Author: jnelson

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“Do I Have Your …” by Ricky


There are so many words that could complete the title sentence. Some will be funny and some not funny but obnoxious and I will spare the reader any examples which one can easily create one’s-self. Many examples could be serious, romantic, or even insulting, but only one word will due for my written memory.

Last Tuesday, 3 September, my friend Donald and I were eating dinner at the Odyssey Italian restaurant in Denver. During the meal, I enjoyed listening to the Italian background music. While waiting for the server to finish clearing the table of our used dishes, I noticed that the song playing in the background was no longer Italian but was being sung in French. In spite of the language, it sounded familiar and mentioned that to Donald. Suddenly, recognition hit with emotional force catching me totally unprepared and I quietly began to sob pushing my napkin into my mouth to stifle the noise until the song finished. The song was being sung in French with great emotion and with an orchestra accompanying. The combination of the beautiful music and tenor voice just overwhelmed me because it was OUR SONG and she has been gone 12-years next Sunday, September 15th. Until that night, I have never felt the grief of her passing and I was finally able to release some of that pent-up sorrow.

So for me, the only word that can complete the title sentence is “love” as in “Do I Have Your Love.”

Our song is the July 17th, 1965 version by the Righteous Brothers of Unchained Melody.

Unchained Melody
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrK5u5W8afc
Oh my love my darling
I’ve hungered for your touch
A long lonely time
And time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine
I need your love
I need your love
God speed your love to me

Lonely rivers flow to the sea to the sea
To the open arms of the sea
Lonely rivers sigh wait for me wait for me
I’ll be coming home wait for me

Oh my love my darling
I’ve hungered, hungered for your touch
A long lonely time
And time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine
I need your love
I need your love
God speed your love to me

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unchained_Melody
Deb & Ricky – BYU Military Ball
© 9 September 2013

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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Little Things Mean a Lot by Phillip Hoyle

My granddaughter named ‘Little’ stands tall and makes herself known through dance, poetry, music, painting, academics, personality, and stature. When she was born I was amazed that anyone would name their child Little but then recalled the first child in that family had names, Samuel Evan Isaac Grove Hoyle, his moniker a virtual family history. The second child held the unmatched name Kalo Bushy Hoyle, unusual enough to suggest to one grandmother that it could have been chemically induced. So, why not Little Rosamond Hoyle? But Little was a large child. As she grew tall I envisioned hearing the local Mid-Missouri sports broadcaster during a high school basketball game saying, “And down court at six-foot-two comes Little Hoyle for yet another layup.” But she doesn’t play basketball. She’s a ballerina, a lifeguard, and a singer, and she is studying molecular biology. Perhaps she will grow to see how little things really mean a lot, the tiniest building blocks supporting a huge structure or a life.

Before my first child was born, long before there were thoughts of grandkids, large or small, my eldest sister and I began a correspondence. Our writing got underway when she and her husband moved out of the country. We wrote during the seventeen years they lived in South America. Lynn filled her notes with incidents in marketplaces, coffee bars, and jungle sandbars. (Her husband liked fishing in tropical rivers). She entertained with incidents related to having a cleaning woman who wanted to run their lives or meeting interesting folk like the shaman who floated in his canoe to the sandbar having heard of a woman—my sister—who wanted to meet the local holy man. Some of her short letters described side trips to Europe, books read, and projects undertaken. Once she enclosed the score of a samba she composed and another time told of a book she was helping translate into English. She regaled me with language complications, illnesses, and the continuing love affair with her spouse. In turn I told some incidents from my own rather pedestrian life to this always-interested sibling and friend. I was in my mid-twenties when our writing began, but the correspondence continues to this day, forty years of posts, and twenty-some years since she returned to the USA. We still write several times a year asking after one another’s lives and work, and sharing our interests in art and music, our involvement with unusual people, surprising books. Since we both follow the example of our mother who organized life into projects, we briefly detail our endless undertakings. The letters tend to be short and simple and full of love, but the long-enduring habit of sharing our lives in little notes has meant quite a lot to me. Enough of little things certainly means a lot.

A related little thing I appreciate is to open a letter and find enclosed a clipping of a report or pictures related to Native Americans. I first received such gifts when I was a teenager, articles sent by my grandmother Schmedemann. These days, two women still remember me in this way—my oldest sister who often sends me photos and articles of petroglyphs clipped from magazines and a local friend who brings me Indian-theme magazines and the occasional newspaper article. Just three months ago my friend gave me an article from the Littleton newspaper about some Arapahoe folk she knows and my sister sent two more interesting clippings picturing petroglyphs near her home in southern New Mexico. These little remembrances remind me that other people share my interests or simply are interested in me. Such little things mean a lot to me.

One more thing I want to mention. Twice across a crowded bar Michael, a young man who had registered an unusual interest in me, acknowledged my presence with a wave. His little attentions please me, stupidly thrill me. In fact, several younger men have recently asked me if I have a partner. Although I know they are probably asking this question out of their need for support, I still am moved by their choosing me to ask. Sometimes that pleasure seems on the edge of being crazy, but I enjoy it anyway. What keeps it from becoming too crazy is that I tell them I have a partner. The scene has repeated itself several times in my 65th year, and the latest wave across the room came only last week. Young men may need older men in their lives; older men certainly seem to want younger men in their lives. It may be just a little thing, but it means a lot. I prize the attentions of older men as well, so don’t forget to wave to me. It means a lot.

© 25 November 2012, Denver

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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Thanksgiving Dinner at the Brown House (A Meal to Remember) by Louis

When I was around 11 or 12 years old, I remember having Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and brothers in College Point. It was the mid-1950’s. Dwight Eisenhower was the President. I was a child happy with life, but my parents were very poor. I was too young to understand the inconveniences of poverty. We lived in a two-family house, and the upstairs tenant was a mother and daughter, Edna. They were poorer than we were. Edna got herself invited to our Thanksgiving and enjoyed setting up for the feast. 

My parents and especially my mother and grandmother wanted us to remember that once upon a time the Brown family and my maternal grandmother’s family, the Wilcoxes, in the 19th century were enormous affluent, influential families. On the wall were a picture of Abraham Lincoln in an oak oval frame and another of my great grandfather Captain Francis Leicester Brown of the Union Army in an oak oval frame. There was a petty point sampler that read “God bless the family in this household,” completed by me on my 15th birthday, May 10, 1819, Hannah Hopkins Hodge. 
In the 17th and 18th centuries my ancestors were prominent Puritan ministers. Even back then there were seemingly endless irreconcilable theological battles going on. On the other hand, my mother warned us that, though we should remember our ancestors, we should not be like her great aunt and become ancestor worshipers. It wasn’t wholesome either. 
The meal consisted of turkey, creamed onions, turnips, yams, rather traditional. What made it memorable was the chinaware: Limoges and Haviland plates and platters, a Wedgewood chocolate pitcher, Limoges demitasse espresso coffee cups that were works of art. Crystal goblets for the cider, a magnificent Damask table cloth and napkins. Ornate sterling silverware, Victorian style. Our attic was full of these remnants and memorabilia of an affluent comfortable 19th century past. Corny but beautiful oil paintings, more petit point samplers, lavish gowns with the finest French laces. More Victorian extravagance. Edna from a Catholic family really enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinners. For a day we Browns were again important people though the reference point was to another earlier century. For a day we were ancestor worshipers. 
Moral: How do poor people become whole happy well-adjusted people in a hostile social environment? I think poor people learning survival skills is probably more important than measuring one’s personal worth by the balance in our checking accounts and the influence we have in our communities. 
Catholic Edna for example is happy. She started out poor. She is still poor, but she has a good understanding of why certain politicians say what they say. She has a spiritual dimension to her belief system. She survives, she is well-adjusted. She also proves that Puritans and Catholics can get along just fine, thank you. 
Personally, I am still a “mal-content”. I am dissatisfied with church-sponsored homophobia, and the establishment’s irrational hostility to poor people, but I am on the mend. 
Our best teachers in the current environment are Occupy Wall Street and the Radical Faeries. I heard clearly what they have to say. They are convincing. We Americans should object to Wall Street giving orders to our elected leaders about how they should victimize the public for the sake of increasing profits for billionaires. The Radical Faeries in their presentations at the Lesbian and Gay Center in New York City pointed out the need for Lesgay people to develop a spiritual side to their personalities, to revere their sexual orientation rather than skulking around hating ourselves for the convenience of homophobes. We are an international “tribe”. Guess what, there are gay people in Morocco and Australia. 

In her personal search to find meaning in life outside of material success, Edna feels that she should boast about her family, her two children. In general, since Lesgay people are banished from traditional families, we have to devise another system that suits our communal interests.
What do we tell Lesbian and gay homeless teenagers who have been tossed out of their fundamentalist parents’ homes because of their sexual orientation? In other words, empower the out-groups. Amen.

© 31 March 2014 



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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Coming Out Spiritually by Lewis

I was born into a central Kansas Methodist family. My father, though a regular church-goer, did not make a show of his faith. My mother, who also attended church every Sunday, made daily devotions a part of her routine. She read from a Methodist publication called The Upper Room and another daily devotional guide put out by the Unity Church in Kansas City. I believe it was titled, The Daily Word. As the only child of my father and the only child of my mother at home, naturally I made the weekly trek to Trinity United Methodist in Hutchinson, KS, every Sunday with my parents.

Having a spiritual nature, I took to religion rather easily. I also sight-read well, so it wasn’t more than nine or ten years before my mother had me reading The Upper Room aloud to her as she prepared breakfast. By the time I was in the 9th grade, I was convinced that I wanted to be a preacher when I grew up. I even gave the religious opening to an assembly at my junior high school and at one of the other junior highs. I’m sure I had flashes of being the next Rev. Billy Graham or Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.
However, with the onset of puberty, my aspirations began to change. My religiosity seemed to diminish in inverse proportion to my testosterone levels. By the time I was a senior, I had stopped attending church altogether. I suspect that peer influence had something to do with that, as well.
Once away to college, the worldly influences multiplied faster than my living costs. It was at the University of Kansas that I met my first atheists. Worse than that, I had a roommate who was a Unitarian Universalist–from San Francisco, naturally. I took an intense dislike to him. He loved progressive jazz, Gerry Mulligan, in particular. I thought the music was subversive. Worse, Michael [Blasberg] would pace the room saying, doo-wap-a-doo, bee-bop-a-dupe-a-dupe-a-doo-wah, while lifting his eyebrows and scrunching up his face. Oh, yes, on top of all this, the little twerp’s hobby was making scale-model drawings of Third Reich Luftwaffe aircraft, complete with the pilot’s insignias and number of kills.
After graduation and moving to Michigan, when I felt a need to find a church, I naturally began where I was most familiar–the Methodist Church a block from where I was living. I showed up there on a Sunday morning when the Grand Dragon of the Michigan Ku Klux Klan was scheduled to speak at the Dearborn Civic Center that same afternoon. I was pleased that the minister announced to the congregation that, during the coffee hour following the service, a sign-up sheet would be available for those who wished to express their displeasure that their city was providing a forum for hate speech. When the service was over, I went over to the table for the express purpose of signing the petition. I noticed that no one else seemed interested, either in the petition or in me.
So, I continued on my own spiritual odyssey. It’s almost worthy of a Twilight Zone episode that I should then turn to searching for a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Detroit. After all, the only UU person I had ever known was also one of the most obnoxious. Perhaps it was Michael’s principled opposition to the Viet Nam War–a position I arrived at later than he–that planted a tiny seed in my soul that later resulted in my spiritual blooming.
Unitarian Universalism is not a true religion. It does not tell people what they must believe about God or anything else. It does make demands upon how its members treat each other and asks that they commit to a life-long search for the truth, wherever that search may lead. We welcome people of all religious backgrounds as just one more aspect of the boundless diversity of the human race. And we put our money and elbow grease where our mouth is.
For me, all this was like coming home spiritually. But there have been hiccups. Once a firm atheist, I have recently come to believe that there are mysteries in the world beyond my present understanding. One such mystery I shared with this very group. It had to do with Kleenex. 
Actually, I found it harder to come out as an atheist than gay. Most polls indicate that more Americans would vote for a gay person for high office than an atheist. Furthermore, I’m sure they wouldn’t want their son or daughter to marry one. You see, most atheists are Commie, pinko, liberals, who run around with gay people and child molesters–not the priests but the other child molesters.

© 1 July 2013



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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What A Performance by Gillian

It might have been soccer thugs battling riot police, or the Vietnam war or, a little child exhibiting an extreme case of the terrible two’s on the bus. In many instances, my parents, most especially my father, would shake his head and say, 

“What a performance!”
That use of the expression was quite common in the Britain of my youth, but I’m very out of touch with everyday British jargon these days. I am stuck in a 1950’s British English and on visits I tend to get quizzical looks when I talk and comments such as, goodness me, I haven’t heard that in decades! Or worse yet, oh yeah, I remember my old granny saying that.
I often find, when I look up in the dictionary words and phrases still commonly in use by me, the preface “arch. Brit,” which does, indeed, make me feel archaic. So I checked out “performance” before writing this and found that the on-line Oxford English dictionary does offer three definitions. 
1) An act of presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment,
2) An act of performing a dramatic role, song, or piece of music, and a third which it proclaims as informal, chiefly Brit. but does not deem to be “arch.” 
3) A display of exaggerated behavior, or a process involving a great deal of unnecessary time and effort; a fuss.
“What a performance,” was about as critical or judgmental as I ever heard from my dad. He was not a great talker anyway, but I don’t think he was awash with unspoken negative thoughts. He was generally a very positive person and, “what a performance,” was just about the limit of his negativity. When, on rare occasions, it was directed at me, I knew I was well and truly in the dog house. 
Like the time my homework blew away. 
It was a rare beautiful warm sunny Sunday morning and I was writing a paper sitting out on the back lawn. My mother called to me to help with preparing lunch, and foolishly I left my almost completed work on the chair. Busy indoors, I failed to notice that a strong wind had come up until it was too late. I rushed outside but the chair had blown over and the papers, representing about three hours of work, had disappeared. I flew into a terrible teenage temper tantrum, swearing and stomping, kicking the chair around and finally hurling it in the general direction of a very disdainful cat. Dad, coming from the vegetable garden where he’d been working, to see what on earth was happening, watched in silence until my rage finally ran itself out of energy. He looked at me with very much the same expression as the cat. “What a performance!” was all he said, and shaking his head in disbelief, returned to the onion patch.
One of our neighboring farmers was about as lazy as it’s possible to be and still maintain any kind of farm at all, even an inefficient one. When he did summon up enough energy for action, it usually took the form of wandering to the nearby pub until he could summon up enough energy to leave, which generally meant closing time. His hedges and fences were a mess and the gates too crooked to latch properly, so his cows were always wandering off in search of greener pastures. One day they identified our lawn as such, and I was dispatched on my bike to get their owner. It being a Friday evening I didn’t bother trying the farm but went straight to the pub, where I managed to pry Mr. Evans loose from his pint. He and three drunken cronies staggered to our house, only a short distance away, and began rounding up the dozen or so cows, only to succeed in startling the animals and driving them haphazardly into the vegetable garden and thence into the flower beds. The ground was very wet and soft from recent rains and the poor animals slipped and slithered around, mooing and rolling their eyes, stamping and snorting, and inevitably adding a considerable amount of steaming brown goo to the muddy earth. Eventually they all, cattle and men, shoved through the hole in the hedge the entering cows had created, and quiet descended. Mum and Dad and I gazed at the chaos that remained. I suspect many men in such circumstances would curse roundly, shouting of retribution and revenge. 
My dad took off his flat cap and scratched his bald head.
“What a performance!”
The last time I joined my parents in their own home was when I took a short leave of absence from work and went to England to get them settled in nursing homes. My mother had fallen and broken her hip, an accident from which she never really recovered, and was only able to get around with a walker. My father was physically fit as a fiddle, but completely lost to dementia. By that time, he had no idea who I was. As I left the room I heard him asking my mother, “Who is that woman?” 
They were an impossible combination. Dad would be off God knows where doing God knows what and Mum wasn’t physically able to keep tabs on him. This was our last night in our old home which we had inherited from my paternal grandparents. The old place still had no heating system except the coal and log fire and a small electric bar heater. My dad certainly was not safe with a real fire so I had asked friends to take all the logs and coal for their own use now summer was officially here, so we were down to the electric heater. 
The evening was cold and Mum turned on the bar heater which stood just in front of the original fireplace. In no time the three bars glowed red, emitting some semblance of warmth. Not enough, apparently, however, for my dad. Before we realized what he was up to, he grabbed the old metal poker which still hung in its assigned spot beside the fireplace, and jabbed it between the protective bars directly into the glowing electricity. 
There was a loud crack and a whoooosh, lots of sparks flew, followed by a billow of stinky black dense smoke. 
The cat, the last in a long line vaguely descended from the one not even narrowly missed by that flying lawn chair decades earlier, now disturbed in the act of settling himself cozily as close to the heat source as he could get, changed course and leapt onto my mother’s lap. He landed deftly in the middle of her knitting, startling her, perhaps, even more than the exploding heater. She jerked in alarm, in turn knocking her full water glass onto the cat, which let out a furious scream/growl combo and jumped onto the table, trailing wool and one attached needle.
I had set the table, complete with table cloth, ready for dinner. The cat, landing on it in full flight, dug in his claws as it started to slide, resulting in cat and cutlery crashing to the floor. The enraged cat ran from the room. 
Mum sat, speechless, in her armchair. 
Opposite her sat Dad, gazing in silent fascination at the ruined heater. 
In the sudden silence that ensued, I came so close to tears. 
I had heard such a clear resounding echo, in my head, of my younger father’s voice, saying, calmly, “What a performance!”

© 14 April 2014
  

About the Author



I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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Road Trip by Betsy

The most interesting thing about my road trip has been the choices that I have been presented with along the way. When the road is straight and does not branch off, die out, or deviate in any way, there are no choices for the most part and one simply follows the road until one has the opportunity to choose a different direction. On my life journey I mostly followed the main road, diligently conforming and meeting societal expectations.

A few times I have been presented with the choice to take a turn and I followed a road that goes in another direction–a road the final destination of which was unknown to me. For a person such as myself who is not a risk-taker by nature, getting off the main road can be a scary thing to do–especially when you have no map and no guide. There are no caution signs on this road. It twists and turns and there are many potholes and hazards.

On the road of life I changed direction when, you guessed it, when I came out. I dare say that was a 90 degree change in direction. And it was a choice. Oh, I know, being homosexual is not a choice, but whether or not one acts on that natural state of being, most certainly IS a choice. What one does with one’s life is a choice. Maybe within certain confines or within a certain structure, but how one behaves, acts, believes, etc. is a choice.

The road trip I took at that time was indeed an adventure. Some of the stopping off points looked beautiful and sometimes fun, but turned out to be quite disappointing. At times I felt as if I were in a foreign country, not understanding the language and certainly not the humor of the people. I actually felt quite the outsider in some of the places along the way. I persisted on that road because somehow I knew the final destination was the place I wanted to be. There were no holiday brochures, however, to tell me what this place was going to be like, but I had all my baggage with me and I had left home, so I continued.

Twenty six years ago I arrived at a spot I really liked. It was beautiful, it was comfortable, it was affordable, it was exciting, it offered all of my favorite activities. What more could a person ask. I still had all my baggage and everything I needed, I was completely satisfied, so I settled in. But that was not the end of the trip.

I do not plan to end my road trip any time soon. It’s just that now I have been traveling with my best friend, my spouse, the love of my life and we always have that beautiful, comfortable place called home to come back to.

(I still have all my baggage.)

© 24 January 2014 

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.

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One Monday Afternoon by Will Stanton

Ned and I were not that young but felt as though we were going on just sixteen. We were glad that we were old enough to drive, but I don’t think that either of us was ready to be any older. We each felt so repressed in our families that we really had not grown up; we felt more comfortable somehow as just mid-teens, to belatedly begin to explore the world and ourselves at a time when many already had several years of experience growing. I got to know him more briefly than I would have liked.

Unlike many young, more fortunate gays these days, we had little understanding of ourselves, no sense of orientation. Even had we understood ourselves, we felt in our time that we would have had to hide our orientation from the world, let alone our families. That repression wounded our sense of self-esteem and hindered our courage to explore and to take new risks like many other teenagers. So, Ned and I were alike in many ways and naturally gravitated toward each other when we met.

With me, Ned was very open and honest. One day, he sat down with me and explained very simply that he wished to be my special friend, a long-term partner. This was all new to me, and I was confused. I was not quite sure what to do. After all, every lesson that I had learned growing up told me that normal was straight, normal was eventually getting married, normal was having kids. Having another guy as your special friend was not normal. I thought carefully about it and, at least, committed to our being very good friends; but I was not sure beyond that.

We began to spend time together. We often went to the countryside to take long hikes together. We explored remote roads, driving into the countryside on sunny days or cool June evenings. We would drive out to the lake, stopping along the way to buy popsicles. Like young kids, we had our favorites, cherry and grape. Then we would walk out onto the beach, spread out our blankets, and lie in the sun, talking with each other and watching the swimmers. When the sun became too hot, we also would swim out into the lake to cool off.

Ned was romantic. It also became clear that he truly loved me. One of the most wonderful things that I remember was during one of our hikes in the hills. We paused on a high bluff and quietly stood there, looking at the valley below. I felt him gently press his chest against my back and slip his arms around my chest in a loving hug. Then he rested his head on my shoulder. We stood there for some time, content, and in peace. That simple gesture meant so much. The memory, that sense, has remained with me ever since.

In town, I would find love notes on my car windshield. He also seemed to be extraordinarily in-tune with me. If I was quietly thinking about something and then suddenly changed what I was thinking about, he would say, “What?” This happened several times. I don’t know how. He also surprised me because he claimed to have a way with inanimate objects, too. When his old car refused to start, he would stand in front of the car, giving it a stern look, and give the car a good talking-to. Then, he would get back into the car and start it. I was amused by that, but don’t ask me what got the car going.

Ned and I spent as much time together as we could. Some straight friends quickly began to see us as a pair and invited us both to their picnic. Sometimes, he would come to my house when my parents were not around, we would lie in each other’s arms, listening to the rain outside the windows. Just the closeness seemed to be enough.

Then there came that one Monday afternoon when I informed him that I would be leaving town during the summer months to work in a place too far away to drive back very often. He burst into tears, truly distraught. He said that he was afraid that he would lose me forever. He said that he could not stand being without me.

Then, I made the worst mistake that I could have made. I thought that I was being reasonable and helpful, but it did not turn out that way. I suggested to him that, in the meantime, he needed to find more friends. I did not specify what kind of friends he should associate with. It never occurred to me that I needed to say so. That has haunted me ever since.

Shortly after that, I had a long-distance phone call from Ned. One evening, lonely, and in tiny apartment in a far-away town, I was thinking of a girl that I knew back home and what it might be like to get to know her better. Maybe that was the right thing for me to do; maybe that would work. Then my phone rang; it was Ned. Despite his being at a noisy party far away, something had alerted him. Without my saying anything at all about where I was at that moment or what I was thinking, he immediately stated, “I suddenly got the feeling that you were very lonely and that I better call you. I know that you were thinking about that girl. She is not the right person for you; I don’t think that she can give you the love that you need.” How did he know? How can that be just coincidence? He really was especially sensitive and in-tune with me.

By the time I came back, I found that things had changed. The substitute friends that Ned made were heavily into drugs, and Ned followed suit. When I finally returned and saw Ned again, he was not the same person. Every bit of that remarkable sensitivity was gone, completely. He could no longer sense or do what he once could do. His whole personality had changed. He used to be bright and cheerful; he had an innocent sense of humor. All that was gone, too. Instead, he was slow and dull, seemingly uninterested in the people around him, uninterested in life. It seemed that there was no love left in him. It did not occur to him to repay the two hundred dollars that I had lent him. He no longer was Ned. He was someone else. I was shocked and dismayed.

Over the years, I occasionally have thought back to that fateful Monday afternoon and my saying to him to find other friends. He found some guys to hang out with, but they were no true friends to him. They destroyed the Ned that I knew and cared for.

© 10 February 2013



About the Author

  

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

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The Accident by Ricky

When I first thought about this topic, I could not think of anything to write about. Then four-days ago, the memory floodgates opened and many memories of accidents came to mind.

Some involved me, like my mother’s pregnancy with me (I actually attended her wedding in utero), or when I cut the back of my hand on broken glass while playing in a junk car, or when I stepped on a rusty nail, or when I lobbed a small rock at a Robin and it hit and killed it, or when I was hiking and slipped breaking my ankle. Growing up, I had my fair share of accidental injuries to my body. But like always, I am not going to write about those as being not worthy. Besides, I just did write a little about those accidents.

I have written before how my parents’ divorce ended up causing my subconscious mind to shut off nearly all of my negative emotions. So, while I was working as a Deputy Sheriff in Pima County, Arizona, the loss of those feelings or rather those feelings being walled off, actually helped me do my job without emotional interference.

One midnight shift, a highway patrolman contacted me to help him find an address and to go with him to deliver a traffic death notification. It was not a pleasant experience and although I did feel sad for the lady whose husband had been killed, it did not consciously affect me.

On another midnight shift in the late fall, I responded to a rollover accident along a road next to an irrigation ditch. In this case, two high school boys were in the car and the tracks in the dirt and gravel roadway indicated that the driver either was showing off and lost control or he just lost control. The car rolled and both boys were thrown from the car as they were not wearing seatbelts. More accurately, the driver was thrown clear, but the passenger only got half-way out before the rolling car shut the door on his middle and killed him. Both boys had left a party where drinking was occurring. The driver was the drinker and lived. The passenger did not drink and died, which is an all too common result. One family lost a child needlessly and the driver has to live with the knowledge that he killed a school-mate.

On one summer afternoon, a car with six-migrant farm workers stopped by the local convenience store and purchased three or four six-packs of beer. Less than two miles from the store, there was another rollover accident, again with no seatbelts and one man was thrown out and the car ended on its side but right on top of the man’s head. Evidence at the scene, indicated that at least one or two six-packs had already been consumed. No one called in that accident; I was driving by and saw the car on its side so I stopped. All of the five remaining men in the car had disappeared into the migrant worker camps and were never found or, I suspect, never even looked for. Once again I felt sad for the family left behind in Mexico, but did not mourn. I do wish the driver had been identified and caught. I don’t blame him for running away because in Mexico the punishment is much more severe than in the US (at that time period anyway) and I’m sure he thought punishment in the US was probably the same or worse.

The following accident I wish I had not remembered. I remember it quite vividly and even the date, if not the exact year. It was winter, Christmas day to be exact. A member of the Air Force, an Airman First Class I believe, had been driving all night from southern California. His destination, Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson. People who stopped to impart information (or just to gawk) reported that he was passing them ‟like they were standing still.” Apparently, he fell asleep at the wheel and left the right side of eastbound Interstate-10 at the worst possible point and “T-boned” a concrete abutment for cattle to cross under the roadway. He, his wife, and three-month old baby all died. Two families lost a child AND a grandchild. I’m fairly confident in saying that Christmas day will never be the same for those families. This accident did affect me. I did feel sad, but I ended up with a strong dislike for the US Air Force personnel system.

The airman had orders to report to Davis-Monthan by noon on Christmas day. If not for the accident he would have made it. NO ONE would have been there to process him into his unit. He and his family would have been given temporary quarters until the next duty day. I dislike the Air Force personnel system, not only for what it did to me, but also because it doesn’t care about the people the system is designed to serve. Rather the system serves the Air Force, not the men and women who make up the organization. In my opinion, there is no reason for anyone to transfer or report to a new assignment through the period beginning one week before and ending one week after Thanksgiving and the period beginning 15 December through 15 January. These are major holiday periods for families and human nature (which the military does not understand or care about) results in military personnel wanting to stay with their extended families until the ‟last minute.”

Over my adult life, many people, including some in our Telling Your Story group, have noticed I have some idiosyncrasies. I don’t apologize for any of them. I just want everyone to recognize the events I have related in this and my other postings, helped shape me into the character whom you perceive today.

© 22 July 2013  

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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Forbidden Fruit by Ray S

For some of us bornagains or unbornagains we can attribute the source of today’s subject to what could be construed (depending on your point of view or philosophy) a Judeo/Christian’s earliest known erotica. The Adam and Eve fall from grace and all the ensuing details that have for eons been left up to the imagination of the true believers. Let’s not go there now. 

But that must have been some apple! At the risk of being labeled “chauvinist pig” by some of our fairer sex, I have to say “let’s hear it for the ladies.” They’ve always had the know how and upper hand when it comes to a really good siren song leading to the ecstasy of the flavor of that forbidden fruit.
Right then and there in that Garden of Eden (which has many lactations worldwide) the whole world of human relations got its snaky start. And like other humans’ addictions the apple tree is still bearing fruit as well as little bundles of joy. Even in the beginning it seems those prophets of old had to find a way to lay a trip on people kind. The idea must have been to promote “evil” so someone else could have sinners to forgive and redeem for practicing what comes naturally. Today the sages call it LIBIDO–it’s that damn snake again figuring ways to establish never ending power trips. There is always someone more powerful, more intelligent, more superior in all ways, lording it over the rest of us fruit eaters.
But, getting back to what has been condemned “forbidden” seems that right back there in little old Edenville the more forbidden, the more delicious the fruits became! And, of course, more desirous. Once that bite caressed the tongue, the acquired taste of the apple or fruit of your choice never wanes.
Seems like what this world needs is more delicious fruits and abounding trees of love for one another. Teach that snake to emphasize nice and naughty and cut way back on hate, guilt, pestilence and avarice.
One has to try so very hard to remember and practice that “LOVE MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND.”

© 21 April 2014

About the Author

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Gay Alien by Phillip Hoyle

I fell in love with an alien, an illegal alien, a gay illegal alien, a Mexican gay illegal alien. I fell hard into a new experience. I had never loved a Mexican man: that task had always been left to my daughter. I had never loved a Mexican gay man, so I had a lot to learn about how Mexican culture tends to evaluate gay men and how people there often choose to deny the existence of such men especially within their families. I had never loved an illegal alien and in this relationship came face-to-face with the issues the whole country is now trying to solve. I had never loved an alien—well now I’m lying, but that’s another story. The big story was this: I had never fallen in love so conventionally, so thoroughly, so openly, so obsessively, so delightedly, so…, so…; the words flee at the prospect of being employed, as if they know the impossibility and my ineptness. Some nine years later I can hardly understand what happened to me, let alone describe it, but I fell in love with a Mexican gay illegal alien, his name Rafael. 

My alien had an accent as well as a small, expressive, high-pitched, scratchy voice. He almost squeaked at times, a sound that surprisingly didn’t irritate but, rather, attracted me. It was so cute just like he was so cute. His English was passable in that he could communicate well enough to have a sales job in an electronics shop. His often fresh approach to the language endeared him to me. I liked having to listen carefully, to fret out meanings, to solve the communications like a crossword puzzle. 
My illegal alien saved me from too much information. I wondered if he was afraid that I might not like him for being in America illegally or at some angry moment I might call the INS on him. Later I realized he may have been protecting me from knowing anything that would make me an accomplice to his illegality. I had no idea he was already in trouble with the law over some other matters as well as his immigration status, and quite frankly, I didn’t care all that much. 
My gay illegal alien touched something deep within me even when I didn’t know if he was gay or not. When I met him, he wore a wide gold wedding band. Still, the connection from our first three meetings was so compelling to me that I determined if he weren’t gay, lived here with his wife and kids, or was supporting them in another country, I would befriend him and relate to him as the best friend he’d ever have. I didn’t care if he was not gay although I did realize my developing attraction to him then might call for great restraint. But I’d lived almost all of my fifty-plus years as a straight man, a closeted bisexual male, who made friends easily and took loyalty seriously. I wanted to be his friend—at least that.
My Mexican illegal alien looked more alien than most Mexicans. Pakistani and Indian customers where he worked spoke to him in Urdu or Hindi assuming he was one of them. For me his exotic looks of indeterminate origin added to his attraction, that plus his dark eyes that snapped with delight when we were together and his warm smile that stretched across his face whenever he looked at me. He registered as much enthusiasm upon seeing me as I felt upon seeing him. 
One spring day I was on my way to do volunteer work and left home a few minutes early so I could stop by an office supply to flirt with another man who seemed interested. The sun was shining so intensely I was ready to cross the street to where some large trees promised shade. Just as I was deciding, I looked down the side of the street I was on and saw, about a block away, a black-haired man pulling a two-wheel grocery cart. I thought I was the youngest man in my neighborhood to pull one of those things in public and so had to see who was challenging my place. I continued toward the man who as it turned out was quite a lot younger. He was Rafael who with his cart was bringing home food from a Mexican grocery. I was astounded at my good fortune since I had missed seeing him for several weeks. I shook his hand. This time as we talked, I impulsively touched him several times more knowing if he wasn’t gay, I’d probably never see him again. Finally I gave him my card with my phone number asking him to call me and offering to take him for breakfast or coffee. I finally had to hurry off to my volunteer work and forgot all about the other guy. 
Then the big wait began, one that showed me new things about myself. He didn’t call. I walked the neighborhood at night hoping to see him get off the bus. Still he didn’t call. I walked the neighborhood in daylight watching out for his black hair. Three weeks passed. I looked up and down streets, made a grid search of the area. Surely I would find him; he rode the same bus as I. But where was he? 
A good friend who knew me well was amazed that I was both so focused and so relaxed about it all. We laughed together at the signs of obsession that Rafael had produced in me. It seemed so unlike me. I had fallen in love—whatever that was. I had sung love songs to entertain but had never entertained the idea that they would apply to me. I wasn’t falling in love with love, that old make-believe; I was falling in love with Rafael. The most beautiful sound I’d ever heard was his name. I got him under my skin; I’d grown accustomed to his face; I just had to get that man. 
Six weeks and I still hadn’t heard from my obsession. I was ready to start singing the blues. I woke up this morning and the blues was standing by my bed. I wanted Rafael to stand there. Where was that man? Seven weeks and finally I received a message on my answering machine. The high-pitched, scratchy voice that I had fantasized hearing again said he was well and wanted to get together. I could think of nothing I would like better, so I called the number he left and told his answering machine my kids were in town. We were going to the BuskerFest downtown but would serve spaghetti in the evening. I wanted him to come for dinner. I left my address. “Call me when you get home from work,” I instructed.
That Saturday night he called me. He came over and met my son and one grandson. We ate. Then the two of us went out for desert and wine. I got home in time to catch a couple hours of sleep before fixing breakfast for my brood. From that day my South-of-the-Border gay illegal alien and I slept together every night until he entered the hospital.
The blues did catch up with me in our shared apartment, on the bus to Denver Health, in the AIDS clinic, in the examination room, in the imaging clinic, in the emergency room, in the intensive care unit, in the bedroom the night Rafael established home hospice, and finally at the Hospice of St. John. There, the blue tones were heard in the love shared around his bed, in the Rosary prayed there, in the tears of his Mexican parents, in the stories his Mexican sister shared about this brother she loved and admired, and in his Mexican brother’s eyes as he pondered Rafael’s death.
The blues clothed me in those last days, accompanied me to the park where we left some of my beloved’s ashes, stood with me as I waved goodbye to his mourning family. The blues walked with me to my studio, now again my home, slept beside me in my bed, and supported me for days, for weeks, for months. The blues still hang around some days to give voice to the loss of my Mexican gay illegal alien Rafael whom I loved and whom I still miss obsessively.

© Denver, 2011

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