Author: jnelson

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Mayan Pottery by Colin Dale

What can you tell us about Mayan pottery?

Well . . . as a politician might say . . . I’m glad you asked me that question. Before I answer it, though . . . as a politician might say . . . let me say a few words about the question.

The question is a ruse. A feint. A curveball. If I thought for a moment I had to tackle it verbatim–to actually say something about Mayan pottery–I’d be at a total loss. A question like What can you tell me about Mayan pottery? is not meant to send us running to the library. Or to Google. It doesn’t expect we know much at all about the Mayans, let alone about their pottery. I’m reasonably sure the Mayans had pottery, but to come up with a story for today, I didn’t check. For that matter, they may have had Tupperware, but I didn’t check that either.

Yesterday afternoon (right after the Broncos beat the Ravens) I sat down at my laptop but was completely idea-less. All I felt reasonably sure of was . . .

Ruse. Feint. Curveball. That’s what this topic Mayan pottery is. It’s a prompt, that’s all, Mayan pottery, a prompt to get me thinking–to get me thinking creatively. I’m not a Mesoamerican anthropologist, not even an armchair one, so I might as well, I figured, go off on some fun romp with this topic Mayan pottery.

So, after supper last night, Sunday, I started playing around with anagrams. Pretty quickly I discovered that the two words Mayan pottery do not lend themselves to a mother lode of good anagrams. Twelve letters. Six consonants: m, n, p, t (twice), and r. Four vowels: a (twice), o, and e. And y (twice)–a sometimes vowel trapped inside the body of consonant.

Using the twelve letters that make up Mayan pottery, I started recombining them this way and that, hoping I’d find at least one good anagram–and, in doing so, find an idea for today’s story. Before too long I came up with A Petty Romany, so, I thought, I could make up a story about the lack of generosity among gypsies, about how small-minded gypsies can be. But, without being able to do a lot of research–something, at 9 pm last night, I didn’t have time for–I couldn’t possibly today tell you today much about gypsies, about how stingy or small-minded they are.

So, I looked for another anagram. Trying more rearrangements of the twelve letters of Mayan pottery, I came up with Many Are Potty. I thought, well, rather than saying something politically incorrect about gypsies, I could write something about to how addlebrained most of humanity is. If you’re going to be politically incorrect, you might as well spread the insult around.

Now, you might be thinking–as I was last night–finding the word potty inside of Mayan pottery, couldn’t I come up with an anagram that suggests the other definition of the word potty? Believe me, I tried, for a good half hour, but I came up empty handed. It did cross my mind–even though it wasn’t going to help me with a story–that back in the days before flush toilets, Mayan pottery and Mayan potty may have been synonymous. I could imagine a Mayan guest getting up from the dinner table and saying, “Excuse me, but I need to use your pottery.”

By then it was after 10 o’clock and still I had nothing. I was ready to give up on anagrams, but just as I was about to close my laptop and go off to read a good book, I spotted one last anagram–one that seemed almost too perfect for us: a pretty man. My first thought was: a pretty man, this is too good not to use. But Mayan pottery: twelve letters. A Pretty Man: ten letters. I had two unused letters: a vowel: o, and that questioning letter (sometimes a consonant, sometimes a vowel): y. Only two possible arrangements: y-o: yo. A pretty man, yo. Or o-y: oy. Oy, A Pretty Man. No good. I went to bed.

This morning–only a few hours ago–as I was again sitting at my laptop, I got a phone call from a friend who happens to be a poet and she suggested I look at rhymes for inspiration. I said thanks, but as soon as I was back at my laptop I tried thinking of a rhyme for Mayan pottery. Nothing good popped to mind yelling, Me! Use me! But I had told my friend I’d give rhyme a try and so I went to my rhyming dictionary. There were some close rhymes to pottery, but nothing was perfect. Of course, it was now nearing 9 a.m. and I knew if I had any hope of having a story by 1:30, I had to give up on perfection.

Strawberry? Mayan strawberry? Did I want to write about Mayan strawberries? But as I turned the pages of the rhyming dictionary, I quickly discovered that strawberry, along with a few other three syllable berries, was about it for close rhymes. I began to look at some not close or slant rhymes, but to be honest, nothing said Here’s the makings of a story. The best I’d been able to squeeze from the rhyming dictionary were Mayan capillary, Mayan stationery, Mayan dromedary.

So, I junked rhymes. Knowing the morning was wasting, I went back to my first thought: the topic Mayan pottery is just a prompt. I had license to go nuts with it. I didn’t need to find something inside of the prompt, like an anagram or a rhyme. Or tougher still: real Mayan pottery. I could go outside of it. In one online group I’m in, we give each other daily prompts–just as we do with our weekly topics–writing warm-up prompts, often off-the-wall suggestions, weird phrases, nonsense words, journaling caffeine–mind-candy to tempt us out of the comfort zone. A few of these recently have been:

Last Tuesday: The history of whispers.

Last Wednesday: We kept it in the basement.

And just this past Saturday: Peeling an orange.

Coming up tomorrow: What washed up on shore.

I had used this go-nuts license to go outside of the actual words only last Monday with our topic details. Last Monday morning I had been just as lost for an idea, when I found the single word details in a poem by a largely unknown Greek poet–who just happened to be gay–and built a story on that.

But this was today. And it was now mid-morning. I had two, maybe three hours to get something on paper. Yet I was still stuck. Anagrams weren’t going to work. There wasn’t time to research gypsy small-mindedness. Rhyme was no good. Did Mayans even have dromedaries? I began to write just how lost I was feeling–which is what I’ve got here in front of me, what I’m reading. When I typed Did Mayans even have dromedaries? it was, by my stove clock, 9:51. I did a word-count: 1,151 words. That’s a normal length story for me. I realized, at 9:53, that in writing about not being able to come up with an idea for a story, I’d come with one–not only come up with one, I’d written it!
I’d succeeded in talking about something–by not talking about it.

Just like a politician.

And that’s where I began, with the politician and the question: What can you tell us about Mayan pottery? Well . . . as the politician would say . . . I see the red light is flashing, which means I’ve no time to answer. But if you’ll go to my website, you’ll find my 54-point plan on how we need to deal with Mayan pottery.

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.

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One Monday Afternoon by Carlos

     The great spiritual leader Paramabhansa Yogananda wrote, “Every day and minute and hour is a window through which you may see eternity.” The message is quite profound: you have to know yourself in order to see eternity, to come into the kingdom. Although it would have been very convenient if I could have embraced my God-given gift of being a gay man by sequestering myself from the world, I required the guidance of a mentor to goad me into the eternity of my self-awareness. In an act of synchronicity one Monday morning, my mentor made his appearance, providing the inspiration that was to coalesce within my life. He became my Prometheus as I prepared to pummel off a promontory and soar through uncharted currents on my journey toward self-empowerment.

     When I was but a child, maybe 8, my uncle grabbed me by the testicles and drew out a pocket knife threatening to castrate me. After all, I wasn’t an overly masculine child, and that offended his sensibilities. I preferred the quietness of solitude, and I believed and I knew that if I were quiet enough, I could understand the chanting of the cicadas as they raised their incantations like Gregorian chants up to the sun. I knew that if I lay down upon the earth, I could feel the sunflower seeds shaking off winter’s darkness as spring rains caressed them out of slumber. Later, when I was a naive but sexually germinating boy in high school, I landed my first job as a dishwasher at a greasy spoon in my hometown in west Texas. Clearly, others already suspected what I was so fearful to recognize, that I was destined to venture after the passion that at that point in my life had no name. On the first day of the job, the cook and I were alone, cleaning up the back kitchen. He approached with what at the time was a sinfully wondrous sight, his massive dick upraised and pulsing in his hand, pointed in my direction, clearly inviting me to touch, to savor, to worship. With some hesitation, I touched it and loved it…that is until my Catholic guilt compelled me to run out like Little Miss Muffett distracted from her dripping curds her creamy whey upon discovering the forbidden and potentially dangerous spider within reach. I walked to a nearby church, prostrated myself before a statue of a crucified Christ festooned in a scanty white loin cloth, daring not to entertain ill thoughts, and I asked for redemption, for penance, for a sign. In spite of the absurdity of the situation, He did not descend from that cross in rage nor did bolts of lightening strike me dead as I had half expected. He simply peered into my soul with his all-knowing unconditionally loving glass eyes, and in that moment of incomprehensible insight and compassion, I still felt stained]. If only I had known then what I know now…that God always answers my prayers with a yes, a not yet, or an I-have-something-better-in-mind-for-you. After all, my redemption was still out of reach.

    On a spring Monday afternoon in late March, just before Easter, I left the hallowed halls of my classes at the University of Texas thinking about poetry and philosophy, logic and art. The air was thick with the aroma of sweet chaparral and sagebrush; the sky was a rapturous vault of blue. I walked oblivious to my bus stop when he caught my eye, a chiseled, blue-eyed, stud-of-a-man wearing a loose-fitting jumpsuit, conveniently unzipped down to his chest as well as a twirled mustache that only made his beguiling smile that much more delicious. He winked at me behind his black sunglasses and signaled me with his head to follow. Being aroused by possibilities of the unknown, I gave chase. I don’t know if I was shaking in trepidation of eternal banishment, imagining my neighbors’ wrath or whether I shook in anticipation of finally giving in to my temptations…probably both. I was determined that the intoxicating melody played out by the musician’s panpipes would envelop me, and that I would discover the joy of forbidden fruit even if it resulted in a fiery descent into pandemonium. I walked dutifully beside my satyr, enticed by the sensory and sensual testosterone emanating from our pores. We found a quiet place and chatted briefly, being circumspect lest we compromise too much. Our brief conversation enveloped in euphemisms culminated with my agreement to broach my inner sanctum. On that Monday afternoon my infatuations found new heights; we limited our passions to shy touching and ever-so-gentle brushing of the lips rather than torrid love-making since I was so obviously inexperienced; however, I knew deep within the core of my being that this man would in time pull me out of the quagmire of my fears. Over the next few weeks, our quiet interludes metamorphosed into a passion no longer cloaked in the aura of strawberry candles glowing from ruby-red globes or passionate crescendos from Tchaikovsky’s tragic, but romantic orchestrations. He became my mentor, my safety net, the one man who embodied all men. That afternoon was the beginning of a new life for me, and I understood the mysterious spirit that compels the barren-looking tree to bud with intoxicating liqueur every spring, thus enticing the bee to the sacred calyx of its blooms on their synchronized quest toward eternity. I started to awaken out of my blissful ignorance, and more importantly, I started to look at my accusers, daring them to threaten to castrate me again. In spite of the fact that I preferred to practice my violin rather than play war games with olive-hued plastic soldiers, I learned I was a man that March afternoon. I learned that what we call chance, may, in fact, be the logic of God. No one, not my uncle, not the fathers of the Church, and not the sanctimonious bullies within any arena or playground would ever again scapegoat me for their own failures. I recognized on that Monday afternoon that if I intuitively longed to touch a man’s engorged penis or enraptured heart and feel their strength, it was my destiny, my legacy.

     God, that mischievous trickster, smiled upon me for no longer denying the gift He had bestowed upon me. And on that Monday afternoon, I recognized why only I had understood the chant of the cicadas or been moved to tears by the gyrating dance of sunflower seeds beneath my feet. And from that day forward, I re-birthed myself enfolded in a sublime awareness that I would always look with anticipation for the next adventure, for the next ride, prepared to turn my world around.

© 3/1/2013

About the Author

Cervantes
wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.”  In spite of my constant quest to live up to
this proposition, I often falter.  I am a
man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have
also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic.  Something I know to be true. I am a survivor,
a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite
charming.  Nevertheless, I often ask
Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth.  My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to
Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the
Tuscan Sun.  I am a pragmatic
romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time.  My beloved husband and our three rambunctious
cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of
my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under
coconut palms on tropical sands.  I
believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s
mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty.  I am always on the look-out for friends,
people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread
together and finding humor in the world around us.

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New Jersey Memories by Betsy

The
place of my origin is New Jersey. I spent the first 15 years of my
life in a community called Mountain Lakes. At age 15 my family was
forced by circumstances to leave this lovely place and move to the
deep south to a totally different existence. I have had no ties to
New Jersey since I left there–left no relatives behind, and lost
touch with school chums. But I do have memories and lots of them. I
have not had reason to put them down on paper until now. So I am
happy for today’s topic. Isn’t that what telling your story is
about–recording memories?


I
have no idea what Mt. Lakes is like now. But in the 1930‘s and
1940’s in spite of the Great Depression and the Second World War,
Mt. Lakes was an idyllic place. I did not realize it at the time
since I had never lived anywhere else and had nothing else with which
to compare it.

There
was a mountain there (by Colorado standards, a hill) and two
lakes–the Big Lake and Wildwood Lake. Located about one hour by
rail from New York City, this was a middle class community of
business men, housewives, and their two and one half children. There
was an elementary school and a Jr. and Sr. High school, a couple of
stores down by the depot,a post office, and a gas station.
Otherwise it was strictly a residential community.

Our
home was the perfect place to play and to have adventures. We shared
the end of a cul-de-sac with two other houses. We had huge back
yards and beyond that was the lake. On the other side of our street
Fernwood Place was a woods called the Bird Sanctuary. The cul-de-sac
was at the top of a small hill, so to get to the lake or into the
Bird Sanctuary I always was going down hill.

At
the edge of the lake my father had gardens. Flowers and vegetables.
Some of my happiest memories are of the hours spent “helping” my
Daddy in the garden.

This
is also where my Daddy taught me to split logs. (Charlie McConnell
was not one of the business commuters to NYC. Rather he owned a
lumber mill in nearby Rockaway.) I was a rather puny child, but I
learned that splitting the largest logs had less to do with size and
strength and more to do with technique. Daddy taught me that
technique which I have never forgotten and often have put it to good
use.

Our
neighbors on one side were an elderly couple, the Moores. On the
other side was the Noyes family. Their two older children, boys,
were my age and my brother’s age. The three boys avoided me as
they did most girls, except for when they got it in their heads to
play a game about pulling each other’s pants down. Then they would
come looking for me and I was no where to be found.

Among
the other enlightened activities we did that I remember was to go to
the Moore’s back yard which had quite a steep hill, lie down at the
top and roll all the way down. This sport usually took the form of a
competition. Being the puniest, I usually won. I remember Bobby
Noyes throwing up everything he had in him on the Moore’s lawn at
the end of one of those episodes.

Going
to and from school required a walk of a little over a mile. I would
start out through the bird sanctuary, follow the stream then turn
left at the bottom where the stream met the road. I loved the Bird
Sanctuary. It was a wonderful place to be alone or play with
friends. I do not remember ever being taught anything directly about
caring for the natural environment, but we all seemed to grow up with
an innate sense of respect for the wonders of nature which could
always be observed in the Bird Sanctuary.

I
had a rowboat, my brother had a canoe. It was my job to caulk the
seams of my beloved boat and paint the thing every year. That was a
hard job but I was mighty proud of my boat because it was mine.

I
must have learned to swim early in life because my mother gave me
quite a lot of freedom on the water. I give her credit for this.
She had lost her brother to drowning when he was 11 years old. She
must have had to face fears both rational and otherwise. I do
remember well, though that there were no non swimmers or not even poor
swimmers in that community.

Fishing
was one of my favorite things to do. I would rise at sunrise, go to
the kitchen, take out a piece of uncooked bacon, grab my fishing pole
and down to the dock I would go. This was not a sportsman’s lake
full of wild fish. But there were fish there. Out in the middle and
deep down there were bass. Closer to shore there were perch and sun
fish. I could look down over the edge of the dock and see the
sunfish nests. Perfect circles on the sandy bottom, with depressions
in the middle. I would hang my bacon-baited hook right over the poor
baby’s nests and almost always catch something. They were usually
big enough to keep, so I would take two or three of them (they must
have been the parents) and prepare them for breakfast. I was quite
proud of myself and had no compassion for the poor babies left
parentless. What WAS I thinking. I loved the feeling of
self-sufficiency. Sun fish are pretty tasty too. I think I got the
fishing out of my system. I have never enjoyed fishing in my adult
life.

In
the winter the lake froze over. At least that is my memory of it.
The reality is that in my 15 years there the lake probably froze over
maybe a few times, not every year. But I have fond memories of
skating on that lake. The school was at the opposite end from our
house. Between me and the school were various friends and school
acquaintances. On weekends we would gather out in the middle of the
frozen lake somewhere and play crack the whip. Being small I was
usually put at the end of the line or close to it, and at the crack
of the whip, screaming gleefully, but holding on tight, I was
catapulted across the ice at great speed.

Then
we would go over to Powell Street with our Flexible Flyers. The
street was blocked off for sledding. Up and down, up and down all
day long.

Every
summer my parents would take us to the beach at Cape May in southern
New Jersey. We would stay for about a week. That must be where I
fell in love with the ocean and the surf. I loved to body surf (I
still do). I think today Cape May is a gambling Mecca, but back then
the boardwalk and the beach and the surf were magic to me. The
Jersey shore was paradise.

As
I grew into adolescence in Mt. Lakes even though I lived in this
setting, with parents who loved me, friends, security, etc. I began
to realize that I was not like my girl friends in that I did not find
the boys exciting at all. The girls were exciting, but, I sensed
that’s not how it’s supposed to be. The rest is history, either
told in other stories or to be told. But I will always be grateful
for those first 15 years of my life living in a place where I could
learn to love the outdoors, have adventures, take risks and survive,
and develop values that have stayed with me my entire life.

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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House Cleaning by Will Stanton

   What to do on the first day of April
when it’s raining outside, and there’s no indication that it will
let up any time soon. It’s tempting just to lie in bed and listen
to the rain on the window panes; but I know that I’ve been
neglecting house cleaning for far too long, and I better get up and
make a stab at it. No house elves come in here, and it won’t get
done just by itself.

   Of course, I first have to fortify
myself with some hot tea and cinnamon scones. Then, once I’ve
mustered the courage, where to start? I have just ninety minutes
before I have to be at class, so I better hurry.

   Probably the most neglected spot of
all, under the bed. The dirty shoes I keep under my bed didn’t
help matters either. There must have been three months of dried mud
under there. That’s what I get from tromping around outside in the
wet and especially in the dark when I can’t see the puddles so
well. I’ve noticed that the others generally don’t have very
muddy shoes, but then, they don’t have special reasons to be out
and around as I often do. So, I have to clean the shoes as well as
under the bed.

   By now, I’m sure those rare books
that I sneaked from the restricted section over term and hidden under
the bed have accumulated a lot of dust. I can see that they are
being kept company by piles of dusty-bunnies. And, I’m absolutely
not going to use my broom; that would be an inexcusable
misuse. I’ll have to fetch a house-cleaning broom from the
cupboard. And, as far as the books, I can return them easily to the
restricted section without being seen. 

   Once I’ve returned the books, I can
put away my cloak and try to figure out what to do with that sweater
that’s been hanging on the bedpost for the last two weeks, the
hand-made one with the big “H” embroidered on the chest. By now,
the pumpkin juice probably has had a chance to be adsorbed and
harden. The House laundry takes care of my usual clothes but not
something special like a wool sweater. I don’t have a bottle of
Woolite, but I’m sure I can come up with something similar. I
didn’t go to Potions Class for nothing.

   That took a lot of scrubbing, but the
sweater looks clean now. There must be an easier way of doing that;
there’s bound to be a method of doing it in just a flash…and not
remove the sweater at the same time. Maybe I’ll learn that next
year.

   My desk is an absolute mess, too.
Those little blue booklets we are required to write in are a pain.
If I make too many mistakes on a page or change what I want to write,
then I have to rip the page out, leaving ragged bits on the inseam
and shreds around my desk. By the end of term, the desk and floor
look as though Scabbers was over on my side of the room and shredded
all the papers he could find.

   And, the ink’s worse. It ends up all
over my desk. Why we have to write with quills I’ll never now.
They make a bloody mess, and my writing looks like owl-scratchings.
I already figured out in first-year how to concoct something to take
all that ink off the desk. Of course, my first attempt wasn’t so
good: the potion took the finish off, too. Fortunately, I also
already had learned how to reverse that.

   I really don’t mind cleaning Hedwig’s
cage. Hedwig is very special; and, besides, the cage is small.
Plus, Hedwig spends a lot of time either out-of-doors or up in the
tower. I’m just glad I don’t have to clean the tower. From the
looks of it, no one has, at least not for a few hundred years.

   Actually, there’s not much to clean
with those few special things that I carry with me all the time.
There’s one that I keep slipping in and out of my pocket, so it
never has a chance to become dirty. Of course once in first-year, I
had to clean off a troll bogey. That was rather disgusting.

   I’ve never let on, but I actually
prefer to do my own house cleaning in my little area. It’s not
really very much to do. More importantly, that way, no one will have
a chance to discover where I hide certain things that could turn out
to be rather embarrassing, especially a few photographs that I
sneaked from the boys’ bath. I took those photos of Draco after I
figured out why he always seemed so up-tight and angry around me. It
turns out that he actually does not hate me. Instead, one night when
I was sneaking back unseen from the restricted area, I discovered
Draco in a dark corner of the hallway, whispering to Goyle. Knowing
that they could not see me, I slipped quietly close-by to hear what
he was saying; and that’s when I found out that Draco has a crush
on me. So apparently, the only way that he could express his
attraction to me without others ridiculing him was to express it
defensively as anger and disdain. Once I understood, I was
intrigued. And, that’s when I sneaked into the bath unseen and
took the photos of Draco for me to keep. And, that’s why I keep
them hidden. And, that’s why I do my own house cleaning.

© 04/01/2013

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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Scouting for Fun by Ricky

(Three tales filled
with truth, wisdom, courage, and humor.)
Click on the image to enlarge.

     Some adults have memories of their time in the Boy Scouts. Like always, there are those memories which remind us of good, bad, embarrassing, and funny incidents occurring during campouts and even the weekly troop meetings. The following are three of my favorite memories. All these events occurred from 1963-65, while I served as the Senior Patrol Leader of BSA Troop 456 of South Lake Tahoe, CA (Golden Empire Council) where I pretty much ran the troop under the guidance of the Scout Master, Bob Deyerberg. 

1.  One of my responsibilities as the Senior Patrol Leader was to ensure that the Patrol Leaders were properly training and testing their assigned scouts in the requirements for rank advancement. One night I was sitting-in on an oral test of a second class scout working towards his first class badge. The scout, Paul, was doing very well answering the questions correctly until he was asked to name ten edible wild plants. Paul named off nine very quickly and then (like many of us presented with the task of naming ten items on a list) he had a “brain lockup”. After much silence and some very minor harassment (I mean encouragement) by his patrol leader, Paul finally and confidently blurted out—“road apples”. After the rest of us finished laughing and explained to Paul exactly what a “road apple” was (horse droppings), he managed to name a correct one and passed that test.

2.  One summer campout, we were camping near the ruins of an ore crushing stamp mill along the Carson River in the desert near the eastern edge of Carson City, Nevada. During the second night, all scouts were gathering around the fire pit for our campfire activities. Bob, our Scout Master, was acting strange which is to say that he had a shopping bag with stuff in it but would not let us see what was inside; very mysterious and so unlike him. After we had held our fire starting ritual and finished our singing, it was time for stories. A few scouts told some simple ghost stories while others told funny ones in their turn.

     At last it was time for Bob to reveal the contents of the bag he was guarding. The contents were: an enameled bowl of a size used to water a pet dog; a short length of cotton clothesline; and stick long enough to span the diameter of the bowl; and a block of paraffin. While telling his story, Bob placed the paraffin in the bowl and set the bowl close to the campfire so as to melt the paraffin; then cut the clothesline into three ten-inch long pieces and tied the tops to the stick with the center piece in the middle with the others a short space on either side.

     This is the “Reader’s Digest” version of his story. In ancient times a large tribe of Indians lived in this area; on the desert of the Carson Valley. They hunted in the desert and also in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for game to feed and clothe the tribe. One year the desert game became scarce and the mountain game was virtually non-existent. Hunting parties returning from unsuccessful hunts reported seeing the tracks of some gigantic beast. They believed that this beast must be either killing the game or scaring the game away. The tribe brought the matter to the attention of the tribal chiefs.

     This tribe was lead by three chiefs of equal rank and authority. Each chief contributed his talent to the group of three and thus they led with confidence and the tribe prospered. The chiefs were named: Brave Eagle, Wise Eagle, and True Eagle. The three chiefs concluded that they were the only ones who could defeat this beast so they set out alone into the mountains to hunt it down. Several weeks passed before they found the beast sleeping. After locating the beast, the chiefs set up a relay as each of them in turn acted as bait for the beast running themselves nearly to death as they tired the beast. Finally, the last of the chiefs to run, Brave Eagle, led the beast onto a thinly frozen lake; the beast broke through the ice and drowned.

     The chiefs had been gone much longer than the tribal members had patience so after two weeks the tribe sent their fastest runner, Swift Eagle, to go find out how the hunt was going and if everything was alright. In spite of being fast, Swift Eagle could only but follow the trail signs left by the chiefs who were quite swift themselves. So, he could only slowly catch up to them. When he finally realized that the beast was chasing the chiefs, Swift Eagle tried to run even faster. At last he found the first of the three chiefs, Wise Eagle, on the verge of death. Swift Eagle began lamenting the impending loss of the chief saying what would the tribe do without his wisdom. The chief told him to cut some hair of the back of his head to burn at council fires so his wisdom would always be with them. So he cut the hair and the chief died.

     Swift Eagle came upon the other two chiefs in turn and those chiefs also had him cut off some of their hair before they also died. Swift Eagle returned to his tribe, told them of the chiefs’ fates and their command about what to do with their hair. The tribe obeyed and they once again prospered.

     By the end of the story it suddenly became clear to me what Bob was intending to do. He placed the stick with the pieces of clothesline across the bowl of the now melted paraffin and announced that we were all going to put some hair from the back of our heads into the bowl so we could burn it at every one of our “council fires” at the close of each troop meeting. As I was the oldest and the “leader” of the troop, Bob selected me to be cut first to set the example. (At the time, I was a sophomore in high school and really didn’t want to explain why I was missing hair on the back of my head to my peers, but I couldn’t “wimp” out.) Then one by one, every scout present had a fifty-cent coin size of hair cut by Bob from the back of their head. Bob went last and I got to do the honor. Bob was cut and cut and cut. I didn’t go overboard but his cut spot was larger than a fifty-cent piece.

3.  That same summer our troop was camping along the Carson River but about 25 to 35 miles east of Carson City. George was an 11-year old, fair skinned, short, skinny boy with “toothpick” arms and legs and was completely ill equipped for his first scout campout. George’s biggest problem was what some swindler sold to his parents as a sleeping bag. Desert nights can be very cold and George’s sleeping bag was not designed to be used in temperatures under 70° and George did not appear to have even an ounce of fat on his frame to help keep him warm.

     Ultimately, to keep George healthy and not to be so discouraged that he would quit, Bob swapped sleeping bags with George. As a result, Bob spent the night sleeping next to the campfire he had to keep refueling throughout the night until he moved into his car to escape an early morning cold breeze.

     George did not appear to be your run-of-the-mill boy. His interests seemed to center on bugs, little critters or creatures, and aquatic life forms. Even so, no one treated him disrespectfully or made fun of him behind his back; at least I never heard of any.

     The next morning after sleeping in his car and around the campfire, Bob was not in the best of moods (understatement). About mid-morning he had to keep telling some of the scouts to stay out of the water. One scout had discovered crayfish in the river and soon several scouts were trying to “harvest” a few for lunch. Some “fished” with strips of bacon, but some waded right in and came out wet into chilly air; hence the stay-out-of-the-water order. Nonetheless, about an hour later, Bob looked about and spied George up to his knees walking in the water wearing his socks and leather shoes. Bob told him to get out and when George complied Bob asked him, “Why were you walking in the river?” I suspect George was simply pursuing his interest in aquatic life, but his reply was, “Well, I’ve always liked water sports.”

I’m the boy wearing a hat.
At the time, none of us knew Jim Nabors was gay.
Boy Scout Memorial in Washington D.C. — Notice the naked adult male.
The BSA prevented me from becoming a delinquent.  I thought the program was to create good citizens, not to teach discrimination.

© 7 March
2011





About the Author


Ricky was born in 1948 in downtown Los Angeles.  Just prior to turning 8 years old, he was sent to live with his grand-parents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years while (unknown to him) his parents obtained a divorce.

When reunited with his mother and new stepfather, he lived one summer at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force, he moved to Denver, Colorado where he lived with his wife of 27 years and their four children.  His wife passed away from complications of breast cancer four days after 9-11.

He came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.  He says, “I find writing these memories to be very therapeutic.”

Ricky’s story blog is “TheTahoeBoy.blogspot.com”.

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Going Pink by Will Stanton

     I have nothing lengthy nor profound to say about the topic of “going pink.”  Instead, I have just two, very short presentations.  Here’s the first:

     “Pan!  You’re pink!”

     Originally, I was going to leave it at just that, but I decided not to surprise everyone with just a four-word presentation.  So, here’s the second; it has to do with blushing.

     When I was in college eons ago, my classmate Ed discovered at the beginning of the semester that he had a roommate who could cause blushes at will, blushes, that is, with gay guys.  The evening that Ed arrived at his dorm, his assigned roommate had not shown up yet.  So, Ed chose the upper bunk and went to sleep.

     The next morning, Ed wondered if his roommate had come in during the night.  He looked over the edge of his bunk to the berth below.  His gaze was met with a totally unexpected and startling sight : the most beautiful young-male face he ever had seen punctuated by the biggest, shiniest blue eyes in the world looking right back at him.  Ed said that, for a moment, his heart stopped.  His roommate may or may not have noted Ed’s thunderstruck look, but what he immediately did see was Ed’s deep and uncontrolled blushing.  To add to Ed’s consternation was his roommate’s puzzled comment noting Ed’s deep-pink face.

     Climbing down from the bunk and stumbling for words, Ed tried to change the focus of the conversation and to introduce himself.  In the course of the exchange, it was established that Ed was gay but his roommate was not.  To Ed’s embarrassment, the roommate Chris returned to the topic of Ed’s blushing, so Ed resignedly explained that, whether Chris was aware of it or not, Chris was drop-dead gorgeous, and his eyes could devastate any gay guy who met his gaze.  Chris found this to be terribly amusing and stated that he would try it out on any guy that he sensed was looking at him.

     Perhaps Ed took pity on any potential gay victims of that devastating gaze and, therefore, tried to dissuade Chris from pursuing his plan; but Chris proceeded to practice his new-found power upon a whole series of unsuspecting gay guys.  Ed and I observed the unfailing results.

     Chris could sense when he was being admired.  He developed a strategy of casually walking past his next victim, then quietly turning around a few yards away, and looking right into the gay guy’s eyes. Whamo!  Immediate results.  Deep blushing.  I don’t know for how long Chris pursued his hobby of watching gay guys turn pink.  He may have become bored; it just was far too easy.

© 06 August 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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Details by Colin Dale

The setting of houses, cafés, the neighborhood
that I’ve seen and walked through years on end:

I created you while I was happy, while I was sad,
with so many incidents, so many details.

And, for me, the whole of you is transformed into feeling.
     
      Lady Luck.  Serendipity.  Fluke.  Whatever you want to call it, when I found my idea for today’s story it was a remarkable moment.  And thank god I sat down to look for something a few days ago and didn’t do what I usually do and wait until Monday morning.  Looking for an idea, I checked my Bartlett’s, but was unprepared for the coincidence–the GLBT coincidence–I’d find.
     
      Under details, Bartlett’s had only two citations: the first, God is in the details, by Anonymous, and the 5-line poem with its: I created you while I was happy, while I was sad,/with so many incidents, so many details.
     
      The poet is gay icon Constantine Cavafy, known today in GLBT circles for his homoerotic poetry.  To be fair, though, only a portion of Cavafy’s work is homoerotic.   Virtually unpublished in his lifetime, Cavafy is today regarded as one of the great European poets of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
     
      Constantine Cavafy died in 1933 at the age of 70.   Born to Greek parents in the Egyptian port-city of Alexandria, Cavafy lived the entirety of his life closeted.  His poetry was introduced to the English-speaking world by his friend and then equally closeted writer E.M. Forster.  Forster, though, who died in 1970 at 91, managed in his last years to emerge some from the closet.  Cavafy, dying 1933, wasn’t so lucky.
     
      A prolific writer, Cavafy drew heavily from classical history, Greek and Hellenistic.  History, and Cavafy’s home Alexandria with its own rich history, serve as metaphor for the whole of the human experience.
     
      First this–to make today seem a little less like a grad seminar in poetry:
     
It’s not a trick, your senses all deceiving,
A fitful dream, the morning will exhaust –
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.
     
      This is not Cavafy.  This is another of my heroes: Leonard Cohen.  Cohen transformed Cavafy’s poem, The God Abandons Antony, into a somewhat autobiographical love song, changing Alexandria to Alexandra.  In the Cavafy poem …
       
      Anthony is Marc Antony, Cleopatra’s lover. The story goes when Alexandria was besieged, the night before the city fell, Antony dreamed he heard an invisible troupe leaving the city.  He awoke the next morning to find that his soldiers had in fact deserted him–which Antony took to mean even the god Dionysus, his protector, had abandoned him.  The poem has many layers of meaning beyond the historical.   Most say it’s about facing up to great loss: lost loves, lost dreams, lost opportunities–ultimately, of course, life itself.

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
as is right for you who were given this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion, but not
with cowardly pleas and protests;
listen–as a last pleasure–to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.
     
      I’d wondered whether a poetry sampler was appropriate stuff for Storytellers.  It’s hardly run-of-the-mill memoir (“Then in 1988 this happened to me … “), but as a taste of some of the poetry I like, it qualifies, I think, as memoir-light.
     
      But, you’re thinking, what about those homoerotic poems?  I’ll give you a sample of two of Cavafy’s shorter homoerotic poems.    Now, neither one is going to make you go, Oh my God how could someone write that? –but consider when these were written.  Cavafy’s homoerotic poems, mild as they may seem to us today, do evoke the stifling repression that made emotional cripples of men like Cavafy and Forster.

He lost him completely. And he now tries to find
his lips in the lips of each new lover,
he tries in the union with each new lover
to convince himself that it’s the same young man,
that it’s to him he gives himself.

He lost him completely, as though he never existed.
He wanted, his lover said, to save himself
from the tainted, unhealthy form of sexual pleasure,
the tainted, shameful form of sexual pleasure.
There was still time, he said, to save himself.

He lost him completely, as though he never existed.
Through fantasy, through hallucination,
he tries to find his lips in the lips of other young men,
he longs to feel his kind of love once more.

      Tame, no, by what we’re used to?  But the works of kindred spirits like those of Constantine Cavafy and E.M. Forster–written only a few generations ago–remind us of how much we’ve to be thankful for today.
     
      That last poem is called In Despair.  This:
     
At the Next Table

He must be barely twenty-two years old—
yet I’m certain that almost that many years ago
I enjoyed the very same body.

It isn’t erotic fever at all.
And I’ve been in the casino for a few minutes only,
so I haven’t had time to drink a great deal.
I enjoyed that very same body.

And if I don’t remember where, this one lapse of memory
doesn’t mean a thing.

There, now that he’s sitting down at the next table,
I recognize every motion he makes—and under his clothes
I see again those beloved naked limbs.
     
      I’ll end with a cut of one of Cavafy’s best-known poems Ithaka.  You can find a YouTube video of Sean Connery reading Ithaka.  “Since Homer’s Odyssey . . . [and I shoplifted this from a Cavafy website] . . . Since Homer’s Odyssey, the island, Ithaca, symbolizes the destination of a long journey, the supreme aim that every man tries to fulfill all his life long . . . “
     
As you set out for Ithaka
hope that your journey is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare sensation
touches your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so that you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would have not set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

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.

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Acting by Gillian

I have often said that members of the GLBT community are the best actors around. Most of us played a part for at least some of our lives after all: a few for most or even all of it.
I’m not so sure it was acting though, in my case at least, and I can only speak for myself.
I don’t know what it was, and I have never tried to write about it before so who knows what sense it will make.

But here goes.

I’m tempted to say, I was two people, but that’s not quite right; not what I understand, and admittedly that’s very little, schizophrenia to be.
It was not that I had more than one personality and they were interchangeable, coming and going on some undisclosed schedule. 
They certainly were not equal partners.
Rather, my body was off doing its own thing while the real me, whatever form that took, was separate, flitting about somewhere, watching what my body was up to.
I mean, how weird is that?
I have described this, verbally, to a few other GLBT people, but have yet to hear anyone say
Oh yes I know exactly what you mean …… it was just the same for me ……. anything like that.

But anyway ……. Back to my body and soul. Not that I pretend to grasp the meaning of the word soul but it’s the best I can do given the situation; something other than, quite apart from, my body.
My body went on its merry way: working, marrying, raising kids.
I watched. Rather like watching a play.

I didn’t judge.
I didn’t advise.
I observed.
I felt nothing.

That body was not me. At least the life it lived was not.
The bodily me was not unhappy. The bodily me felt very little.
It was not happy, neither was it unhappy.
It just was.

This continued until around forty, when I was swept away in an avalanche of emotion and came out. 
To myself, and that was all that mattered.
I will never forget that moment when I knew, unequivocally, what and who I was.
The two parts of me came together.
They had never been joined.
Not as long as I could remember.
Now they were.
Now we were.

I have been one ever since.

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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Mayan Pottery and How It Came To Be by Merlyn and Michael

     As we go back beyond the time of what most people think of as the era of recorded history, the archaeologists, anthropologists, and sociologists have the bits and pieces that form a different pre-history every few years.


     Our story starts about 32,000 years ago in a village on the Tigris River. There was at that time a famous soothsayer whose reputation had spread for thousands of miles. This was unusual since most travel was within 40 or 50 miles from any given location. One day a young man by the name of Yahoo (not to be confused with a search engine) came to the soothsayer to find out about his future. The soothsayer was shocked beyond comprehension as Yahoo was to be the ancestor of most of the movers and shakers of history; Abraham, Lao Tse, Gautama Sid Hartha, Moses, Confucius, Jesus, and Mother Theresa. All this the soothsayer saw. He also told Yahoo that his descendants would populate a very large land to the west that wouldn’t be discovered by the majority of humanity for another 25,000 years.

     And as predicted a number of groups of the descendants of Yahoo crossed the frozen ice from present day Russia to the Alaskan frontier about 20,000 years ago. One group sought shelter where Sara Palin’s house overlooks the shores of Russia. The state of Alaska must have been paying the electric bill as the porch light may have guided them there. This group was starving when, as if by some miracle, a herd of reindeer passed by and several were slaughtered which saved their DNA for the later Tabasco, Olmec, and Mayan peoples. One of the reindeer was curious and smelled his bleeding relativities and ended up getting his nose covered with blood, all the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names, but he ended up becoming famous 20,000 years later. He became the most famous reindeer of them all.

     Those descendants of Yahoo coming from the north eventually migrated as far south as present day Peru while as late as 5,000 years ago some of the descendant of Abraham (also Yahoo) traveled by boat across the Atlantic following the winds and ocean currents and arriving just south of where Columbus landed just 508 years ago, more DNA proof of the descendants of Yahoo.

     What is now considered to be the first true civilization of the Americas is the Olmec, 500 BC-150 AD, who were the primary cultivators of the early ancestor of Corn which may have originally come from south western South America. Other contributions to future civilizations were pottery and sacrifice. The Mayans perfected the role of a leader god through using the famous golden poison arrow frog’s venom, the most potent venom known at the time, to slowly take very, very small doses until eventually developing both immunity and an addiction to the poison. The royal family could then hold a tiny gold frog that if touched by anyone else could kill as many as a hundred grown men. A room about 12X12X12 was discovered a few years back that was full of skeletons of these tiny creatures.

     Another of the annual sacrificial pageant performances performed by the god king was the piercing of the penis with a flint blade so the blood would bring about a good harvest. We can’t imagine what his appendage would look like after a few decades of such ceremonial sacrifices.

     One of the interesting things about the Mayans was their passion with astronomy. They built on the Olmec calendar which was already at least 1500 years old. They continued revising until today we have a calendar whose origin is about 3500 years in the making. Contemporary voodooists and nut cases predict that even Nostradamus knew of this time, the end of or the starting of some Time Rock, the Mayan calendar.

     A special characteristic of Mayan pottery is known as Mayan Blue, a glaze which has stood the test of time beyond any other. So here goes on Mayan pottery. Take any piece that has survived to this day and put it up against one done today that you might find on Santa Fe’s Art District on first Fridays in Denver and the only thing about the Mayan is that it’s old and characteristic of a bygone era. Beauty and the appreciation of objects are very subjective, sometimes interesting in a museum, but not necessarily in our house. If you compare the old stuff with those on Santa Fe, the Mayan looks like it was done by amatuers and of course in many ways it was. It is nice that there are those who appreciate antiquity and will preserve it for those yet to come and be the later descendants of Yahoo. It takes a study of the Mayan culture to appreciate the utilitarian function and the significance of the figures and designs.

     The Mayan calendar is one of the things we focus on since 12-21-2012 is only a few days from now. Archaeologists have unearthed a Mayan mural of a calendar projecting some 7,000 years into the future. The 5,125 years of the present calendar is the end of an era with the new and productive era being heralded in by the god of creation and war, Bolon Yokte. So we’re safe for at least another calendar and a half. We can wonder, however, what this god will do on Friday.  We think he would at least call on President Obama to plan out our future. They’ll probably do a better job than trying to work with the House and the Senate.

     This will also introduce an era where we can all wear huge feather headdresses and little skirts. Just think of the businesses that can grow and all the unemployed will be put to work making these highly desired fashions. The world economy will become healthy and President Obama will be honored with another Nobel Peace Prize. The religions of the world will have to make adjustments and the new Mayan pottery industry will surpass anything that has ever been on the New York Stock Exchange. Because the god Bolon Yokte is the god of creation and war, through these negotiations the global warming can be reversed to provide universally perfect weather conditions. All war will be terminated and the ensuing peace will save trillions of dollars. Sara Palin will be known as the savior of the indigenous peoples. Historians will discover that this was all predicted before it came to pass by a couple of gay senior citizens at the GLBT Center in Denver.

About the Authors

Michael

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.

Merlyn

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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The Wisdom of LGBT Identity (Living Outside the Box) by Nicholas

  Gay is code. The word “gay” was used by generations of gay men to refer to a lot more than a state of happiness. One could say one had been to a gay party over the weekend and most co-workers would assume it was a pleasant get together while some would know the fuller and more specific meaning. Not only was this clever code, it denoted that you were a clever person—smart, witty and gay—and you went to interesting, unusual, maybe ever artful, parties. Gay set you apart not only as a sexual minority but as a lively, quick-witted, sophisticated individual.

  It’s a good thing to be born outside the box or to be thrown outside the box and have to imagine your own life because you have no standard guideposts to lean on. That, to me, is the heart of the wisdom of being L, G, B and T. Imagination is required for each of those letters. And your reward for each imaginative step you take is that you are blessed with more imagination. Gay liberation simply took that quality beyond cocktail hour. Being gay means one accumulates imagination, one develops the colorful side of the brain—right, left or both, maybe. You just make it up as you go along.

So, here are some points I have learned as I have made it up and watched others make it up as we go along.

        1.) Life is about more than money in this money obsessed culture. Life choices are not always made just on the basis of good career moves (although coming out these days can be a good career move). There are other values to live by, like integrity, satisfaction, wit, intelligence, selfhood, fun.

        2.) Life is not always fun. Sometimes you have to upset the apple cart and put yourself and those you love through some stress. The road to happiness can have some bumps along the way but happiness is still to be found at the end of the journey.

        3.) Life is not always fun, part 2. There are consequences. You take care of those you partied with or marched with or worked out your identity with. You do not abandon the needy, the sick and the dying.

        4.) Still, however, when you’re having fun, really do it. Don’t just have fun, make it fabulous fun. You want to give—or go to—parties that will become legends.

        5.) Question authority, all authority, especially the highest authorities. Defy standards everyday—it is, after all, the little things that count. Most lives aren’t lived in historical epochs but on a day-by-day basis with daily resistance and daily creativity.

        6.) Life is not all about just being young. As we grow older, we grow richer in experience and feeling. Having re-invented youth and masculinity, having restored a number of city neighborhoods, having shown America another model for compassionate, community-based health care support, we are now busy re-defining old age.

        Yes, there’s still that urge for the fabulous. There won’t be pastels in any nursing home I go to.

About the Author

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.