Month: August 2017

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Preparation, by Lewis Thompson

This is a difficult
subject to write about.  First of all,
doing something that requires “preparation” usually implies that
something is about to happen that I would just as soon not happen at all, such as
an appointment with my attorney, having blood drawn, restricted diets, going
for a job interview (those days are behind me, thank heavens), or having a
colonoscopy.  But it also occurs to me
that nearly everyone occasionally has these things happen to them so it would
only bore them to hear me talk about how I prep myself for them, as it likely
is very close to their own groundwork. 
One exception,
however–and perhaps someone will have chosen to write about this–is preparing
oneself for one’s own death.  And, when I
say this, I don’t mean wills and durable-powers-of-attorney.  I’m talking about how people choose to die–the
when, where, and with the assistance of whom. 
However, I haven’t prepared the necessary groundwork to write about that
subject, so I shall have to punt and simply describe what I see as the
requisite characteristics of something for which preparation is normally
required–or not.  Here is my list:
1.   
My first rule on the subject of
preparation is to never prepare for something that can be avoided.  Preparation is work, some of it unpleasant or
tedious.  It’s much better simply to
change your plans to allow you to avoid any preparation and simply relax and do
something you enjoy instead.
2.   
Second, never make preparations yourself
that you can get someone else to do for you. 
I like to have a clean car when I begin a road trip.  I used to wash my car myself, which only
detracted from the pleasure of travelling. Now, I take my car to the car wash
and have the hard work done by someone else. 
I can recoup the cost simply by driving slower, thus saving on gas.
3.   
Third, I avoid potlucks.  At potlucks, you are expected to prepare
something to share with others.  Since I
don’t cook, I usually skip potlucks–unless, that is, I take the time to take
advantage of my 2nd point and buy something that someone else has made and take
that.
4.   
Similarly, I avoid family reunions.  I used to spend hours trying to memorize the
names of my family members so I could properly greet them at the reunions.  Since I had nine aunts and uncles and dozens
of cousins, that was very time-consuming. 
Fortunately, they were scattered to the four corners of the USA, so it
was rarely necessary.
5.   
As I mentioned before, I don’t cook.  The closest I come is when I make popcorn in
the microwave.  Cooking is nothing if not
preparation.  Now, I take advantage of
wonderful cooks who do the prep for me. 
They say time is money and, in this case, it is money well-spent–on
such things as eating out and frozen entrees and dinners.  I won’t tell you which brands I like because
I’m not prepared to try to beat you all to the frozen food aisle at Queen
Soopers before they’re sold out.
As I’m not prepared to
write any more, I’ll just stop here.  If
you take only one thing with you from this little missive of mine, let it be
this:  preparations are for people who
are either anal-retentive or control freaks. 
They should think about being less prepared and more available to enjoy
life fully.
© 17 Aug 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 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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Movies, by Gillian

I have never been a
really fully-paid-up member of the movie-goers club. In fact I seem to have
had, over my lifetime, something of a love/hate relationship with movies. The
love side has been made up mostly of documentaries, or what they call ‘docudramas’,
which probably makes me something of a dull person to be around; someone who
prefers, for the most part, fact over fiction. Strangely, though, the opposite
is true of books. I rarely read non-fiction books, much preferring to escape
into the land of make-believe.
Perhaps it is in fact
that very make-believe which has tripped me up. My childhood, in the time and
place that it was, related little to movies. There were cinemas in the towns in
the England of the 1940’s and ’50’s but I and my family and friends had no way
to get to them. There were early TV’s, too, in some places, but non of us had
one. So escape was down to books. And once you are accustomed to using your own
imagination, making the written story and characters look exactly the way you
want them, it’s hard to switch happily to strangers creating the images for
you.
And then, of course,
there was the gay thing. Though barely even subliminal, in my youth, it was
there. Reading the book, I could make Jane Eyre’s obsessive love be for a
somewhat androgynous Rochester. I could even, and this requires some strength
of imagination, believe me, picture poor innocent Catherine Earnshaw with a
vaguely unisex Heathcliff. But when, later in life, I saw the Wuthering Heights
movie with that darkly menacing Laurence Olivier, he was so completely
masculine that all fantasy faded. So, I couldn’t really get into movies because
they were so overwhelmingly, 100% at that time, heterosexual. So was
literature, but anyone can take it wherever they want. These days, of course,
we say that ol’ Larry was bisexual, if not homosexual. But either way he’s
completely masculine. Books offer more options than movies.
One member of this
Storytelling group, who rarely attends now, wrote one day of trying so hard to
hide his infatuation with Tab Hunter. I cannot recall that day’s topic, but I
had written of my attempts to fake an attraction to Tab Hunter. I
bought, in our nearest Woolworth’s, a black and white pin-up photo of him, to
attach to my school desk. Oh the sad irony of it, I thought. Two of us, sixty
years ago, thousands of miles apart, trying so hard to use Tab Hunter – and why
him, I ask myself – to define, or not define, our homosexuality. Thank God,
those days are largely gone.
Now, when there is such
vast choice of movies, I have favorites of all kinds. But I have still never
fully embraced ‘going to the movies’, except for drive-ins which I always found
to be great fun. For the most part, movies became more attractive to me when
they became readily available from the comfort of my own home and my own couch.
One of my very favorite,
totally fictional, movies, is ‘Cloudburst’, with Olympia Dukakis; the story of
two old lesbians running off to Canada to be married. It is funny and sad: that
perfect combination that creates fiction at it’s best. I also watch ‘The
History Boys’ every time it’s on TV. A wonderful ‘docudrama’, which Betsy and I
had somehow missed until it appeared on TV a couple of weeks ago, is ‘
Freeheld’, the true story of a New Jersey police lieutenant, dying of cancer,
fighting for her registered partner to receive her pension after her death, as
would be the case with a heterosexual couple. There are endless documentaries,
not to mention a full-length movie, about Alan Turing and all he suffered for
his homosexuality. It’s not that all I ever watch is movies, truth or fiction,
depicting the plight of members of the GLBT community; but they exist.
That is an ever-amazing
thing to me.
They exist.
Movies and I have
followed the same path. We have been on a long journey, but we have arrived.
And we will never, can never, go back. No matter what rhetoric spews from the
mouths of those filled with hate, from Anita Bryant to our newly anointed
vice-presidential candidate, we cannot, and they cannot, undo what we have
done. I, and all of us here, now know ourselves. Everyone else know us. We tell
our stories and the movies tell our stories; not the stories of us, in this
room, perhaps, individually,
but of us, anywhere and everywhere, collectively. We have travelled from
invisibility to out and proud.
If John Cray and I were
kids today, we could, at least in many schools, each embrace some modern
equivalent of Tab Hunter quite openly; I with indifference and John with
passion. Movies have played a huge part in our journey and we owe a debt of
gratitude to those who conceived them, financed them, produced them, and above
all to the many straight actors who were brave enough to act the part of a gay
or lesbian in the early days, when they put their careers at risk by doing so.
In fact, As Roger Ebert,
long-time film critic. stated so beautifully,
“We live in
a box of space and time. Movies are
windows in its walls. They allow us to enter other minds, not simply in the
sense of identifying with the characters, although that is an important part of
it, but by seeing the world as another person sees it.”
Through movies, others
perhaps learned not only to see us, to know us, but, just for a short time, to
be us.
© July 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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Hair, by Betsy

Since there is virtually no one left above ground who was
there and able to remember when I was a newborn babe, I will have to resort
to photos.  I am quite sure I was born
with no hair at all.  When some finally
grew in as a toddler my hair was a color that now many women I know pay big
money for; i.e., blond, really blond and evenly blond.
This did not last long. In early and middle childhood; i.e.,
second grade through puberty, my hair was what was commonly referred to as
dish-water blond. I remember my mother, who was a brunette from birth, rinsing
my hair with lemon juice hoping it would lighten a bit, or at least she hoped
the citrus solution would keep it from going to the dark side.
Like many girls at the time I also had braids.  On very special occasions, when I put on my
velvet dress with the lace collar and Mary Janes, my mother would make “rolls”
above my ears before braiding. When I had rolls, I knew I had to be on my best
behavior.
As adolescent girls and young women we did spend a lot of
time and energy on making our hair what we thought at the time was presentable.
Getting a permanent wave required enduring several hours of
discomfort—bordering torture.  But those
of us with straight hair felt compelled to do something to give our hair some
pizazz.
We employed many kinds of tools and devises to curl our hair.
We wrapped wads of hair around old socks and tied them to hold the hair on the
sock until it curled. So-called curlers came in all shapes and forms besides
the socks. sponges, wire sausage shaped objects, etc. We would go to bed with
these things on our heads—regardless of the pain inflicted while trying to
sleep.
After the hormones kicked in my hair did darken steadily
until late middle age when it became a dark brown. Now, guess what.  It’s going full circle, back to its original
colorless form.
 I know many, many
women of my age group who refuse to reveal that they have any gray hairs. They
go through the monthly ritual at the hair salon enduring hours of treatment costing
lots of dollars to do this. I have never been able to understand that because I
know some women whose white hair is quite beautiful.  I suspect there are men who do the same
cover-up.
Some societies value and revere the signs of old age. Not
here. But I suspect our corporate, capitalistic culture has a lot to do with
it.
I can make the claim in all honestly that I have never put
much effort or resources into making my hair look like something it was
not—except for the lemon juice, which really was non-effective, a couple of
permanent waves out of a bottle, and the socks.
And that’s all I have to say about MY hair.
© 22 Jan 2016 
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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Ghost, by Ricky

I have no ghost experiences
of my own.  However, I have a friend who
related the following experience to me shortly after it occurred.
In 1977, Deborah and I were
living in married student housing at Brigham Young University at Provo, Utah.  Also living in Provo, was a family friend from
Ft. Walton Beach, Florida whom I will call Sherry.  Sherry had a business partner named Carol who
also was in Provo.  Carol had cancer.
At the time of this event,
Carol was in the hospital dying and Sherry was in bed reading.  Sherry looked up from her book and saw Carol
walk past the doorway pausing briefly to look at Sherry and then walk on.  Sherry later learned the next morning that Carol
had expired at the time Sherry saw her walk past the door to her bedroom.
Life after death?  Are we energy after death?  Do we have spirit bodies after death?  These are questions that only time and death
will prove. 
© 23
April 2017 
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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Pack Rat, by Ray S

As long as I can remember saving bits and scraps of
memories, Christmas and birthday cards, grade school report cards, birth
announcements, baby books, funeral memorials, and anything else that was too
important to discard in good conscience.
Like the bad penny, no matter how deeply buried all of
that one-time vitally important stuff comes to the surface—no pennies don’t
float, but you know what I mean.
Then there are the material things acquired over the
years. For me just about all of that stuff can tell a story and the prospect of
sentencing it to a new life at ARC or Goodwill can be like divorce or a death
in the family. So much for untold years of materialism.
Just don’t give a damn and announce an estate sale,
but be warned: what happens if no one shows. There is always the Salvation
Army. That might save the day as well as you too.
This one is a lot of work but it might work.
Label with history tags all of the stuff you’ve saved
since World War II so the recipient will know its provenance. Then gather family
and close friends for a Free-for-All.
Again, you run the risk like “Smarty, Smarty had a
party” and nobody came. No matter how hard you try to cut the “silver
cord”—like even the rest of your life, it’s been one more blinking choice you
have to chance it.
You know, trying to get rid of that self nurtured rot
leads to this solution: just get up from your easy chair, leave all of that
clutter on the floor, open the door, lock it, and go out to the bar with a
friend. Tomorrow is another life!
© 24 October 2016 
About the Author 

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Self-Acceptance, by Phillip Hoyle

I believe that my self-perception of being religiously more liberal in a conservative environment, an assumption I learned at home as early as my junior high years, trained me to be self-accepting. In that theological context which was salvationistic and somewhat Calvinistic, I knew the ultimate goal of religion was to love God and neighbor. The moral/ethical code was flexible. I knew I was different but didn’t worry over it. I accepted my differences as not being eternally fatal. I didn’t worry over fitting into something I could not do. I believed I had a place in the larger picture of things. I worked from an introvert space although I knew how to participate in extrovert activities and with extraordinarily extrovert personalities.
I was responsible; adults liked that in me. I laughed easily; kids liked that in me. I liked life. I liked myself. I liked others. I was able to fit in easily enough. I did good class work, was polite, enjoyed choir, went to Boy Scouts, worked at the store, and saved money to go to college. Furthermore, no one around me ranted about sin.
What happened in my early teen developmental phase was quite positive and in most ways reflected the norms of developmental theory. I liked myself with my many projects. I was singing in two choirs, taught myself how to lead music (meaning, gestures for choirs and congregations), and practiced them in front of the mirror where sometimes I fantasized being an orchestral conductor. I worked on merit badges, I read books endlessly, and I learned steps for pop and rock and Native American dancing. I made Indian costumes. I collected Native American art prints. I carried out groceries. I made friends.
In the next few years I watched carefully as life changed for me. I realized the sex play with my friends, the boys among them, still attracted me after the others lost interest. I didn’t turn down opportunities for similar liaisons with newcomers, but I didn’t find many. (Actually, I found only one, and too soon his family moved away.) Still I developed friendships with girls and with straight guys. I was busy. Still am. I liked my life. I was entrusted with leadership, even leadership I didn’t especially want. Still am.
Lucky me—I didn’t get kidded much, was rarely taunted, and never beat up. Because I was used to being different, when I did encounter the occasional put down, I didn’t believe it and even might interpret it as a kind of intimacy. I liked myself and knew other people liked me too. Besides, I was too busy to worry over it.
In high school years I undertook interior decoration as a supplement to my Indian fascination, took an interest in fine art and frames, and engaged in more visual artwork. I continued taking music lessons and played piano and sang. I listened to all kinds of music and sang at church, school, and civic functions.
All my adult life I have kept busy, busy, busy! When I worked I did several jobs and in some ways contributed a lot more work than any church paid me for. I composed and arranged music for my choirs. I taught training workshops, led discussion groups, and taught core curricula in bible and theology. I taught a class in congregational education organization for the Missouri School of Religion. And I attended endless meetings, worked on boards and committees in churches, among clergy, within the denomination, in interdenominational settings, and the larger community. I led a denomination-wide professional organization, planned camps, coordinated conferences, on and on. Eventually I wrote religious education resources for a publishing company. I deeply enjoyed my family, deeply loved my wife, and deeply loved a few men.
My eldest sister said it most clearly, “At home we learned that the big sin was to be bored.” I guess I was an over achiever. Still am. Still accept and love myself. Still write and read and entertain. Still do many social things with my diverse pool of friends.
My urologist saw something in me besides my much enlarged prostate gland. He said I was lucky. I attributed it all to my genetic inheritance. He thought it was something else. He and I finally agreed my luck was due to both nature and nurture. Besides my genetically inherited Pollyanna tendencies, there were the open attitude of my family, attendance in integrated schools, and working in a grocery store from age thirteen. Even the church I grew up in and worked in was not sectarian and pursued an ecumenical vision. I am its child and I like life. I like and accept myself with all my differences. And especially, I like my differences.
© 12 Dec 2016 
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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Where I Was on Sep 11, 2001, by Pat Gourley

As I am sure is true for
most of us I vividly remember the televised scenes of the first plane flying
into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. It was sometime between
0700-0730 Denver time and I was getting ready for work. It quickly became
obvious that this was a terrorist attack and not an accident. I distinctly
remember saying to my partner David: “boy, there are going to be a lot of Arab
people die for this”. It was most certainly not a wish of any sort on my part
that mostly Muslim middle-eastern folk needed to pay but rather was said with
sad resolve. I knew in my gut that the revenge our country would exact would
most certainly track along the lines of an “eye for an eye”, a response very
lacking in compassion.
One would assume that an
“eye for an eye” would involve retribution on those directly responsible. That
is not how it actually turned out however. Oh, I did follow with great interest
and perhaps even a bit of vengeful glee the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden in the
rugged mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, the completely falsified
case made to invade Iraq soon made me realize there were very nefarious motives
afoot and totally fabricated by the powers that be, our duly elected leaders of
the day. I never bought the propaganda so widespread at the time that “they
hated us for our freedoms”. Now fifteen plus years into the “war on terror” the
millions of deaths of so often innocent men, women and children directly
related to that ‘war on terror’ has given generations of people a reason to
hate us.
By September of 2001 we
were really just finally coming out of the nightmare that had been AIDS for the
past nearly twenty years. I was well into my twenty-one-year stint as the
nursing manager of the AIDS Clinic here in Denver. Perhaps it was my first-hand
experience with deaths’ by the hundreds of mostly young and vibrant folks from
HIV infection that helped inform my own emotional and intellectual response to
the tragedy of 9/11. The deaths of those on the planes were certainly quick if
not immediate, though the minutes before and the realization of what was to
occur must have been unbelievably horrific. 
The death I had become
all too familiar with in the two decades before 9/11 was often very protracted
and painful over months and sometimes years. My own HIV infection was turning
around thanks to the new meds but it was certainly not assured that I would not
succumb and die a death similar to so many others I had known and cared for. I
do remember pondering on occasion whether or not a very sudden death in a plane
crash was not a preferable way to go. Remember nobody gets out alive and
perhaps it is a most wonderful gift to be able to call a halt to it all on your
own accord.
I was though somewhat
reassured by the amount of empathy I was able to muster for the 9/11 victims
and most certainly for the pain their surviving friends and family members were
feeling and undoubtedly still do today. Twenty years of watching lovers,
friends and hundreds of others I had come to know in a caregiving role die so
often very shitty deaths had apparently not completely hardened my soul.
Maybe those many hours on
the cushion, most often unsuccessfully trying to focus on my breath, had paid
off after all. Or maybe it is just the result of the privilege of getting
older. I see my empathy for all sentient beings increasing over time. Having
started out as quite the self-centered little prick I find this empathic
evolution a validation for this whole amazing opportunity of having manifested
into a human form. Sixty-eight years into the trip and I am still here- one
lucky son-of-a- bitch I’d say.
© February 2017 
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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Limerick, by Louis Brown

In Honor of Brendan Fay
There was a gay libber from Gotham,
He was Irish from his top to his bottom,
They told him no parade,
He screamed, “What a charade!”
That Irish gay libber from Gotham.
For many years I
followed the radical career of Brendan Fay. We always seemed to be going to the
same protest marches. In fact, I knew him when he was quite young. He was
good-looking, somewhat short, his ears stuck out just enough to make him look
like a leprechaun. He was a great impassioned public speaker.
For many years the
Hibernian Society that was in charge of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New
York City refused to let any gay group march under their own banners. The Irish
Lesbian Gay Association went to federal court and claimed that since the St.
Pat’s day parade was a public accommodation, the Hibernian Society could not
exclude any group. ILGA lost the lawsuit. So, every year ILGA members and many
gay and Lesbian Irish stood on the sidewalks and protested.
Eventually the
local politicians became more supportive of the gay and Lesbian Irish people’s
cause, and the mayor and the governor stopped attending the St. Pat’s day
parade. Three or four years ago, the Hibernian Society permitted gay and
lesbian military veterans to march under their own banner. Though that was
progress, it was not good enough. “If we can march in Dublin and Cork, why
can’t we march right here in New York?” Brendan Fay made frequent visits to Ireland
especially when there were legal cases involving homophobia or legal
restrictions on abortion.
ILGA once
advocated interrupting Catholic masses to remind the faithful of the Catholic
Church’s homophobic policies. And in general, ILGA was too radical for Brendan
Fay so he set up a more liberal organization the Lavender and Green Alliance
which sponsored the setting up of an inclusive Saint Patrick’s Day parade in
Woodside, in Queens County. This parade has become extremely popular and
well-attended over the years.
Brendan Fay married Dr.
Thomas Moulton in Toronto, Canada, in 1995, and Brendan’s last name is Celtic
for “fairy.” At these many demonstrations over the years, I also met Ms.
Barbara Mohr, half Puerto Rican, half Irish. Ms. Mohr (née Hefernan) who also
worked hard for all of Brendan’s causes, including Dignity NY. Of course, she
is gone now.
Question: Are any gay or
Lesbian groups marching under their own banners in the annual Denver Saint
Patrick’s Day Parade? Did any gay group every try? Was it an issue?
Then there is Daniel
Dromm, another gay Irishman on the New York City scene. NYC Council Member
Daniel Dromm set up and still supports Queens Lesbian and Gay Democratic Club
which meets in Jackson Heights and also founded the Queens Lesbian and Gay
Pride March Committee. This annual march is very well attended and is followed
by a rally and entertainment.  
© 15 Mar 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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Piece O’Cake, by Lewis Thompson

Pope Francis recently
announced that his tenure in office might just be more brief than the world had
expected.  Not because of a health
issue–at least, not his physical health. 
No, it seems that Pope Francis is growing tired of the pomp, ceremony,
and public attention that goes with his office. 
More than power, more than influence, the man longs for the simple,
everyday ability to slip out for a pizza without drawing a crowd.
I suspect that Pope
Francis, much as I do, realizes that what nurtures his soul is not so much
rules and rituals designed to bring us closer to the Divine, however we define
that concept.  In the end, as our days
get short, we realize that it is the simple things in life that reach our heart
the most; the walk in a park, an intimate conversation with a friend, listening
to a favorite bit of music, an inspirational speech, an act of kindness, an
expression of love, a perfect pizza with a beloved friend–that elicits a tear,
sparks a squeal of delight, or makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside.
For me, these are the
kinds of things that make me glad to be alive. 
They put the icing on the cake.  I
think I’ll have another piece.
© 16 Mar 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 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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Public Places, by Gillian

Over
the fifteen years that Betsy and I had Brunhilda, our VW camper van, we made
great use of so many public parks I couldn’t begin to count them.
That’s
how I started this piece, not really knowing where it was going from here. But
a thought struck me. Why couldn’t I begin, and eventually succeed in,
counting them? Betsy and I, ever anal, kept logbook-type diaries of every trip
we ever took with ol’ Brunie. 

So.,
I lugged armfuls of dusty old, and some not so old, notebooks, up from the
basement.

I
began to count, using that age-old tried-and-true method (though admittedly
very low-tech) of four short strokes with a line through them counting five. I was
surprised to find it actually only took me an hour or so, but admit to the
somewhat loose totals at which I arrived.
We
have camped for about 125 total days in over 50 National Parks. Several of
these were a few days together, as we explored the Park.  

We
have camped for over 150 days in State Parks in almost every one of the lower
48. In fact, I believe we have camped in every single state, neither Betsy nor
I can think of one we’ve missed, but I’d have to check through all those old
books again, not to mention all that illegible handwriting, to be 100% sure and
I really don’t care that much right now; in fact, I doubt I ever will! Many of
these stops were just one-nighters; a useful, but also frequently very
beautiful and interesting, place to stay on the way to and from somewhere else.
Town
and county parks, often only discovered by chatting to the locals, also often
tended to be one-night stands but nonetheless are frequently undiscovered gems.
Often, they are centered on some feature of local fame: an old historic cabin,
a little one-room local museum, a unique geologic formation, or the old water
mill. We have spent about 60 nights in such locations, and it’s here you tend
to meet interesting locals looking for someone new to talk to, and invariably wanting
to have a good look inside Brunhilda. Some places we have camped while Betsy
pedaled her ass around this State or that, have not in fact been campground at
all; merely the local school ball field or the town park – facilities are
always made available to a bicycle group wanting to stay the night and perhaps
leave behind a few bucks when they leave.
We
have camped 12 times in National Historic or Geologic Sites, frequently well
off the beaten path and little utilized, and so, very quiet. These are also
usually places of great interest, occasionally enough to keep us there for a
second night.  

Our
very favorites are probably the BLM or National Forest campgrounds. They are
inexpensive, quiet, and usually well away from any freeway. They are in deserts
and forests, on beaches and lakes, beside major rivers and tiny trickling
streams. Humans are the minority of their visitors. We share them with animals
and birds. We share them, sometimes not so gladly, with snakes and bugs. But,
despite the latter, we have returned several times to some of the 50 or so we
have used, often staying more than one night.
Our
public spaces are great gifts to us, some from the present but mostly from
previous generations. I am ever grateful to those with the foresight to create
these places, and to the avid campers of the early years of cross-country
motoring who engendered the need for established campground amid the beauty of
the wild, such as we enjoy today.
© 6 Jun 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.