Month: June 2015

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Clothes: Strange Symbols of Freedom, by Gillian

I simply do not like
baseball caps. Maybe it’s no more than the fact that I grew up in a land
without them; maybe it’s simply that they are, to me, and I apologize to the
many of you, including my beautiful Betsy, who wear the things, the least
flattering of headgear – though I can think of some very close seconds, like
the British flat cap, or those German and Russian military caps of WW11 with
the exaggeratedly high fronts. But really, baseball caps are everywhere. If
some variety of hat had to go viral ….. no, that’s the wrong term: I
occasionally become over-excited by modern idiom! … had to become universal,
why not, say, the cowboy hat? Most people are enhanced by a jaunty Stetson. Or
a variation on one of many military caps such as the Aussie Slouch or the U.S.
army cap with that sexy curved bill? No! The entire world, or the greatest part
of it, had to go for the baseball cap, or, even worse, its offspring the
trucker hat with that flat bill, high foam front panel, and adjustable mesh in
the back. Those are the ones I really dislike; mostly worn by Bubba and
guaranteed to make the most modest, most harmless, of men, look like a
rapist/mugger and a woman (why would a woman wear one? But they do!)
resemble an escapee from the nearest Dickensian madhouse. 
O.K. So the world is,
for whatever incomprehensible reason, obsessed with variations of the American
baseball cap. But why do they proudly wear them complete with American logo;
almost invariably a sports team. Young Russians, Brits, Australians, now even
Chinese, strut their stuff under caps proudly proclaiming Red Sox or White Sox
or New Orleans Saints, most often accompanied by a t-shirt emblazoned with
Notre Dame or S.M.U. If you must adopt American clothes, why not, at least,
proclaim the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory, or the
Tsinghua University of Beijing?
I suppose, when it
comes down to it, it’s all about marketing; the U.S probably takes Best of
Breed. But I do get angry when people in other countries sigh, shake their
heads, and regret ‘the Americanization of everything,’ placing the blame firmly
on the doorstep of the United States.
I hold our country
responsible for many things of which I am not proud, but, please! We don’t
force anyone to wear these clothes any more than we forced the world to install
over 33,000 McDonalds, and frequently in the most inappropriate places. No, we
did not invade Poland and force them to put a McDonalds in a historic medieval
vault in Krakow, or Russia to impose what claimed to be, at the time I visited
it, anyway, the most exotic McDonalds in the world. It’s in the St. Petersburg
railway station in a cavernous space with polished marble floors, exquisite
woodwork, and beautiful chandeliers hanging from a high, arched, beamed,
ceiling.
People tut-tut over the
amount of ‘American rubbish’ on T.V. across the world, but we don’t hold a gun
to the BBC producer’s head, and most certainly not to the head of Russian-controlled
TV.  Yet, in the early 1990’s when I was
there, they were glued to already outdated productions of ‘Dallas’ and ‘The
Young and the Restless,’ and ‘Dynasty.’ Gazing obsessively at the imaginary
American way of life, or at least one experienced by very few of us, they
proudly wore their New York Jets ball caps and their University of Michigan
tees. I suppose it was all part of the dream. Free at last, they could be
anything: anybody.
One universality which
puzzles me is the world-wide use of the word fuck. You see it scrawled
on walls everywhere, or at least in every country I have been in, and hear it
used by people who, apparently, speak not one more word of English. You hear an
endless stream of conversation in another language, and it is almost invariably
punctuated with the only words you can understand; an occasional fuck or
fucking. Why in the world this particular word has become so
wide-spread, I haven’t a clue though probably some linguist somewhere is, even
as I write this, doing his or her Ph.D. on this very subject.
Yeah, yeah, call me old
fashioned. but I do have a certain yearning for the days when clothes told a
story. (And of course, come to that, when the F word was not so
prevalent!) “Clothes and manners do not make the man,” said Henry Ward Beecher.
But clothes did make the man, at least in the eye of the beholder. Days gone
by, you could tell your bank manager from your milkman from your doctor by his
clothes. In that sense, they did indeed make the man. I don’t mean only when he
was at work, but when he was not. Now, if your plumber, financial advisor, and
grocery clerk walk their dog in the park, they probably all wear blue jeans
with tees proclaiming Rice University and ball caps bearing the Florida Gators’
logo.
Perhaps, I muse, if we
all dress alike we will find it harder to go to war against each other, though
I confess I have seen little evidence of this so far. And I do regret the
individuality.
When I was in school we
used to watch, once in a while as a special treat in geography class, an old
grainy jerky black and white film released from an 18″ diameter reel. It
showed workers collecting rubber in Brazil, or farming pineapples in Hawaii, or
cutting sugar cane in Jamaica. They dressed very differently depending on their
country. If we see a cable documentary about such activities today, chances are
the majority will be sporting Cardinals or Dodgers caps and Harvard or M.I.T. tee-shirts.
I have to hand it to
the countries of the Islamic world. They are almost alone in refusing to change
their traditional dress, for which I admire them. On the other hand, I abhor
the way women are, for the most part, treated, and forced to dress. I find
myself wishing and hoping that somehow some of these women are concealing a
Baltimore Colts cap and bright orange Denver Broncos tee-shirt beneath the
burqa – well, it would be a beginning, a tiny hint of freedom, wouldn’t it? –
but somehow cannot imagine it.
You know what?
In writing this, I have
talked myself round! Maybe the universal Atlanta Braves cap and Ann Arbor tee
is not so bad. We can all, in many countries and in these times, dress more or
less however we please, and after all, knowing a person’s social status by the
clothes they wear is in fact nothing desirable or positive at all. And being
able to identify a person’s nationality in the same manner means little
individual choice is available. So, now I think it all through, baseball caps
don’t look so bad after all. If they cover the world it is because individuals
have chosen them. I fear I shall never be able to find them aesthetically
appealing, but perhaps they can be, to me, a rather unattractive symbol of
freedom.
Afterthought
Reading through this I
was overcome by the most horrific of visions!
What if the universal
love for ball caps and that tiresome F word had collided? The world
would be covered in caps saying, simply, and with great lack of originality, FUCK.
© September 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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Role With the Flow: The Women in My Life, by Betsy

Aspiring to be one’s
own person is noble indeed.  No one would
doubt that.  But in my experience growing
up female in America in the mid twentieth century this ideal was indeed elusive
and impalpable to many girls.
As a youngster my
mother was my major role model.  Other
female role models were my grandmothers, an aunt, and to a lesser extent some
teachers. I consider these role models to be the most important in shaping my
adult persona because it was from these women that I learned who I was meant to
be–or should I say who I was supposed to be. 
Put another way, I learned how I was supposed to behave and, more
importantly, how to perceive myself going into adulthood. The women were also
the mirror for me which reflected who I was and who I was to become.
These role models I
mention were good people.  They strove to
take good care of their families; that is, to be good wives and mothers. They
were honest and loving.  The roles, however,
were clearly defined.  A woman’s role was
to NOT be in charge.  In fact it appeared
that a woman in that day in this culture was not even in charge of her own
life.
As a youngster growing
up the message I got was loud and clear: your happiness and your future welfare
requires, first, that you get a husband and the degree of that happiness and
welfare depends on who the man is that you marry.   A woman’s identity, her sense of who she is,
is intrinsic in what is reflected back to her from the people close to
her–especially her husband. I have recently come to realize that many females
of my generation have struggled with their true identity; they have struggled
to “be their own person.”
At the same time, my
growing up experience followed a period of time known as the Progressive Era,
the early decades of the 20th century, which saw the beginnings of huge changes
in the roles of women.  My grandmothers
and my mother saw some very obvious changes such as shorter skirts and short
hair, and some movement toward political equality. Women were no longer
expected to be frail and demure and confined to their parlors or their
kitchens.  Spurred on by the necessities
brought about by two world wars, women entered the work force and were allowed
to enter professions heretofore open only to men.  By mid-century women, especially of the
middle class and the Western World had completely redefined their roles in
almost every sphere of culture.
These were huge
changes.  Yet they were mostly all
outward superficial changes.  I still
received the message from my female role models that if I did not marry, I
would end up unhappy, unfulfilled, and lonely. In other words, I, by myself,
could not create my own persona. I had to depend on others to do that. Most
females I knew received the same message. But for some of us that image of just
who we were and who we were to become did not fit. Many of us had to try it on
before learning that it did not fit.  I
suppose this is one reason that so many lesbian woman of my generation were
married and had families and were middle aged before recognizing their own
sexual orientation and their true identity. This and the awareness that came
along with the gay rights movement helped us along.
Even today’s women
struggle for power. Many men are threatened by women who have more power than
they. Not all men, but some, feel emasculated by women who have more control
and become more powerful than they at home or in the work place. Is this a
natural happening or is it learned?  The
evidence, to me, shows that it is learned since not all men have this insecurity.  (I sincerely doubt that any man in this room
falls into that insecurity category.) Again in many cases I suppose it depends
on the role models they followed.  I
contend that the woman role models in my life were married to men who did not
have this insecurity.  They were not
controlling and overbearing at least insofar as my memory and my experience
allows me to make the judgement.
The women in my life,
my mother and my grandmothers, were products of their culture and reflected
that.  At the same time they were
progressive and welcomed the changes and disappearance of the restrictions that
kept them from expressing themselves earlier. Perhaps their progressive
attitudes contributed to my ability to come out later in life.
As it turns out neither
of my parents ever learned who I really was. They both died before I came out.
To me this is a sad fact.  However, only
mothers and grandmothers who outlive their daughters ever learn who these
daughters FINALLY become.
We are constantly
changing hopefully growing and progressing. 
If we make it into old age of course our role models are not there to
see how we finally turn out.  But it is
for certain that the spirit of the women in my life has been traveling with me
every step of the way and will continue to the end.
© 24 Nov 2014 
About
the Author 

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

I was in my car, driving to
a friend’s house in town.  The
destination does not matter.  What
happened along the way is what is important, something very poignant that I
just cannot forget.
It was 1974.  The Vietnam War was supposed to be over – –
“Peace with honor,” we were told.  My
classmate Bernard had lost his younger brother Larry in Nam and still was
having a hard time dealing with it.  The
little blond boy in the class ahead of me, the one who looked to be no older
than an adolescent, he was dead, too. 
Ours was a very small town, yet we had our share of losses.  Maya Lin was the talented designer who later
would be chosen to create the Vietnam Veterans Memorial honoring the 58,000
American lives lost.  I remember her as
the little girl who once lived in our town.
As I started up a steep
hill, I saw an older man slowly making his way up the sidewalk.  Head down, he moved as though he had the
weight of the world upon his shoulders. 
As I drew alongside of him, I recognized him as Mr. Bodnar.  I stopped next to him and offered him a ride
up the hill.  Expressing appreciation, he
accepted and wearily sat in the passenger seat next to me.
Mr. Bodnar was from
Hungary.  He was an educated attorney in
his home country.  Here in the U.S., he
worked for a pittance doing furniture repair and as a handy man.  His knowledge of Hungarian law was of no use
to him in this country, and his limited English also was a handicap.
The Bodnar family fled
Hungary in 1956 when the Soviet army invaded his homeland in response to the
Hungarian people’s abortive attempt to bring a modicum of freedom to their
lives.  The Bodnars chose America to come
to, the land of peace and opportunity.  I
imagine that they were proud when they received their American citizenship.
Nicholas Bodnar was in my
class at school.  He was deemed
unsuitable for the draft, but his younger brother Joey received his draft
letter.
Joey was a very impressive
person, exceptionally bright and very talented. 
In addition to being a very good student, he was a remarkable
artist.  He was very athletic, too.  Blond, small but compact, he could swim more
than two lengths of the pool underwater in just one breath.
Because Joey now was an
American citizen, he had the honor of being drafted into the American army in
1966 and being sent to Vietnam to go to war to save the world for
democracy.  On one unfortunate day when
he was slogging through the rice paddies or dense jungles, he contracted
malaria and was removed to the rear.  He
was given time to recover his strength and eventually returned to the front
lines.  His company received enemy fire,
and Joey did not survive.  His family was
notified.  He was only twenty-two.
As I drove Mr. Bodnar up the
hill, I mentioned that Nicholas was in my class.  Mr. Bodnar then quietly asked me, “Did you
know Joey?”  I replied, “Yes,” and said
that I had admired him.  There was a
moment of silence, after which Mr. Bodnar, in a soft, tearful voice, said,
“They killed my Joey.”
It was clear to me what Mr.
Bodnar meant.  The “they” that he was
referring to were not the Vietnamese people who had killed Joey; the “they”
were not some faceless enemy.  The “they”
he was referring to was the American government that had the legal right to
draft this naturalized boy and send him off to war, adding him to the 58,000
others who were killed in Vietnam – – a boy from a family that had fled Hungary
to escape violence and governmental oppression, who had come to America to find
peace and safety.  I deeply felt the
tragic irony of Joey’s fate.
We came to the address where
Mr. Bodnar was to do some work.  He
opened the door and got out, thanking me for the ride.  I sincerely wished him well.  After the door closed and I continued on, Mr.
Bodnar’s painful lamentation continued to haunt me, “They killed my Joey.”  I never have forgotten.  Those words and the mournful sound of Mr.
Bodnar’s voice have remained with me ever since.
© 23 August 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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Birth Experiences, by Ricky

        I don’t remember being born, but I
imagine it was not a pleasant experience being squeezed through a small opening
like toothpaste from a tube and suddenly finding oneself in a cold unfriendly
environment without mom’s heartbeat to supply normalcy.  I’ve since learned that it wasn’t an
enjoyable experience for my mother either.
        I do remember
that the births of my four children filled me with happiness.  Considering what my wife went through and
what she put me through during “transition”, it jolly well better had made me
happy.
        There were some
rather humorous events during the birth of our first daughter in 1977.  At about 5AM, I was awakened by a swift poke
in the ribs and a voice that said, “My water broke.  Go get a towel.”  I sleepily replied, “What?” after which the
first message was repeated.  I then
staggered to the bathroom to get a towel, but first answered the call of nature
for about 1-minute.  Meanwhile, Deborah
was repeatedly yelling at me to hurry up. 
Well, this is only funny in hindsight but the excitement of the
impending birth quelled her anger.
        By 10PM she
still had not dilated sufficiently for birthing nor had she eaten anything
since dinner the day before.  Deborah was
famished so I went to a McDonald’s and brought her back a Big Mac and a vanilla
shake, which she wolfed down reasonably slow considering.  At the midnight nursing shift change, an
unsympathetic nurse took over and decided to “move things along” by trying to get
Deborah to push, attempting to use the baby’s head to stretch the cervix.  At one point, Deborah was told to tuck her
chin down and push hard.  Deb tried once
but told the nurse that it made her gag. 
The nurse told her it was nonsense and to tuck her chin and push.
        The nurse was
standing where the doctor would stand during delivery so she could monitor the
cervix stretching.  Deb did as she was
told and again told the nurse it was making her gag.  The nurse again insisted that Deborah to tuck
her chin down and push hard.  At this
point, the nurse learned an important and disgusting lesson as Deborah threw up
her recently ingested Big Mac and vanilla shake.  It was a perfectly cylindrical projectile
that arched over her chest and stomach and hit the nurse squarely in the chest.  I was mortified on behalf of the nurse and
did not laugh until the nurse had angrily stomped out of the room.  After all, she had been warned, apparently she
was a “know-it-all” type.
        With some more
suffering on Deborah’s part, but no more drama, our first daughter was born
26–hours after Deb’s water broke.  The
smile and happiness on her face when she was able to hold our baby made it all
worthwhile for the both of us.
        Each of the
following children took less and less time to deliver.  The only other unforgettable event was during
the birth of our third baby, our son.  He
was two weeks overdue and large.  It was
decided that Deborah would be “induced” using Pitocin.  The day for birthing arrived.  We had never needed Pitocin before and did
not know exactly what to expect.  We
waited and waited and waited for the Pitocin drip to take effect.  After about two hours, nothing had begun and
it was explained that the Pitocin did not work because Deborah’s body was not
ready to give birth.  So, the doctor
decided to wait another week.
The next delivery day also arrived
and all went well with the preparation until the nurse administered the
Pitocin. Again we waited and waited and waited but nothing was happening.  After about an hour, another nurse arrived
and discovered that the first nurse had missed the vein and the Pitocin was not
getting into Deb’s blood stream.
        So, while the
nurses were now preparing everything to insert the drip needle properly, I went
to another wing of the hospital for a brief visit with a family friend who was
in the hospital due to heart issues. 
After about 20-30 minutes, I returned to Deborah only to find out that
she was in transition, yelling at me for not being there (I was her Lamaze
labor coach) and was about to be wheeled into the delivery room.  Apparently, Pitocin works very fast and I
barely had time to change into the delivery room green scrubs.  I arrived just ahead of the doctor.
        One week later, Deb
and I were driving two cars to Florida from Montana, as I had just been
discharged from the Air Force.  That was
the trip that was hell for Deborah.  But
that is another story probably best not remembered or told—the modern version of the pioneers
crossing the prairie in covered wagons or on foot.
© 27 January 2014 
About the Author 
I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in
Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach.  Just
prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on
their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my
parents divorced.
When united with my mother and stepfather two years later
in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California,
graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force,
I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until
her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001
terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be
therapeutic.
My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.
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A Travelogue of Terror, by Phillip Hoyle

I suppose I’ve always held an
exaggerated sense of the word terror and an exaggerated sense of my own safety.
Still, I do recall one dark night thirty years ago when I realized some of the
big things might not go well. It was during a family trip to celebrate Christmas
in western Colorado. Packed into our VW Jetta, we left our home in mid-Missouri
stopping overnight at my parents’ home in central Kansas. The next morning we
continued on our way with my sixteen-year-old son Michael driving. I wanted him
to experience driving on a long trip since in my teen years I did the same
thing. I recall that while driving those long hours I had become used to where
the car was on the road and no longer had to calculate its position by keeping
the white marks on the right of the lane lined up with a certain point on the
fender. It worked for me and I hoped it would for him. He drove well, but on
our approach to Limon, Colorado, a light snow began to fall. “I’m not ready to
drive in this,” Michael announced, so he and I switched places. Like a good
navigator, he tuned in the radio for more information about the storm. Since it
was moving toward the southeast, I decided we should change from our plan to
drive through Colorado Springs and continue on I-70 through Denver and over the
mountains. I couldn’t imagine crossing the high plains country on US-24, a
two-lane highway that had always seemed rather narrow. I didn’t want to risk
getting stranded out there with its few small towns and few snowplows. Certainly
I didn’t want an accident. I hoped by going northwest we would drive out of the
storm.
The snow picked up just west of Limon
in that high country known for its terrible winds and difficult driving
conditions. In fact it became so bad we saw lots of semi’s jackknifed in the
ditches along the road. I had driven in snow many times, so confidently and
carefully we continued west. As we neared Denver the snow on the road got
deeper and deeper and the Interstate became nearly deserted. Since I didn’t
want to get stuck in Denver for Christmas, I proposed we stop briefly for
gasoline and a quick meal.
We got back on I-70 as evening darkened.
The snow kept falling, the driving conditions steadily worsened. As we started
into the foothills, I said to my family, “I’m going to follow that tan 4-wheel-drive
vehicle. Its big tires should keep a track open for us.” My idea worked well
enough. Then we were climbing the incline past Georgetown, still in the tracks
of another SUV. Entering the Eisenhower tunnel at the top of the divide gave me
a great sense of relief. With no snow falling, the windshield warmed up and I
felt calm; that is until we emerged into a whiteout with 20-miles-per-hour
winds and a minus 20° F temperature. Immediately the windshield frosted over.
All I could see were the out-of-focus red lights on the car in front of me. “See
those lights?” I told my family. “I’m going to follow them and hope for the
best.” That road is steep, a fact I was all too well aware of as I downshifted and
said my prayers.
We made it safely to the bottom of
the incline, exited the road at the first opportunity, and pulled into a
service station with a restroom. I ran inside only to find a long line of
people impatiently waiting to use the all-too-inadequate toilet facilities. The
terrifying ride into Denver, up the divide, and back down was bad, but the wait
in that line with the prospect of wetting my pants was for me an even greater
terror. By the time I got into the restroom, I was shaking. Some minutes later
more relaxed, a thankful man emerged. I ate some unhealthy but comforting snack
food, drank a Coca Cola, filled the gas tank, and gathered the family again to
travel on to Battlement Mesa. Thankfully the snow gave out on Vail Pass. The
snowplows kept that part of the road passable. We spent the night at the home
of one of my wife’s relatives before driving the rest of the way to Montrose the
next morning in full, dazzling, comforting sunlight.
That’s about as close to terror as I
have come, and I freely admit it was quite enough for me. Furthermore, I
realized far beyond the fears of driving snowy roads that needing to pee and
not being able to do so presented a new threat of terror to a middle-age man.
Now as an old man, I have known that terror way too often.
© 28 Oct 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

A Piece of Cake, by Pat Gourley

The phrase “a piece of cake” usually implies something that
is easy or simple and often even pleasant to do. Often though when this phrase
is used in regards to many different tasks the reality turns out to be
something quite different. For example when told by someone at the hardware
store that changing the leaking parts in your toilet bowl will be “a piece of
cake” when it actually turns out to be several hours of hell and eventually
involves calling a plumber!
A similar meaning phrase that seems to have creped into the
vernacular these days is “easy-peasy”. The use of which seems for some reason
to make my skin crawl and a nearly overpowering urge to slap the crap out of
whoever just said it comes over me.
However, I plan to address this phrase, Piece O’ Cake, for purposes of this Story Telling group by turning
it into a question, approaching it in very concrete fashion and then twisting
into a LGBT call to arms! Which reminds me of a criticism I used to get flung
at me much more in the 1970’s and 1980’s which was “why does everything have to
be political for you”. So here goes.
The issue for me, and most of us aging LGBT folk, is the
cake. The last fucking thing we need in our lives is cake. Specifically the
sugar that comes with the cake to say nothing of the processed flour it is
embedded in.
It is now indisputable that many of our chronic health
problems are aggravated if not directly caused by what we put in our mouths for
what passes as food. Over the ages we queer folk have often been accused of
diabolically putting in our mouths things god and nature did not intend to have
in there. I want to redirect the conversation away from tongues and genitalia
to the real evil shortening our lives and compromising the quality of the
golden years and that would be the sugar we put in our mouths!
The literature and science to back it up on the true poison
of sugar is voluminous. I would refer you though to the writings on diet by a
man named Joel Fuhrman. I need to extend a H/T to Betsy McConnell for turning
me on to this man’s writings about a year ago. I had been a neurotic student of
diet long before being turned-on to Fuhrman’s writings but I currently consider
him to be the last word on matters of food, at least for now!
The first step, and this is true for me, is admitting that I
am a sugar addict. Disturbing research using brain scans has repeatedly shown
that the same parts of the brain are titillated and light up from sugar as they
do from cocaine.
A close friend just sent me a piece from The Sun over the weekend that was an interview with a fellow named
Daniel Lieberman. A short quote from the article sums things up nicely in
regards to the evils of sugar:
“Sugar as a modern,
industrialized product has created an incredible amount of misery, starting
with slavery and the plantation system. Today it is increasing rates of disease
and death because our bodies can’t handle it. But we love it. We are addicted
to it”.
The litany of health problems related to poor diet is a long
one from diabetes to stroke to heart disease to obesity to several forms of
cancer. You can actually without too much effort connect the dots and relate
global warming at least in part to sugar and certainly processed foods. Animal
product of any source is of course a bigger culprit in regards to global warming
but that is a topic for another time.
As with many evils in the world sugar often creeps into our
lives in very insidious ways. The first step for me was becoming aware of the
staggering amount of hidden sugars in our food. Reading labels is a great way
to begin raising one’s consciousness in this regard. Of course as one of my many
health gurus, one Robert Lustig, has emphasized we should be eating real food
and that would eliminate anything that comes with a label on it.
There are no “healthy sugars”. Fruit juice for example has as
much sugar as equal amounts of any soda and your pancreas and liver could not
give a rat’s ass where the sugar comes from, it all has to be dealt with the
same be it O.J. or Pepsi.
I can hear the hue and cry now that there are no bad foods
and if we just approach things in moderation no harm no foul. Bullshit! The
words of the great Texas populist Jim Hightower apply here: “the only thing in
the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead Armadillos”.  And I would guess those Armadillos had type 2
diabetes.
So in my admittedly very biased opinion the LGBT community,
particularly the over 50 crowd, would be much better served in the long run by
moving the issues of diet and climate change ahead of marriage equality and
military service.
This sea change in queer priorities I think would bring us
much more in line with a whole host of other pertinent social issues from
racism to income inequality to the devastation of the planet.  And it would go a long way towards reducing
our unwanted belly fat. 

Eat more fruit and vegetables.

© March 2015 
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

Ticking Away – Homophobes, by Nicholas

I was feeling just kind of stupid the
other day so I did what you do when you feel just kind of stupid: I turned on
the TV. Surfing the channels, I came across a CNN show talking about the
attacks in France that left 12 journalists and 5 others dead. One commentator
was identified as being from the Catholic League, a conservative Catholic organization.
This spokesman started by, of course, condemning the violent attacks but then
went on to say how he thought the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, who also ran items lampooning Catholic hierarchs,
were provocateurs and pornographers and if they hadn’t done what they did, they
would be alive today. The first part of his statement was delivered in bland,
white-guy-speak; but when he began criticizing the victims, whom he clearly
didn’t like, his dull, fat face fairly well lit up with determination. This is
what he really wanted to say. I don’t know if this man is prone to violence,
but he displayed an attitude of contempt for the victims.
What makes homophobes tick? Probably
much of the same thing that makes all phobes–racists, anti-Semites,
women-haters and murderous jihadists–tick. The time bomb of intolerance they
carry around.
          I’m right, says
the phobe, my culture and religion tell me I’m right and you’re wrong and
therefore I have the right, maybe the duty, to attack you, beat you, even kill
you. Getting angry isn’t enough. I’m entitled to get even.
Start with a conviction of
superiority and power, add a sense of entitlement and plain old egoism,
sprinkle with self-righteousness and every imagined criticism becomes a threat
to be answered with explosive violence. Clearly, this good Catholic, supposed Christian
didn’t mind at all that 12 people he didn’t like lost their lives. They
shouldn’t have done what they did. They shouldn’t bug people like me. We’re
entitled to defend ourselves against such bad behavior as making fun of the
pope or the prophet. That line used to be commonly used against gay people: if
you didn’t flaunt it (i.e., live openly) you wouldn’t antagonize those who
don’t like you and maybe then we wouldn’t have to beat you up.
          It’s the
classic rationale of the bully, full of egoism and entitlement and yet
self-pity. Phobe equals bully. They think the world is theirs and others are
allowed in only in so far as they do not impinge on preconceived notions. And
those preconceived notions and common prejudices frequently get bundled up with
high flying notions like it’s god’s will and law or it’s the bedrock of
civilization. Of course, we know that civilization has no bedrock; it’s really
a fragile thing.
          What makes
phobes tick? Self-righteousness, anger, helplessness, isolation, fear of change—all
the ingredients of prejudice, discrimination, homophobia.
          But while the
racist, anti-semite, and woman-hater can separate himself from those he hates,
it’s more difficult with sexual discrimination because everybody has a
sexuality. This prejudice hits inside. Some straight men fear that if they
accept gay men they will become gay themselves or, just as bad, others will see
them as gay. Their presumed code of manhood will unravel. And if they accept
lesbian women, they become useless and irrelevant instead of dominant. Sexual
prejudice has that unique quality of turning the political into the very, very
personal.
          I recently saw
a refrigerator magnet that read: “Why should you mind that I’m gay? I don’t
mind that you’re an idiot.” In our multi-cultural world, that could be the best
we can do in establishing mutual tolerance. Ultimately, I don’t care what makes
phobes tick just so they keep their ticking away from me.
Intolerance, as we’ve just seen, is a
lit stick of dynamite set to explode. It comes from a sense of helplessness in
a world that offers plenty that is offensive to what you hold dear. We’re all
entitled to be angry when offended. But we are not entitled to abuse anybody
else with our anger. Sometimes, “fuck you” has to be enough.
Nous sommes tous Charlie.
© 22 Apr
2015 
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

House Cleaning, by Lewis

I
have been doing housework since I was no more than eight years old.  I remember this very specifically because the
summer of my eighth year I contracted ringworm of the scalp.  It was the summer that my nuclear
family—granddad, dad, mom and me—drove Granddad’s 1952 Packard sedan to New
England and Washington, DC.  We hadn’t
been home one week when my scalp started to scale and itch.  We had a pet cat, which had every reason to hate
me but, when checked, it showed no sign of the skin disease.  I might have picked it up in the Big Apple
but my favorite theory is that I got it from putting the nozzle of the vacuum
cleaner up to my cheek and making funny faces at myself.
In
any event, that was only the beginning of a series of odd associations with
house cleaning in my early life.  My
parents were lower middle class folk who rarely could afford to pay a cleaning
person but my mother hated—that’s H-A-T-E-D—housework—so, when she was working,
it was necessary to pay someone to clean our house.  One day, according to my mother, she found a
black cleaning woman asleep on her bed. 
That was the last time she ever paid anyone to do housework and, as far
I know, the last time she ever spoke kindly of a black person.  No, from then on, if house cleaning needed to
be done and I was around, I did it (or, so it seems, looking back across so
many foggy years).
Luckily
for me, I kind of liked doing housework. (Please note the past tense!)  I put cleanliness and order above godliness
and I was the only person I trusted to do the job right.  When I started working at the public library
at the age of 15, my favorite job was to “read the shelves” on Saturday
mornings.  That meant putting hundreds of
fiction books in alphabetical order by author and title and a similar number of
non-fiction books in Dewey Decimal System order.  I could do it faster and more accurately than
anyone else on the staff though they seemed only upset that I lay on the floor
to read the bottom shelf.
My
second-favorite job was working the basement stacks.  Down there was a large “squirrel cage” that
housed back issues of periodicals, including National Geographic.  Growing
up in the 1950’s meant that there were a number of native peoples in the world
who were accustomed to wearing little other than a loin cloth and, sometimes,
some body paint or other ornamentation. 
The only magazine store in my home town was a great source of comic
books and Christian literature but most definitely lacking in anything that
would appeal to the prurient interest of a nascent adolescent.  National
Geographic filled the gap nicely, especially articles on the golden, stocky
tribes of the Amazon River basin.
In
my senior year of college, I took a job cleaning house for a retired professor
and his wife.  He was wheelchair bound
and she was his primary caregiver.  Their
house was a two-story colonial with a half-finished basement.  The finished half was the professor’s office
and the unfinished half a place to store books, magazines, and other
paraphernalia.  My job was to clean only
his office every other week, which only took two hours.  I think they paid me $2.50 an hour but that
would pay for soda, movies, and cigarettes for the month.  Soon I discovered that the professor was a
collector of National Geographics.  Suddenly, my job satisfaction improved by
leaps-and-bounds.
I
now no longer do house cleaning—for myself or anyone.  The thrill has gone.  I still get a kick, however, out of watching
the houseboy in La Cage aux Folles as
he combines his flouncing with his feather dusting.
© 1 April 2013 

About
the Author 
I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth. Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.
Posted on

Lonely Places, by Gillian

The
recent hundred-year anniversary of the beginning of WW1 started me thinking
about how war, above any other single cause, creates lonely places of the soul.
After all, the very essence of the armed services is to nullify that; to create
a sense of belonging and total commitment to your military comrades. To a
considerable extent, I’m sure it succeeds. But at the same time it still leaves
ample room for lonely places. Did that man hanging on the barbed wire of no
man’s land in agony, screaming for one of his buddies to shoot him, feel less
alone and lonely in his terrible circumstances simply because he had
buddies? I cannot imagine so. Did that 
tail gunner of the Second World War, huddling cold and frightened in his
rear turret, not feel impossible alone?
But,
sadly, it is not just the combatants who inhabit such lonely places. It is
also, very often, the survivors, and certainly the people who love the ones who
died or returned as shattered pieces of their former selves, to occupy their
own lonely places. We only have to hear that someone is a Vietnam Vet to
immediately conjure up a vision, alas all too frequently correct, of someone
with  …. well, let’s just say, a
vulnerable psyche. The estimate of total American Vietnam Vet suicides is
currently about 100,000; approaching double the number of Americans killed
during the twenty-some years of that seemingly endless, fruitless, war. Right
there are 100,000 vacated lonely places. And of course it’s not just the
veterans of that war who inhabit places so lonely that eventually they have to
take the only way out they can find. The U.S. right now suffers an average of
22 Veteran suicides each day, most of the younger ones having returned
from Iraq or Afghanistan with battered bodies accompanied by memories dark
enough to extinguish the light in their eyes, and their souls. 22 more lonely
places available every day, and no shortage of new tenants.
World
War 1, was a terrible war that was supposed to end all wars and instead gave
birth to the next, already half grown. Whole villages became lonely places.
They had lost an entire generation of men in two minutes “going over the
top,”, leaving only women, old men, and children, to struggle on. Children
dying before their parents is not the natural order of things, and creates
empty spaces so tight that they can squeeze the real life from those held in
their grip, leaving only empty shells to carry on. Consider that awful story of
the Sullivans from Waterloo, Iowa; all five sons died in action when their
light cruiser, USS Juneau, was sunk, (incidentally, one week after I was born,)
on November 13th, 1942. How on earth did their parents and only sister cope
with that one?
Several
years ago I spent some weeks in Hungary. A Jewish friend in Denver had given me
the address of her cousin in Budapest, and I arranged a visit. This poor woman
had lost her husband and their only daughter, thirteen at the time, in
Auschwitz, but somehow survived, herself. She showed me the numbers on her arm,
and talked of nothing but her child, proudly, sadly, showing me photos of this
shyly smiling young girl. I had never met a Concentration Camp survivor before,
nor anyone who had lost their family in one. I felt physically sick but bravely
sat with her for two hours, hearing every nightmare of this family’s holocaust
as if it had just happened the week before. That was how she talked of it, and
I’m sure that’s how it felt to her. She had not lived since then, but simply
drifted on through that huge empty place of the lonely soul, going through the
motions.
One
of my own, personal, lonely places, and I suspect most of us have many of them
we can topple into at any unexpected moment, is the one I can get sucked into
when I find myself forced to confront Man’s constant inhumanity to Man. It’s
not only war as such, but any of the endless violence thrust upon us by
nations, religions, and ideologies. On 9/11/2001 I sat, along with most
Americans and half the world, with my eyes gazing at the TV, somehow mentally
and physically unable to detach myself. The one horror which burned itself into
my brain, out of that entire day of horror, was two people who jumped, holding
hands, from the hundred-and-somethingth floor, to certain death below. I wish
the TV channel had not shown it, but it did. I wish I hadn’t seen it, but I
did. It recurs in my protesting memory, and tosses me into my own lonely space,
even as I involuntarily contemplate theirs. Can you be anywhere but in a lonely
space when you decide to opt for the quick clean death ahead rather than the
slow, painful, dirty one fast encroaching from behind? How much comfort did you
get from the warmth, the perhaps firm grip, of that other hand? Did these two
people, a man and a woman, know each other? Were they friends? Workmates? Or
passing strangers? I have no doubt I could find the answers on the Web, but I
don’t want to know. Those two share my lonely place way too much as it is. They
estimate about 200 people jumped that day, but the only other image that stayed
with me, though not to revisit as often as the hand-holding couple, was a woman
alone, holding down her skirt as she fell. I felt an alarming bubble of
hysterical laughter and tears rising in me, but in the end did neither. To
paraphrase Abraham lincoln, perhaps I hurt too much to laugh but was too old to
cry. No, I doubt I will ever be too old to cry; in fact I seem to do it more
easily and with greater frequency. And perhaps that’s good. At least it’s
better than being, as I was that day, lost in my lonely place, too numb to do
either.
In
May of 2014, the 9/11 Museum opened. It occupies a subterranean space below and
within the very foundations of the World Trade Towers. That sounds a bit creepy
to me. Then I read that hanging on one wall is a huge photograph of people
jumping from the burning building, propelled by billowing black smoke. Why?
Talk about creepy. Why is it there? These people have loved ones, we
presume. Do we have no reverence, no respect, for the dead or for those who
remain? I feel my lonely place approaching. It rattles along in the form of an
old railroad car; doubtless it contains doomed Jews et al. My lonely
place has much of Auschwitz within it. I know for sure that I will never visit
that 9/11 museum. I did visit Auschwitz, and it was awful, but still there’s
the buffer of time. I hadn’t, unlike 9/11, watched it live on TV. I breath
deeply and feel my biggest, deepest, lonely place, pass on by. No, I won’t be
visiting that museum. There are times when those lonely places can only be
fought off with a big double dose of denial.
© August 2014
About the Author 

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

A Picture to Remember, by Carol White

In the early 1980s my
partner Judith and I had attended the Gay Games in San Francisco, the second
one to be held in that city.  It’s
actually the Gay Olympics, but the “real” Olympics would not allow us to use
that word, so the founders decided to call it the Gay Games.  And they decided that the third one should be
held outside the United States, but not too far away, so that it would have
more of an “international” flavor to it. 
They decided on Vancouver, British Columbia for August 1990, and they
would call it Celebration ’90: Gay Games and Cultural Festival, since they were
adding many of the arts as well as the sporting events.
Around the beginning of 1988
I got a harebrained idea that it would be fun to organize and conduct a world
chorus to sing at that event, and that it would be called the Celebration ’90
Festival Chorus.  So I made a couple of
trips to Vancouver to meet with the organizers of the games and managed to convince
them to let me do it! 
We formed a small organizing
committee in Denver that met in our living room, and we began two years of
effort to make that dream come true.  At
that time we had no computers and no email and no Facebook or websites to aid
us in our recruitment efforts.  So we
began to put ads in gay and lesbian publications across the country, as well as
advertising through the Gay Games themselves, and trying to use GALA Choruses
too, although most of the choruses were not interested because they were so
busy with their own rehearsals and concerts. 
I rented a P.O. Box at a nearby post office, and I would go by there
every day and check to see if we had a new soprano or alto or tenor or bass. 
I decided what music we
would sing and we raised money to order all the music, as well as black folders
and T-shirts that one of our members had designed.  Somehow I got rehearsal tapes made, which
were really the old cassette tapes, and as the time approached, we had mailing
parties to send out all the music and tapes and fold and pack all the
shirts. 
Meanwhile we were working
full time at our jobs and we were not out at work.
After many trials and
tribulations, we flew to Vancouver on a Friday in August of 1990 with great
anticipation but not knowing exactly what to expect.  The next morning we went to the church where
we were supposed to rehearse, and 400 singers showed up with music in hand and
ready to go.  We had members from 20
states, seven Canadian provinces, the Yukon Territory, Australia, England,
Germany, France, and South Africa.  We
arranged them in sections where the congregation would normally sit, and I was
up front.  You can just imaging that the
first sounds that came out of that choir were absolutely thrilling! 
We had three hours to
rehearse that morning, then a lunch break, and that afternoon we rehearsed at
B.C. Place, which was Vancouver’s domed stadium, to perform there that very
night with three songs for Opening Ceremonies. 
They had built risers for us and they were set up on the field. 
By the time we got to the
stadium that night for Opening Ceremonies, the energy was through the
roof.  There were approximately 10,000
athletes from all over the world, and approximately 10,000 spectators from
around the world in the stands who had come to observe.  The chorus went out onto the risers and sang,
“Come celebrate, come celebrate, come celebrate our spirit.  The sound of hearts that beat with pride, now
let the whole world hear it.” 
Then we sat together in the
stands while we had the parade of athletes just like the Olympics, where they
marched in in teams from all the different countries and they congregated in
the middle of the field.  After some
speeches and other performances, the chorus went back out and sang “Do You Hear
the People Sing” from Les Mis.  This song
happened while they were running the torch into the stadium, and just as they
ran up the stairs and lit the Olympic flame, we finished the song with “Tomorrow
comes.”  It was midnight. 
The next morning I could
hardly get out of bed.  My body ached all
over.  But we had to rehearse all morning
every morning for a concert that we were going to give on Friday night at the
Plaza of Nations, an outdoor venue which had been built for the World’s Fair
when it was held there. 
So Sunday through Friday we
worked on the concert program as follows: 
Diversity, Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera, March of the
Hebrew Captives from Verdi’s Nabucco, Song of Peace from Finlandia, Living with
AIDS, The Great Peace March, Brothers and Sisters, and Singing for Our
Lives.  And early Friday evening we
performed all of those selections to a packed crowd at the Plaza of
Nations.  Here is the “picture to
remember” from that concert.
Then we rehearsed
again on Saturday for the Closing Ceremonies that were to be held that night
back at B.C. Place, where we sang “We’re gonna keep on moving forward, Keep on
moving forward, Keep on moving forward, Never Turning Back, Never Turning Back.” 
After the chorus sang
that night, Judith and our friend Bob and I went up into the stands to watch
the rest of the show.  They used the
chorus on the field to form two long lines holding up flags for the big parade
to pass through.  I remember looking down
at that scene as the happiest time in my whole life.  We had actually pulled it off!  I think it was an extremely happy time for a
lot of other people there too.
After everyone went
back home, several of the individuals who had sung in that chorus organized gay
and lesbian choruses in their home towns, including Winnipeg, Manitoba;
Toronto, Ontario; Victoria, B.C., and Sydney, Australia. 
I have not attended
any Gay Games since then, but it is my understanding that each one has included
a Festival Chorus.
© April 2015
About
the Author 
I was born in Louisiana in
1939, went to Southern Methodist University in Dallas from 1957 through 1963,
with majors in sacred music and choral conducting, was a minister of music for
a large Methodist church in Houston for four years, and was fired for being gay
in 1967.  After five years of searching,
I settled in Denver and spent 30 years here as a freelance court reporter.  From 1980 forward I have been involved with
PFLAG Denver, and started and conducted four GLBT choruses:  the PFLAG Festival Chorus, the Denver Women’s
Chorus, the Celebration ’90 Festival Chorus for the Gay Games in Vancouver, and
Harmony.  I am enjoying my 11-year
retirement with my life partner of 32 years, Judith Nelson, riding our bikes,
going to concerts, and writing stories for the great SAGE group.