Practical but Cruel Jokes, by Ricky

I joined the Mormon Church in December of 1968.  Soon thereafter, I became friendly with the missionaries whom had taught me the pre-baptism lessons I needed for the introduction to Mormonism.  As a result, I was privy to some of their stories of missionary experiences.  I will relate two of them below.

Practical Joke #1

Mormon missionaries always come in pairs and are referred to as “companions”.  Such pairs share a modest apartment and are placed together for varying amounts of time before being split up and paired with a different companion.  Under these circumstances companions get to experience each other’s idiosyncrasies.

One such pair had the following habits.  One insisted on being the first one in the shower each morning.  The other had a pet gold fish and would always be the first to drink from the cold water jug upon returning to the apartment each day after being outside in the hot Southern sun.

One day, as a practical joke, the first companion secretly placed the other’s gold fish in the cold water jug before leaving the apartment.  As expected, the other missionary arrived home and grabbed the water jug and began to drink from it before he noticed the now dead gold fish inside.  Internally, he was seething with anger but did not show any outward signs other to acknowledge the “joke”.  But he was already plotting his revenge.

The night before an important gathering of all the missionaries in the district, when he finished his shower, he set up his practical joke.  During the week, he had purchased a pack of blue Rit Dye gelatin capsules.  That night he removed the shower head and put several capsules in the pipe.  Replacing the head, he then went to bed.  Getting up a little early the next morning, he informed his companion the he was going to walk to the chapel where the meeting was to be held and was leaving early.  Thus, he left his companion alone and departed.

During his walk, the gelatin capsules eventually dissolved.  When the companions met at the meeting about one hour later, the one companion said to the other after looking at him for a moment, “Are you feeling a little blue today, Elder?”  As you may expect, his companion’s exposed skin (head, neck, hands) was bright blue.

Practical Joke #2

This next story takes place in the panhandle of northwestern Florida.  A newly assigned missionary, called “Greenie”, was assigned to a companionship for a short time until he could be paired with his own companion.  The greenie arrived about two days prior to another missionary meeting which was to take place in the morning in Panama City.  It was necessary for the missionaries to leave early in the morning in order to arrive in time for the 7:30 AM meeting.

There were two companionships and the greenie sharing a car for the trip, 5 missionaries in all.  After about an hour of travel, the driver pulls the car over next to a field of watermelons and suggests that they go pick up a few for all the missionaries to eat after the meeting.  Everyone gets out of the car and the greenie says something like, “Isn’t this stealing?”  He is told it is okay, that it has been done before, and not to worry.  The greenie agrees to help.

Just as the greenie picks up his water melon and removes it from the vine, a young black man appears and demands to know what they are doing in his water melon field.  One of the missionaries pulls out a pistol and shoots the black man who falls down mortally wounded to all appearances.  The missionaries tell the greenie to get back to the car and start walking away down the road towards their destination while they stay behind to hide the body.

After hiding the body, the missionaries get back in the car and drive up to the walking greenie and pick him up.  They explain that this type of thing does happen occasionally, but no one cares because it was a black man, so don’t worry.  Of course the greenie is in total mental turmoil.

After arriving at the meeting and unloading the melons the missionaries attend their appointed sessions.  The greenie is then informed that they will be staying for regular church services.  Just before the services are to begin, a black family arrives and the greenie is startled to see the young black man who was shot and buried walk into the chapel.  The four missionaries with whom he rode then introduced the family and privately explained that they had set him up as an initiation prank.

Practical jokes may be fairly common, but most are cruel and not very funny.  I do not condone them because they usually result in escalating rounds of revenge jokes and can easily result in violence.

© 28 July 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 9-11-2001 terrorist attack.

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

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

Feeling Loved, by Phillip Hoyle

As a college freshman I heard a lecture in which the professor pointed out how Americans love many things, everything from cars to mashed potatoes. We celebrate the love of clothes, looks, hairdos, decorations, and cities. We love our ball teams. But we don’t expect most of the things we say we love to love us. Mostly we limit the hope of being loved to our relationships with other humans except, of course, our pets, especially our dogs who we are sure love us in return. In this story I’ve made an incomplete list of my experiences of being loved by that one someone who figures centrally into our American mythos of being loved, but obviously I’ve expanded my list to more than that one and only—woman or man.

I was deeply loved by Myrna my wife. I felt loved. And I loved her in so many ways in this most complicated relationship of my life—one with a professional career, children, parents and siblings and in-laws and many, many friends over a period of many years. I was happy about it basking in such warm and complete love.

About two years into that marriage I was loved by a gay friend. I loved him, but I had no experience and didn’t understand the order of things. He loved my wife and didn’t want to hurt my marriage. I loved him but not in the way I finally realized he wanted me to love him. I was very young. I think I hurt him deeply. Still our friendship flourished for many years.

In the meantime I fell in love with a man who probably loved me but whose life was too encumbered, whose imagination couldn’t deal with what that might mean about himself and his life. As a result his love for me became stunted. I loved what feeling I received from him although I hoped he’d never want me to give up my married life for him. I also knew I’d never ask him to give up his married life for me.

Then I loved a man who may have loved me but had built a barrier around his feelings. Oh he wanted sex with me but he didn’t want to give or receive the feelings of it all. So when we started the sex, I agreed to his demand there be no emotions since I realized the advantage of his program to my marriage. Still I wondered at his request but like a good soldier turned off my emotions—at least some of them—but not so much as to miss experiencing the thrills our play created.

Then I loved a man who really loved me. I warned him that my love, while real and deep, was quite different than his. Now I was the one defending the two of us from one another for quite complicated reasons. I loved being loved by him although I could not imagine living with him.

I was loved by a man who had nothing to offer me except his adoration. We lived in two greatly different worlds, his with Okie twang, mine with educated artifice. I was nice and kind but never in love with him. Still I appreciated his devotion even with its great impediments. I was relieved when he no longer pursued me.

I liked a man who seemed to like me. Eventually I fell in love with him and he with me. The experience was new to me since I was recently separated from my wife and could actually go live with him. He loved me. We lived together. I watched him die. I grieved.

I loved a man who really loved me. Our love had all the markings of classic falling in love: the ancient lover and beloved, the medieval romance, and the extremely baroque and renaissance drama of an opera plot. Sadly this love affair was also a tragedy although a gentle one. I grieved unlike ever before in my life when he died.

Again I love a man with whom I live. He loves me. We don’t match very well but do live together successfully. Neither of us is especially romantic, but I seem to have a much greater proclivity for romance than he. We have a nice social life with mutual friends. His mother lives with us. I know I am loved, but again it is a new experience with dynamics unlike any of my other loves.

Perhaps the nice thing about my loves is that my wife and the man I first fell in love with and the man I first allowed my love to grow with all continue to be my good friends. My current love is also a good friend. I have come to realize that I love any number of men for any number of reasons. I will refrain from counting the ways in this story. Perhaps another day there will be a poem describing that matter! Of course, these listed affairs of the heart are only one category of being loved. But I have always realized that I am loved by many different people for many different reasons and in many different ways. I really feel loved. I guess it proper to say the one-and-only aspect of my being loved is to be found in the individuality of each loving relationship.

© Denver, 2013 

About the Author 

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

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

Sports, by Gillian

In my youth, I understood sports to be for fun, fitness, and friendly competition. Now, in my curmudgeonly old age, I know sports to be about money, winning at all costs, and very unfriendly competition.

Even amateur sports have gone completely out of whack. Have you been to a school ball game lately? Even pee-wee baseball is all about winning. At that age, should it not be about having fun, getting some healthy fresh air exercise, and learning the basics of the game? Oh no! Fathers scream abuse not only at other children but at their own. God forbid that poor little Joey should strike out or fail to catch a ball. He'll pay for that when he gets home. The pressure on so many children these days is immense. Everything has become so serious.

Professional sports, of course, have paved the way. Back in the 1970s I had friends with Broncos season tickets. The husband frequently had better things to do, and my husband was rarely interested, so off to the game the girls went! It was fun. Having had the same seats for several seasons, my friend knew all the people around us. We all bought each other beers and chatted and cheered. After my divorce I lost touch with those friends, and I did not go to a live game for a long time. Then one day another friend had a spare ticket and I went to Mile High Stadium again, for the first time in probably twenty years. My, how it had changed. Everyone seemed to be angry rather than enjoying themselves. There was a constant stream of verbal abuse hurled at the players on both teams, and of course the officiating crew. I was so sick of the constant "F" word. By the time I left I felt as if it had been burned into my ears and my brain and my psyche. (Or, as Betsy commented when I read this to her, I felt completely fucked! And not in a good way!) I have not been offered a ticket to a football game since then; if I were, I seriously doubt that I would accept it.

I have to admit I still follow the NFL pretty devotedly on TV. I can't explain why I like it. Many lesbians are ardent football fans, which seems strange as the game consists of what most of us abhor; sanctioned violence, perpetrated by huge sweaty men. I have to close my mind to two things, though. The violence to women committed by an unfortunately large number of players, and the huge salaries now offered to these people, would put me off the entire sport if I thought about them too much, so mostly I don't.  After all, I don't refuse to see a movie because of the shenanigans of those acting in it.

I do abhor the lack of humanity which seems to have taken over. If a player has an injury, the opposing team members will do their best to attack that part of his body. Has it really gotten to the stage where the intent is to do permanent bodily injury?

"Be great for the Broncos if they could take him out for the rest of the season," laughs the commentator happily.

"Well if anybody can eliminate him, Foster can. Man! He plays so angry," rejoins his co-commentator in admiration.

"He's just looking to rip someone's head off every play!"

This isn't war. It's supposed to be a game. Was it always so merciless? Maybe so and I didn't get it. After all I have never played football.

OK. Fair enough. Football is a violent game. If you don't like it don't watch it.

But it's not just football.

I have played tennis, though far from the Pro level. But, at that Pro level, how it has changed. Once considered a sport of Gentlemen and Ladies, it is now as cut-throat as any other professional sport.

"Now Farmer's injured that right ankle, Varenova will keep her going to that side, see if she can't break her down," a happy commentator reports.

"Exactly," replies another, "It's time to take advantage of that injury and finish her off. Go in for the kill right now."

So this verbiage of violence seems to have penetrated even the sport of Ladies and Gentlemen.  It is so pervasive, and I cannot believe it has a positive effect on our society.

All this, and the seriousness with which we take sports, players and spectators alike, of course has come with the advent of huge financial rewards. These in turn came with the universal obsession with sports by so many people. In the days before huge lights dominated the playing fields, games were played in the daylight hours, thus eliminating most of the potential fans who were, of necessity, at work. Even if it were broadcast live on the radio, or later the old black-and-white TV, few were available to enjoy it. Most were played at weekends, to attract more followers, but time off work was limited and people had many things to cram into a weekend.

Then came the huge brightly-lit stadium where people could gather after work and watch, or watch at home on the TV in the evening, relaxing from that hard day at the factory.  The fan base kept growing. Sports were becoming big business. Compensation for players and coaches, support staff and owners, kept rising.

Then came mass media, complete with ever-improved recording devises and exponentially increasing choices of what to watch when. No need to miss anything. Ever. Grandma turns up unexpectedly right at the kickoff or the first serve; no matter. Press the little red button and welcome Granny with open arms. In addition, the fan base for all sports is expanding horizontally, across the globe. Want to watch the Australian Open Tennis here in the U.S.? Can't even figure out what day it is in Australia, never mind what time? No worries. Look it up on the TV Guide, on the TV of course, not that little book we once bought at the grocery store, hit that little red button and go to bed. Watch it tomorrow. Sometime. Whenever.

So, given professional sport's universal, world wide appeal, I suppose the money involved is only to be expected. I'm not sure what Neil Armstrong earned by being the first human ever to walk on the moon, but I doubt it was anything like what many many sports heroes earn. But why not? The moon walk was reportedly watched by 530 million people. The 2011 Cricket World Cup between India and Pakistan was supposedly watched by about one billion.

I miss the days with less hype, less money, less drama, involved in sports. But what I really really miss is the gentler language, before it all became so infused with violence. But it seems to be what most people want. After all, you get what you pay for.

© 3 Nov 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.

Any Writing is Experimental, by Will Stanton

Any writing, especially when one first endeavors to write, is experimental.  This is particularly true for those not well versed or prone to writing.  As one becomes more accomplished, the need for experimentation is reduced but rarely eliminated.

The primary function of writing (and speaking, for that matter) is to communicate clearly, conveying accurately what is meant to be said.  If that is achieved, the secondary consideration is to communicate in an engaging manner through a good command of language and perhaps, when appropriate, with humor.

The main advantage of writing, versus attempting to speak extemporaneously, is one is given the chance, in advance of presentation, to organize one's thoughts and words.  In that way, the presenter has a good chance of eliminating pauses or non-verbal utterances while searching for the next thing to say.  This also prevents one from repeating or wandering astray onto unrelated and unnecessary sidetracks.  The presenter also has the advantage of not droning on, losing the main point or topic meant to be conveyed and, consequently, driving the listeners to distraction.  The presentation should be no more nor less than required.

A colleague of mine, Dr. Hughes, made an in-depth study of well-known speakers.  He concluded that the most effective, extemporaneous speaker was, unfortunately, Adolf Hitler.  Winston Churchill found it impossible.  He had to write and re-write his speeches and then practice them until he felt comfortable presenting them.

Over the years, I regularly was required to speak extemporaneously in my therapeutic-group sessions, in lectures regarding some of my other interests, and even, for fun, spontaneously creating and relating stories.  Apparently, I've inherited a modicum of verbal skills.

I still find, however, reviewing and fine-tuning early drafts beneficial.  The main reason is that imagery and memories are clear to me, yet they may not be clear to listeners unless I make sure that I express them clearly.  As a consequence, I always begin early thinking through and writing about a topic, rather than waiting to the last moment or, perhaps, not writing at all.

I am aware of only one super-genius who never had to rethink or revise what he wrote, and that was the superlative composer Mozart.  He could perform one of his piano concertos, then at the same time compose another in his head, and finally, upon returning home, set the new concerto down on paper without a single change or correction.  Obviously, that skill is astonishing.  Most of us, however, are not so astonishing, and experimenting with our writing still is required.

© 14 July 2015 

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.

Anger, by Ricky

“Tranquility base here.  The Eagle has landed.”  The first astronauts to land on the moon, found an environment completely serene and peaceful.  Of course it would be because there were no people there until then.  It’s a pity that our planet is not so tranquil.

Earth is still geologically active and also has an energetic atmosphere, so there are naturally occurring events that would disturb the quiet nature of a planet at rest.  But the tranquility to which I am assigning my “it’s a pity” is the lack of peacefulness between people, cultures, and nations.

Situations continuously arise which allow people to make themselves irritated.  Irritation leads to frustration.  Frustration leads to anger.  Anger leads to hate.  Hate leads to violence.  Violence leads to war.  War leads to destruction.  Destruction leads to famine, pestilence, and death.

I think we need an organization that can roundup all the hate and war mongers and send them to the moon so we can have peace on earth and they can experience tranquility there.  Maybe we could let them stay there "to infinity and beyond."

© 9 June 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 9-11-2001 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.

Exploring, by Phillip Hoyle

I was a Boy Scout but never an Explorer. Still I had explorations I really enjoyed. They usually took place in the stacks at the public library, at the piano when facing a new score, or at home or office when fulfilling a project for school or work.

These explorations kept me busy and mostly out of trouble for years, but things have changed so much that these days I most enjoy messing around with words in an exploration of rhythm, contrast, and other aspects of storytelling.

You might conclude as have I that my life-long explorations are mostly projects of mind and imagination. That’s been quite enough for me although I do like to go to the same places by differing routes, say take the scenic lane, stop by and see something I’ve always missed, or approach a similar project in a slightly different manner. So today I’m reading something again related to my childhood and continuing fascination with Native American cultures but this time in poetic form. My interest in a peyote fan at the Denver Art Museum served as the starting point, but the verse tells of my childhood imaginings.

© Denver, 2013

Magic Fan

By Phillip E. Hoyle

The clutch of feathers worked magic, at least for the boy

Who slid them over the back of his hand,

Between his fingers,

On the skin of his face

Transporting him to a world of freedom

Where he was one of the Indians he had read,

Who moved freely through the life

Of prairie and forest,

Of hunt and survival,

Through the endless tracks of his mind.

His room, his lodge festooned with portraits

And costumes of leather and feather

Faithful companions in his world of flight,

This fullness of fancy barely

Tethered by nearness of family.

There in his lodge, he worked his feathers

Formed into headdress, bustle, and fan,

Costume for his great dream

Of being an Indian dressed up in style

That spoke of tribal belonging.

The basement, the space for a dance

Of adoption, the footwork of fancy,

Steps made real by the presence of

Feathers that moved air and spirit

Through ceremonial smoke of love and desire.

His dances were brief, three minutes or less

—sad frontier of 78s—but

He practiced the joy

Shown in dip, turn, and stomp;

The movement expressing the life he could feel.

His fan led the way as he pranced,

Swift feet moving in moccasins that

Circled the room of ceremony and smoke.

Bustles shimmering, bells resounding

Sisters worrying, ‘He’s at it again.’

In echoing basement his beads bounced

His body the drum, the people, the dream

Of roach and shirt, breechclout and leggings.

Of such transportation:

The magic of feather and fan.

© 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 Big Bang, by Gillian

Was there only, ever, just one? The Big Bang, I read, created a new reality. So it must follow that for something to be considered another Big Bang, or at least analogous with it, it must change reality. Completely.

My mind roves backwards over the history of our planet. Little blobs of floating rock became continents which joined together and split asunder, and floated from pole to equator. Talk about creating change! It was completely covered in ice. It spewed out lava from deep fissures in it's surface for millions of years. It was bombarded by missiles from space, including the one which created, literally, the big bang which is held responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs. Surely no-one could deny that those events created new realities?

It seems to me that history is peppered with Big Bangs. Take just the short space of human history. Invasions. Whether your little village on the Asian Steppes was slashed and burned by Genghis Khan or your little village in the Andes was hand-delivered deadly diseases by Cortez and his cronies, I bet it changed your reality. Revolutions, from French to American to Communist to Industrial, change realities. That child working twelve hours a day down the coal mine surely had a very different reality from his parents who had slaved away their childhoods in the fields. Every country invaded by another, from the Roman Empire to British India to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, suffers an inevitable change in reality. The World Wars altered huge swathes of the world, never to be the same again. Yet so often, in fact, I suppose, always, there is some previous contributing factor to these humanoid Big Bangs. So perhaps, they are in fact the Big Bangs. 9/11 was a Big Bang all it's own, but it became the excuse for the next one, the invasion of Iraq. The justification for WW1 was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. If Princip had failed, perhaps there would never have been that terrible war (though I suspect they would have found some other excuse) so was the assassination the real Big Bang? Or does it go further back? Probably it's somewhere in that miasma of territorial, ethnic, and religious struggles which seem to have plagued the Balkans for ever.

It's all too complex. I think I'll stick, in blissful egocentricity, to my own history, which seems to me equally liberally peppered with alternate realities. I have already written about them; moving at a young age to to remote countryside, leaving there to go to college. Emigrating to The United States, most certainly a new reality. Marriage. Divorce. Coming out. Meeting my beautiful Betsy.

Now that was a real change of my reality. I had only come out, to myself and the world, a few years before. Although chronologically in my forties, in lesbian years I was a wacky teenager all set to sow that brand new bushel of oats. I had NO intention of settling down with one woman for the rest of my life. In a nanosecond Betsy burned through that reality, and, Big Bang, I settled down to happiness ever after. Not that I'm too sure Betsy would care for being referred to as my Big Bang. It does have a certain sexual slant to it. In fact, on further reflection, it sounds like soothing you'd find on the bathroom wall.

I guess you could think of death as the final Big Bang. If it doesn't change reality, your own, at least, I don't know what does. But change it to what, is of course the big question. In my new reality, will I be reincarnated as a squealing newborn in Borneo, or one of those Amazon butterflies which change realities around the globe with a flutter of their gossamer wings? Or will I be ..... nothing. Gone. No reality. Or a reality so changed it is way beyond my imagination?

What is reality, after all? For us humanoids it is what we must do to live; we must have oxygen, food and water, and shelter. Down at the nitty gritty, that is reality. Being invaded by the Mongol hordes or sold in slavery does not change that. So perhaps there is only one Big Bang after all.

I don't even understand my own Big Bang theory. My head, which was beginning to throb in the second paragraph, feels about to have a Big Bang of its own.

I wish I'd never started this.

I think I'll just have a nice cup of tea.

© 20 Oct 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.

My Earliest LGBT Memory, by Will Stanton

Five years old (or should I say, “Five years young?) is very early for such a clear memory.  The experience must have had quite an impact upon me to remember it so well.   The visual aspect was powerful enough not to forget, but the excited feeling in my stomach is what really affected me.

I was five, he was six.  He lived just two houses over from my home.  To my regret, he and his family did not stay there very long.  I have no idea where he went after they moved.

I recall one spring evening when I tagged along with my older brother to my neighbors' home.  We didn't actually play.  There were five of us there, and we simply sat on the grass and chatted about whatever children of that age talk about.  That I don't remember, for it is what I saw that captured and held my attention.

A traditional belief is that children that age are not sexual, whatever is meant by that term “sexual.”  Sexual or not, I do know that, from a very early age, I have had an unusually heightened sense of the aesthetic.  And, at the age of five, that came into play, big-time.

The first thing that struck me (and, the word “struck” certainly denotes the impact that I felt) was the extraordinary beauty of his face.  The aristocratic, finely sculpted features - - high cheek-bones, arched eyebrows, narrow, straight nose, ideal line of the jaw and chin, and perfectly shaped lips worthy of a Cupid.  I was mesmerized.  As often appears to be the case with the young, his warm-colored skin was flawless, and his richly colored locks had avoided the shears and were allowed to flow downward toward his eyes.  Those shining clear eyes had a demure expression, not the more intense, self-confident look of the other boys around him.  The others around him?  I barely remember them, almost as though they already sat in the shadows of approaching dusk.

As the others talked among themselves, he sat quietly, his long, lithe limbs side-saddle in the grass.  I was not used to seeing boys sit that way.  He seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts.  Only occasionally did he speak, and then in very soft tones.  Those few moments of speech were music to my ears.

The full impact of this vision raised strange and powerful emotions within me.  I felt “butterflies” in my stomach, an adrenaline rush that was a whole new experience for me.  It is that shivering excitement that I felt which amazed me at the time and was so indelibly imprinted upon my memory.

That remarkable moment awakened in me a powerful passion for beauty in the human form that has stayed with me my whole life.  It has inspired in me the desire to express that passion through many forms of artistic endeavor - - music, art, and writing, as I am doing now.  It often has dominated my feelings, perhaps even plagued my thinking.  I often feel like Gustav von Aschenbach in “Death in Venice,” overwhelmed by bitter-sweet sensations each time I encounter beauty in human form.

Now that I am decades older than that first experience at age five, even a generation older than von Aschenbach, I sense no evidence that I shall change.  Like Gustav, I shall be mesmerized by beauty to the very end of my days.

© 14 July 2015 

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.

Forbidden Fruits by Ricky

Fruits I forbid myself: all fermented fruit products and any spoiled or rotten fruits. And while we are on the subject of forbidden I forbid myself from eating certain vegetables: asparagus, yellow squash, yellow wax beans, eggplant, and any other vegetable that I cannot pronounce or spell its name.

© 21 April 2014

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

Don't Touch Me There by Phillip Hoyle

I don’t believe those words have ever come out of my mouth. I’m not kidding, but I don’t want to claim too much for I was a ticklish boy. Tickling made me laugh and squirm, caused my throat to constrict and tire, made me try to get away from my tormentor. And I especially liked it when Paul tickled me, Paul a tall, muscular man, family friend and member of our church, who worked construction or some other physical job. We knew Paul and his wife and daughter because the daughter, like my next younger sister, had contracted polio and went to regular doctor’s appointments in Topeka, Kansas, sixty miles away. Rides were shared by the two families, so we spent a lot of time together, and we kids got to know each other and each other’s parents. Paul was almost like a kid himself. He loved to play. He loved to tickle us. I loved to be tickled by him. I’d run from him; he’d pursue me, get me down on the ground or floor and tickle me until I squealed. I had no other such relationship with an adult, certainly not with an adult male and couldn’t get enough of his attention. This giant would grab me with his huge paws, lift me high, then lower me to the ground and tickle my ribs until I was laughing, screaming, kicking, and trying to escape. I loved the attention.

There were other men who paid me mind: my dad who encouraged my singing by accompanying me on the piano, my grandfather Hoyle who sat in his chair smoking his pipe but occasionally talking with me or driving me somewhere in his Pontiac, my grandpa Pink who when he drove the tractor would lift me onto his lap and kid me and tell me stories and sing me songs, Mr. Lown the preacher who talked with me about becoming a minister, Bob who took me along with other boys to powwows and taught me to dance, and Mr. Martin who encouraged my singing in high school. I had plenty of attention from men but no other adult ever played with me like Paul. Still I loved the attentions of all these men and none of them ever crossed the line, caused me to say, “Don’t touch me there.”

Of course I don’t know that I would have said it anyway. Writing this I feel a bit like my friend who complained that the priest he served with at the altar for many years never molested him. But now, really, I’m just kidding.

Denver, 2013

About the Author

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

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

Alas, Poor Homophobes by Lewis

An Open Letter to Universal Haters Everywhere

These are the times that try men's souls--at the very least those souls, male or female, whose salvation depends upon making other souls miserable. It must seem to you that the very forces of human progress are aligned against you, that every cause toward which you have given the last full measure of your devotion has almost overnight become politically incorrect. You must long for the day when it was acceptable to denigrate kikes, wops, niggers, slopes and whatever minority whose presence in your consciousness caused you so much consternation in the past. Then along came Nazi Germany and Martin Luther King, Jr. and, before you could shake a faggot at it, tolerance began to creep into American society. (Strange that 300 years of Christian dogma wasn't doing the trick.)

It must have been quite an adjustment, having to look for new subjects toward which to direct your righteous anger for all that's unfair in this life. All the easy-to-spot suspects were becoming off limits--the odd-colored skin, the funny dress, the strange accent.

So, it must have seemed that Providence smiled on you once again when you realized that, if you looked closely enough, you could actually spot a queer by his or her manner of dress or lisp or limp wrists. Unlike your earlier victims who could barely conceal their differences, queers often were terrified of being "found out". They thought they could mix with ordinary people and kind of blend in. That idea must have really pissed you off. I mean, if they could pass for straight, didn't that mean that someone might mistake you for a queer? No, there was only one way that you could clearly demonstrate that you were a manly man--bash, ridicule and call out queers whenever and wherever you found them.

What a blessing it must have been for you when AIDS came along. Not only did the disease become a litmus test for being queer, it thinned their ranks so you didn't have to bother so much. I'm sure that made you feel quite smug. I could almost hear you saying, "What goes around, comes around".

It must have felt good to put yourself in the position of being a champion for the sacred institution of marriage against the attempts of perverts to infiltrate the institution, even as the divorce rate was skyrocketing. One of your most memorable victories was the nobly-named "Defense of Marriage Act", which scolded those states that dared grant full legal recognition of same-sex unions.

But here it is nearly 20-years later and the U.S. Supreme Court is almost certain to rule by the end of the month that gay people are deserving of the same equal protection and due process under the Constitution as anybody else, including you. I'll bet that really gets your goat. Who would have thought such a thing could happen so quickly?

You must have shuddered recently when Wal-Mart threatened economic reprisals against states that passed so-called Freedom of Religion laws that would sanction faith-based bigotry against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered folk. (I doubt that you can read that last sentence without gagging mentally but I thought the acronym, glbt, might be mistaken for a typo.)

"What happened to my country?" you might rightfully ask. Well, the answer is pretty simple, really. It's the same thing that happens whenever two human beings have the inclination and the time to get to know one another before the labeling starts. It's what happens when commonality overwhelms tribalism. It's what happens when reality trumps preconception. The Jew, the gay, the black you know can't always be the exception. In fact, they're almost always never are the exception. Anne Frank may have said it best when she wrote in her remarkable diary--

"It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death."

Freedom and dignity cannot be hoarded, like money. They are the birthright of every person. At least that's the way it is supposed to be here in America. You cannot make yourself more free by denying anyone else their freedom. It's not theirs to give away and it's not yours to take. It is not yours to say whom I shall I love any more than you can deny me the same air you breathe. It's not a sacrifice at all. In fact, you won't even notice the difference. Once you let this sink in, however, you may notice something else is different. You may find yourself walking with a bit lighter step. And that would be good not only for your feet but for your heart as well.

© 15 June 2015

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.

Death in Utopia by Gillian

When I rule the world, we will all have a sane, legal, choice of death's time and place. Not everyone will make their own choice, but for those who wish to, it will be available.

Why must people be faced with detestable choices when they find themselves, for whatever reason, at the end of their rope? Blow your brains out and leave them all over the wall for loved ones to clean up. Die in a dirty stinking ally from a purposeful O.D. of drugs and/or alcohol. Drive your car off a cliff and leave others to identify the charred remains. Get in the bathtub and slit your wrists; only perhaps you don't do it just right, or perhaps some well-meaning friend comes along and finds you too soon, so you're left to struggle on with your disastrous life or try it again.

Why must those who chose the time of their passing, and those who love them, be forced into such indignity?

What do so many old people worry about?

Outliving their money. Outliving the effectiveness of their minds or bodies or both.

So why not remove those worries? If we outlive anything, and chose to go, we can. With dignity and serenity.

When I rule the world, there will be The Utopia Center available to you. It will be very much along the lines of Hospice, but with certain key differences. You check in to a pleasant, quiet room, and nothing can happen for 24 hours. It seems to me that a certain time to reconsider should be mandatory. At the appointed time, if you have had no change of heart, the end process is put in motion. If you wish to have loved ones with you, they can be there. If you prefer to be alone, it's OK. They have a choice of CDs with music for you to play if you wish, or perhaps you choose to bring a favorite of your own. You lie peacefully on the bed and are gently administered some drug cocktail which will carry you painlessly away. I know Switzerland has something similar, but you have to have two doctors determine that you are terminal with some awful disease, or something like that. Why? Why can't I simply say, I've had enough. For whatever reason. I'm ready to go. I shouldn't have to explain or apologize. It's my life; now I'm ready for my death.

What worries a place, a process, like that would relieve us of, would it not? Oh I know I am portraying a very simplified version. There would of course need to be controls re: coercion, undue influence, minors and third parties, to name but a few. But we could do it. But we never will. Religion, alas stands firmly between us and my sincerely held vision of Utopia, or at least one aspect of it. I fear it always will.

October 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.