Author: jnelson

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Time by Michael King

As we all know time is the measured sequential relationship of the movement of objects in relation to one another or as we experience time it is the experiential intensity of intellectual and/or emotional focus. In actuality there is only the present but at this stage of our experience we exist in the universes of time and space. When we do experience being in the present, our abilities to more fully grasps our beingness increases.

I never was a fan of George Burns, however his comment that “You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old,” is perhaps one of the better statements about our choosing to experience time.

One of my ideas of how I might relate to time is to recognize that each generation has a different socio-political environment. The various stages of the industrial developmental era has transitioned into the technological- communications era which is especially challenging to my age group. Time is experienced in the influence of technological nanoseconds, slow computers, texting, on line bill paying, rush hour, TV dinners or impersonal fast food consumption and when to take our high blood pressure pills. The social environment changes and along with it changes how we perceive time.

Many like me prefer to avoid the latest gadgets that hit the market, being glued to our cell phones, texting worthless messages and paying high prices to be up to the minute with the latest fad. I don’t want to take the time to keep up. I’m retired and want to sit back and relax, do something old fashioned and read or write with a pencil in a notebook.

But no, I now spend hours on a computer when it was only a short time ago I was glad not to have one.

Time, time consuming, no time to contemplate, no time just to do nothing, the telephone rings and it’s another recorded message that got through the no call list. Try being with a group of people having a supposedly intelligent conversation and two cellphones ring, the people at the next table are each texting, at the other tale we are listening to a loud one-sided conversation that doesn’t seem to make since. Is it time for me to make adjustments to the changes in society? How do I adjust so I am living in the present? How much time do I have to be more integrated into the changing society? Why should waste my time doing so? Is it time to withdraw in isolation and escape the pressing demands of the technological and micro communication era? What about the information age?

I am hooked on Google. I can find out about practically anything I want to know if I just put in the right search terminology. I can’t imagine how my life would have been if I’d had Wikipedia when I was I college. But then the times were different.

Now for the clincher, time is a concept. It may be a measure. It may seem like a reality. I may look at my watch or my cellphone. I may attend an event at a particular time. I have experienced transcending time. I have lost time. I have had plenty of time and then been late.

In traveling around the world I have seen many different kinds of sun dials or contraptions to measure time. Some watches and clocks are responsive to a totally accurate measure of time within micro moments of an accepted absolute. It’s still just a concept that measures relative relationships of an infinitesimal fraction of the universe of universes and still seems to have way too much control over our lives.

Perhaps we should take time to smell the roses.

© 20 March 2013



About
the Author

  

I go by the drag name, Queen Anne Tique. My real name is Michael King. I am a gay activist who finally came out of the closet at age 70. I live with my lover, Merlyn, in downtown Denver, Colorado. I was married twice, have 3 daughters, 5 grandchildren and a great grandson. Besides volunteering at the GLBT Center and doing the SAGE activities,” Telling your Story”,” Men’s Coffee” and the “Open Art Studio”. I am active in Prime Timers and Front Rangers. I now get to do many of the activities that I had hoped to do when I retired; traveling, writing, painting, doing sculpture, cooking and drag.

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Male Dancing — Same Sex Dancing by Louis

CNN International presented a news report on developing new trends in ballet.

They asserted that there is a “masculine ballet.” The viewer gets a sample.

Another new genre is androgynous ballet. Viewer gets a sample. The sample ballet skits are performed by members of the Royal Ballet in Covent Gardens in London.

I agree with the wholesome experimental side of the Royal Ballet, but, in my opinion, ballet itself is basically feminine. The beloved spot-lighted ballerina is surrounded by masculine subordinate helpers. Ballet is fine for what it is.

However, I have seen other genres of artistic dancing in which the male anatomy, especially the muscular system, are sort of “analyzed” by a vigorous athletic dance routine accompanied by an intense loud rhythmic music. One of the few examples of “masculine dancing” I have seen in the past is the Russian sabre dance.

Many years ago I saw a dance presentation on a VHS tape put out by a gay male porn film company. The dance routines themselves were not porno-graphic although they were certainly erotic. There were two dance routines, both performed by a solo male dancer. One wore a G-string. He strutted and stretched and stomped and showed off his muscles. For me it suggested a completely new genre of artistic dancing. The accompanying music was pounding and pulsating.

The other dancer wore nothing but cowboy chaps and a Stetson hat. Both dancers were quite erotic but tasteful enough that they could have been presented to the general adult public as artistic dancing.

The CNN report on expanding the boundaries of the ballet also reminded me that until recently almost all kinds of art presented to the public are based on an exclusively heterosexual model. Boy falls in love with girl, girl plays hard to get, boy proves himself worthy perhaps by becoming a military hero. Boy wins girl. There is perhaps an epilogue, boy becomes a man, marries woman, they have children (make babies) and live happily ever after. This is how it is in literature (novels, poetry, short stories), in painting, sculpture, decorative arts, music, cinema. There is nothing else.

Of course, we know this leaves out tens of millions of people. This general presentation of art to the public from the powers that be was a dishonest, skewed presentation of what it means to be human. Fake-art.

The androgynous ballet routine as presented by the CNN report is a giant step forward. It acknowledges there are millions of androgynous people in the world, the intersexes. Effeminate men (and yet to be considered masculine women).

The scenario that would appeal to me is a hairy macho man, falls in love with another hairy macho man, and, after a proper courting ritual, they become a couple and live happily ever after. They are successful personally. If somehow they wind up taking care of a bunch of kids, that would be another big plus. Up to now we have been virtually invisible, non-existent.

There should be an honest artistic expression acknowledging us, who we are, what we are and what we really feel.

© 8 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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A Visit to the Doctor/Nurse by Lewis

This story is not just about one visit to a doctor or nurse. It involves multiple visits to several doctors. But it is all just one story. It does not have a happy ending. Nor does it paint a particularly flattering picture of the state of the health care industry in the U.S. today. The names of the medical professionals have been abbreviated to obscure their true identities. The source material was not my personal recollection primarily, though I was present for each of the events, but was taken from my late husband’s personal journal, written at the time of the events in question.

In the summer and fall of 2003, Laurin’s PSA level began to rise. He was 77 years old. At one point, his PSA level was measured at 19–almost double what was considered to be on the high side of normal. His doctor, Dr. S, recommended a biopsy of his prostate. On this particular visit, Dr. S. was accompanied by a young female intern, who was “shadowing” him. Dr. S. asked if it was OK if she was present for the visit. Laurin consented.

In the corner of the doctor’s office was an unusual type of lamp. It rested on the floor with a long neck that curved from vertical to horizontal and had a small, elongated but high-powered lamp on the end. I asked Dr. S. what the lamp was for. He said, “I’ll show you”. He asked Laurin to lie back on the examination table and pull down his underwear. He placed the light at the end of the lamp under Laurin’s scrotum and turned it on. With the light behind it, the scrotum became translucent. Dr. S. said, “See that? That’s water.” I could not begin to imagine what his point was.

Our next appointment was even more bizarre. It was a Monday. Apparently, Dr. S. was intending to perform the biopsy on Laurin’s prostate. However, Laurin and I were both confused on that point. Consequently, we had not done the necessary prep. In addition, Laurin (and I) had a number of concerns about possible adverse effects of the biopsy. (Biopsy of the prostate involves inserting an instrument through the anus. Triggering the device causes a hollow needle-like device to penetrate the wall of the rectum and snatch a bit of tissue from the prostate gland. If any procedure is likely to invoke queasiness in a male patient, including me, it is this one.)

Dr. S.’s response was to basically go ballistic. After assuring us that complications have arisen from less than 0.1% of such tests he added, “If you (meaning Laurin) were a 5-year-old, I would simply tell you to lie down and take it.”

Well, that was the end of our doctor-patient relationship with Dr. S. We started seeing another urologist, Dr. H. He informed us that Laurin’s PSA was at 9. No explanation was given for the apparent sudden drop. In addition, Laurin’s Gleason Score–a measure of the aggressiveness of the cancer–was 7. These numbers are borderline-positive for Stage IIa prostate cancer.

The recommended therapy for Laurin was radioactive seed implants, also known as internal radiation therapy. This involves inserting a large number of tiny pellets of a radioactive isotope, such as plutonium, into the prostate gland. In Laurin’s case, approximately 70 of these tiny pellets were placed, one-at-a-time, into his prostate by a radiological oncologist, Dr. T. The patient is given a local anesthetic and the process takes less than an hour. The after-effects are mild and short-lived. I was in the waiting room of the doctors’ clinic the entire time. Eventually, the prostate dries up–I won’t say is fried–so that it looks like a date…or raisin, I’m not sure which.

On one of the follow up visits with Dr. H., Laurin was in the examining room waiting for more than a few minutes. When Dr. H. came in, he couldn’t find some instrument that he needed and in a pique of righteous rage at the negligent nurse, with his arm swept everything on the counter onto the floor. I could hear the commotion in the waiting room. Time to look for urologist number three. (Some time later, I asked Dr. T, the radiological oncologist, who was really quite civil and was himself suffering from a rare form of bone cancer, “What is the deal with urologists, anyway?” He answered to the effect that urologists are notoriously emotional creatures, which I interpreted as, “When it comes to your dick, don’t get sick.”

Recently, medical researchers have been telling men that they should stop getting routine PSA tests if over a certain age. They tell us that a very high percentage of us will develop prostate cancer–somewhat like Alzheimer’s Disease–but that it is very slow growing and we could very well die of some other cause first. Laurin was given similar counseling by Dr. H. early on. Yet, doctors don’t put croissants on the table by not treating disease. I don’t know what Laurin’s life would have been like had he not had the internal radiation therapy. I do know what his life was like for years after the treatment, however.

Fecal incontinence, according to Dr. T., affects only about 5% of men who have had the seed implants. Just another seemingly inconsequential factor in balancing prostate cancer treatment against letting it run its course. Other friends of mine who have had surgery to remove the prostate ended up with a perforated rectum or lifelong impotence. In terms of the impact upon a man’s quality of life after age 75, I would have to say that fecal incontinence must be the worst of the three side effects. The horrors Laurin and I went through are too embarrassing and humiliating to attempt to describe here. Let me just say that they led to him having to put severe restrictions on his social life, undergoing a colostomy, and suffering the complete loss of his self esteem.

Let me end this diatribe with this caveat: the medical profession will never say “No” to a decision to fight cancer with everything you’ve got. Medical costs during the last year of life account for an enormous chunk of Medicare dollars expended. In America, we tend to believe in “fight to the last ounce of your strength” or, as Dylan Thomas wrote:

“Do not go gentle into that good night,


Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.

However, if the light has faded to a dung brown, perhaps it’s dying be a blessing.

© 22 June 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’s Your Sign? by Gillian


I’m a sign of the times.

I am a woman with more freedom than any previous generation in the history of humankind.

I have freedom of expression, and self-determination of my life, which women of the past could scarcely dream of.

I vote, a privilege not extended to all women in the U.S. until 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, although in Colorado, women gained the right to vote in 1893.

I have complete control over my own property, a privilege not extended to American women until 1900.

I can even purchase my own property, a privilege I was astonished to find not extended to me in 1966. I had a good job and determined to buy a house; a very modest, two-bedroom frame house, the likes of which have mostly become “scrape-offs” in recent years. However, I found that although I could qualify with my income, I could not get a loan. This refusal certainly had nothing to do with my being a lesbian; it would take another 20 years for ME to figure that one out! It was because …. What would happen if I became pregnant? As an unmarried woman I had no one to pick up my debts when I had to quit work. (Hey, perhaps being a lesbian might actually have been an advantage!) Poor innocent little ol’ me. I had no idea that only one in a thousand women (0.1%) owned homes in 1960, but, WOW, by 1970 we zoomed all the way up to a shaky two in a thousand (0.2%). Currently, single women are around 20% of homebuyers while single men account for only 10%.

Just in my lifetime, how things have changed. I own my home, I own and drive my car, I manage my own money. I haven’t worn a skirt since I retired; I am free to follow fashion or ignore it. I am free to follow social mores or ignore them.

I talk about religion and politics, very much verboten in my youth, and, still worse, about sex!

I have lived with my beautiful Betsy for over 25 years. Far from causing us to live in fear, this fact does not seem to faze anyone among our acquaintances, friends, and families. And now, in July 2013, neither does it, according to the Supreme Court, threaten all those straight marriages out there. Which, by the way, are failing at a rate exceeding 50%.

Like many older people, I get a bit curmudgeonly at times, bemoaning today’s world and muttering on about how things are not what they used to be.

How happy I should be that they are not!

I have lived, and am living, in the best possible time.

I am indeed, and delighted to be, a sign of the times.

© 6 July 1913 

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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May They Rest In Pieces by Betsy

I started smoking cigarettes in high school along with most of my classmates. It was, after all, the thing to do–the cool thing to do. Seventeen years old or so, we were old enough, cigarettes were relatively inexpensive at the time, and it was a way to feel more grown up thanks to the magazine ads. Smoking at home or in the presence of my parents was not an option for me, but that was not so important. What was important was us kids smoking in the presence of each other. The same was true in college only by then smoking with my parents was acceptable and absolutely everyone smoked it seemed. Makes sense. The tobacco industry was in its hay day at the time making more profits than ever and more than most industries.

That was the 1950s. Fast forward about eight years. Now a mother with young children cigarette smoking was not so fashionable and smoking’s hazards to human health were beginning to be realized and made known to the public. So my husband and I gave up the habit and became nonsmokers or rather ex-smokers.

Quitting then was not easy. But it was do-able and we successfully went cold turkey one day.

In the early 1980s my life started to change. My children were grown up, I started the coming out process, I knew my marriage would end as a result, and I felt the need of a crutch other than my support group. So without even thinking (big mistake!) I turned to my old friend, cigarettes. I could always quit later. No problem. I had done it before.

One week of the addictive behavior and one week of inhaling the addictive substance and I was back to where I had left off all those years ago–smoking at least a pack a day. Only this time I knew that it was hazardous to my health.

I must have felt some shame in my behavior because I didn’t want my husband or children to know I was smoking. So I did it in private. Never mind. I needed it now and I could quit later. I had done it before.

By 1990 my life had calmed down. I had gone through an amicable divorce, I still had the stable job I loved, and I had been through two stormy short term relationships, and I had met Gill, the love of my life and we were now in a committed relationship. I hated the fact that I smoked cigarettes, but I was truly hooked. I tried and tried but I couldn’t stop. I read books and articles on the subject, I took classes, I went to support groups, and there were a multitude of groups to choose from. Many people were trying to quit smoking in those days. In fact “how to quit smoking” was becoming a profitable industry. Advertisements for quitting smoking aides were abundant. I often wondered about the ad that declared that you could “quit smoking in less than two weeks” using their technique. Please. It takes at least ten years of not smoking to know that you are finally unhooked.

I will never forget one of the groups that I attended for only one trial session. The leader was ruthless. She was paid well, I am sure, because the cost of the class was considerable (if one chose to join it after trying one session). That leader, in the course of performing her job, humiliated a man who confessed that he had given in to temptation and had lit a cigarette but had not inhaled. She literally kicked him out of the group in front of everyone for the sin of backsliding. This action, I am sure, was supposed to be a deterrent to back sliding for the others. Well, it deterred me from paying the considerable fee and going back to that group.

A couple of years of this back and forth in and out of smoking behavior was becoming tiring and trying. My main problem was not so much the addiction to the behavior and the substance, rather I hated being dependent on something, especially something that was not good for me in any way. How many packs of cigarettes did I buy, smoke one and then throw the rest away somewhere like in a dumpster where I could not get to them later when the craving started. It was making Gill crazy too. “Either quit smoking or quit quitting, she said one day.”

Of the many words of advice I read on the subject, two in particular stuck with me. “Realize and accept that you will fail and back slide maybe many times even after you have made a strong commitment to quitting,” I read. Do not beat yourself up for this; do not view yourself as a failure. When it comes, wait the craving out. It WILL go away. Just keep trying and keep up the commitment.

The second piece of advice I found helpful for some strange reason I do not understand, was this. Make it a ritual. Take cigarettes outside and bury them deep in the ground, say goodbye, and grieve for them. One of my last cigarette purchases succumbed to this act of finality, this memorial service. For some reason it worked for me. Maybe I was just fed up and ready. Whatever the reason all I can say is “may they rest in pieces.”

© 28 January 2013 

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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What’s Your Sign? by Will Stanton

I am hoping that my sign does not become the humorous road-crossing sign that I downloaded from the web. Someone made and planted next to a street a road sign stating, “Warning. Geezer Crossing.”

On the sign, there was an image of a bent, old man with a cane. And in the background of the photo, was an actual bent, old man with a cane with an identical profile, slowly crossing the road. Funny, but a little sad, too.

When it comes to astrological signs, I cannot say that I “believe” in the art. My parents drummed into me to be, in their way of thinking, always “realistic.” So, I do not look at the daily horoscopes, nor do I ask to have astrological charts made for me. I have to say, however, that way back in college, a girl expressed a desire to do my chart; and the results were surprisingly accurate, even in small details. I found it to be somewhat interesting, but I stuck it away in a cupboard and never have referred to it in order to make decisions in life. I regarded it with the same mild curiosity as I have with the revelations of people who have read the lines in my palms or looked at Tarot cards. Those, too, seemed to be accurate. But again, I never felt that there was a practical use for that information. Maybe I missed out on something. Maybe I might have made better decisions in life.

I suppose that I could claim that various other signs, other than astrological, represent me, at least to some degree. The treble and bass clefs found on musical scores might be considered to be representative of my nature, music being a major interest of mine. Unfortunately, retardando might be my current sign, because I appear to be slowing down. Allegro, or more so, prestissimo, as I felt in my youth, no longer are my signs, although I wish that they were.

I am aware that, especially during rush-hour, many drivers utilize various signs. Those are not my signs; I don’t use them. I prefer not to be run off the road or shot. I use my fingers trying to play piano.

I do not know sign language. Perhaps more of us should. That would be considerate, should we encounter a hearing-impaired person. In addition, I certainly wish that, when my friends and I hope for a pleasant dinner in a restaurant, that far more people would use sign language as opposed to having too many drinks and then speaking extremely loudly and shrieking with laughter. In one restaurant, the noise was so intense that a couple and I gave up trying to carry on a conversation. They always carry ear plugs with them for loud movies, and they stuck in their ear plugs. I don’t blame them. The food was good, but we are not going back to that restaurant unless it is on an off-time.

There are signs that I prefer to use a lot. These are non-verbal signs that I use to communicate with others my affection and approval, my caring and empathy. A genuine smile has become one of my most naturally employed signs. Especially in today’s world, there is too little of that.

© 5
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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My Didn’t It Rain by Ricky

(Or Did It Rain, Rein,
Reign?)
         
A poet once wrote, “Rain, rain go away and come again another day for little Johnnie wants to play.” On rainy days, when I was little, I really liked that poem and would repeat it over and over until I realized the raindrops kept falling (on my head, they keep falling…) and my mother would finally tell me to be quiet and go play outside in spite of the rain. It didn’t make much sense to me because, she also said, “Don’t get dirty.” Apparently, getting wet was okay but not wet and dirty at the same time. So tell me, how is a little boy supposed to play in the rain without getting dirty? How is that any fun? It is definitely awkward to be the lone boy on the “sidelines” watching all the neighborhood boys splash in puddles, run through patches of mud, and even throw mud-balls at each other. Then, to add insult to injury, when called back to the house for the eventual “time-to-come-home” routine, mom would have me take a bath before dinner. What’s up with that? I could have had some fun just by being naked in the bathtub all day playing with my rubber ducky instead of being frustrated and jealous of all my wet and dirty playmates. Moms just don’t understand “boy-fun.”

The first “single date” my future spouse and I took was to the Mariana Caverns in NW Florida (a two-hour drive east of Ft. Walton Beach in the panhandle). About 30-minutes prior to our arrival it began to rain. By the time we arrived the rain had lessened to a light drizzle. I guess I must have commented (well, maybe bragged a bit) about building fires without matches while in the Boy Scouts. Naturally, like many young women I’ve met, Deborah thought I just made that up so, she challenged me to prove it. Like any young man, I could not just ignore the challenge (or maybe it was a dare) so I did it. After lunch was cooked on my matchless fire, for my punishment for showing her not to doubt my word, she did the “mom thing”; “John, let’s go walking in the rain.” By this time I had my “spirits” dampened by rain for several years at home, by excessive rain and wet sleeping bag during scout campouts, and rain during Air Force basic training situations so, I was not the least bit interested in walking in the rain. But, since I had no bath tub with rubber ducky in my car, in order to make a counter offer, I went with her on the walk. I’m sure if you could have seen my posture and the look on my face, they would have mimicked the illustrations of Alexander in the book titled, Alexander and The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. [On the bright side, I’m sure I didn’t accidentally call Australia.] In spite of Deborah’s assurances that I would not melt (because I wasn’t made of sugar and spice) I nearly did. Contrary to public opinion, snips and snails and puppy-dog tails are not waterproof.  
[Just for the record: I may not be made of sugar and spice, but I do
have a large chunk of “everything nice” within me—probably because I like to
eat chocolate and Baseball Nut ice
cream from Baskin and Robins.]

At one time I lived in Tucson, Arizona, with the family of a retired Air Force member. One day four of their children and I wanted to go to see a movie. So, we piled in my little two-door, four-cylinder Opel Kadet station wagon and set out. About half an hour earlier there had been one of those famous Arizona desert “gully washer” downpours; the kind that generate flash flood warnings. Time was pressuring us to arrive prior to the movie starting when we approached a “low” spot that had about 20 yards of cross-flowing water over the road. I was young and all grown up at 22, but still stupid, I decided that the movie was worth the risk of trying to drive through the flooded road. At the deepest spot, water was splashing over the front of the engine hood and appeared to be about 1/3 to 1/2 ways up the side of the driver’s door. We made it across, but I believe if I had been alone in the vehicle, it would have floated away.

Once, while in the forest with a female friend, I was saved from injury and embarrassment by about 3-feet of rein. We had come to a small creek and my friend had crossed easily. However, when I got there my horse balked and tossed me over his head, but I held tight to the reins and so landed on my feet. I smacked the horse alongside his head with the reins, got back on, and the horse walked calmly across the creek. Even on horseback, water and I don’t mix but this time the rein was my friend.

Genesis Chapter 2, Verses19-20 describe how God gave Adam the task of naming all species of animals. We know that many species of creatures are now extinct and yet thousands remain. I can just imagine Adam reaching a breaking point one day and sassing God about not having any more ideas for names, which resulted in a small cloud dumping a bucketful of rainwater on Adam and the creature standing next in line to be named. Adam recognized the hint, so that’s how the reindeer got its name. The name is misspelled due to a dictionary printing error centuries ago.

My spouse, Deborah, loved to do genealogy research on our family-lines. She discovered that she is a distant descendant of King Harold of England. He was involved in a six-month reign until he met his end at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. I guess he never heard, “He who fights and runs away, lives to reign another day.”

Eric “The Red” is another distant ancestor of Deborah’s. While he was more infamous than royal, he is the father of Leif Erickson, the probable leader of the Viking expedition, which landed in North America. Eric may have owned a herd of reindeer and I’ll bet he spelled it correctly in Runes as he had no dictionaries to confuse him.

© 17
October 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 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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My Favorite Literary Character by Ray S

A footnote to our
storytelling: Don’t forget Peter Rabbit, Peanuts’ Charlie Brown, or Alice. “It
is an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San
Francisco.” Oscar Wilde.
Seven a.m. and
it’s my Monday morning challenge. No, not that—my muse and I have been fooling
around since last Monday with today’s subject and it’s been difficult to boil
down the vast numbers of characters, if you count the fictionally named heroes of
gay porn. But that’s a matter that does not qualify for the highly intellectual
subject matter for today.
As a child having
a reading difficulty, my character inventory was limited to the delightful
poems of Mr. Stevenson and his “A Child’s Garden of Verses”. What fond memories I
have of “The Land of Counterpane.”
When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay,
To keep me happy all the day.
And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;
And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.
I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.
Oh, and yes from a
more recent time when I used to read to my kids the adventures of Maurice
Sendak’s “Nutshell Library,” “Alligators All Around,” and “The Moral of Pierre
is: CARE” and many more.
My literary life
didn’t include Oscar or Gore, but with the advent of my SAGE time of life I
have discovered and learned to love a truly fabulous cast of characters through
the offices of the genius of my hero Armistead Maupin. I shall never forget the
tale of the long journey from the Blue Moon in Winnemucca, Nevada to the house
of Barberry Lane. That’s how I met my most favorite literary character—and
first acquaintance with the “T” in GLBT, the Queen of 28 Barberry Lane, Mrs.
Anna Madrigal. She is a role model for everyone—no matter which way you swing!

© 10 March 2014, Denver


About the Author 



Posted on

All My Exes Live In Texas by Pat Gourley

Actually none of my exes live in Texas, are from Texas or to my knowledge ever had any significant connection to Texas. I have been there only once. That was an overnight stay in Dallas for teaching purposes on a new HIV drug called ddc. We were beginning a study with it at the AIDS clinic where I worked. I believe the year was 1990 or 1991. I seem to recall that this overnighter was in August and other than staying in a very plush hotel it was the throat grabbing heat and humidity that I remember best. The short trip from cab to inside the hotel made me think ‘so this is what hell is like.’

For those of you who have not seen the Dallas Buyers Club, currently playing at the Esquire Theatre one of the drugs they were trying hard to have access to early was ddc. AZT was all that was available early on and many thought it was poison. Ironically it was the high dosage of AZT that was the big problem and in the long run it proved less toxic than ddc. AZT is still in use today in combinations with other drugs and ddc nowhere to be found.

I believe the first buyers clubs were in New York City and on the west coast a direct offshoot of ACT-UP organizing and efforts. They did not originate in Texas.

I strongly recommend the movie which I feel is great validation for folks not sitting by quietly waiting to be saved (or not) but rather taking matters into our own hands and strongly and forcefully demanding change and action. This is something we queers are quite adept at when we put our minds to it. There has been some controversy in the gay press about the movie and after last night’s Golden Globe awards where the best actor and best supporting actor awards were won by the stars of the movie some minor bitching continues. I won’t get into the controversies here other than to say I think it is perhaps a bit “much ado about not much.” Everyone does agree the acting was superb.

In retrospect I do feel bad that I was attending a drug company teaching session on ddc in Dallas in the early 1990’s rather than spending my time visiting their buyer’s club. We of course had to be properly trained on the drug before we could be designated a study site for it. I never got to meet the infamous Ron Woodroof and the charismatic Rayon, the lead characters in the Dallas Buyers Club.

In the movie the main protagonist is a man named Ron Woodroof played by Matthew McConaughey. The other main character is a trans-women played in quite dramatic fashion by Jared Leto named Rayon. A strong subtext throughout the movie is the genuine bonds that developed between her and McConaughey a supposedly straight man. The Dallas Buyers Club itself as an entity doesn’t really take off until Rayon becomes involved and brings in many customers. It needed a bit more legitimate queer street cred, which Rayon brought to it, countering the McConaughey character and his early on really vicious, drug addled homophobia.

Buyer’s Clubs became a quite widespread phenomenon in the late 1980’s and were a force even locally here in Denver until the late 1990’s when protease inhibitors came on the scene. The flawed but immensely better new drugs that actually worked to keep the virus at bay tended to take the desperate energy out of the sails of the various PWA coalitions and the often loosely affiliated buyers clubs.

Locally there was a strong PWA coalition and a loosely associated buyer’s club. I was never involved directly with either though I did on occasion contribute educational pieces for their newsletter called Resolute, my most infamous piece being one titled “Its Chemotherapy Stupid.” I might read it here some day.

I do though recall that our buyer’s club was run in a bit more egalitarian fashion than the Dallas Buyers Club was. Less profit motivated for sure and really queer run here. I only accessed them once and that was the day before my partner David died at Rose Medical Center on September 17th, 1995. His AIDS was quite advanced by this time and David had just been home a few days from a rather lengthy and traumatic hospital stay. He adamantly did not want to return for another stay or to die there if at all possible.

The big issue was controlling pain. All we had at home were morphine tables and plenty of them but they didn’t seem to be working and were a sustained release version. I thought a quicker acting liquid form might be more helpful but it was late in the evening and accessing it through his doc at Rose problematic. So I picked up the phone and called one of my friends, a local buyer’s club member. Within less than an hour our doorbell rang. No one was at the door but there was a small paper bag on the stoop with two bottles of liquid morphine.

Unfortunately, that didn’t work either. So we gave in and went back to Rose for IV pain relief. That did help immensely but David died the next morning at 9 A.M.

I am reminded constantly how lucky I am to be alive today. I turned 65 yesterday. I know that makes me a youngster in this room but in the AIDS community I am an old man. I do think I owe a great debt of gratitude to all the AIDS activists of the 1980’s and 1990’s for speeding up the process of drug development and access to these drugs for people with AIDS. If not for a lot of loudmouthed and uppity queens, including many in Texas, I might very well not be here today.

© January 2014

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.

Posted on

Still Learning by Ricky

Part 1


My brother Bill runs a still on the hill
Where he turns out a gallon or two.
The birds in the sky get so drunk they can’t fly
From that good ol’ mountain dew.

[Chorus]
They call it that good ol’ mountain dew, mountain dew,
And them that refuse it are few, mighty few.
Well I’ll hush up my mug if you’ll fill up my jug
With that good ol’ mountain dew.

My aunt Lucille had an automobile,
It ran on a gallon or two.
It needed no gas and it needed no oil,
It just ran on that good ol’ mountain dew.

[Chorus]

My uncle Mort, he is sawed off and short,
He stands ’bout four foot two,
But he thinks he’s a giant when you give him a pie-ant
Of that good ol’ mountain dew.

[Chorus]

Old Auntie June had a brand new perfume,
It had such a wonderful “pew”.
But to her surprise, when she had it analyzed,
It was nothing but good ol’ mountain dew.

[Chorus]

The preacher-he walked by, with a tear in his eye
Said his wife came down with the flu.
And hadn’t I ought just to give him a quar-art
Of that good ol’ mountain dew.

[Chorus]

There’s an old holler tree, just a little way from me
Where you lay down a dollar or two.
You go ‘round the bend and come back again
And pickup a jug of that good ol’ mountain dew.

[Chorus]

Part 2

When I was born, I began to learn how to control my body and to understand the sensory input I was receiving. Rather quickly, I learned to control my environment to obtain things for myself by communicating with the moving objects within my field of view. My method of communication was not all that sophisticated as I was still trying to control my vocal cords and mouth, but the moving objects seemed to understand and brought me food and warmth. I felt cared for and the master of my “world”.

As I grew, I realized that those moving objects did not always respond to gentle requests and I had to raise the volume of my slowly improving speech. They were rather slow in understanding my attempts to learn their sounds. But eventually we learned to communicate reliably.

At last I had learned enough to be safely around other people and I was sent to school to learn more skills and information about the world I live in. This learning process continued for 12-years until I graduated high school. My first year in college taught me that I would never be a high school chemistry teacher. Shortly after I learned that particular lesson, I joined the Air Force and serious education began.

The first military lesson I learned was self-discipline. This was achieved by forced discipline based upon fear of what would be the consequences to me if I did not do what I was told – consequences far worse than my parents had inflicted upon me. I learned that not all friendly people were “true friends”; not all good looking people were in fact, good; not all “ugly” people were dumb; and most importantly, don’t judge people by skin color. I also learned to differentiate between people worth knowing and those whose personalities were so distasteful as to be avoided.

During those years and the ones that followed, I continued to learn about people, places, and things worth knowing. Unfortunately, I also learned that the world is not a particularly safe place and that tragedy and injustice abound. I learned the world of people is constantly changing, sometimes for the better and sometimes not. I also learned that when the wicked rule, the people mourn.

Now, some 65-years after my birth, I am still learning. Only the lessons are more about me than the world around me. I am learning about my orientation and what it means. I am learning to integrate my 12-year old adolescent personality with my 65-year old adult body. It is not happening very smoothly and probably has to do with a left-brain, right-brain conflict. Or perhaps I am just doomed to have a child-like outlook my whole life.

As the time draws ever closer to the occasion of my passing, I will still be looking to learn what is beyond this life. To paraphrase the attitude of my close friend, Peter, I declare, “To die will be a great adventure — in learning.”

© 18
November 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.