Rickyisms, by Will Stanton

To ease understanding of the term “Rickyisms,” some people may equate these brief, humorous quips as “puns.”  That term comes close; however, “Rickyisms” are not so generalized as common puns, and they reflect more precisely the personality of the originator, Ricky.  To begin with, anyone inflicted with “Rickyisms” should be aware that the originator claims to have a personality of a twelve-year-old boy; and his little bon mots usually are on that level.  He has provided us with ample opportunity to reach that conclusion.

Joking boy

Occasionally, however, his little quips, written or oral, garner special attention; and, in my imagination, I assign them special awards.  One that comes to mind (and I'm sure Ricky will not mind my quoting it) was, “As for poor Yorick, the slain court jester, I believe Shakespeare killed him — in the library — with the quill.  Yorick probably told Will a 'Rickyism' and was stabbed in the heart for his trouble.”  I found that quadruple Rickyism particularly enjoyable.

I have encountered some people who do not appreciate puns.  They may prefer something supposedly more sophisticated and witty.  In addition, I also have noticed other people who don't even understand puns, or truly good humor in general.  These are the ones who rely primarily upon the reptilian part of their brains, which also appears to correspond with how they think and vote.  It also is reflected in their love and admiration for racial or political jokes that lack all valid meaning and wit.  Often, our discomfort with their attempts at humor is fully justified, for their attempts at humor are extraordinarily and unnecessarily obscene, or they  may be cruelly denigrating or politically and maliciously motivated.  An essential part of successful humor, unrealized by such people, is that there must be some element of truth in it.  Otherwise, the attempt is meaningless and unfunny.  I frequently have noticed that deficiency in many so-called jokes from mindless Right-Wingers in their attempts to attack and denigrate people whom they hate.  And, they proudly think they are being so witty.

 

Unfunny man

True wit requires valid knowledge and practiced skill.  Far too often, too many people come to the forum half-prepared.  If you were paying attention, you may have caught all the puns in this piece.

Wink wink

©  26 November 2015 

About the Author 

 I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories.  I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones.  Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

Patriotism, by Ricky

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 11 November 2013 

About the Author 

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

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001 terrorist attack.

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

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

Once in a Lifetime, by Ray S

        In retrospect, which can be daunting in itself, there has been a multitude of “onces” all succeeding in importance over the last one subject to the time and place on the road of your life. With all of these one-time “onces” cluttering our mind, we can’t see the forest for the trees; i.e., the miracle of birth. Contrary to some popular beliefs it only happens once and we, being present, don’t even have the slightest memory of this once in a lifetime happening. From there on out it has been a script written by the fates and whims of those whose paths have crossed ours.

One could recall the adage “life’s a crap shoot.” Perhaps your “ONCES” occurred by your will, but keep in mind, nothing has ever been for sure until it happens.

So, what is the best of all of you “onces?”  Assuming you can recall more than one. Entry into this world on your part consisted of responding to a slap on the bottom and the ensuing cry as you took your first deep breath. Since then one challenge after another has kept us crying and/or laughing—the latter being the best medicine for all of life’s following “personal events.”

In the meantime, at some point you realize that the world as we know it is having its own life, and that we must “stop the world and get on” for the ride. This is when chance can take over making for so many “ONCES’S” over which we have no control.

And so it goes. Take stock of especially the good and happy “onces,” let all of those other RIP and consider them learning experiences—there’s not one thing you can do about them except try to profit by those mistakes.

Bringing this piece full circle (no, I’m not leaving this veil yet) in spite of the burdens of our ongoing lifetimes, "now" is the only “once” that counts, and it consists of being here among dear and crazy, thoughtful, loving and verbose friends at Story Time. Thank you and peace.

© 22 Nov 2015 

About the Author 

Writing Your Story -- Writing Our Story, Phillip Hoyle

Obviously “Writing Your Story” stands as a subtopic under “Telling Your Story,” for writing them is a modernized version of an ancient practice that persists today around kitchen tables and campfires, and in conversations over cups of coffee. Even though I write, I stand in awe of anyone’s ability to extemporaneously tell their story with clarity and humor. They’re like the best preacher I ever heard who made his sermons sing with stories of his early years in Mississippi. He’d take his listeners back into a past of childhood feelings, wise sayings from his elders, and rich relationships that made sense of some esoteric idea he was pursuing. Of course his deep southern accent helped. As I write my stories, I keep in mind that the best written stories derive their strength from what is called a strong voice.

I learned to write because I wasn’t very good at conveying my emotions except those that warranted screaming, kicking, slamming doors, or crying. With age those went out of style. By my college years I was much more interested in written communications than oral. I tried but failed to become a preacher, but recall that even in homiletics classes we were warned that if we were to undertake difficult or controversial topics, we should write out what we were going to say and then stick to our manuscript. The preacher might need the written document to substantiate what was said rather than what might have been misunderstood. One’s job might be threatened.

My unsure feelings not only made me uninterested in preaching but also ill at ease when my girlfriend and then later she, then my wife, wanted “to talk.” When I had to say something that I didn’t trust, I’d rely on writing. Twenty some years into our marriage, when my wife realized how tenuous our relationship might become and sought to enrich it, she proffered a notebook in which we could write to one another hoping it would give me the medium I preferred—writing. I now realize that by then my feelings had become way too complicated and, I assumed, even more unacceptable than in my younger life. I could never remember to write something to her in the book so ended up disappointing her even more. By then what I needed to say wouldn’t promote her purpose. It was a sad time although a productive one for my professional writing projects! I wrote to stay afloat but not in “our” secret book. Rather on my Word Processor I was writing resources for a publisher to print and with body parts other than my fingers, sexual messages to other men.

Now, some seventeen years later, I am writing my story. It’s contained in a growing volume I call Family Portrait: Self Portraits. I suspect the manuscript will remain firmly relegated to becoming a posthumous revelation like another book I have yet to write, that one called Ministers Who Loved Me. I am writing my story because writing is my best way to tell it.

In this storytelling group, I have come to realize that collectively we are writing a gay or queer story no matter what details or themes we approach. An ancient image from one of the Christian gospels asserted that what had once been whispered in private would someday be announced from the rooftops. That’s our storytelling task, one that promises to liberate us as storytellers, as a group of citizens searching for rights, and as a group of leaders in the wider community. We announce our love no longer hidden. There’s great freedom to be found in those tasks.

© 1 Apr 2012 

About the Author 

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

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

Coming Out at 70, submitted by Pat Gourley

I know many of you listen to NPR so you may have seen/heard this already. I think the gay collective the "old gay man" hooked up with is perhaps the Short Mountain Sanctuary. Long a fertile hotbed of Radical Fairie collective living in the hills of rural Tennessee. Do listen to the audio if you have 8 minutes. He has a wonderful voice. 

http://www.npr.org/2015/12/23/460851160/90-year-old-gay-man-recalls-long-struggle-with-his-sexuality

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and may the returning sun shine all over us in the coming year.

© 24 Dec 2015 

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. 

My Favorite Holiday, by

Every year about this time when the days get cold and the nights longer, I wake up one morning, stretch my arms wide open, and say to the world: Let the eating begin!

          The Olympics of Food is about to start. Never mind the big torch, light the ovens. Watch the parade of dishes fill the tables. All those colorful displays of food you never see any other time of the year—and thank god for that. I mean you could eat cherries in brandy anytime but, for me, it’s only at Christmas that it fits.

There will be medals for best nibbles, best entrée, best salad, best sweet potato, best cookies, best pies, best favorite whatever, most outlandish French pastry that looks like something you’d never consider eating, best wine before dinner, best wine with dinner, best wine after dinner, best wine anytime, best eggnog with rum, best eggnog with brandy, best brandy never mind the nog, and the list goes on. Instead of the 12 days of Christmas, somebody should write a song about the 75,000 calories and the 100 or so meals of Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Solstice. Thanksgiving is really just the warm up, the first course, you might say, in a month long binge of eating. And I love it.

Alright, I exaggerate. Not every morsel I consume in December is an elaborate culinary production. And not everything to do with “The Holidays” has to do with food. But the food is the key part. You go to work this month and you eat. You go to parties and you eat. You have friends over and you eat. You decorate the tree and you eat. You open presents and you eat. Maybe it’s the fright of winter. It’s cold and dark, we’d better stock up, gird our loins, put on protective layers of fat, nourish ourselves for the coming bleak days. We could end up starving as the winds of winter howl. This really is a time of primal urges.

For me, these holidays are the antidote for darkness. I hate the short days, the early nights. I love the lights and the decorations, the busy bustling about, the gift giving, the visiting, the sharing of special traditional foods. I love the sense that for this one month normal rules don’t apply. It’s a month of light and sharing, sharing around the table.

I guess that all stems from the fact that food was a central part of everything in my family as I grew up. Mom loved to bake and made special Christmas cookies that I loved as a kid and still do. But now instead of sneaking around searching out her hiding places for these treats and secretly eating a cookie or two, I use her recipes to make my own. And I get pretty close to mom’s triumphs. Of course, it’s hard to screw up any combination of sugar, butter, nuts and chocolate. And I still hide them from myself and still sneakily snitch one before company gets them.

Jamie and I have also established some of our own Christmas traditions like decorating the house with lights and garlands, filling the house with friends and—it always gets back to food—sharing a Christmas Eve dinner of prime rib and all the trimmings, maybe even some French pastry.

Christmas, they say, is really about anticipation and the birth of new life. It’s about nourishment. It’s a time to be with people and shake off the darkness while looking forward to when the days will lengthen. The dark of December is, after all, always followed by the brightness of January’s new year. Break out the champagne!

© 15 Dec 2011

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.

Writing, by Lewis

There are probably more classifications of writing than there are fingers on the hands and toes on the feet.  I have never been a fan of fiction, which is a very broad classification, instead preferring non-fiction.  Call it snobbery, but I find that I generally have little to learn or gain from reading fiction.  Fiction, even fantasy, is fine in the movies.  Movies take a couple hours of our time.  A novel takes much longer, perhaps measured in terms of days.  That’s a huge investment of time on something which may add nothing to my range of knowledge or, even better, my understanding of the human condition.  Of course, fiction works can pass the time, engage the emotions, perhaps even edify and enlighten.  But not knowing whether the characters and events were based upon actual people or happenings means that, while I may learn something about their world, I have no idea how to relate that to the world I experience.

Therefore, I prefer to roam the domain of non-fiction.  In particular, I find myself engrossed in the world recorded by my late husband in his journals.  For a decade, his world was my world, for we were, to borrow an expression, joined at the hip.  To read his journals is like watching a faded, scratchy, black-and-white home movie of our adventures together.  He and I are the actors in scenes which I may have long forgotten and the memories now come flooding back in waves of tears and reverie.  I can fill in gaps in my knowledge of his early life—names, dates, addresses, impressions.  I can sense what motivated him to do, to be, and to desire to be the person he was.  It affords me a level of connection with Laurin that is far more than a longing or lustful glance can convey.  His written word gives me a window into his heart that was never so clear in life and that is an immeasurable gift.

I am thus inspired to begin to journal myself.  Not exactly as he had done.  I will leave some things out and, perhaps, add something in.  But I will attempt to make my journal be something like a mind-dump, so that someday, hopefully, my own children, lovers, friends will have the chance to know me in a way that I am far too shy to share openly face-to-face.  The best writing, fiction or non, should give the reader the thrill of knowing the author up close and personal.  It should seek not to teach but to enlighten, not to wow but to soften, not to impress but to shine a light on the path to self-discovery.

© 12 May 2013  

About the Author 

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

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

Alas, Poor Memory, by Gillian

No, I haven't really lost my memory in the true sense, and I have enough friends who have that I know it's nothing to joke about. But in another sense, I have, because I don't know where it's coming from these days. It makes little sense to me. Why does it feed me endless meaningless trivia and deny me access to the things that really matter?

Which is it you need most in everyday conversation, nouns or verbs? And which is it that my memory blocks my path to over and again? And I know it's not just my memory but that of many older people. Our conversations are scattered with whatnots and thingamajigs. But who is ever at a loss for those verbs?

"Shall we walk or drive to Whatsit's after the thingy," I say.

Have you ever heard anyone say, "Shall we whatever or thingamy to Susan's after the reception"?

No! It's always the nouns that go.

Whenever in my life I was to visit a country where I didn't speak the language, which I'm sad to say is most, I made it a point to learn 50 words in that language. It's simply amazing how far you can get on fifty basic common words. Did I learn a whole lot of verbs? No. Maybe to be and to go. And of course please and thank you, yes and no. Other than that it was nouns; the real essentials. Needless to say my mean little memory will no longer turn loose most of them in any language, though I can still sometimes conjugate a few verbs. It's as if the path to nouns has been overused to the point of challenging travel. The road to verbs, though, less travelled as it is, offers easy access.

My memory lets me quote my mother's endless proverbs and sayings without a hitch; don't run before you can walk, pride comes before a fall, every cloud has a silver lining, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, many a true word is spoken in jest. I don't remember ever asking myself, after all these years,

"What was it my mother used to say about .... ?"

No, they all spring uninvited to my consciousness and even to my lips. But can I remember what someone earlier today asked me to tell Betsy? Highly unlikely! Why does my memory so insist on locking away anything which actually matters, while releasing this endless stream of the inconsequential?

I can quote endless poetry I learned in school. Many people know the lines from Tennyson about loving and losing but I am one of probably very few who know the two lines before it, so the whole verse reads -

I hold it true what e'er befall,

I feel it when I suffer most,

Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

And of course he wrote the entire In Memoriam poem, over a seventeen-year period, to another man, but that's another story, and another useless one my brain lets me use any time I want - which I must say is infrequently.

Worse yet, my memory is a fountain of the totally ridiculous. For example, with apologies to it's originator, Virginia Hamilton, the following -

What a wonderful bird the frog are.

When he sit he stand almost

When he stand he sit almost.

He ain't got no tail hardly.

When he sit he sit on what he ain't got almost.

I can remember that with no effort, yet when I chance upon an old friend in the grocery store I cannot work enough magic to come up with her name. Go figure! Ah well, I guess we all have to work with what we have. So if you come over to chat to me and, rather than acknowledging you by name, I greet you with,

"What a wonderful bird the frog are," you'll know I'm just making the best of what I've got.

© 15 Jun 2016 

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 been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

Forgiveness, by Gail Klock

I have at times been hurt by people I loved or complete strangers and I hated the feelings it left inside of me; sadness, anger, desperation. These feelings prohibited me from enjoying life and made the pain last longer. I know from past experiences once I’m am able to forgive the offend or I no longer feel like the victim and he/she no longer has control of my life, or so it feels at the time, even though this is an allusion, they never really did.

In order to move on I try to understand the other person’s motives and once I do I generally realize these motives are based on experiences I was not even a part of.  For example, when my mom abandoned me as a child it hurt me a great deal and had a lasting impact on my life. But after many years of counseling and maturing I realized the pain I felt was real, but not directed at me for anything I had done or for who I was- good or bad. My mom was not trying to hurt me; in fact, she was just trying to make it through each day living with her own unbearable pain of losing a child.

I really don’t believe people want to hurt others, it would be a lousy motivator. I don’t think anyone enters a relationship thinking, “I really want my lover to think the world of me, to cherish me, and put me before all others, then I can lower the boom and hurt them. In fact, I’m already thinking of the lyrics to Paul Simon’s “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover”, I think I’ll use number 23 this time!  However, at the onset of a painful experience it is really hard for me to lift myself out of the victim role. Of course it’s all about me. I wasn’t perfect. What could I have done differently? Why didn’t I see the red flags? Or what does it mean, “People change, it’s not about you, I just need to make changes for myself,” The tape in my head plays on and on in the moment and it’s hard to step back and away from the pain.

The ease of letting go of this pain and bitterness seems to be related to the relationship and the intention of the offensive action. In one situation I was very angry and hurt when a thief stole all my camping gear which I was airing out in my back yard.  I felt violated by the senselessness of this act. I think in this instance my ability to forgive was in reality the passing of time. It’s hard to forgive someone when you don’t know who they are. I was angry too because I had very little money and I had worked hard for these items which had provided me with an inexpensive form of entertainment.

Of course as a lesbian I have felt the hurt of those who think of me as an evil and vile person. I don’t know that I need to forgive them anymore, I’ve moved on to not believing a word they utter. I’d be willing to match my positive attributes with theirs any day and I already have a head start because I don’t try to run their life’s just because of their sexual preference. I doubt they even know when they made their choices to be straight. I really think it sucks to be so full of hatred towards others. When does it leave time to enjoy this wonderful world, to see all the beauty around us. It would be so draining.

There is one other aspect of forgiveness which I ponder. I think when a person hurts you and apologizes for their action it takes most of the sting out of the situation and it is much easier to forgive.

For now, I just hope if I get hurt in the future, I can remember I’m not the center of the universe. I need to let go of the hurt feelings to allow myself to move on. I don’t hurt others on purpose and I really don’t think others do either.

© 9 Mar 2015

 

About the Author 

I grew up in Pueblo, CO with my two brothers and parents. Upon completion of high school I attended Colorado State University majoring in Physical Education. My first teaching job was at a high school in Madison, Wisconsin. After three years of teaching I moved to North Carolina to attend graduate school at UNC-Greensboro. After obtaining my MSPE I coached basketball, volleyball, and softball at the college level starting with Wake Forest University and moving on to Springfield College, Brown University, and Colorado School of Mines.

While coaching at Mines my long term partner and I had two daughters through artificial insemination. Due to the time away from home required by coaching I resigned from this position and got my elementary education certification. I taught in the gifted/talented program in Jefferson County Schools for ten years. As a retiree I enjoy helping take care of my granddaughter, playing senior basketball, writing/listening to stories in the storytelling group, gardening, reading, and attending OLOC and other GLBT organizations.

As a retiree I enjoy helping take care of my granddaughter, playing senior basketball, writing/listening to stories in the storytelling group, gardening, reading, and attending OLOC and other GLBT organizations.

Moving, by Carol White

While thinking about the word “Moving” I find myself drawn to emotionally moving experiences more than physically moving from city to city.  One of the most moving experiences of my life came about in 1986.  Here are some of the events leading up to it:

In 1980 I was living in Denver, Colorado.  February of that year was the initial meeting of PFLAG Denver that I attended and the first meeting of several parents who were soon thereafter to become dear friends.  I have already written a story for this group about the beginnings of PFLAG and the events in 1984 that led to the formation of the 140-voice PFLAG Festival Chorus that sang for the national convention in Denver, which was the first time that I had conducted in 16 years since being fired from the church.

Today’s story is about the women singing in that chorus who wanted to continue to sing together, and became the Denver Women’s Chorus.  Immediately following the PFLAG Festival Chorus, the 70 women decided to continue rehearsing at St. Paul’s UMC in Capitol Hill.  Naturally, the very first performance of this new DWC was at a PFLAG meeting in December with Christmas songs.

Then came the big night — our very first concert as a women’s chorus, which we held at North High School auditorium.  This was exciting stuff!

We got Jane Vennard to be our MC.  Jane is the sister of Dottie Lamm, who was married to the Governor of Colorado, Dick Lamm.  Jane had been married to a gay man at one time, so she was a member of PFLAG, and we had an “in” at the governor’s mansion, which was very neat.

Leading up to this concert, one of the things that we talked about in rehearsals was that when you sing, you are not to pronounce the letter “R” in a song.  For instance, the word “mother” would be “mothuh” and “father” would be “fathuh”, etc, etc.

Well, Judith and I went to Laguna Beach, California, to visit Bishop Mel Wheatley and his wife Lucile for a few days.  We stayed at a hotel right on the ocean and watched the seagulls flying by.  When we got back to rehearsal, I told the chorus that one of the seagulls flying by was singing, “I enjoy being a gull.”  Would you believe that we actually sang that song at that North High concert, and one of the chorus members dressed up all frilly and danced while we were singing it.  It was actually tongue in cheek.

Anyway, after the concert we were so high and so excited that we had a big cast party over at the home of one of the singers whose name was Susan.  Jane Vennard was dancing on the piano bench.  We were all dancing so much that the old North Denver house was actually shaking, and I remember forming a long line and dancing out into the yard singing “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”

Later came the Paramount Theater concert with Barbra Higbie as the special guest.  One of Judith’s friends brought a straight male friend with him, and of course, this was the first gay concert he had ever been to, and he asked John, “Why do they sing?”

We tried to answer that question first by saying that it’s the title of a Holly Near song, “We are singing for our lives.”  Then Judith reminded me of this saying:  “A bird does not sing because it has an answer.  It sings because it has a song.”  And I said that gay and lesbian people have always had a song, but the tragedy of it is we have never been able to sing it before, and the beauty of it is that now we can!

At the end of that Paramount concert Judith and I got to ride to the cast party at the Hilton Hotel downtown in one of those horse-drawn carriages with Barbara Higbie and her partner.  That was a blast.

Then came our first GALA Choruses Festival in Minneapolis!  The Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses had formed a few years earlier from its beginnings in San Francisco to several gay men’s choruses around the country, and they had had their first choral festival in New York City.  This was their second time to get together to sing.  We were the only women’s chorus there, along with 16 gay men’s choruses. 

We boarded the plane in Denver, and as we attained cruising altitude at about 30,000 feet, Judith and I went up and down the aisle passing out a quote for each member to keep.  It read like this:  “Years from now, when you are old and grey, you will be able to look back and say that ONCE in your life you gave EVERYTHING you had for justice.”

Soon we were on the stage at Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis performing to a sold-out crowd, when Suzanne Pierson was singing a solo on a song that she had written, “No Child of Mine,” and she forgot the words.  The chorus came in with her and saved her.  So while our performance as a chorus may not have been perfect, still, afterwards when we walked into a restaurant on the downtown mall in Minneapolis, we would get a standing ovation from the men singers who were sitting at tables in that restaurant, and they would say, “Oh, the Brahms, Oh, the Brahms.”  They evidently loved the Brahms numbers that we sang.  And they really appreciated our being there.

But the final night in Minneapolis was the piece de resistance.  We were on stage with all of the men’s choruses, about 1,000 singers as I remember, and there was an orchestra on the floor in front of the stage and they had hired Philip Brunelle to conduct and we were singing a commissioned work by John David Earnest called “Jubilation.”  Woah!  Unbelievable highlight!

After the concert, some of the members were so excited that they actually JUMPED off the risers rather than stepping down.  And then we ALL went out into the plaza outside the hall and, as one member later said, we “sang to the heavens what the hall would not contain.”  Close to 1,000 of us standing there singing and singing and singing, every song we could think of. 

That was moving!  That was the highlight of my life to that time.  And most of us returned to work in Denver and could not even tell people where we had been because we were still not out, for fear of losing our jobs and the support of our families and friends. 

Times have changed in the last 30 years.  Judith and I are retired and out to everyone now.  The Denver Women’s Chorus is still singing.  The Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses has produced a Festival every three or four years since then, from Seattle to Denver to Tampa to San Jose to Montreal and others, and finally back to Denver in 2012.  In fact, they were so impressed with the facilities here at the DCPA  that they are coming back in 2016 so that they can use Boetcher, Temple Buell, and Ellie Caulkins Opera House all at the same time for simultaneous concerts all day and all evening for four days in a row over the July 4 holiday in our great city. 

The number of choruses participating actually doubled at each festival from 16 to 32 to 67 to 120, and has finally leveled out at over 190 choruses around the world with over 10,000 singers. 

I am registered as a single delegate for the July 2016 festival, and if you like choral music, you can go to their website and register too.  IT WILL BE A MOVING EXPERIENCE! 

© 2 Nov 2015 

About the Author 

I was born in Louisiana in 1939, went to Southern Methodist University in Dallas from 1957 through 1963, with majors in sacred music and choral conducting, was a minister of music for a large Methodist church in Houston for four years, and was fired for being gay in 1967.  After five years of searching, I settled in Denver and spent 30 years here as a freelance court reporter.  From 1980 forward I have been involved with PFLAG Denver, and started and conducted four GLBT choruses:  the PFLAG Festival Chorus, the Denver Women’s Chorus, the Celebration ’90 Festival Chorus for the Gay Games in Vancouver, and Harmony.  I am enjoying my 11-year retirement with my life partner of 32 years, Judith Nelson, riding our bikes, going to concerts, and writing stories for the great SAGE group.

We Shall Never Know, by Carlos

A poet much wiser than I recognized that journeys never undertaken and roads never traversed, nonetheless have the power to burden. I find myself looking back over the decades, forever ambivalent about those uncharted journeys. And although I celebrate that I did take a less traveled road, which, in fact, made a difference, a wonderful difference, the shadowy vignettes of a past unlived on occasion haunt me like the dripping of a faucet on a silent night.

He and I never danced; we never touched; we never spoke of the drives and passions that might have lubricated our lives. It was a different time, a different place. It was a time when to unsheathe our souls to judgmental eyes could have thwarted careers, made futures bleak, and shattered lives like frost descending upon tender blades of green grass. And though our connection consisted of two twirl-a-cups gyrating around a circular orb, I have come to believe that had we lived in a freer world, a more inclusive one, he and I might have given light to secrets destined to remain forever occulted, held hands on blustery winter nights, and charted voyages that alas never sailed away. In retrospect he was my first infatuation, the first man with whom I dared to dream that somewhere, someplace we could make our peace. We could have been oblivious to a sanctimonious Brokeback Mountain world beset on sacrificing us, for no other reason than our souls quested after forbidden dreams. But we never danced; we never touched; we never found the courage to challenge the consequences of reaching out to thwart ingrained fears. Thus, we never transformed hope into possibilities.

We were so different. He was passionate about Ché Guevara and César Chávez, about the injustices of Chilean tyrants and brutish money changers. I was passionate about my intangible world. How often I would find myself walking alone, surrounded by the voices of poets and dreamers, philosophers and stargazers. While immersed in my rhymes and rhythms of far-off melodies, I would focus on the intricate cobwebbed anatomy of elm leaves, on the oceans mirrored within raindrops, on the starry convolution of heavens above. Thus, in those early years, we trekked in diametrically different worlds. We allowed our fears of the unknown, of ourselves, to silence what in retrospect I now know nestled within us. We could have, we should have, but we never did speak of our cryptic secrets, and time, like a shape-shifting cloud flitted out of our reach.

Over the years, I finished my studies. Over the years, I lost my innocence in foreign lands. I thought of him often, but I allowed myself to believe that the past was but an epitaph on crumbling sandstone. Years later, an act of serendipity became our swan’s song when upon my return home from distant shores, I prepared to root my life. Acknowledging my forays into the future, I celebrated among strangers at my favorite restaurant. As fate would have it, he was there too, alone, following a day of toiling in this world of the mundane. Instant recognition erupted in our eyes, and although we spoke so briefly about things so trivial, we never unshackled the chains that bound us. After all, the world still remained dangerous for men like us. Thus, what needed to be said remained forever fossilized within our respective hearts. Saying goodbye so long ago, I now recognize that he wanted to say more; I can only hope he knew I too longed to reach out, but instead with a quiet desperation I stifled my longings. Even as I walked away and turned to look at him, I could not break the insidious spell spun by those who had authority over us. And thus, we never danced; we never touched, we never let the sun break through the storm. We will never know what could have been. Suffice to say, although the road I took directed me away from him, I remain forever grateful that this traveler did, in spite of himself, step toward a wondrous journey. I can only hope his path was likewise emblazoned with innumerable constellations.

© 28 Dec 2015  

About the Author 

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.”  In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter.  I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic.  Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming.  Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth.  My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun.  I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time.  My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands.  I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty.  I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.

Baths, by Betsy

Over the course of my lifetime there are very few public baths I have visited; also, being a shower person there are darn few bathtubs I have been in for that matter. 

First the public baths I have visited.

Ojo Caliente is the oldest natural mineral hot springs health resort in the U.S. according to their web-site.  Located near Santa Fe, N.M., Ojo was regarded as a sacred place by the native Americans who first settled in the area and utilized the healing waters hundreds of years ago.  Ancient people believed to be ancestors of today’s Tewa tribes built large pueblos and terraced gardens overlooking the springs.  The site was home to thousands of people at one time in ancient history.

In 1868 Antonio Joseph opened Ojo Caliente as the first natural health spa in the country.  Soon to follow was a sanitarium which became well known throughout the country as a place where afflicted people could come to be cured.

Of the many pools at the resort my favorite was the mud pool where one is instructed to slather mud all over your body and bake in the sun until well done. Toxins are thereby released from the pores of your skin and you come away feeling cleansed and refreshed--that is, after rinsing the mud off your body in the pool.  The whole process takes up the better part of an afternoon.

Another public bath I have visited is in Alaska near Fairbanks.  My son and his family live in Fairbanks.  One summer when I was there visiting them we decided to get in the car and drive the 60 miles to Chena Hot Springs and spend the day there.  The drive to the place was interesting but probably not unusual for Alaska.  We got on the Chena Hot Springs road and drove N.E.the 60 miles through what seemed like wilderness.  The road ended at the resort.  That was it.  No more road.  But then why would there be more road.  There is basically nothing beyond but hundreds of miles of interior Alaska.  The surrounding environment makes for a beautiful setting to relax in the large hot springs rock lake.  Two hundred nights of the year one can watch the northern lights while enjoying the waters.  Chena is the most developed hot springs resort in Alaska and is famous for its healing mineral waters and the beautiful Aurora Borealis displays.

I have been to the Hot Sulphur Springs spa 2 or 3 times.  This 140-year-old resort is located in Grand County Colorado about a 30-minute drive from Winter Park.  The Ute Indians were the first inhabitants to enjoy the hot springs and their healing powers.  They were known to use the “magic waters” to bathe themselves, their dogs, horses, children, and women in them, and in that order. 

Then came Mr. William Byers who recognized the economic potential of the springs.  With the help of the U.S. cavalry and the courts he acquired the land from the Utes somewhat deviously.

The resort was renovated in 1997.  One thousand people attended the opening ceremony including the Ute tribal spiritual leader who was forgiving in his blessing of the waters.  The Utes are welcome to use the springs once again, says the web site.

And finally there are the bathtubs I have known.

To my knowledge I have used only one bath tub in my lifetime on a regular basis.  That was as a young child.  Somewhere along the line I became a shower person and remain so today.  Could that possibly be because my experience with bath tubs mostly included the cleaning of them.  I have no memory of this, but apparently I was expected to scrub the tub after bathing.  Showering is much easier.

© 21 Oct 2012 

About the Author 

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

Acceptance, by Will Stanton

There actually have been times during my adult life that some people wished to use me as a role-model. I am far too self-effacing to comfortably accept that suggestion. I never have had a huge ego, and I do not regard myself as a remarkably successful person. Nor am I especially emotive or flamboyant, drawing attention to myself. Still, I recall a markedly ironic episode in 1970 when I specifically was asked to play that role.

I was in my early twenties, living and working for just one year in a stereotypical Midwest town. It was not a town that I would like to spend a lifetime in. I suppose that many of the citizens were decent people, but they were much more narrow in their experiences and thinking than I would like. The dominating economic force in town was an Alcoa plant. Other than people's work and families, the main focus of their attention was devoted to church - - there was a disproportionate number of churches for the size of the town - - also men joining the Rotary Club, along with the almost mandatory high-school football and basketball. I gathered from hearing people talk that, when a baby boy was born, he immediately was destined to play football, if he was chunky, or basketball, if he was thin and long.

Even the school-teachers were not particularly well educated, and they certainly were not cosmopolitan. I recall one English teacher stating, “I told them students to put them books back on their desks.” Then she adamantly asserted, “I'm not interested in ever going to Europe. Everything in America is bigger and better than anything in Europe.” You can just imagine what their attitudes were about sexual identity, appearance, and affect, especially for boys.

I recall one sunny day sitting on a bench, waiting for a bus, when a well-dressed woman sat down next to me. She did not hesitate to introduce herself and engage me in conversation. She seemed eager to tell me that she had a daughter my age, not yet married, who had been in Japan and soon would be rejoining her. Almost as though the mother were vetting me as a potential son-in-law - - and perhaps she actually was---, she inquired all about me. She seemed impressed that I had more to offer than the usual young men born and raised in that town. I also got the distinct impression that, when I told her that I had, over the years, much interaction with many Japanese because I had studied Judo and Karate, she apparently concluded that I possessed an appropriate degree of masculinity.

She then very kindly, but also rather forcibly, suggested that, my being relatively new in town and not knowing many people, I should come to her home and join her husband and teenage son for supper. She claimed that we would have so much in common to talk about; and, later when her daughter returned, I could meet her, too. Without hesitation, she stated an appropriate date and insisted that I accept, which I did, albeit with some misgivings.

From the moment of my arrival at their home, I sensed a peculiar situation. The husband, rather than standing up to greet me, remained slunk in a coach, looking at me in discomfort. Then her fifteen-year-old son politely but timidly approached me and held out his hand. I remember his appearance quite clearly. He was blond, pleasantly attractive, and, like many colt-like, long-limb fifteen-year-olds, slim.

What she said next astounded me, for she said it right in front of her husband and her son. She stated that she was concerned that her son did not show signs of being sufficiently masculine, that he needed to have a masculine role model to interact with on a frequent basis, and his father was not up to the task. She thought that, if I visited the boy frequently and engaged in various activities with him, I could be a good influence on him. I was truly embarrassed for the father, and I could just imagine what that poor boy was thinking and feeling.

I remained polite throughout the dinner, keeping the conversation focused upon general topics having nothing to do with the personalities of the boy or his father. I somehow managed to make the evening short, thanking them for a pleasant evening, and, much to my relief, departed.

For some reason, I managed to never return to that home. I never got to meet the daughter once she returned. I suppose, considering the fact that I never phoned their house, the mother must have concluded that I was not eager to become connected with her family.

In retrospect, that mother's attitude toward her son and her husband does not surprise me, especially considering the time and place of that encounter. Yet, that mother's lack of acceptance toward her son, whatever his orientation or personality, and that of her husband, saddens me. I have no way of knowing what may have become of that boy; yet, obviously, I hope that he found some degree of happiness, security, and acceptance.

© 16 September 2015

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.