Sorting It Out, by Gillian

Whatever 'it' is, I feel as if I have been sorting 'it' out for ever; from the all-encompassing entirety of my life, to it's tiniest details, 'it' never-endingly needs to be sorted out.

I guess it started, as so many things inevitably do for us all, with my mother. I have no idea how old I was when I began, only very subliminally at this stage, to try to sort out my mother in my own head, or probably more correctly, in my own psyche. But I was very young; too young to come anywhere close to expressing anything in words, even to myself. This particular sorting-out was going on at a much more primitive, instinctive, gut level. In my teen years, when an aunt told me that my parents had had two other children who had died before I was born, I felt a huge step closer to sorting out my mother's complexities of hidden emotion. But there I stuck, until much later I finally began to come somewhere close to understanding not only my mother, but the effect her own traumas had had upon me.

And attempting in turn to sort out my own heart and soul was, of course, another life-long challenge. I say life-long, but now I don't actually think that's right. I lost the first forty-plus years. During those decades I spent plenty of time sorting out many many things; anything rather than sort out myself and the real me I was born to be. But eventually I got there, and only then could I set about sorting out me - a task which still takes up a considerable part of my time and dwindling energy.

But I must admit there is something oh so satisfying about sorting 'it' out. In fact, I frequently feel a great desire to get my hands on something and sort it out. This is in fact just a passing fancy, or fantasy, you understand. I'm retired. I plan to stay retired. If someone offered me millions of dollars to sort out anything from the airline industry to Amtrak to our government to any and all homeowners associations, I would refuse. But I do like to complain instead.

My most recent 'it' I dream of sorting out is the mid-range hotel industry. I'm not talking about the low end old roadside motel. You get what you pay for and should not expect more. And I'm ignoring the high end because I cannot afford them and so cannot judge. I am talking about the average Best Western, La Quinta, Ramada, Holiday Inn, Microtel etc. usually somewhere in the $80 to $150 per night range. These are my most recent bugaboo because Betsy and I had stayed in very few hotels over the last twenty years as we always camped. Now we no longer have our camper we have been 'enjoying' - and I use the word very loosely - hotels. To start with, almost every one of them has something which doesn't work, most frustratingly the coffee maker. One we stayed in on our recent Arizona trip, only had hot water; no cold. Most unusual. No matter how you manipulated the knobs you could not get cold, or even cool, water. In more than one hotel, the rooms seem to have been designed for, or at least by, people eight feet tall. In one there was an electrical outlet above the door, just under the ceiling where not even most basketball pro's could reach it. In another, the microwave was similarly placed, requiring any normal person to stand on a chair to use it. Lawsuits waiting to happen! What are they thinking when they design these places?

In one hotel we had no TV remote - strange but not all bad. There's something about those things that makes my skin crawl. I am compelled, it seems, to think of all the other hands which touched those buttons after being in God only knows what unthinkable place the moment before.

And I am clearly not the only one with that reaction. In some rooms they insist on proclaiming that their remote is clean. One sign read, 'this instrument is completely sanitary', which for some odd reason bothered me more than suspecting it was filthy. Oh well, just one more good reason not to turn on the TV.

Maybe the answer to all this is simply to patronize that old mom and pop 1960's motel down on the old road, where there is no coffee-maker, no fridge to hum and cough all night, no microwave to malfunction, probably an ancient fat TV sans remote, and sometimes only cold water. She who expects little will not be disappointed. But really, Betsy and I are now becoming so expectant of complications that we move into our hotel room like itinerant tinkers with bags and boxes of miscellaneous equipment: spare light bulbs, a step-stool, extension cords because wherever we want to plug anything in there will beyond any doubt be no convenient outlet, a plug-in kettle in case of the anticipated malfunctioning coffee-maker, and movies on DVD that we can watch on our computers without forming any relationship with that 'sanitary' remote.

And last but certainly not least, we provide our own breakfast, which of course has to be something which can be eaten cold if necessary, in anticipation of the out-of-order microwave.

I must admit we have occasionally had an excellent hotel breakfast but too often they offer nothing even remotely edible. Fruit-loops, a day-old sticky bun, weak coffee and some glow-in-the-dark orange drink masquerading as juice just isn't breakfast. We have also learned to be very wary of the much-touted 'hot breakfast'. Well OK, toasted Wonder Bread is hot!

So I dream of how I would sort it all out if I were in charge. And it's only a dream. But in all sincerity, I wish someone would. We have so many tourists these days, visiting from all over the world. Every time the light doesn't work and the coffee maker spits scalding water on my hand and I'm invited to a delicious breakfast of a plastic packet of instant oatmeal which I can't eat even if I want to because the 'hot' water is only tepid, I cringe with embarrassment for our country.

'Do you suppose things work better in other countries?' Betsy asks.

No, perhaps not. But how I wish those tourists and business people could leave here so impressed that here, they do.

But I'm not going to sort it out.

© May 2017

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

How Religion Influenced My Sexual Identity, by Phillip Hoyle

Oh, I was religious. I was so religious that I attended Graduate Seminary pursuing a Master of Divinity degree in preparation for ordination into the ministry of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). I had decided to concentrate on aspects of religious education but found myself more intrigued with the social ethics professor’s offerings. The second course I took from Professor Richard A. Hoehn was called Morality. The first assignment was to write a short paper “How I Came to My Moral Concern.” I wrote something like this:

I am sure I did not conceive of my moral concern as a moral concern. I was reared in a church that assumed that moral concern flowed from religious concern. One sought to be religious; in so doing one would obviously be moral. Not that all believers were moral. More importantly I was taught to be moral at home where its teachings were part of the day to day activities.

Several family decisions of social location established moral contexts and assumptions that greatly affected my life. When my parents were planning to marry, they chose to build their house in the wrong part of town. It was perfect for them: a block from one set of parents, a block from the high school, three blocks from the church, four blocks from Hoyle’s IGA where dad worked, five blocks from elementary schools we kids attended. In the grocery store, all people were treated the same and the customer was, at least in most ways, always right. I grew up in a racially integrated neighborhood, attended integrated schools and classes from kindergarten through ninth grade in an army town where people spoke English, Spanish, German, and Japanese. I grew up knowing preachers and prostitutes, mechanics and madams, choristers and conmen, scholars and sleezes, farmers and fairies, musicians and musclemen, woodworkers and writers. For a kid growing up in a Kansas town of 20,000 population, my world was large. Whatever would become my sense of morality, it would always have to see this larger view of human connection.

Now to the topic of the day: My sexual identity is a part of my human identity, part of my moral identity, part of my Christian identity. I am a person, a nice person, and a religious person (at least in so far as I retain Christian thought in my overall views, Christian values in how I relate to the larger world). In summary, I am a Christian gay man who seeks the common good, (not just of my family, not just of my gay world, not just of my American world, but also of my place in the whole world). I reject any small view of homosexuality or bisexuality or of any of the sexual permutations of that larger term LBGTQAetc, or of queer. I am brother to all gay men and lesbian women and transgendered persons and poly-this-or poly-that folk, and to straight folk of all stripes whether I like or appreciate them or not or can understand anything any of them say. I’d appreciate their acceptance but don’t expect that to be given very freely. So I go on my way into the world and into my future, telling stories, making friends, tolerating, and hoping somehow to be tolerated. And I will continue telling my story as a part of all of you telling yours. I’ll keep smiling and, of course, hanging out with diverse convocations of others who care to get together in celebration of their differences.

Oh, I was religious; still am in an increasingly gay, queer way.

© June 4, 2018

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

I Call It Bullshit, by Pat Gourley

“I have talked so much in the past few days that sometimes I feel like I might have used up all my words and I’ll never speak again. And then I hear someone say something really stupid and I can barely keep myself from snapping in two.” 

Emma González from Harpers Bazaar 

February 26th, 2018

Our topic for today is “Your Favorite Childhood Hero”. For some inexplicable reason I wrote on this topic back in January of this year. I must admit though that being off a month or two is not all that unusual for me these days. So I’ll just chalk it up to the vapors of early dementia perhaps and rather write on my current heroine.

That would be the 18-year-old dynamic self-identified bisexual woman of Cuban heritage, Emma González. The opening quote of this piece is from an article Emma wrote for Harper’s Bazaar in late February of this year just a few short weeks after the deadly shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School in Parkland Florida where she is a student.

That this woman is someone to be paid attention to and emulated was further cemented yesterday at the Washington D.C. March For Our Lives. She held the podium for a few short minutes and the last four of which were in total silence with tears rolling down her cheeks. Leading over 800,000 thousand Americans in 2018 in four minutes of reflective silence is powerful medicine indeed that must be reckoned with.

There were many moving and heart-wrenching speeches yesterday, including a few here in Denver. I’ll admit it may be a sign of my own poorly evolved sense of “identity politics” but the fact that Emma identifies as bisexual has me attracted to her and her bravery even more strongly – no apologies.

The vile and psychotic vitriol being directed her way from the slimy corners of right wing nutville is only further proof for me that she is totally right-on in calling bullshit. Attempts to photo-shop her tearing up a copy of the Constitution is so desperate as to be truly pathetic. It is a doctored photo taken by Teen Vogue where Emma is holding and then tearing up a shooting range target. It is hard to pull off this crap in this day and age of instant response and in particular trying to smear a woman with 1.44 million twitter followers as of March 23rd, 2018.

I attended and participated in Denver’s March For Our Lives yesterday in Denver. As with the recent Women’s and Immigrant Rights Marches I have found these events to be very invigorating and they do seem to be prompting me to get off my ass a bit more. Yesterday’s event in particular seemed to be a great example of “intersectionality” finally becoming part of the overall progressive movement though much work needs to occur for this to become an actualized reality.

Intersectionality is a relatively new concept to me, admittedly a bit late to get on the bus here, and I think to many since it has yet to make it into my spell check. It is defined though as: “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage: through an awareness of intersectionality, we can better acknowledge and ground the differences among us.” Credit for this concept and analysis goes to a woman named Kimberle Crenshaw an African American civil rights activist and academic who developed it in the late 1980’s. She is currently a professor at UCLA.

I have been impressed with many of the MSD High School student activists urging the mainstream press to talk with kids of color from urban areas where gun violence is endemic and a 24/7 daily fact of life. The intersectionality of race, class, gender and so often gun violence is so striking as to be beyond doubt.

The diversity of people and their often-poignant signs at yesterday’s march were ample evidence of the reality and power of intersectionality. Let me close with my favorite sign from yesterday as proof positive that we are all in this together. A woman a few feet ahead of me in the march was carrying a sign that read: “If I put a gun in my uterus will you regulate it then”.

That women’s reproductive rights and health are so ardently regulated and guns are not is truly bullshit.

© March 2018

About the Author

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

Escape, by Louis Brown

Garrard Conley tries unsuccessfully to escape from his same-sex sexual orientation.

Full Title of book: Boy Erased: A Memoir (2016) by Garrard Conley

Genre: Autobiography

Theme: escaping the deleterious effects of ex-gay therapy

Why notes on books?: When I find a good book, which is rare, if you read my insightful notes, when you read the book, it will be a lot easier and more meaningful.

NOTES

(1) Garrard Conly was the only child of an aspiring Baptist minister in Arkansas. His parents insisted, once they knew he was gay, that he undergo reversion therapy. Garrard was 15 years old.

(2) My guess is there are at least a couple of hundred of books written about the experiences of ex-gay therapy survivors.

(3) When he was 19 years old, Garrard Conley was enrolled in an ex-gay “therapy” program called “Love in Action” (LIA).

(4) Garrard had to enroll in LIA, otherwise his father would not pay for his college education. So, Garrard enrolled.

(5) Needless to say, Garrard fell in love with some of the other program participants who reciprocally “fell in love” with him.

(6) The intention of the author of this book is to get rid of ex-gay therapies because of the obvious (and not so obvious) harm they do.

(7) Because Garrard agrees to go to LIA, he goes to a Presbyterian undergraduate college (sometimes referred to as a seminary), but the location of the college is not divulged.

(8) While at Presbyterian College, Garrard makes friends with Charles and Dominique (he and she) who are black non-believers but who are good gospel singers. Presumably Garrard identifies with them because, like himself, these two black roommates are socially outsiders.

(9) P. 164, Garrard kisses a male art student, named Caleb.

(10) LIA forces Garrard to make a list of his sins in an MI (Moral Inventory).

(11) P. 292, reference to The Firm, a movie produced by Sydney Pollack, that we know was based on a novel by John Grisham. (Louis previously did a Plot Summary of John Grisham’s Sycamore Row).

(12) P. 274, reference to Psycho, the film by Alfred Hitchcock (which by the way I have already reviewed when the prompt was “Drain”. In the movie, the victim’s blood is filmed as flowing down the shower drain, an unforgettable scene.

(13) P. 297, reference to Dorian Gray, a novel by Oscar Wilde.

(14) Pp. 318-9, Garrard ogles J lovingly again. That is, participants in the LIA program are assigned letters of the alphabet to identify them.

(15) This book was made into a film.

(16) Another student at the Presbyterian college is David. Garrard claims that David raped him and also another underage boy. And yet Garrard attends David’s Pentecostal church.

(17) Some LIA instructors are Brother Brandon, Danny Cosby, Brother Hank, Brother Nielson, Brother Stevens and Smid.

(18) P. 92, One of the instructors, Danny Cosby, reminded Garrard of Jeff Goldblum, a character in the movie Jurassic Park. Jeff Goldblum was the skeptical guess of John Hammond and got his leg broken by a rampaging dinosaur.

(19) Back when Garrard was 15 years old, he was paired off with a girl named Chloë. Garrard’s parents expected he would marry her eventually. Garrard tried but failed to have sex with Chloë because, for obvious reasons, he was just not interested.

(20) P. 333, Love in Action was a subsidiary of Exodus International which has since gone out of business (in 1995), and, when they went out of business, they apologized for all the damage they had caused.

© 9 April 2018

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA's. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

Time and Preparation, by Gillian

This grungy old green tote bag I schlep all my junk in every Monday came as a gift from The Denver Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security when, about ten years ago, I took a class rather grandiosely titled CITIZEN EMERGENCY RESPONSE TRAINING. It was actually pretty basic, but it did inspire me to a certain basic level of preparedness. No, Betsy and I are not about to go and live in a cave in the wilderness where we have hauled enough supplies for a year, accompanied by enough guns and ammo to fight off the hungry hordes who failed to prepare. But I do believe, especially in these uncertain times, a little planning is worthwhile.

And no, I don't lose sleep worrying over alien invasions (from this planet or any other) or, where we live, floods. Earthquakes and tornadoes are always possible but not huge threats right here. My main concern is our infamous Grid. I fear The Grid could easily fail us. Natural disasters or computer hackers could equally easily bring it down. And no, I don't necessarily mean the real Doomsday scenario in which one big sector comes down which in turn overloads the next until the entire country, or the whole continent, is without power. It probably could happen, but it is beyond the scale of any preparations I plan to make for survival.

Remember the panic over The Millennium? Computers were going to crash so nothing would work: no power, no gas, no groceries? That's very much my vision of life without The Grid. Very little will work. How easily we forget, when we have all those things, our degree of dependence upon The Grid. We've all sat through power outages of a couple of hours; maybe even a couple of days. It really is miserable. We cannot get out of the habit of anything and everything being available at the flick of a switch or the turn of a knob, or more likely the tap of a key. And it's all gone.

My worst-case survival preparation is a month without power. It's not too hard to envision damage to The Grid severe enough that it takes a month to bring it back up. We have enough bottled water and canned food to stretch, very meagerly, for three or four weeks. We have sleeping bags in the basement, which retains a pretty even temperature so we shouldn't burn up in a summer emergency or freeze in mid-winter. We have wind-up flashlights and a lantern - irritating because of the continuous cranking required but good enough until we can replace the inevitably dead batteries in the good lights. And we do have a good supply of batteries. We have endless books for entertainment in the daylight hours, along with playing cards and board games. We have a camp stove with a couple of fuel bottles, so we could heat up food or water, if only occasionally. We have cash - very well hidden so don't even think about it! - because even if any supplies are to be had we clearly will not be able to use credit cards. What we do not have is those guns and ammo the TV survivalists always display, so if we get to the stage of starving marauders breaking and entering I fear we're doomed. Other than that, I'd say we've got a pretty good chance.

When I took that class, it was quite apparent that most of us were Seniors. Who among the young people have time even to think about surviving for a month without power, never mind taking time actually to prepare for such a thing. Good preparation in fact usually saves time in the long run, but most young people find it hard to concentrate on that long run. When we're young we wing it; fly by the seat of our pants. It takes time to prepare and in youth time is scarce - or at least that's how it seems.

As I age I find preparation increasingly important, you might say vital. Fortunately, in retirement I have time for it. I schedule my cups of tea very carefully so that, with a little luck, I will not have to scuttle to the bathroom in the middle of Act One. Before our month-long road trip last year we each had a 'staging area' to collect everything we needed to take with us. This has to be a large area of floor where things can be spread out, so we can check and recheck what we have already placed there. Things cannot be put in the car or into the suitcase because we can't remember what we've packed and spend days or weeks packing and unpacking and repacking.

I never go the grocery store without a carefully prepared list - even if it only has one item on it. If I go without that piece of paper I shall return home with seventeen things I bought in case we're out but I can't remember. The thing I won't have is the one thing I went for in the first place.

Old age is a full-time job!

Problem is, preparation doesn't always work. Just last Monday I carefully gathered up all library items which needed to be returned on my way to The Center, remembered to put my library card with them to check out new books, placed everything in a tote bag which I put right in front of the door into the garage so I couldn't possibly forget it. Come time to leave I picked up the bag and went into the garage. There I remembered my other bag, this old green one I talked about earlier, was still sitting on the table with my story in it. I put down the library bag, went back into the kitchen for the Storytime bag, into the car and I was off! Only as I drove past the library did I remember the bag left sitting on the garage floor.

I fear that our careful emergency prep will fail if ever put to the test. We've hidden the cash so carefully that neither of us will remember where it is and no amount of searching will turn it up.

Our arthritic fingers will be too weak to open any of the cans with the old manual opener, ditto any screw-tops. We might be able to manage the water, but it's stored in carcinogenic plastic bottles so by then will probably kill us.

The fact is that time is running out and no amount of preparation can stop it. I don't find that depressing; I find it deeply relaxing. It relieves an awful lot of pressure. So I'll try to get the list right before I go to the store, and I'll try to return my library books on time. But if I don't, the world will not tilt on it's axis or turn to blue cheese. I have finally found how to live in the now.

© January 2018

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

My Happiest Day, by Betsy

First of all. What’s happy? Until I define what happy is for me, I cannot begin to address the question of what was my happiest day. So I click on the dictionary on my dock. Happy: feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. This is not much help. Feeling and Showing are two different things—entirely different. And pleasure and contentment are equally different from one another. So which is it? Never mind. I’ll tackle the question from another angle.

I suppose the day I was born may have actually been my happiest day because if I hadn’t been born, there would have been no happy days—zero, zilch. Contemplating this I realize that something was missing in order for my entrance into the world to make me happy; namely, awareness. One must be aware—conscious—of a situation in order to qualify it. Further, to qualify it in the superlative one must have other experiences, situations, with which to compare.

Another problem with defining my happiest day is that my memory is not good enough for me to remember my degree of happiness in some distant time of my life. Nevertheless, allow me to take a chronological journey beginning with birth in my quest to pick out, well, maybe a few of my happiest days.

At 9 hours of age I was extremely happy, probably desperately happy, to have a nipple stuck in my mouth. I was desperately hungry. No conscious awareness there, just survival instinct. So that doesn’t qualify.

Nine months old—same thing—food and milk. Enter the smiling face looking at me and the cuddling and love I am feeling from my parents. I must be very happy. Look at me I’m laughing.But again there is little or no understanding, so I cant really qualify my feelings.

Nine years old and I have definitely learned the difference between happy and not happy. There are lots of things that make me happy now. Alas, though, today 70 plus years later I cannot bring back the feeling. I just know I probably was happy sometimes. But happiest eludes me. Again it’s just a memory—a pleasant memory, but still a memory.

Twenty nine, thirty nine. Yes that’s it! The birth of my children. Certainly three of the happiest events of my life. Forty nine, acknowledging my true self and coming out of the closet. I don’t remember that being my happiest day. It was a difficult time. Happiness and resolution being the result. Approaching 79 my wedding day to the love of my life, but then we had already been together and happy for nearly 30 years. That day did also represent the triumph of a political movement of which we had been a part. Certainly qualifies as one of my happiest days. But again, THE happiest? No way to measure.

All these nines— all the way up to seventy nine, I still cannot honestly say “without a doubt I remember my happiest day.”

One of my favorite spiritual guides, Ekhart Tolle says the past is an illusion because it, that is the memory, is a creation of our mind. It is no longer happening—it is no longer a reality. The only reality is the NOW.

Aha! I think I’ve got it! This exercise in contemplating my happiest day has brought me to one conclusion: my happiest day is NOW, this moment in time. It’s quite clear to me really. Now is the only thing that is real and I am a part of it. I am here, alive, conscious and aware and participating in life. THIS is my happiest day.

© 31 October 2016

About the Author

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

What Gillian Did for Love, by Betsy

When I started thinking about this topic, all that came to mind were things that my spouse Gill had done for love. A big one being giving up her cat. When we first got together back in the 1980’s she had a cat named “Smokey.” I’ve always been allergic to cats. Being in their presence brings on sometimes serious breathing problems, like not being able to get enough air into my lungs. As time went on and I made more and more visits to her house in Lyons, I became increasingly sensitive to the cat allergen to which I was exposed. It was particularly bad in bed because the cat climbed a lot on the drapes which were hanging on the window at the head of the bed. Putting the cat out of the room did not help the situation—the dander left behind by the cat remains in the room. And in this case close to where I was breathing during the night.

Finally one night the situation became quite desperate and Gill had to get up in the middle of the night and drive to Longmont to get an inhaler for me so I could breath.

What I did for love during that time was to continue the weekend visits to Lyons and avoid suffocation by using an inhaler.

Later when we decided to live together, what she did for love was to say goodbye to Smokey and turn her over to a friend. The choice finally had to be made: Smoky the cat or Betsy the girl friend.

© 16 November 2015

About the Author

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

My Favorite Childhood Hero, by Ray S

The Millennials have their “E” social network. The “Hip” generation had its rebellion and protests and rock and roll. The Baby Boomers had post-war back to the normalcy of the establishment, the Eisenhower years, Big Bond Era, “Leave It to Beaver” and “Ozzie and Harriet.”

So much as I’ve tried, it has been with “tremendous” (a Trumpian term) effort that I have been able to resurrect any memory of my onetime childhood, much less a hero.

I am of a time influenced and resulting from the inventions of Thomas Edison, Alex G. Bell, and Mr. Marconi. By the time I arrived on the scene all of these scientific advances were well established, in the early 20th C. So instead of TV or the internet, I lived in a world of radio and black and white moving pictures, including “talkies” by the 30’s.

“Heroes”, depending on your interpretation of the term, lived in the air waves. Little Orphan Annie and her dog Sandy every weekday at 5:45, just after Jack Armstrong—the All American Boy. Jack didn’t thrill me, but secretly I did wonder about Annie’s beau, John Corntassel.

There were a bunch of potential heroes on serials like Mary Marlin, Mr. Keen, Trurser of Last Persons, John’s Other Wife, and One Man’s Family. Life was so much more exciting in never never radio land with Ovaltine, Wheaties, The Singing Lady, and the Lux Radio Theater.

Then there was Saturday afternoon at the Roxy to catch the continuing serials: Tom Mix, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Flash Gordon, etc.

Sundays I was sometimes deposited at the little movie house in the next door village when they were going out and just had to get me out from underfoot. Then I danced the afternoon with Fred and Ginger as we all flew “Down to Rio.”

All of this “KULTUR” may have been stultifying for a young child, but it made for some character framing personality that is hard to erase once imprinted on the psyche.

Still no specific childhood hero or heroes—unless you count the moment I discovered how I would like to be Randolph Scott.

© 26 March 2018

About the Author

Pet Peeves, by Phillip Hoyle

The home my wife and I made included kids and several pets. When the kids were out of elementary school there were three notable additions to the household: a terrapin that loved fresh strawberries, a white rat that doubled its size from nine inches to a nine inch body plus a nine inch tail, and a white rabbit I told my daughter and her boyfriend who gave it to her for Christmas, “How nice. It will be fully grown for Easter dinner.” Long before that rabbit ran away and procreated with the cottontails that lived in the woods, we had Marcie, a mostly black miniature French poodle one of the support staff at the church gave us. Myrna and I brought Marcie to our Wichita, Kansas, home to provide a pet for our children, then ages three and five.

Marcie was a hit. The kids adored her as did Myrna and I. She had an outgoing, enthusiastic personality and loved to play. We had a fenced-in back yard where she could run and where the kids could chase her or encourage her to chase them. She was a fine complement to the family. Myrna, though, was a little more conservative than the rest of us about the prospect of an animal in the house. She’d grown up on a farm where dogs and cats lived out of doors, helped bring in livestock, and controlled the ever-plentiful pest population. But when the weather was bad little Marcie wanted to be indoors. She was allowed to stay in the back entryway. We closed the door to the office, but the opening to the kitchen had no door. We were amused at how she’d come up to the threshold, wag her tail, and look like an under-privileged child. (Well, you know how pet owners so often attribute human qualities to pets.) She’d look happy. She started lying on the floor with her head resting on the threshold. So cute. A day or two later she put her front paws on the threshold and laid her head on them. She’d look sad. Then she rested the front half of her friendly little body on the threshold. So hard to resist. Then she begin sitting on the threshold looking adorable. I laughed at her antics, somewhat like an American version of the Arab story about the camel that during a storm first stuck its head into the tent and eventually, due to the Arab’s empathy over weather and his camel’s needs, took over the tent, the man sitting outside in the weather. Marcie entertained me with her astute training of us humans to be humane toward her, that tiny fluff ball of doggie wisdom and energy.

She hadn’t yet made it to the point of sharing our beds, but nearly so when we knew we were going to move to Texas. We took her to Colorado to give her to some of Myrna’s in-laws before we had to pack and leave. She moved in with a family that was even more responsive to her educational ways. Had she been a writer, she surely would have written to say, “See, I made a perfectly fine house dog.” She did seem to be in charge of the whole place in her new home.

We moved into a Texas apartment that allowed no pets. Still we visited Marcie over the years, saw her hair turn silver, and eventually heard of her death at the end of good life entertaining her owners. No peeves on my part, just fond memories of a few pets.

© 7 May 2018

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

Springtime and Suicide, by Pat Gourley

It is well documented that suicides spike in the spring and then again in the fall but less so. A popular myth is that it is the holiday season when suicide is most likely but this is simply not the case. As to why this happens in the spring is pretty much speculation with one theory being that it is all the pollen in the air that is the root of this increase. This rather sketchy theory suggests that the increase in pollen causes an increase in inflammation and this leads to irritability and suicidal ideation I guess. I would suggest that further study is needed or perhaps more Claritin. file://localhost/. https/::www.cnn.com:2016:05:16:health:suicide-rates-spike-in-spring:index.html

“Many who drive their own lives to help others often realize that they do not change what causes the need for their help.” David Buckel - from the NYT 4/14/2018

The above sentence is from the suicide note left by David Buckel the well known LGBTQ rights lawyer who self immolated himself in a Brooklyn park early on Saturday (4/14/2018) morning. I must admit I had never heard of David Buckel but he is perhaps most well know for his work on the Brandon Teena murder, a transgender person from Nebraska. Buckel was the lead attorney in a case that found a Nebraska county sheriff guilty of liable in Teena’s murder. Hilary Swank played Teena in the 1999 movie Boys Don’t Cry for which she won an Oscar.

David Buckel also was a prominent activist in several other areas of LGBTQ rights particularly in the area of marriage equality. For the past ten years however his focus was environmental issues and he was the moving force behind a major recycling/composting effort in the Brooklyn area.

Quoting further from his suicide note per the NYT:

“Pollution ravages out planet, oozing inhabitability via air, soil, water and weather …Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuel, and many die early deaths as a result – my early death by fossil fuels reflects what we are doing to ourselves.”

I have been unable to find the entire suicide note as of today but this is a further piece of the note in addition to those quotes above:

"I am David Buckel and I just killed myself by fire as a protest suicide," read a handwritten suicide note, according to the New York Daily News. "I apologize to you for the mess."

Despite the fact that there were 44,965-reported deaths by suicide in the United States in 2016 they often receive little press coverage and this may be out of legitimate concern for impulsive copycat action by others. The one thing that is hard for me to reconcile around David’s protest suicide is the anguish this is causing for his loved ones, co-activists and undeniably his partner of 34 years. I am not at all sure though that this pain and suffering should distract in any meaningful way from the power and perhaps even the legitimacy of his protest.

Many of us may have first heard of suicide by self-immolation by Buddhist monks in Viet Nam. Visual images of these acts were certainly a slap in the face to me to wake up to the unbelievable tragedy that war was. More recently the self-immolation again by Buddhist monks this time in Tibet as a form of protest to Chinese genocide continues. There have been at least 148 reported suicides in this manner by Tibetans since 2009.

Deaths from the potential catastrophic effects of climate change may far out strip deaths from all the wars in human history. Apparently roll backs to climate protections by the Trump administration and in particular by that selfish weasel Scott Pruitt had been causing David Buckel considerable consternation.

I do hope this raw and powerful form of protest on his part will not detract but rather enhance the legacy of this great gay hero. Though he was definitely a strong and successful proponent for issues of marriage equality and Trans rights maybe his last ten years and death are pointing us toward even more important issues facing all of humankind including the LGBTQ communities.

Though this has been perhaps the most painful piece I have written for Story Telling I’d like to close with just a few more paraphrased words from David’s suicide note, words for me personally to ponder: “Privilege is derived from the suffering of others”.

This a link to NYT article on David’s suicide – one of many I have read this past weekend and referred to in this piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/nyregion/david-buckel-brooklyn.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

© April 2018

About the Author

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

Springtime for Hitler, by Louis Brown

Synopsis

Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp With Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden is a fictional musical in Mel Brooks's 1967 film The Producers, [1] as well as the stage musical adaptation of the movie, [2] and the 2005 movie adaptation of the musical. It is a musical about Adolf Hitler, written by Franz Liebkind, an unbalanced ex-Nazi played by Kenneth Mars (then by Brad Oscar and Will Ferrell in the stage musical and the 2005 film respectively).

The play starts with the musical number, "Springtime for Hitler." Accompanied by dancing stormtroopers, who at one point form a Busby Berkeley-style swastika, [2] the play immediately horrifies everyone in the audience except the author, and one lone viewer who breaks into applause—only for the latter to get pummeled by other disgusted theatergoers. As the audience begins to storm out of the theater, the first scene starts, with L.S.D. dressed up in full Nazi uniform and talking like a beatnik. The remaining audience starts to laugh, thinking that it is a satire, and those that had left return to the theater.

Franz, disgusted, goes behind the stage, unties the cable holding up the curtain and rushes out on stage, confronting the audience and ranting about the treatment of his beloved play. During his diatribe, there is a clank as someone strikes through the curtain, apparently with a pipe or hammer, hitting the steel Wehrmacht helmet that he's wearing. A moment later, in mid-rant, he exclaims "OW!" and falls over. The play continues, and the audience assumes that his performance was part of the act.

The play gets rave reviews, ensuring its success (and the conviction of the producers when the fraudulent financing is discovered).

My reaction to this movie: the best scene is the dance scene in which the Nazi storm troopers do a dance routine reminiscent of dancing girls in Las Vegas or the Rockettes. They throw flowers and kisses at the audience. The monster tough guys do “girlish things,” which, in the male chauvinist rule book, is verboten, it is humiliating. Of course, that is what makes good satire, good farce and an unusually good spoof. The movie is hilarious and well written and produced.

Some notes on New York City and State

The Stony Point Center is a Presbyterian religious retreat center. I have been there several times without realizing that it was also a center for liberal and pro-gay Christian organizing. The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship has its headquarters here, and Chris Glaser does lesbian and gay positive Christian retreats here. He leads the gay Presbyterian periodical More Light Update. I wish the West had something similar. MCCR once held a religious retreat weekend at Sisters of Saint Francis. Maybe we could start organizing more gay and Lesbian positive activities there, and equivalent to the Stony Point Center back east in New York.

The pastor of MCC New York is Reverend Pat Bumgardner, Rev. Bumgardner was a Catholic nun formerly. She is religiously zealous, very pro-gay rights and she is a Lesbian. She is also an intelligent organizer. About ten years ago she arranged for Metropolitan Community Church to offer space and time for gay and Lesbian Muslims in New York City to organize. About five years ago, a gay Mosque has come into being. I wonder if this was a “Post hoc ergo propter hoc.”

© 16 April 2018

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA's. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

Springtime, by Gillian

In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours. 

- Mark Twain

And I thank you for that, Mr. Twain. Thanks for telling it like it is - that Springtime is a sneaky, unpredictable little critter full of unpleasant surprises. T. S. Eliot wrote of April being the cruelest month, but most poets wax lyrical over the 'rebirth' that is the Spring, but they tell only half the story. More reliable is the old adage that if March comes in like a lamb it goes out like a lion, or vice versa. The old folks, tied much more closely to the seasons than many of us today, knew just how unreliable Springtime can be. In the England of my childhood those April showers so romantically trilled about in song had a bad habit of coming in one long shower beginning shortly after the New Year and ending temporarily for a few days in late July.

Arriving in sunny Colorado in 1965, I was welcomed by a seemingly endless Fall of clear days under a deep blue sky. Then, suddenly, one day winter arrived and the weather remained pretty cold and snowy for a couple of months, then suddenly one day the temperatures shot well above seventy and stayed there. The birds sang, early daffodils and tulips poked out their heads, buds appeared on the trees. Spring, I believed, had arrived. Wrong! A huge cold front moved in, temperatures plummeted, blossoms froze, flowers struggled to breath under three feet of snow. Of course, I now know that that is standard Springtime procedure around here, but that first year of my Colorado life it sure did take me by surprise. That 'Springtime in the Rockies' that we sang about in grade-school was even more given to shock and trauma than that Springtime in England so beloved of poets.

Contained in the lyrics of the Simon and Garfunkel song, A Hazy Shade of Winter, is a reference to 'the springtime of my life'. I somehow missed mine; at least the first time around. Not surprising; I was stuck in that hazy shade of winter. Not that I was unhappy in the first four decades of my life, before I came out to myself. I just wasn't there, which hardly lends itself to happiness or unhappiness. There was someone playing my part, but I didn't care whether she was happy or not. She was not me and so signified nothing. And so I continued in that hazy shade until suddenly, about midsummer to continue the seasonal metaphor, I burst out into the sunshine - and entered my Springtime. I guess because I flunked the first one by my complete absence, I was forced to do it over. And I did not flunk this one. I blossomed. I bloomed. I unfurled my petals and felt the sun enfold me in it's warm caress. I felt no fear. I was free to discover my own true beauty and to display it to the world. Maybe there would be some cold rain, some damaging winds, maybe I would struggle to survive under a snow drift, but I would survive to thrive in the summertime of the new me.

And so I must apologize to all those poets and songwriters. They have it right. There really is a magic in the Springtime air. Ellis Peters writes that 'every spring is the only spring - a perpetual astonishment.' She describes, perfectly, my life since I came out; one of perpetual, breathtaking, astonishment at my joy in life.

Continuing in A Hazy Shade of Winter -

.... Look around
The grass is high
The fields are ripe
It's the springtime of my life
Seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry ......

And it occurs to me that one of the many blessings of aging is the ability to look back and see so clearly the seasons of our lives, and that time does, indeed, weave a tapestry; a tapestry design which we cannot see as we live it. Only when we look back does the picture become clear. We are finally able to see, and to revel in, our own life's tapestry.

© April 2018

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

Will O' the Wisp, by Betsy

Will o’ the wisp is a term I have never used—I have heard it, but never used it as I’ve never really in all honesty known what it means. I ponder. “Let’s see. What could it mean.” Maybe a wispy will, i.e., a wimpy will, or maybe, I’ m thinking, it just might be referring to fly-away wispy hair, you know, hair that has a will of its own.

Fortunately I have my trusty computer handy and I can go to wikipedia and look it up with no trouble at all and get an immediate answer to the question of the meaning of will o’ the wisp.

Then maybe I’ll have something to say about it. I’m not sure.

So I see that it refers to a ghostly, flickering light seen in bogs and swamps and marshes. It seems this ghostly light has an evil purpose; that is, to draw people from safe pathways.

When I think of swamps and bogs in relation to my life experiences, one thing comes immediately to mind. In 1950 when I was almost fifteen years old, my family was forced to make a major change in our living situation. We lived in New Jersey in a town called Mt Lakes, a rather idyllic place to live. Mt. Lakes had a small mountain and two lakes. I enjoyed a lake in my back yard and a woods in my front yard. I walked to school, played in my boat, rode my bike, skated on the frozen lake in the winter. Life was good in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. My parents were happy there, too.

One day because of changes in my father’s business we had to leave Mt. Lakes and start living in Louisiana. I knew nothing about Louisiana at the time, but when I learned I would be living there I sought as much information as I could about the new place that would be my home.

One of the first things I learned was that Louisiana is a swampy place. I discovered that bit of information first because my father explained that some of the trees he would be cutting for his lumber mill would come from the swamps. He would be harvesting cypress trees and cypress trees grow in swamps.

I was not happy about going to such a place. I don’t like dark, dank, watery places that harbor slimy creatures such as snakes and alligators. I am especially afraid of snakes, poisonous or not. Never mind, I said, I’m not going into any swamps. I’ll just have to stay on the high ground in the town where we would be living.

I felt, on the one hand, a bit of excitement about moving to a completely different place. But on the other hand, I did feel I was being drawn from the safe, predictable pathway I had been on for the first fourteen years of my life. I was not happy about leaving my friends, my school, my lake, my woods, and all the things around me I had grown to love. No ice skating in Louisiana. It’s hot there and buggy too.

It turns out that my life in Louisiana was not so different from my life in New Jersey. I had many wonderful friends, I liked my school, and I never had to go wading through the swamp. Instead I enjoyed spending time with my friends in boats on the many rivers in our area and doing the kinds of things high school kids do. I had a fairly normal existence in my last three years of high school in Louisiana. However, immediately after high school I went back up north to attend college. I definitely did not want to stay in that part of the world.

That ghostly light actually did eventually draw our family from its safe pathway. My family consisted of my mother, my father, my older brother and younger sister. After 5 years in Louisiana, my mother developed cancer and succumbed at the age of 47 after 2 years of suffering. My brother stayed in Louisiana, married a local woman and had 3 children before he, too, developed brain cancer and died at the age of 29 a few months before his fourth child was born.

It is said that Louisiana is in the “cancer belt.” Perhaps because of the toxins in the wind that blows east from the Texas oil refineries. The area where we lived is located between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. This area on the Mississippi River formerly known as the “petrochemical corridor” is also known as “Cancer Alley.” Louisiana has the 2nd highest cancer rate in the U.S. Our home was not on the river, but located close to cancer alley

Fortunately my father who stay in the area, survived into his 70’s. My sister left after high school to live in Alabama. She is still living.

It turns out that the term will o’ the wisp does have meaning for me. Not a very joyful meaning even though living in Louisiana was not unpleasant for me. The experience opened my eyes and greatly expanded my view of the world. I learned about a culture and a way of life and attitudes that were totally different from what I knew in my closed, protected, homogeneous community of Mt. Lakes. I was exposed to the real world in Louisiana. Leaving the safe pathway it turns out had an enlightening effect. Although I only lived there for three years before I went off to college, those years were formative years and very important years. I am not totally ungrateful for being lured to the swamp by that will o the wisp.

© 26 February 2018

About the Author

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

Gym 3, by Ricky

(A tale of 3 “gyms”)

Gym1

It was in early June 1956, when I was banished (due to divorce proceedings) from California and sent to Minnesota to live with my grandparents on their farm. I had just turned 8 years old on the 9th. At the time, I expected to be gone for only the summer; but it turned into a 2 year “prison sentence” away from home and “loving” parents.

I shared a room and bed with my uncle, Dixon, who was 11 in December of 1955 and 11 ½ by June of '56; and about to enter 6th grade, while I was looking at starting 3rd grade. Due to that traumatic spanking I received when only 4 or 5, I was extremely shy and reluctant to let anyone see me dressing, undressing, in my underwear, or bathing; and would “pitch a fit” if someone tried. Of course, I couldn't do much when Grandma bathed me the first two times in the summer kitchen's galvanized “wash tub” because I hadn't washed all the dirt off by myself. I quickly learned to do that however. I was dirty because farm life is not soil free and baths were only on Saturday nights to be fresh for church on Sunday. I had to use my uncle's used bathwater so perhaps I never really got clean.

When school began, my uncle, who by then knew from personal experience of my extreme reactions to any attempt to breach my “modesty”, began to tell me about having to take showers naked with other boys present after gym classes beginning in 6th grade. Daily school showers were a necessity back then as most farms did not have indoor plumbing and once a week bathing on the farm just wasn't sufficient in a close social environment. Pubescent boys smell as they perspire during gym activities and recess playtime.

As a result of my uncle's teasing about showering naked with other boys, I began to develop a fear of 6th grade, even though it was 3 school years away and I expected to return to California soon. The months of my exile passed and a new school year began and I realized that 6th grade was now closer than desired and my fear level increased but mostly ignored for the time being. Fortunately, I was given a reprieve and my “sentence” was commuted in late May of 1958 and I was taken back to California to live with my mother and her new husband.

When I began 5th grade at So. Lake Tahoe, I discovered that there were no showers after recess or any P.E. classes in elementary school, those being reserved and mandatory in high school only. I was able to put my fear and stress level on hold for 4 more years, while I got to “enjoy” the beginnings of puberty.

In September of 1962 I finally had to face my fear as I had finally arrived at high school and the dreaded after P.E. mandatory naked showers with other boys. By now, due to my well-established desire to see any boy naked, I no longer feared being naked among boys (or girls for that matter). What I was afraid of was having a spontaneous erection while showering, because at 14, I was still having random ones.

At school, they mostly struck when I was sitting in front of my 9th grade English teacher, Mrs. Joyce Holmstad. She wore low cut blouses and sat on the front edge of her desk (directly in front of me) and would often lean forward revealing to me (or maybe exposing to me) some bra and more than sufficient for erection purposes, cleavage. I always had to hide my crotch with books when I left at the end of the class period. But I digress from the gym. In all the four years of mandatory PE showers, no one ever got an erection that I could tell, and I certainly took every opportunity to look for one.

Gym2

Actually, gym2 is really Jim #1. I met Jim Robertson when he was 11 and I was 13. We became friends and he asked me to go to church with him one Sunday and we went for about one month until the pastor and his baby were killed in a car crash. I invited Jim to join Boy Scouts with me and he did. We were two of seven boys who ended up starting a new troop at So. Lake Tahoe. I taught him about sex and we became sex-playmates on sleep over nights but never did anything together during scout campouts. He ended up going to live with his aunt and, according to him, began to really enjoy sex with his female cousin.

Gym3

As you may have guessed, gym3 is really Jim #2. Jim Dunn was the son of a California highway patrolman and joined my scout troop when he was 12 and I was 14. He was taller than most boys his age and matched my height of 5' 11”. His hair was blondish and eyes a very nice shade of blue. I liked him for his looks and gentle personality. Strangely, I was never sexually attracted to him probably because he did not look “interested”. I was so naïve about that stuff.

As we aged and moved into Explorer Scouts, we shared a couple of experiences that should have tipped me off that he was interested in boy sex play but I never caught on. As an adult, I learned that he died early from AIDS.

That's all of my “gym” memories.

© 24 Oct 2011

About the Author

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

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

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

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

Empathy, by Phillip Hoyle

As a college student I learned a distinction between sympathy and empathy. The contrast arises from the two different Greek words. It also is influenced by psychoanalytic theory and practice. In most discussions empathy is considered to be more finely tuned than sympathy. As a minister I was called upon to do many tasks including hospital and care-home calls on members of the church. I did this work thoughtfully and, I believe, with sympathy, and on good days a measure of empathy! People liked my visits and humor. We laughed and prayed together.

In the church work I was motivated as much by duty as by sympathy and empathy. And I was appropriately trained to be helpful with patients and shut-ins. Apparently I provided sufficient care in my communications and mainly in the fact I showed up at all. Perhaps that is the way of it when one has too many people to serve.

The caring emotion for me occurred most clearly when I was in a hospital room with someone having a difficult time. I also noticed how my empathy was amplified when I liked the person, occasions in which other emotions and feelings added to what I was experiencing, for instance, the time an elder woman introduced me to her nephew when she and I were the only persons present made me wonder at the drugs the medics had given her for pain and the need to suppress a feeling of humor at the situation. (I was fine; she got better.)

I visited a good looking single young man who had a stubborn bone infection. I know that a sexual attraction increased my sense of his pathos. It alerted me to how others might prize him emotionally and their sense of fear surrounding his illness. My empathy extended to his family and friends. He eventually did recover after receiving loads of highly potent antibiotics.

Several times I visited an elder woman, very worldly and professional, with a bright personality and deep determination to recover from a major stroke. One day several weeks into treatment she appeared to have made a turn for the better. I was excited on her behalf and expressed how much better she looked. She tempered my enthusiasm, though, by saying, “Phillip, I finally felt up to putting on my makeup.” We laughed together. I said, “You are getting better.”

My empathy was sincere in all these cases yet certainly amplified by other emotions. And in all these visits I was present because I was a minister from their church.

One inactive church member, a real sot, was driving home from the VFW on an icy night and being rather drunk, crashed his car into the west entry to the church building. I didn’t see the car but did see the damage to the steps and more. The Sr. Minister, Jack, wasn’t sure what to do. I volunteered, “I’ll go to the hospital and see how he is.” I’d never met the man and really didn’t know much about alcohol or alcoholism. I went in simply as a visiting minister. “So they sent you,” he said eyes twinkling.

“Yeah. It’s my day to make the rounds,” I said to underplay the situation. I asked how he was doing. He said, “Fine,” and seemed totally sober at that point, perhaps from the trauma. I realized he might even feel ill at ease and said, “You just rest and recover.” I shook his hand, smiled saying, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, and don’t worry about the church stuff.” I may have visited him later, I have no recollection. I never saw him outside the hospital, certainly not in church. His collision with the front steps was no conversion.

Was I sympathetic or empathetic? I have no real idea. Years later as a massage therapist I felt empathy with most of my clients in their pains and diseases but not always in their gripes and in some of their expressed needs. I did smile often and sometimes cried. I mostly tried to deliver an effective massage and must have done that pretty well. Many of my clients came to me for over fourteen years. Perhaps I was sufficiently empathetic. And my real hope is that I was never just plain old pathetic in these contacts.

© 27 November 2017

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

The Truth Is, by Pat Gourley

The truth is I am a very lazy writer when it comes to putting fingers to keyboard and coming up with something for our weekly SAGE topics. I genuinely feel that my story, at least from a historical perspective, has pretty much been shared with the group. The format we use though has been very stimulating for remembering many past events and antics from my past particularly it seems from the 1960’s and 1970’s.

The truth is though I have much less to write about particularly from the mid 1980’s to the present. I seem to have experienced a diminution of involvement even in activities that seem to land right in front of me and ask for active participation on my part.

The truth is I am not exactly sure why this has happened but I can speculate I suppose. Maybe it is just a matter of getting older. I am getting older like it or not. As I rapidly approach my 70th birthday the truth is … that seems quite amazing to me. I know I am speaking to many folks here quite a bit older and am perceived by some of you as just a youngster. However, I do appreciate how remarkable it is really for someone infected with HIV in the early 1980’s to still be around and often griping about what are really first world problems. An example of a very vexing first world problem for me would be my bemoaning the fact that my neighborhood Whole Foods Market closed last fall and moved to LoDo. I mean really how I suffer so having only a King Soopers, a Safeway, a Trader Joe’s and a Natural Grocers all within easy walking distance.

The truth is I have been infected with HIV for at least 33 years, having tested positive in the summer of 1985. I strongly suspect though I came in contact with the virus and it set up shop in early 1981 making it 37 years, more than half of my life on Earth.

What is my secret to this longevity you may ask? Well the truth is I have no fucking idea. Beyond just maybe being one lucky son-of-a–bitch I can quickly rule out a few reasons right off the bat. It was most certainly not any sort of strong religious faith or conviction. I am an atheist and a half-assed Buddhist practitioner on my best days. Diet and exercise have always been important to me at least on an intellectual and philosophical level if not in my daily eating habits. Saturated fat and high dose sugar input in the form of gourmet ice creams indulged in freakishly often have done little I suspect in keeping my immune system in tip-top shape.

There is no doubt the HIV meds are the main reason I am still here and I do take them religiously. The truth is though that they are slowly accelerating many of the health problems driven by the dietary-fueled metabolic derangement so endemic in American life today with diabetes, stroke, dementia and heart disease being several prominent ones.

One possible current saving grace when it comes to my many dietary indiscretions is that the grocer closest to me is Trader Joe’s and their absolutely crappy ice cream selection. Talk about a first world problem, hey?

The truth is really when looking at my long-term HIV/AIDS survival that it is clearly related to my privilege. I am a white guy in a part of the world where the problems I face are really first world ones. I have been the beneficiary of many forms of privilege that have allowed me to coast for much of the past 37 years with relatively easy access to cutting edge HIV treatments and medications. That white privilege does unfortunately still play a huge role in HIV disease even today in the United States as reflected by the disproportional rate of new HIV infections. African American gay and bisexual men face a one–in-two chance of being infected in their lifetime. The same risk for white gay men is one in eleven. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/magazine/americas-hidden-hiv-epidemic.html

The truth is I am skating on pretty thin ice needing to continue toxic but necessary HIV chemotherapies and having numerous metabolic derangements undoubtedly accelerating my inevitable demise. So what keeps me going? Well not to in any way be pandering this group has been one. I find great solace in participating in a group whose existence is facilitated by the same organization I became involved with in 1976. The truth is where would I be without you?

© April 2018


About the Author

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