Month: May 2017

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Ghosts, by Lewis Thompson

Ghosts are not the spirits of the dead hanging around to haunt us. They are creations of our own feelings of guilt. Regret is the only ghost we have to fear.

© 24 April 2017

About the Author

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

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Hysteria, by Gillian

The old black-and-white movie flickers and jumps. A woman screams. And laughs. And cries.

‘You’re hysterical,’ booms a strong male voice.

A strong male hand slaps the woman’s cheek. Silence; followed by a quiet sobbing.

That is hysteria in the movies.

I actually don’t think I have ever experienced that kind of hysteria; my own or anyone else’s. Perhaps it has never actually existed, outside of old movies. Or perhaps I have simply been extremely fortunate, having lived a life free of horrifying experiences which might create hysteria in myself or others.

No, I have not had to live such nightmares; but certainly I have seen them unfold on the TV. I have watched everything from terrorist attacks to mass shootings, from earthquakes and mudslides to tsunamis, hurricanes, and tornadoes. I have seen people’s response to such things. But, you know, I honestly cannot recall hysteria. People run, sometimes screaming, but that is a simple reaction to danger – the good old fight or flight response. I have seen tears: strangers enfolding each other in comforting arms, injured individuals sitting on the ground, alone and confused. That is shock and grief. It is not hysteria. Desperate people wave to helicopters from rooftops barely protruding from floodwaters. They shout for help from beneath heaps of rubble. These are people trying to save themselves. They are not hysterics. It makes little sense to me that hysteria should be encouraged by Mother Nature, anyway. She has given us an overwhelming survival instinct. We will do whatever it takes to live. Hysteria is counterproductive; it interferes with our ability to save ourselves. I’m sure it’s not listed on Mother Nature’s list of approved survival tactics.

On the other hand, a much more dangerous form of hysteria is alive and well and ever expanding, especially in recent years with the phenomenal growth of social media; mass hysteria. Until recently, this kind of group emotion was of necessity engendered in a group – a physical group of people close together, shoulder to shoulder, acting in ways none of them would have alone. The New Year’s Eve festivities downtown are great fun until a few idiots begin to egg each other on to break some windows. Before anyone realizes what is happening, dozens or even hundreds of people are heaving anything handy through windows, and the looting starts. Mass hysteria tends to lead to mass arrests. The soccer game is over and the crowds wending their way towards the stadium exits. A gang of lager-louts, till now only a little obnoxious as they react to the home team’s win or loss, begin an argument with opposing supporters. Voices get louder. Voices get angry. One man swings a fist. In seconds dozens of fists are swinging. Innocent bystanders rush for the streets. Hundreds are trampled in the panic; dozens killed and injured. And even without physical violence, hysteria is ugly. Just watch our political conventions.

Lately an even more frightening, more pervasive, form of mass hysteria has appeared, fomented by social media. An angry young man no longer needs to fly to Syria and attend a mosque frequented by violent extremists to become what we now chose to call ‘radicalized’. He can work himself into a frenzy of hatred and bigotry simply by reading what is offered in great abundance on his iPhone or laptop. He barely needs to get up off the couch. Perhaps he will never appear on any no-fly- or watch-list, but he is every bit as dangerous as those who do.

Mass hysteria is almost as scary even when involving no actual violence. These days all it takes is sound bites; Obama was not born in this country, Hillary is a crook. Repeat it often enough via all forms of social media, but particularly TV, and some of those listening will repeat it. Some of those hearing it will then repeat it, and in twenty-four hours there is this ground-swell of mass hysteria all based on a lie.

But strangely, I have observed recently, social media can create something which seems to me even stranger; almost the antithesis of hysteria. But if the opposite of hysterical is calm, this is behavior surpassing anything the word suggests to me. It is a level of denial for which I think we have no word. It seems to have appeared along with the universal inclusion of cameras in cellphones.

On the TV screen I see a man almost up to his armpits in swirling water. He holds one arm above his head, gripping his phone in his hand. Debris of all kinds swirls around him in the rising waters of Tropical Storm Sandy. He shouts breathlessly into his phone, capturing the image of himself struggling to remain upright. His commentary, as played on the television, consists mainly of beeps.

‘I’m here in bleeping New Jersey, in my own bleeping house. I’m standing in my bleeping kitchen, man. I don’t see how the bleep I’m gonna bleeping get out of here.’

He turns the camera off himself to show a jerky unfocused view from a window.

‘And over there it bleeping looks like every bleeping thing is on fire, man. How the bleeping bleeping bleep do you get bleeping fire on bleeping floods? Bleep. Bleep.

I gotta bleeping get up to the bleeping roof. Bleep … bleep ……’

After a few seconds of wildly gyrating film of ceiling and walls and water, everything goes blank and silent.

You see more and more of these death-defying shots, movies, and commentaries. People seem increasingly more interested in capturing their own images for posterity than in saving their own lives. Mother Nature must be very confused and frustrated!

Or perhaps she’s happy to see them go, cleansing the gene pool.

My very favorite so far, and I say so far because I reluctantly doubt that this new phenomenon is going away, is a still shot of a young woman in a bikini who obviously waited for the perfect moment to get a selfie as the tsunami waves broke through the windows behind her.

What is wrong with these people? I have no training as a psychologist, but I’m not too sure that your average shrink understands why people act this way, though there is, doubtless, at this very moment, at least one Ph.D student studying the topic.

Apparently the two people I have just described must somehow have survived. We have the content of their presumably intact phones. But how many, I have to wonder, have died in the grip of this strange ‘anti-hysteria’? I am starting to think that a good old-movie style face-slapping bout of hysterics might look downright healthy.

© August 2016

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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Where I Was when Kennedy Was Shot, by Betsy

November 22, 1963—I had to look up the exact date—I don’t remember where I was, but I can go backwards and figure it out. We came to Denver in 1970. Before that we lived in Leiden, The Netherlands. We went to the Netherlands in 1966 from Scottsville, New York. My youngest child was born in 1964. My second child was born in 1962, so the time we are trying to pinpoint was between the births of my 2nd and 3rd child. In fact I would have been pregnant with my 3rd child at the time. I can visualize our home in Scottsville. I must have been at home. Yes! I would have been at home; I had two babies to take care of.

I do remember now watching the news on TV as the tragic event was unfolding. At the time I tuned in Kennedy was in the hospital still alive. I do remember the announcement shortly after, that he had expired, that doctors could do nothing to save him.

Then there was the swearing in of Lyndon Johnson on Air Force One.

What is more memorable to me is watching the heartbreaking funeral procession down Pennsylvania Avenue— the riderless horse, the casket, Jackie Kennedy and John Jr. and the famous salute the young child gave to honor his father. These are all images that have been etched into the memories of most Americans—and there were very few who were not paying attention at the time.

Trying to remember that day I find to be an interesting exercise. I am asking why do I not remember how I felt about our president being assassinated. Thinking back, my emotions seemed flat when viewed from the perspective of 2017. Not only can I not remember feeling what would seem to be the appropriate emotion, but also I cannot come up with the physical place where I was at the time of the incident without calculating where I must have been.

In retrospect that disconnect with my past seems odd to me. I have not often thought about being unable to be in closer touch with the Betsy of November 22, 1963 until considering the topic for today.

In recent years I have come to the realization that in my day- to- day life before I came to terms with my sexuality I was not fully “present.” I was partially “shut down.” Not depressed, not withdrawn, not unhappy—just not fully present. As if some of my nerve endings were absent or deadened. I did not drink too much, I did not do drugs. Yet looking back from today’s vantage point it feels as if at that earlier time I was not an integrated person. I was, in fact, some other person especially in one very important basic aspect.

So it has been very useful for me to write on today’s topic. It has given me some added insight into that part of my life—a time before I understood my true nature. And writing even these few words helps bring a measure of clarity.

Another less personal thought generated by the topic for today comes to mind. That is this: After the Kennedy assassination many assumed that presidents no longer would expose themselves to any possibility that a lone gunman could snuff out his/her life by simply squeezing a trigger from a distant, unsuspected, isolated location .

Anyone who is president has enemies. And enemies who are dedicated to ridding the world of the hated powerful person. It only takes one to pull that trigger. Literally millions of dollars are spent to protect the president and his family. More in the current administration that ever. So I suppose it would be more difficult today than in 1963 to pull off an assassination.

The gun issue at this point rears its ugly head. I haven’t heard it suggested by the NRA that the president himself be armed at all times, as is suggested for the rest of us—the school teachers, shop keepers, mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, people living alone, people living with others, single people, married people, sick people, healthy people, virtually everyone should carry a gun, says the NRA.

In spite of his support of the NRA, I doubt our current president carries a gun. And since Kennedy’s assassination, presidents have not been hiding from public exposure. Since then our presidents have chosen to walk or ride out in the open, wave to the crowds, and make themselves visible. And I don’t blame them one bit for doing so. I understand the feeling. They want to be totally visible just as I myself was driven to be.

I have often made the statement to family and friends, “I refuse to live in fear.” Applying common sense is a good thing, but living in an emotional state of fear, unable to live life to the fullest because of what COULD happen or because of what happened to someone else is handing victory over to the enemy and capitulating to an unknown entity which wants to exercise its power at your expense.

Kind of reminds me of the same pep talk I gave myself at different stages of coming out. But then it’s not my life that was at steak, just my quality of life or perhaps a temporary emotional set-back. But the principle is the same. Living in fear is no way to live.

© 3 April 2017

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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He Was Bored, by Ricky

This is a story filled with physical violence, sadism, masochism, extreme pain, and a bit of courage. So naturally, it will be boring.

Once upon a time, or in other words, this ain’t no shit, there was a small, thin, appropriately proportioned 8-year old boy who lived at the time of this story in Minnesota. In order to save having to write boring descriptions of this kid, just imagine that he looked like an 8-year old me since what he looked like is not important to the story.

As I said previously, once upon a time, there was this boy who was terribly afraid of needles used to give shots. One day he was taken to this office to see a man, he was told was going to help him.

Upon entering the man’s office, he discovered that the man was supposed to be a doctor but not a doctor he had ever heard of before. This doctor was a tooth doctor or a dentist, if you will. The boy was not nervous or afraid of this doctor.

Once seated in a chair which resembled a barber’s chair which the boy was familiar with and so still was not afraid of anything, the world the boy was comfortable living in suddenly began to change.

The once nice and pleasant doctor dentist examined the boy’s teeth and said that he needed to fix one of the teeth today and another two teeth another day. He then produced a syringe with (what appeared to the boy) a mile long needle. Fear fueled by adrenaline filled the boy and he refused to open his mouth to admit the needle. After wasting several minutes pleading in vain with the boy to let him give the boy a shot in his mouth to prevent pain, the sadistic dentist began to use a drill to bore into the sick tooth.

The first time the drill hit the tooth’s nerve a scream of pain filled the room and probably the street outside too. It was a horrible scene to witness, a poor little child being brutalized by a dentist. Nonetheless, the boy persevered and the nasty dentist eventually finished the task and the boy left.

On the next visit, and for the rest of his life, the boy wisely accepted the brief pain of the shot and avoided the trauma of tooth pain, but he still dislikes being in the dentist chair.

© 28 April 2014

About the Author

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

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

The invitation read:

Cocktails

6 PM
Friday, the 25th of November, 2016

Arriving a little after six that evening I was greeted by the hostess’s daughter and ushered to meet the other two guests. Maybe another man or two were on the way, but at this moment it looked like it would be my turn to respond politely, if not wittily and interestedly in what subject the ladies brought up.

Seated on the right end of the sofa sat Ms. Dorothy dressed in her robe looking very much like, I might imagine, the Dowager Empress. The opposite end of the sofa was occupied by Laura who also managed an occasional run to the pantry to replenish snacks or ice.

The cocktail table was set with an inviting selection of tasty foodstuffs.

All of this was surveyed by our hostess, Mary, who was in command of the most important part of the evening’s ritual. Here on a silver tray stood a tall glass cylinder and stir stick. Then the ice bucket and the necessary stem glasses. With a grand gesture Mary dropped each ice cube into the pitcher. Then came a bottle of Queen Victoria’s Best. No measure was needed. To my amazement Mary had a very practiced eye that resulted in four perfect double Martinis—olive or a twist, your choice.

The long glass swizzle stick gently massaged the gin and the ice cubes. Remember, “Always stirred, never shaken.” The other element of this communion of happy souls that surprised me was the absence of any Vermouth, however, rest assured no one but I missed it, and I survived.

© 5 December 2016

About the Author

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Assumptions, by Phillip Hoyle

The professor said to her students, “I don’t so much care about what you conclude as I do about what you assume.” She went on to explain that two people cannot actually discuss any issue until they discover what assumptions they share. If they do not have enough assumptions in common, they actually have nothing to talk about. For her, assumptions were at the heart of any matter.

Early in my church-related career I learned a process called Strategic Planning. It began with defining your goal. That would be the picture of what you hope to accomplish. The second step was to write out your assumptions about the project. Such assumptions might have to do with your own ideas that lay behind the goal and objectives, those of others who might be involved in the project, the available resources, and so forth. In group planning this look into assumptions might be brainstormed. That part would give the group a look at whether there was any hope for the goal to be pursued to its end. Sometimes the assumptions are not in accord enough to keep the group together. I used that process regularly in my work, and as a result amassed quite a number of files describing the assumptions that I held or assumed participants might hold. Those files went to the trash bin outside the church building when after thirty years I left that work.

My most recent use of this process me occurred a number of years ago when I was recruited to lead “Telling Your Story” at the GLBT Center of Colorado. I had been in the group for a few months and thought I had better clarify my own assumptions about my participation, what I had observed about other participants, what I had picked up from the originating leader, about how the setting would affect the group, about the meeting time, about the Center’s interest in the project, about the elder aspects. I wanted the program that I had found to be significant to keep working well for me and for others, and I wanted to clarify for the SAGE program director what to expect from me. I asked the director to review my assumptions about Participants, the relationship of the group to the Center, and the process of storytelling.

One past SAGE director suggested one important assumption, saying it was better to come to a group on Monday afternoon than to stay alone in one’s apartment drinking. I suppose that would come under the category Assumptions about Participants.

Not long after that assumption was shared, another one surfaced from a “Telling Your Story” participant. He assumed that we would want to publish our stories. I’m still chewing on that idea and doing a lot of work.

There was another assumption, one I thought better and truer. When I told my artist friend Sue that we weren’t an activist group, she said, “Phillip, anytime you get a group of Senior Citizens to tell the stories of their lives; that’s activism.” Her perspective came from working several years in a Senior’s living and care center. I suspect we haven’t yet covered all the assumptions possible. Perhaps these last few assumptions are more points of view related to what we have accomplished together as a group.

© 27 March 2017

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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Assumptions, by Louis

Phase out Football and Boxing 

About thirty-two years ago, I am in a sports bar, and the conversation of several beer-drinkers inevitably turns to football. The four or five other guys at the bar look at me, see a 40-year old man, and assume:

(a) I am obsessed with football games;

(b) I am knowledgeable about the biographies and careers of the top 20 most famous football players.

(c) And I have a fervent belief that these 20 most famous football players are excellent rôle models for American youth.

I said as little as possible during these conversations. What I really believe is:

(a) Excessive interest in football games is gradually turning into a mental illness, something like mass hysteria;

(b) I know next to nothing about the biographies of the 20 most famous football players, and I see no reason in particular to show any interest in their biographies;

(c) If you ask me, “successful” football players are not wholesome rôle models. Why is it admirable for a man to engage in a violent sport in which his bones will be broken and repetitive violent blows to his head will result in his suffering various types of dementia and motor impairment?

Pretty much the same can be said of boxing. Broken bones, dementia from brain concussions, paraplegia, quadriplegia and even death. Two guys punching each other in the face, I do not find admirable. In a word these two violent sports, football and boxing should be discontinued. Make love, not war.

The polls indicate that public interest in football is declining. Thank God. I think fervent promotion of football and boxing and other sports is part of a deliberate campaign or process of dumbing-down the public or, in a word, “a conspiracy.”

We should be led by intelligent people with a good sense of moral and ethical sensitivity. Like the authors of Telling Your Story. As opposed to punch drunk boxers, as likeable as Muhamed Ali was.

Years ago the hippies promoted the idea of non-violent, non-competitive sports. I think that idea should be developed further. The game should promote the idea of cooperation. Team A should not try to defeat Team B but join up with Team B and collectively say cure cancer.

In itself, football is a clever game. Make it into a parlor game like Monopoly or Parcheesi. Nothing wrong with that.

A lot of reasonable people agree with me, I know.

When I was 25 years old, a bosomy woman, looking for a boyfriend, intentionally pushed her bosoms on my back and side, assuming I would get excited or something. She was looking for a boyfriend in a direct sort of way. Nowadays most people have stopped assuming that a guy is necessarily heterosexual, and that one can guess what his deep personal motivations are. That’s progress.

© 3 March 2017

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

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Doors, by Lewis Thompson

There have likely been a few million types of doors throughout history and many purposes for which doors have been employed, privacy and security chief among them. The most important thing to know about any door, however, is not what it’s made of or how large or small or how old or intricate its design. No, the only thing that really counts when it comes to doors is whether they are open or closed.

You can tell a lot about a person from knowing how cautious they are about keeping their doors locked. One person on my floor locks her door even when she leaves her apartment to do her laundry at the other end of the hallway.

Some commercial enterprises advertise that their doors are always open. This past weekend was the occasion of the annual Doors Open Denver–a chance to see parts of the city that may not normally be accessible to the unwashed.

In the history of Western Civilization, the most famous door was probably the stone that covered the entrance to the tomb where Jesus’ body was placed following his crucifixion. Had it never (as legend has it) been mysteriously opened, one of the world’s great religions may well have never taken root.

When I was a boy, we had a small ranch house with a single-car, attached garage. The roll-up door was not powered. I used to catch grasshoppers, pull off their hind legs and put them in the track of the open garage door and then close it so that the roller would pass over them. Did you know that grasshopper guts look like long orange grains of rice?

It seems to me that some people are like closets full of treasures behind locked doors. It’s as if they believe that exposing themselves would tempt others to do them harm. Or perhaps they think that others would be disappointed in what was revealed. I used to be one of these people, shut up behind a closed door. I thought if others could see me in the light, they would think I was ugly. But, at long last, one person gently knocked on my door and invited me to come out. I found out that opening the door let the light in and the fear out. Now, I always try to leave the door unlocked with a welcome sign on it.

© 27 April 2015

About the Author

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

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Birthdays, by Gillian

The only problem with birthdays is, there are waaaay too many of them; both vertically and horizontally, if you get my drift.

Vertically, the number is ever-increasing because the average longevity is ever-increasing, at least in what we choose to call the ‘developed’ countries. But the overall world life expectancy has also risen. According to my favorite go-to website, Wikipedia, worldwide life expectancy has risen dramatically just in our lifetime, from 48 in 1950 to 67 in 2010. Since 1900, when it stood at 31 – well, you can do the math – it has more than doubled. In short, many lives are enjoying way too many birthdays.

Horizontally, there are many more humans to enjoy this increasing number of birthdays; exponentially more. Not quite in our own lifetimes, but between 1900 and 2000, the world population increased from 1.5 billion to over 6 billion; in one hundred years an increase three times greater than the entire previous history of humanity. The graph depicting this is an amazing picture.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longevity

But I took a break from writing this and now it is November 9th 2016. The day after Election Day. Two days after my birthday, so I’m happy to say I was able to enjoy the anniversary of my birth before disaster struck.

Today I feel nauseated, have a pounding headache, and cannot stop crying. How did this terrible thing happen? I remind myself that Clinton won the popular vote, but much good that does. I remind myself that, with almost half of all eligible voters not voting, and half of those who did vote voting for Hilary, Trump voters comprise only 25% of the eligible voters of this country. But much good that does.

My next birthday will be my 75th – a kind of semi-significant milestone. I wonder what horrors will have befallen us all by then. I fear for myself, for our country, and for the world. I am not alone. My cousin in London e-mails that she is ‘deep in the slough of despond’ which, I reply, is a mighty crowded place about now.

Now it is Sunday the 13th. On Friday evening, Betsy and I went to the usual Friendly Friday gathering of our HOA. Officially we had ended Friendly Fridays for the year when we put back the clocks, but many of us felt a particular need for comfort this week, so planned one more.

One of our neighbors was handing out safety pins, and introduced us to the Safety Pin Movement. Here at least is something we all can do now, with minimal effort and cost, to show solidarity with each other – all of us in fear from Trump’s promised oppressions.

According to a post on Twitter, here is what the safety pin signifies – the message it sends to those who see you wear it.
If you wear a hijab, I’ll sit with you on the train.
If you are trans I will go to the bathroom with you.
If you’re a person of color, I’ll stand with you if the cops stop you.
If you’re a person with disabilities, I’ll hand you my megaphone.
If you’re an immigrant, I’ll help you find resources.
If you are a survivor, I’ll believe you.
If you’re a refugee, I’ll make you welcome.
If you’re a veteran, I’ll take up your fight.
If you’re LGBTQ, I won’t let anyone tell you you are broken.
If you are a woman, I’ll make sure you get home OK.
If you’re tired, me too.
If you need a hug, I’ve got an infinite supply.
If you need me, I’ll be with you.
All I ask is that you be with me, too.

I have never before thought of the safety pin as a great weapon, but perhaps at this moment it is.

It is at least one small, non-combative, way to begin to push back.

Otherwise, all we have is the popular misquote of Tiny Tim at the close of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol –

God help us, every one.

© November 2016

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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Raindrops, by Ricky

I have never liked rain or the drops in which it arrives. I know some will chastise me by pointing out, “But farmers need the rain to grow our food.” I’ve even used that phrase to my children as they grew; another case of like parent, like child. Nonetheless, I don’t like rain.

My dislike began at a very early age. When it rained, my mother would not let me go outside to play. When I did manage to sneak outside, I would end up totally soaked before my mother made me come back inside, followed by being placed in the bath tub to get clean. I always felt that I was already clean, just wet. However, the bath did replace the chill with warmth. Perhaps I deliberately got wet, and thus chilled, just so I could take a warm bath. Somehow, that doesn’t seem probable.

In elementary school, my teachers took over for my mother and forbade going outside when it was raining, thus ruining many a recess. Strangely, in the winter months, we could go out and play in the snow and eventual slushy-snow getting very wet and cold. No warm baths in school. We had to sit in our wet clothes and shiver until a combination of room temperature and body heat dried our clothes enough for us to warm up.

High school brought no relief from the “no outside activities when it was raining” rule. However, I was in complete agreement with staying inside. I had joined the Boy Scouts when I was in 7th grade and personally experienced a couple of campouts where it rained. Being wet and dirty with no chance of a bath or shower and sleeping in a damp sleeping bag, permanently changed my outlook about playing in the rain. From the second such campout and beyond, I HATE being outside and wet. Then came Deborah.

I first met Deborah on December 21st 1968 at the home of my current crush and her best friend. We eventually began dating and on our first date, we visited the Florida Caverns State Park near Mariana on the panhandle of NW Florida. On the day we arrived the sky was mostly overcast and threatened to rain at any time with brief moments of sunshine. We had a two-hour wait before the cavern tour group for which we had tickets would begin. As it was lunch time, we decided to have a cookout and eat before the tour.

We had no matches or lighter and Deborah was nonplussed and began to bemoan the loss of a cookout fire. I was upbeat and not bothered at all by the lack of such fire-making tools. When Deborah asked me why I was still gathering various twigs, sticks, and kindling to lay in the grill, I told her I learned in the scouts how to make a fire without a lighter or matches. She did not believe I could do it and because the wood appeared too damp to burn. Naturally, I felt that she doubted my truthfulness and challenged my ability and skill. I had done this many times in the scouts so I was supremely confident I could do it again. Confidence riding on the back of knowledge.

I was only 2 or 3-years out of my scout troop and in the glove compartment of my car was my homemade flint “stick” and a scout pocket knife. The wood was all arranged and ready. I told Deborah to watch and learn. I drew the knife blade across the flint sending two hot sparks into the tinder. After two-seconds the tinder exploded into flame igniting the kindling and the cookout fire was lit and we ate a hot meal. After that event, she thought I could do anything, like walking in the rain with her.

After we finished eating and cleaning up the trash, it began to lightly rain. We were under trees so it did not get to us in quantity but it did begin to run off the leaves and cause drops of water to drip down. As it turned out, I learned that day that Deborah loves to walk in the rain as long as it isn’t too much. She learned that I HATE to get wet outside. The result: I walked with her in the rain and ultimately enjoyed the time and conversation. The rain did stop and the sun came out so, we were dry by the time we entered the caverns with our tour group. We had a great time, but I still HATE getting wet outside. I wish the laws of Camelot prevailed here so, “The rain may never fall ‘till after sundown…”.

© 3 Apr 2016

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