Month: December 2014

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From God to Santa Claus by Gillian

If you grew up when most of
us here did, in the nineteen-thirties or ‘forties, practically every figure of
influence and power, from God to Santa Claus, was male. Oh sure there was Mom,
and maybe some other female family members; even possibly a teacher, nurse, or
some kind of social worker in the traditionally female nurturing/caring roles.
But the police, firemen, ministers, lawyers, doctors, drivers, sports figures,
business owners, politicians, bankers, musicians and artists, etc etc, were
almost exclusively male, with one or two rare exceptions.
When today’s topic of The
Women in My Life came up, I expected to bore you all some more with ravings
about My Beautiful Betsy – and not that she is not deserving of it – but a
couple of weeks ago the topic Sports brought me to a different approach. Many
women talked about the bond they had developed with their fathers over sports.
Or maybe it was the bond they had developed with sports through their fathers!
And not to denigrate father-daughter relationships, but I was struck by the
lack of mothers or even grandmothers. They simply did not figure. They were not
there. So I am going to talk about the leitmotif which seems to have followed
me – Women (not) in My Life.
I have written before about
my mother, but in case anyone has been woefully remiss and not memorized every
word I’ve ever written, I’ll repeat it briefly as she was the first woman who
was not in my life; not in the way I wanted and needed her to be, at least.
There was some unidentifiable something that came between us. It left a
gap; a space. She wasn’t with me. Children intuit things but cannot
possibly explain them, even to themselves. Much later in my life, a
psychiatrist interpreted this all for me and I think she had got it right. It feels
right to me.
In my teens my aunt told me
my parents had had two children who died before I was born. At ages I think two
and three, they died of meningitis in 1940. My mother, the therapist
postulated, could not bare the prospect of a repeat of such pain, so she didn’t
allow herself to be as close to me as she doubtless would have been otherwise.
That explained so much. I loved my mother and she loved me. I was never in
doubt of that, but nevertheless she was, in some sense, not in my life.
As far back as I can
remember, decades before I came out even to myself, I have always been in love
with some female figure in my life. Only one at a time. Even in my fantasy
world I was seriously, if serially, monogamous. They were wonderful friends but
were never in my life the way I wished they were; needed them to be. Of
course I only recognized this at some deeply buried subliminal level, so I
didn’t even give them the chance to be what I only dreamed of. Those with whom
I am still in contact were, when I told them of my long-ago love, flattered
rather than horrified. I seem to have chosen wisely, these women who were not
in my life!
I don’t think I have ever
met a lesbian who was not at some stage in love with her gym teacher. I am no
exception. But I was a pudgy un-athletic child who did not impress her at all.
I played on the high school
field hockey and tennis teams only because it was a very small school requiring
all hands to the wheel. I enjoyed both, probably mostly due to my infatuation,
lapping up her gentle criticism as I would have praise from my other teachers.
When she married the geography teacher I was broken hearted, but then she never
was really in my life.
Growing up in England, I had
certain female role models absent in the U.S. When I was nine, the king died
and Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne. She’s been there ever since and seems,
as I’m sure it must to Prince Charles, destined to live forever. Previous
queens, Elizabeth the First and Victoria, lived long and reigned well. Women in
power were nothing new. But they had been born to it. That’s the only way you
get there! You don’t think, as a “commoner” in Britain, maybe I
should work towards being queen when I grow up!
Maggie Thatcher, of  course, did spring from common stock. I could
admire the position she had; the power she had taken. But her politics were not
mine. The family I had still remaining in Britain despised her. She was a role
model in some sense, perhaps, but she was not in my life: nor would I want her
to be.
Even the musicians and
artists of the day were overwhelmingly male. Come on, I know you can rattle off
half a dozen world-famous male landscape or portrait painters. How many women
can you name?
Ah, but the times they are
a-changing!
In 1970 only 10% of doctors
in the U.S. were women. Now the number is over 30%, with women making up half
of the students in Medical School. The percentage of women in the legal
profession these days is much the same. After the recent mid-term election,
there will be more women in Congress than ever before. (One of the few good
things to come from that election, sadly) There is no longer any shortage of
women athletes. When I grew up, we would have considered it a joke if anyone
had prophesied that within our lifetimes we would watch women’s teams competing
in soccer, and all the way up to the Olympics. Coaching is rather a different
story. Many women, in teams or in individual sports, employ male rather than
female coaches, something I find hard to understand. Many in individual sports
are coached by their fathers, but only occasionally by mothers. And as for
women coaching men, well……. But there are a few examples even of that, one
very notable. Brit. tennis champion Andy Murray, winner of Wimbledon and an
Olympic gold medal, was originally coached by his mother and is currently
coached by Amelie Mauresmo, an openly lesbian French tennis champion. Some
changes are slow in coming. Women currently hold only 5% of Fortune 500
companies’ CEO positions. But it will come. Hard as the Republicans might try
to push women’s rights back into the Dark Ages, I cannot believe they will
succeed. We have come too far and fought too long to go back now.
I feel the loss of the many
women (not) in my life, but they are in fact still with me, if in some cases only
in memory, and the relationship I have with them now is genuine, real, in a way
it never could be before. One of the women I was madly in love with for years,
remains my closest friend as she has been for almost fifty years. We love each
other like sisters and there are no longer all those confused emotions on my
part to complicate our love. My mother is still with me. She always will be. I
hear her chuckle at some silliness – she had a great sense of humor. And now at
least I have a little understanding of the flaw in our relationship, and the
reason for it, I accept that it was not about me, so I am free of the
many negative, confused, emotions it once visited upon me.
My latest loss of a female
is that of Brunhilda! She, as most of you know, was our VW camper van which we
drove over 100,000 miles around this country. She, Betsy, and I, had a little menage
a trois for 15 years. Sadly the old girl got battered and worn out and way
too expensive to maintain so it was time to say goodbye. But the story ends
happily. She went to live with a man who restores these beasts. So after a
while, with new hips and knees and a heart transplant, she’ll be in better
shape than any of us. And perhaps, as she remains with us only in memory, we
will learn in fact to love her more. Because in real time there were more than
a few occasions when I came close to wishing she was one of those women (not)
join my life. It was something of a stormy relationship, to say the least! Now
we can just gaze fondly at our photographs and see her through those
rose-colored glasses we all tend to favor as the years go by. And all those
women once (not) in my life slide quietly into their correct, comfortable, and
comforting, places, whether in my life or only in my memory.
© 27 November 2014
About
the Author

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

Who can we trust these days? I don’t like hearing that question very much whether it’s out of someone’s mouth or in my own head. We have enormous nationwide organizations that have filled their rapid and powerful information streams with so much debris that we could fear that our trusted bridges of decency may well smash into their polluted rage.

Constant personal vigilance is vital to avoid compromising our health by eating from the once trust worthy American food industry. A slew of companies now make billions from selling products of horrible quality. Our landfills bulge with much of this unusable merchandise. The challenge of buying products that have provided American people with jobs discourages even the tenacious seeker. Is the label declaration “Made in the USA “ still true?

Labels on bottles and boxes very often give addresses on USA soil as though thousands work here to make and handle these items and pay taxes to our country. But sadly in truth these addresses have only a small mail processing team.

Well paid CEO’s often wave the flag and claim a good guy image while taking their huge pay checks in a foreign bank to avoid paying the taxes they owe the USA. On our soil customers pay taxes and keep money going into executive pockets atop their dirty swill. Yes they may hire to sell their products in retail and service markets but they continuously maneuver to keep their payrolls lower and lower. This means lower and lower pay checks. This means lower and lower standard of living. This also means extreme performance pressure amid a fearful climate were long standing, high quality workers get fired. Upper management flings well seasoned integrity and loyalty to the curb for lesser paid inexperienced beginners.

Someone has said that when money becomes the morality, there is no morality. To keep our honor, we must resist the decay of our American morals as best we can. Yet bread winners of every ilk often face a necessity to settle for these substandard employers.

Of course in this neurotic competition, ugly personalities rear their maladjusted heads. How do we manage our resentment? How do we forgive? How do we continue to serve one another?

Really, I know we each have different needs. At times or in some ways we each need more from the people who surround us. I know that I do. To compensate, I try to give a lot.

I trust that if we listen in our true hearts, we give as we are intended to. On rare moments we get to see it happen. In those moments we get to see that we do makes a difference. Those are deep beautiful, even humbling moments. I trust in this worldwide mysterious truth, because it builds, touches, heals, wider than any ONE of us could design. Having a sense of this intangible reality inspires me. What a relief to be on that worldwide, even sacred, team.

~
The Possible Healing of a Lonely Place
by Eydie McDaniel

Some times lonely places press inside, out of sight. Some generate a more observable picture.

Once in the middle of a dark night the squeal of a straining voice awakened me. The much softer voice of the neighbor lady next door attempted to reply telling him to go to the police station to ask about his stolen items. My heart ached for this shivering desperate man, alone outdoors, without his bedroll, and without his food. How harsh, how unfair! My household snuggled safe and warm. Even our animals had it better than a homeless person.

Some hearts hide in fear. Even today, some hearts feel they must hide their precious love. The heritage of old judgmental cruelty still lingers. Some seniors where I live at Windsor Gardens have struggled decades with a hidden, lonely place inside. I wonder how many people have carried the secret of their attractions all alone to their grave. I wonder how much greatness we have all missed because hiding who you are robs so much of the energy it takes to ever become your very best.

Windsor Gardens of Denver happens to be one of very few senior housing organizations noble enough to sanction a club that could help heal this pain. An ad listed as LGBT Club now appears in ‘Windsor Life’. It promotes monthly meetings right here where an unknown number of seniors with diverse intimate identities make their home. Since it formally began in February, now 9 months ago, some 55 individuals have participated with an average attendance of 28.

The abbreviation LGBT, one of the common markings, stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered. Choices of abbreviations vary and may include: GLBT, LGBTIQ, etc. Here at WG we simply call ourselves PRIDE Windsor Gardens.”

PRIDE Windsor Gardens has no agenda to change anything or anyone. Just as in any group here, it feels good to find meaningful affinity with our neighbors. Its programs have included an array of community leaders as guest speakers. It seeks to build ongoing positive strength as a member of the Windsor Gardens community, the wider gay community of Denver, and as its own social community.

We are PRIDE Windsor Gardens, Alive and Welcome. So diverse residents of Windsor Gardens, “ALL ABOARD” Come in out of your cold dark night. All you have to lose is your loneliness.

© October 2014

About the Author


A native of Colorado, she followed her Dad to the work bench to develop a love of using tools, building things and solving problems. Her Mother supported her talents in the arts. She sang her first solo at age 8. Childhood memories include playing cowboy with a real horse in the great outdoors. Professional involvements have included music, teaching, human services, and being a helper and handy woman. Her writing reflects her sixties identity and a noted fascination with nature, people and human causes. For Eydie, life is deep and joyous, ever challenging and so much fun.

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Hallowe’en Dinner by Betsy

I was only trying to be
a good mother.  Back in the 1960‘and 70’s
liver was considered to be the best, most nutritious food available.  No other food had all the goodness of beef or
calves’ liver.  That is, nutritionally it
was the best, aesthetically, well, pretty awful, in my opinion.
During that time I was
very conscientious about giving my young children the best in nutrition.  The only question about liver was how
to get them to eat it.  I,
myself, had a hard time, indeed, getting the slightest morsel down.  The texture and the taste, I thought and
still think, are rather repulsive. But a good mother feeds her children
well.   So I determined that once a year,
at least, liver would be served at the dinner table and consumed by all–even
if it were to be a very small amount.  But
how to get them to eat it.  What
was a mother to do.
Hallowe’en offered the
perfect situation.  The children
typically would do their trick or treating as soon as they had finished their
dinner.  Well, you know the rest.  “You may go trick or treating after
you have finished your liver.” 
said I to the three sweet, little, adorable faces with blinking eyes
looking at me in anticipation of the excitement of going out with their friends
for Hallowe’en fun. Ooow!! That was hard. 
Was that cruel, or what.  Oh well,
I wouldn’t make them eat much.  Even just
a couple of bites!  After all, it’s for
their own good.  That’s why I’m doing
this, isn’t it.  Isn’t that what any good
mother would do?
Interesting that when
my daughters, now old enough to be young grandmothers, recently reminded me of
these hallowe’en dinners of many years ago, I replied innocently, “I don’t
remember any of that!.  Are you sure that
really happened?  You know, I wouldn’t
touch the stuff even if I wanted to.  It’s
full of cholesterol and toxins!”
The reality is that I
do remember, now that my memory has been tweaked.  And, yes, this did happen, but I think only
once or maybe twice at most, not the many, many hallowe’en dinners that they
remember. 
At the time those liver
dinners on Hallowe’en were not so funny to any of us.  Eating liver was serious business.  Now we know better.   Now 45 years later, every Hallowe’en, we get
lots of laughs remembering the liver dinner–or was it dinners?  I get teased a lot about this.  I guess my kids grew up and came to
understand what it’s like to be a parent wanting to do the right thing for
their kids.
But as I look back on
it now, I realize I have mellowed a lot. 
I don’t think I would make my kids do that now, especially on
Hallowe’en.  Every once in a while, in
spite of the laughs, a vague, nagging feeling from deep inside emerges and
suggests that maybe that was kind of mean–making them eat liver.  But, then, didn’t someone say that Hallowe’en
has its dark side. 
© 31 Oct 2011

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. 
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The Gayest Person I Have Ever Known by Will Stanton

I know the world is full of
gay people (using the currently popular definition of the term), and they dress
and behave in many different ways.  If,
however, the person who chose this topic was thinking of the stereotypical gay
guy with distinctive apparel or mannerisms who often draws attention to
himself, I really have not hung around very many gays like that.  If I use that frame of reference, however,
then I would have to think of young Peter whom I met in college.
Peter did, in fact, draw
attention to himself; but he seemed to be able to do it in a way that
fascinated people, never repelled them. 
I suppose that he had the advantage of being remarkably good looking, as
well as intelligent and charismatic. 
I  observed  people’s body-language that supported this
fact.  Sometimes, I’d see straight guys
encounter a gay guy and then immediately draw away in distaste; whereas, with
Peter, they involuntarily would lean forward, eyes wide-open, fascinated.  Other gays on campus did not fare so well as
he did.  I know of at least one gay who
was beaten up, but even the homophobes just stared at Peter, and that is no
exaggeration.  Straight guys seemed to be
far too taken with Peter to ever consider being unkind to him.
Peter’s heritage was an
unlikely pairing of Polish and Sicilian ancestry.  He had the fine, classic facial features of a
Polish aristocrat, and I could imagine that his mother resembled Tadzio’s
mother in the film “Death in Venice.”  
He also flaunted a mane of golden locks, much like Tadzio’s.  His skin was a smooth, honey-tan.  Apparently, the only obvious inheritance from
his Sicilian father was the ability to tan without burning.
Peter obviously was very
aware of his good looks and their effect upon people.  He enjoyed being noticed.  He did confide in me, however, one concern
about his physical self.  His body appeared
to be rather soft and smooth, even slightly androgynous; and he wondered if he
innately was less masculine than most college-age guys.
Peter chose clothes that
straight guys would be embarrassed to wear. 
Between Peter’s physical appearance, his cute clothes, and his confident
way of talking and walking, he never failed to draw attention.
Peter had a large group of
gay friends, plus an endless string of guys persistently trying to get Peter
into bed, and a series of trailing hangers-on that people unkindly referred to
as “fag-hags.”  It was nothing to see
Peter cheerfully making his way somewhere, trailed by several enamored
acquaintances, much like moths to a flame.
Peter was an unabashed
flirt. He knew when people were staring at him. 
If he was in a teasing mood, he could embarrass his admirers by
sensuously displaying himself. He might smile at them and not leave until the
observers turned red with embarrassment. 
 
From what Peter told me, I
think that he enjoyed flirting with straight guys.  He once answered an ad to share expenses with
two straight guys in a van going to Florida for spring break. When they drove
up to Peter’s house, he appeared wearing tiny, baby-blue shorts and a little
pink sweater.  And, when he came
flouncing down the front steps to the van, his gay house-mate called out, “Have
a good time, and don’t get any nice boys into trouble!”  The two guys’ jaws dropped.  Apparently, the straight guys overcame their
initial surprise, for by the time they pulled over into a rest stop for the
night, Peter ended up being, as he later described it, “the meat in the
sandwich.”  Once Peter arrived in Florida,
he donned a diaphanous caftan, strutted upon the beach, and immediately found
housing and entertainment during his stay because he was picked up by a member
of one of America’s most wealthy and prominent families.  I have chosen not to mention the name.  Then he had the ride home with the two
straight guys to enjoy.
No one could mistake Peter
as being anything other than gay, but he had no interest in drag.  Some of his friends; however, thought that he
was too pretty not to try it, at least on one occasion.  They decided to dress Peter up for a big
party that would have lots of straight guys there with their dates.  At first, he resisted, but eventually he
agreed to do it.  As it turned out, his
appearance was so stunning that a lot of the guys abandoned their dates, went
over to Peter, and were trying to chat him up. Their abandoned dates were
furious. Peter was so convincing that they never discovered that he was a guy
in drag.  He could be flamboyant, but he did
not care for drag. He never did that again.
On a few occasions, I paled
around with Peter, but we never did anything particularly gay or
titillating.  We took a hike around the
state park, went to see the film “Death in Venice” together, and sometimes just
hung out talking.  Even though I admired
his good looks, I never asked to go to bed with Peter.  I liked him just for who he was.  He wondered why I had not asked.  I replied that, apparently, everyone else
continually asked him, and my asking him simply would place my friendship on
their same level.  My friendship could be
misinterpreted, implying that having sex was all that I really was interested
in.  That impressed him, for when he
graduated and left college, he gave me some gifts including three photos of
himself.  The color one is included with
this story.  I have one very large,
glass-framed composite-portrait in silver that was part of his final
commercial-art portfolio.  He wrote on
the back of the picture, “Love ya always, Peter.”
The last time that I talked
with Peter, he expressed, for the first time that I observed, some loss of
confidence.  Here he had graduated and
was going out into the real world.  He
was afraid of how people would treat him, his being so obviously gay.  He imagined that he might have to limit
himself to living on the East Coast or West Coast where there might be a
greater percentage of tolerant people.  I
hope that he chose well.
I often have wondered what
became of Peter.  Out of curiosity, I did
a couple of searches on the web.  All
that I found were listings for several people with the same name, but none
appeared to be “The Peter.”  Perhaps it
is it is just as well that I do not have a current photo of him.  We all have aged, and even he was not
immortal.  I’ll just remember him as he
was, the golden, cheerful, charismatic Peter. 
And just maybe, he might discover our blog and read this story.                                     
© 04 April 2014 

About the Author 

I have had a life-long fascination with people
and their life stories.  I also realize
that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too
have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones.  Since I joined this Story Time group, I have
derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my
stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.
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Thanksgiving 2013 by Ricky

            Another Thanksgiving holiday is upon
us and I always take time to ponder the things I am thankful for but this year I
am also thinking about the changes that have taken place over my lifetime.  Back-in-the-day (I am old enough to use that
expression and it actually has meaning) as a young lad I really enjoyed the
holiday season.  First, Halloween
followed by Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve managed to offset the
after Labor Day plague of school homework with visions of “tons” of candy,
turkey and pumpkin pie, and presents, and the ever popular 1 ½ to 2 weeks of
time off from school.
          Thanksgiving
was marked by comments like “stay out of my way” or “stay out of the kitchen while
I’m fixing the turkey” or “you can help best by going outside and play while I
get this meal done.”  It was hard (read
that as impossible) for a young boy to stay away from the kitchen when all
those marvelous aromas kept wafting (to me at the time “pouring”) out of the
kitchen.  Naturally, mother had to
“remind” me to “Stay out!” and “Keep away from that pie!” all with an elevated
voice (to be polite about her emphasis). 
However, at last, all the waiting was done and the most excellent of all
meals was consumed (for several days after also) only to be repeated at
Christmas dinner.
          I can remember
that Thanksgiving was “promoted” not only on school bulletin boards in the
classrooms where each teacher and students would try to have the best
Thanksgiving displays in the entire school. 
My class’s was clearly the best each and every time but, those biased
judges never managed to pick my class as the winner.
          The community
also decorated for Thanksgiving.  Mostly
it was done by the various businesses by putting up window decorations.  The department stores fancied up their window
displays with Thanksgiving themes surrounding the mannequins on display.  Sadly, this “custom” did not last as the movement
to purchase gifts for Christmas began to gain momentum in the business
community moved the Christmas displays ever earlier in the year finally
eclipsing Thanksgiving in favor of making the “almighty dollar” sooner rather
than later.  Once again, greed conquered
gratefulness in our society.  Now only
the truly dedicated believers in a “higher power” take time to remember why the
Thanksgiving Day holiday was created.  It
saddens me.
          Fortunately, I
remember the purpose of the holiday so here is my list of things I am thankful
and grateful for this season.
I am thankful for: being alive at 65;
having good health; my deceased wife; all my children; the opportunity to be
educated; living in The United States; learning to read via phonics in
Minnesota schools; living with my grandparent’s and uncle on a farm for two
years; being lonely enough to join the Boy Scouts; my brother and sister; my
father and all he has done for and to me; my mother and step-father; all my
mistakes whether or not I learned from them; as they were the catalyst for my
coming out; all my acquaintances at SAGE’s Telling Your Story group, and Prime
Timers; and finally that I was not aborted but allowed to live and have all the
adventures and experiences I had and will have in the future.

© 25 November 2013 

About the Author

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

It has been a long time that Verizon & I have been in
my pocket either alerting me to a caller or trying to take a picture in my
pocket.  However, it was determined by
powers beyond my control that it was time for a replacement cell phone.
The ensuing trip to the local Verizon emporium, where all
the earnest busy-bee workers seemed to swarm all about a vast selection of
electronic necessities, resulted in the appearance of a little new black
virginal cell phone waiting to become my lifeline to the outside world.  But before it could spring into service or my
pocket, it required programing with the information from its predecessor.
Then the super-efficient automaton busy-bee informed us
that would not be possible as the two instruments were not compatible. …… A
really strange thing to us inasmuch both little tykes issued forth from the
same source.  One thing we were assured
of though, was that if accidently the right little button was activated I could
still take pocket pictures.
All previous knowledge had been lost, including the
delightful signal-melody that always announced to anyone in earshot that this
cell phone owner was extremely couth & cultured (artistic to say the
least).  No bells or horns, ribald
hip-hop, imitation old fashioned telephone “Ringy ding ding”, but the melodious
sounds of what was ultimately identified as a bit of Amadeus. 
Unable to track Amadeus down we substituted a snippet of
Figaro’s rather pretentious Wedding March. 
As you have probably gathered circumstances do become tedious and
tiresome for us dilettantes.  You know,
the artistic types.  But something had to
be done to get on with electronic progress. 
So Figaro took over as programed. 
After a couple of marches down the aisle with Figaro, something had to be
done to relocate the purloined original melody, but not being an educated
musician, just a music nerd who favored the classics (and of course, show
tunes) I could do no better than whistle an off key version of the tune.
This called for drastic measures to find Amadeus.  The search was begun to find the wizard of
lost melodies, the shaman of the ivories, the creator of crescendos, the
ultimate music authority (at least in my little world), Herr Doktor Bösendorfer!  I was successful in being granted audience of
such short notice, but this was an emergency and the doktor acquiesced.
After appropriate vetting to decipher the off-key hummed
melody as best as I could muster, my faith in the master was affirmed when
after research of the entire cabinet where Herr Mozart was closeted.  Eureka! 
The Sonata in C Major, K-545,
came to light.  And lest this
Philistine/dilettante remain forever ignorant of the complete sonata, the good
doktor gave the big black shiny Bösendorfer a run for its money by playing the total selection.  My subsequent joy was so great I threw my
arms about Herr Doktor’s ample waist & almost burst into tears.  Amadeus had come back to me, as I planted a
big kiss of gratitude on the maestro’s rosy cheek.
With my new found knowledge I was off to meet the enemy,
the Verizon automatons.  Thanks to the
Herr Doktor & Herr Bösendorfer there is renewed life for this music lover.  So ends this sincere “artistic” tale.  Cant you hear that sweet köchel right now?
Do I hear cries of “Author”, “Author”?
Thank you, Wolfgang A. Sylvester

© 8 Sep 2014 

About the Author







Posted on

Favorite Literary Character by Phillip Hoyle

For me to choose my favorite literary character seems as impossible as to choose my favorite activity from a three-week road trip. I’ve never been able to select just one because I usually prize too many memories. So when I consider that in first grade I began reading about Dick and Jane, in the fifth grade was introduced to the novel when Mrs. Schaffer read us of Jim Hawkins, Billy Bones, and Long John Silver in Treasure Island, in eighth grade read my first novel which I checked out from the school library, James Fennimore Cooper’s The Spy with its Betty Flanagan and Harvey Birch, and after that never quit reading book after book to the point that in my mid-thirties I was reading five books a week—most of them novels—I’m hard pressed to choose any single character as my favorite. There have been so many!

A few years ago when in my writing I realized I was working on a novel and not simply the collection of short stories I had imagined, I came to the awful realization that although I had read hundreds of novels and recalled from them plenty of characters, scenes, and situations, I had never seriously studied the novel as literature, had never read one under the tutelage of a professor, and had never analyzed the plot, character, or even writing style that makes some stories work so well. So with M.H. Abrams Glossary of Literary Terms in hand, I set out to learn about these things. I began analyzing short stories; then turned my attentions to the novel. I would read a novel and if I liked it enough select one aspect of it to further study. For example, in one novel I compared and contrasted the opening sentences of each chapter. In another book I found and compared the contents of each place the author changed from present tense to past. In yet another novel I searched to find the dramatic turning points in the main character’s transformation. I went on to analyze how secondary or even one-dimensional characters entered and left novels. I was serious in my pursuit of this knowledge.

Then I turned to books I’d read in the past. I analyzed The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, House Made of Dawn by M. Scott Momaday. Somewhere along the way realized I had mostly read novels to enjoy exotic and unusual experiences and to find out what happened. This proclivity was bolstered by my habit of reading murder mysteries in which the big tasks is to figure out ‘who dun it’ as if that were the whole point of reading stories. That seemed my dominant approach. Finally I turned to Ethan Mordden and reread and analyzed several of his Buddies cycle that opened with what seemed to me appropriately titled I’ve a Feeling We’re Not in Kansas Anymore. I liked novels that told the stories of many different people. My novel search for understanding was moving me far away from how I had read them before and, like Mordden’s title far away from all my home state represented. And then there was the really big question: why was I trying to write a novel and how could I do it without making a big fool of myself?

I recall a voice teacher who seemed friends with a woman character Natasha Rostova in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace while I couldn’t even recall or pronounce the name of any character from my reading of that monstrously long novel. I recall in December my daughter-in-law reading Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre for the umpteenth time. She said “It’s like a new story,” and she just loves Jane Eyre, probably her favorite literary character. Now I read Bronte and enjoyed the characters but never developed such a relationship with any of them. I just don’t get into character friendships, at least not easily.

Still I really have like some characters. First, Natty Bumpo in James Fennimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales although I don’t recall if I respected him; second, Johnny in The Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter although I may really have been more interested in his Shawnee Indian cousin; third, the first-person narrator in Ambidextrous: The Secret Lives of Children by Felice Picano although I didn’t really like him so much as I recognized in him a character who as a child was bisexual like I was; fourth, Bud in Ethan Mordden’s stories, again another first person narrator who as a writer seemed as much the author of the story as its protagonist; and finally, Will in City of Shy Hunters by Tom Spanbauer although very much like in the cases of Picano and Mordden I may have liked the author as much as the character. Still Will became my literary friend because he came from an uncertain past, made creative adaptations to his surroundings, felt enamored of Native Americans, accepted into his life persons whose values widely differed from his own, worked hard, and introduced me to more exotic worlds of gay America, meaning in many important ways, more realistic descriptions of gay life.

But since I ended my list with Will from the Spanbauer book, I’ll say a few things about him who certainly has become an important character in my life if not a favorite (and be warned I’m speaking as much or more about Spanbuaer as I am about his great character Will). Will trusts people. Will does not try to fool himself. Will reveals his faults as well as his ideals and dreams. Will eats with sinners. He survives in the city, thrives there, values important aspects of his life, idealizes some individuals and loves them when they are too real to be idealized. He ekes out a living, is taken advantage of, finds friendship, and in general, builds a meaningful life in a hard and rough city.

And I thrill when Will says:

“Only your body can know another body.

“Because you see it, you think you know it. Your eyes think they know. Seeing Fiona’s body for so long, I thought I knew her body.

“I’ll tell you something, so you’ll know: It’s not the truth. Only your body can know another body.

“My hand on her back, my hand in her hand, her toes up against my toes, Fiona’s body wasn’t sections of a body my eyes had pieced together. In my arms was one long uninterrupted muscle, a body breathing life, strong and real.” (In the City of Shy Hunters, p. 184) Will is really real; his friends are real. I am his friend.

© Denver, 22 June 2014



About the Author  


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

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

Posted on

Reputation by Pat Gourley

It has been some months at least since I have quoted Grateful
Dead lyrics in one of my written pieces here so I think it’s about time. A line
from one of their classic songs, Uncle
John’s Band – a tune by the way covered by the Indigo Girls, states “all I really want to know is are you kind”.
If I address “reputation” from a personal perspective I would most want to be
known and remembered for being kind.
While watching a 60 Minutes piece last night that featured a
few of the Dallas nurses who cared for Mr. Duncan the first Ebola patient in
the U.S. I was actually moved to tears by their genuine empathy and kindness
toward this man who was dying a horrifying death while at the same time at
considerable risk of infection themselves. As a nurse myself I can attest to
the fact that while we are not necessarily immune to the sight of human
suffering we are not often easily shocked either. This disease apparently is an
exception to that rule. Large amounts of human secretions are often part of the
game with nursing in certain settings. Ebola though seems to take that to a
whole new level most often in the form of voluminous amounts of vomit and
diarrhea. In the end stages of the disease even small droplets of these
secretions are teaming with literally millions and millions of viral particles
and it only takes one to pass it on.
They interviewed four nurses and all four seemed to exude
genuine kindness but I was most impressed with an African American woman and a
portly man with a definite and beautiful fey-air about him. Though not the case
anymore gay men were at one time a preponderance of the male nursing population
and we are still quite well represented. I will remember these nurses not so
much for their bravery but their dignified and uncompromising acts of human
kindness, wiping his tears and holding his hand albeit through multiple layers
of protective gear among many such acts in his last days. I would like to have the
epithet “he was a kind queen” attached to my tombstone or rather an urn full of
my ashes before they get scattered in San Francisco bay.
I suppose there was a time in my distant past when I did not
want the rather large “queer’ part of my being to be sullying my reputation in
anyway. I do think though I was lucky and got over that one quickly. One sort
of throws caution to the wind in that regard when you enter certain health care
professions and nursing in particular as a male in the 1970’s. I was probably
at my most flamboyant professionally in the 1970’s and I am sure had the
“reputation” as being the flaming homo nurse. Only once though in 40 years of nursing,
when working ICU, did a patient openly verbalize that he didn’t want the
“queer” touching him. My co-workers were much more upset about this than I was
at the time and it’s probably safe to say that the amount of kindness directed
this man’s way may have been severely curtailed during his intensive care stay.
Efficient and appropriate medical care does not necessitate kindness but it
sure goes down a lot easier with that in the mix.
As I alluded to I was quite out of the closet during both
nursing school and on the job in the 1970’s. I think my ‘homosexual-reputation’
if you will was solidly cemented one night in the ICU at University Hospital when
I had just returned from recovering from a bout of hepatitis. Hepatitis was
being discussed by a group of us including some docs and folks were speculating
whether or not I may have gotten the hepatitis on the job, something not
uncommon for nurses in those days before the advent of “universal precautions”
and good hepatitis vaccines. As I recall without missing a beat I quite
flippantly said that it was much more likely I was infected at the Empire
Bathes with my legs in the air. That was the end of that discussion.
As Andy Warhol so famously said everyone gets at least 15
minutes of fame, which I suppose you could say, then becomes a significant part
of his or her reputation. For me personally though I certainly hope that is not
the case. In early 2000 a writer with Westword came to Denver Health wanting to
do a piece on the current state of the AIDS epidemic. I had always shunned the
press wanting to do AIDS pieces because they so seldom got it right and what
could be worse for one’s ‘reputation” than to be grossly misquoted. The
reporter, a fellow named Steve Jackson, was a frequent freelance contributor to
the paper often doing long feature pieces. He apparently became bored with the
usual AIDS talking heads, mostly docs, at Public Health and was steered in my
direction by someone in the building.  He
and I actually hit it off having some sort of Grateful Dead connection as I
seem to recall and I spent quite a few hours telling him my story.
A long story short I became the entire focus of the piece and
wound up on the cover of the next issue. My own fifteen minutes of fame if you
will. The piece was insufferably long as it appeared in print and I was still
the case after the editor, Patty Calhoun, had cut a full third of it before
publication. I have never posted it to my web site in part because I found it
to be embarrassing, not because it affected my reputation at all but it really
seemed to focus on my own personal drama in a very over the top fashion. If any
good came out of it though I hoped it might have persuaded some folks at risk
to finally get tested and get on meds. I was, as was graphically laid out in
the piece, probably twenty years into my own HIV infection and still walking,
talking, working full-time and posing for Westword cover stories.
One might think, and I suppose I did too, that such exposure
would have major repercussions but it actually had virtually none. For one
thing it was too long for most folks to get through and secondly I attribute
this lack of fallout to the strength of coming out. If all your secrets are
already out their in your personal and work circles and most folks are already
bored with the old queen’s story and simply adding a few thousand more Westword
readers to that mix doesn’t much effect one’s life or reputation and it did
not.
In fact the response at least that blew back to me was quite
muted. Oh a few mostly gay positive men came up to me in person and were very
supportive but most responses ranged from “oh is he still alive” to my personal
favorite “I thought they only put convicted felons on the cover of Westword”.
The lesson for me seems quite obvious. One’s reputation
hopefully is not in anyway significantly influenced by any particular 15
minutes of fame but rather by a lifetime of being kind or at least trying to be
to all you encounter. In that respect I am great believer in Karma and what
goes around eventually, despite frequent bumps in the road, comes around.
© October
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.
Posted on

Drifting, Not Adrift by Nicholas

Drifting calls to me. It is one of my
all-time favorite images. I picture easy summer days, though this can occur in
any season, of floating along with the tide or the current. No resistance
though there is movement. Drifting along on an inner tube in a stream. Drifting
snowflakes. Drifting into day dreams. Drifting conjures up images of movement,
movement in a fluid environment, like floating in water. It appeals to me
perhaps because floating is the only thing I actually can do in water.
          Drifting is
not like being adrift. Being adrift is to be aimless and not necessarily moving
at all. Being adrift is akin to being lost whereas drifting is a more
imaginative state of seeking.
Sometimes I think I have been
drifting through most of my life since unlike a lot of other people I never
adopted a certain, single career path that I pursued devotedly–or slavishly–but
have pursued a number of careers. And I never tied myself down with raising
children, seeing the little ones grow because I helped make them grow,
following a course until they went out on their own. I guess I attach a lot of
freedom to drifting. I’ve always had a lot of freedom in my life—freedom to
move on to another place, start or stop a job or a career, make or end
relationships—without being constrained by too many responsibilities.
          Of course, my
life hasn’t been completely unmoored, untethered, without anchor. Being with
Jamie for the last 27 years has certainly brought me out of my self-indulgent
freedom now that I plan life changes with him and not just on my own whims. And
that change has been good as well.
          Now, that in
some ways, my drifting days are over, drifting is even more a state of mind
with my imagination conjuring up memories of wandering. I used to spend days
wandering or drifting around the Northern California coast on Point Reyes or on
the slopes of Mt. Tamaulipas. I used to drift about the fascinations and splendors
of San Francisco. I once spent a summer drifting through the Sierra Nevada mountains.
How nice it was to just drift along, letting the stream carry me, sometimes
literally, to whatever lay around the next bend. Drifting is a form of
exploring.
          Not many
people these days or at my age seem to think of life as an act of exploring. But
that is sometimes the only way I seem to be able to see it. We are all, after
all, just drifting from somewhere to somewhere else or maybe nowhere at all.
          Later this
afternoon you might find me at home, drifting off to sleep

© July
2014

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.


Posted on

There is a Frog in My Beer by Gillian

Generally, I think I have a good
sense of humor, but it is definitely not of the practical joke variety! Hardly
surprising. If you go by Wikipedia’s definition, practical jokes are everything
I abhor:  ” A mischievous trick or
joke played on someone, typically causing the victim to experience
embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort.”
And why would I want to do that??
Need I say that I have never taken
advantage of April Fool’s Day, though I always tried to stay aware of the date
as I proceeded cautiously through the day.
Researching this topic a little on
the Web, I was surprised to find that the terms “hoax” and
“practical joke” seem to be used interchangeably. I have always
tended to think of a practical joke being perpetrated on an individual, for the
amusement of those creating the situation, secretly watching from some
hide-y-hole close by: a sign pinned to someone’s back, or the back of an office
chair, or cars parked within an inch on either side of the victim’s car, so
there is no way he or she can get into it. I have observed this one in the days
before cellphones when of course the car owner was forced to go back into the
building to phone, or simply wait, at which time the jokesters hastily remove
their cars. Why is that funny? I simply do not get it.
And now I think more about it, I
guess a hoax really is very much the same thing. Fake artifacts or photographs,
false media announcements, causing people to be elated or fearful depending on
the content, and later let down or relieved when they realize it was untrue.
Sorry, this is as unamusing to me as that rubber spider in the bed, or fake
vomit in the car; which should, as I see it, cease to be funny about the time
one goes to kindergarden.
And I’m sorry to make it into a
Battle of the Sexes thing, but I really believe, based on personal experience
and documented examples, pranks and hoaxes are much more favored by males than
females. Maybe it’s some kind of power thing. Not so much over women but men
over other men. When I worked in manufacturing, back when we had such a thing
in the good old U.S.A., practical jokes were a permanent part of the culture.
Sometimes women were targeted, but
not often. I think the fact that most women simply tut-tutted and shook their
heads sadly as they washed their hands in trick soap which blackened the skin,
or discovered that the sandwich in their lunchbox suddenly contained plastic
cheese, rather disappointed the onlookers and so took them out of the game.
With the men it became a competitive one-upmanship. Ok you got me good, but
you wait. Mine’ll be better. That kind of practical joking, not involving
the unwilling or unsuspecting, doesn’t bother me. All’s fair between consulting
adults – in this case using the term adult rather loosely.
In fact, bemused.  All this silliness, and I see it more as
unkindness, to say the least, is apparently nothing new. There are documented
examples from the Middle Ages on, and, I’m sure, many many unrecorded pranks
before and since. The latest version would, I suppose, be computer viruses,
which I doubt most of us find very amusing.
I do have, however, my own evince
of past pranks. The house my grandparents lived in had at one time in the 1800s
been a pub. Digging in the garden, my father unearthed an old earthenware
tankard, remarkably undamaged. Inside it, emerging up the side, is a big brown
frog. Apparently, the publican would pick the right stage of inebriation of one
of his customers, and serve his next pint of ale in this mug. The poor guy
probably thought he was suffering from DT’s when the frog started to surface
from his beer.
 
I have to wonder if it was the
wisest stunt to pull on an obviously good customer, but then, some people will
pay quite a price to get a good laugh at someone else’s expense.
     
At one time I managed the
graveyard shift of a plastics production shop. There were about 30 plastic
presses and 35 to 40 miscellaneous employees. More than half the workers were
temporary, “ninety-day wonders” as they were sometimes referred to by
permanent employees, disparagingly but not meaning any harm. This was in the
early ‘seventies and at that time this country had floods of refugees from
Vietnam looking four work. Many of our temporary vacancies were filled by these
quiet, hard-working people who never caused trouble and were, in fact, dream
employees. New to this country, speaking very little English, and heads filled
with who knows what horrific memories, they were, understandably, a bit jumpy.
I had always turned a blind eye to a few little pranks, as long as they was not
too disruptive. It’s hard to stay awake all night doing repetitive, boring,
tasks, and if a few practical jokes gave them a little added adrenaline then so
much the better. But then it spread to pranks pulled on the Vietnamese; nothing
serious or really mean, but these poor people were completely confused by it, a
little scared, and above all, I think, completely bemused. Why were these
things happening to them? Why was someone doing such things? I was forced to
put an immediate halt to  it all, and if,
occasionally I saw it happening again, I once again managed not to see it
unless it involved any of the poor bemused Vietnamese.

©
15 Aug 2014

About the Author 

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