The Art of Crafting, by Betsy

As a youngster in school or Girl Scout meetings, arts and crafts was always one of my favorite activities. I am very grateful for the time spent making things because I still enjoy making things. So when I started thinking about todays topic, I naturally pondered the question what is the difference between an art and a craft.

I decided that art is a creation of the imagination, a craft is the result of making something by hand which is a copy or an impression or a depiction of something else. Further investigation reveals that the word craft comes from an old English then German word originally meaning strength then later, skill. Skill is the key word here when it comes to the word origin. However, the meaning for me is broader inasmuch as I have crafted many an item without the application of an ounce of skill. At least so it would seem.

In my dotage I have taken up the craft of counted cross stitch. My friend Carlos has shown some beautiful examples of his work. The two main skills required for this craft are patience and good eye sight. Also being systematic about transferring the pattern from a paper to the cloth is essential.

Is this art? Technically, in my opinion it is not. I may be creating a piece based on a painting or an artist’s rendition of an object or a scene. It is imagination that produces the image upon which my craft is based. That’s the work of art. Designing the cross stitch pattern and then stitching it is the craft. Does it matter to me which it is called? No. Call it art, call it a craft, I really don’t care. I enjoy doing it. Another of it’s assets is that it’s a great filler activity very useful when watching sports on TV, when waiting for commercials to end, or when watching something entertaining which doesn’t require a lot of concentration (which is most of television, by the way.) Other times when it is a useful activity are when waiting or when one can’t sleep.

A few years ago in our travels to the National Parks, I noticed in the gift shops, cross-stitch kits of scenes from whatever park we were visiting. So I bought that first kit that I found, and have been buying them and completing them since. So far I have Monument Valley, Zion NP, Rocky Mountain NP, and I am currently working on Arches NP. I think it will be another year or maybe two before I finish Arches as it is quite large; that is, if I work on it regularly.

My last visit to a National Park was about a month ago when we spent a day at Denali NP in Alaska, home of Mt. McKinley now called Mt. Denali. I found no craft kits in their gift shop, but later in Anchorage I came upon a craft shop that had cross-stitch patterns for typical Alaskan flowers and animals. As a result of going into that shop I have now, I think, four or five cross-stitch projects waiting to be started. Considering that some projects can take two, three, or even four years to complete, I realize I better get on with it. So many projects, so little time.

By the way, I also knit baby blankets, so if any of you are expecting to be expecting in the near future, let me know early on (before you are showing) so I can get started on a baby blanket.

Ahh! So many projects, so little time.

© 2014

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.

Close but No Cigar, by Will Stanton

“A miss is as good as a mile” is another hackneyed expression equivalent to “Close but no cigar.” Sometimes winning just is a matter of sheer dumb luck.

I suppose that it's human nature often to dwell upon bad luck at the expense of thinking of one's good luck. We might call that the “Charlie Brown syndrome,” that is, “If I didn't have bad luck I wouldn't have any luck at all.” Which reminds me of Charlie being told, “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes you are rained out,” along with Charlie's response, “You mean that people sometimes win?”

Years ago when I still hoped that I had better luck than exists in reality, I occasionally used to play the lotto. I did not choose quick-picks. Instead, I had a series of favorite numbers that I always used.

Then one day, I went to the Seven-Eleven for a lotto ticket. To this day, I do not know why, at the last moment, I changed my mind and chose differently how to play. I spontaneously selected three tickets rather than just one, and, having not won with my favorite numbers before, distributed those numbers among the three tickets.

Yes, what you are thinking came true. All my favorite numbers came up on just one winning ticket. I did not win. To “rub salt into my wound,” it turns out that, a young college woman in Boulder, not choosing her numbers herself but, instead, using a simple quick-pick, won - - -with MY numbers! She had gone to a Seven-Eleven to pick up some ready-made frosting for her boyfriend's birthday cake; and, at the last moment, decided to buy a quick-pick.

How much was the winning amount? Eleven million dollars! I never have forgotten that, especially because, since then, my not possessing entrepreneurial acumen, I have ended up being white-collar poor. How much simpler my life would have been all these years had I not missed winning that lotto loot. I almost chose the right numbers but lost because I changed my mind. I came close to winning, but close doesn't cut it. Close but no cigar.

© 23 August 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.

Over the River and through the Woods, by Ricky

In my case, the title should be Through the Woods and Over the River. In the 1960’s no one advised me about anything not related to schoolwork. Therefore, I remained confused about my personal, physical, and mental development. I did not even know that my emotional development was deficient. I was naïve about such things and could not see my orientation because “the trees were blocking my view of the forest.”

Metaphorically speaking, I lived my life in the “woods” until the trees began to “thin out” in 1982.

I finally made it through the woods and out into the open during the summer of 2010 when I finally reviewed all the trail signs together and arrived at the conclusion that I am on the correct trail. However, I faced another obstacle – should I cross the river in front of me or remain near the woods for safety.

For the vast majority of my life, I was in denial and did not believe the signs often posted along the trail I was walking. After I accepted that the signs were correct, I pondered for several months if I even wanted to cross that wide and foreboding river.

Eventually, I did cross it when I told the members of my therapy group; I am out of the woods and now across the river. Strangely, when I looked back after that meeting, the “mighty” river appeared to be nothing more than a small creek easily walked over.

All the time I spent fearing the crossing equaled time wasted. My fears were real enough but in my case, groundless and now I am healing mentally and emotionally.

I know others will have similar experiences with woods and rivers just as I know some others will have vastly different experiences. In life, a person will face many rivers that need crossing and perhaps there will be many woods or even forests to pass through.

Different trails have varying opportunities for growth, experiences, development, satisfaction, self-awareness, and offer different or strange woods, and rivers. The trick is to select a trail that matches one’s personality, abilities, understanding of the terrain ahead, dedication, preparation, and skills, or the journey may not be very enjoyable.

I hope everyone’s journey is successful and a reasonably pleasant stroll compared to a difficult, stress filled, and dangerous climb, or with river crossings filled with turbulent rapids and packed with piranha.

© 25 June 2012

About the Author

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

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

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

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

Depressed, by Ray S

Now, class, in order to understand better the many words that begin with the 4th and 5th letters of the alphabet please open your Depressed dictionaries to page number—oh no, you figure the page number with all of the clues I’ve already given you.

We need to start a list of the words that either begin with the 4th and 5th alphabet letters or sound almost like them and your interpretation:

Depressed—getting down low, or is it low down?

Digressed—not concentrating on your homework

Disappointed—oh well, better luck next time

Diverted—keep your mind on the ultimate climax

Demented—what happens when you have too much fun

Devoted—when you’re fortunate enough to find a loving partner

Demanding—watch out for those dominatrixes

Dormant—sorry, the wrong letters and a sign of my depressing condition

Distraught—at least I got the letter ‘D’ in there, and this word is more than enough to describe my depression

Depraved—well that is a matter of which way the pendulum swings when it comes to opinions and teachings of a lot of people about the Gay Way when in reality it is simply (though not always simple) another version of the Gods’ and Demigods’ way of varying the mix of the earth’s beautiful creatures. Also there is the constant reality of the depressing state of world and national affairs.

And then you could touch upon the despicable: like Donald Trump or guns in hands and who and what they kill, and of course, the Democrats and those elephant worshippers.

My, my, Class, you’ve done quite well with this exercise in DE words. For your next week’s lesson, I want each of you to choose one of the DE word subjects and prepare an essay to be read in class—no more than 965 words each.

Class is dismissed and perhaps Depressed.

© 7 December 2015

About the Author

Mom and Her Mom and I, by Phillip Hoyle

Just what are we to think about boys who seem as much girl as boy? I once heard a psychiatrist analyze how Freud’s laying the blame on the parents for the inability of some males to resolve the Oedipus-related developmental challenge in early childhood moved responsibility away from the homosexual child. Freud’s analysis thus called for improvements in therapy for homosexual men. That sounded nice, but then the psychiatrist I was listening to laid more blame upon the doting mother and less on the emotionally absent father. Moms! Poor moms!

I tend not to be Freudian or neo-Freudian, but I am always interested in how domestic upbringing influences any child and particularly with regard to his or her sexual needs and attitudes. So I am curious about how my parents coped with and responded to challenges of rearing me, a skinny boy whose interest in girl things was rather plain to see, whose penchant for the artistic persistent, and whose lack of physical coordination or upper body strength kept him out of sports. So I want to tell three short stories that somewhat address the theme of “Mom” but also keep me wondering.

I

One Christmas my mom’s mom gave me a baby doll as a gift. I named him Andy probably following the lead from the only boy doll I had ever hear of, Raggedy Andy brother, I assumed, of Raggedy Ann. My boy baby doll came with clothing my grandmother had made. I recall a plaid shirt and denim-like slacks. He was one of those babies made of rubber and if you worked hard enough you could pull off its arms and legs and even its head. Then if you worked even harder, you could reassemble the little thing. It was approximately nine inches tall.

Andy looked just like my sisters’ baby dolls except that he had brown skin and black hair whereas theirs had pinkish skin and blond or light brown hair—not wigs, simply hair stamped into the rubber and lightly painted. I don’t recall if the eyes were inserted or painted (probably the latter since I remember them as being black) but I do recall they didn’t open and close like my sisters’ fancier Terri and Terri Lee dolls.

I sometimes wonder what Grandma and Mom were thinking. I never thought to ask either of them. They were very bright women, both educators. Surely they had talked about the present before it showed up under the Christmas tree. I’m sure they had noticed I played with my sisters’ dolls. Perhaps they thought I ought to have a boy doll so I would somehow know I was a boy? I’m sure there was some application of logic in their decision to give me that boy doll years before Barbie and Ken appeared under anyone’s Christmas tree.

I played with Andy but have no recollection when I got him, how long I had him, or when I left off playing with him. I don’t know whatever happened to the doll. Perhaps he was adopted by a nice Black family. I don’t even know if Andy was actually a boy doll or if he was simply dressed as one. I was intrigued that Grandma had made his clothes designing, cutting, and sewing them herself just like she did for my older sisters’ dolls. I don’t know if Andy’s shirt buttoned on the girl side or the boy side, but I am pretty sure there were no boy baby doll clothes to purchase from any store in our town.

II

When Mom was a child, she was taught to sew by her mom. I loved to see mom at work using her portable Singer sewing machine at the kitchen table. I loved even more Grandma’s Singer in its oak console, iron frame, and a treadle that we kids sometimes got to pump. When I was fifteen and we moved into a larger house, Mom got her own Singer in a console that sat in the utility room. It was powered by electricity with a foot control that reminded me of a small automobile accelerator. Grandma came to see us, and I asked her to help me make leggings for one of my Indian outfits. She did it and in the process taught me to cut, sew, hem, and more. I liked sewing and bought cloth and a pattern for a war shirt and a vest. Later I sewed a Cheyenne style dress for my next younger sister and decorated it with imitation elk teeth. When I had questions about sewing, I asked Mom to help me. Somehow playing Indian allowed me to do even more girl things. I never once heard a word of disparagement or caution from my mom or my grandma. I’m pretty sure I didn’t talk at school about sewing!

III

When I was an adult, Grandma told me a story about my childhood. She had been worried about me growing up around all those sisters, but she said she quit worrying one day while she was taking care of us. I had come into the kitchen where she was working. She claimed that by the time I had walked through the house I had all four of my sisters crying. I am not sure I like the story’s idea of what makes for a real man, but it does indicate that in her eyes I had enough ego strength or whatever was necessary to carry on with my life—queer or otherwise. She quit worrying.

I’m happy for her, pleased with my own life, happy I know how to sew; but still I wonder.

Denver, 2013

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

Flying, by Lewis

Although for me swimming might be "staying alive in the water", flying does not mean to me "staying alive in the air". It's more like "staying sane while traveling". Between spending two hours in the airport before the scheduled departure time--after circling the parking lot for fifteen minutes looking for an empty space; trying to fit everything needed for the trip into a single checked bag; anxiously waiting in long lines when not rushing to your next destination; fruitlessly searching for space for my toilet kit in the overhead stowage compartment; not knowing whether my connecting flight actually has an airplane waiting for me at the next stop; trying to fit my 95th- percentile-long legs between the seat cushion, fold-down tray which no longer holds a single thing that I don't have to pay for, and whatever might be under my seat; being unable to get comfortable in a seat that I cannot recline far enough; putting up with whatever the passenger next to me is doing; and needing to have instant access to the loo which does not allow me to turn around unless I raise my hands over my head (in which case, I have no control over the directionality of my by-now-headlong-rushing stream), well, it just isn't worth the time saved.

Furthermore, to me travel is more than a trip from Point 'A' to Point 'B'. That's for business people. I want to know the landscape between Point 'A' and Point 'B'. The only way to do that is by automobile. Furthermore, I know that, when I reach my destination via air, I will have to deal with rental cars--the only enterprise with a business model worse than that of airlines. Either way, there will be relatives who will want me to sleep with their non-hypoallergenic cat, expect me to sleep on THEIR schedule, and leave me alone during the day while they traipse off to work. With no wheels, what am I supposed to do--paint the bathrooms?

No, while I'm driving across country in my very comfortable automobile, I have the pleasure of munching on my Pay Days, drinking my pink lemonade, listening to Sirius XM radio, conversing with my travel companion, and taking in the scenic countryside. (One of my travel secrets is finding off-the-beaten-path routes that encompass rolling hills, gentle curves, lakes, and streams.) My only regret is that I have not found a way to read a road map safely--I LOVE maps--while driving. As anyone who flies will understand, finding a competent co-pilot is not easy.

30 September 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.

My Favorite Holiday, by Nicholas

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 egg nog with rum, best egg nog 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/Hannukah/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!

© 20 Nov 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.

The No-Fault Line, by Gillian

Fault, with it's many meanings, is not a positive word. It's not my fault! It's all your fault, or The Government's fault, or my teacher's fault. Electrical faults can cause plane crashes, brownouts and blackouts. The cry of fault on the tennis court means failure; a missing of the mark. We find fault with other people, and occasionally admit to our own. We fault others for their errors and disclaim responsibilities by proclaiming not to be at fault. And these days we even must have no-fault car insurance. But there are of course the biggest, baddest faults, those gashes in the bedrock which suddenly, or sometimes not so suddenly, jerk into violent movement causing earthquakes and occasionally tsunamis, and the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of people.

I have a major fault in me. Within me. Ok Ok, I've got lots of them, I'm full of failings and faults, but I'm talking of a geologic type of fissure; my very being torn asunder. At a very young age, I couldn't say when, social pressure started to build up stress on the fault line between a straight me and a gay me - my Straight Shale and my Lesbian Limestone. The building stresses finally caused the fault to give way, allowing the Straight Shale to be forced up and over that Lesbian Limestone. It got buried. It disappeared. But of course it was still there, as are all things invisible beneath the surface of the earth or of our psyches.

Shale is not a good foundation rock. It cracks and breaks and splits and crumbles. It slips and slides. With these qualities, it tends to weather and erode away quite rapidly. And my Straight Shale layer was pretty thin to begin with! After forty years or so - happily it was eroding at human speed not that creep of geologic time - it was all but gone.

The fault line was exposed at the surface. And on the other side of it, a mere step away, lay a vast stretch of Lesbian limestone, glittering in the sunshine. I pulled my feet free of that cloying clinging Straight Shale mud and stepped across the fault onto that wide open, welcoming, slab of Lesbian Limestone. Only I prefer to think of that line as a no-fault line. It's not my fault, it's not my parents' fault and it's not a fault at all.

Crossing that line is, to paraphrase Neil Armstrong, but a small, simple, step, for man or woman.  But perhaps, just maybe, as endless numbers of people continue to cross it, it will become, in terms of acceptance and understanding, a giant leap for mankind.

© 20 Apr 2015 

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 28 years.

Left and Right, by Will Stanton

When I first prepared this piece, I read it to two acquaintances.  One is a retired accounting teacher, the other is a successful, wealthy oil-and-gas land-man.  Neither one understood it.  They had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.

What I wrote is satire.  It portrays a type of ignorant, irrational, intolerant individuals which often is typical of extreme right-wing, religiosity-minded people.  Many such extremists, for example, reportedly never understood that Steven Colbert merely portrayed an unthinking right-winger as satire; they really were happy to think that he was a rabid conservative.  As with all satire, my piece also expresses my dismay and mystification that so terribly many people display mindless hate.  In doing so, it also expresses my own wish that such intolerance did not exist.  So, here goes.

Letter to the Editor, The Denver Post, from Mrs. Winifred Hash.

Headline: Our Society is Going to Hell in a Hand-basket.

I am outraged, disgusted!  I could just throw up.  While I was in church this morning, Mrs. Hogsbreath revealed that her little girl Suzy's teacher this year is left-handed.  I am horrified.  How in God's name could any school let a left-handed person into the school to teach innocent children?

Everybody knows that left-handed people are evil.  After all, the word “sinister” can mean “left.”  That's why Godless Liberals are called “The Left.”

The principle and superintendent should be fired.  They are just as guilty as those left-handed perverts.  Once they sneak into our schools, they promote their left-handed agenda, trying to convert our little boys and girls into being left-handed.

I've heard those so-called scientists spouting their claims on TV that some people are born left-handed.  I just know that's not true.  I asked Reverend Spittle, and he said that's a lie – a damned lie, and only those adulterous, Hollywood actors and Commie's in Congress believe it.  I should have known I'd hear only lies on Liberal-controlled media.  From now on, I'll stick with Fox where I can hear the truth.

Being left-handed is a down-right choice, and these repulsive people choose to engage in left-handedness, engaging in disgusting practices and flaunting their abnormality on TV; and, if you actually can believe this, I've seen them in parades!  My good friend Mrs. Offal said that the church runs a restorative therapy clinic to cure youngsters, who were led astray, back to normality.  She had to send her teenage son Billy there.  They are praying away his sin.

After church, my husband Al and I had dinner at our good friend's Joe and Agnes Hollowhead.  Joe was just as outraged as Al and me.  He said that we need to stop that left-handed plague right now, that we need to round up all those perverts and lock them all up in some big pen in the middle of the dessert, away from good, God-fearing Americans.

I know that a lot of people feel the way the Hollowheads and us feel, and it is time we do something about it.  Maybe my letter will help wake people up and stop God's country from going to Hell in a hand-basket.

Yours truly,

Mrs. Winifred Hash 

© 09 August 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.

Scarves, by Ricky

        I suppose that boys and men who cross-dress, or are drag-queens, or who are comfortable enough to wear women’s clothes in a play or at a costume party, and most girls and women have at one time or another used or wore a scarf as part of their attire.  I am not in one of those categories and have never worn a scarf.

        There are several synonyms for “scarf” listed in the Windows Thesaurus.  Cravat, tie, and handkerchief are three of those.  Of course, I have personally worn a tie many times so I guess one could say that a tie or cravat is a “manly-scarf”.  I have also had a handkerchief on my person, infrequently, when I was much younger and mother would insist.

        According to Wikipedia at some point in history, handkerchiefs began life being a kerchief for either a head covering or the wiping your face or blowing your nose purposes.  To differentiate between the two purposes, the nose type was called a handkerchief and the head covering became the headkerchief.  The latter term I personally have never heard used, so I suspect it is now in the realm of being an archaic word usage.

        If handkerchief is a synonym for scarf, then scarf is a synonym for neckerchief.  I have worn a neckerchief from the age of 13 to 20 as a member of the Boy Scouts.  In my scouting career, my troop had three different neckerchiefs over time: 

Yellow & Black

Blue & Yellow

Purple

  

BSA Camp Winton Staff

      I also wore a plaid neckerchief while on the staff of a BSA summer camp.  

Order of the Arrow

       As a member of the BSA’s honor society, Order of the Arrow, I was given a solid red neckerchief with a large patch on the back.

      I can’t speak for all scouts, but as an adolescent boy, these neckerchiefs meant a lot to me and they still do.  I have many happy memories of that time of my life with activities our troop engaged in as part of the scouting program.

        At that young age, the most common use of a neckerchief is to identify members of one’s own troop from a distance while camping out with many other troops during a scouting competition.  The Scout Handbook also contains the more practical though not commonly needed uses for the neckerchief.  Uses such as a sling for a damaged arm, bandage, tourniquet, sprained or broken ankle support, and signaling.  Wikipedia also lists many uses one hopes scouts will never need, such as: a gag, a blackjack, or a Molotov cocktail wick.

        The neckerchiefs I displayed in this story are a visual stimulus to very happy memories which I have not thought of for decades.  They were located in a large box where I placed things about my life that I want my offspring to know about me.  I hoped I could find these neckerchiefs to show all of you but was not sure they still existed.  Fortunately, I did find them and spent much time remembering before I began to write this story, memories I have yet to write.

I stored the neckerchiefs away about 41-years ago along with the memories.  Now both are back.

© 23 March 2015 

About the Author 

  

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

Compulsion, by Ray S

Let’s see, where do I start? And for that matter does anyone care?

Answer: Well I do, or I wouldn’t spend the moment to write about it and let you know how my roommate and I had the be-Jesus scared out of our innocent little WASPish souls.

Late springtime in central Florida where our school was lost on some country crossroads. As soon as dinner time was over, everyone returned to their dormitories to do assigned homework and then lights out at 9:30.

“Hey Billy, they said at dinner announcement time that those students who wished to could attend a tent meeting—something called a revival. We just needed to sign up with Mr. Butler. Do you want to go? I don’t know what they do, but they sing all those goofy church songs like Brighten the Corner, In the Garden, and Jesus Loves Me. Stuff we never did when I was home.

It wasn’t a difficult choice to make; we could be excused from homework. So began our big adventure into the world of being born again. Trouble with that idea was that as two fourteen year olds we had never known our moms didn’t already do the job once. Did they leave a part out and these folks could fix it for you? I wondered if they could repair my Ranger two-wheeler; make hair grow on my chest.

The tent was full of people stomping and crying and waving their hands, and some were even dancing—which was not allowed at the school. And it sure was awful hot in that tent.

Billy and I slipped inside, by the rows of chairs with their swinging and swaying occupants, close to the tent wall and tried to disappear. I had never seen people in this state except that time my big brother took me to the movies to see “Reefer Madness.”

The singing stopped and the people sank into their chairs. Then a big man dressed in a white suit, a little black string time with beads of perspiration running down his forehead began shouting something about hellfire and brimstone—whatever that was.

We both started to wonder why we were here and what had we gotten ourselves into. And how could we escape? When several ladies all dressed in flowing white dresses—sort of like angels I guess—passed among the crowd holding out little baskets. Then they all sang a song and swayed a lot.

The big man cried out for all the little ones to come forward to receive the word. We tried to shrink into the tent wall. This was all so different and now we were being compelled to participate in an activity totally foreign to anything we had ever learned.

They made us kneel down and mumbled something. Then we were pushed aside to make room for more lambs being led to whatever. At this point Billy and I found an opening in the crowd and headed for the tent entrance.

Once into the cool evening breeze, heavy with the scent of orange and grapefruit blossoms, our familiar world came into focus and we had escaped from the clutches of hellfire and brimstone. The experience being such that if that is the way Jesus loves you, we politely declined. Stick with God is Love.

In more recent days when we are sometimes blessed with our own reasoning, I acknowledge any number of compulsive actions—some bad and some really great, at least at the time.

But ever since that formative religious compulsion, I have learned to think for myself and find my own direction to “salvation,” if that is on the timetable. All ashore who are going ashore!

© 9 November 2015 

About the Author 

Remembering, by Phillip Hoyle

I remember a religious educator from years ago who sometimes surprised me with his rather creative thoughts. (Of course, I’m still trying to recall his name; perhaps William something.) He once asserted the main resource anyone has in education is memory. He illustrated his perspective by the example of having boxes and boxes, files and files of resources such as books, curriculum designs, manuals, art supplies, costumes, play scripts, musical scores, recordings, movies, and so forth, but if you don’t recall—that is remember—what you have put away, you won’t be able to use them.

I learn more and more about this perspective every day. Just last week I thought I would wear a particular sweater, but when I opened the storage box where I thought it was, the one under the chair in the east alcove of the bedroom, the sweater wasn’t there. I searched the stack of sweaters I’d been wearing, the ones I’ve been stacking in the chair next to the bed but it wasn’t there, not even at the bottom of the stack. I looked through the stack of clothes atop the little chest of drawers in the closet, the one where I keep my sweat shirts and a few other items, but it wasn’t there. Then I recalled another storage box under the bed and pulled it out. There I found three sweaters—one I didn’t even know I owned, but none of the sweaters was the one I thought I was searching for. I chose one of them to wear, but as I write this story I can’t recall the sweater I originally thought I was looking for. Was it brown, red, green, or blue? Bulky knit or smooth? Solid or patterned? Cotton or acrylic? Pullover or cardigan? Button-up or zippered? I have no idea, no memory.

So I conclude my friend was right. Oh I found a resource, but it wasn’t the one I remembered. The problem I face may be one complicated by old age. In sixty five years I’ve worn so many sweaters—ones I liked and wish I still had (of course none would fit, but I’m not talking about that)—so many that now I’m confused enough that I go looking for resources I know but just don’t recall what decade I had that box, or in which church I kept those particular boxes, or now even that there is another box of resources under the bed.

Memories. I have floods of them and at this point sometimes feel overwhelmed by them. So last week, when I got tired of wearing to Storytime my four sweat shirts (two of which appear exactly alike to the casual observer) and my five sweaters (I’m sure I wanted at least to look different than usual on Monday afternoon in case my story seemed too much the same old thing), so I remembered a sweater I guess I don’t even own any more, like the old guy with senile dementia who thinks I’m his childhood lover or the old gal on pain meds who when I visited her in the hospital introduced me to her nephew although she and I were the only ones in the room. And I’m writing this story about memories with the earnest hope I’ll be able to find it in my computer’s word processor when I need to print it out and put it in my backpack with the other resources I carry to our storytellers gathering and remember to put the backpack on my back when I leave the house, pick it up again when I leave my office, not leave it at the restaurant, and able to find the story when the session begins.

Of course, should all that fail—or even if just one cog in the works be forgotten) I could simply rely on my memory to tell this story or some other one I’ve forgotten about until this very moment. I guess my friend was right. The real and essential key to resources is one’s memory.

© 20 November 2012 –Denver  

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

Summer Camp, by Lewis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 19 August 2013 

About the Author

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

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