Month: April 2016

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The Females in My Life, by Ricky

Like everyone else on
this planet, the first woman in my life was my mother.  Mom was the care giver when I was young, but
she was also the rat-fink of my life. 
She would always tell my father of my daily misdeeds and he was the
disciplinarian in the family.  During
that time period, discipline consisted of not too gentle spankings, so I
learned to fear both of them.  Mom was
also the one who came to Minnesota, while I was living with my grandparents, to
be a bridesmaid for her sister and then did not take me back to California when
she left Minnesota after the wedding.  I
think I subconsciously resent her even to this day for leaving me and for being
a rat-fink.
The second woman was my
father’s mother.  After I was born she
came to live with us for about one year. 
I don’t remember that time period much and as I grew up, I did not see
her very often.  The next female in my
life was my beloved Bonnie, a black and white collie, who became the best baby
sitter a two-year old toddler could not escape; that is until I learned to take
her with me when I left the yard.  Sadly,
she got distemper and passed before her first birthday.  I don’t remember if I grieved for her very
much.  I only now remember her from old
photographs and the stories my parents told me over time.
Next was a girl in my
Kindergarten class at the Hawthorn Christian School in Hawthorn,
California.  Her name was Sandra
Flora.  She was like a girlfriend to me,
or more precisely, I was a boyfriend to her. 
With long curly hair and the full dress that little girls wore at that
time, she looked like a young Shirley Temple. 
I carried her Kindergarten school photo in my wallet well into my 40’s
when I finally lost it.
The next woman in my
life would be my mother’s mother.  I
lived with her and my grandfather for two years on a farm in central Minnesota
from the age of 8 until two-weeks before I turned 10.  She was a reasonable surrogate mother but at
9-years of age, I ended up with a mild ‟school boy crush” on my 4th
grade teacher, Mrs. Knoll.  She was a
very young beautiful lady and in her second year as a teacher.  The crush was mild because she was married so
I knew I had no chance and I was not quite into full blown puberty.  My 3rd grade teacher, Mrs.
Sorensen, was a good but matronly teacher and thus of no interest to me.
Back on the farm, my
aunt Darlene, my mother’s younger and only sister, would visit occasionally
with her husband.  When I was 8, I was a
ring-bearer (like Bilbo and Frodo) at her wedding.  My younger cousin, Pamela Anderson, was the
flower-girl.  There was one other female
on the farm that I had a platonic relationship with, at least on my part.  Her name was Peanuts and she was a Guernsey
cow.  Her stall was the first one as I
would enter the barn and so she became my favorite, almost like a pet.
One week before I
turned 10, my mother and new step-father came to Minnesota to pick me up and
take me back to California.  They also
introduced me to the next female to enter my life, my little baby sister,
Gale.  For the next 9 years she and her
twin brother and I had a close family relationship.  They were the kids and I was the
babysitter.  Not too much personal time
for me, but we did have some amount of fun growing up until I went away to
college and then the military.  She still
lives at our ‟home town” of South Lake Tahoe.
The next female was
never alive in the literal sense but she really was a lady.  She was the Skipalong, my step-father’s 39
foot cabin cruiser he used as a tour-boat on Lake Tahoe during 1957 and ’58.  I was his deckhand in 1958 and I
really loved the ‟job” and the boat.  All
I had was that one summer with her as the next summer, at the beginning of the
season, she sank at a pier while her engine was being overhauled and was sold
for salvage.  I still miss her even today
as that summer was perhaps the happiest of my childhood.


She had a colorful career.  It is
believed she was built in the 1920’s in Morris Heights, New York by the
Consolidated Shipbuilding Corporation. 
She was originally 36 feet long but upon arrival in San Francisco she
was modified to 39 feet long and a ‟lookout cockpit” was added to the bow as
she began service as a rum runner during Prohibition.
In the Fall of 1958,
after that wonderful summer, I developed another school boy crush.  This time it was during full blown puberty
and on my unmarried, first year 5th grade teacher, Miss
Herbert.  She was beautiful, young, and
had a wonderful personality.  I was in
LOVE!  Then she got married over
Christmas vacation.  I was
devastated.  It appeared to me that I
would never get the women I loved, which due to the age differences, is
probably a good thing.
The next female arrived
at our house on Red Lake Road, in South Lake Tahoe when I was 12.  She was ¾ Oriental Poodle and ¼ Pomeranian—a
little, black, shaggy, and “yippy” lap dog. 
She bonded to me the first night in our house and became the first
female I slept with for the next 9-years. 
I was monogamous but she was a very prolific bitch. No! I was not the
father of her litters.
After I joined the Air
Force, I met my first girlfriend as an adult. 
She was the best friend of the woman I would marry 5-years later.  During the intervening years, I also met the
woman who taught me about making out and foreplay.  Then there was the woman who took my
virginity.  Actually, I guess it was a
mutual thing as she did not have to twist my arm to get it.
Then I married Deborah
and we enjoyed 27-years and 9-months together before she passed from complications
of breast cancer.  During those years,
the final women in my life were born to us—our three daughters, one of which
made me a grandfather with her 2-daughters.
So those are the women
and other females in my life.  I chose
not to tell about my two female cats, so be thankful for small favors.
© 23 November 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 was sent to live with my grandparents on their
farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents
divorced.
When united with my mother and stepfather two years later
in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California,
graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force,
I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until
her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001
terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be
therapeutic.
My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.
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Three Dollar Bill, by Ray S

Possibly
this has happened to you at some time. You go to the storage room in search of
some sort of old legal paper stored for safety because you couldn’t tell when
you might need it.
The
other day this became my mission. So I was buried in a collection of storage
boxes and file boxes searching for a copy of a paid mortgage.
Of
course, I became completely diverted by a box of old photographs: portraits and
snapshots. At the bottom of this box I found a thin blue book titled “Our Baby”
complete with faded pictures and notes.
Curiosity
got the best of me, so I settled down to read the writer’s detailed description
of the baby’s arrival, weight (7 lbs.), length (21”), etc, as well as the
mother’s pleasure about the food and rest she’d gotten in the hospital. Then
there was the list of gifts and their donors, and a ribbon-tied bundle of
letters and cards.
At
this point I decided the latter was too much a tackle and put it back into its
niche. At this point I saw a yellow envelope that had been hidden by those
cards and letters.
The
printed name on the envelope read “Western Union Telegraph” and was addressed
to Mr. J. W. Wulf, Cleveland, Ohio. It was a copy for the sender’s file. Of
course, I had to read the enclosed telegram.
The
message stated:
Ray
Wulf arrived 11:35 AM
Oct
19, 1926, Berwyn Hospital
Berwyn,
Illinois
Baby
and mother doing fine.
Signed
Homer E. Sylvester
It
was the everlasting three dollar bill, where or from whom it came from, but it
has lasted for 90 years.
© 14 March 2016 
About
the Author 

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I Do Not Exaggerate, by Phillip

I
felt like Johnson’s laughter was exaggerated as in too loud, too much like a
billy goat’s bleating, just too obnoxious, but as I came to understand much
more about him and his habits, I found his laughter a minor detraction. He was
a man given to life-long drug use and alcohol abuse. He had been adopted by
well-meaning parents who found they couldn’t easily relate to this new family
member, could barely cope with the challenges he presented: impulse control,
ADHD, bipolar swings, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and eventual drug-induced
schizophrenia. It took them decades to understand all that; it took me years to
begin to fathom the dimensions of his life. Originally I knew only his manic laughter.
I
met Johnson when giving free massages at an AIDS clinic. By the time I was
finished giving him that first massage, I was pretty much in love with this crazy
man with loud voice, boisterous laughter, and keen wit. While I observed these
attributes I also became aware of his odor, first wondering why some guys came
to massage without bathing and then realizing the smell wasn’t awful and then
really liking it. Oh those pheromones! They cause problems for the unsuspecting.
Johnson
came to the monthly massages at the clinic rather faithfully; something I only
later realized must have required a focus he could barely sustain. I always
smiled when I saw his name on my list for the day. As I got to know him more,
heard bits and pieces of his story, came to admire his intellect, his
vocabulary, and the structure of his thought (the man was no mimic, no parrot),
my interest in him deepened.
Occasionally
I would run into him away from the safety of the massage contract. On these
occasions we would drink coffee or beer or we would simply talk. When he
started coming to my apartment for his massages, I learned much more. I also
found my defenses rising.
Some
years into our friendship I realized Johnson’s life was becoming increasingly
disorganized. For him I provided a kind of safety net I suppose; he provided me
the entertainment of his stories of life in places I’d never go, for instance,
sleeping on a grate in front of a public building along East Colfax, working as
a cook in a restaurant while high as a kite on some drug, or getting into a
drunken fight on his way home from a gay bar. When I realized he spent some of
his time homeless, living on the street, I told a friend that I felt Johnson
was hoping I’d invite him to live with me. I was trying to figure out how to
avoid such a request.
One
winter afternoon he stopped by my apartment. We talked, which of course meant we
also laughed together. I fed him. After dark descended, he prepared to leave
but said he needed to give me the perishables he had got at a food bank. The
overnight temperature was predicted for 10° F. I realized he wasn’t simply
going out to a bar; he assumed he might end up on the street and lose the
perishables to frost. I told him to stay. He stayed two nights and then got
into some housing through his case manager’s connections.
I
started seeing the effects of the drugs he took, like the time in a massage
when he wouldn’t turn over for the face-up work. He laughed with quasi embarrassment
saying he’d taken X the night before. Or the time I saw him intimidate another
guy who he thought was looking at him strangely. Or the time I met him at a
sandwich shop and pushed food on him as he sat across from me, his eyes at
half-mast. He never asked to move in with me, perhaps not wanting to have me
refuse him. I came to appreciate that he treated me with respect, even love.
His
difficulties increased when he got into legal trouble over drugs. Mostly Johnson
seemed to live alone or perhaps he just failed to mention anyone important in
his life. Finally I met a lover of his, a chef. The last time I saw this
partner was when we went together to visit Johnson in prison. The incarceration
served to end that affair.
I
got over whatever naiveté I had when I heard the stories from him about
surviving in a flophouse, living on next to nothing while he awaited disability
insurance, squandering the SSI back-pay settlement on drugs, and being tied up
and tortured in someone’s dungeon one happy New Years Day. He always laughed,
mining each experience for its humor.
To
you listeners who may be prone to exaggeration I say, “No we did not have sex.”
Such was not part of our friendship although I certainly had thought about having
sex with Johnson any number of times. I just was not willing to become the
partner of a drug addict. I was more self-preserving than that. Oh, I loved
this sucker—body, mind, personality, odors, wit, and openness. I liked that he
liked and trusted me. I loved him starting with those strange pheromones, the
feel of his muscles, and the beauty of his underarms. I even liked when he
showed up on my table with safety pins in his nipples. I liked our hugs. I
liked that he protected me from his worse times. I responded to his
desperation. I loved our correspondence from his prison stays, was intrigued
with his wild bad-boy personality; and I appreciated that he didn’t try to make
me enter his world.
I
know that some folk who knew him would think I exaggerate Johnson’s good
aspects, but I believe I do not. Like every person I have known, he was a blend
of good and bad. Neither attribute is absolute. For me the art of living is to
find a balance that one can sustain without bringing unwanted harm to others.
Of
course I am not unaware of the sometime unwanted aspects of things. I am pretty
sure Johnson did not want to die from an overdose. Probably he didn’t expect
the coke he took to be enhanced. Still, he certainly knew the risks. He wasn’t
always wise, but in his way he lived life rather fully. I don’t defend him but,
I did love him in ways appropriate, and that is no exaggeration at all. 
© 12 Mar 2013 
About
the Author 
Phillip Hoyle
lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In
general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two
years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now
focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE
program “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com
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A Looming Wrinkle, by Pat Gourley

I am going to approach
the topic of Wrinkles with a bit of a
wrinkle and write from a secondary definition of the word and that would be
”snag”. A wrinkle can be a snag rather than the latest distressing line on my
face or ass.
The potential snag I’d
like to address is the slowly emerging effort to take the “T” out of LGBT. I am
linking to a recent provocative piece from The
Independent, a British newspaper, entitled Why it’s time to take the T out of LGBT written by Katie Glover.
Ms. Glover is a transgender woman and editor of the transgender and drag
publication Frock Magazine: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-its-time-to-take-the-t-out-of-lgbt-10493352.html
She starts right out of
the box exposing the myth, quite prevalent even in the LGB community, that
transgender folks are gay. Most are not and in fact the percent that are is
likely no more than the percent of the general population that is gay or
lesbian. Glover goes on to point out that being gay and being transgender are
two very different things that should not be mixed up.
Historically it made
survival sense for trans folks to hitch their wagon to the larger gay movement
where they received at least some modicum of acceptance or dare I use the much
more loaded and perhaps offensive word: tolerance. Times though have changed
and with the transgender closet door swinging wide open and their numbers
swelling a tipping point has perhaps been reached and it’s now time to break
away from the LGB’s.
A poignant example from
Glover’s piece of the confusion that exists in the lesbian and gay community
around trans folks was the recent appearance of Caitlyn Jenner on the Ellen
DeGeneres show. Ellen was quite surprise by Caitlyn’s lukewarm stance on same
sex marriage.  Cait was trying to explain
to Ellen that she was a traditionalist on matters of marriage, though she has
evolved somewhat from the more strident view she held prior to transitioning.
If this movement for the
trans community to severe ties with the LGB’s continues to gain steam it may
prove to be quite the painful wrinkle. One component of why this will be
difficult for gays and lesbians to accept might be the weirdly pejorative views
straight society have foisted on us with terms like sissy and tomboy. That gay
men are effeminate and lesbian’s masculine butch dykes is still a prevalent and
false meme today. This simplistic and totally incorrect view of who we are I
think may have and still is contributing to lots of confusion around gender.
Perhaps I am wandering a
bit into the bushes here but it seems that many, perhaps most, folks who are
transitioning are like Caitlyn Jenner moving towards their true self and that
being one of the two established and traditional genders, male and female.
Maybe this potential breakaway of T’s from the LBG ‘s might prompt us to view
ourselves as third or fourth gender. Here I am of course borrowing from the
thinking of Harry Hay on such matters. 
Harry always encouraged us to view ourselves as other and distinctly
different in very fundamental ways from our straight bothers and sisters.  Only by exploring and discovering these
differences would we get a handle on who we really are.
This may be way too much
to take on these days, that would be third and fourth genders, when we as a
community and society as a whole seem so confused on the two genders we already
perceive. This daunting task aside perhaps we should just start with a
suggestion from the Glover piece again where she states: “LGB’s and T’s are
getting a little too close for comfort. It might be time to cut the cord”.
I would personably view
this breakaway of the T’s as a golden opportunity to once again retrench from
the assimilationist trips of marriage and the military and refocus on the task
of exploring who we really are, where we came from and what we are for. Maybe
we LGB and T’s really are a bunch of wrinkles lending much needed texture and
nuance to the human race, snags be damned.
© 14 Sep 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.
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True Colors – Take a Walk in the Grove, by Nicholas

          I want to tell a story today that involves one of our own,
a member of this group. It’s about a group of people who showed their true
colors in their loyalty to one friend and created a unique space for our entire
community. Along the South Platte River on the edge of downtown Denver, is an
area of Commons Park designated as a spot to remember those who have died of
HIV/AIDS and their caregivers. It’s called The Grove and it is one of only two
AIDS memorial gardens in this country—the other is in San Francisco. Our own
Randy Wren was part of that group that labored for seven years to make it
happen.
          The Grove started with one man’s vision. Doug McNeil knew
of the memorial grove in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and asked, literally
as his dying wish, why can’t Denver create such a spot. Doug died of AIDS in
1993, a time when the LGBT community was focused more on the battle to undo the
infamous Amendment 2 than on the AIDS epidemic. Amendment 2, passed by Colorado
voters in 1992, prohibited any government or government agency in this state
from enacting any provisions to ban discrimination against lesbian and gay
people. (There’s an excellent exhibition on that history outside this door in
The Center’s lobby.) And it was a time of still rampant AIDS phobia.
          A small group of Doug’s friends vowed to carry out his dream
for The Grove. They weren’t the usual gaggle of community activists and
politicos. They included socialites, arts community supporters, an attorney,
and an Episcopal priest. Most were not gay. They organized a non-profit group
called The Grove Project, got 501c3 IRS status so they could collect funds, and
began the long process of taking on the bureaucracy of the city’s Parks
Department.
          The Parks Department never openly rejected the idea but
negotiations dragged on for years. At first, the area in front of the
performing arts complex on Speer Blvd was proposed. The city objected that
theatre and concert goers wouldn’t want to be reminded of the awfulness of AIDS
on their nights out on the town. Another location in a park in southeast Denver
was suggested but that would have left the memorial far from the Capitol Hill
neighborhood that was most affected by AIDS.
          At some point, the riverfront came into the discussion. At
that time, the area was just beginning to be developed. There was a quiet,
somewhat out of the way spot in a new park—Commons Park—that the city was
planning. That fit the criteria of being visible, centrally located and quiet
enough to promote the atmosphere desired.
          The Grove was envisioned to be a natural area for
contemplation. It was landscaped very simply with trees, natural grasses and
shrubs, and some rocks. A simple inscription reads: “Dedicated to the
remembrance of those who have lost their lives to AIDS and to their loving
caregivers who helped them live out those lives with dignity.”
          The Grove was dedicated in a simple ceremony in August
2000. Doug McNeil’s loyal and persistent friends accomplished his dream after
seven years of work.
          Now, The Grove sits largely ignored and sort of neglected
in a recessed corner of Commons Park, near 15th Street and Little
Raven Street. It is surrounded by high priced condos and apartments but it is
still a quiet and attractive area.
          Recently, a movement got underway to renew the spot, clean
it up, refresh the landscaping and, most importantly, make the community aware
that this historical and spiritual resource exists. In recalling all the
individuals who battled, and continue to battle AIDS, we remember how our community
grew from that experience. We remember those we’ve lost. We remember when being
gay changed from just giving the most fabulous parties to a truly mature
community of caregivers and advocates. We remember our past and that we have a
history. A history that is the root of our present and future.
          I encourage everyone to seek out The Grove and spend a few
quiet moments there remembering. And maybe you can help in its renewal. You too
can show your true colors.
© 2016 

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.
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All Writing is Experimental, by Gillian

If
writing is based on life, and I don’t know what else we’d base it on, then
surely it must be experimental because all life is experimental. And not just
human life; what is evolution, after all, but a series of experiments? Trouble
is, real life experiments can be painful; just think of all those critters who
ended up on the wrong side of the evolutionary experiments.
Whammo!
Extinct!
Betsy
and I read, somewhere, in some pop-psych book, that we should all look at life
as an experiment and therefor lighten up. Rather than castigating myself for
moving back to Podunk, Iowa, and consequently being miserable and wanting
nothing more than to return to Denver, what a stupid mistake, why did you do
such a stupid thing, etc. etc., I should shrug and say, ”Oh well, just an
experiment. Rather surprising results; not quite what I expected.”
and
move happily back to Denver. We both rather liked the concept. Putting yourself
down because you made a dumb mistake, a bad decision, resolves nothing. It was
an experiment. You cannot fail an experiment. The result just is, and
you go from there.
The
problem is, even though you perhaps are free from beating up on yourself, that
experiment was darned expensive: financially and emotionally. Often for others
as well as yourself. Your girlfriend was devastated that you didn’t care enough
to stick around. On the other hand, neither did she care enough to go with you.
Relationship over. You sold the condo that you so enjoyed. And now, by some
quirk of fate, it seems to require twice as much money as you sold it for, to
buy anything remotely equivalent. That move to Podunk has cost you a bundle,
regardless of whether you call it an experiment or a stupid mistake.
On
the other hand, in defense of experiments, there are indeed many situations
which might well be improved by being seen as experimental. The one that leaps
into my mind, is marriage. What else can it be? Two kids barely out of school
promise to love and be faithful to each other for what may well be the next
seventy years. How intimidating is that? How realistic is it? Clearly not very,
given our less than 50% success rate. Wouldn’t it make a whole lot more sense
to promise to give this experiment your very best shot, and see what happens.
How much lighter, less intimidating, that would feel. Perhaps under such
circumstances, marriages would actually have a better chance of survival. That
institution needs a shot in the arm. I say we try it. Life truly is a
continuous series of experiments. We might as well face it.
Aaaah!
But writing, now, that really is free, except for my time. And harmless.
Spending three hours, or three months if it comes to that, writing something
which eventually falls victim to the delete key, is probably just as
beneficial to me as that which triumphantly ends up at the print
command. The process is as valuable as the end result. It’s all a series of
experiments which result in a string of surprises.
Sometimes
I sit down at the keyboard with a firm plan in place. I know how I’m going to
start, where I meander to from there, and how it will end. All I have to do is
put down the words and that, for me, is usually the easy part. Other times I
place my fingers on the keys and my mind is a complete blank. I haven’t managed
to form one thought about the topic on which I plan to write. I flex my fingers
as if preparing to play the piano, and wait for the music to start. From this
point on, whether I have a clear plan in my head or no thoughts at all,
everything comes a surprise. Who knows where this experiment will lead?
My
fingers start to move; slowly at first, then faster. The cymbals clash. A
crashing crescendo. Silence falls. I look back to see what I have actually
written. It’s fantastic! I love it! It’s godawful. It’s crap! Most often it’s
somewhere in between. What’s that whole paragraph about? Delete. Need to
explain this better. Insert. That word isn’t just, quite, exactly,
right. A gentle man. No. A quiet man? No. A calm man. Calm. That’s the word I’m
looking for. And, in finding the right word, I see him differently. A
wonderful, totally unexpected, result of this experiment.
Writing,
from the grand design to every single individual word or even punctuation, is
all an experiment; trial and error. I rarely, even on occasions when I have a
complete plan, end up where I intended. Well! I sit back and re-read what I
wrote. Who’da thunk? I ask myself. Who knew I thought that? Apparently my
fingers did. They are the ones who seem to know where we’re going. Not me. I
just evaluate and tweak it when they’re done.
The
topic we have chosen to write about is an experiment in itself. Some I look on
with approval. I know exactly how to approach that. Others I stare at
blankly and want to strangle whoever dreamed that one up. But in reality, some
of the topics I can’t seem to raise any interest in generate what I judge as
good stories; some of the topics I love end up somewhere in the mediocre.
A
while back I read a novel, can’t of course recall either the title or the
author, which was honestly kinda boring. It was long and moved slowly, but I
persevered. You know how it is sometimes with a book like that? You have to
finish it because it really can’t be as bad as you think it is and eventually
you’ll get it. Sometimes you don’t, and you wonder how the thing ever got
published. But this one had such a twist in the tail, or tale, that I still
remember it and in spite of a good deal of boredom to be suffered I would
recommend it. If I could remember what it was, that is! The point is, I found
myself wondering about the author’s process in this particular experiment. Did
she (yes, I do recall it was a woman) plan it that way all along. The reader
must plod on through this rather uninviting story, being set up, really,
for the dramatic shocker at the end, making the effort worthwhile after all? Or
did she get towards the end of her writing and have to accept that in all
honesty it was pretty boring. Who would read it? It would get bad reviews. It
would end up being sold for 10% of it’s original price, on Amazon, amongst all
the other dismal failures. And she was clever enough to dream up a way to save
it with the surprise ending?
Reams
have been written about how famous writers planned their work, from the
intricacies of James Joyce to the ball-point scrawls of Rowling, to Faulkner,
who famously outlined his
fiction on the walls of his study, in-between bottles of
bourbon. But I would be willing to bet, no matter how well established and
researched the plan, every day of writing brought with it a myriad of surprises
and adjustments. Writing, like any artistic creation, is an experiment whether
you’re at the very top of the game or a rank amateur, just struggling to put
one word in front of another.
© 27 Jul 2015 
About the Author 

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

Color Truth, by Eym

Rainbows display more colors than we may ever know.  As with human beings, the parade of true
colors in nature out marches the imagination of anyone.
Some sort of green tulip leaves now flop upward above the dull yet
crunchy brown dirt.  They pose near a
plastic white fence my dogs and I pass.  We
walk by them into many shades of gray pavement. 
My little pals reveal shiny ebony with trim of yummy caramel tan.  Tires, like shoes on cars, stand there.
Though also black, tires show a different tint next to my short dog boys.  For some reason the cars perching in their
stalls display shades of gray pavement.
I do not understand why any safety minded person would make cars the same
color as pavement or cement roads.  Perhaps
some gone-wild logic of marketing believes that pavement gray cars look
convincingly more road worthy.  Maybe we
actually need to hide from a hoard of unseen sky marauding aliens that peer down
at us as we travel about.  Both of these
angles seem to overlook the obvious interpretation I make.  It is harder to safely see gray cars on gray
roads.
Amid my gray worry, I must admit I have never walked into any of these
gray cars resting there in parking lot 3. 
This suggests that even in plain ole boring gray the variety of colors
out runs my imagination.  The challenge
of trying to match greens while in art school served to restate the same
humbling truth.
By standard description our rainbow offers only six colors as it glows
against the special backdrop of generous rain clouds.  This short sided summary leads us to miss a
good deal of natural wonder.  Springtime
will soon give us new encouraging colors. 
Could it be that part of this surprise, year after year, stems from the
unrealized diversity of true colors in flowers.
It is always springtime when we are really getting know another person,
or when we are becoming the person we truly can be.  Just like flowers and rainbows, an amazing
variety of true colors unfold in a lovely endless surprise of creation.
© Feb 2016

 

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.
Posted on

Where in the World is Nowhere?, by Betsy

Once a week now for three
years I have sat down to write on some topic for the Sage Telling My Story group.  These are the steps I take to accomplish that
task. First I mull the topic over in my mind and come up with an idea. “Oh, I
know,” say I, “I’ll
write about the time that………, or I’ll
write about my parents, or I’ll
write about my trip to……, or I’ll
write about coming out to my sister, or I’ll
comment on the last election.” Many, many ideas have come to mind. Next, I sit
down at my computer and start writing.
A few sentences appear on
the screen.  The next step is that I say
to myself, “This is going nowhere.”  Well,
now that I’m
writing about nowhere, I find that today my writing actually has a place to go.
Of course, we all know that to say this is going nowhere means there is nothing
more to say about this event or this person or this feeling or this whatever I’m writing about.  However in this case I can at least describe
what “nowhere” looks like to me.
 In the case of composing a so-called story
entitled “Nowhere,” now that I am at stage three of the writing process, I find
that what “nowhere” looks like in a piece of writing is “nothing.” It looks
like nothing, a blank page, an empty mind, no way to tie anything together or
to relate the ending to the beginning thoughts. 
A void.
Speaking of a void, the
question comes to mind: What is nothing. Is there such thing as “nothing?”  That brings me to the subject of the cosmos.
We used to think that space was nothingness. But it turns out that where there
appears to be nothing, there is actually quite a lot. The so-called black holes
of the cosmos are full of compacted cosmic material. The space in between
objects, only APPEARS as nothing.  The
space in outer space, apparently empty, is full.  Beyond that, cosmic space itself is full of “dark
matter.”  Apparently there is no such
thing as nothing, our human senses simply cannot perceive what is there. If
there is no such thing as nothing, then I guess there is no such thing as
nowhere.  What we call nowhere really is
somewhere, a certain place.
I’m am so happy to have come to this
conclusion because now I can move on to stage four and work out an ending for
this composition.  And here it is.  THE END.
© 1 Feb 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), and the GLBT Community
Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since
her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling,
teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for
the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after
25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and
four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes
from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.
Posted on

Compulsion, by Will Stanton


I suppose that it is human
nature for many of us to succumb to compulsive behavior.  If we attempted to list every possible form
of compulsion, we would be here all day.

Eating certainly is one of the
most prevalent compulsions, especially in America.  I once was invited by a 400-pound man to join
him and a few others for dim-sung dinner.  I tried to avert my eyes while he ravenously
ate multiple courses, along with everything left over from other diners at the
table.  I will never subject myself to
that kind of disturbing experience again. 
America is so notorious for overeating that someone posted on-line a
photo-shopped image of Michelangelo’s “David” supposedly after visiting here
and eating too much American food.
 

Chunky David
I fell pray to overeating for
a few years, all because of chronic stress. 
My partner died.  He also was my
business partner, and I tried to do both jobs. 
Further, in our profession, we were required to deal with many people’s
ongoing problems, which was hard enough. 
I also had to be concerned with professional clinical and legal
liability.  Worse, most competing clinics
were thoroughly corrupt, making tons of money, and stealing away most of my
clients.  Big stress.
For a while, a little place
close by, B.J.’s Carousel, became the antidote to my own stress.  I must have driven by B.J.’s 10,000 times
before someone told me that there was a little restaurant in the back that
served solid American-style food at reasonable prices.  In addition, the regular patrons and staff
were exceptionally friendly and accommodating. 
Frequently, patrons chatted with each other from table to table,
fostering a warm, supportive atmosphere. 
The restaurant played soft, classical music, rather than the pounding
drums and screaming that most restaurants play now-days.  Also in the winter, they had a pot-bellied
stove in the middle of the room that made the area very cozy.  That’s where I would go to unwind.
Once my evening therapy groups
were gone, and I had discussed each person’s case with my contract
psychologist, and I had prepared the individual sessions notes for the clinical
files, I felt drained.  I would jump into
my car and race down to B.J.’s, which stayed open late, and order an excess of
comfort-food – – meat, potatoes, salad, veggies, and (of course) desert.  This went on for a few years, and I must have
been oblivious to the consequence until it became more obvious.  Fortunately, I rarely eat that way now.  The fact that B.J.’s since has shut down
probably removed a pit-fall from my path.
Over those many evening
dinners and Sunday brunches that I had at B.J.’s, I got to know one of the
other regular patrons.  It turns out that
this person had a life-long obsession with trains  – – – real trains, model trains, train videos
and DVDs, train paintings, train artifacts and clothes.  He even chose what cities in which to work so
that he could be around trains.  His
compulsion to continually buy train stuff resulted in his living in a house
crammed so full that one would need a front-loader to clear it out.  His having a lot of discretionary income in
retirement, he could  afford to buy a
state-of-the-art Lionel “Big Boy” steam locomotive that lists for $3,000.
Lionel O-gauge model “Big Boy” steam locomotive
I later found out that the
front of B.J.’s was a bar that was known as the place where drag-queens could
go and to be in occasional drag-shows. 
Although popular with some people, I never have had the slightest interest
in that phenomenon and don’t quite understand the compulsion to dress-up like
that.  But, I could not escape noticing
them on show-nights when some of them would wander through the back
restaurant.  I truly admire natural
beauty, but I can’t say that any of those individuals fit into that
category.  I sense that most of them
realize that they never will look like ravishing, natural beauties, and some
probably dress up with some sense of satire. 
There may be those occasional individuals who do try to look like
Hollywood models.  B.J.’s, however, was
not Hollywood nor Los Vegas, and I never did see anything appealingly
eye-catching.  Instead, homely faces,
chunky bodies, big feet, ungraceful movements, and lip-syncing tended to betray
any efforts to look truly attractive.
Two-drag-queens
I recall one individual who,
from time to time, would come stomping through the restaurant section in a most
ungraceful manner, carrying high-heels, on his way to the dressing area.  That poor person’s face looked as though he once
had suffered a bad case of acne.  Between
those pockmarks and his usual grumpy scowl, I might have surmised that this sad
person once had worked at McDonald’s and possibly had a compulsion to bob for
fries.
I suppose that it is
inevitable that, wherever there are drag-queens, there is a certain percentage
of them who become titillated with the idea of toying with female
hormones.  For some time now, I have
understood the theory of clinical transgender orientation, and I intellectually
can handle that concept.  These are the
people who seriously think of themselves as the opposite gender, and their
transition is carried out, over time, carefully and seriously, with the
assistance and advice of professional doctors and therapists.
However, as naïve as I usually
am and until recent years, I was totally unaware of the fact that, throughout
the world, there is an amazingly large number of young guys whose compulsion is
to take massive doses of female hormone, permanently changing their bodies but
with no intention of surgically fully transitioning to female.  They rashly do this with black-market
hormones and without the supervision of professional therapists.  Instead, they turn themselves into, what is
crudely called, “shemales,” neither male nor female, but individuals with male
genitalia and, in addition, breasts, wide hips, and large buttocks.  These are the hybrid individuals who Robin
Williams jokingly referred to as “The Swiss Army Knife of Sex.”
Finally made aware of this
phenomenon, I have tried to intellectually handle well this phenomenon of
hybrid gender, but I have a hard time handling it emotionally.  What disturbs me most is that many of these
individuals start out as very good looking young males; yet their masculinity
is destroyed forever.  To my personal way
of thinking, that is a waste.        
Shemale
I also understand that such
unpredictable use of hormones may not always turn out well.  There was one tall, good-looking guy who
decided to secretly take hormones.  He
told me that he always was afraid that his family might find out.  Oddly enough, his day-job was as a tow-truck
driver.  He hid from his coworkers what
he was doing by wearing heavy, loose clothes. 
Then he would change into women’s clothing and go to B.J.’s.  Later, after he had developed breasts, I
overheard him lament that he was sorry that he had taken those hormones because
now he no longer could take his clothes off and go swimming.
More bizarrely, I saw one
evening a short, previously normally built teenager, who had been named  “Miss Teen Queen,” who, from taking hormones,
quickly put on a vast amount of weight and ended up with huge, bulging belly,
drooping breasts, and bizarrely wide hips. 
I found that sight very disturbing. 
I was very puzzled as to why that boy had such a irresistible   compulsion to so dramatically change his
body.  Did he imagine the results being
different?
Then, a skinny, drag-queen
waiter told me that he once had considered taking hormones until he saw what
happened to one of his friends who had succumbed to that compulsion.  His friend took lots of black-market hormones
and then (in the waiter’s own words) “really freaked out and totally lost it”
when he saw how dramatically his body had changed and also realized that those
changes were permanent, especially the expanded bone-structure of his
hips.  Just the idea of his doing that to
himself freaks me out, especially since the friend obviously never
thoroughly thought through what he was doing or sought advice from any
therapists.
I guess that the
“trains-on-the-brains” guy’s compulsion to continually buy model trains, train
artifacts and clothes, especially since he has the money to do so, is pretty
mild in contrast to the kid who totally freaked out.  At least, compulsive train-guy can trade or
sell-off his trains if he wants to.  And
as for me, I can fairly safely continue my obsession with classical music by
spending an inordinate amount of time playing and listening to good music.  The freaked-out kid, however, will have to live
a long time with the all-too obvious consequences of his compulsion.
© 6 October 2015 
About
the Author 
I have had a life-long fascination with
people and their life stories.  I also
realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or
fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual
ones.  Since I joined this Story Time
group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my
stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.
Posted on

Queer as a Two Dollar Bill, by Terry Dart

How queer am I? Butch and Fem are ancient concepts,
just not dealt only with except for the Greeks, the ancient ones, well maybe
the Frat Boys too, well some anyway.
Now, I had always thought of myself as Butch, because
of being athletic and competitive. And I have a high opinion of many Butch men.
So what was I? Proudly Butch. But somewhere along the way I became a clothes
horse. I probably caught that from Mom, who was also a tomboy in her youth and
who also gave me her sense of color and who has been a model, locally in Minot,
N Dak, for J. C. Penney. I no longer have her figure, but then neither has she.
Now back to the How Queerness of Queer.
For Lesbis and Bi Lesbis
For Fems and Butches (not Bitches)
Are you Fem because you wear makeup and dress in
matching colors, and wear high heels once in awhile? (Turns me on!)
What if a Lesbian is a Fem who likes other Fems?
Should we call her a Fem-Fem?
Is a Butch Butch woman a super Lesbian?
And what about a woman who wears a see-through blouse
with no modesty packs, who drops it all and steps menacingly into grimy pair of
overalls and steel-toed combat boots to crawl underneath a VW Bus?
What about the girl who we might call a
Slide-Bi-Butch, who hangs out at baseball fields, spikes tread and over the
shoulders, and keeps an eagle eye on batting practice to scout out the Butch
Catcher who swings both ways in order to slide into her at home.
Here we have a menagerie of soft and muscular
Lesbians. God bless us all, every one.
© 14 March 2016 
About the Author 
I
am an artist and writer after having spent the greater part of my career
serving variously as a child care counselor, a special needs teacher, a mental
health worker with teens and young adults, and a home health care giver for
elderly and Alzheimer patients. Now that I am in my senior years I have
returned to writing and art, which I have enjoyed throughout my life.