in the case of toothbrushes one can always go back to the old fashioned type. They ARE still out there.

Brilliant scientists and mathematicians are warning that we humans are in danger of losing control. The electronic brains that we are building could progress beyond our present capabilities and take over our lives. I find it hard to imagine that happening, or what that would be like, but the warning is clear and must be taken seriously.

Now here’s something that doesn’t work, but that IS fixable. Our government--ours is not the only one on the planet that doesn’t work, but it’s the one I know best and the one that I live with. Actually stacked up against most other governments in the world ours is better than most. Lately ’though, we’ve heard a lot about our broken government. In my opinion it’s not really the government per se, it’s not the system that’s broken. It’s the implementation of the system that is faulty. The flaws as I see it stem from human failings and frailties such as greed, selfishness, and a need to protect the ego causing lack of foresight, lack of compassion for others, denial, an inability and unwillingness to look inside, into the soul, where the source of the problem exists. It is not just some of our representatives in the government who are flawed. It is some of us who vote as well as and those who do not vote, those who speak out as well as those who put their heads in the sand. We are a failing if not failed species. Maybe that’s where we can start trying to fix it: admitting humbly that we are failing in many ways but that there is a fix. And I don’t mean going to war to prove that our fix is the best one or the only one.

Our technology advances by leaps and bounds every day. Devices purported to make our lives richer, healthier and happier abound. These advances are driven by the endless imagination of the human mind and spirit, and spurred on by a market economy. I would like to think that the same advances could be made in the area of human caring for one another, and caring for our mother earth. A little foresight is in order--an ability to look beyond the immediate future--to look at the consequences of our behavior for the next several centuries, not just the next election and the consequences of our exploitation of natural resources.

At election time we often see some of our leaders in the government thrown out in favor of new ones--as if it were a worn out tool or device that doesn’t work anymore. In my opinion we often are too hasty in throwing out well honed skills and the wisdom that comes with experience when we do that.

I dread to think that there may be a day when it turns out that humans are not fixable and must be thrown out. I much prefer to think that the human condition is fixable, that the basic goodness intrinsic in all humans is not factory sealed within its individual and collective containers; that that essential goodness can always be directed toward each other and toward caring for the planet.

© 8 December 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.

Terror by Will Stanton

Back when I was around twenty and still living in my hometown, I met and briefly knew a young woman of about the same age named Ann. Physically, Ann was rather short and squat, what one would call, using a hackneyed expression, “not very attractive, but with a nice personality.” In retrospect, my guess is that Ann turned out to be gay. People said that her older brother Tim was, too. I guess it can run in some families.

Like many young people, and especially in that strange town, Ann had been interested in the occult for some time. She tended to hang around similar young people, using Ouija boards, reading about pagan practices, and becoming involved in who-knows-what.

Ann soon discovered that there was a new, young English-professor on campus who, supposedly, also was involved in the occult, claiming to be a witch. He also had a surname of “Oakwood,” which is singularly appropriate for someone claiming to practice the “old religion.” I saw him on campus. I must say that he certainly sounded and looked the part, tall and thin, very dark hair and eyes, always dressed in black, and tending to speak and behave in a mysterious manner. Ann actually went to the effort to sit in on his class, just to be there and to observe him. Eventually, she had the nerve to ask him, “Are you a white witch or black witch?” Apparently, Ann had watched “The Wizard of Oz” far more than having read reputable textbooks on pagan history and anthropology. The ancient pagans did not practice “dark magic” and actually believed that, if one did something evil, that evil would come back upon the person threefold. Naturally, the mysterious professor responded, “White witch.”

I met Ann at the same time that I briefly knew Ned. One evening when the three of us were together, Ann suggested that we go back to her house and hang out in their little basement-den where she had a small TV. So, we ended up at her house. The three of us, along with her cocker spaniel, went down to the den to watch TV and chat.

Suddenly at one point, I felt terror, as though a lump of ice had been thrust into my gut. I instantly noticed that both Ann and Ned were responding the same way, - - and so was the dog! That poor dog's eyes were wild, and it howled and howled. This continued for at least a dozen seconds, which is a long time to feel terror. Then, the feeling and the dog's howling abruptly stopped. We just looked at each other. Finally, Ned said, “What was that?!”

The following day, Ann attended Oakwood's class as usual. As she was leaving at the end of class, Oakwood casually mentioned to Ann, “I visited you last night.” That really spooked Ann.

I eventually learned that Ann had gotten herself so deeply involved with the occult that she increasingly felt fear and anxiety, so much so that she finally concluded that she had to get away from it all. She approached the young, assistant priest at our town's Episcopal church, begging him to perform an exorcism. Noting how distressed that Ann was, the priest actually did perform the ritual; and Ann never returned to her old practices.

An ironic postscript to all of this is that Ned got to know that young, handsome priest, and had sex with him. I guess that there is more than one way to reduce stress.

© 5 November 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.

Spirituality by Ricky

In my opinion, there are five kinds of “spirituality”: spirituality of the first kind, spirituality of the second kind, spirituality of the third kind (not to be confused with the movie of a similar name), spirituality of the fourth kind, and spirituality of the fifth kind.

The first kind of spirituality I call Mysticism. Wikipedia defines mysticism as a multitude “…of distinctive practices, discourses, texts, institutions, traditions, and experiences aimed at human transformation, variously defined in different traditions.”

The second kind of spirituality I call Spiritualistism. I define this as people who believe they can talk to spirits with or without a human medium. This definition includes extreme “pot heads” and dopers.

The third kind of spirituality I call Hate Mongerism. These are the people who profess to follow a religion of love and peace, but preach intolerance, hatred and violence. A subcategory of Hate Mongerism is Demonism. These are preachers who demonize people that have a different culture, lifestyle, or belief system; but do not preach hatred towards those demonized.

The fourth kind of spirituality I call Spiritsulaity or just plain  Alcoholism. (Enough said about that.)

Spirituality of the fifth kind is what I have. (Hint: it is none of the above.)

© 26 January 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

Breaking into Gay Culture by Phillip Hoyle

I didn’t break into Gay Culture but rather carefully walked in prepared for my entrance by my good friend Ted. Over many years he had coached me, revealed the ins and outs of much of the culture by taking me to gay bars, introducing me to gay people, teaching me the language both spoken and unspoken, introducing me to gay novels, showing me more of his life than I really asked to see, and talking endlessly with me about gay experience. His tutoring took on a different seriousness when in my mid-thirties I told him I’d made it with another man, a friend of mine he’d met years before. From that point on, Ted simply assumed I was gay whatever non-gay decisions I made. His assumption led him to open even more of himself to me rather than shield me from realities that would certainly become important should I leave my marriage and go gay full time! Ted was my effective educator.

About two months after my wife and I separated I made my entry into a world I had only studied. Three blocks from my apartment I entered a bar named The New Age Revolution, a bar I had seen while walking with my wife and had wondered if it could be gay. Why else would it have such a name in Tulsa, Oklahoma? I had thought about when I would be ready to go alone to such a place, thought about when I’d go there as a gay man. Would I be courageous enough to do so? Of course, I would. After all, I didn’t separate from a twenty-nine-year-long, perfectly fine marriage to an understanding and lively woman whom I adored without intending to live a fully open gay life. I had already begun preparing to leave my profession of thirty-two years, one in which I realized I would not be able to live openly gay. So I glanced in the mirror, took off my tie, straightened my clothes, walked out the apartment, descended sixteen floors in the elevator, waved at the security guard, exited the building, and walked those three blocks down to the bar. I went early, way too early according to Ted’s instruction. He taught me never to show up before ten. I’m sure I was there at nine. I suppose it was a weeknight; I had to work the next day. The place was nearly deserted. There was music. A few people stood around talking to one another. I went up to the bartender, said “Hi,” and ordered a beer; I don’t recall what kind of beer but it was in a bottle. While I slowly sipped at my drink, I looked around at the decorations. This place just had to be gay. I couldn’t imagine any other saloon that would display a decorated dildo on the wall behind the bar. I was pretty sure I had made it to the right place.

This was not only the first time I had been alone in a gay bar; I’m sure it was the first time I’d been alone in any bar. I grew up in a dry state with a prohibitionist mother and had married a tea totaler. I had drunk beers on occasion, but had never gone to a bar before I was in my thirties and living away from Kansas. I had rarely even paid for a drink. I thought about a gay friend of mine who said he sometimes went to gay bars simply for the spiritual aspect of it, as a point of identity, participation, and presence. I stood in the bar that night not talking to anyone, thinking about how being there certainly was a kind of spiritual experience, one of great importance to me. I was finally present publically as a gay man. There I was beginning my future life as openly gay.

I drank another beer. Finally I nodded to the bartender, left a generous tip (changes must be commemorated with great generosity), and exited the door. I walked thoughtfully up the hill all the time watching peripherally for anyone that might have seen me leave the place; after all I was in Oklahoma. I entered the apartment building and returned to my home. I suspect I played music and messed around with some art project. I thought about making gay saints for my next series of mixed media works. Would I become one I wondered?

That evening I walked into a bar but wasn’t breaking into gay culture. Actually I was breaking out of several important, long-standing straight relationships. My entering gay culture passed as quietly as that first night in a gay bar by myself, and I’ve never regretted that short walk some fifteen years ago.© Denver, 2012

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

The Women in My Life by Pat Gourley

I have written many times over the years in this group about men and women who have influenced me. The men of course include Harry Hay and Jerry Garcia to say nothing of really countless gay brothers. In hindsight and this is actually current to this day it is the women in my life who have imparted the modicum of wisdom I have today.
It all started with my mother of course and her relentless unconditional positive regard. I was the oldest male in a modest-sized Irish Catholic family (6 kids only!) and therefore could really do no wrong. The closest I ever came to being reprimanded by her was the frequent Zen injunction to please go sit down and be quiet. Oh, and there is the one time I split my brother Brian’s head open with a rock. We had been throwing dirt clods at each other, something farm boys did frequently, and I apparently hurled one my brother’s way that also had a rock in it. That resulted in the only corporal punishment I ever received from either parent and involved a couple whacks on the butt with her shoe.
I also fondly remember two of my several aunts, Dorothy and Alice. These women taught me the fine art of cooking and the joy of gardening and eating fresh vegetables. Lessons that continue to serve me well decades later.

I have wondered on occasion whether or not my mom may have had lesbian tendencies. She did join the WAC’s, as a nurse, in World War II stationed in Hawaii, was an ace softball pitcher; never fond of cooking or housework and always eager to drive large farm machinery. Perhaps it was lucky for me that I was born pre-gay-lib in 1949. The night I was conceived LGBT identities were really not even a twinkle in any one’s eye outside of a few urban coastal enclaves. Options for most Catholic women who might have been gay in the 1940’s were largely limited to the convent or marriage preferably with as many babies as you could pop out. Of the many, many compliments I can pay my mother that she might have had dyke tendencies is right there at the top – loved you mom!

The next woman to come along who had a very profound effect on my development was Sister Alberta Marie my government/civics teacher in the last two years of high school. I owe this woman a great debt of gratitude on so many fronts but most particularly I learned to never be afraid to question authority. I was able to reconnect with her in June of 2013 in New York City where she has lived for decades and worked as an immigration lawyer. To her immense credit she was tossed out of the convent shortly after I graduated high school with a long list of offenses per the local bishop. The final straw I think was bringing renowned Jesuit anti-Vietnam War activist, Daniel Berrigan, to speak to the school’s Peace Club at Marion Central, which she was instrumental in founding.

Next came a group of women who lived communally with us in Champaign-Urbana from 1967-1972. Several of these powerful women helped to shape my budding radical politics and began to impart a feminist analysis to my worldview. One in particular was a frequent LSD tripping companion. We would drive out to a local forest preserve and then take, in those days usually, a hit of something called windowpane and spend the day having religious and spiritual experiences with the local flora and fauna. To this day I think those trips were as close as I have come, despite many, many hours on the cushion and in retreat, to realizing the non-dual nature of it all. It really is all just one taste and one’s personal taste of it often fleeting.

Next up were a group of nurses again all women who I worked with at the inpatient psychiatric unit at then Denver General Hospital. A few months after arriving in Denver in late 1972 I was working on the Psychiatric Unit with a cadre of very strong nurses who I admired greatly and encouraged me to pursue my own career in nursing and that dance continues to this day. They were a feisty bunch who never afraid to put uppity physicians in their place and were totally instrumental in shaping my life-long philosophy of nursing.
By the mid-1970’s I was becoming involved in the Gay Community Center on Lafayette Street and being introduced to several potent women best described as radical lesbian feminists at the time. These women helped me through occasional and well-deserved criticism to hone my own political persona into one more effective and definitely more honest. A shout of thanks to Carol, Tea, Britt, Karen, Janet, Katherine, Donna and many others who helped immensely broaden my perception of what it was to be “queer-other” and helping to create a fertile ground that definitely aided in my latching onto Harry Hay and the Radical Fairies. Many of these same women were also instrumental in getting what turned out to be very successful AIDS efforts off the ground here locally.

By the late 1980’s I was exploring spirituality a bit differently, leaving the pagan/wiccan traditions behind and moving to the cushion and re-invoking my mother’s frequent injunction to sit still and be quiet. In the early 1990’s I became involved with a local chapter of the Kwan Um School of Zen. The guiding teacher, based in Rhode Island but a frequent visitor to our Sangha, was a women named Bobbi who had a day job as a hospice nurse and oh by the way she is a lesbian. Another potent mix of female energy I owe a great debt to.
In writing this piece more and more women have come to mind who were and are great friends and persons who had significant impacts on me. I’ll stop though in the spirit of brevity. It is quite frightening really for me to try and even think where I would be today professionally, culturally, psychologically, socially and spiritually without so many dynamic women influencing me along the path.

Sadly as I finish this piece I just received an email about the death of straight woman ally who I had gotten to know well in the 1980’s through her tireless volunteer efforts with the Colorado AIDS Project being on the original CAP Board of Directors. Straight allies in those dark days were very brave and cherished souls. Jill got to spend Thanksgiving with family around her bed before succumbing to a four-year battle with cancer.

Women – can’t live without ‘em!

© November 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.

Being Gay Is by Lewis

For this well-ripened and battle-hardened gay man, being gay is--

seeing the beauty and sensuality in both the male and female body;

relishing the sensibilities of both male and female;

taking care of my own body because I think it's beautiful and deserving;

knowing the difference between my political friends and enemies;

knowing the difference my involvement can make in electing my political friends into positions of power;

believing in my bones that the form of the human body that turns one on is not a matter of choice, no matter how much others may prefer to see it as a manifestation of depravity;

knowing the difference between lust and love and when each is "of the moment";

knowing that, while judgment of others is part of our human nature, 50% of the time it is kinder to keep those judgments to myself;

having more than a single share of empathy, for I know that the only moccasins in which I have a walked a mile are my own, and, finally;

as a member of a not-so-long-ago reviled minority, knowing that it is not enough to just "be myself". I must also be as loving and as kind and considerate a human being as I can, for I am not only me but a representative of my own maligned and precious kind.

© 29 September 27

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.