Author: jnelson

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Clearly, by Pat Gourley

So clearly is an adverb that means without doubt or obviously. With that definition in mind it is a word I should “clearly” be very cautious in using. It should be admonition enough against using this word that the main school of Korean Zen I have followed for years preaches, “don’t know mind”. In a jacket blurb for Richard Shrobe’s 2004 book Don’t Know Mind author Jane Dobisz defines Don’t Know Mind as “our enlightened mind before ideas, opinions, or concepts arise to create suffering”.  Well, I guess that might explain why despite my privileged white male existence I feel I suffer so much.
Let me cast caution to the wind and most likely prove my Zen teachers right by sharing examples of where I at least quietly in my own head use the word clearly.  Multiple times a day I most often say silently to myself: clearly, you are an idiot. Or clearly, your driver’s license should be permanently revoked. When seeing the current White House Press Secretary at her daily briefs and saying out loud to the T.V. clearly a blind monkey did your makeup. And most frequently these days clearly the words ‘President Trump’ must just be part of a bad dream and I’ll wake up soon.
Putting the many ideas, concepts, and opinions aside that I so often attach the word clearly so there are somethings in my life that are fact and the use of clearly or its synonyms ‘without doubt’ or ‘obviously’ are quite appropriate. Without a doubt, my HIV meds are keeping me alive. It was quite obvious that the early symptoms of HIV infection and T-cells below 200 I was experiencing in the mid to late 1990’s were clearly related to poor viral control due to inadequate medications.
Without doubt, I have diabetes with my most recent HbA1c being 7.6. Clearly, this needs to be addressed or the ravages of high blood sugars will come home to roost sooner than later. Since I already take a butt load of pills every day the thought of adding diabetes’s medicines is in my mind something to be avoided if at all possible. Despite what I think is the obvious solution to a low fat whole-foods-plant-based diet and daily exercise I find this regime to be quite the challenge.
At times I clearly try to rationalize the recent HbA1c of 7.6 by blaming my HIV meds, which are certainly a contributor, but not something I can do without. My recent 6 weeks in San Francisco also proved to be a dietary challenge but the reality is there are plenty of grains, fruits, and vegetables for sale all over that City, really more readily accessible than here in Denver. Just because I spent my mornings fixing breakfast for B&B guests and serving them cholesterol bombs in the form of buttered toast and eggs along with that delicious class one carcinogen, bacon, I clearly did not need to sample the leftovers. Serving steel cut oats, almond milk and fruit for breakfast to most B&B guests would not result in many positive online reviews I suspect.
It is easy to say but for me hard at times to resist. The smell and taste of bacon must surely be the work of the devil, if I believed in the devil: clearly here nothing to blame but my own lack of self-control.
Another fact-based use of the word for me would be: clearly I am one lazy-ass writer. Though participation in this group has been valuable in many ways I am also confronted with my slothful writing habits on a weekly basis, merely coasting on residual grammar habits instilled by years with the Holy Cross nuns. The prompt of a word or two as impetus for writing about my life has for me in some ways been quite ingenious and on occasion productive. It does get me to put fingers to keyboard though most often just a few hours before group.
The lazy part comes for me in that I almost always have many ideas on a subject that would without a doubt require much more thought, energy and research than I am usually willing to devote to it. The excuse I most often use is to keep my word count less than 800 and I do find it a worthwhile challenge to get the point across in as few words as possible. A more honest reflection here might bring into question my need to use valuable time watching all 16 Dead and Company shows, each at least three hours long, on their current fall tour or my near-daily masturbatory dedication to online adult entertainment, many hours clearly thrown into that void. That would be the adult entertainment into the void and not the Dead, who are playing superbly this go around by the way.
So despite my shortfalls here the discipline of writing at least several times a month has clearly been beneficial. Thank you all!
© 20 Nov 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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Rolling Thunder, by Louis Brown

(1) Operation Rolling Thunder was the title of a gradual and sustained aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the U.S. 2nd Air Division (later Seventh Air Force), U.S. Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) from 2 March 1965 until 2 November 1968, during the Vietnam War.
The four objectives of the operation (which evolved over time) were to boost the sagging morale of the Saigon regime in the Republic of Vietnam, to persuade North Vietnam to cease its support for the communist insurgency in South Vietnam without actually taking any ground forces into communist North Vietnam, to destroy North Vietnam’s transportation system, industrial base, and air defenses, and to halt the flow of men and material into South Vietnam. Attainment of these objectives was made difficult by both the restraints imposed upon the U.S. and its allies by Cold War exigencies and by the military aid and assistance received by North Vietnam from its communist allies, the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and North Korea.
The operation became the most intense air/ground battle waged during the Cold War period; it was the most difficult such campaign fought by the United States since the aerial bombardment of Germany during World War II. Supported by communist allies, North Vietnam fielded a potent mixture of sophisticated air-to-air and surface-to-air weapons that created one of the most effective air defenses ever faced by American military aviators.
“Rolling Thunder” was supposed to have meant in part the righteousness of big rich arrogant USA intimidating 3rd world rice peasants, with 3 ½ years of carpet bombing. Thank God the world said NO!
(2) Amos: 5:23-24: “Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. 24“But let justice roll down like waters And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. 25″Did you present Me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel?…
My guess is that many Christians would say that “rolling thunder” suggests that, out of wrath, God will come to earth in a mighty roar and right all moral wrongs. If we imagine ourselves as pious Christians, what would God do to judge the world leaders of today? I suggest:
(a)  Donald Trump will be spared but his Republican colleagues will be overthrown, and, because of their unrighteousness, will be tossed into the trash heap of immoral leaders. Let us judge the many Republicans over the past 60 years, many of whom either left office, were thrown out of office or who died. Their profound immorality should not be forgotten. Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, Henry Kissinger come to mind.
(b) Vladimir Putin, as Rachel Maddow has pointed out, is a kleptocrat, meaning he is a large-scale thief. Most Russians want him out of office. Let it happen. Also he is a homophobe, let God toss him into the garbage dumpster.
(c)  Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey. He became president through voting fraud, religious hypocrisy and violence. Plus he is homophobic. Toss him in the dumpster.
(d)  Emmanuelle Macron of France. His sin is his backward economic theories that take France back to the 19th century. Also he is anti-union. Toss him in the trash bin.
If God performed at least this minimum of moral cleansing, I would instantly convert to Christianity.
 Wikipedia suggests “Rolling Thunder” could refer to Dylan Thomas’ well-publicized Rolling Thunder Revue of 1975. For a few months he travelled around North America promoting his music by giving live conceerts. This would have been a good study. Unlike the misnamed “rolling thunder” of the War in Vietnam, Dylan’s “rolling thunder” included a condemnation of the War in Vietnam and a reclaiming of righteousness for us peaceniks. Joan Baez, Bette Midler and many other famous singers, musical instrumentalists and entertainers got involved in this revue.
­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­________________________
Wikipedia also suggests that “rolling thunder” could refer to a Native American shaman whose name was “Rolling Thunder,” who promoted his earth-oriented religious philosophy including spiritual healing resulting in physical healing for the sick. The shaman also has the gift of prophecy. That would have made a good essay.
CNN recently put out a TV headline that read “Big Democratic victories put pressure on Trump to pass Tax Reform Bill.” If we lived in a rational logical universe, the TV headline would have read “Big Democratic victories put pressure on Trump to ditch, cancel his apocalyptically disastrous Tax Reform Bill.” As low of an opinion I have of the Republicans, nertz to the Democrats too.
© 5 Nov 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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Maps, by Gillian

I have so many maps that I had thought I would not write anything and just do a show and tell. But once I started going through the collection I found myself transported immediately away on endless waves of memory. Map-memory. Rather like muscle memory in the way it seemed to operate quite outside of any conscious thought. Why had I not anticipated this? I’m not sure
.
Much as I have always loved maps, I guess I never saw them as anything to inspire emotion. But why ever not? Now I find they wrap me in memories in a way that even old photographs do not; perhaps simply because I look at the old photos from time to time, whereas the maps have just languished in a box, untouched for years other than once in a while when I open the box and toss in a couple more maps for the collection.
There are old ‘Tourists & Cyclists’ maps of various parts of Britain dating from somewhere early in the twentieth century, once used by my parents riding around on Dad’s motorbike in the 1920’s. One is of Shropshire, my home county. It is one of the linen-backed, more expensive variety, obviously bought to last. (I stuck an arrow on it, pointing at our house!)
Then there are the common but most popular British maps, those on the one inch to one-mile scale. They were produced between 1952 and 1961 and covered every inch of the British Isles. I bought many of them for school-day, and later college, hikes. They were produced in great detail and made it almost impossible to get lost.
Even more detailed was the series, published around the same time as the one inch to the mile, was the one mile to 2 1/2 inches; maps so detailed they showed every single building. I also bought a lot of these, largely because by this time I was getting into geology in high school and they made fossil sites easier to find. Detailed geologic maps were not common then as they are today, but I had one very generalized map of Shropshire geology which I greatly valued. Fossil finds were mainly communicated by word of mouth, so a detailed map was almost essential. Our house was, as always seems inevitable, right on the joint of two maps, but I put an arrow again. It’s right on the edge of the map above where it says ROMAN GRAVELS. There are endless old Roman sites around there. Just to the left is marked a stone circle. It is small in size, as are the stones, but nevertheless an unmistakable prehistoric stone circle. My parents and I used to picnic there quite often, it’s a beautiful, very silent, remote, spot. At least it was then. Now many tourists apparently go there in the summer. On another one is the tiny town of Bishop’s Castle, where I went to the high school marked at the crossroads. Also, clearly marked is Stone House, the old workhouse now converted to the nursing home where my mum and dad both died. At the south end of the town is the church where they are buried.
Then we come to stacks of maps that I, and then Betsy and I, have bought on our travels. They take me back with great joy to the many places we have been, but they tend to be more of the highway route variety of map and less emotive in detail than the old ones.
I love all maps, and these are a small percentage of my collection, but the old maps are special. There is somehow something surreal about seeing all these places that have loomed so large in my early life depicted so clearly before me on a long-forgotten map. I am grateful to whoever chose this topic for giving me the incentive to explore the contents of that dusty old box.
And, not for the first time, I find myself grieving for the current and future high-tech generations.  I fear they will never know the magic of an old map, tattered from overuse, with pencil arrows flowing from a scribbled teenage note, trilobite fossils here. Who, with the very best of intentions, can find magic in the memories of Siri scolding, ‘you are going in the wrong direction! Complete a U-turn immediately it is safe to do so and return to the intersection.’  Seriously lacking in any sense of history!
I have decided against naming my next baby Siri.

© 31 Mar 2017 
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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Why Me?, by EyM

Feeling weak like a small brittle twig,
commonly bombards in the face of horribly distressing news about a loved one.  
 “Why Me”?
 Why this devastation?  
Timidly cries out of lips once speaking vibrant life
 so bright, so beautiful.
We humans all gathered about the suffering person may feel powerless unable to stop the agony. 
Then we, fragile human twigs surround
this hurting person, one by one, side by side,
all around and all under.
In numbers, twigs become a sturdy sustaining nest. 
Securely held our loved one rests
in comfort strong. 
No longer alone, together, solidly held
in endless power, even eternally united.
Why me? 
How amazing to be a human twig in a caring nest of divine providence.
© 21 Jan 2018 
About the Author 
A native of Colorado, she followed her Dad to the workbench 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 handywoman. 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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My Most Meaningful Vacation, by Betsy

So, what is it that makes a vacation meaningful anyway? I can’t honestly think of any vacation that I have ever taken that was not meaningful. Some maybe were more meaningful than others that is definitely true. I will have to focus on vacations of the last, say, 50 years. Choosing from all the vacations of my lifetime is too overwhelming. My memory just isn’t that good.
I have had a few trips abroad—the heart of Europe as well as remote places like the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland, the train trip through South Africa, plus visits to Canada, Mexico, and Central America. All these trips were memorable and certainly meaningful. Simply experiencing other cultures, and other ways of life is about the best educational experience a person can have. We learn from living among or simply observing others that our way is not the only way.  Our language is not the only language, our humor is not the only kind of humor, our cuisine is not the only kind.
My idea of a great vacation is an exploit filled with excitement, new experiences, and adventure.  I have traveled on vacation by plane, train, boat, car, bicycle, and on foot. One of my most memorable “vacations” was cycling across the United States, from Pacific to Atlantic. I have written several stories about that trip which I took in 2005.
The thing about traveling by bicycle is that you see so much more detail along the way, including the wildlife, sometimes in the form of road kill.
Probably most of my vacations have been of the camping variety. I love camping whether in the wilderness or just off the highway.
When I was married to Bill and the three children were young, we used to take backpacking trips. Bill was always looking for fishing opportunities. I hated fishing. Not enough action. But there was plenty for all of us to do on those adventures while Bill was fishing. I very much enjoyed the hiking, setting up camp,  and being in the mountain environment with nature.
When Gill and I first got together we went backpacking one summer in the Wind River Range in Wyoming.  That was the time she cut a gash in her knee and I saved her from bleeding to death with my Girl Scout first aid kit which happened to have some butterfly bandages in it. She still has a scar on her knee today which I want to pass around the table for all of you to see.
This, one of our first vacations together, could have been meaningful in that it had the potential for being our last vacation together.  But Gill stuck with me in spite of the fact that it was not her idea of a vacation. I actually think it was the butterfly bandages that saved our relationship.
After we had been together a short time, we went to a style of camping more to her liking—car camping. Gill had a VW camper van—a Westphalia— in which we had taken some day trips during our courtship. It may not have been an actual vacation, rather a weekend, when we took the Westy to Rocky Mountain National Park. This was a meaningful trip to me, and I will never forget it. It definitely portended of a meaningful ritual which would become a part of my life every day for the rest of my life. We were driving along through the park admiring the sights when Gill pulled over off the road and came to a stop. “It’s tea time,” she wailed. She jumped into the back, opened the galley, put the kettle on and brewed the tea, and served me a dainty cup of perfect British tea—with milk, of course, not cream.  I am a person who likes structure and some rituals. So, I became hooked on four o’clock tea time for life.
I also became quite enamored of the idea of a camper van for road trips. The Westy was very old and worn out and had to go soon after we started living together. But we both were enthusiastic about having a camping vehicle. So, a few years after selling the Westy we bought a used VW Eurovan—a later model of the Westphalia.  We named her Brunie, short for Brunhilda. She was a big boned woman. The three of us —Gill, Brunie, and I—spent 13 years together, traveled over 200,000 miles in too many trips to count. It was an awesome relationship. All of our vacations together were meaningful because we traveled in almost every state, except Hawaii and Alaska, always had a comfortable place to sleep, we felt safe, and were always warm and dry. Because of Brunie we saw the country, we learned history and geology, we experienced things and places we never dreamed existed. I might add we met all kinds of people who would always approach us in the campground wanting to meet us? No wanting a look at Brunie. 
Some of the more memorable places we visited had been selected as a destination like the national parks, state parks, oceanside settings, historical sites, desert oases.  Others we just happened upon by chance.  We always kept a diary on these trips because we knew as we grew older we would forget where it was that we saw that amazing sunrise, that moose grazing beside the road, those sheep on the cliff above, that approaching tornado. Or all we had, learned, heard, and experienced would become blurred.  And Gill was constantly snapping photos, so we have thousands of those to remind us. Some places were quite ordinary, some elaborate, some filled us with awe, some sights were beautiful beyond imagination, some curious, but not one was not worth the visit. Some of our favorite, nearby places we have been back to several times such as Hovenweep, Canyonlands, Hamburger Rock, Arches N.P., and  Yellowstone.
There has not been one trip or sojourn that was not meaningful.  Most meaningful? Impossible to say.
© 1 Dec 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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Hobbies Past & Present, by Ricky

          Not much of a story here to tell.  As a child, I had two electric trains and some track.  Both were made by Lionel.  One train was an Empire Line twin diesel-powered locomotive freight train; the other, a steam locomotive (with coal tender) was a modern passenger train (for the early 1940’s/mid 50’s.  For a long time, I was enamored of model trains and envious of those who had any kind of a train “layout”.   I never had a layout and I sold both trains at a flea-market in Tucson during my late 20’s.
          From age 8 through 13 my interest centered on assembling plastic model airplanes; specifically, warplanes from both world wars.  I loved to put them together and then play with them; having dog-fights with my 3-year older uncle and his planes.  While living on the farm with him, I received my most challenging model for a Christmas gift.  It was a scale model of the USS Constitution; Old Ironsides.  It took me many days to put that one together as it seemed to have some zillion little pieces including two decks of cannons, four masts, helm, rudder, anchors with chains, and miscellaneous rigging.  I was really proud of it when I finished.  I didn’t bother to paint any part of it as I learned that my painting skills were not worth the paint in the bottle from the disaster of painting a green plastic Japanese Zero silver.  It looked more like melting tin than silver aluminum.
          As a youth of 11 to 15, I was sort-of trying to collect little flags of countries, states, or places I visited.  Not much of a collection really.  I had one from Canada (their old-style flag); one from the US of course, and one from the Seattle World’s Fair.  The world fair flag was special as it reminded me of three of the things I saw there; the Space Needle; the “car of the future”; and a clear plastic cylinder containing one million US silver dollars (very impressive).
          Also, during that period, I worked as the attendant at a laundromat owned by my parents.  Because of the world fair experience, I began to collect silver dollars as soon as I began working there.  Unfortunately, that was the same time silver dollars were rapidly disappearing from usage at the casinos at Lake Tahoe, so I was not able to collect very many.
          No more hobbies existed until I discovered computers while attending Sacramento State College in 1966.  This hobby morphed into almost a compulsive-obsessive activity affecting me to this day.
          If reading can be considered a hobby, then I have that as one also, because I am an avid reader of books, magazines, and (because either I’m not perfect or bored a lot) junk-mail.
© 9 Feb 2011 
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.
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Evil, by Ray S

At the table and waiting for our lunches to arrive, my partner asked, “What is the subject for next week’s Telling Your Story? Seems he is always curious about what literary creations result from those Monday afternoons in the “upper room” at the LGBTQ Center.
“It’s EVIL.”
“Okay, but what is it—the subject’s title I mean?”
“Evil is the subject’s title,” was my response, and I’m not sure what to write about it. I’m guessing there will be moralizing and maybe some Judeo-Christian “prophesizing.” Perhaps some references to how well we as humankind have succeeded in messing each other up and the world in general as well. It is hard to know where to begin, so what else is new?
Our food arrived and we began to eat. After his first bite—he had been quiet up to this point—I guessed deep in thought—he looked me in the eye from across the table and said, “Good and Evil are arbitrary.” It is a matter of one’s judgment. End of the discussion.
With this in mind, what had been a daunting subject was reduced to a minimalist one word. EVIL. One can’t discount it, but as my friend said, it is arbitrary. So, “go figure”!
Webster’s dictionary:  Evil; adj. (OE, yfel) 1. Morally bad or wrong; wicked, 2. Harmful; injurious, 3. Unlucky; disastrous. Noun-wickedness; sin 2. Anything that causes harm, pain, etc. Adverb-evilly.
© 20 Jul 2017 
About the Author 
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Workout, by Phillip Hoyle

I suppose we weren’t quite prepared for the mess although two summers ago Jim and I noticed the Honey Locust tree in the backyard was producing seedpods, a few of them. Last summer there were quite a few more. This summer the tree went crazy with its genetic demand to replicate and has produced hundreds of pods. They are not small, some measuring more than a foot in length and they hang in clusters of two to six. I thought them rather decorative like holiday ornaments. Our neighborhood squirrels showed up for the seasonal party and in the last week of August gleefully began their harvest.
If you know squirrels you realize they are as messy as teenagers, never cleaning up after themselves like the adolescent son in the comic strip Zits. I know about that because my daughter was one messy kid. Still is and so are her children. Luckily, I don’t live nearby so I’m rarely irked by them. But the squirrels live here. They’re as cute as my grandkids and, like them, never give a thought about the consequences of their messes. The tree rats focus only on their preparation for the oncoming winter with its cold temperatures, snows, and otherwise harsh conditions that challenge rodent survival. I don’t blame them, but I do have to contend with what they leave behind. The squirrels live here and interest me. I watch and then grab the broom; my partner just gets mad.
A week ago Saturday, I observed one of the three or four varmints who show up every day. She or he sat on a small branch harvesting. For twenty minutes the critter ate never having to prepare or even reach very far for its meal. She picked a pod, methodically removed the seeds, and dispensed with the rest. A pod landing on the clear plastic awning sounds like a low caliber rifle shot. The first hit was why I knew the squirrel was up there. I leaned back to watch. She chose a pod, worked it like I might an ear of corn except that she’d spit out the pod bites and keep only the seeds. When done in a few minutes or when she loses her grip, the pod falls. Bam. Then she may bite the stem of one of the compound leaves for a taste of something (perhaps flavoring) or strips off a bit of bark (her favorite) and then reaches for another pod. Perhaps due to my attention, she soon jumped from that branch to another and disappeared from sight.
I began sweeping the patio a few days ago. Each day I pick up two or three hundred chewed-on pods and dump them by the shovel full into the compost container. I tend to sweep when the sun gets low and the air begins to cool. The next morning reveals quite a few more pods on the patio, in flowering plants, sticker bushes, fountains, and on the awning. I hope this workout will be done before too many more days although I do get a bit of aerobic exercise and have improved my technique with the broom. But mostly I get a kick out of spotting our furry friends still at work high overhead.
© 11 Sep 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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Hooves, by Pat Gourley

“That horse has left the barn”
When I hear the word “hooves” in nearly any context I think of horses though many different mammals have hooves. My early days on the farm never involved horses so I may have made the association of hooves with horses after watching Gene Autry and Roy Rogers on 1950’s TV.
 I remember that the often ridiculous and blatantly racist TV westerns seemed to distinguish between native American horse-hoof prints from those of the always white settlers, American lawmen and cavalry by noting whether the horses had been shod or not. Native horses had no shoes whereas those of the white folk always did, a simplistic view since many native tribes were quite adept at acquiring horses from settlers and others who shod their horses. On these TV shows, blacksmiths were often shown dramatically forging by a fire while shaping the shoes and then nailing them onto the horse’s hooves. This really is the extent of my connection with the word “hooves”, though I do vaguely recall older male relatives on occasion playing “horseshoes”. That was a game though that never caught on for me personally.
Another memory of hooves was the apparent use of fake cows hoofs being used by moonshiners wearing them to throw off federal agents chasing them during Prohibition. Not sure exactly how this worked since cows have four feet and humans only two. However, wasting time on thinking about this application of hoof-foot-wear as a means to sneak to one’s moonshine still in the woods will do little to address any real-world problems these days I am afraid.
I can though make a tangential leap from hooves by way of horses and cows to the phrase: “That horse has already left the barn”. This implies of course to the after-the-fact reality that it is too late to do anything about whatever. If one adapts this as a worldview these days there are many things that seem too late to do much about whether we want to admit that reality or not.
Climate change sadly is one reality that it may very well be too late to do much about. That horse seems to have galloped away and kicked the door shut with both of his back hooves. Still, in my more optimistic moments I can’t help but think that if we were to embark on a Manhattan Project to save the planet that salvaging an at least livable, though probably less than desirable, planet might be doable.
Laughably perhaps I can hope that the recent hurricane evacuations for both Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and Rush Limbaugh’s beachfront properties in Florida might turn into teachable moments. That however does not seem likely.
My go-to person around all things climate change and how this is intimately tied to capitalism specifically is Naomi Klein.
I highly recommend her two most recent works: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate and “NO is Not Enough” subtitle “Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning The World We Want”. Here is a link to these works and Naomi in general:
http://www.naomiklein.org/meet-naomi
It isn’t that the Donald Trumps and Rush Limbaugh’s of the world don’t believe in climate change, I actually expect they do. It is that they realize better than many of us that the only effective possibility for addressing this catastrophe is a direct threat to their worldview and way of life. That their greedy accumulation of goods and capital will save them from the resulting hell-scape, in the end, is truly delusional thinking on their part.
I feel the only viable solution being an acceptance of the socialist ethos:  From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
© 19 Oct 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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Purple Rage, by Lewis Thompson

In his brilliant and encyclopedic new book, Why the Right Went Wrong:  Conservatism from Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond, E. J. Dionne, Jr., spells out in exhaustive detail how the Grand Ol’ Party evolved from the Middle American conservatism of Dwight David Eisenhower to the rabid, ranting, rage of Donald Trumps’ avid band of Storm Troopers.  In a nutshell, it happened when the bedrock conservative vision of Barry Goldwater–which had given rise to the hopes of millions of conservative, white working-class people that their superior status among the races was assured—sustained set-back after set-back politically in the decades to follow.  
Not only did Goldwater lose in a landslide resulting in the election of LBJ who ushered in the Voting Rights Act but the next Republican president, Richard M. Nixon turned out to be a stealth liberal whose term ended in utter shame and embarrassment. In his 1978 memoir, RN, Nixon wrote, “I won a majority of every key population group identified by Gallup except the blacks and the Democrats.  Four of those groups—manual workers, Catholics, members of labor union families and people with only grade school educations—had never before been in the Republican camp in all the years since Gallup had begun keeping these records.”  [Why the Right Went Wrong, p.74.]
“Now,” Nixon wrote, “I planned to give expression to the more conservative values and beliefs of the New Majority throughout the country….I intended to revitalize the Republican Party along New Majority lines.”  [ibid.]
The migration of white Southern Democrats to the GOP had been going on since LBJ’s hay-day as president.  But it was Ronald Reagan’s failed 1976 campaign, whereby he “rais[ed] a banner of no pale pastels but bold colors which make it unmistakenly clear where we stand” that launched the “Reagan Revolution” toward which the Party stills displays undying fealty.  It was a banner that Gerald Ford hastened to pick up, as has every GOP president since, though George H. W. Bush dropped it more than once.
His son, George W. Bush, who liked to call himself a “compassionate conservative”, further frustrated those who considered themselves to be “true conservatives”.  His bumbling engagement in two costly wars in southern Asia and the Middle East further alienated his conservative base and the Great Recession which closed out his term in office left many of them in a sad way economically.
In Dionne’s view, this, combined with the ascension of a black man to the Presidency, is what led to the level of vitriol we now see on the faces of the men and women who comprise a typical Donald Trump mob today.  They are the new base of the GOP.  They come from “red states” as well as “blue states”.  (Thus my title for this piece, Purple Rage.)  They see change not as something they can believe in but as something to fear.  It is not stalemate in Washington that they lament but an arc of history that for them is bending toward the Left.  For almost 50 years, they have witnessed one frustration after another coming out of Washington.  The only bright light for them is Ronald Reagan.  He made this country, in their eyes, “great”. 
Now, along comes The Donald, promising to make America great again.  He is unlike any politician they have ever known—brash, tough, taking no crap.  He is rich, he is powerful and he’s bold.  Perhaps they haven’t noticed that his posture on stage, his swagger, suggests no one–as someone on the Bill Maher Show last Friday pointed out—so much as “Il Duce” himself, Benito Mussolini.  I like to think of him as “Donito Trumponi”.
I don’t know how similar the situation in the United States today is to that of Eastern and Southern Europe in the days following World War I and the Great Depression.  But I do believe that the kind of change the world has undergone over the past 60 years can produce a great deal of fear—and the concomitant anger—in those whose core values appear to be steadily eroding.  I have seen their faces in the crowds surrounding Mr. Trump and it frightens me.  I am frightened even though I have made the attempt to understand from where they are coming.  But when I think of what lies in store for America and the rest of the world should Mr. Trump become the most powerful man in that world, my knees start to rattle.  It is not too late to interrupt this eventuality.  I still believe that there are more Americans who welcome progress toward a better life for all than resent it.  But those of us of that mind must follow through on what we know is the only peaceful means available to interrupt that darker vision and that is to vote for the side that still believes that justice for all and animosity for none is the better way.
P.S.   Here’s a quote that I just ran across.  The source is unknown:
“When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
© 7 Mar 2016 
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.