Month: July 2014

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Wisdom by Ray S.

In the 17th summer the rite of passage was upon me, slowly moving like a little boat with no oars – moving nevertheless.

We had only slept together once, without too much innovation, but I was certain I was in love. Then came the war and it wasn’t until after it that we could catch up about what life had exposed us to and what were we going to do with all of this newly acquired knowledge and especially the opportunities extended to us by our Uncle.

With little persuasion and renewed ardor I learned there was land between the great lakes and California, where the country dropped off into the ocean. Somewhere in the middle of the vast unknown a place with the romantic name of Colorado Springs floated at the foot of a mountain – Colorado what was that? He said, “follow me”.

We were roommates that 1st year of the higher education adventure and well on our way in search of wisdom.

My appointed advisor couldn’t go wrong after perusing my earlier academics with the direction to head for the nearby art center. It seemed so easy, like summer camp where all you did was have fun with paints and stuff. The Book learning on the other side of campus was the work.

Life drawing, introduction to medias, oil painting (acrylics hadn’t come on the scene yet). Design and advanced courses in practical arts. Interspersed with too much art history, a brief dalliance with a lovely older curator – a friendship that lasted long after graduation time.

Years later my greater understanding of all of that acquired wisdom came to the surface. Not just the doing of learning – I don’t mean to discount that reality, but the overview that comes from the passage of time and recognizing the wonder of the many experiences I had been exposed to. Seems to me that one can be so involved in the actual doing at the time that you aren’t aware of what is really happening to you. It all is taken for granted.

Those basic art classes were taught by none other than a successful all around artist & sculptor. The head of the school and art center was a world-renowned artist. An esteemed lithographer and teacher opened a door for me on a medium I had never even thought about; much less one I could acquire a working and creative knowledge of. I don’t think I was truly aware of the discovery and wonders of what he potentially guided me through until years later.

All of these men were established practicing artisans, but they had to have day jobs too. Most important they were our mentors.

Several years past, I came across the death notice of my artist/sculptor oil painting teacher. The listing of his accomplishments and works was remarkable to say the least. His legacy to the art world and society is acknowledged and respected.

Thumbing through at art dealer’s selection of prints and drawings one sunny spring morning I came across 2 small pages from an artist’s sketchbook. I was struck by the sureness and economy of line in the drawings. Not unlike those of Picasso. Nude couples in repose, thought provoking but not quite prurient. To my surprise and pleasure I discovered they were 2 original line drawings of my one time oil painting teacher. The long stored away memories of those student times flooded my thoughts – this time not of just the actual mechanics or doing them, but the afterglow, if you will, of all of the collateral WISDOM that resulted from that chapter in my book of life. Acquisition struck and followed.

The prints are at the framing studio now.

© June, 2014

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Weather or Not? It’s Too Darn Hot by Phillip Hoyle

I recall hearing the same weather adage used in different parts of the country as if it described a particular distinctive in each place. The adage: If you don’t like the weather, wait a few minutes; it will change. I first heard this saying in Kansas where the wind seemed always to blow. The constant wind seemed to be accompanied by fickle temperatures and varying precipitation, and sometimes even the wind changed by increasing, declining, or becoming a threatening vortex that threatened one’s property and life.

When as an adult I moved first to Texas, then Missouri, then New Mexico, then Colorado, and then Oklahoma, I heard the same claim. I’ve heard the adage spoken about atmospheric conditions in Ontario, Vermont, New York, California, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Surely the same is said in Wales, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. I suspect I’d hear it in Russia, China, and Bora Bora if I were to go to those places and understand their languages. Am I complaining about human complaining and sameness? Not really although we can get really boring.

What I am interested to say today is that I’ve learned more about myself by observing the weather in contrasting climates. For instance, while living in Mid-Missouri, a place with high humidity, wide seasonal changes in temperatures, and the same number of contrasting hot and cold fronts as the rest of the country, I would get headaches when the barometer plunged. Eventually the headaches became intense enough I would leave work, go home, take ibuprofen, and lie down to sleep. Within an hour I’d be just fine and return to work. A few years later I moved to dry, dry Albuquerque. I quit having the headaches, but eventually I noticed I’d have a change in mood when the barometer plunged. I was more fascinated than concerned. I’d never noticed any change of mood in my whole life being mostly sunny and hopeful and silly and laughing. The mood swing would last about one hour. For that I was thankful and eventually connected these events with the old headaches I’d had in Missouri. Finally I realized that in Missouri I constantly had sinus and Eustachian tube problems. The barometric change caused the headache that probably masked a mood change. In the dry air of New Mexico I liked having a simple mood change because I didn’t have to interrupt my work. I learned to take the ibuprofen anyway and within an hour or less my mood went back to generally sunny.

The new experiences did raise a question for me. I had observed my father’s increasing difficulties with depression as he aged. Was I in for the same? Thankfully, I have not yet experienced what he did, something I suppose relates to inheriting my mother’s positive outlook which surely arose from her brain chemistry. My dad’s health often challenged him; his heart attacks, the rare tic douloureux (trigeminal neuralgia) pain disease, spinal meningitis, and eventual stroke made life difficult. Depression was not surprising. Now I too have experienced depression, thankfully at a sub-clinical level. I take St. John’s Wort to good effect and when the barometer drops, sometimes double my dosage.

I have another weather query though. How does climate change affect the weather? Will global warming change the weather and one’s experience of its power? My experience suggests that one still suffers the weather wherever one lives; I say suffer because one has no real control of the weather. I also found that a change in my life from straight to gay seemed like a move to a much better climate. Overall, my life seemed enriched and often more fulfilling. My life seemed more authentically ‘me’ bringing thrills, insights, and a sense of rightness. Still the headaches, mood changes, and general challenges of life moved with me into this new authentic-feeling climate. You know what I mean; in summer it can still be too darn hot even if your baby is the same brand of gay as you!

© Denver, 2012

About the Author


Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen practicing massage, he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists and volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot


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When I Decided to Become a Nurse by Pat Gourley

I moved to Denver in December of 1972. One memory of our initial arrival in Denver has stuck with me for all of these years and I think of it every winter. I grew up in the Snow Belt of northwest Indiana and then at the age of 16 my family moved up north of Chicago so I was quite familiar with snowy winters. A scene we witnessed one snowing morning in Denver that December was a public works truck driving down the middle of Colfax avenue with two guys in the back shoveling I assumed a salt mixture out of the back of the truck onto the street. This seemed a very strange and funny way to address snow on the streets to us and we wondered if the city had any snowplows. This did not prove to be a deal breaker however and several of us close friends moved here anyway.

My first job was in the food service department at Craig Rehab Hospital in Englewood. That only lasted about six months and then I was soon employed, in the summer of 1973, on the inpatient psychiatric ward at what was then called Denver General Hospital. We were living at the time on Elati Street just behind the new Denver General Hospital building. I was hired as a Hospital Attendant, a bit of a fancier name for ‘Orderly’ I guess. All of the attendants on the unit were male and, except for me, conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War doing their community service. We were all male I assume to provide muscle to back up the all female R.N. staff. Despite being hired as “muscle” I distinctly remember three instances of getting my lights punched out by belligerent patients, one episode involving the smashing of a glass IV bottle over my head. IV bottles did not become plastic until years later.

The lasting impact of that job was not however a fist coming my way but came from the several great women I worked with. The ones who made the most lasting impression on me were R.N.’s. All were very dynamic women and my eventual philosophy of nursing was greatly shaped by these dynamic women. Several of these nurses were actually involved in a lawsuit in the early 1970’s asking that women get equal pay for equal work. They unfortunately lost that suit with the Judge actually saying in his decision that to give women equal pay for equal work would be much to disruptive to the very fabric of society.

I went from inpatient psychiatry after two years to a street alcohol detox unit down at 17th and Blake, years before it became the high-end LoDo neighborhood it is today. This street facility was pre-Denver Cares. We had ten detox beds and allowed a three-day stay to get sober with a more extended rehab-option of one month I think in our upstairs dorm. Most of the guys would leave for day labor and I suspect most often a little nip of this or that. Those who stayed behind were often subjected to lectures I pulled together on the health effects of too much alcohol with tobacco still getting a free ride back then.

This was frontier medicine at its best. No air conditioning, poor ventilation and only ten beds that really only filled up when the weather was bad. We usually did not call an ambulance until the third withdrawal seizure. Oh and we were right next-door to a liquor store. In the winter the predominately men on the streets were always hustling us for change to be able to buy a “wine-blanket” to make it through the night.

I converted my TB test in those days and ended up on meds for about a year. Relax; any cough today is not TB but just phlegm. This again was probably related to the lousy ventilation in the place. The back dorm room did have a window but to keep that open was to invite folks to crawl in or out. Also the window looked out on a vacant lot often the scene of raucous parties with small fires and occasionally the roasting of a stray dog over the fire for a late night meal.

All the guys we took in had to be at least a few hours out from their last drink. We started with stripping off their most often very funky clothes and getting them to shower with Kwell lotion and then into hospital garb. The issuing of hospital pajamas often, but not always, slowed down the urge to escape after sobering up and the shakes started to set in. The relatively few women, on what was then called skid row, would be taken to the hospital for detox.

The nurse I worked with on the evening shift, 1500-2300, was an old army nurse who drove up from Colorado Springs named Ruth. She sat at the desk facing the street with a bench on its side blocking the door to keep rowdy drunks out often trying to bum one of the endless cigarettes she chained smoked on the job – this was 1975 remember. One particularly warm summer night we had a drive by shooting. The bullet missed Ruth and the rest of us inside but I can still hear her yelling to hit the deck because of the incoming fire. The gunfire was most certainly meant for someone on the street and we were just unfortunately in the way of someone who was obviously a lousy shot.

These were also my peak coming out years and I was in no mood to take shit off straight assholes but guys still drunk did call me a fairy on more than one occasion. Our clients were often very polite and non-threatening when sober. Sweet guys lots of them really. So, despite the homophobia, having to dispose of lice infested smelly clothing, the positive TB test, getting my lights punched out on occasion, helping still often drunk men shower (nothing fun about that really!), Ruth’s endless chain smoking, another older male attendant who said he preferred taking a good shit any day to sex, and the crappy pay for nurses I decided to throw caution to the wind and enrolled in the University of Colorado School of Nursing in 1976. It only took two years to get my bachelor’s degree since I had already accumulated well over 120 hours of semester credit at the University of Illinois much of it in the sciences. No degree though to show for it, I simply could not fit that in with antiwar demonstrations, the support of Caesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers union, the occasion anti-war riot and endless picketing and leafleting. Oh and of course a fair amount of sex, drugs and rock and roll didn’t help either.

So with much encouragement from the several very strong female R.N.’s in my life I decided to become a nurse in the spring of 1976 and the rest is history. To this day I can be found on many a Tuesday or Thursday working a 12 hour shift in a local Urgent Care Unit with I might add a bunch of great nurses mostly still women.

© March 2014  

About the Author

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