Flowers, by Ray S

Here is a detour down memory lane or maybe the Primrose Path of flowers. It is a good likely-hood that most of you have trodden both, but it is those thorny Primroses that can tell the more interesting stories, or maybe you don’t talk about that.

One of the questionable benefits of hanging on so long is the memories of another time and place. Things like a Hobo sitting on the back steps eating a handout Mother made for him, or the popular songs like “Minnie the Moocher” and “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?” and of course F.D. R. and the WPA and NRA.

With the above as background I take you to 1933-34 school year to see the Intermediate School’s (Junior High School to you youngsters) spring production of a memorable Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta—the name of which escapes me now. Maybe “the Mikado” or “HMS Pinafore”. No matter, the point of all of this is in deference to the “Flower” topic for our assignment today. The vision you’ll see and hear is one of all 195 pre-teen sopranos—boys and girls alike—straining to the jaunty words of “The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring,” etc., etc.

Here I present another flower. Long ago there was a World War I commemoration celebrated on November 11th called Armistice Day (later renamed Veteran’s Day in 1954). At school we were taught about that war and the terrible loss of lives to our country and our Allies’. In honor of the occasion volunteers and some veterans peopled the street corners with bouquets of red paper poppies, a symbol of Flanders Field where so many rested. With each contribution you received a poppy.

A sudden change of geography and landscape brought a new world of flowers to me. Imagine discovering magnolia trees, Poinciana trees, citrus trees, bougainvilleas, hibiscus in bloom, sights you’ve never seen up north. Those are just a few flowers and horticulture exposed to a kid from Illinois. Florida in 1939 was a complete culture shock.

A return to the land of four seasons and it was time for Victory Gardens, not many flowers except for flowering fruit trees. And perhaps the Junior-Senior Prom and the appropriate gardenia or camellias corsage for a young woman who didn’t have a date until the night before the dance. It was then that I began to wonder why the really sought-after girls didn’t attract me as much as the girls who were well known for their friendliness to dumb little weird boys like me.

Then there were the war years and all of those funereal wreaths, and the Japanese cherry blossom trees in Washington DC.

That war was followed by one more conflict after another until today. Believe me there aren’t enough paper poppies to meet the never ending need.

For all the beauty of nature’s abundant flowers, sometimes I feel when we push aside the curtain of flowers; our flower of the future will be a man-eating species.

And if that doesn’t catch us, there is always Mother Nature’s way—bud-bloom-wilt-and wither and return to where it all originated.

The Flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la, tra-la.

(I really like being a sensitive, thoughtful pansy—since I can’t be man of my dreams with lots of hair on my chest.) You do the best you are able to.

© 13 February 2017

About the Author

Lonely Places, by Gillian

The recent hundred-year anniversary of the beginning of WW1 started me thinking about how war, above any other single cause, creates lonely places of the soul. After all, the very essence of the armed services is to nullify that; to create a sense of belonging and total commitment to your military comrades. To a considerable extent, I'm sure it succeeds. But at the same time it still leaves ample room for lonely places. Did that man hanging on the barbed wire of no man's land in agony, screaming for one of his buddies to shoot him, feel less alone and lonely in his terrible circumstances simply because he had buddies? I cannot imagine so. Did that  tail gunner of the Second World War, huddling cold and frightened in his rear turret, not feel impossible alone?

But, sadly, it is not just the combatants who inhabit such lonely places. It is also, very often, the survivors, and certainly the people who love the ones who died or returned as shattered pieces of their former selves, to occupy their own lonely places. We only have to hear that someone is a Vietnam Vet to immediately conjure up a vision, alas all too frequently correct, of someone with  .... well, let's just say, a vulnerable psyche. The estimate of total American Vietnam Vet suicides is currently about 100,000; approaching double the number of Americans killed during the twenty-some years of that seemingly endless, fruitless, war. Right there are 100,000 vacated lonely places. And of course it's not just the veterans of that war who inhabit places so lonely that eventually they have to take the only way out they can find. The U.S. right now suffers an average of 22 Veteran suicides each day, most of the younger ones having returned from Iraq or Afghanistan with battered bodies accompanied by memories dark enough to extinguish the light in their eyes, and their souls. 22 more lonely places available every day, and no shortage of new tenants.

World War 1, was a terrible war that was supposed to end all wars and instead gave birth to the next, already half grown. Whole villages became lonely places. They had lost an entire generation of men in two minutes "going over the top,", leaving only women, old men, and children, to struggle on. Children dying before their parents is not the natural order of things, and creates empty spaces so tight that they can squeeze the real life from those held in their grip, leaving only empty shells to carry on. Consider that awful story of the Sullivans from Waterloo, Iowa; all five sons died in action when their light cruiser, USS Juneau, was sunk, (incidentally, one week after I was born,) on November 13th, 1942. How on earth did their parents and only sister cope with that one?

Several years ago I spent some weeks in Hungary. A Jewish friend in Denver had given me the address of her cousin in Budapest, and I arranged a visit. This poor woman had lost her husband and their only daughter, thirteen at the time, in Auschwitz, but somehow survived, herself. She showed me the numbers on her arm, and talked of nothing but her child, proudly, sadly, showing me photos of this shyly smiling young girl. I had never met a Concentration Camp survivor before, nor anyone who had lost their family in one. I felt physically sick but bravely sat with her for two hours, hearing every nightmare of this family's holocaust as if it had just happened the week before. That was how she talked of it, and I'm sure that's how it felt to her. She had not lived since then, but simply drifted on through that huge empty place of the lonely soul, going through the motions.

One of my own, personal, lonely places, and I suspect most of us have many of them we can topple into at any unexpected moment, is the one I can get sucked into when I find myself forced to confront Man's constant inhumanity to Man. It's not only war as such, but any of the endless violence thrust upon us by nations, religions, and ideologies. On 9/11/2001 I sat, along with most Americans and half the world, with my eyes gazing at the TV, somehow mentally and physically unable to detach myself. The one horror which burned itself into my brain, out of that entire day of horror, was two people who jumped, holding hands, from the hundred-and-somethingth floor, to certain death below. I wish the TV channel had not shown it, but it did. I wish I hadn't seen it, but I did. It recurs in my protesting memory, and tosses me into my own lonely space, even as I involuntarily contemplate theirs. Can you be anywhere but in a lonely space when you decide to opt for the quick clean death ahead rather than the slow, painful, dirty one fast encroaching from behind? How much comfort did you get from the warmth, the perhaps firm grip, of that other hand? Did these two people, a man and a woman, know each other? Were they friends? Workmates? Or passing strangers? I have no doubt I could find the answers on the Web, but I don't want to know. Those two share my lonely place way too much as it is. They estimate about 200 people jumped that day, but the only other image that stayed with me, though not to revisit as often as the hand-holding couple, was a woman alone, holding down her skirt as she fell. I felt an alarming bubble of hysterical laughter and tears rising in me, but in the end did neither. To paraphrase Abraham lincoln, perhaps I hurt too much to laugh but was too old to cry. No, I doubt I will ever be too old to cry; in fact I seem to do it more easily and with greater frequency. And perhaps that's good. At least it's better than being, as I was that day, lost in my lonely place, too numb to do either.

In May of 2014, the 9/11 Museum opened. It occupies a subterranean space below and within the very foundations of the World Trade Towers. That sounds a bit creepy to me. Then I read that hanging on one wall is a huge photograph of people jumping from the burning building, propelled by billowing black smoke. Why? Talk about creepy. Why is it there? These people have loved ones, we presume. Do we have no reverence, no respect, for the dead or for those who remain? I feel my lonely place approaching. It rattles along in the form of an old railroad car; doubtless it contains doomed Jews et al. My lonely place has much of Auschwitz within it. I know for sure that I will never visit that 9/11 museum. I did visit Auschwitz, and it was awful, but still there's the buffer of time. I hadn't, unlike 9/11, watched it live on TV. I breath deeply and feel my biggest, deepest, lonely place, pass on by. No, I won't be visiting that museum. There are times when those lonely places can only be fought off with a big double dose of denial.

© August 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 Favorite Transportation by Ricky

(Planes, Trains, Automobiles & Buses, without John Candy)

Preface:  I wrote and submitted this piece to the SAGE Telling Your Story group, while visiting my brother and sister at South Lake Tahoe (SLT), California.  My brother had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer and had driven from his home in Oregon back to SLT to visit our sister.  While there he became so ill that he could not return to Oregon so I also stayed throughout the summer until his end.

          I spent most of my teenage years either being driven or, when I reached 16, driving myself in either my or my family’s car.  Once each year during Christmas school vacation, however, I got to ride Greyhound buses to and from my father’s home in Torrance, California (a suburb of the Los Angeles metro area) so he could have his one-week visitation rights.  Those trips occurred from my age of 10 through 18 when I left home for college.

          Whenever I had to catch the transfer bus in Carson City, Nevada, I always dreaded the 5 to 6 hour wait until I discovered the Nevada State Museum.  Eventually as the years passed, I managed to see all the exhibits (and I even started reading the signs telling about the stuffed animal dioramas).  I learned a lot about “things” during those years from visiting the museum.  My favorite exhibits were right at the entrance; the history of and silver service from the USS Nevada battleship, ultimately used during the hydrogen bomb test at the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific.  It had various animals on it to represent human crewmen.  My other favorites were the displayed collection of Silver Dollars and Gold Coins minted in the Carson City Mint and at the official exit in the basement, the mock-up of an underground silver mine.

          Whenever I had to catch the transfer bus in Sacramento, California, I was usually involved in reading a book specially purchased for the trip.  Once, when I was 16 a slightly overweight girl my age sat by me for the whole trip.  She was going home to Venice (another suburb of Los Angeles) and very talkative and all I wanted to do was read but, since I am often too polite for my preferences, I talked with her until she got sleepy and then I read.  Once close to Los Angeles “we” decided that I would pick her up for a date in two days.  My dad loaned me his car and we went to Pacific Ocean Park (sort of a carnival with rides built on a pier over the ocean at Venice).  We had fun there.  I took her home and walked her to the door but we did not kiss and I never saw her again.

          After the above mini-stories, you might think that Greyhound was my favorite mode of transportation.  While buses played a major and positive part in my youth, my recent 24-hour bus ride from Denver to Reno definitely removed any “romantic” attachment buses had as a result of my youthful memories, so it is not my favorite.

          From age 10 thru 17; I was probably the happiest when riding with my dad during his 30-days each summer visitation time.  He would pick me up at Lake Tahoe and we would then travel to Minnesota, Iowa, and points in between during the days the interstate highway system was just beginning to be constructed.  One year on our way to Minnesota, we went to Mt. Rushmore first and traveled on a portion of I-90 in Rapid City, South Dakota.  I had my learner’s permit then, so I was driving at that point.

          On one of those cross-country trips I learned something about sleep and dreams.  On one very warm (no auto air conditioner) day, I was dozing or perhaps actually sleeping.  I was actively dreaming about being in a WW1 trench with other soldiers.  Apparently, I was the commander because I began to give my men a “going-over-the-top” pre-attack motivational speech.  During the speech I started to sing and everyone joined in.  We were singing “San Antonio Rose”.   After a couple of choruses, there was an artillery blast that roused me a bit and I felt my dad shaking my leg and heard him tell me to wake up.  As I woke, I heard “San Antonio Rose” playing on the car radio.  So it is possible to hear the real world while dreaming and incorporate it into the dream world.  This is not unlike dreaming of using the bathroom and waking up to find out you have either wet the bed or are about to, if you don’t hurry. 

The artillery blast turned out to be the result of a large goose that did not move out of the car’s way in time and had hit the windshield in front of me.  Unfortunately, the goose’s neck and head got stuck between the windshield and the exterior “visor” overhanging the windshield on that model of car (possibly a ’55 Studebaker).  Dad made me go pull it out so we could continue.  Yuck!!

While I have always enjoyed “road trips” because of my yearly travels with my father, it is not my favorite mode of transportation; most common, yes.

My first experience flying was just before I turned 8.  My parents had decided to send me to live with my mother’s parents on a farm in Minnesota while they obtained a divorce.  I didn’t learn about the divorce until age 9 ½.  Since that time, I’ve flown a lot on personal, union, and military business.  Once on the way back from visiting my father in Los Angeles, the plane I was on almost was involved in a mid-air collision.  That particular experience of violent turning and climbing and turning again put a solid fear of flying into my conscious and subconscious.  So, now days I’m am always tense while flying.  As you should expect by now, flying is not my favorite mode of traveling either.

At age 13, my parents decided to take a late summer vacation to the farm in Minnesota.  So, after packing us all roast buffalo sandwiches for the trip, we left Reno for Des Moines, Iowa where we needed to change to a northbound train.  When we reached Ogden from Reno, the train was to be stopped for 20-minutes.  My parents went to get coffee and left me with my 2 ½ year old twin brother and sister on the train.  About 10-minutes after they left, the train began to move and I went into major panic mode.  “Where are they?” “Are they leaving us, like mom did when they sent me to the farm when I was 8?” “How am I going to care for two babies?”  “Can I stop the train somehow?”  Those are the questions that started racing through my mind, repeatedly.  I don’t know why or how, but I didn’t cry.  I think I wanted to.

As it turned out all the railroad did was move the train to a different track a bit beyond where they had stopped originally.  About three minutes prior to the expiration of the 20-minute stop, my parents were back on the train with us.  Contrary to all the TV ads, “relief” is not spelled “Rolaids” it is spelled “let-me-give-you-both-lots-of-hugs-and-tears-of-joy.”

We returned from that vacation 1 ½ weeks after school started.  I was starting 8^th grade.  My first day of school was Thursday.  My teacher, Mr. Ross, gave me my books and assigned me a desk.  Just before the final bell rang for the end of the day, he announced that there would be a test on the first 3 chapters in our social studies book the next day.  He told me just do the best I can.

I did some panic stricken cramming that night and the next morning and took the test.  On the Monday following, he was upset with the class because they had done so poorly on the test.  Then he did the unthinkable.  He told the class that I had only one night to prepare and they had nearly two weeks; then said that I had scored the highest in the class by a lot (like an 86 or something).  That statement fixed my reputation as a DAR (Darn Average Raiser) and my classmates were slow to become friendly and the reputation (much undeserved in my mind) continued through grade 12.  In college the real truth was revealed.

Train transportation is not fast in the west and central parts of the country, but it is very stress free and relaxing (unless you start school late).  Yet, it is still not my favorite mode of transportation.

My favorite method of transportation is books!  Reading books can transport one to places that cannot be reached by planes, trains, buses, or automobiles.  I love to lose myself (and problems) in a good stories contained in books.  Television and movies are often stories first told in books.  Books have the benefit of taking longer to finish and can easily be taken off the shelf and revisited.  Books contain adventures and knowledge without end.

The cliché states, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”  This submission to our storytelling group is 1579 words long.  So, you should have a decent image of me in your minds, in case you all have forgotten what I look like.  I will be back soon.

© 25 September 2011 

About the Author

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

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

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

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.