Author: jnelson

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The Interview by Betsy

“So, Betsy, what makes you think that
your soul should be allowed to move forward and take residence in a higher
creature, a creature better than yourself?”
“The application for elevation of my
soul that you sent me says I must demonstrate that I have made a supreme effort
to be honest, trustworthy, loving to my partner and family and friends, and
sensitive to the feelings of others.   It
may have taken me a lifetime, but I am quite confident I have done this and that
I qualify for elevation.   And the effort
has continued throughout my life.  I try
to be loving to people I am close to. 
Sometimes I do get wrapped up in my own activities and I forget to be
considerate to my partner, but mostly I am loving and I do try. 
“I have been conscientious about following
the rules.  Actually, I did follow the
rules early in life.  I suppose they were
my parent’s rules; but when I became an adult I realized the rules were
different depending on who made them.  I
mean, I was married to a man because I heard that marriage is only between a
man and a woman.  But then, I learned
that that rule wasn’t the truth.  And I
tried to follow the guidance of my soul. 
Yes, I did have to hurt the man I married, but he got over it and is
better off for it now.  The important
thing is it was not my intention to hurt him. 
“I’ve always tried to be as honest as I
possibly can.  Yes, I know. I Iied to my
parents about eating the candy before dinner and well, yes, I know, about
having to be sent to the cloakroom that time in the third grade, and about not
doing my homework, but that was just once; and that was before I understood
that I have a soul and that I have an ego that can lead me astray when I am not
paying attention.  And punishment is so
hard on my ego.
“The application also says I must show
that I have made a positive contribution to society during my lifetime.  I bore and raised three children. I am rather
counting on them to make significant contributions to the world. They are smarter
than I, and they work hard.” 
“Well, Betsy, I do believe we can put
you on the short list, but the committee will have to make the final
consideration as to the direction your soul will take.  In the meantime, we recommend you do your
best to follow the straight and narrow. Actually, in your case forget the
straight, but keep that ego in check. 
After all, it’s only an ego.  It
has nothing really to do with your soul. 
You wouldn’t want to sabotage your soul for all time just for the sake
of your silly ego which is a temporary thing. 
Remember, you still have a bit of road to travel before the final
judgement is made.  We’ll get back to you
then.”
©
16 July 2012

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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Quirky Domestic Tidbits by Will Stanton

Nothing particularly quirky goes on around my household. As a matter of fact, not much goes on at all. I don’t live with a quirky partner who has quirky habits. I don’t have dogs or other pets that do quirky things. If I have any quirky habits, there is no one living here to observe them. And, I am probably too close to the subject to be aware of anything out of the ordinary. So, I guess that I’ll relate a few quirky things that I or close friends have observed elsewhere.

I once knew a couple of guys who lived in an apartment not far from here. They invited me and a few others over for dinner. The self-designated head-chef had decided to make cheese fondue his main course. He never had prepared fondue before. I am told that no host should experiment with his guests. Apparently, he did not know that fondue, or heated cheese dishes of any kind, needs to be prepared over slow, low heat. Otherwise, the cook will “vulcanize” the cheese, turning it into a tough, hard lump – – which is exactly what he did. We guests in the living room began to hear increasingly loud exclamations emanating from the kitchen, and we went to investigate as to the cause of the chef’s frustration. We arrived just in time to witness the angry chef ramming the hardened glob of cheese down the garbage disposal. Our quick advice not to do so obviously was not quick enough, for the chef flipped the switch. The garbage disposal started up, made a loud groaning noise, and then self-destructed, thoroughly plugging up the drain. We enjoyed the dinner out at the restaurant despite the occasional grumbles from the disgruntled, would-be chef.

A friend of mine once lived in Houston, a city that does have some cultural advantages such as their opera. He, being the handsome, charming, erudite gentleman that he was, hobnobbed with financial-social elite. Frequently, a wealthy couple of gentlemen would invite selected friends to their elegant home for an après-opera dinner. All the gentlemen, dressed in their fine suits would stand about with their cocktails, chatting amiably with each other until dinner was served. Apparently, one of the hosts had a habit of imbibing regularly in the kitchen, where he insisted upon preparing by himself one of his specialties.

Now, I know enough about alcohol not to find addiction or abuse in itself funny. I have to admit, however, that on occasion, circumstances can catch one as somewhat amusing, especially when remembered retrospectively or if pretended, as in the case of Foster Brooks or the Carol Burnett Show. I suppose that what occurred next was made more amusing by the fact that all these gentleman held themselves in high regard. At least, their expensive suits indicated that belief. After all as Mark Twain once said, “Clothes make the man.” A large apron or even a wet-suit might have been more appropriate for the co-host. Once everyone was seated and the several bowls of food were being passed around, the inebriated gentleman distinctly began to feel the effects from his time in the kitchen. He did manage to wait until the large bowl of mashed potatoes appeared right in front of him, whereupon he chose that moment to pitch forward, face-first, right into the mashed potatoes. His friend hurriedly assisted the host into an upright position. The guests momentarily were stunned observing the host’s potato-covered face, which had a remarkable resemblance to an ancient Greek theater mask. The embarrassed friend realized that, as the mashed potatoes began to slither down upon the host’s fine suit, that the host appeared to be incapable of removing the potatoes himself or preventing their further spread. Two of the guests, having recovered from their initial surprise, volunteered to help the friend carry the host into the bedroom where they removed the potatoes and the dinner jacket. Fortunately, the host eventually recovered; and the guests complemented him upon the delicious specialty that he had prepared, although none said anything about their having declined the mashed potatoes.

And last of all, here’s a quirky tale of a very different nature. How many of you have seen a big, old, Victorian mansion, an Adams-Family-style house. My roommate did when we were freshmen in college. He lived back East. His great aunt lived alone in just such an “Adams” house in Marietta, Ohio. She told him that, as long as he was passing by on his way to college, he could stop by to see her and spend the night. He agreed to.

After supper, they chatted for quite a while and eventually retired to their separate rooms. His bedroom was rather large and with a high ceiling. The bed was a big four-poster sitting on a wooden-plank floor. At the foot of the bed was a large seaman’s trunk. Late that night, he began to hear strange noises. Eventually, the sounds became so unsettling that he turned his light on several times to see what might be causing those peculiar sounds. He never saw anything that would explain the noises. When he was about to fall asleep, he suddenly heard a very loud, extended scraping noise. Terrified, he turned on his light and immediately saw that the seaman’s trunk now was on the complete opposite side of the room. That was absolutely enough for him. Without further thought, he immediately threw his clothes on, grabbed his bags, and without saying a word to his great-aunt, fled the house. He preferred driving throughout the night to the college rather staying a moment longer in that house. Now that is one quirky house!

© 03 February 2012




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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Goofy Tales by Ray S

Ten A.M. and it is getting hot already. Today is a holiday and the Eda M. Fisher Junior High School is closed. I am home alone at our one bedroom studio apartment. Mom and Sylvia are at work even though it is Washington’s Birthday holiday.

I am trying to figure out what I can do with the day besides make up my studio couch bed, clean up the kitchen, and squeeze some fresh Florida orange juice.

Too early to go to the movies at that big theater on Collins Avenue with the funny name, CINIMA, and I am so new to that school I do not know anyone to pal around with.

Instead of getting dressed for school, I just put on my bathing trunks, and with that, the idea surfaced that it could be interesting to investigate the roof top deck of this modest two-story apartment. I could check out the hot water solar heat apparatus; see what the place is like where I’d heard people went to sun bathe.

The more I thought about this adventure the more possibilities crept into my imagination. What if I decided to take a sunbath and if no one was around why not risk being discovered doing so nude? What a wickedly wonderful thought for a lonely 14-year-old boy whose thoughts were now soaring into unknown territory. I couldn’t understand why the idea of being discovered by another like-minded but older man came into my head.

Up the stairs, beach towel in hand, and on to the threshold of the unknown. The rooftop was divided into an area of solar heat water pipes and then a space with a privacy fence and benches all around for socializing and sun bathing. Quite nice and a degree of privacy.

Anticipation, being the dominant emotion, the thrill of doing something forbidden, the possibility of discovery and whatever would or could follow, seemed to move me magically into some other world.

Beach towel in place on the deck in a seemingly remote corner, I dared to slip out of my trunks and exposed myself to dear old sol and whatever might transpire. I became aware that all of this activity was causing a pleasant feeling of arousal, and as I lay there with my eyes closed basking in the warmth of the sun, my hand helped with this newfound feeling of well-being. The day was off to a good start.

“Hey, Kid! What are you doing?” The jarring voice of a would be teen Venus standing over me in the altogether called. When I came to my senses I was confronted with, “that’s what girls looked like without clothes.” It certainly wasn’t anything like the showers at boys gym class.

If in retrospect I had any knowledge of a Botticelli nude–female, that is–this specter looming over my prone body would have fit the bill. She knelt down beside me and whispered, “Here, let me show you what we can do with that.”

Perhaps 15 minutes later Venus was joined by a boyfriend. I imagined his name was David. They spread their towels on the deck, he slipped out of his bathing suit and suddenly the spirit of Eros overcame me again.

It was at this moment I realized that I could and would wait for my David to come and carry me away to somewhere where the gods know how to play anyway they want to, and Venus, lovely as she is, could climb back into her clam shell.

© 23 February 2013




About the Author








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Culture Shock by Michael King

I’ve had numerous experiences where I found myself in situations, environments or places that were so different than what I could have expected. The most profound was returning to the states after two years in Southeast Asia. I had thought that I was involved in an honorable and positive cause. Arriving in uniform as was required, my family and I came from the airport into San Francisco.

When I left the states no one wore long hair like we saw in downtown, nor dirty, ragged clothing, beads etc. What really surprised me were the anti-war and anti-military signs and attitudes. I think I remember being spit on. I still remained in the air force for another year during which time I was looking at my options for when I would return to civilian life. I was up for promotion to major, but knew that would mean a military career. I did well as an officer, however my heart wasn’t in the military and I had to get out and find a place where I could make a living for my family as well as somewhere that I could possibly feel comfortable.

I knew that to return to New Mexico or Kansas was not an option. Neither was anywhere else that I had been or even visited. Finally I decided on Hawaii as the only option. We moved there and entered a different world. I loved it. But in some ways it took some effort to adjust to that culture also. After about seven years with one of those living in Portland, having been a single father which was frowned on, I had remarried and realized it was again time to relocate. We ended up in Denver. Another culture shock, I had difficulty finding a job using the skills from the past until finally I got a job as an art therapist at the Children’s Asthma Research Institute and Hospital.

I had a degree in education focusing on childhood development and had another major in art with enough credits in psychology to have moved in that direction. The combination was perfect for this residential treatment center. I had another wonderful seven years there. It now seemed that six or seven years were how long it lasted with everything I did, each time becoming a part of a different culture. And since I never developed street smarts, I am always surprised with each new environment. I think that street smart people learn at a young age to see their surroundings more clearly without the glorious and wonderful expectations that soon become challenging disillusions. Otherwise it has been for me a series of continuing culture shocks in which I have to readjust my thinking and my dreams of a glorious and perfect life in a world of progress, hope and kindness.

Last evening we watched the movie “The Man from La Manchaca”. I have a different slant on things but the idealism, hope and glorious potentials for the human race is still in my thoughts and actions as I see the sad inhumanity to others in the homes, the workplace, the corporate greed, the national propaganda and lies, the aggression on the innocent, the helpless and those who don’t fit into the accepted molds of the culture that dominates where they are.

I am rather glad that I have been the dreamer and tried to live a perfect life in a perfect world. I see no good reason why my dream shouldn’t be the way things are, except that we probably need the experiences and challenges to grow, mature, learn tolerance, understanding, have causes to work for, perhaps a mission in life or an opportunity to be of service and gain the self-respect that brings about peace of mind and a sense of purpose.

I’ve owned my own business, worked in retail, volunteered, worked in retirement communities, traveled and have had loving relationships that for a while were quite excellent. I have also experienced failures and defeat, joy and depression, hope and hopelessness. Love and hate. I’ve had a lot of surprises and have been shocked many times in many cultures. Most times because seeing the surroundings and attitudes of those around me differed dramatically from my expectations and the amount of experience that I had at any given time.

I have been perpetually naïve, but I trust that the ideals and dreams are but the reality that will exist in eternity.

I choose to live as a loving and sincere dreamer, always thankful and willing to face the next culture shock.

© 24 November 2012

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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Mirror Image by Merlyn

The Image I see when I look in a mirror has been changing my whole life but in my mind the person I feel like has only made a few changes.

For the first part of my life there was a young boy that had thought he had been able to put his past behind him. He did not have any fear of the future. I still like that Image.

Then there was a 34 year old guy that had finally put everything behind him and started over. I stayed 34 years old for the next 30 years. I loved that Image anything and everything was possible. I even looked good in the mirror.

Then something happened Life got boring, I started to feel like time was passing me by. I gained a lot of weight and the Image started to look like a fat old man. I don’t even like to think about that Image

I started to push myself to change it; I lost 60 lbs.

I moved out of a 28 year relationship that was not working anymore and I started over.

I like the Image I see today, I have some problems but I know I can fix them. My favorite number is 69 and I will be 69 years old for a whole year starting next month.

© 18 March 2013

About the Author



I’m a retired gay man now living in Denver Colorado with my partner Michael. I grew up in the Detroit area. Through the various kinds of work I have done I have seen most of the United States. I have been involved in technical and mechanical areas my whole life, all kinds of motors and computer systems. I like travel, searching for the unusual and enjoying life each day.














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An Unfortunate Suicide by Louis

When I was in the 8th grade, I was a smart kid but not a genius. I liked to read books, and my older brother was teaching me French and Latin. I felt a little superior to the Alice and Jerry text books we were given to learn to read. I met this “fellow” from Special Ed which then meant classes for students with high IQ’s. Richard was one of these students. I was reading Ulysses by James Joyce, and, though one year younger than myself, Richard was reading Oscar Wilde, in particular, “Lady Windermere’s Fan.” He even recited some witty passages from this play to my mother who befriended him and enjoyed his scintillating conversation.

A couple of years passed, and Richard told me he did not feel like he was a guy, that he was seeing a doctor in Younkers, New York and that he was taking hormones to increase his/her breast size. Richard renamed himself Romaine. Another six months or so passed, and he had the sex-change operation. He/She recovered from the operation. Romaine was somewhat effeminate but was more unisex, about half-and-half.

A few months passed, and he/she said he wanted his penis back. One day a policeman came to our house in College Point, spoke to my mother, telling her Romaine had killed himself by jumping off of a building. Of course, my mother was horrified. Some of Romani’s female relatives came to visit my mother to mourn. His stodgy father had long since disowned him.

I think there is a sex-change program in Lexington, Kentucky, that requires the patient candidates to live like a woman for a year before they get the operation. That is probably a better regimen.

© 13 March 2013

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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Remembering by Jon Krey

The past is the past and therefore is forgotten since it IS the past. Forgetting it well may be assisted with electro-shock therapy. I once plugged myself into an outlet thinking it was a key hole. Now I’m so very glad about forgetting… something, I can’t remember what.

Besides, when meditating, I’m supposed to “go” someplace in my mind where I was happy and life was fine. Some place by a babbling brook, in the grass, holding some stupid rock, onto which I would place all my bad memories. Trouble is I don’t remember any such place. I don’t remember anything. Maybe ’cause I plugged myself in too much thinking it was a car thingy where you stick something to make it move… uhhh. I’m not sure it was a key hole and not some other kind of hole. Then there was… uhh… uhh…. I forgot.

But what sweet remembrances; remembering all those things not remembered. All those wonderful times back when I was remembering. I remembered so many things… I think. Not sure since I don’t remember remembrances. But then I’m not sure these days. Did I put toast or something else in the toaster? Why is the water running? Why is water boiling in the oven. I found my pants in the frig after I’d already put my shirt on over my underwear which I finally found on my cat. She should know how to dress herself! But I only found my socks in the microwave. Where are my shoes? That’s silly. They belong in the bathtub. Not sure though the fire bell is ringing. Klang klang klang goes the trolley. It’s hurting my ears and they’re already ringing. Why has the fire department shown up? What pretty lights they have…. Oh I know. It’s Christmas time! I wish they’d do something about the smoke in the hall. It smells like something’s burning… besides there’s smoke in the hall… uhh… something… like when… where was that now… and… I think so clearly these days! Did you know there’s smoke in the hall? Was that today or last week? I do remember plugging something into something or someone… uhh… where there was…. Is that smoke in the hall.? Once… in nineteen ninety… or 2000 something. Oh that damned water on the floor is so messy and running somewhere and the floor is all wet and making my feet cold. Why is that? Why is the bathtub running water over on the floor? The cat litter is all in the toilet too. How can I sit on it if she’s using it? I finally found my jeans in the frig but it’s too late. I already have my shirt buckled around my waist and on my legs. I didn’t mention that. I’ll call someone… on… the… uhh…. Maybe I should get dressed now. The door is being knocked on my door. Knock, knock, knocking. Nevermore. What’s there? Oh God he is cute whoever they are and I don’t know but I’m not going out there where it’s foggy… outside. Besides he’s all yellow and there’s smoke in the hall. Liver problems. I ‘member that.

No I don’t think I’ll put on shoes. What was it again I was supposed to do? I ‘member a lot. I ‘MEMBER MOMMA. Some dismembered Mommas. Others dist… well they…. Oh what difference does it make? I dismember my socks in the microwave.

I ‘member tying my hateful cousin to railroad tracks when I was… ummmm… back when gas… was… cheaper. That’s why I can’t remember dismember.

Dismembered chicken heads! Dad was good and the dog gave him head or a head? Don’t remember that too… much Then we ate my favorite….

Now, I should remind myself to remember, but I forgot what to write I… wrote was… to… find that thing I wrote on? Where is… what I can’t remember?

All this seems so distant now whatever that… was. These yellow men are taking me away. “Ho, Ho, He, He, Ha, Ha,” to some kind of a “funny farm where life is fine.” What I don’t remember was that I should think about winding the electric clock! That’s it!
Who are you? Who are these people? I feel like I’m really tied down. Feels good. Not since…. Whoa. Whoopti-du! Off to see some wizard! There’s smoke in the hall too. Did I tell you that? Fire’s warm and bright. I like fire, do you like fire too?

Oh well it’s just a well but not too far down. Remembering things is some…. Times are good but more frequently or are just downright. I’m a frustrated romantic. Lot of good that’s done. Roman, Roaming, Romer, Romance is a word I remember like words from a thing I had sex with, I think. I kissed the wrong correct end which was good since I’d just brushed my hair….

I like clocks, do you like clocks too?
Here I sit thinking about what I was supposed to think about. Thinking is hard on me. My meds are somewhere… but where is… them. Oh, on my table. Who put them there?

Next time… I think I heard… drilling holes in my head, sticking a computer… chip in something… somewhere. It’s all perfectly clear to me now! Yes clearly perfect.

That’s it.! Whatever it was anyway. I can care less what they want.

I don’t do prose… or… cons. I don’t… forget it, I already have.

Alzheimers is a bitch and then you forget it… all. ‘Specially if you have to think really fast’n hard like… me or someone I knew once. Take vitamin C…. A little dab’ll do ya. Yeah Viagra! Someone said that… next…???????

Bye.

© 26 April 2013

About the Author


“I’m just a guy from
Tulsa (God forbid). So overlook my shortcomings, they’re an illusion.”







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Bishop’s Castle and Beyond by Gillian

Bishop’s Castle, where I went to high school, is a tiny town on the border between England and Wales, and about as far from being a city as a settlement can get, but it’s what I had. It had a population of a little over a thousand then, and less than 1500 now. A prehistoric Bronze Age route runs from the town but there is evidence of human habitation there several thousand years before that.
In the early 1200s the Bishop of Hereford built a castle there, hence the name, and the settlement received royal borough status in 1249.
In 1642, the Three Tuns Brewery was established on its current site, making it the oldest licensed brewery site in Britain. Now that is a real claim to fame. Need I say that any time I visit my friends who still live in B.C. as it’s known locally, I make it a point to have a pint or two in the Three Tuns pub?
Some of my friends live in a row of cottages all with curved back walls and flanking a gently curving street, as the original curved castle wall was used as it stood when they were built in the 1600s.  
Now I see it as a fascinating spot alive with history, but of course when I was at school there I simply found it a peacefully boring backwater I couldn’t wait to leave.
I did leave a little piece of my heart there, though. Inevitably, I think, we are left with some fondness for anywhere we spend much time, even if it is all distorted by nostalgia.
And anyway, I was in love there.
I was in love everywhere.
In that serial monogamy existing, secretly, only in my mind, I have been in love everywhere I have lived, and so scattered other little pieces of my heart.

In B.C. I was in love with Sarah who now lives in New Zealand and is a great-grandmother.

Bishop’s Castle, with its few tiny medieval shops, was useless for serious shopping so for that we rode the local bus into Shrewsbury, a town of 100,000 now and maybe half that in the 1940s.
Shrewsbury was founded as a town in the 8th century, built on the site of the Roman town of Viriconium of which many beautiful parts remain. The earliest written mention of the town is from the year 901, when it was part an important border post between the Anglo-Saxons of England and the Britons in Wales. By the reign of Athelstan (925-939) coinage was being issued by the Shrewsbury mint and many coins from that time are still being unearthed today.
The town fell to Welsh forces led by Llywelyn the Great in 1215 and again in 1234. In 1283 Edward I held a Parliament, the first to include a House of Commons, at Shrewsbury to decide the fate of Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the last free Welsh ruler of Wales. Dafydd was executed – hanged, drawn and quartered – for high treason in Shrewsbury.
Personally, I prefer the history of the Three Tuns!
Later, after the formation of the Church of England, the town was offered  a cathedral  by Henry VIII, but for some undocumented reason the citizens of the town rejected this offer. 
I like to think they had enough sense to know that Henry Vlll was mad bad and dangerous to know and preferred to keep their distance.
One of Shrewsbury’s main claims to fame is that it was the home of Charles Darwin.

I was in love with Rosemary who sold her mother’s beautiful hand-knitted creations in the market held in the Shrewsbury town square every Saturday.

I left this tranquil corner and went to college in the rough tough and extremely polluted city of Sheffield which at that time was wall to wall steel mills belching endless plumes of black choking smoke. We used to have “smog days” when the whole city was instructed to shut down, with the exception, of course, of the factories actually producing the smog. Classes were cancelled, shops closed, no buses ran. We all stayed inside with doors and windows tightly shut and did our best not to breathe.
And don’t panic, we’re not going on another forced march through history but I do have to say that Sheffield is where stainless steel was invented and patented, and recent discoveries date human habitation of that area to the end of the last ice age 13,000 years ago.

My years in Sheffield were blessed or cursed, depending on my mood at the time, with a deeply felt and equally deeply hidden love for Jane, who had lost her home and family to German bombs.

Next it was across The Pond to New York City. That’s as far as the ship went so that’s far as I went, at least till I earned some money. It was late October and the stores were all hiring temps for the Xmas rush. For some reason I don’t even remember, I ended up at Altman’s on 5th Avenue. 
There’s a line in the movie Miracle on 34th Street, I can’t quote it exactly but the gist of it is that Hell is Altman’s department store at Xmas. It was all such a new and foreign world to me that I don’t think I was even capable of judging it as Hell, but it certainly was not my idea of Heaven. I mean, Bishop’s Castle can get a bit rowdy at the Three Tuns on a Saturday night, and those Sheffield foundry workers could quite frighten the opposition crowd at a soccer game, but those women battling for basement bargains at Altman’s took aggression to a whole new level. I had simply never experienced anything remotely like any of it.
But one thing I adored. 
In the display windows of Alman’s, and many other of the big department stores nearby, there were wonderful mechanical toys, animated depictions of Santa’s Workshop in one window, his slay and reindeer swooping over snowy rooftops in another, excited children opening presents in a third.
I was completely enchanted.
I had never seen such things in my life. Depressed post-war Europe had had no excess resources to squander on such things. Every coffee break I dashed outside to gaze at them along with crowds of little children. Children, not to mention a few adults, were less sophisticated in those days.
(Some years later I dragged my reluctant husband and step-children all the way from Jamestown in a snowstorm to see similar displays in the May D&F windows in Denver. Dean, a mechanical engineer, was interested objectively in their workings, The kids were clearly if politely mystified as to why we were there. The overall reaction was a resounding hmmmmm.)

The other bit of my heart that remains in New York was extracted that first Xmas Day of my life in this country, when some kind family took pity on my friends and me, poor hopeless helpless imigrantes, and invited us to their home.
How on earth we had met these people I don’t remember, but their chauffeur-driven Cadillac carried us in a style I had never known to a mansion somewhere on Long Island. There were Xmas lights in the trees with bigger, richer lights blazing in the windows. Our gracious hosts had gifts for each of us, and managed to make us feel like much-loved daughters returning home for the holidays. 
I can’t remember their name or where exactly they lived, but I have never forgotten that Xmas and that family’s kindness to strangers. So, yes, New York does hold on to little pieces of my heart.

And anyway I was madly, secretly, in love. Infatuated with Lucie, the woman I had followed to New York as I would have followed her to Timbuktu.
And I did.

Well, I followed her to Houston: much the same thing.
This was as strange and foreign a world to me as New York City but in a very different way, and there for the first time in my life I encountered blatant discrimination.
I worked as a waitress at a diner in a new sprawling outdoor shopping mall in a completely white part of town. On my second day, I served coffee to two black people. Now this was the early sixties and racial discrimination was no longer legal, but I guess Texas, along with many parts of the South at that time, simply ignored that little detail. I was told to refuse to serve them any food and ask them to leave.
Needless to say, that was the end of my job at that café, but if I thank Houston for little else, I am grateful for it slapping me in the face with the realities of certain aspects of life in the Land of the Free.

I finally broke free of my obsession with Lucie, who married a multi-millionaire Texan and now lives in Venezuela.

Yes, I had scattered bits of my heart about, but it was intact enough to engulf Denver when I arrived here, and later, my beautiful Betsy.

1954’s #1 hit was Doris Day singing:

          Once I Had a Secret Love
          That lived within the heart of me
          All too soon my secret love
          Became impatient to be free

          So I told a friendly star
          The way that dreamers often do
          Just how wonderful you are
          And why I am so in love with you

          Now I shout it from the highest hills
          Even told the golden daffodils

          At last my heart’s an open door
          And my secret love’s no secret anymore

My love is certainly no secret, anymore.

1/23/2012


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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Cops in the Sky and the Tale of the Best Little Boy by Donny Kay

I’ve always thought that there existed someplace in the sky a special police force. I’ve referred to that agency as the “Cops In the Sky”. I’m confident they exist for the sole purpose of taking away my status as the best little boy and in so doing heaping their judgments on me and confining me in a prison greater than the prison that I’ve created for myself in this goofy tale of the “Cops In the Sky and the Best Little Boy.”

Let me tell you a tale, goofy though it may be…

When I was born my oldest brother was 22 and his first child was only months away from being born making me an uncle before I was a year old. My nephew Jerry was my best friend as well and together we joined the Cub Scouts and my brother was the Den Daddy. I’ll never forget our first camping trip when we loaded our camping gear as well as that of several other boys in the back of my brother’s DeSoto Suburban.

On the way to the mountains we were playing in the back of the car and I snagged off a tag from a sleeping bag I had borrowed for the camp-out. Just barely being able to read I was able to figure out the message on the tag which I was then holding in my hand which read, “Do not remove under penalty of law.”

What’s really goofy about this tale is that somehow at the age of seven I envisioned that there were cops-in-the-sky whose job it was to come after little boys like me who removed tags from sleeping bags in the back seats of family cars on the way to the mountains. My upset continued into the night and was the source of my not being able to fall asleep, confident if I didn’t remain watchful the cops in the sky would come out of the forest of trees and take this seven year old away to some kind of prison for those who removed “do not remove” labels from sleeping bags!! Plus, how would I ever explain to the people my parents borrowed the bag from how such a good boy could have put them in possible jeopardy as well with the cops in the sky.

What is even goofier about this tale is that I was the little boy who never got in trouble! And, here I was, the one most likely to be arrested and taken away to prison before the dawn of my first overnight camp out! I still have reservation whenever I purchase a new pillow or blanket and remove the label, confident that someone’s watching over me and an alarm someplace is going off! And this was happening to me, the little boy who was such a good boy, not to be confused with a goody-two-shoe. I felt like such a phony!

In addition to the incident with my sleeping bag my anxiety was compounded as a child hearing that Santa Claus always knew who was “naughty or nice” and that God knew all of our thoughts and actions, especially the naughty ones. I was doomed because some of my thoughts weren’t always nice and certainly bordered on naughty especially when I fantasized about cowboys, and duos like The Lone Ranger and Tonto or Batman and Robin. How could I, the little boy who was always so good ever be found out for naughty thoughts like those!

Growing up as the youngest child of older parents created circumstances for me where I was required to spend a lot of time with my parent’s friends who were all older and whose kids were grown. By the time I was eleven or twelve I was already thinking I’d make a better older person than a kid! Typically, there were no other children around. I would need to sit and read or color or play with my toys in a corner until I went home with my parents. What I often heard was ” Donny is the best little boy!”

I remember once hearing this comment just as I was removing the lid from a crystal candy dish in an adjoining room. I then heard the host commenting that “as the good little boy that I was I would only take a single piece of candy from the dish”. How could the best little boy be thinking my thoughts at the time which were to load my pockets with the entire dish! I saw myself as a fraud. I was such a phony.

The more I lived with needing to be “the best little boy”, the more I was conflicted by the judgments of me being phony. I soon realized that if others ever figured out how or even worse, who I was as a little boy who liked cowboys, I definitely would be taken away forever by the Cops in the Sky!!

Looking back I realize how formational these experiences were, especially when it came to my sexual orientation. How could “the best little boy” ever be a homosexual. I have lived confident that the Cops in the Sky knew and were watching every time I hurriedly pulled onto 13th avenue, merely having driven through Cheesman Park or when I would buy a men’s magazine; expecting that the same alarm that went off when I pulled the tag from the sleeping bag as a seven year old was going off somewhere signaling I was about to get caught by the Cops in the Sky and it would all be over for the “best little boy.” My reputation ruined. Cast away by any and everyone who ever had known the “Best Little Boy.”

In looking back on my life there is a continuing theme in terms of the tale of my life. The fear of being caught by the Cops in the Sky and then judged and condemned created a paranoia in me that hasn’t served me in the best of ways in terms of living in integrity with myself. Coupled with the notion of being “the best little boy” kept me in the closet far longer that I should have ever agreed to. After all, several of the family and friends I’ve come out to have said “I always knew you were gay”, and not once have those legendary cops that existed in the Tale I created ever seemed to notice my actions. As well, life was intended to be lived and not restricted by living up to expectations like being the best little boy.

So you see, even though the Tale has been exposed, it has not lost its influence in this boy’s life. Just this morning when my shelf installer drilled through the wall for his anchoring screws, and a neighbor commented on the holes in the hallway, the best little resident went running to the manager to confess his error, not the error of the installer, confident that my status as “Best Resident” in my new condo was in jeopardy. Oh, the saga continues…

© 1 April 2013

About the Author

Donny Kaye-Is a native born Denverite. He has lived his life posing as a hetero-sexual male, while always knowing that his sexual orientation was that of a gay male. In recent years he has confronted the pressures of society that forced him into deep denial regarding his sexuality and an experience of living somewhat of a disintegrated life. “I never forgot for a minute that I was what my childhood friends mocked, what I thought my parents would reject and what my loving God supposedly condemned to limitless suffering.” StoryTime at The Center has been essential to assisting him with not only telling the stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood but also to merely recall the stories of his past that were covered with lies and repressed in to the deepest corners of his memory. Within the past two years he has “come out” not only to himself but to his wife of four decades, his three children, their partners and countless extended family and friends. Donny is divorced and yet remains closely connected with his family. He lives in the Capitol Hill Community of Denver, in integrity with himself and in a way that has resulted in an experience of more fully realizing integration within his life experiences. He participates in many functions of the GLBTQ community.  

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The Wisdom of GLBT Identity by Colin Dale

I find it appalling to think there might be such a thing as a GLBT identity so distinct and so self-sufficient that it might give birth all by itself–an immaculate conception, if you will–to anything resembling reasonable wisdom. The beginning of a rant? It sounds like it, doesn’t it? My defense is to say the convoluted drivel that follows is only about me. Nothing I write is a prescription for others. I claim no high moral ground. That said …

At first sight, I did not warm to today’s topic. GLBT smacks of being a category, or an amalgam of categories. Categories and I don’t get along. We never have. Even though I’ve been known to hide in some.

I started this morning with my favorite fallback trick: the dictionary, to lay down some consensual understanding of the two key terms–wisdom and identity. These from the American Heritage Third Edition:
       Wisdom 1. Understanding what is true, right, or lasting. 2. Common sense; good judgment. 3. The sum of scholarly learning through the ages.
       Identity 1. The set of characteristics by which a thing is recognized or known. 2. The set of behavioral or personal traits by which an individual is recognized as a member of a group.

I next shrunk these down and personalized them:
       Wisdom: the sum of my personal learning during all the years of my life, and . . .
       Identity: how I’m recognized or known.

From the start I saw a trap in today’s topic: the wisdom of GLBT identity. Walk blindly and we may fall into believing there’s some all-consuming identity, GLBT, out of which a unique, remarkably dedicated wisdom springs.

I dispute this, that GLBT is an all-consuming identity–although I have friends who brood endlessly about being G, or L, or B, or T. Instead I see each of us as a tightly bundled collection of lesser identities, GLBT being one of those lesser identities, and the collection or bundle being our aggregate, or overarching identity.

I dispute as well that wisdom–at least any wisdom worth its salt–can ever be the product of a lesser identity only. To qualify as real wisdom it must be the product of many if not all lesser identities, a compliment to our overarching identity, an inexplicable brilliance greater than the sum of its parts.

Does this sound like a lot of academic b.s.? It does to me, too. However, casting good judgment aside, I pontificate on …

For a person to live as though he or she were in possession of one narrow all-consuming identity out of which all necessary wisdom might arise is to live as a human monoculture. It’s to live a life of some simplicity, yes, but also to invite dangerous vulnerabilities and the risk of reaching the end only to wonder what has been missed.

It’s worth reiterating before I continue, I claim no moral ground, neither high nor worldly-wise. As I make these pronouncements, I remain fully aware I’m as much of a plodder as the next guy. But, you see, for me …

I can’t parse my identity. My identity is a sentence whose predicates, subjects, clauses–dependent and subordinate–must all be on hand if I’ve a chance of making any sense–to myself or to anyone else. Am I a G? Yes. But I’m more than just a G. I’m a whole alphabet. G is just one of my lesser identities, one that now and then insists on elbowing its way to the front, but just as often is content to take a seat in the back row.

Remember the piece of the poem by Patrick Kavangh I included in last week’s story about burying a bull? the poem that says “To go on the grand tour/A man must be free of self-necessity”? To live in a singular identity is to perpetuate a self-necessity.

This notion was dump-trucked on me 15 years ago when I realized I had a drinking problem. I should say I have near absolute respect for AA, although in trying to achieve a lasting sobriety I tried many programs. Undoubtedly, though, I relied most heavily on AA. One bit of AA dogma that troubled me from the get-go was once-an-alcoholic-always-an-alcoholic. This had the stench of an all-consuming identity. I rejected this, but to be seen as a good 12-stepper I kept it to myself. I stopped drinking in 1999 not because I finally acquiesced to some dogmatic, everlasting identity–that of alcoholic–but because I just did. For me, as Nick Carraway says at the end of Gatsby, the party was simply over.

Caveat: AA with all of its dogmas and insistences has worked for countless people, and I vigorously applaud that. Again, in what I’m saying this afternoon, I’m only talking about me. And yet …

For me, had I gone the distance and assumed an all-consuming identity as alcoholic-for-life I would have had to one day rid myself of it, of this self-necessity, in order to go on my grand tour. Now, did I gain wisdom in my AA experience? Absolutely. But that wisdom was long ago poured into the pot, stirred around until today it cannot be spooned out and dumped into a saucer as the specific wisdom born of my time in AA. It’s now part of my overarching identity.

The danger of clinging to tightly to a single identity–of fostering a self-necessity–was shown to me only last year. I spent most of my adult life as an actor, allowing that one role to become (sneakily) an almost all-consuming identity. A year and a half ago when I retired from the Shakespeare Festival and in effect partially retired from acting–and began to look for a new ways to discharge creative energy–I was surprised to find the transition excruciatingly painful. I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d embraced my actor identity. Seeing myself as an actor had become a self-necessity. And in retiring I was hoping to set out again on yet another grand tour. I pretty quickly realized I had to rid myself of this all-consuming actor identity, this singular, limiting, debilitating self-necessity.

To my strange, twisted way of thinking, to be free of any singular identity is not to become nothing, but to open oneself up to the possibility of becoming everything. It is, as the poet said in speaking of living a life without straitjacketing identities, to live life as an epic poem.

____

And so, in closing, I’m not able to speak honestly about any chunk of my conglomerate wisdom that’s the result of the G of GLBT. There is some, undoubtedly, but it has long since been mixed in, blended, homogenized–more importantly, harmonized with the whole of my patchwork wisdom.

____

A footnote? I’d set out today to be brief, and I think I’ve succeeded. I looked back over my previous stories, and discovered that I’ve been averaging 1,600 words. Last Monday’s filibuster about burying a bull topped out at 2,191 words. Today’s story is a mere 1,100 words–which for me is a piece of haiku.

© 3 December 2012

About the Author

Colin Dale couldn’t be happier to be involved again at the Center. Nearly three decades ago, Colin was both a volunteer and board member with the old Gay and Lesbian Community Center. Then and since he has been an actor and director in Colorado regional theatre. Old enough to report his many stage roles as “countless,” Colin lists among his favorite Sir Bonington in The Doctor’s Dilemma at Germinal Stage, George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Colonel Kincaid in The Oldest Living Graduate, both at RiverTree Theatre, Ralph Nickleby in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby with Compass Theatre, and most recently, Grandfather in Ragtime at the Arvada Center. For the past 17 years, Colin worked as an actor and administrator with Boulder’s Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Largely retired from acting, Colin has shifted his creative energies to writing–plays, travel, and memoir.