Forbidden Fruits by Phillip Hoyle

I asked myself a silly question about this topic “Forbidden Fruits.” Am I a fruit? I answered it easily. Of course I am, but I still didn’t have a story to tell. I wrote a very long paper exploring different approaches but found myself arguing with an ancient story of origins way back there in the old book. I kept telling myself to write a personal story that in some way connected. If what follows fills the bill, good. If it doesn’t, enjoy it anyway.

I didn’t need a prohibition to make the fruit attractive. No one slithered my way to tempt me, at least not anyone I was very interested in.

As a child I liked sexual games with friends, especially those with other boys. As a teen I was open to the advances of an acquaintance, a boy a year younger than I. When the ensuing months of sexual play ended (he moved away) I didn’t find anyone to relate to in what I was discovering was an experience with social sanctions against it. I went on living my life, realizing more and more about difference (sexual, social, racial, and cultural) and grew more fascinated by the array of perspectives related not only to my sexual desires but also concerning common habits (for example, eating), pallets (such as favorite colors), sounds (like in musical styles), even reality (including visions cultural, philosophical, theological and anthropological). I came to know the great variety of religious values held sacred and true by peoples around the world and even in a single country town. I learned about prejudice and grew to appreciate my parents’ values as they were demonstrated with other people, society, and the world.

Although my mother was a prohibitionist as relates to alcohol, she still taught an open attitude toward life and allowed great freedom for her children. Both she and my dad had personal standards that they chose to teach through their consistent practice rather than judgmental and manipulative badgering. Although we kids really liked each other, we bickered a lot. Some activity might be judged inappropriate by one of us prompting a pointed finger and the words ‘shame on you’ just like a national politico may do today over a personal misbehavior of someone in the opposing party. I realized that the very voice that said ‘shame on you’ one minute in the next chanted ‘finders keepers; losers weepers.’ Oh the world I discovered and loved revealed itself in ways quiet varied and often inconsistent.

Of course, my parents and siblings were not the only teachers. The culture with its lore and assumptions, history and laws taught much more and powerfully. I keep thinking about the dynamics of the second Genesis creation story, that ‘just so’ tale that still defines so many peoples’ attitudes toward men and women, toward animals and earth, toward sin and salvation, toward action and consequence—that truly ethos forming mythos (Genesis 2:4b-3:24). The word temptation seems defined by that story, but the temptation is impossible without the forbidding. The story’s power comes from its heavenly array of a very human god, his angels, his creations, his prohibitions, his curse which focused only on the snake, and his explanations of consequences related to behaviors he as the assumed creator made possible in his plants, animals, and new people. It’s a story of guilt mongering. To say so may sound cheeky. So be it.

What eventually gets to me is the misogyny of the whole scene. The god Yahweh is too human meaning way too male with too much power. He, this desert god, is too egotistical. Of course, this was eons before Moses and other prophets started training him for international diplomacy, eons before the Greeks insisted he be consistent and perfect, before they demanded that if he was going to insist on a purity code for his creatures, he act that way himself. By the time I met whatever was left of that footloose deity, he’d become so pure and abstract as to seem missing. Eventually I learned more about how the prophet Jesus undid purity laws and taught a justice based on consistent standards that sought a dynamic goodness honoring the spirit of law rather than a legalistic adherence to wooden rules.

AND so much more had occurred that I would never know of but that still informs the cultural understanding around and even within me. One thing I escaped in all this was the feeling of guilt. I don’t know if such a proclivity in me was related to the home and circumstance in which I was reared or arose genetically or developed for some other undefinable reason. I did see the beauty of some men, an unconventional male beauty not based on Greek-like muscles or shape of face, not based on the accrual of power and influence and money, but something more elusive and simple. I liked that attraction and wondered when it would become consequential for me. I knew I could not resist it out of some feeling of prohibition or guilt. It would be like my experience of finally finding a piano teacher who succeeded in establishing a technical approach to the keyboard, or a voice teacher who actually helped focus my voice away from the throat tension that had compromised its fluidity, or finding myself in my best job of a lifetime, or working in a church I actually loved—all these what I call do-not-expect-a-repeat experiences. So at age thirty I fell in love with an unlikely man. At fifty-five I had another such experience that went far beyond the one a quarter of a century earlier. I tended these relationships both against convention and as acts of love. Of course, in conventional sin-and-redemption, prohibition-and-disobedience terms, I am just hopeless.

But where in all this was I in line with the powerful Hebrew story? It seems to me it was in the VERY IMPORTANT FACT that I was not egotistical in my acts. I was not trying to have the same powers as God. I was not vaunting my own importance. And in the desires and acts of love with these other fruits in God’s great garden, I was discovering new aspects of the ultimately loving God—trained as he was by generations of prophets and philosophers. I found so much love as to transform me into a useful vessel of the eternal and lively divinity. Surely there’s no shame that.

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

Believe It - Death Started at the Big Bang by Pat Gourley

So since I have missed the past two sessions and I have had thoughts on the three most recent topics I am going to write a single piece addressing all three: “Believe it or not this really happened to me…”, “Death” and “The Big Bang”.

My human birth is by far and away the most remarkable thing that has ever happened to me. The chance of that occurring was so infinitesimally unlikely and remote as to be more than mind boggling.

I have always liked the way the Buddha addressed this amazing reality. Speaking to a group of monks he said: “…suppose that the great earth were totally covered with water and a man were to toss a yoke with a single hole into the water…and suppose a blind turtle was in that great expanse. It would come up to the surface only once every 100 years. Now what do you suppose the chances would be that a blind turtle coming to the surface every 100 years would stick its nose into the yoke with a single hole?” The monks thought his very unlikely to which the Buddha replied: “ And just so, it is very, very rare that one attains the human state.”

Another little factoid, that is well worth pondering if you are wondering about being here at all or perhaps looking to expose the absolute ridiculousness of the “personhood amendment’ on the ballot again in Colorado this year. The reality is that a significant majority of all conceived embryos are simply flushed out totally unnoticed in normal menstrual flow without anyone being aware. Embryologists estimate that 60% - 80% of all conceived embryos by day seven have already gotten the bums rush out the vagina if you count back to the moment of conception. This occurs naturally and is unrelated to any form of birth control. Remember this “personhood amendment” states that ‘life’ begins at conception, however not very often as it turns out.

It is very amazing and truly hard to believe that the cellular beginnings of my embryonic conception did not wind up in the septic tank buried outside our rural Indiana farmhouse. The fact that I was born alive and healthy on January 12th of 1949 is quite spectacular really and its all been down hill from there. The successful conception nine months prior was the beginning of my death dance called life on earth for Patrick J. Gourley, though if you take a big picture look it more likely began at the moment of the Big Bang, estimated to have occurred about 13.8 billion years ago.

My profession as a nurse, work for several decades in an AIDS clinic, my own HIV infection and the loss of many friends and lovers have all significantly informed my own personal relationship with the inevitability of my own death. Being in the presence of someone dying can be a very potent moment of clarity. For me personally over the years these many moments of clarity have in part pushed me to a firm atheist perspective on it all. This is it baby and since you were extremely lucky to get the chance to live a human life at all do try to make the most of it everyday. Though I now describe myself as an atheist I am open to spirituality and more on this further in this piece.

Trying to ponder what it means to die and not be “me” any more has always been a challenging meditation for me personally. A striking and certainly very plausible explanation for what it may be like to be dead, i.e. not ‘me’ anymore, came my way by some of the work of the great philosopher Ken Wilbur. Wilbur pointed out three states of consciousness waking, dreaming and deep dreamless sleep. He also acknowledges the possibility of other more advanced states where one is able to be “aware” if you will of what’s happening even while engaged in deep dreamless sleep. That would be a level of consciousness I certainly don’t possess and don’t ever expect to. For the vast majority of us deep dreamless sleep is really quite similar to death. No recollection of this state at all and we go there most every night, most of us ‘die’ then at least once every twenty-four hours.

This can also occur for example when under anesthesia for various medical procedures. Most recently this happened for me during a colonoscopy I had last week. Once my IV was in, oxygen on, pulse oximetry on my finger and lying on my side butt to the doctor he introduced himself and we shook hands, a truly odd formality it seemed given the situation. I would think a playful pat on the butt would have been a more appropriate physical greeting than the handshake.

The doc then said I am going to give you some medicine to relax you and his next statement was now I am going to do a rectal exam. My next conscious memory was the nurse saying you did great and everything looked good. This was at least 20 minutes later. So not only did I miss a good rectal exam while high no less I also sort of died. I mean my heart kept beating and I continued to breathe but these were not actions I was aware of on any level I could comprehend. I didn’t “exist” for those twenty minutes and if my heart had stopped that would have been the end. Oh maybe there would have been a tunnel with a bright light at the end but that would just be few synapses sparking and freaking out from a lack of oxygen I suspect and the doorway to heaven. Not a bad way to dance out I might add but not usually how it occurs.

Since I have been lucky enough to “be” it raises the question where did I come from. Looks like it may very well have all started with the Big Band some many billions of years ago. My physical makeup is literally stardust that coalesced into this majestic planet and one thing led to about a billion trillion other things and here I am babbling on.

I was recently gifted Sam Harris’ new book Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by a dear friend. Harris has been in the news of late around his recent appearance on Bill Maher’s Real Time and for his controversial views on religion and Islam in particular. This book doesn’t really step specifically into those waters but it is a great exploration of the reality of self as illusion and how one can cultivate a genuine spiritual perspective with no need of any organized religion. Reading Harris’ book has pushed me back to the cushion. He sums up the reason to do this quite eloquently in the last two lines of the book: “However numerous your faults, something in you at this moment is pristine - and only you can recognize it. Open your eyes and see.” (Sam Harris/2014.)

I do not however spend every waking moment pondering the illusion of self, my pending death or how the hell I got here but often of an evening I engage in much more mundane activities. After a day of work in a local Urgent Care Clinic having the infinite suffering of humanity thrust in my face repeatedly or absorbing the mind-numbing onslaught of the current mid-term elections, or the latest ISIS beheadings or the current Ebola hysteria and realizing I am still not enlightened I often seek solace and escape by watching, often several times over, reruns of the great hit sit-com The Big Bang Theory!

© October 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.

I Used to Think by Gillian

I used to think I was straight, but now I know I am actually as queer, as the saying goes, as a three dollar bill. No, that's not really true. Oh, the queer part is, but back then I didn't think I was straight, because the words straight and gay were not yet in play; indeed the concepts barely were. So what I actually thought was that there was something wrong with me that I didn't get all excited about boys the way my girlfriends did. But I also believed it would go away. It was just a phase. It would pass.

I used to think, when I got married to a man, that it was forever. I took my marriage vows very seriously and meant every word of that rather horrid phrase, till death us do part. It was the end of a phase. Of course I know now that it was doomed from day one. My previous feelings were not a phase, and neither was my marriage, being no more than a piece of rather good acting on my part, albeit somewhat subconscious.

I used to think, when it came over me that I just had to come out, that I would lose a few people I thought of as my friends, but so be it. Now I know that most people, even back in the early eighties, really didn't care. And it gets more that way with each passing day.

I used to think, when I first came out, that I would never get too serious about any one woman. I would simply play the field making up for decades of lost time. Now I know that when you meet that special woman, all previous thoughts, in fact all thought of any kind, flies right out the window.

I used to think, long after coming out, long after committing my life to partnership with my beautiful Betsy, that there was no hope that gay marriage would ever come to this country, even as it spread to many countries across the globe. I told myself I didn't care. We had as loving and committed a relationship as was possible. We didn't need, or even want, that failed straight institution. I know, now, that I was in a wee state of denial. After all, if something is unavailable what is the point in hungering for it? I still have a dream that we queers can do something better, but meanwhile I proudly clutch my official, legal (at least in about twenty states) marriage license.

I used to think that my liking for alcohol would pass. Just another phase. I know now that at the age of 72, after drinking my way quite steadily through over half a century, that is not likely to happen. On the other hand, it is not the temptation it once was. Or perhaps to be more accurate I should say that the temptation, if succumbed to, is much shorter lived. I tend to fall asleep after one beer, unless I remain in constant motion and my arthritis argues strongly against that.

I used to think, as a pudgy child, that my battle with weight would also pass. Yet another phase! And indeed for many years taken up with raising four step-children and putting in long exhausting hours at work, I settled comfortably in the acceptable center of that BMI range. For several years now, though, I have been pushing greedily against the BMI north face, and sometimes toppling over. I now know that if I ever return to the center, where all the charts and measurements estimate I should be, if I ever lose considerable weight, it will probably result from some condition not promising me health and longevity.

I used to think that someday I would no longer feel pain from the death of my mom and dad. Suffering the loss of one's parents is, after all, the natural progression of life. Now I know I shall never get used to being an orphan, and will always have that tiny empty space inside me.

I used to think that someday I would write that unique novel. It would be translated into at least thirty different languages. My name would be recognized in as many countries. I would walk into a meeting room on a business trip to, say, the IBM facility in Melbourne. Those Aussie jaws would drop as they chorused, "Oh my word! You don't say you're THE Gillian Edwards?!" Now I know it's one chance in a million that I'll even have some inane comment go viral to make me at least famous for a day. Or a nano-second. I am honored to have a very occasional short piece published in that most erudite of journals, Out Front. I also know, now, that if I can write a few hundred words which occasionally amuse or emotionally captivate a small minority of a group of wonderful people gathered around a table on a Monday afternoon, that is the only claim to fame I need.

© 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.

A Salute to PFLAG by Betsy

“I knew my son was gay. He didn’t want to tell me. I told him I loved him and nothing else mattered. He didn’t believe I was accepting, but I was.” These are the words of Jeanne Manford, cofounder of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, the internationally known organization of allies of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered.

The concept for the organization was born in 1972 when Jeanne Manford marched with her gay son Morty in New York’s Christopher Street Liberation Day March, the precursor to today’s Pride parade. She carried a sign which read “Parents of Gays Unite in Support for Our Children.” This brought on cheers yelling, crying and clapping and to Jeanne’s surprise many people came up to her during the march, shook hands, hugged her, begged her to talk to their parents. The requests continued after the parade with hundreds of telephone calls from gay and lesbian people wanting Jeanne to speak to their parents. It became clear to her that a support group was needed. Thus the first meeting was held in March 1973 in Greenwich Village. Twenty people attended.

Jeanne continued answering the calls and began traveling the country making appearances on radio and tv promoting the cause.

By 1979 many similar groups had sprung up around the country. By 1980 the first PFLAG National office was established in Los Angeles followed by the incorporation and granting of tax exempt status to the organization which now included some 20 groups. The headquarters was relocated to Denver in 1987 under President Elinor Lewallen, whom many of us knew well. PFLAG took off in the 1990’s and the national office employed an executive director and some staff and moved to Washington DC.

The administration of George H.W. Bush became the first to be directly supportive of gay rights when the then PFLAG president Paulette Goodman sent Barbara Bush a letter asking for her support. Her reply was “I firmly believe that we cannot tolerate discrimination against any individuals or groups in our country. Such treatment always brings with it pain and perpetuates intolerance.” Unbeknownst to some powers that be, the first lady’s comments were given to the press and caused a political maelstrom.

Today 40 years after it’s inception PFLAG has grown to a network of 350 chapters worldwide with more than 200,000 members. Perhaps one of the greatest services provided by PFLAG over the years has been the dissemination of information to educational institutions and communities of faith and the general public nationwide. This along with personal and group support for parents who sometimes are in tears and in shock and are trying to understand.

I became involved in PFLAG around 2003 when I learned that the Denver Chapter was meeting in my neighborhood. I decided to attend a meeting.

At the meeting I found many acquaintances, gays, lesbians, and straight.

The chair of the board was an old acquaintance from my married days--she had worked with my husband at CU medical school. I think she was surprised to see me there. Before I knew it I found myself on the board of directors of the Denver Chapter. There I remained for 7 years having held the office of president for 2 years until my tenure ended due to term limits.

I was glad to be active and committed to this organization. I believe that PFLAG, being an organization of allies, has been in the right place at the right time to help open people’s minds and bring about attitude and policy changes.

The credibility of parents who love their children just as they are and want to support them can be very powerful. I thought at first that I knew a good bit of what being both the parent of a lesbian and being a lesbian myself was about. But I quickly discovered at PFLAG that being a straight parent of a lesbian is very much a different thing. My eyes were opened when in a “coming out” support group meeting parents were talking about how difficult it is to come out to their friends and family. Some were having difficulty with this, fearing rejection by those closest to them, and had been closeted themselves for a long time. It had never occurred to me that these straight people had the same fear issues that their gay children did, and that they, like their gay and lesbian children had to summon up some courage to “come out” and reveal the secret of their son or daughter.

Our chapter’s major activities during my active years included

1. Speaking with school groups, students, staff, and parents to promote better understanding and acceptance of GLBT. Working with schools who have bullying issues to address. Providing support and education to parents and school personnel around transgender issues.

2. Speaking similarly with other community groups including churches.

3. Providing educational materials put out by the national office.

4. Providing an emergency “helpline” for parents or others in distress.

5. Providing a monthly support meeting with a trained facilitator for parents whose sons or daughters have just come out to them. The support meeting is followed by a program featuring a speaker or panel of speakers always bringing enlightenment to their audiences.

6. Advocating for marriage equality.

Will the support and advocacy of PFLAG be a continuing need in the future? I believe there will always be a need. The specific activities of the organization may change with the times. With more awareness, more children are coming out and often at a younger age than in past decades.

Although there has been increased acceptance and policy changes, there is still much misinformation and misunderstanding and hatred of homosexual people. The more recent emergence of awareness of transgender issues by itself presents huge challenges to families involved and to advocacy groups. In my opinion PFLAG will be in business for a long time.

Denver, 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.

Clothes by Will Stanton

I'm not going to talk about the $10,000 gowns that some wealthy women wear nor the $2,000 suits that some well-healed men wear. I also am not going to talk about the way I dress. I don't have a GQ figure, and I don't wear GQ clothes. Instead, I'm going to talk some about the clothes that many young people wear and contrast that with my own generation.

I was sitting in a restaurant, and the young waitress came up to my table. I noted that she was wearing jeans that were so tight that the waistline was bound to cut off blood circulation. Doctors have warned women about that. She wore them so low that her plump tummy hung out over the jean-tops and below the tight blouse that came down just below her breasts. I suppose that she considered showing off a bare tummy was sexy. Some testosterone-agitated boys and aging men probably found her appearance titillating, but I wondered how this peculiar clothing style had come about and why girls choose to dress that way at work.

Ironically, girls' wearing very tight clothes is in marked contrast with boys' baggy apparel for a long time now. While seated at the table at the very same restaurant, a teenage boy came in. He probably weighed all of 110 pounds, but his shirt was so huge that it could have fit a man who weighed 250 and stood a foot taller. Even more silly was that he was wearing his jeans literally below his butt, or more accurately, where his butt should be; for this young kid didn't have any butt, hips, or waist. At least his boxer shorts covered that area. His pants were so ridiculously baggy that two boys could have worn them at the same time. I hope that he realized that, if he tried to rip off a 711, there would be no way of his outrunning a cop. Those baggy pants undoubtedly would become tangled up around his legs, tripping him.

Shorts and swim suits are not comfortably and practically short anymore. They hang half way down the calf. Are males' bare thighs now considered to be too shocking to see? They aren't for women. Trying to swim in those things is like having a drag-line attached to the legs. Where did this idea come from, and why has this bizarre style lasted so long?

Boys and girls certainly did not dress that way when I was young. Of course, I grew up in an era that is roundly satirized in the movie “Pleasantville.” That biting satire portrayed life in the 1950s and '60s as “black-and-white, overly conservative, restrictive, unimaginative.” There is some truth to that; however, I have to admit that I viewed the clothes that young people wore then to be appealing. Girls did wear slacks or shorts on occasion, but they also often wore cotton dresses that reached just down to below the knee which, I thought, enhanced their femininity. I thought the girls attractive in either case, even without having their tummies hanging out or the tops of their thighs showing.

Boys once wore shirts and T-shirts that naturally fit their form and did not hang down below their butts. They also tended to wear form-fitting slacks and jeans, pants not so baggy as to make Charlie Chaplain’s trousers look tailor-made in contrast. Their pants still could be sexy enough, even with keeping them up around their waistlines. Most boys chose pants that were somewhat loose but not so floppy as to obscure the wearers' gender, as many girls and some of the boys were quick to note. 

I do admit that a few of the boys I knew in school wore pants so tight that one could tell whether or not they were circumcised. That certainly was true with Randy, the very sexy kid whose pants appeared to be in danger of cutting him in half or exploding apart at one particularly revealing seam, which I actually saw happen on one occasion. That sort of thing tended to draw attention. He was a school-band member, and I was amused to learn that, when the band went on over-night tours, some band members argued as to who would have the privilege of sharing a motel room with Randy. I have no evidence as to whether just his appearance fostered such controversy or other factors contributed to his popularity.

It appears to me that, at some point in America's history of clothing styles, arbitrators of taste chose to affect a reversal for the younger consumer. Modesty no longer is a factor in designing clothes for females. From bathing suits to ball gowns, young women can choose to expose as much skin as they dare. As for young guys, especially teens, the goal appears to be to camouflage the physical form as much as possible. Have clothes-makers concluded that the male form is too titillating or even obscene? I don't necessarily advocate returning to Randy's style of pants that were so tight as to potentially emasculate the wearer, but I do maintain that the return to more sensible, form-fitting clothes for males is long overdue. Let's get rid of bagginess once and for all.

© 01 September 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.

Locked Out by Ricky

Locked Out or Locked In, It's All the Same

Perhaps the greatest fear a person can have short of going to hell when one dies, is the fear that they might become locked into their own minds, and locked out of reality at the same time. Dementia and Alzheimer diseases are two examples of this condition. Another would be where a person has an active and normal mental state but is incapable of communicating anything to anyone. I certainly would not like to be in any of those conditions. Although I have made jokes about the good thing about Alzheimer disease is that, you get to meet new people every day; it really is not funny.

Can you imagine the frustration, confusion, disorientation, and fear that probably results from not being able to communicate or understand what is happening around you or even to you? It is easy for me to imagine it as I have been “locked out” and “locked in” a few times in my life so I remember the feeling. I imagine I would feel mental anguish a thousand times worse, if I had any of those conditions permanently.

My future wife got off from work one Friday night in Pensacola and drove to her mother's home 50-miles away in Niceville (yes, that's a real town). Her arrival at about 9PM was unexpected and her mother refused to let her in for the night, effectively locking her out of the home where her childhood bedroom was. In desperation she came to my trailer (or called me first) where upon I let her stay that night and the rest of the weekend. I knew how she felt because her tears and words were communicating perfectly.

As a youngster, I was fairly fearless or perhaps my parents would have used different words such as thoughtless or even stupid. Even then, I had a healthy case of acrophobia. Climbing the ladder to join my father on the roof of our single-story home was no problem. The problem manifested upon my turning around to get back on the ladder to go down. Anyway, at about 14-years old my father had taken me to somewhere in Minnesota to visit one of his childhood friends who just happened to have two boys, both younger than me.

These boys were truly farm boys, while I was only a 2-year “pretender” to farm life. As farmer's sons, they naturally had to help with all the farm work, which included stacking hay bales in the hayloft of the barn during summer harvesting. So being boys, they stacked the bales to create a secret passage to their “hideaway” near one of the windows in the wall that was hidden by 10 or 15 feet of stacked hay. There were three hidden access “tunnels” to the hideaway; two along the wall and one in the middle of the hayloft with a vertical drop and a crawl-only tunnel at the bottom under tons of hay.

The boys told me about their hideaway and wanted to show it to me so I went to the barn with them being anxious to see what I had only fantasized doing while living on my grandfather's farm. By this time in my life I had mentally matured somewhat so I was not thoughtless, but still not completely un-stupid either. The boys would only take me to their hideaway if I used the vertical shaft as the entrance. I looked at the opening and told them that I was too big to fit and they said there was plenty of room as they were not that much smaller than me. My common sense was overruled by my desire to see the hideaway and so ignoring my eyes, which had been telling me the truth, I started down the shaft to the bottom and then managed to back into the tunnel, which was only about 9 inches high and 13 or 14 inches wide. I managed to crawl backwards about four feet and then got stuck. I spent three-months stuck under all that hay during the five-minutes it took them to use one of the other tunnels to get behind me and pull me feet first into the hideaway. Using the other entrances along the wall I easily returned to the surface of the hay. Needless to say, I've been claustrophobic ever since, all because of being locked-in under a “mountain” of hay and locked-out of normal life.

One could say that I was locked-out of a normal life because beginning in high school I was not attracted to girls' looks but only their personalities and only then when thinking about having someone with which to go to movies or other non-sexual activities associated with dating—at that time I only fantasized sexually about boys. Although this has not been as explosively traumatic as being stuck under tons of hay and the result thereof, this type of locked-out was nonetheless a chronically mild trauma whose persistent presence kept building consequences beyond it's apparent significance. Of course it didn't help that apparently none of my female classmates took any interest, sexual or otherwise, in me either even though I was always a gentleman, respectful, and spoke with them easily. However, I never asked any of them for a date and they never offered either.

As I've mentioned in prior stories, my emotional trauma caused by my parents incorrectly shutting me out of their divorce situation and my father erroneously waiting to tell me about it the night before he left, was for me the most important and crippling locked-out or locked-in depending upon point of view. Having access to only half, if even that much, of the range of possible human emotions is not desirable or even close to being a good thing. If one is so severely locked-in to depression and locked-out of empathy, how could one feel the opposites? I could not feel joy or true happiness as they were denied me until the effects of the emotional locked-out could be reversed or canceled. Fortunately, for me, as I have stated before, I am now free of those influences and am emotionally whole, but still learning how to deal with the new emotions.

Being free of emotional lockouts does not prevent my unfortunate tendency towards being physically locked-out. After I got married a new mental condition surfaced—forgetfulness. I suspect I may have had it before, but my wife certainly was able to point it out. I don't know if it is a genetic condition or if it is a naturally occurring phenomenon of marriage as I've heard almost all wives complaining about their husbands’ lack of memory.

My wife and I once visited Arches National Monument on a nice hot summer day. As I exited the vehicle and shut the door, I suddenly realized that I had left the keys in the ignition. My wife had left her purse under the seat so we had no keys and the doors were locked. We were locked-out of our vehicle and locked-in to the great American Desert—without a cell phone—without water—without clothing for nighttime in the desert—and most importantly without a coat-hanger or any other object with which to unlock the door. Eventually, another tourist happened by and gave us a hanger.

I tend to believe in my genetic theory of carelessness or forgetfulness; perhaps they are really manifestations of the same thing. Even when my wife was not around to be involved, I would still lock myself out of my vehicles occasionally but still far too often. This was most evident and embarrassing while I was serving as a Missile Security Officer in Montana, Arkansas, and South Dakota.

Part of my military duty was to drive around the “missile field” to visit and inspect the security police guards. I had a deserved reputation of locking myself out of my vehicle while over 200-miles away from the base where the spare keys were. Fortunately, I had personnel on my security flight that grew up in New York City, so they had the skills needed to open locked vehicles and they were only 20-miles away on the average.

Eventually, I began to carry two sets of vehicle keys with me whenever I leave home. I still lock myself out occasionally, but now I don't need help when it happens. Who says you can't teach a senior citizen new tricks?

© 9 January 2012

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

The Women in My Life by Ray S

Contrary to some, not all, there still exists the opinion on the part of some sociologists, psychologists, and worst of all the public citizenry that the shared lot in this life is the fault of the mother.

Not wishing to be branded a misogynist, God forbid I hasten to rise to the defense of all of the innocent, or otherwise, mothers that have brought forth a world of heterosexual beings and very special homosexual beings. Get serious, those fare ladies didn’t have the slightest idea of how that 3 minutes or 3 seconds of passion would turn out. Nowadays medical science has taken the surprise out of all that labor during childbirth and the proud parents know ahead of time whether it will be a son and heir to carry on the family name, or a Madam Currie’ or Lady Ga Ga. So what does this preamble have to do with our subject today? Guess!

As an aftermath of my own coming out party, oh I don’t mean that October day some 80+ years ago, it dawned on me that in spite of my life long fondness for boys, consciously or sub-consciously, most of my best friends have been women, or girls when we were very young.

Sure, I yearned to be like and envied the guys I’ve grown up with--seeing them as role models I could never be--but it was then and is now that the women in my life that have made me what I am, well sort of.

I had planned to submit a list of all of my very own women’s names, but have run out of time and besides you all have your own special names in mind. So suffice it to say, “Where would we be without some special female of the species?” And that is meant literally as well as emotionally.

© 11/24/14

About the Author

Signposts by Phillip Hoyle

Ted grew up on a large farm in southwestern Kansas, near Liberal. Ted seemed to have inherited his musical ear and talent from his mother, a fine pianist who accompanied her son’s solos throughout his childhood and teens. Ted’s clear, resonant, and lovely voice and his ability to interpret songs came from somewhere. His mom? His dad? I didn’t know them well enough to judge. Ted did seem to have inherited from his dad his tall frame, his good looks, his organizational ability, and his alcoholism. Ted sang in church and school choirs and pranced down Main Street and around the football field as drum major of the high school band. He was also a straight-A student.

When Ted was fifteen he attended the Fred Waring Choral Summer Workshop where he learned a lot about music and had sex with a man. When he got home, he asked his mom if he could see a psychiatrist. “You need a psychiatrist like I need a hole in my head,” she responded. That ended the conversation but not Ted’s worry over his life and its direction.

Ted attended college at Wichita State University as a music education major with vocal and choral options. One of his college teachers told me Ted was brilliant, not just smart, perhaps the most brilliant student she had ever taught. I figured she might know something about that since she had taught grade school, high school, college, and graduate courses. While an undergraduate student, Ted ably led the choir in his Wichita church. Upon graduation he began his music career as a vocal and choral instructor in a small church-related college in north-central Kansas. That’s where I met him during my last semester.

Ted and I seemed very much alike yet at the same time quite different. I had been married about a year and a half; the summer before we met, Ted had terminated his engagement to be married. We did share our love of vocal and choral music. We both had been directing choirs. Somehow I also knew that like me he would be open to sex with another man. He too may have known that about me, but we didn’t move toward that kind of relationship. Rather we became good friends.

Ted’s musical brilliance was supported by his tremendous organizing skills and natural gift as a teacher. He made musicians of his students. A couple of years into his work at the college, he tried again to court and to marry but in so doing pushed himself into an emotional and mental breakdown. His high-school self analysis had been too accurate.

By then, my wife and I lived in Wichita. Ted entered the graduate music program in voice at WSU. On weekends he’d stay with us and our new baby boy. One weekend he came out to me and seemed a little angry with me when I told him I’d realized he was gay the very first time I met him. When he lived with us a couple of months the following summer, Ted’s homosexuality revealed itself to be as intense as his brilliance, musicality, musicianship, and ability to organize. He and I stayed with our chosen friendship, yet he told me many, many things about his life, including some of his sexual experiences. He seemed a little disappointed as well as relived when his psychiatrist and counselors at the mental hospital where over a number of years he received care told him they were not treating his homosexuality; they did not consider it an illness. We continued to become even greater friends. Ted was a friend with my wife as well and an uncle to our son.

Ted left college teaching and followed his voice teacher to Texas where he studied music at Trinity University. I visited him in San Antonio, saw the university, met teachers, observed his great choral programming at a church where he was music director, sang with him, and more. On that trip Ted became my gay educator interpreting such phenomena as gay bars, drag queens, gay language (verbal and non-), gay people, and the emerging gay literature; and he told me many more stories from his own experience.

Eventually Ted moved to San Francisco where he plunged into a gay scene not imaginable in Wichita, San Antonio, Houston, or Dallas. There he sang in the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, organized and led the SFGM Chorale. He taught voice at a community music school, led other ensembles, and sang professionally in a Catholic Church choir. On one visit I went to mass with him. The organist and all the singers seemed to be gay. But even more than all these things, and in a very personal way equally important, Ted became an A-List masochist. He contracted HIV, doctored at San Francisco General Hospital, and became an AIDS activist. Ted showed me the photo of himself at a party wearing his mother’s mink stole and explained he was exploring his feminine side. He told me stories of unrequited love. When we walked around together he made comments about beautiful men we encountered. I must add this: Ted lived at 944 Castro. Do I really need to say more? I’m sure Ted was the gayest person I ever met.

Ted died from AIDS-related conditions. I attended his balloon-crowded memorial service at First Congregational Church, heard spoken tributes by a number of his gay friends, listen to his beloved chorale sing, and enjoyed a gay party after the service. When I came to Denver to live as a gay man, I dedicated myself to giving massages to people living with HIV/AIDS in his memory. Ted was and continues to be my gay icon.

 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

Pushing the Buttons by Pat Gourley

A response to Denver Pride 2014 

“Went to "Pride Fest" today.

SORRY but found it fairly bland, insipid, Un special - a major sin, and overly ordinary. Could have been People's Fair or Taste with rainbow county fair junk-goods. Listening to some of the vendor’s conversations, they knew nothing of the LGBTQQI struggle and history and didn't care.

Such a let down. With success comes failure quickly!

– Quote from an anonymous friend.

The above quote is one lifted yesterday from the Facebook page of an old friend of mine. Someone I would describe as a commie, pinko faggot with strong pacifist, socialist and Wiccan leanings, definitely my kind of queer. A description I do not think he would in any way try to disown. His bit of a rant is in response to this year’s Denver Pride 2014. In fairness it should be noted that this was a post done yesterday after visiting the event on Saturday, the vendors are all the same but the crowd significantly smaller and dare I say less gay.

This friend has been an activist around many progressive causes all of his adult life and an out gay man since I have known him dating back to the 1970’s and for whom I have significant respect. For those reasons alone I can not easily dismiss him as being some old crank yelling at the kids to get off his lawn. And actually his criticisms are nothing new and quite frankly ones I have shared in the past and to some extent still do.

My experiences with Denver Pride date back to its inception in the mid-1970s as an event involving several hundreds tentatively inching our way up Colfax to one that now extends to the hundreds of thousands sashaying from Cheesman Park to Civic Center in a sea of rainbow colors. The main attraction at the end of those early marches, not parades back then, were often political speeches from activists primarily and the rare politician. There were no vendors to speak of and if representatives of Coors Beer had shown up they would no doubt have been driven from the temple as the homophobic moneychangers and purveyors of alcoholism they were and perhaps still are.

Times have changed and overall for the better I think at least regarding Pride, which I’ll get to in a bit. All of the large community events from Taste of Colorado, to People’s Fair to Cinco de Mayo etc. have grown dramatically and at the same time probably lost a lot of their uniqueness and certainly some of their grassroots cache. Whether this is an inevitable evolution or a tragic devolution I’ll leave to another piece.

I remember attending what I think was the third People’s Fair in the early-to-mid 1970’s the exact year escapes me. It was held in its entirety in the playground of the old elementary school at 8th and Downing just south of Queen Soopers. I remember it because I was working at the time as a psychiatric attendant at the old Denver General and we had taken several of our patients, not yet referred to as clients, to the fair for an afternoon outing. The most notable part of that adventure was having to explain to my charge nurse on our return why we came back with fewer patients than we had left with.

I would certainly agree with my cranky friend quoted above that there has been a tremendous amount of corporate cooptation of the Pride event and frequently a nauseating acquiescence’s to local politicians trying to curry favor all the while looking for votes. One positive change around the politicians though is we no longer grovel and jump for joy at their approval but rather have come to expect it. The same can be said for media coverage, which is shallow and often banal in the extreme, but everything they cover is. We do though now expect them to acknowledge our existence, which is something pretty hard not to do when several hundred thousand of us cavort in public occupying many city blocks.

It is this mass cavorting, sweaty shoulder to sweaty shoulder, often cheek to jowl that makes the whole thing still worthwhile for me. Though I do at times wish that the Stone Wall riots had occurred in May or September when the weather is much more civilized.

There is something that remains for me, the quintessential jaded old queen, a gut reaction that is very exhilarating and empowering to be in public literally pressing the flesh with this vast queer mass of humanity. I really don’t give a rat’s ass about any of the vendors, politicians or dignitaries and that includes the gay ones but I do still get a wonderful warm rush by slowing circumambulating with the crowd around Civic Center often encountering old friends who I don’t seem to see but once a year at this carnival.

I can’t help but wonder what the reaction must be of someone just coming out, no matter what their age, who is perhaps watching from the sidelines or has maybe even dived in to swish with the fishes. For many I would think and hope that this experience would do more to water their queer roots than decade’s of trying to come to grips with a queer reality was for many of us in the 40’s, 50’s or 60’s just to pick a few random decades from the past couple millennia.

I don’t really think that folks necessarily have it so much easier coming out these days than I did forty years ago. But I must say it would have been really cool and reassuring and saved me years of angst to happen on several hundred thousand like minded individuals dancing in public on a warm sunny day in 1965.

These Pride days, once I have completed my swim around the park in a sea of queer flesh, it’s often nice to sit under a tree and watch the many really very interesting very diverse trips pass by. I still think there is plenty that is unique and potentially truly change creating about how so many of us move in the world. Vendors be damned, I still plan to attend next year.

© June 2014

About the Author

I was born in La Porte, Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

Stories of GLBT Organizations by Lewis

My thirty-year career at Ford Motor Company reached its culmination at the end of the last century, coincident with the last of my 26 years of being in a straight marriage and the birth of the GLBT organization that has played the largest part in my personal journey toward wholeness. That organization is Ford GLOBE.

GLOBE is an acronym for Gay, Lesbian, Or Bisexual Employees. It was hatched in the minds of two Ford employees, a woman and a man, in Dearborn, MI, in July of 1994. By September, they had composed a letter to the Vice President of Employee Relations--with a copy to Ford CEO, Alex Trotman--expressing a desire to begin a dialogue with top management on workplace issues of concern to Ford's gay, lesbian and bisexual employees. They were invited to meet with the VP of Employee Relations in November.

In 1995, the group, now flying in full view of corporate radar and growing, elected a five-member board, adopted its formal name of Ford GLOBE; designed their logo; adopted mission, vision, and objective statements; and adopted bylaws. The fresh-faced Board was invited to meet with the staff of the newly-created corporate Diversity Office. Soon after, "sexual orientation" was incorporated into Ford's Global Diversity Initiative. Members of Ford GLOBE participated in the filming of two company videos on workplace diversity. Also that year, Ford was a sponsor of the world-premier on NBC of Serving in Silence, starring Glenn Close as Army Reserve Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer. By September of 1996, Ford GLOBE chapters were forming in Great Britain and Germany.

In March of 1996, Ford GLOBE submitted to upper management the coming-out stories of 23 members in hope of putting a human face on what had been an invisible minority. Along with the stories came a formal request for Ford's non-discrimination policy to be rewritten to include sexual orientation. At the time, only Ford of Britain had such a policy.

Ford GLOBE was beginning to network with similar interest groups at General Motors and Chrysler, including sharing a table at the 1996 Pridefest and walking together in the Michigan Pride Parade in Lansing. After two years of discussion between Ford GLOBE and top management, on November 14, 1996, Ford CEO, Alex Trotman, issued Revised Corporate Policy Letter # 2, adding "sexual orientation" to the company's official non-discrimination policy. To this day, some of our largest and most profitable corporations, including Exxon Mobile, have refused to do the same.

My involvement with Ford GLOBE began sometime in 1997. For that reason and the fact that I have scrapped many of my records of this period, I have relied heavily on Ford GLOBE's website for the dates and particulars of these events.

In February of 1998, I attended a "Gay Issues in the Workplace" Workshop, led by Brian McNaught, at Ford World Headquarters, jointed sponsored by GLOBE and the Ford Diversity Office. I remember a Ford Vice President taking the podium at that event. He was a white man of considerable social cachet and I assumed that the privilege that normally goes with that status would have shielded him from any brushes with discrimination. In fact, he told a story of riding a public transit bus with his mother at the height of World War II. His family was German. His mother had warned him sternly not to speak German while riding the bus. Thus, he, too, had known the fear of being outed because of who he was. The experience had made him into an unlikely ally of GLOBE members over 50 years later.

In 1999, Ford GLOBE amended its by-laws to make it their mission to include transgendered employees in Ford's non-discrimination policy and gender identity in Ford's diversity training. Ford Motor Company was the first and only U.S. automotive company listed on the 1999 Gay and Lesbian Values Index of top 100 companies working on gay issues, an achievement noted by Ford CEO Jac Nasser. It was about this time that retired Ford Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer Alan Gilmore came out as gay. The Advocate named Ford Motor Company to its list of 25 companies that provide good environments for gay employees in its Oct. 26 edition.

Having earlier written the contract bargaining teams for Ford Motor Company, United Auto Workers, and Canadian Auto Workers requesting specific changes in the upcoming union contracts, Ford GLOBE was pleased to see that the resulting Ford/CAW union contract included provision for same-sex domestic partners to be treated as common law spouses in Canada, for sexual orientation to be added to the nondiscrimination statement of the Ford/UAW contract, and that Ford and the UAW agreed to investigate implementation of same-sex domestic partner benefits during the current four-year union contract.

The year 2000 was not only the year that I became Board Chair of Ford GLOBE but also the year that marked a momentous event in automotive history as Ford, General Motors, and the Chrysler Division of DaimlerChrysler issued a joint press release with the United Auto Workers announcing same-sex health care benefits for the Big Three auto companies' salaried and hourly employees in the U.S. As the first-ever industry-wide joint announcement of domestic partner benefits and largest ever workforce of 465,000 U.S. employees eligible in one stroke, the historic announcement made headlines across the nation. It was truly a proud moment for all of us in the Ford GLOBE organization.

On January 1 of 2001, my last year with the company, Ford expanded its benefits program for the spouses of gay employees to include financial planning, legal services, the personal protection plan, vehicle programs, and the vision plan.

Since my departure from the company, Ford and GLOBE have continued to advance the cause of GLBT equality and fairness both within the corporation and without. I am fortunate to have been supported in my own coming out process by my associates within the company, both gay and straight, and to Ford GLOBE in particular for the bonds of friendship honed in the common struggle toward a better and freer world.

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.

Hitting a Milestone by Nicholas

The first thing I wanted to do on reaching 60 years of age was look back. Look back on just how I turned out to be me. As I’m writing this, Quicksilver Messenger Service—does anybody remember that ‘60s rock group? —is singing “What are you going to do about me?” Good question. What am I going to do about me? A little self obsessed, maybe, but there’s no apologizing needed for that in this day and age.

In 2006, I turned 60 years of age. This was one of those milestone “zero” birthdays, like 30, 40, 50. Only this one seemed to hit me as more of a milestone than the others ever did. I wasn’t sure if it marked another mile but I sure felt the weight of the stone.

I like to say that I faced my 60th birthday instead of that I celebrated my 60th. There was a celebration, of course, one of the best parties I’ve ever had. It was put together by my sisters and Jamie and was quite a wing-ding, with catered food, champagne, a huge cake and lots of family and friends to share it with. In fact, I extended the celebration to all that year long, not just one day. It was not just another routine birthday passed with a day off work, a bike ride in the mountains, a special dinner with Jamie, a few cards and presents and then on to the next day. No, this one meant something.

This birthday was different and needed to be marked differently. This one presented challenges. It demanded to be paid attention to. Turning 60 was truly a cusp of something, a turning point. I am now closer to my departure from this planet than am I to my arrival upon it.

I felt that I’d crossed a threshold, stepped over a line, a boundary to somewhere though I was not sure where. If the past was a burden piling up behind me, the future seemed a foggy mystery and unknown territory. I was in a new country without a map and with loads of hopes and fears but not sure what direction to take.

Suddenly, I felt a sense of being old. Now I was one of the old people, a senior citizen. I was now entitled, if I summoned the nerve, to boot some young person out of those seats at the front of the bus reserved for old folks. I’ve never done that, of course. But I was old and everybody knew it. No more anonymity, I was marked with gray hair, sagging skin, a bit slower to take stairs, and a few more bottles of pills on the shelf. Now with this birthday and every birthday hence, my age was a matter of public policy. I was officially a statistic, a “boomer,” a term I despise. This birthday and the party to commemorate it left me with an uncomfortable self-consciousness.

And some confusion. One morning I was bicycling along the South Platte River, following the familiar path when suddenly the way was blocked and I was shuffled off onto a detour around a huge construction zone. I followed the detour hesitantly, not knowing exactly where I was and fearing that it was taking me too far out of the way. But the route was well marked so I continued to follow the signs. Eventually, I got back to the river path and I knew where I was.

That’s the way I was feeling on this birthday. I don’t know where this path is leading and this one is not marked at all. Am I on another detour or is this the main path? I’m trying to work my way to a point where I can see where I’ve been and so I can figure out where I’m going. At least that’s the aim.

I have this sense of the past, my past—which has grown rather bulky—and I do not want to let go of it. I can’t let go of it. I like my history and my memories. I like what I’ve done, embarrassments and failings as well as achievements and successes.

In my first 60s—the 1960s—the world was on fire with change and excitement. There was nothing I and my generation couldn’t do to make the world a better place. Justice was on the move and so was personal freedom. The personal became the political and politics became very personal and passionate. Passion is the word I attach to the ‘60s. The music was passionate. The war and the war against the war were passionate. The drive for civil rights was passionate. The freedom was passionate.

If I hearken after any remnant of that youthful decade it is that sense of passion. If there is any bit from that era that I’d like to restore to my later years, it is that passion. Turn nostalgia around and let it lead me into the future. Grow old and find your passion. Is that wisdom speaking? Have I stumbled onto wisdom somehow?

So, yes, it was quite a party, the party of a lifetime. It was the party that marked and celebrated way more than another year on the planet. I can’t forget that party because to do so would be to forget my life, its past, present and future.

© 17 October 2013

About the Author

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.

Wisdom by Gillian

Part 1

“ Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” William Shakespeare

Perhaps you could say that about wisdom, too. Occasionally you run across someone who does indeed appear to have been born wise. They are not old enough to have had sufficient experience to have learned wisdom; it seems innate. Others do have wisdom thrust upon them; frequently, sadly, as the result of some terrible experience from which they manage to emerge with newfound wisdom. Most of us simply stagger through life hoping that we gather a modicum of wisdom as we go.

Wisdom is unpredictable. It comes to us all in varying amounts and at different life stages. You cannot learn to be wise. I don’t believe you can get it from books or from other, wiser, people. You can’t obtain it by quoting the wisdom of others. That might perhaps make you sound wise, but it isn’t your wisdom.

However, if I were to pick one person to quote in the hope of the words being taken for my wisdom, it would be Shakespeare. There, in my opinion, was a truly wise man. One of the reasons his plays go on and on over the centuries is that the wisdom he expressed so succinctly over four hundred years ago still resonates with us today.

The quote I began this page with, for example: so simply stated but so true. Or -

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

How can we argue with that?

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”

The world would be a better place, would it not?

“This above all; to thine own self be true.”

No-one in this room’s going to argue with that, or with -

“Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known.”

Oh I could go on for pages; for hours. But I’ll have mercy and stop. And I’ll close with my favorite quote of all time, actually not from good old Will but penned by someone called Reinhold Niebuhr. To me it is one of the simplest expressions of so many of life’s conundrums.

“God give me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.”
And if we can do that, we are surely, truly, wise.


Part 2

The day I completed that first page, May 28th 2014, Maya Angelou died. On TV, of course, there were endless film clips of her talking or reading her wonderful poems. So how could I not include her many wonderful thoughts, given the topic of wisdom?

"History, despite its wrenching pain,” she says, “cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again."

And she has her own, somewhat less gentle, version of the Serenity Prayer:

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

“ … People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Oh so true, both the good and the bad.

And I find her wisdom encompasses us, gays and lesbians, often.

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it’s destination full of hope.” And -
“ … the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me.”

She speaks to women, of course -

“A wise woman wishes to be no-one’s enemy; A wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.”

She values laughter, particularly at ourselves -

“My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked, a song that’s spoke,
I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.”

And our storytelling group -

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

(I don’t see how any of us could have many left untold!)

And best of all, she knows exactly what wisdom is. Actually she uses the word “intelligence,” but if you paraphrase and replace “intelligence,” with “wisdom,” I think it is just perfect. So, with apologies, Maya -

“I’m grateful to wise people. That doesn’t mean educated. That doesn’t mean intellectual. I mean really wise. What black old people used to call ‘mother wit’ means wisdom that you had in your mother’s womb. That’s what you rely on. You know what’s right to do.”

I don’t know how better to describe wisdom than that.

© June 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.

The Idiom Maniac by EyM

Caught in the storm and down in the doldrums, she thought she had it made in the shade, when like greased lightening he came like a bolt out of the blue. Surely her dry spell would end and he would be the silver lining of her clouds. On cloud nine she threw caution to the wind and began to shoot the breeze. But one look rained on her parade as he was 7 sheets to the wind and looked like the twilight zone. Her thunder was stolen. Right as rain there was a cloud on her horizon. Always chasing rainbows, she hoped this blue sky would brighten up her day. But alas this guy in a fog had a cloud of suspicion over him. So not to give him the cold shoulder, she asked for a rain check .

So much for any port in a storm. She drew a blank. This was no piece of cake. Even though she felt like a basket case, she would have to play it by ear. She hoped her goose was not cooked.

Wouldn't you know it, just then someone started making eyes at her. She wanted to turn on a dime and head for the hills. But she crossed her fingers and listened to the bee in her bonnet. To this knight in shining armor, she said “A little birdie told me you love to cut a rug.” Her match made in heaven replied, “No comprendo English senorita.”

© October 2014

About the Author

A native of Colorado, she followed her Dad to the work bench to develop a love of using tools, building things and solving problems. Her Mother supported her talents in the arts. She sang her first solo at age 8. Childhood memories include playing cowboy with a real horse in the great outdoors. Professional involvements have included music, teaching, human services, and being a helper and handy woman. Her writing reflects her sixties identity and a noted fascination with nature, people and human causes. For Eydie, life is deep and joyous, ever challenging and so much fun.

Music by Betsy

I do not have the words to describe how music touches my soul. So I will not try. Suffice it to say that often when I am uninspired, unmotivated, music has inspired and motivated me to get going at whatever it is that needs to be done. Or perhaps no action is needed. I simply need or want to tap into my deepest feelings. Music is the medium through which I am able to do that. To do that I have only to empty my mind and simply listen to a work that is pleasing to me. Then I can “get away from myself.” I suppose one could call it a form of meditation. Empty the mind and then you can tap into your inner being, is how it goes, I believe. Well, I’m not sure about the emptying of the mind. I suspect breathing exercises work better, but I do know that “deep” listening can be inspiring and the right music at the right time does touch my soul.

I do wish that names, places, and times would stick in my consciousness the way music does. Sometimes my head is full of music--unfortunately, not original. Since I lack the capability to create......well, maybe in my next life I will be a composer or song writer. Some music sticks in my head for days, weeks. Over a week ago I heard on the radio in the car a particular pleasing Rossini work that I like. That music is still going on in my head today as I write this--that and Too Hot to Handel, which I have been rehearsing weekly. It is not just one line. It is the whole orchestra-- and all the choral parts, which makes it very enjoyable actually, but then sometimes I have to put on some other piece to get rid of something I have been “hearing” endlessly for days on end.

Better that than the alternative which is a constant, rather loud, high pitched hissing sound coming from both sides of my head around the area of the ears. Not an uncommon condition called tinitis. I understand this malady is the result of a filter in the brain not functioning as it should. The hissing is always there. It never actually goes away. I can “turn it off” only by focusing--and the key here is focusing-- on something else, such as, conversation or, yes, music either real or imaginary.

Indeed, It is for many reasons that music is one of life’s greatest gifts.

© 11/24/11

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.

Sweetness Personified by Will Stanton

The brief experience I'm describing here took place in college during the Vietnam War. That era seems so long ago, many people today who might read this story may have no connection with that war, perhaps little or no understanding.

The Vietnam War was a disaster for America and many Americans. Nothing positive was accomplished by it. Some people in government and some civilians knew that the Vietnamese were not about to attack Boise, Idaho; and the U.S. had no rational or moral reason to invade Vietnam. We lost more than 50,000 fine young people in that war, let alone all the injuries to those who returned . That war created turmoil and protests in our country, and much of the rest of the world looked upon the U.S. with nervous suspicion.

Something that seems to have been relatively ignored about the many forms of injuries was that a large number of people came back to the States emotionally wounded. Many suffered from PTSD, some turned to alcohol, and many had picked up the habit in Nam of smoking pot to counteract their anxiety. Marriages and families suffered. The war changed many lives.

At college, I encountered a young student name Frank. Frank was tall and slim with very boyish features. He was quite good looking. He radiated warmth and kindness, a noticeable gentleness of personality that could be described as “sweetness personified.”

I met Frank, or more precisely, Frank met me, because apparently he sought me out. To my surprise, he had become very interested in me. I felt honored that Frank found me to be attractive and personable. We began to spend some time with each other. To my regret, that period of time was all too brief. I was surprised and very moved when I found out the reason why.

Frank appeared to be like just any other young college freshman, so I was surprised to hear that he had spent a tour of duty in Vietnam, not at any base or headquarters, but right out in the jungles and rice paddies. It was very much against Frank's nature to wish to harm anyone, and he had no desire to kill. In fact, he refused to do so. Instead, he was a medic, tending to the soldiers' injuries as best he could.

On one occasion, and only that one occasion, Frank spoke of his experiences in Vietnam. During his tour of duty, he daily witnessed the carnage of warfare, the horrifying injuries that our young people suffered - - shrapnel and severe bullet wounds, infected punctures from punji stakes, burns, blindness. Because the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army soldiers were often quite small, they would aim their AK47s low and let the bullets ride up because of their kick. Poor Frank had to tend to a number of soldiers whose genitals had been shot off. Frank told me that his seeing so many boys terribly wounded and suffering changed him forever. The world no longer seemed the beautiful and promising place that he once believed in duriing his innocent childhood.

Frank grew up in New Lexington, Ohio, a very small village of about only 3,000 at the time and consisting of a string of 19th-century, two-story brick stores and quaint, modest homes.

Tucked in the green hills of Southeastern Ohio, the village must have felt like a quiet and safe harbor away from the turmoil and sorrows of the world outside.

The trauma of Viet Nam weighed upon Frank. The world seemed to be a dangerous and unhappy place. He missed New Lexington where he felt more comfortable and secure. His interest in me changed when he met another student from his own village who felt the same way as he did. The last time that I saw Frank, he told me that he was dropping out of college and moving with his new friend back home. He said that he planned to stay there, to remain isolated from the harshness of the world outside.

I never saw Frank again, yet I never have forgotten him. I hope that he found peace and happiness there. He deserved it, for he well may have been the sweetest person I ever knew.

© 01 May 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.