Bravest Things, by Ricky

Bravery can come in large or small packages. Some involve great deeds while other deeds involve only moderate or even insignificant events; any of which could be public or private.

The very first brave thing I can remember doing was also the first dumb thing I remember doing. Of course I didn't know I was being brave or dumb; I was only 10; in the 5th grade and on my way home from school. In case you all have forgotten, I have a powerful attraction to ice cream. So strong it is that back then, if anyone had wanted to get into (and me out of ) my pants all they would have had to do was invite me to their place for ice cream, but no one knew that. You might have even seen me transform into an “ice cream-zombie”.

So, one particular week previous to my act of bravery, I had been stopping by the local grocery store where my parents shopped. I had left over lunch money and my purpose for stopping there was to buy an ice cream sandwich at a cost of 10-cents; eating it on my way home. More accurately, eating it within 20 feet of the door after exiting the store; sooner, if I could get it unwrapped while still walking to the exit.

The week following I had no left over lunch money but the attraction to ice cream was still as powerful as ever and I stopped by the store. I searched everywhere in my pockets and book binder while walking up and down the aisles but try as I might, I just could not find the money that was not there. So I became brave and dumb; I turned into a stupid kid. Carefully scanning for potential witnesses and hoping no one could hear my pounding heart, I quickly opened the ice cream cooler, removed one ice cream sandwich, placed it into my book binder and left the store.

I waited until I crossed the highway before I removed the thing, unwrapped, and ate it. On the bright side, I did throw the wrapper into a trash bin I was walking by; after all I'm no despicable litter-bug. The next four days found me doing the same thing before guilt overcame attraction. It is said by some that males think with two brains; or rather only one of the two actually thinks and the other just acts. But I learned from these experiences that males (especially boys) can hear the “siren call” of inanimate objects quite clearly, objects such as ice cream sandwiches, or firearms, or fast cars, or any baseball/football games in their vicinity or on a TV, or the call of a video game console.

This story does have an ending but not until 1969 after I joined a church while in the Air Force. I had carried my shoplifting guilt with me for all those years but it was not causing any problems until then. My homosexual acts didn't bother me much but the shoplifting did as I joined the church. So, I wrote a letter outlining my theft, put it in an envelope along with $10.00 to cover interest on 40-cents over 10-years, and mailed it to the grocery store. I never heard back from the store, but I felt clean before God. Mailing that letter was the bravest thing I ever did out of two events to that point in my life.

The 2nd place bravest thing I had done up to 1969 occurred while I was working as a 16-year old staff member at Camp Winton, a boy scout summer camp. Our rival camp was Camp Harvey West located at the top of Echo Summit just 10 miles from my home at South Lake Tahoe. On one of my weekends off, I dressed in black and as dusk approached I set out alone to raid their camp.

I had made a white flag with the words, “Camp Winton is Best” and emblazoned it with our camp's logo, back-to-back “W”s surrounded by a circle. It looked like two “X”s side by side but was really “W”s for the two Winton brothers; the logo of the Winton Lumber Company. The trail to the camp passed on the west side of Flagpole Peak. I climbed up to the peak where there was the stump of an old flagpole. On the west side the climb was very easy. At the end of the trail, I had to side step along a narrow ledge with both hands on the peak's ridge to my front and a modest 50 to 100 foot cliff to my rear. As I closed in on the actual top where the flagpole was my hands had to be raised higher and higher.

I finally reached the top. At this point my arms were stretched out to their maximum length over my head. I couldn't place my flag from this position, so I did another brave thing and another dumb thing. I grabbed the bottom of the flagpole and pulled myself up so I was straddling the peak with the pole between my legs. I was facing north. To my right was a shear 200-300 foot cliff, but it looked like a mile drop. To my left was that modest 50 to 100 foot drop which suddenly looked much farther than 100 feet.

I tied my flag to the pole, enjoyed the view for a minute or two and then decided that I'd spent enough time up here and since the sun was beginning to disappear, it was time to leave. I looked to my left to make sure I knew where to put my feet on the narrow ledge I'd arrived on but ….. the ledge was gone! Panic set in; it was getting dark and I had no way to get down; "½ a mile" drop on one side and a "two-mile" drop on the other. I sort of enjoyed the view for a couple more minutes before my brain calmed down and started thinking sense to me.

The ledge WAS really there, I just couldn't see it because the peak was a little wider just above the ledge and narrowed to the top of the ridge I was dangling my legs on either side of. The traitorous sun kept setting and light was fading fast. I finally decided to trust my memory and swung my right leg over the ridge and ended up dangling over the left side of the ridge still hanging tightly to the pole. I still could not see or feel the ledge; a bit more panic followed until I remembered that my arms had to be fully extended before I could get up to the ridge in the first place, so I must be fully extended to get down. I relaxed my biceps and sure enough the ledge was there and I was able to return safely to the trail and complete my raid.

Lowering myself to the fullest extent of my arms is the 2nd place bravest thing I had done up to 1969. I have done other dumb things and brave things since 1969 but if I hadn't found the courage to write that letter about the shoplifting, I doubt I would have ever found the courage to do the other brave things.

© 4 Mar 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

Patriotism, by Ricky

Exactly what is “patriotism”?  Who possesses “patriotism”?  What does “patriotism” look like to me?  What does “patriotism” look like to others?

Today is November 11^th, Veterans’ Day, the holiday Americans set aside to honor and remember our country’s military personnel, past and present, and the resulting deaths and heroic deeds.  At least that is what it was following the Korean “Police Action”.  The unpopular “non-declared-war conflict” in Vietnam with the anti-war protests, primarily lead by the under 21 draftees and draft-dodgers, tarnished this holiday for many decades.  During the years that followed, politicians and corporate board of directors expanded the roll of “capitalist greed” destroying American citizens’ confidence and trust in the concept of benevolent authority.

I am very cynical about businesses and corporate “chain” stores offering veterans special discounts on this one day per year.  Corporate business do these public relations gimmicks to attract money from those people they can fool into believing the corporation actually cares about our veterans both alive and dead.  If they really cared, the corporations and business groups would send their lobbyists to Congress to demand that the Veterans Administration be fully funded and have the best facilities to serve our veterans.  But instead, they send lobbyists to ensure laws are passed that favor their greed.  As I said, I am very cynical.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child; I understood as a child; I thought as a child; I trusted as a child: but when I became a man, I eventually learned to use my intelligence and actually think and reason.  This I can do fairly well.  I only act childish.

        During the American Revolution, everyone was a patriot and a traitor.  Colonists who were patriots for England were traitors to the revolutionaries.  Patriots to the revolution were traitors to King George.  Both groups believed they were “right”.

Lord Baden Powell of England founded the Boy Scout movement.  It was an organization to teach British boys the desired character traits, sense of honor, and moral values.  No boy would willingly join a character building group, so the name became “Scouting for Boys” and was patterned after Baden Powell’s experience in the British army, specifically his time as a military scout.  The Scout Oath begins, “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country. …”  It is the duty to my country which is the patriotic problem.

        Raising generations of children to believe without critical thought that “duty to my country” means, “My country right or wrong” is a recipe for disaster.  This is never more historically apparent than during military activity.  For example, when the Redcoats retreated from Concord and Lexington back to Boston, they marched in ordered columns, shoulder-to-shoulder while those pesky and cowardly rebels shot them from behind trees and rock fencing, and ran away without giving a fair fight.  Another example is the fighting at Gettysburg during the Civil War; specifically Pickett’s Charge.  Thousands of brave men again stood shoulder-to-shoulder and walked across a mile of open field into the point blank firing of those damn Yankee soldiers and cannons all of whom were protected by a rock wall.  Thousands of very courageous Confederate soldiers died doing their duty to their country as they believed it to be.  Nonetheless, it was sheer stupidity.

        Back to the British: during WWI, the British army lost approximately 60,000 men on July 1, 1916 (at the battle of Somme) by sending them to cross an open field (the so called “no mans’ land”) into multiple German machine gun emplacements.  Again, sheer stupidity.  “Aye, but we showed the buggers.”  At least by WWII, everyone learned to make like Little Egypt and crawl on their bellies like a reptile when crossing open fields under fire; except the Japanese whose “banzai” charges into automatic weapons fire met with the exact same results obtained at Gettysburg and the battle Somme in WWI.

        “My country, right or wrong” brings death and destruction to soldiers and civilians alike.  This is not a good definition for “Duty to my country”.  I do believe that every citizen has responsibilities: voting, paying taxes, engaging in dialog over public issues, serving on juries when selected, and to use their God-given intelligence to think and reason and not to trust blindly.  I do not believe that any citizen need die overseas to keep Dick Chaney’s or Scrooge McDuck’s money-bin full.

        I believe a true patriot: resists warmongers and bullies, speaks out for truth, exposes government and corporate corruption, and when necessary or unavoidable, makes the other guy die stupidly for his country.

© 11 November 2013 

About the Author 

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach.  Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I was sent to live 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

Summer Camp, by Lewis

[Foreword:  Some of you may remember my story of June 17th on the topic One Summer Afternoon, wherein I described my frantic and futile attempt to qualify for the camp lake beach reserved for youngsters who could demonstrate their ability to swim.  Had I succeeded in drowning myself in that attempt, I would not have been able to write a second essay on the much-overrated "joys" of summer camp experiences that continued to plague me throughout my tender years.  I submit this in the hope that we can dispense with any and all topics related to camping for the foreseeable future.]

During the summers of my 9th through 13th years, going to camp became a sacrificial ritual imposed upon me by parents who must have been desperate to get me out of a chair in front of the television or out of BB gun range of sparrows unfortunate enough to inhabit the branches of elm trees within three blocks of our house.  The only condition was that I had to be home before the Bermuda grass needed cutting again--a span of between 7 and 10 days.  I felt that I was being punished for being an only child.  They could hardly to afford to send any additional children to camp so there was always a chance, as their hypothetical first-born, I could have had the option of staying home.

My introductory stay at camp was also the longest--10 days.  It was the camp with the lake that I wrote about before.  We slept in cabins with, as I recall, five bunk beds each--two along each side and one across the back wall.  After about four days, I was struck with the worst case of home-sickness I can recall having.  I had made no friends, the food sucked, and I had just the day before almost drowned.  I remember writing a letter to my parents in which I said, word-for-word, "If you love me, you'll come and get me".  I think I might have left a tear stain or two on the paper, as well.

Oh, there were happy experiences at camp, especially as I became more accustomed to being away from home.  I can remember sitting around a big campfire at Boy Scout camp after dark, surrounded by woods while the adults told us ghost stories.  I have seldom been afraid of the dark or ghosts and enjoyed watching a few of the other boys who appeared to squirm uncomfortably or glance over their shoulders apprehensively.  That gave me a sadistic sense of satisfaction.  I can remember a time when a few boys came across what they described as a copperhead in the woods--a sight which sent them running back to the safety of camp.  I fancied snakes and wished wholeheartedly that I had been with them, as I would have tried to capture the snake so I could study it.

One memory lies halfway between those which were painful and those which gave me pleasure.  It occurred during my last Boy Scout camping experience.  I, being one who has always believed that the safest place to be after 10 PM is at home, was resting on my cot in my tent when I heard a commotion outside.  It seems that some of the more brazen boys had pinned another Scout down, removed his pants, and run them up the flagpole--activity for which I knew of no connection to being awarded a merit badge. 

I remember thanking my lucky stars that I was not the unfortunate boy who fell victim to such silliness, as I was precisely where I was supposed to be--safely ensconced in my bunk.  Still, I began to wonder what it would be like to have been among the perpetrators.  It gave me a kind of warm thrill to think about it, but only briefly, for within a few minutes, I heard the breathless giggles of 12-year-old ne'er-do-wells approaching my tent.  They threw back the tent flap and four rambunctious boys rushed in and crowded around my cot.  One was carrying a flashlight.  Two of them held my arms and legs while the third flung the cover back and pulled down my pajama bottoms. Although I could not see, I could almost feel the heat of the flashlight.  I was horrified and titillated at the same time, not knowing which reaction might be betrayed by my very stage-frighted anatomical barometer.  "Please, God," I thought, "don't let them laugh.  And where the hell are the adults?"

As you can probably tell, camp to me was that brief interlude in the middle of summer when I wished I were back in school...well, except for recess, of course.  But that's a subject for another day.

© 19 August 2013 

About the Author

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

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

Preparation, by Ricky

The Scout Motto is “Be Prepared.” I was a scout, so I learned as a young teenager to think ahead and prepared for any situation. It did not matter if it was for an upcoming camping trip, scout meeting, school tests, potential rain or snow fall, driving on less that a full tank of gas, or fixing dinner for my siblings; I always tried to have everything I might need to successfully complete the activity.

One rather dramatic failure to look ahead was when Deborah and I bought a new Toyota Land Cruiser to prepare for a job within the Sheriff’s Department which I did not get. I obtained two used “jerry cans” each of which held 5-gallons of gasoline and bolted their “holders” to the side of the vehicle. When it was time to use the gas while on a trip to Sacramento, I poured the gas into the main gas tank and soon thereafter the engine began to miss and eventually would not run at all.

Fortunately, we were near our destination in Sacramento and our friends came and towed us to their home. One of their friends diagnosed our problem to be a clogged fuel filter. I had not anticipated that the “jerry cans” were older and had rusted inside. Eventually little particles of rust in the gas had clogged the fuel filter. After installing a new fuel filter and cleaning out the “jerry cans” and refilling them with gas, we were able to finish our trip without any further trouble.

© 16 August 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

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