A Ring to Prove It by Gillian

I don't believe I've ever actually told anyone this. Not because it's shameful or embarrassing but because it held really no significance for me; so I say, but here I am remembering it after almost 45 years, so it must figure somewhere, if remotely, in my psyche.

It was, I think, 1970. Maybe '71. I lived with my husband and step-children in Jamestown, a small, one might say tiny, old mining town in the foothills north-west of Boulder. It's roughly ten miles up Left Hand Canyon, off highway 36 which runs between Boulder and Lyons. In those days there were few houses in the canyon until you reached Jamestown, with its impressive population of around 200.

I put in many extra hours of work at IBM, built a few years earlier between Boulder and Longmont. Being by nature a morning person, I preferred to arrive early rather than stay late, and frequently began work around 5 am. This particular day I must have had some compelling task ahead, though I have no memory of it, as I started out to work under dire conditions.

It was a dark and stormy night.

No, really! It was.

I set out down the canyon about 4:30 in the morning, in our old Willys jeep, hardly able to see anything for the snow swirling in the headlights. I doubt I had reached 20 m.p.h. when I thought I saw something moving ahead of me: just a vague dark shape against the snow which had already built up on the road, drifting against the trees. Deer, I thought. They were often about on the canyon road. I slowed even more, knowing how skittish they could be. I crept up on the shadow still moving ahead of me. Not a deer. A shambling, half running, half walking, figure on two legs.

What on earth was he, for some unknown reason I identified the figure as a man, doing, walking down the canyon in this weather? Had his car broken down? Crashed? I had seen no vehicle beside the road, but with the dreadful visibility maybe I'd have missed it.

I stopped beside him. He was beside the passenger door, and before I knew what was happening the door was torn open against the wind and this dark figure hauled itself into the passenger seat. Well? Wasn't that why I had stopped? You can't, at least I can't, ignore a fellow human being under these circumstances. And anyway, he must be a neighbor; at the very least someone I knew by sight. Who else would be in Left Hand Canyon on foot in the middle of a blizzard?

Socially, I introduced myself, then politely enquired,

"Who are you?"

Silence.

"Do you live in Jimtown?" I asked, using the local vernacular.

In the absence of a reply, I asked, "Where you trying to go?"

A grunt which could have been interpreted as "hospital," emerged from the dark shape beside me.

"Boulder? Which one?" Boulder at that time had two.

Another grunt.

By this time, my common sense was reasserting itself.

Who was he? Why, in God's name, was he heading for a hospital on a night like this?

Was he hurt?

I glanced occasionally in his direction but could see nothing but a dark shapeless mass of clothes. What to do, what to do!

I tried occasionally to engender conversation, but failed miserably.

My imagination took over.

Perhaps he was riddled with bullets! Was he, at this very moment, dripping, no, pouring, blood all over the jeep? Worse - well, maybe worse - was he suffering from some highly infectious disease and in two days I and all my family would be at death's door?

What to do, what to do?

I breathed deeply and calmed myself.

Of course! He had had a phone call. Some loved one had had an accident, only to be expected on a night like this. They were in E.R. and he was going to their bedside. Or he himself had had an accident. The car had gone over the bank into the creek, quite likely in this storm, and explaining the absence of a vehicle. Was he, perhaps, drunk? I sniffed the air surreptitiously but could detect no hint of alcohol.

Whatever the truth, I should get to Community Hospital as fast as possible, which actually was very slowly indeed, and part company with my guest. Alone with this silent, apparently unknown, man, on a night like this in the pitch-black canyon, was seriously not comfortable.

As the friendly street lights of Boulder approached, I glanced in his direction as often as I could possibly afford to take my eyes off the road, which in fact was pretty infrequently.

He had one hand, I managed to see, tucked into his coat, Napoleon style.

My imagination took off at a run.

Was that hand injured? Or holding a gun? Or, I tried to bring myself back to earth, just cold?

He was resting, I now saw, with his head on the back of the seat, (no head-rests in those carefree days!) with his eyes closed. He looked much more vulnerable than scary as his head rolled with every turn. Was he asleep? Passed out?

The coat which carefully encased his left hand looked like an army great-coat.

A sick Vet? A deserter? The Vietnam War still raged. It was possible. I liked the idea and warmed to him on the strength of it.

I pulled into the brightly-lit entrance drive to the hospital. I had no idea if this was where I should take him, being as ignorant of hospital etiquette as I was of his needs. As I pulled up, he pushed himself up in the seat, blinking his eyes.

"Community Hospital," I said, sounding terse even to myself.

He, however, became positively verbose.

"You're good person," he said, or something like that.

"No money. Here."

As he stumbled from the jeep into the still swirling snow, he pushed his right hand towards me.

It held a ring between the thumb and index finger.

He gave a heavy shrug.

"Not worth much I 'spect. All I got .... "

I gazed at it, stupefied.

"No, no, I don't need anything. Just hope ...," I had no idea what to say, "everything's OK," I finished, lamely.

He slid gracelessly off the seat into the drifting snow and staggered into the hospital without another word or a wave of the hand.

What did I expect, that he would wave a goodbye kiss?

I went to work.

As happens sometimes in Colorado, the sun was out by noon. The cars steamed in the parking lot. By late afternoon there was nothing to suggest the raging blizzard of twelve hours before. My midnight rider seemed surreal to me. Could I have imagined the whole thing? I wasn't sure if that worried me more, or the fact that it had actually happened.

It was still vaguely light when I left work. I studied the jeep passenger seat carefully. It wasn't wet; perhaps slightly damp. There was no hint of blood. I ran my hand once more over the seat and brushed against something hard. I picked it up, held it up. and peered through the dim light.

A ring.

Had he dropped it when he got out of the jeep? That seemed unlikely. I realized that it had been centrally located in the middle of the seat. Placed there. It was his payment for my assistance. I slid it into my pocket. It was nothing I wanted to explain to my husband, however I cared to view it.

For the next week or so I monitored local radio and read the Boulder Camera from cover to cover. I looked for gangland shootings, hippie overdoses, army deserters, and deadly viruses. Nothing. Then I went off into true paranoia. There were no reports in the media because he was a #1 FBI fugitive and they wanted no publicity. He had a highly communicable disease and they were keeping it quiet to prevent panic. He was a Communist spy - this was still the Cold War, remember - so they were keeping him under wraps.

Slowly the years went by and of course I forgot all about it. It had, after all, little if any impact on my life. But for whatever reason, doubtless nothing more than inertia, I still have the ring. And that is the only reason I know that this really did happen.

© October 2014

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

Mother Goose (and Writing My Story) by Betsy

“Let’s see.... Mother goose. What can I possibly write about an old woman who flies through the air atop a goose,” I mused. “Or about the Mother Goose rhymes, for that matter.” Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean. I know there is a hidden political statement there, but, do I really want to research that?”

“Well, Mother Goose and I have one thing in common. We’re both mothers. Further research is required here. Besides, I want to write about writing my story. Maybe I can combine the two subjects,” I speculate.

Facts about the Canada Goose: The species mates for life. Well, we don’t have that in common. Although I am monogamous, and faithful to my mate.

Many Canada Geese use the same nest each year and also build their nests in the same spot as their parent’s nest. My nests have moved around about every 15 years of my life and I have never nested anywhere near my parents nest.

Enough with the comparisons already. The Canada Goose is a very interesting creature. I read on.

Most people are familiar with the Canada goose. However there is great variation among them. There are 7 subspecies of the Greater Canada Goose in North America ranging in weight from 3 to 24 pounds. These waterfowl live for 10-25 years.

Mother-to-be goose (and father-designate) find each other at 2-3 years of age usually. It seems they find each other strictly for the purpose of breeding that very same season. No honeymoon. They go right at it. If one dies, a new mate will likely replace the deceased before long. Otherwise Canada Geese mate for life.

The nest is constructed of grass materials and feathers from mother goose’s breast. The eggs once laid are incubated for 28 days and hatched all at the same time. After being hatched the goslings are led away from the nest and cared for by both mother and father goose. The goslings have the protection of both their parents for 10-12 weeks after which time they are able to fly.

Mother Goose spends most of the day foraging for food which consists of grasses, roots, and leaves. That makes us both grazers--another point in common. She sticks pretty well to a vegetarian diet including lawn grass. A walk through the park attests to the amount of time spent consuming their food. One must carefully place one’s foot when walking through heavily goose-populated areas.

We have all witnessed the familiar V formation of the flying flock of geese. Why the formation? The V formation makes it easier to fly and facilitates communication among the flock. They migrate from the northern hemisphere in the late fall when the ground begins to freeze. These birds can travel more than 1000 miles per day on their journey to the Southern U.S. or Mexico. This puts my mileage to shame if you will permit me another comparison. The furthest I can go using my own muscle power is 100 miles in 1 day. That’s on a bicycle which allows me the aid of wheels and a drive chain. Even going that far in a car on interstate highways would be unthinkable for me even with two or three alternating drivers for that matter.

Canada Goose populations are expanding in urban areas attesting to the adaptability of the species. Well, I have been known to adapt to new environments--but not without complaint. But I do suspect that mother and father goose complain quite often. At least they sure look like it when they are hissing and honking.

So these are a few basic facts about goose behavior and habits. As for combining this subject with writing my story...I think that project must wait for another day and another topic. It turns out Mother Goose and I have very little in common.

© 12 May 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). 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.

Internal Misery by Beth Kahmann

Can’t cope so I dope,

Can’t stand taunts, jabs, injustices and lack of humanity.

Being ‘Gay’ I’m terrorized and teased mercilessly.

Can’t cope, so I dope and dream after taking lots of Dramamine warding off perpetrators inside my head.

I dream of ending it all.

If I do will that stop bullies, homophobes and the like?

Or will they still harass and call me a Dyke?

Perhaps they swim in their own internal misery.

From schoolyards, to back yards, to cemeteries, my life and death won’t even end in peace.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones-but words can never hurt me”

Yeah, tell that to the teen or Mom or brother that wants to end it all because year after agonizing year they were called Queer.


Denver, © January 2015

About the Author

Beth is an artist, educator, and is very passionate about poetry.


She owns Kahmann Sense Communications bethkahmann@yahoo.com

Snow by Will Stanton

“Let it snow, let it snow!” Seems like years ago, long before climate change, we had a lot more snow in the winters here in Denver. That may just be a fignewton of my imagination, but warmer, drier winters seem more evident now.

I recall thirty years ago, I was saddled with the task of shoveling knee-deep snow off my sidewalks. I even had a friend stop by one Christmas Eve who ended being a house-guest for the next three days. We quickly became snowed in, and he could not get home.

Back in the early days, I bought a little two-stage snow-blower, only to find out that it had no chance of contending with deep snow and deeper, wind-blown snow-drifts. So I sold it and found a second-hand, tractor-tread snow blower. It was so big that the little lady who first purchased it could not wrestle it around the sidewalks. So she decided to sell it. I was happy to use “Big Foot” the first few years that I had it and even did the sidewalk of the retired teacher next door. Then as the years passed, I would prepare the snow-blower at the beginning of each winter and fill it with fresh gasoline. Then it sat there and sat there, waiting for the big snows which rarely if ever came. I ended up going through the messy effort of draining the unused gas each spring. “Big Foot” has been sitting abandoned in my garage for the last several years.

Living here in Denver, I can't say I care for snow, having to shovel it and drive on it. I'm not like so many avid skiers who can't wait to make the arduous drive up to the mountains just to ski the fresh powder. When I first arrived in Denver many years ago, I guess that I felt obligated to try out skiing the first couple of years. I had to pay more money than I cared to for rental skis, boots, polls, and gasoline. The long drive up and back through endless stop-and-go traffic meant limited time on the slopes. I certainly never have been one of the well-heeled who have condos up in the mountains and do not have to rush back all in one day. I let skiing go and limited my physical activities to sports that I could do right around home.

I see that, over the last several years, the northeast U.S. seems to have been overwhelmed with heavy snowfalls, taking out power to thousands and closing highways. Of course, some areas always have been prone to bitter winters, but it also appears now that climate change is increasing the ferocity of some storms. Not surprisingly, the mindless congressmen in charge of the science committees point to snowy winters as supposed evidence of no such thing as climate change, or “global warming,” as they prefer to call it.

Going back many decades to where I was growing up as a young child, I recall that we had some memorable snow-storms. One of the biggest was when I was five. I have an old photo of me standing on a cleared sidewalk with the snow on either side as high as my chest. Few cars ever drove by our house even during good weather, but it was a rare, brave soul who tried to drive through that heavy snow in winter.

One of my most pleasant memories was of my oldest brother Ted sledding on the empty, snowy street. Now when I say “sledding,” I really mean sledding. There was a wealthy family who owned a lot of land on a forested hill just north of us; and they had a long, steep drive that wound its way up the hill to their house. I recall one day seeing Ted make the long hike up the steep slope to the first bend in the road and then sled all the way down to the street below and past our house. With that much momentum, he continued on for some distance. Now that must have been a grand ride. I don't know how many times he did this, for that was quite a long hike up the hill.

Our growing up with snow during Christmas, we naturally became habituated with the idea of there having to be snow on Christmas. “I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.” That is all well and good, provided one has a home, heat, maybe a warm fire in the fireplace, and the heat stays on. The image of that cozy ambiance still is ingrained in me, although Denver's Christmases usually are brown. If I had some logs, I'd put another log into the fireplace, if only I had a fireplace.

Now that I am discernibly superannuated and I don't ski, I just don't want to hear the song, “Let it snow, let it snow.” I never cheerfully hum that while trying to shovel my walks, often in the dark of early morning before the high-school scholars tramp it down to unremovalbe ice. And, I can't imagine any terrified driver whistling that song as his car is sliding uncontrollably down-hill toward a busy intersection. That happened to me once. I was very lucky; there was a momentary lull in traffic at that time. I'll reserve snowy scenes for the home-made Christmas-card images that I send to people.

© 11 December 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.

Lonely Places by Ricky

Deserted Islands

Sinai Desert

Gobi Desert

Death Valley

Rural Nevada

I-90 between Minnesota and Montana

Wyoming

West Texas

Occupied Life Rafts in the Pacific

Australian Outback

Antarctica

SW Arizona

Trapped under the rubble of a collapsed building

Buried Alive

The mind of an Alzheimer patient

Hospitals while an in-patient

Walking on the moon

Graveyards

Empty Theaters

Ancient Ruins

Your home after the death of a spouse or partner

Memories

Broken Hearts

Jail and prison cells

Working in unrewarding or unfulfilling jobs

And last but not least: Sitting in front of a PC at 2AM writing a list of lonely places.

© 11 August 2014

About the Author

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

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

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

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

A Few Words about Sex and Relationships by Phillip Hoyle

At times I am a thinker. So here is a summary of “I used to think…, but now I think…” although it really is “I used to do…, and then I thought…, and then I did a lot more, and then I thought some more, and now I think….”

As a child I was open to sex with my friends. I never had it with my siblings and was unaware of any of my friends having sex with their siblings. Nor was I aware that any friend or acquaintance was having sex with an adult. The play happened occasionally over several years, with a number of kids around my age.

When I was fourteen, an older man molested me as it is defined by law. I wasn’t upset. What he did felt good, but I was not interested to spend time with him and within a year my family moved to another town.

Then at age fifteen I had quite a lot of sex with a friend a year younger than I. With him, the sex came complete with all the pleasures afforded by increasing hormones—that double testosterone fix as it were—and some things the other guy had learned somewhere else. His family moved away the following summer, just before I turned sixteen. I didn’t have another boyfriend for years.

What did I think of all this? I wasn’t bothered by it and since I also had girlfriends, I reasoned it might be a sort of phase I was going through. I did not have sex with my girlfriends although we did dance and hug and kiss on occasion.

Upon graduation from high school I went to college and applied myself to my studies but found no girlfriend or boyfriend. As a sophomore I met and started dating the young woman who would become my wife. Unlike some other students in our church-related school, we were conventional in our expectation to wait until the wedding before having sex. At the same time I read books on the matter. I learned about hymens and pain and how men and women often have quite differing relationships with sex and differing expectations related to the interactions. I found helpful the ideas about how to have sex and how to sustain the loving relationship for years and years. I paid attention. I taught my wife what I had learned and we commenced our marriage with gently-approached, though vigorous, sex. We continued that exploration for twenty-eight years and the sex was an important feature of the way we communicated and loved one another.

At the same time during these years that were characterized in our nation by the sexual revolution, I evaluated ideas of sex and relationship. Not being very ceremonial, I came to think that if a man and woman get together sexually, they become married—at least in terms of the religious universe in which I lived and, of course, state statutes of common-law marriage. I was not at all concerned about premarital sex assuming it was just that. When one of my sisters and her boyfriend talked with me about their pregnancy, I was accepting and reassuring, a fact that surprised her ROTC boyfriend who was sure I’d beat him up. I laughed when he said it. He was the soldier and quite a bit bigger and stronger than I. I had no judgment against them for I was aware that I had been sexually active as a child and teen. In fact, co-habitation followed by marriage after pregnancy seemed to become the norm in American society around that time.

When at age thirty I fell in love with a man, I realized I had a few more things to consider. I had no idea of leaving my marriage and family. My only fear related to what the other man might think or desire. I would have loved having sex with him but he, too, was married, and I valued marriage. So that relationship didn’t go sexual for several years. By the time it did, I knew him well enough to hope he’d never want to leave his marriage. While I was somewhat crazy for him, I didn’t want his debt or his expectations regarding what he owed his offspring. By that time—in my mid-30s—I knew about men getting it on and sometimes living together in committed love relationships. (I had kept reading!) I knew about lesbian relationships also. I started wondering about even more complicated relationships.

The churches I worked in often had more conservative views than I. As clergy I conducted weddings—rituals with simple Hollywood-like vows—ones I found realistic given what I had learned over the years. Still I wasn’t interested in counseling couples and some years later felt relieved when I was out of the marriage business altogether. Perhaps that’s why I argue for the adequacy of civil union services for all kinds of marriage. For me it’s kind of like this: People who willingly make babies together must shoulder the responsibilities. But I know well that a union or marriage certificate has little correlation with folks’ behaviors or their ability to shoulder the burdens. I have become more European in my assumptions about marriage and extra marital affairs and have let go of all fairy tale assumptions about romance and royalty and marriage. No man’s house is his castle. No woman dolled up in a long dress adorned with flowers is Eve or a princes or a queen, and the man she is marrying is not prince charming however good looking. For me, the same sorts of things apply to all marital-type pairings, with or without children.

Oh—I remember—we live in a democracy. I’m happy to be here. I’m happy to see laws change toward more tolerance and equal rights for all citizens. I’m happy to define my own relationships. I’m happy to work out my relationships in ways that to me seem moral, helpful, and loving. That’s what I think now about sex and relationships.

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.com

Artistic by Lewis

[To my audience:  Please be forewarned that what you are about to hear may be infused with more than a soupcon (süp- sän) of "artistic license".]

When I was about eleven and on the cusp of discovering that there was something about me that was likely to relegate me to the margins of society, I began to explore the ways in which American popular culture might open up avenues of expression to me that would help me to wrap my arms around who I was and, more importantly, how I might fit in. 

It was 1957 and there were circles of American society wherein people leaving the movie theater or concert hall might be heard to say things like, "You may have noticed that [take your pick] Liberace/Sal Mineo/Anthony Perkins/Montgomery Clift is a bit on the 'artistic' side."

As people who say such things often were prone to doing so in soft voices, I mistakenly heard them to say that the actor at issue was "a bit autistic".  I thought it appalling that a loving god would see fit to bestow two such strikes upon a child from the moment of their birth but I counted my blessings in that I seemed to have been passed over for the autism part and moved on.

Knowing little about autism and anxious to avoid drawing attention to my own proclivities when it comes to members of the male gender, I, thenceforth, associated being "autistic" with anyone exhibiting a combination of three or more of the characteristics of the classical homosexual persona.  That is--as Wikipedia describes Franklin Pangborn, surely one of the most "artistic actors" in Hollywood history--"fussy..., polite, elegant, and highly energetic, often officious, fastidious, somewhat nervous, prone to becoming flustered but essentially upbeat, and with an immediately recognizable high-speed patter-type speech pattern."

I thought I had stumbled upon a fool-proof guide as to how to behave so as not to elicit any suspicion whatsoever that I might be "queer".  I set about to find the movie personality who embodied every antithetical quality so I could emulate him.  He had to be stoic, insensitive, blunt, laid-back, modest (even falsely so), unflappable but downbeat, slow-spoken and have nerves of steel.  In a matter of seconds, it came to me--Rock Hudson.  We all know how that turned out.

© 8 September 2014 

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.

Pets by Gillian

My mother was a great one for pets. She had pet peeves, pet grievances, pet projects, pet phrases, and, being a school teacher, even teacher's pets! She herself used these expressions.

"Oh, you know that's one of my pet peeves," she'd say as a hand projected from a passing car to deposit unsightly fish-and-chip wrapping in the flowering hedgerow. Split infinitives was another. Star Trek was after her time, but I cannot hear that phrase, to boldly go, without imagining how she would have given a sharp intake of breath, shaken her head sadly, and told the TV, admonishingly, "It's either boldly to go, or to go boldly, NOT to boldly go!"  Split infinitives, she always stated, set her teeth on edge. Fortunately for her, being a teacher, fingernails on the blackboard did not!

I, also, have pet peeves; people who, chatting on their cellphones, crash their grocery carts into my ankles. Or almost crash their car into my car. Or shout into their cellphones at the table next to mine in a restaurant, or in line at the supermarket. Or those who, speaking of the supermarket line, react in astonishment when the clerk implies that they need actually to pay (see, no split infinitive!) for their groceries, and begin an endless hunt, in a bottomless purse, for their checkbook.

Mom's pet grievances, and they were many, were all sub-titles. They related, mostly directly, occasionally indirectly, to the the Grand Category of Grievances: my father. What he had ever done to deserve this, I never could ascertain; but I have written about this before so will not repeat myself. Suffice it to say that I loved my dad, and never truly understood Mom's animosity.

When I say I loved him, I don't mean that he was my dad so of course I loved him in spite of all his faults and wrong-doings. I mean that I loved him because of who he was, not despite it.

I have my own grievances, but most of mine, or so I like to think, are general rather than personal.  "A feeling of resentment over something believed to be wrong or unfair," says the online dictionary.  Given that definition, yes, I grieve every war and every youth sacrificed to it. I grieve every starving person with no food to eat, and every thirsty person with no water to drink. I grieve man's inhumanity to man, but then you've heard all that before, too. In the last couple of years or so I find myself forced to grieve for young black people killed, no, let's use the right word here, murdered, for no reason other than the color of their skin, by angry bigoted white men.

My mother's pet projects, in the sense of those which go on, year after year, were writing, both poetry and prose, and pressing flowers. I do my best with writing, and truly love doing it, but the pressed flowers somehow passed me by. I do love to photograph them, though, so perhaps that's some kind of higher-tech equivalent. My latest pet project is organizing my photos into a series of theme books.

And so to pet phrases!

Do as you would be done by. If the whole world lives by those few words, what a wonderful world it would be!

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. We, as a society, definitely have abandoned that one!

Oh dear! What will people think? Mom, a product of an age when appearances greatly mattered, said that quite frequently to both me and my dad, neither of us great respecters of neighbors' judgments.  

This one was somewhat at odds with another pet phrase of Mom's.

"Just be comfortable," she'd respond, in any discussion of what to wear, but then proceed to "what will people think?" when I arrived in slacks or my dad without a tie. Mom was not without her inconsistencies, but we learned easily enough how to deal with them and my mother was, on the whole, considerate, sweet, and kind. As with my dad, I loved her very much, simply for who she was.

My mother had, quite literally, generations of teacher's pets. She began teaching in the local two-room school in 1928 and retired in the early 1970's, so, except for few years out in the 40's, she taught in the same room for about forty years. At the end she was teaching some whose grandparents she had taught.  

"Oh that little Johnny Batchett!" she'd exclaim. She never denied having favorites but she would never have treated them as the classic teachers’ pets. She would have taken great care never to show any hint of favoritism.

"He's got that same little cheeky smile as his granddad! He's got his mother's dimples though. The girls are going to be round him like bees around the honey! Of course, his dad was just the same. All 'love them and leave them' young Tom was, till those dimples hooked him fair and square ..... " and off she'd go.

" ...... but that Yvonne Atkins! What a little madam! Still, what can you expect? Her mum and dad, both such discipline problems at that age. I'll never forget the time ......."  My dad would give me his covert wink, and we'd settle down to listen, or at least pretend we were.

Recalling Mom's pet thises and thats reminds me, once again, how the world has changed over the course of my life. Not too many people these days are taught by the same person who taught their grandparents, or even their parents. Or even, come to that, an older sibling.

Most of us care little what anyone thinks of the way we look, or often even the way we act.  Those old admonitions such as the Golden Rule, once painstakingly embroidered and hung on the wall, have more or less disappeared; I'm quite sure they aren't about to go viral any time soon. I'm not suggesting we abided by such things in our day, but at least we were aware of the concept; perhaps we tried.

Yes, I am being an old curmudgeon. My own pet peeves and grievances grow apace.  Well why not? There is much of this Brave New World I do not like.  But there would, I suspect, be more to dislike, knowing what I now know, if I returned to that rose-colored past, than there is in the reality of the present. Why would I want to return to a world where homosexuality was illegal? A woman having a baby was forced to quit her job, and for this reason could not get a loan to buy a house or car in her own name, no matter how well paid she was. And even after the birth control pill gave women much better control over their own reproductive rights, it was illegal to provide [or] prescribe them for an unmarried woman.  No. I really want np part of it.

As for the future, who knows?

As Jay Asher says, in his novel Thirteen Reasons Why -

"You can't stop the future

You can't rewind the past

The only way to learn the secret

... is to press play."

So as I'm not yet quite ready to press the stop button, and certainly not the eject, I guess I'd better do just that!

© 18 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.

Camping by Will Stanton

I am one of those fortunate people who grew up in an era that was not overwhelmed, as we appear to be now-days, with digital technology.  We found ways of entertaining ourselves and choosing enjoyable activities that were more natural.  Camping was one of those.

My mother and father thought that camping was a good way to spend summer vacations.  Part of that stemmed from the fact that we did not have much money and were not well-healed enough to take world cruises, go to luxury resorts, or stay in fancy hotels.  My father was able to pick up some army-surplus camping supplies, all of it rather primitive by today's camping standards.  He bought a heavy-canvas tent, big enough to stand up in and to hold the five of us.  He bought five army cots made of heavy oak supports and canvas.  We had a gas Coleman lantern that, when lit, hissed and provided us with plenty  of light.  We had a plywood icebox that he made, lined with Celotex for insulation.

So for several summers, we traveled in our station wagon to various states in central, north, and eastern U.S., setting up camp in preselected campsites.  Undoubtedly, these travels sparked my love of nature that has lasted all my life.

Unlike many other boys who found enjoyable experiences camping through joining the Cub Scouts, Boys Scouts, or (as portrayed in the movie “Moonlight Kingdom”) the Khaki Scouts, my brief participation in the scouts included almost no camping trips.  I don't recall whether our local troops just did not offer that many trips, or if my mother just did not bother to sign me up.  As a consequence, I missed out on some scouting experiences, enjoyable or less so, that many other boys have had.

I do recall that one of the older boys, seventeen-year-old Bruce, apparently was very proud of his developing masculinity, which was expressed in his being the hairiest individual I ever had seen, to that date, outside of a zoo.  Between his questionable personality, very chunky build, rather common features, and a mat of black hair covering almost the entirety of his body, I did not find him to be a particularly attractive person.

Bruce was noted for two exceptional habits while on camping trips.  One was that he prided himself on carrying with him a battery-pack and electric razor to mow each morning the inevitable black stubble on his face.  The other habit, which to this day I have not been able to explain, was that he liked to spend the night in his sleeping bag nude.  Boys being boys, neither of these facts went unobserved.  And boys being who they are, they decided to play a practical joke on Bruce.  All they had to do was hook up his electric razor to his battery-pack, slip it down into his sleeping back, turn it on, and then shout, “Snake!  Snake!” 

Bruce, waking up to the warning shouts, along with the buzz and vibration down in his sleeping bag, naturally panicked.  Terrified, and struggling to extricate himself from the sleeping bag, Bruce quickly wiggled out of the bag, stood up, and without stopping to further assess the situation, took off running into the woods.  It took a while for the boys to coax Bruce back into the camp.  He was relieved but also irritated to find that there never was a snake in his sleeping bag.  He was even more irritated with the new Indian name that the boys assigned to him, “Running Bare.”

© 23 January 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.

Feeling Loved by Ricky

In hindsight, I am sure my parents sort of loved me.  Early photographs clearly show me smiling, especially on my birthdays, Halloweens, and Christmases.  I did not feel loved during my frequent spankings for being disobedient.  I am fairly sure that my dad did not like spanking me but felt that he had to; the old “spare the rod and spoil the child” philosophy.

It is rather ironic how our brains tend to be very selective about which memories it chooses to give us access.  For example, I get glimpses or figments of some happy or pleasing moments, but not a lengthy detailed viewing.  I know I was cared for and nourished, except for those darned stewed tomatoes, and yet I have no memories of being hugged or kissed.  I am sure I got hugs and kisses or I would be a complete basket case by now; I just don’t remember any.

My maternal grandparents loved me but were not demonstrative in showing it with hugs or kisses.  Instead my grandfather pulled a trick on me by pre-filling my lunch drinking glass with yogurt-like “liquid” accurately named “long milk”, as it was thick like honey or molasses but lacked a decent flavor.  That he, my “hero” surrogate father, would do such a thing really hurt my feelings and I definitely did not feel loved at that point.

At the end of my first summer with them on their farm in Minnesota (June thru August 1956), my mother called me on the phone and talked me into staying there for my 3^rd grade school year.  I didn’t know about the divorce proceedings yet, but I still did not feel loved by her.  When she came out later that year to attend her sister’s wedding, I thought I would be returning to California with her.  It did not happen and I felt unloved again.

When I did not get to go home at the end of that school year and had to stay for the 4^th grade too, I began to wonder why can’t I go home but no one would tell me anything truthful.  I was loved, but didn’t feel loved.

When my dad came to visit at Christmas in 1957, I finally was told the important part of the truth and why I could not go home with him.  I know he wanted to take me home but was constrained by the law.  Nonetheless, when he left I began to feel that I was unlovable.  At the end of May 1958, my mother came to the farm with my infant twin brother and sister and my new step-father to introduce him and them to her parents and to take me back to California.  I still did not feel loved, but I was very happy to go back to a new home.

While living at Lake Tahoe, we had three different residences but all felt like some kind of home.  The last place is the one I refer to as “home” during conversations.  It was while living in that particular house, I began to feel loved again, but not by people.  Of course my baby siblings grew to love me of a sort since I was practically their parent until I left for college, but the love I am referring to came from our pet female dog, Peewee.  She was a lap-dog, with long shaggy fur; a mixed breed of ¾ Oriental Poodle and ¼ Pomeranian. 

Peewee’s previous owner was a woman who was moving and could not take her pet to the new location, so my mother brought the dog home.  Being a small dog, she was shaking with fear when she arrived and ran under the couch to keep away from me (13) and the little-ones (both 3) whom all wanted to touch and hold her.  After the twins went to bed, I was still lying on the floor with my hand under the front of the couch, while watching the television.  After a while, I felt the dog licking my fingers.  I slowly pulled my hand back and she followed and then walked to my side and cuddled with me.  At that moment, we bonded and from then on, I was her’s and she was mine.  That dog loved me and I loved her back.  We both felt loved for many years until I left for college and then the military.  I was stationed in Florida when I learned that she had passed away.  In spite of my traumatized emotions, I grieved for the loss of my first love, the one who was always there and never made demands.  Since then, I have always had deep affection for my pets.

When I was 11, 12, 13, and 14, my paternal grandmother babysat a Downs Syndrome pre-teen girl named, Jackie.  When my dad took me over to visit my grandmother, I also got to meet Jackie who always remembered me after our first meeting and who also greeted me with a huge smile and strong hug.  That was the way she greeted every one, with pure innocent happiness and radiant love.  I have often wondered if Jesus would welcome me like that someday.

Eventually, I met my soul-mate and we were married.  I felt loved again.  With each child we both felt an increase in love.  Naturally, a child’s love for his parents fluctuates with the pangs of growing-up, but eventually equilibrium is obtained and love makes its presence known again, unless the parent or child has done something to destroy it along the way.

After my wife passed away, I thought love was gone from this life.  The love of my children is there but just is not the same.  Since attending the SAGE Telling Your Story group sessions, I am receiving the love of friends, both close and casual when I am around them.  I feel loved but not the kind that lasts.  This kind of love needs frequent refreshing just as if we were all partners or married and living together.

To close with a borrowed quote from two movies, The Boy with Green Hair and Moulin Rouge, I leave you with, “The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love and be loved in return.”

© 21 October 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 began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

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

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

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.

The Wisdom of an LGBT Identity by Phillip Hoyle

Cecelia started it when she told me about a book she wanted me to teach. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron was no ordinary book but, rather, a spiritual process of self-examination, exercises, and disciplines to help the reader overcome barriers to self-expression as an artist. The content and activities were meant for writers, visual artists, performers, and just about anyone who wanted to explore his or her own artistic bent. I was skeptical, but Cecelia was persistent. Agreeing to share the task of facilitating the thirteen sessions, we settled on an approach that seemed well balanced.

A group of writers, poets, painters, illustrators, sculptors, musicians, and educators—all members of the church where I worked—assembled that first night. They received their copies of the book and listened patiently as we explained the process for both the group and the individual participants. The work focused daily on the infamous “Morning Pages,” periodically on completing short writing and art exercises, and weekly on “Artist Dates.” Oh, we read the book, too, and met each week to share our work, objections, pains, elation, pasts, and dreams.

What Cecelia knew and I hoped would happen did occur. We changed our views of ourselves, our appreciation of one another, and our ability to engage in creative work. Due to our weeks together, our lives have continued to change to this day.

For example, some seventeen years later I am still writing my three hand-written, first-thing-in-the-morning pages. I have been writing and painting on a regular basis. I know others have as well. Since that time I have led several other groups through Cameron’s process, often sharing the leadership with others as Cecelia taught me. People are still changing. But the most unexpected change occurred in me, and it wasn’t directly related to seeing myself as an artist.

The child, the inner child, a concept with which I was familiar, showed up prominently in The Artist's Way. I had always been slightly put off by the concept, not because it made no sense, but because I heard it used so trivially so often. I read Cameron critically and did not find her explications very enlightening, but I did respond to her process. As a teacher I had pledged myself to engage fully in the process the book proffered. I answered all the questions the author posed, made all the lists she asked for, and on Artist Dates took my inner child to the museums, through parks, down streets of mansions, to mountain meadows, streams and caves, into paper shops, hardware stores and artist supply companies just like the writer instructed. During our times together I recalled many childhood scenes. Somehow Cameron showed me that my inner child is not just some kind of memory of past events but that I am still all that I have ever been at whatever age: confident or afraid, victorious or at a loss, praised or put down.

So I got reacquainted with my inner child’s hurt even though the idea seemed corny. Then I wrote about my fifth grade teacher who derided my Purple Cow illustration but offered me no help with my drawing. I was embarrassed and convinced I couldn’t draw. Two years later I enrolled in seventh grade woodshop instead of the art class I really wanted. But in shop I discovered I couldn’t do the projects very well not being strong enough to control the awkward tools I had to use. My only really fine work that year was the design I burned in the wooden bookends I made. I wrote about these things in the exercises and in my Morning Pages and grew more and more to love my hurt inner artist child.

The more Artist Dates I went on the more artistic and the more gay I got! That’s when I remembered the comment a gay friend of mine said about my work in religious education. “It’s more like art than education,” he observed. I trusted the judgment of this fellow minister, educator, and artist but felt confused. Looking critically into my own experience I finally I realized what was right about his analysis, that my play with religious ideas, symbols, and characters was enacted through art forms. And then I started to wonder if my fifth grade teacher was wrong. I quit planning art processes for children and began doing them for myself.

Cameron’s process expanded. She wanted us to costume on our Artist Dates wearing artsy clothes—surely black outfits with berets and scarves. She encouraged us to hang around with other artists. She suggested we introduce ourselves as artists. In so doing, she opened my imagination by encouraging an identity. In my response I discovered that not only was the artist child wounded in me but the gay child as well.

Then the goofy New Age intruded. Cameron wanted us to make affirmations, to write over and over certain sentences. I did so even though I hated doing it. But how else does one learn? I still write one of these sentences, still slightly irritated because, I’m sure, I hear a writing teacher telling me not to write in the first person and because to me the affirmation seems exaggerated, not exactly true. Stifling my objections I write: “I, Phillip Hoyle, am a brilliant and prolific artist.” The first time I encountered it, I simply filled in the blank with my name, first and last, just as she instructed. Then I started writing it at the end of the Morning Pages sometimes as an additional page of mantra-like affirmations, at other times to fill out the third page when I felt like I was running out of time or ideas to write.

What I learned through identifying myself as an artist transformed me. I sought out other artists. I laughed when I dressed in black like our church organist. I continued the artist dates long after the thirteen weeks ended. I continued to write the Morning Pages. And the more I did all these exercises, I found my artistic intertwined with my gay. I was doubly identified. My hurt artist child was always an artist and was always gay. That’s me. 

My mantra now included this: I am Phillip Hoyle. I am an artist. AND I am gay. I was always an artist, and I was always gay.

The advantage of this identity? I was able to change my life knowing a community of acceptance, understanding, and living. A way to see myself. A structure of self-acceptance and understanding. A way to find friends. The wisdom of LGBTQA coalition identity. Something more than politics. Rather the creation of a world-view of inclusion, tolerance, acceptance, relationship, and growth within diversity.

© Denver, 2012

About the Author

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

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

Clothes by Lewis

[I would like to begin by looking back at what happened last week with the topic being "The Person I Fall in Love with Should Be...".  As we were leaving, I was feeling disheartened for two reasons:  1) I realized that the topic I had been responsible for was not inclusive of those in the group who are in a committed relationship.  It essentially left them with almost nothing to say.  I apologize for that and will not allow that to happen again.  2) One of our participants made it very clear that they were not at all happy with the word "should" and made quite a point of saying that "should" is a word that should never be used as part of a topic.  I wonder if we want to engage in such disparagement of a topic, especially if, as was the case last week, the originator of that topic is present.

One more comment:  We have been very clear that no one is required to write on the "topic of the week".  However, I think that it is conducive to the creative process to make those deviations the exception, rather than the rule. Hearing diverse perspectives on the same topic is what makes for a stimulating hour-and-a-half and also forces us to channel our creative forces in constructive ways.  'Nuff said about process.]

Clothes are worn for many purposes:  style, status, and modesty for three.  I'm going to talk about a fourth:  body image.  People tend to model what they think is going to "surprise and delight" the casual observer or, perhaps, significant other.  Popular opinion has a way of letting someone know when they have stepped over the line of decorum and/or vogue.  As a repressed exhibitionist with an eroticized libido, I have been an avid follower of these taboos for most of my life.  There exists in modern American society a very distinct double-standard when it comes to the line between dress that titillates and that which commits sensory trespass. 

I would like to share with you a letter written to Annie's Mailbox advice column that was published in the Denver Post on June 29, 2003, along with the response from the columnists, Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, 

[Read letter from photocopy.]

The key to understanding the present state of our society is in the first paragraph of the response: 

"Most 14-year-old boys would not be willing to put up with the teasing that Jonah is getting from his peers. Stylish or not, they would stop wearing the swimsuits.  Either Jonah has tremendous self-assurance or he is enjoying these bikinis on an entirely different level."

I have to wonder--what level would that be?  The same level upon which girls of that age might enjoy wearing a bikini?  I don't think that is what is meant at all.  As the responders also write, "Bikinis and thongs usually indicate something more sensual.  Exhibitionism and cross-dressing are possibilities but they aren't the only ones."  What, exactly might the others be?  Homosexuality?  Pedophilia?  Has anyone ever asked models for the Sports Illustrated swim suit issue if they are exhibitionists?  And to even suggest that "Jonah" might be a cross-dresser is to imply that thongs and bikinis are the sole province of the female gender, which is begging the very question that I am asking:  Isn't what is good for the gander also good for the goose?

When I was about 10 years old, I took a swimming class at the Hutchinson, KS, YMCA.  The rules were that swimming suits were not allowed in the pool, as they might carry germs.  We had to shower before we got into the pool, as well as after.  I was terrified but soon got comfortable with letting it all hang out.  By the time my own children were about that age, boys did not even take their swimming suits off to shower after swimming.  Why the vast difference?  I would welcome any and all ideas on this.

In 1990, my wife, kids and I set out for Disney World in Orlando.  Wanting to appear "with it", I bought my first pair of "surfer-style" swim trunks just for the occasion.  When we went to the water park, the first thing on the kids' agenda was the huge, serpentine water slide.  Not wanting to appear skittish or square, I enthusiastically joined them.  Just one problem:  about 6 feet down the slide, my ridiculously bulky "trunks" grabbed hold of the slide and held on for dear life.  I had to "scoot" down the remaining three stories of slide while trying not to get "rear-ended" by an unsuspecting kiddie.  I have worn nothing but trusty Speedos ever since.  Yes, sometimes I do feel a little "over-exposed" but at least I don't carry a gallon of water with me whenever I get out of the pool.

[As an illustration of the fact that America's discomfort with the male form is not universal, I am passing around a copy of Down Under:  To glorify the Australian lifesaver.  I have flagged a few pertinent pages.]

© 22 September 2014 

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.