Month: July 2016

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Puzzling People, by Will Stanton

People puzzle me. In fact, just about everything regarding human beings puzzles me – – – emotions overriding rational thinking, beliefs that defy fact and reality, faulty decision-making, taking irrational high-risks. Such thinking and behavior can result in harmful consequences, such as my young friend thinking he could leap from a cliff and safely catch a vine just like Tarzan (that actually happened; he fell and broke his back) to starting World War I, a devastating and totally unnecessary war that permanently disrupted world-order, killed millions, and ended up resulting in World War II.

One type of puzzling behavior that I have witnessed has taken place during dangerous storms. Mother Nature often can be quite dramatic, wreaking havoc upon people, their homes, and the land around them. Some people must feel that they are special, that they are invulnerable the dangers and immune to possible consequences of not taking shelter. They see harm to others portrayed on the TV news, but that just won’t happen to them.

I recall on one occasion sitting inside a café having coffee. It was an old-fashioned, converted mercantile store. A tornado warning-siren went off, and several of us descended into the basement for safety. After waiting for the tornado to pass, I returned upstairs only to find that several people, apparently curious about tornadoes, had remained standing right in front of the plate-glass windows. As it turned out, the tornado, albeit only an RF1, had come straight toward the building but, at the last moment, had risen and skipped over the building.

If it had not, there could have been broken glass and bleeding people all over the place.

The all-clear signal went off, and I headed back to my office, already having been delayed by the tornado. As I dashed out the door, the first person I came out to was a colleague coming in. He had a strange expression on his face, and his eyes looked like saucers. He explained that he had been in his car in the parking lot when the tornado went over, and the air pressure was so strong that it nearly pulled out his windows.

Later, a friend who worked in an office-tower in the business district nearby told me that many of the well-dressed businessmen, who had offices on the top floors, had stood by their windows to watch. I could just imagine, had the tornado hit their buildings, pin-stripe suits could have been flying all over the sky.

I witnessed a second episode when overly confident people ignored a tornado warning and thunderstorm. One day, I was sitting in my livingroom looking out the window at a torrential rainstorm. Sheets of rain were pounding down, and the flooded street overflowed up over my lawn. Suddenly, a tremendous boom sounded with a simultaneous flash. I don’t recall moving a muscle, but somehow I think I levitated several inches off the couch. I dashed to the window to look out and saw that the old pine tree directly across the street was blown away. And only a few feet away from the lighting strike was a jogger, running in the storm. Now, I admit that this is an example of dedicated exercise; however, it must be an example of lunacy as well.

Then the tornado warning-siren went off. I extricated my dog from behind the couch and headed downstairs to a basement-closet. We stayed there for twenty minutes, and it was just as well that we did so. I learned later that a tornado had come up from the southwest, touched down at Broadway and Evans damaging some businesses, and then headed straight for my house and the park across the street. Again, fortunately, the tornado lifted up somewhat and skipped over my house and the park. It continued northeast to Monaco Parkway and took out a whole swath of grand old pine trees. One man lost all the trees around his house, but he was lucky not to have had damage to the house.

Once the storm passed on beyond my house and the park, I stepped out to my front porch to take a look at the destroyed tree across the street. The first person I met coming out the door was my neighbor who was about ready to push my doorbell. He said that a branch had knocked down his electric and phone lines; he had lost his power and phone, and he would like to use my phone. As I was about ready to come back inside, we both looked across the street at the park, and we saw a group of tennis players standing under a tree. How wise was that? They were very lucky not to have been harmed. Only a few years later, three people stood under a tree in the middle of the park and were struck by lightning. Two were badly hurt; the third did not make it.

Just what were all these people thinking – – – that they were immortal, that harm comes only to others? Yes, people puzzle me, and this was only one type of behavior among many that I don’t understand.

© 12 February 2016

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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Breaking into Gay Culture, by Ricky

Interesting topic this is. It makes me think of many possibilities but, I reject most of them because I don’t want to break into anything. A prison sentence might follow on a charge of burglary.

The word “gay” includes the entire range of homosexual behaviors for both females and males, just as the word “mankind” includes both genders. However, for the purposes of this presentation, “gay” just refers to the male homosexual culture. The obvious reason for this is that I am gay and I know nothing about lesbian or transgender issues or culture.

While I’ve only admitted to myself that I am gay since about June of 2010 and thus began to associate with gay males and having a limited exposure to “gay culture,” I have 64 years of exposure to gay stereotypes, jokes, comments, putdowns, movies, music, history, biographies, porn movies and videos, miscellaneous sex play, and 27 happy years of heterosexual marriage which produced four wonderful children. As a result, my views on this topic are from those of an outsider still putting together pieces of a puzzle when I am not sure what the puzzle is all about or if I have all the pieces. In a way, the situation is similar to looking for a map to lead you to a destination but not knowing what the destination really is.

This may seem strange or even unbelievable to gay men that knowingly have been gay their whole lives and lived with that knowledge without the benefit (or perhaps burden) of being “in the closet.” However, this is my story and I believe I have explained my perceptions and exposed my biases with regard to the topic. So, just what is “gay culture” anyway? Is it just a culture of disease, loneliness, and death; or is it something else?

I am not convinced that there even is an “over arching” gay culture. I had some blood tests done but that only revealed that there are heterosexual antibodies throughout my system. (Wow! I am immune to straightness.) In an attempt to culture gay organisms, some of my various bodily fluids were smeared onto Petri dishes. No growth of gay organisms appeared. So, how can I break into a gay culture if none exists, can be grown, or found?

All I know for a fact is that most (if not all) gay men seem to like to play with the penises of other men. If that were all, then that is the definition of “gay culture.” But, I am aware of subcategories of gay behaviors and preferred activities which would put the lie to such a simplistic definition.

Some straight or gay men are cross-dressers. Some men like pornography (stories or videos) but not all gay men do. Some like gay themed movies. Some love operas. Some love men older than they are. Some love younger men. Some like “golden showers.” Some like to party hardy. Some use the noxious weed or drink to excess. Some are into the BDSM scene. Some are homebodies. Some are homeless.

Some love to travel the world and can afford it. Some are major philanthropists while others are dirt poor. Some are bikers or leather-men. Some have “fashion sense” while others (like myself) could care less about fashion. Some are effeminate and others the epitome of masculinity. All have their faults and foibles with some holding what people would classify as loose morals. Yet others have the most amazing sense of morality and have higher standards than the heterosexual world. Some are spiritual and others not so much. Some live “in the closet” and others are openly gay now or throughout their entire lives. Some were (or are) married, while others lived the bachelor life.

Many are highly successful executives or entrepreneurs while others teach, fight fires, or police society. Nonetheless, with all the gay men I have met personally, I discovered that every one of them is a fine and decent person.

All these various subcategories exist and any one gay man might fit into several groups but no one person fits into all of them. Unfortunately, there exists “conflict” between some of these groups, which is a totally unbecoming and unnecessary practice for gay men. The conflict seems to be over who can or cannot be a member of a particular category of gay men or in other words, who is a member of that particular narrow and exclusive “culture.” Hence, my assertion that there is no one answer to the question of “what is gay culture” and so there is no way to break into it. The best I can hope for is to find a group of gay men who share my desires, likes, and dislikes and to be around as many of them as I can manage.

Therefore, here are my desires, likes, and dislikes and you tell me where I fit in. I desire to live a good and decent life trying to be a better person today than I was yesterday. I try to live the Boy Scout Law and be: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty (that’s a hard one for me), Brave, Clean, and Reverent. I try to keep my Boy Scout Oath: On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong; mentally awake; and morally straight.

I like gay themed movies, stories, books, and videos; some opera; classical music; 40’s, 50′, 60’s, and some additional decades’ music (but I’m very particular about which music). I do not like to eat cooked spinach, stewed tomatoes, yellow squash, or most fish.

I have seen lots of gay and straight porn videos and, frankly, they don’t turn me on anymore so I don’t enjoy them like I used to. I like talking with friends and going out to dinner even though I cannot afford to do it so much, but I go anyway. I like to travel and visit places, but not alone. I am not into leather or biker stuff although I do like riding my Honda scooter. I like adventure movies featuring children and teens, space movies, and Disney movies. I do not like the “slice’em and dice’em” gratuitous blood and gore movies. I like to read adventure novels, fantasy novels, and science fiction novels. I don’t drink, smoke, or do illegal or recreational drugs.

So what over-arching gay culture do I belong to? Or, am I just an uncultured gay man?

© August 2010

About the Author

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

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

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

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

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The Men in My Life, by Ray S

Where do I start? Don’t expect a laundry list of passionate trysts or deep meaningful relationships. Conquests? If there ever are any, much less worth sharing with you, I have acute memory loss. Must be the latent Puritan coming to the surface!

What a question to put before a gay man or a lesbian, the latter could more be interesting, the first could be redundant, to say the least. Of course, it is every man to his own.

Moving on to the more intellectual and cerebral evaluation of this subject one can’t overlook memories, fond or otherwise, of the cause of our being her today, namely our fathers and mothers (Whoa, I am back to biology again), male family members, the teacher or professor, perhaps a priest or rabbi, a man of a particular political persuasion, even Presidents Washington and Lincoln. I must confess that long, long ago I was smitten for a few years with Jolly Old St. Nicholas. Some of us had a thing for “older men.” Now that I’m in the same stage of my life, I’ve found that I lack the girth an temperament—and besides I don’t look good in red!

Alas, as time slips on I find I am still available and waiting for that special gay knight riding the white unicorn to come and swoop me up into his arms and carry me off to the land of cupid where we will live forever in a state of gay bliss.

Aside from all that foolishness, our subject has happily brought to my recollection the many wonderful men that have contributed to my well being, with their friendship and love. Last but surely not least the same goes for the beautiful lesbians I have been blessed to know.

© 28 March 2016

About the Author

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Preparation for Grief, by Phillip Hoyle

There is no prep work for grief. Still we can discover resources to assist us in adapting to and recovering from grief. For instance, ritual, conceptual, and relational props of congregational life surrounded me as I grew up. Of course, my perception of them changed greatly over the years of my life. I knew something about death due to losing pets and finding dead animals. These we buried beneath the forsythia bush in the backyard. I don’t remember ceremonies, but we kids may have said something. Because my dad was a church organist I grew up hearing of many funeral services and had attended those of my grandfathers and a grandmother. Emotionally our family was not very demonstrative, so scenes from movies in which people let loose to sob and scream, seemed terribly over-played and somehow inappropriate. I didn’t understand it but did accept that some people made a show of their emotions. Then, in what seemed like a few short years, (I was twenty) I was leading those services but with little personal perception of grief’s dimensions.

Being aware of the dynamics of dying, of doctrines that may comfort, of meanings attached to rites and rituals prepared this minister for dealing with a parishioner’s death, but that preparation did not serve so well when I myself faced grief. Around age fifty I really came to know the feelings that accompany deep loss. In short order I lost a long-time friend to HIV; then I lost my father to an automobile accident that also left my mother bedfast. I realized I was going to leave my marriage to a fine woman and leave my ministry in a fine church. My mother died. My father-in-law died. I did separate from my wife and then left my career. I was learning about the personal dimensions of grief quickly, too quickly.

In Denver I learned even more when I gave massages at a free AIDS clinic. There I learned a new grief related to when a client no longer showed up for appointments, a grief of uncertainty. Had the client moved away or died from the disease or found another, better therapist? I tried to find out information but the protocols of the organization did not allow the release of such facts to volunteers in the program. I also realized that the organization didn’t always know as much as I did. In churches, by comparison, there was always a supporting community, always access, always information in the organization even if its responses were sometimes inept. I had to imagine my way into experiencing grief without ceremony or formal community.

With clients in the clinic I was only an occasional touch point in what was still widely perceived as a death sentence. The realization that these persons were sometimes alone grew as I heard too often that I was the only person who touched them. I did my work but knew the important touch of massage couldn’t relieve their fears of dying or do much or even anything at the end. I wasn’t there to touch and love and reassure. I was neither called nor available. Such is life, but I had to learn to deal with my grief in new ways.

Grief changed again with my lover Michael. At least I had the dying person with me and got to trace his whole dying process, right to his last breaths. Then too soon it happened again. Within two and a half years I had lost two partners, two men I tended to as their bodies betrayed them. I touched, caressed, cleaned up after, talked, kissed, and otherwise loved them throughout their final months. Then I wept, wrote, and weathered my own losses.

In the process I saw the truth of so much that Kuebler-Ross analyzed in her clinical theory of dying and grief. I already knew so much theory but got even more insight thorough my direct experiences. The doing was most helpful for me, serving my lovers in myriad ways. But still there was the being over, being alone, just being itself, being myself.

Live. I heard the word, its challenge, and believed its possibility.

Yes. I am alive. Now I must forgive myself for not always understanding. I must continue on: laughing at death’s often ugly face, laughing into life, getting back into life’s dance. But getting back into the light fantastic is never easy, not even for one like me who is sometimes perceived as somewhat light in the loafers. I know I will again and again face grief, yes unprepared and often unanticipated. But life and the music go on whether one feels prepared or not!

Denver © 17 August 2015

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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Raindrops for the People! by Pat Gourley

“Raindrops” was a topic that I was truly drawing a blank on though thanks I suppose to my Irish roots I love the rain and the more rainy days the better. Perhaps this explains in part my draw to those rainy San Francisco winter days.

I was however rescued on this topic by the impending changes, perhaps this week, in Colorado law around the personal collection of raindrops that fall on your own property and specifically collecting the runoff from your own roof. Believe it or not such collection, i.e. a rain barrel collecting raindrops from your roof’s drain spout is illegal in Colorado, the only state in the Union where this is the case. The exact wording of the current law is as follows:

Although it is permissible to direct your residential property roof downspouts toward landscaped areas, unless you own a specific type of exempt well permit, you cannot collect rainwater in any other manner, such as storage in a cistern or tank, for later use.

Though I realize that many of us LGBTQ folks are urban and live in apartments and therefore this is a truly a moot issue it is a bit of a reassuringly small victory for “the people” that this archaic law is finally about to be changed. I suppose this is more a libertarian victory rather than a socialist one but I’ll take it. Though rainwater runoff could also be easily collected from the roofs of large apartment/condo buildings and go to watering communal gardening space in addition to homeowner’s personal tomato plants.

I have lived in several single-family homes and collecting run-off rainwater for my often-thirsty gardens always had appeal. I never got around to breaking the law on a cistern level but I do confess to collecting the occasional bucketful most often during a late summer downpour and them dumping it on my tomato plants. Once more the immortal words of the Jefferson Airplane come to mind: “We are all outlaws in the eyes of America”.

It is my understanding that HB16-1005 has passed the Senate and will be signed into law this week by the Governor freeing up raindrops for collection by the people. Now if we could get this same Governor, who is a super-delegate to the Democratic convention, to realize that he is not bound to cast his vote for Hilary Clinton. He could instead acknowledge and respect the wishes of the significant majority of caucus goers in Colorado and switch his vote to Bernie Sanders. Oh, what am I thinking? Why should access to a few raindrops make us get all uppity and think we actually live in a democracy. We are being told I guess to sit down and don’t rock the boat and just be happy with a few more raindrops.

© April 2016


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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When We First Knew, by Nicholas

At first, we laughed. That was how the years of fears and tears began.

It was a cool, breezy but sunny day in San Francisco as we took our lunches out to Union Square. Scattered high clouds and wisps of fog flew across the sky but not enough to dim the sun or block its warmth. Lloyd, Bill and I worked together at Macy’s and loved to spend our lunch breaks on a grassy patch in the busy park, the center of SF’s retail district. The elegantly turned out ladies who shop swirled around us. From Macy’s to Saks to Magnin’s to Neiman Marcus, they pursued their perfect ensembles. Meanwhile, tourists hurried about trying to catch a cable car ride up Powell Street over Nob Hill to Fisherman’s Wharf.

As we munched our sandwiches, Lloyd, I think, read a little item in the San Francisco Chronicle recapping a report in the Los Angeles Times about “gay cancer.” We chuckled at this latest concoction of the flourishing gay lib movement. We had our own newspapers, book stores, bars, choruses, churches, and clubs, so, of course, wanting nothing of the straight world, we would have our own cancer. We laughed.

That LA Times report told of the strange coincidence of young and otherwise healthy men who happened to be gay contracting a rare form of cancer called Kaposi’s sarcoma which usually appeared only in elderly Jewish men. A cluster of these cases had shown up in Los Angeles. Nobody had a clue as to why.

We threw away the newspaper and went back to work.

Lloyd, Bill and I had by chance one day walked into a temp agency, not knowing each other. A staffer there said there were three openings in the back office at Macy’s receiving, sorting and distributing expensive fine jewelry and watches for 19 Northern California stores. We all said yes.

We got to know each other a little on the walk from the agency to Macy’s. Lloyd was a former theater major and loved disco. He and his lover Steven were regulars at Trocadero, San Francisco’s top disco in the 1980s. Bill had just moved to SF from Boston to get away from his family and to take part in the punk rock scene. He loved the B-52’s. And there was me. Recently arrived from Ohio, returning to the city I loved from a decade earlier, and hoping to start of new life, a real life, in this dynamic community with its combination of dramatic flash, earnest politics and organizations of every kind.

The three of us—me in my early 30s, Lloyd in his mid-20s, and Bill in his early 20s—hit it off from the start. We were all sassy then and made up for the routine job with a running repartee. Every morning we re-hashed that day’s episode of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City, a serial in the Chronicle whose characters parodied prominent city figures. Guessing what was true to fact and what was made up kept many a conversation going for days. After work many times we went out together to a cabaret. And we went dancing at the glitzy, all-night disco parties at the Galleria. I remember one Halloween when Lloyd used his theater skills to deck us all out as Renaissance princes. I danced all that night in tights and a velvet doublet with puffed shoulders, a flouncy beret and feathered mask. I found out what fabulous really meant that night.

Through 1981 and ‘82, reports of “gay cancer” continued to grow and generated deep fear in the community. Suddenly, cases popped up in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City and other places. It seemed to be a contagion that rapidly turned young men into withering, festering old men but nobody knew what or why or how it happened. Or who would be next. Then gay cancer grew into other diseases and came to be called Gay Related Immune Deficiency—GRID. Sexual transmission was believed to be involved somehow. Or maybe those disco queens just did too many drugs. Or too much alcohol and too much sex. Or a poor diet. Or not the right vitamins. Or not enough exercise, as if flinging yourself around a dance floor to a frantic beat isn’t exercise.

Bill, the youngest of us, was the first to get sick. He kept complaining of just not feeling well though his ill feeling didn’t match anything he knew, like flu or tummy ache. I told him that these weren’t days you didn’t want to be feeling well and urged him to see a doctor. He didn’t know any doctors, he said. So, one day I took him to see my doctor. I don’t know what the doctor said or did, but Bill seemed to get better. We even went dancing sometimes.

But then he didn’t feel like dancing. And some days he didn’t show up for work. And then stopped working. Soon he felt too weak to do much of anything. A few months later, he went back to his family in Boston. I lost touch with him but heard he died not long after that. He died before they could even name the disease that killed him.

Then Steven, Lloyd’s partner, got sick. Then two other guys in our little dancing circle. And then even Lloyd, whom I was closest to. It was like a stalker picking us off one by one. Pretty soon I was dancing alone. Suddenly, those corny, wrenching, kitschy disco ballads became desperate pleas longing for love and life.

I think back to that breezy day when we laughed and went on laughing until it was impossible to laugh and then some of us wondered if we would ever laugh again. I think back to the days of not knowing and then getting a phone call that let me know that I did know, did know another one sick and that I had come that much closer to it and maybe I’d be making the next phone call.

Wayne, a former boyfriend whom I’d dated for a few months, called one night. We exchanged the normal chat about how we were each doing but he hardly had to say anything to explain to me why, after months of not seeing each other, this call on this night.

“I have to tell you,” he said, “I was diagnosed with…,” something or other, the exact name of the obscure ailment escapes me or maybe I never even heard it. The word “diagnosed” told me enough. I had now, if I hadn’t already, definitely come into direct contact with whatever it was that caused this illness or combination of strange illnesses—nobody ever seemed to have just one thing going on.

I asked him how he was doing and feeling and he said he was doing pretty good. He was getting his support network together. Count me in on that, I said. Anything you need, I’m here. He said he was determined to beat this thing, an obligatory statement that everybody made back then not knowing if it had even the slightest chance of coming true. I said I hoped I could help.

“Maybe we should get together and go out for dinner or a movie,” I suggested. About the most anyone could offer then was hugs and hand holding. He liked that idea so we made a date. We got together a few times and I cooked a dinner for him sometimes. Wayne was lucky. He had lots of friends and we all made sure that he almost never had to be left alone. But each time I saw him, he was thinner and weaker and then he started getting seriously sick with high fevers, no ability to eat, and wasting away. His own body was killing him. He died six months later.

It would be a few years before science figured out anything. Eventually, a name was given this strange syndrome that turned healthy young men into withering, festering old men overnight. That name was Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS. And AIDS was about to dominate my social, romantic, political and professional life for some years to come.

© 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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Changing Images, by Gillian

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

                                           William Shakespeare

As most often, I completely agree with you, Will.

A reputation is a dangerous thing; good or bad, yours or someone else’s.

I guess the essence of their threat lies in the fact that we all tend to become sucked in by them, rather than by the reality of a person’s character. And, again, this is as true of our own as of others’. Being fooled by another person’s reputation, or image, is dangerous. Being led astray from your real self by your own, can be disastrous.

Reputations, and the images they create of us, can stay pretty stable throughout a lifetime, but for many of us they are fluid, changing as we grow. Who doesn’t know that wild child with the dreadful reputation in high school, who grew up to be a boringly conventional pillar of the community? Nevertheless that past reputation can hang around. Who has completely forgotten Chappaquiddick? It followed Ted Kennedy to his grave and beyond into the history books. The same for Monica Lewinsky, who will forever haunt Clinton’s reputation.

I’m not sure whether reputations have become more insidious in our modern word, or less.

In the days when most of us lived in small communities where everyone knew everyone else, it was hard for anyone to escape their established reputation and build a new one. You aren’t going to employ Bob to put in your new windows. He got caught shop-lifting at the dime store when he was ten. Probably rips off all his glass from some place. And as for letting Mary baby-sit. Remember how she knocked her baby sister off the chair that time? Well, yes, probably was an accident but still ……

These days, we tend not to know that the woman selling us insurance used to beat her children, or that the man fixing our car is a longtime alcoholic. On the other hand, anything you do or say can swoop around the world in a nanosecond, and if whatever it is goes viral, God help you!

I believe a lot of what Facebook is about is changing reputations, your own and others’, which is surely much easier to do these days than back in the small town where you were the town drunk for life no matter that you had been on the wagon for half of your life.

Winston Churchill was a perfect example of changing reputations. Come to that, he still is.

His youthful military escapades were a mixed bag, but, never lacking in ego, by the age of 26 he had published five books about them. His reputation was mixed, but he was made Lord of the Admiralty at at the ridiculously young age of 37. Sadly for him, and alas much sadder for the 250,000 casualties, his poorly-conceived Siege of the Dardanelles during WW1 was a total disaster and he was forced to resign, with his reputation in tatters. He immediately redeemed much of it by consigning himself to trench warfare, where he reportedly fought with vigor and valor.

Between the wars, his constant warnings of impending and inevitable war with Germany again diminished his reputation. No-one wanted to hear it. The Boer War was not so long over, and the British were not up for another. But when Germany broke its promises and invaded Poland, Churchill was proven right and his reputation soared. Almost instantaneously he was made Prime Minister and, with his reputation as that British Bulldog thundering around him, proclaimed by most as Britain’s savior. His very reputation, along with endless stirring speeches, did much to keep spirits high under desperate conditions, and to keep most Britons determined to go on fighting.

But that reputation, as a supreme fighter who would never give up, lost all appeal the moment the war ended. Churchill’s hawkish reputation coupled with his endless warnings over the new threat from the Soviets, were too scary for peace-time. Two months later Winston Churchill was defeated soundly at the polls.

His ego, however, remained undaunted. He had no fear for his reputation.

“History,” he pronounced, “Will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”

Which he did. Over his lifetime he wrote 43 books in 72 volumes.

But still he was unable completely to preserve a positive reputation.

Although for many years it was considered akin to blasphemy to criticize such a great hero, that is no longer the case. There is much discussion these days as to whether Churchill was, to quote Dr. Andrew Roberts, “Brilliant Statesman or Brutal Demagogue.” Just from his own quotations, he was clearly misogynistic and racist, but in his day that was not condemned as it is today. So reputations change not only as a person changes, and events change, but as attitudes change.

And so we re-write history.

It’s hard to be sure what one’s own reputation is. Probably, in many cases, not exactly what we think it is or would like it to be. I do know that when I was married the first time, to a man, we were considered a really strong, stable couple. I know that because our friends were so utterly shocked when we split up. And, in so many ways, that reputation was valid. Except for one teensy weensy detail which no-one knew. In one way our reputation as a married couple was true. In another, it was as far off as it could be. But I was the only one who knew that; and I played my part so well.

When I came out, I became a bit confused. I wasn’t at all sure what the archetypal lesbian would be; but whatever it was, that’s what I would become. I observed carefully in this new world, and acted accordingly to create a new reputation, a new version of myself. Thankfully, this stage did not last long.

You’re doing it again! I said to myself. Your entire life you have created a false reputation for yourself, and now you’re finally free, you’re doing it again! STOP!

So I did.

And for over 30 years now, I have simply been me. I don’t know what kind of reputation I have.

I don’t care. A reputation is simply others’ visions, versions, of me. It may or may not be anywhere near the truth. It simply doesn’t matter.

Free at last!

© October 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 been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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Falling Wall, by Eym

The Stones of my wall are made of paint

recalling when you said “I Ain’t”

No more a victim to be shoved

You were fashioned and always loved

I will hold you in hands of heart

And in my doubting recall your start

The pink stone wall began to fall

when you stepped up and took the call

Brave army you in heels and lace

Your riot bold has changed this place”

© 10 January 2016

About the Author

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

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In the Zone, by Betsy

As one member of this group has mentioned, Mozart may be an exception to the statement “any writing is experimental.” True, Mozart was writing music not words. But there is no reason that the statement which is today’s topic cannot apply to the writing of music as well as the writing of words. Mr. Mozart is said to have been divinely inspired never having to go back over his work to correct or improve it. His writing was perfect the first try. Some might say he was continually “in the zone” at least when he was writing music.

It’s hard for me to relate to always being in the zone when I am writing. Although, I must say, some writings have come a lot easier to me than others. On occasion, depending on the topic and/or depending on my state of consciousness, I have felt myself “in the zone” as I was writing. Mostly, it is the experiences I have had that have given me awareness or knowledge which make it possible to be there. Being in the zone could be equated with being mindful—a state of complete awareness. Also a requirement for being in the zone when writing might be an element of passion for the subject and a clarity of one’s feelings about it.

I best relate to being in the zone when I am immersed in a sports activity. Some days—though they may be rare—it’s as if you can’t make a mistake in a tennis game. Or the body flows particularly easily, gently and rhythmically through the moguls on the ski slope. Those days might be rare, but we remember them—at least I do. Probably the sun is shining as well on that day, and there is little or no wind and the temperature is just right for perfect conditions.

I can recall also being in the zone in a beautiful spot surrounded by nature—feeling part of nature or one with one’s natural surroundings. Being in the zone and being completely immersed in the moment, I believe, are one and the same thing.

As for being an experiment, I’m quite sure writing falls into that category. I often set out to write about something related to the topic of the day and I find I am completely surprised at the outcome of that writing. The piece may take a totally different tack than what I had first intended.

This can apply to other art forms as well. I have attempted to draw or paint an object, a landscape, a tree or what have you. In this case I know when I start out that it is an experiment.

I have no idea how the project will turn out. I suppose that’s because I have very little experience in creating visual arts, and almost no confidence. Yet I find that to draw a tree or paint, even try to copy an object or a landscape is an adventure, and most certainly an experiment. I start out with no idea where the effort will take me, how I will feel about it, or what the outcome will be—other than either boosting my confidence or totally obliterating what little bit I had to start with.

The fact is that most active things we do—that is active vs. passive—most things we do are an experiment. Even everyday activities. That is, if we define an experiment as a course of action taken and followed without knowing the outcome. Cooking certainly can fall into that category—at least MY cooking does. Even the laundry, shopping, etc. What the heck, which outcomes CAN I be sure of. Even when I sit down to watch television who knows, (I certainly don’t)—who knows how long I will be awake.

© 24 July 2015

About the Author

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

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Bicycle Memories, by Will Stanton

My bicycles memories are very clear still, even though they are from long ago. I still toy with the idea of riding a bike from time to time, yet I never seem to get around to it. I do have two English Raleigh bicycles in my garage. They are about fifty or sixty years old, three and five-speeds, no resemblance whatsoever to advanced, modern bicycles of today. They were hanging on hooks for many years. Two summers ago, a friend helped me lower one off the hooks so that I could ride it. After all, there is a park right across the street from me. However, I still haven’t pumped up the tires. It still sits there in the garage with flat tires. I’m not even sure that the tires are still good after all these hot summers stored in the garage.

I see lots of young and adult riders in the park when I occasionally take a walk there. What astonishes me are the very tiny, pre-school kids, mostly boys, wearing protective helmets, zipping around the park on miniature bikes without trainer-wheels. I never saw that when I was very young. I never did that myself, either.

Back in the day (I’m talking two generations ago), kids that age had tricycles and no helmets. Apparently, no one dreamed of putting tiny kids onto tiny bikes. Then, when kids graduated to small bikes, they started out with training wheels. I was grade-school age before I biked around on just two wheels. Although I did a lot of exploring around the neighborhood on that bike, I never raced around, jumping over humps are doing dangerous tricks like kids today or like the ones portrayed in kids’ movies such as “E.T.” or “Max.”

My small bike was a typical, rather heavy bike, similar to ones that all the other kids were riding in those times. My older brother was the first to experiment with the new European style bike that was taller and had very narrow tires. It sported a generator attached next to the wheel that powered the headlight, a small saddle-bag with tools, and a tire-pump attached to the frame. That was quite something. I inherited this French bike when my brother went away to college.

I road this bike everywhere, even all the way to down-town, so often that I became quite expert; and, that is saying something, considering how rough the streets were. For example, there were two ways to ride to the center of my small town. One was a two-lane State Street that originally was the state highway through town. It was the busier street, so I normally avoided it. The other was a zig-zag course of rough brick streets through residential areas. Because the railroad line curved around the south side of town at an angle, a street ran straight south until it could go not farther, then I would have to turn right onto an adjoining street, then south again, then west again, right, left, right left. At one point, there was a very bumpy railroad crossing where a siding ran to the A&P grocery store.

I rode the French bike so often that I gained a remarkable degree of balance. I could ride without touching the handle bars, even on rough patches, going around corners, or over the railroad crossing. I steered simply by shifting my weight one way or the other to turn corners.

I recall one day, I spotted a teacher of mine slowly approaching me in his car going the other way. I decided to tease him. I sat up straight on the bike, grabbed a large book from my bike-rack, and pretended that I was reading, holding it with both hands while riding my bike. I did see a clear view of his face as we passed by each other. His eyes looked very big, and his mouth was hanging open.

I continued riding my bike early in college. I was so confident with my skill that I recall an incident when, ordinarily, a rider might have become hurt, but I wasn’t. There was one very steep, rough-brick hill that I rode down – – – no problem. At the bottom, however, all the sand from winter had washed down to the base of the hill. As I began to ride around the corner, I could feel the wheels slipping out from under me. I knew I could not prevent my going down, so I decided to gently lay the bike over on its side, coming to a halt just as I touched the ground – – – not a scratch! One kind-hearted student was concerned that I might have been hurt, but I was just laughing about how easy a landing I had.

On occasion over the years, I have considered possibly obtaining a more modern bike with fatter tires that would be less likely to become punctured by all the sharp stuff in the streets; however, I never have felt that ambitious. If I don’t even ride my old bikes, why get another?

Maybe it’s just as well. I have met people who bought fancy, $2,000.00 bikes and had them stolen, even with bike locks and chains on them. My acquaintance Larry always hired cheap laborers, including one young guy who was a drug-addicted thief. After the helper died of throat-cancer from the effects of constantly smoking marijuana, people checked out a storage shed he had and found around 200 bikes. I’m fairly certain he never bought them.

Now that I have way too many years and pounds on me, I sometimes think back to those easy-biking days. I have a feeling that, if I pumped up the tires on my fifty-year-old Raleigh and took it for a spin, I’d feel like an over-size circus-bear laboriously pumping away on a little bike, much too small for his bulk.

© 15 May 2016

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.