Author: phoyle

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.” He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com
Posted on

Games, by Betsy

1982 was an eventful year: the closet door opened for me completely that year. And I stepped out with my head held high. At the same time the world of athletic opportunity opened for members of the LGBT community world wide. 1982 was the year of the first and inaugural Gay Olympics. This event started out as and has continued to be the largest sporting and cultural event specifically for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. The event is modeled after the Olympic Games. It was early on that the Olympic Games authorities pressured the Gay Olympics authorities to drop the name “Olympics” lest there be some perceived connection between the two events. Thus the title “Gay Games” came to be.

The following is the statement of concept and purpose of the Federation of Gay Games:

“The purpose of The Federation of Gay Games, Inc. (the “Federation”) shall be to foster and augment the self-respect of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and all sexually-fluid or gender-variant individuals (LGBT+) throughout the world and to promote respect and understanding from others, primarily by organising and administering the international quadrennial sport and cultural event known as the “Gay Games.”[4]

The games held every four years are open to individuals and teams from all over the world. Entry into the games is not restricted to GLBT individuals. All people are welcomed into the competition which has become the largest sporting and cultural event in the world exceeding the number of athletes participating in the Olympics.

The 1982 and 1986 events were held in San Francisco. Since then athletes have gone all over the world to compete in such countries as Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Germany. Paris is slated to host the 2018 games.

In the late 1980’s I was making friends and acquaintances in the LGBT community. Though I had never heard of the Gay Games, I knew a woman active in the lesbian community who played tennis and had been a high school tennis coach. I had actually been on the court with her a few times. She asked me if I would like to enter the women’s tennis competition as her doubles partner in the upcoming Gay Games. “What’s that?” I answered. All I needed was the smallest explanation and I was ready to pack my bags for Vancouver, the site of the 1990 Gay Games.

The competition was quite wonderful I did come away with a silver medal in tennis. Preparing for the event was equally satisfying. We actually had a Colorado tennis team made up of probably a dozen men and women—mostly men. I soon discovered that there existed a A Gay Games Team Colorado made up of maybe 200 athletes including swimmers (mostly), runners, cyclists, and many others. We had uniforms—really nice—black with pink trim warm up suits. We were given a send-off at none other than Boetcher concert hall. I remember standing on the stage with my 200 or so team mates with balloons dropping from above when the cheers went up from the full hall of supporters. I stepped on one of those balloons, fell down, and came very close to being trampled by my teammates.

Or was that the send off for the New York games of 1994? I’m really not sure I remember correctly. But I know I did have the privilege of attending two Gay Games events—1990 in Vancouver, and 1994 in New York City. Two of the proudest moments of my life were marching with my team into the stadiums in those two cities in their opening and closing ceremonies.

The New York event drew 12,500 participants from 40 countries.

That games experience was very special in that my lesbian daughter was participating as well— as a member of the Connecticut women’s soccer team. It was definitely a proud and memorable moment for me when I found myself marching with my daughter in a parade of 12,000 LGBT athletes through Yankee stadium to the cheers of tens of thousands of supporters and spectators. (aside:) the reason Lynne and I were able to march together was only because Colorado and Connecticut both start with C. Team Connecticut directly followed Team Colorado in the alphabet and in the parade of athletes. What luck!!

I say we were marching with 12,000 LGBT “athletes.” It is important to note that the event was never intended to be focused on athletic ability alone, however. In the words of Olympic track star Tom Waddell whose inspiration gave birth to the games in the 1980s, “The Gay Games are not separatist, they are not exclusive, they are not oriented to victory, and they are not for commercial gain. They are, however, intended to bring a global community together in friendship, to experience participation, to elevate consciousness and self-esteem and to achieve a form of cultural and intellectual synergy…..We are involved in the process of altering opinions whose foundations lie in ignorance. “

Some of this I wrote about a few years ago in a piece called “Game, Set, Match:” I love this one particular anecdote and want to take the opportunity to repeat it here:

“Four years {after the Vancouver Games} I would participate in Gay Games IV in New York. I was able to share this experience with my daughter Lynne who lived not far from NY City in New Haven, Connecticut. This is when my lesbian daughter came out to me. When I told her I was coming to New York to play tennis in the Gay Games she replied ‘Oh good!! We’ll go together. I’m going to participate in the games too, Mom. I’m playing on the Connecticut women’s soccer team.’ Yes, that was her coming out statement to me! We did enjoy that time together and watched each other in our respective competitions and cheered each other on.”

The events of that day did much indeed to define our very strong and positive future mother-daughter relationship.

These amazing games have continued every four years since their inception in 1982 and I have described my participation experience in just one of the competitions, tennis. There have been and continue to be literally hundreds of such competitive exhibitions from croquet to weight lifting to volleyball and basketball to diving and water polo—all events similar to those of the Olympic Games.

There is another aspect of the extravaganza which is worthy of mention ‘though I am not as personally familiar with its activities. The Gay Games includes cultural activities as well. Many, many LGBT choruses, musicians, and performers of all kinds gather to perform for all audiences, and to share their talent and craft.

I truly believe the Gay Games has more than fulfilled the dreams of Tom Wadell and those others who were its founders. There is no doubt the games continue to bring the LGBT community together in friendship and sharing, to “elevate consciousness and self-esteem,” and “to alter outside opinions whose foundations lie in ignorance.”

Those who work to ensure the event’s future are all heroes and heroines.

Neither my daughter nor I have been to any of the games since New York, but we will both remember our experiences for the rest of our days. I was indeed privileged and I am very proud to have been a part of both the Vancouver and the New York Gay Games.

© 10 January 2017

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

Posted on

Limericks, by Will Stanton

There once was a possimum.
T’was said he had no guts inum.
On the highway one day
He got in the way.
Keep superlative remarks to a minimum.

There once was a sea-sick lama
On a ferry to Rama.
A hippo near by
Got it on the fly.
Oh! The resulting drama!

There once was a hip’podimi
Who loved raspberry pie.
He’d roar and roar
Until he got more.
He was the only purple one I seen.

There once was a purple papoose
Who lived with a Manhatten moose.
For dinner one day
A bale of hay
Was picked from the moose’s toothes.

Here he lies dead
With a tombstone at his head.
But at his feet
A lily sweet?
No—-broccoli instead.

A burly baboon
From deep in Rangoon
Swam in a race with a schooner.
He took out a spoon
And whipped up a typhoon
And got to the finish the sooner.

There once was an old dinosaur
Who loved a wrinkled condor.
He gave her a ring
And jumped on her wing
And neither’s been seen any more.

© 1962 by Will Stanton

About the Author

Will Stanton had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. He also realized that, although his own life had not brought him particular fame or fortune, he too had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. In the SAGE Story Time group, he derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. He always put thought and effort into his stories hoping his readers would find them interesting.

Monitor’s note: These poems from Will’s papers were submitted in his memory by Ricky .

Posted on

Limerick, by Ron Zutz

There was a young man from Lake Tahoe

Whose puns were so bad we cried, “Oh, no!”

Said he with a grin,

“My puns are no sin.

My wit makes no sense ’cause I’m Homo sapien.”

© 13 June 2017

About the Author

Ron Zutz was born in New Jersey, lived in New England, and retired to Denver. The best parts of his biography have yet to be written.

Posted on

Flowers, by Ricky

Seeds are in the soil. Some are purposely planted and some arrive at their location via the whims of Mother Nature. All of them only need sunshine and water to germinate. If the top soil is rich in nutrients, the germinated seeds grow into wonderful specimens of whatever plant the internal DNA guides them to become, whether tree, garden or wild flower, provender, forage, or weed. If the top soil is thin, parched, and poor in nutrients, the germinated seeds only grow into a shadow of what the rich top soil plants achieved.

The cut flower arrangements people buy and send to funeral services are beautiful, colorful, and represent love and

sympathy for the deceased and family members. But the flowers soon lose their glory and beauty as they rapidly fade and wither away, revealing their true identity as being like a whited sepulcher on the outside, but inside being filled with dead men’s’ bones.

So also, are the cut (and therefore – dead) flowers symbolic

of words of love and promises that all too often fade with the withering flowers, thrown out with the trash, and are remembered no more. Better to show love daily with words and deeds of love rather than giving one’s cherished companion dead things to throw away.

People are like flowers. When human seedlings begin to grow in a liquid environment and fed healthful nutrients, the child gets a good start in life. If the parents keep nurturing the child physically and mentally through to adulthood, society will have many mighty oak trees to keep society strong – many willow trees whose flexibility to bend will help society to weather tough and challenging times – many giant sequoias to provide awe, reflection, and respect for all things older than present society. Those children whose parents are not

able to richly nurture, will perchance, grow to be the lesser plants of society being sheltered and protected by the trees. Most of these lesser plants will be garden or wild flowers bringing to society much colorful beauty and variety – unfortunately, some will become weeds.

I am like a perennial flower, trying to blossom every year. Some years I am in rich soil and blossom bright and beautiful. Other years, I am in poor soil and present dull and wilted foliage.

I began life in what to me seemed like fertile, if not rich topsoil. I did not know of any toxicity in my environment. Dad and mom bought a nearby café for my mother to own, work in, and run. Once that was stabilized, I was sent to live in Minnesota with my grandparents – another fertile topsoil location.

I was never bullied in schools. Of course, the Minnesota kids teased me about my California accent, but also became friendly because of it. The accent disappeared during the two school years I was there. When I returned to California with my mom and step-dad, the California kids teased me due to my Minnesota accent, but also became friendly because of it.

As the years came and went, I continued to blossom strong or weak depending upon the soil I was in. When my wife passed away, I was in rich soil but could not or maybe would not partake of the nutrients available. I was an oak tree for my children, but inside I was a weeping willow. After 9-years I finally began to live again when I met 4-men who collectively filled the hole in my heart left by my departed spouse.

Then in 2014 Stephen was diagnosed with leukemia and given 6 to 18 months to live. In December of 2014, Stephen was hospitalized for about a week with 0-blood platelets but treatment for I.T.P. was “successful” so he could go home, but with weekly monitoring. During the next 2-years, Stephen’s blood platelets varied between 110K and 50K on any given weekly test – more or less stable.

Just like with my wife, I had put the possibility of death out of my conscious mind.

In October 2016, three days after taking the Kaiser recommended flu immunization, Stephen’s immune system went berserk. His downward slide to the end began relatively slowly but increased in speed. Of all his friends that I am aware of, I was the only one who had the time and freedom to be with him during this period. On December 11th, Stephen entered the hospital for the last time.

One by one, the doctors tried many treatments, some overlapping. One by one the treatments failed to stop the internal bleeding. I chose to be an oak tree for Stephen while there was still hope but sometime before the 31st, I lost all hope but still remained outwardly an oak tree for Stephen. But my blossoms faded and began to wilt.

On the evening of the 31st, Stephen had given up hope. Myself and his niece Kathy, convenience him to not say anything to the doctors until the morning to see if the latest effort to stop the bleeding had worked. The morning came and with it the doctors. The latest effort did not work. Stephen told the doctors to stop all treatment and revoked his “do not resuscitate” instructions. He was told that in doing so, he would probably die before the next morning. At this point, I became outwardly a weeping willow and spent the majority of my time that day holding Stephen’s hand or arm and rubbing his thigh right up to the end at 10:34pm, 1 January 2017. It was the worst way to start a new year.

After a short while, a gentleman came in to discuss miscellaneous things that Kathy, the only relative present, needed to know and to answer her questions. I was sitting on the couch by the window facing the room door and the others were sitting in a semi-circle facing me. After losing interest in the discussion and spending most of my time looking at Stephen, I noticed that no one had done what they usually do in the movies I have seen. So, I said, “I’m tired of this.”, got up walked over to Stephen’s bed. I reached out and shut his eyes (Yes. You actually can do that.) and then pulled the sheet over his head.

About half an hour later, I was just finishing packing up my things when all the others left the room and started walking down the hall. I finished packing my bag, walked over to Stephen, lifted the sheet, kissed him on the forehead, said goodbye, re-covered his face, and walked out closing the door behind me. That was the last time I saw Stephen.

I have had holes punched in my heart four times in my life. There have been more family deaths, but only four deaths punched holes. I am tired of having holes in my heart. My blossoms are dull and wilting as a result.

It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a forest to protect the flowers of society. We need more forests and flowers. I need more forests and flowers.

© 12 February 2017

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

Posted on

Sorting It Out, by Ray S

Sorting, keeping and/or disposing of the lifetime of trash and memorabilia in the attic or basement.

When to make an ICU hospital visit
All of the above
World peace
World war
The bomb
What and who’s a bigot
The laundry
Why?
Love
Passion
Elevation
Dedication
Desire
Need
Anger
Denial
Procrastination
Challenge 
Decisions
Family
Friends
Sex

On a day like today I couldn’t know what, much less how to focus on one specific “sortable”. As you see there are so very many “ITS” for me that it is necessary to simply avoid any of this and go on my gay and merry way!

Tomorrow is another day.

© 8 May 2017

Posted on

Dont!, by Phillip Hoyle

Surely back when I was a kid there was plenty of parental advice given, but I don’t remember much of it, certainly not many precautionary prohibitions starting with Don’t. Our parents trusted us kids—all five of us. We got freedom. A few years ago my youngest sister, Jewel, said of the folks, “They gave us too much freedom.” I was not sure what she meant but I did know that as a kid I had a life my parents knew little or nothing of. Then as a young teen that life was getting less illegal and more sinful. As an older teen it was more deplorable, but to describe my perspective more accurately, the deplorable self lived at peace with the non-deplorable self. I always liked the freedom, the lack of Don’ts, the trust merited or not.

My eldest sister, Lynn, advised, “If Dad gets angry, don’t argue, just listen.” He was mainly pleased with me, but one evening I had to follow her advice. My protracted goodbye at my girlfriend’s door went on too long. Perhaps Dad imagined I was kissing her too much while the truth was that I was trying to get up my courage to kiss her at all. I wanted to but couldn’t make myself do so. I followed Lynn’s advice when he scolded me in the car. He seemed angry that he had to wait on me. I listened and apologized without saying anything about what I was doing or unable to do, just for inconveniencing him.

My reluctance about kissing disappeared a couple of years later under the tutelage of a boyfriend. After going to his school which offered several classes and then his moving away, I finally kissed two different girls. One of them wondered what had got into me; the other expected that behavior from her boys. My second year in college I kissed Myrna much to her surprise. She got nervous and bit my ear. I thought she loved it and knew I was on my way to becoming a real man or something pathetic like that. I really enjoyed kissing her like my boyfriend had taught me and teaching her to enjoy it as well. Finally I understood what someone had written about French kissing: that it was the French answer to the need for birth control. We kissed passionately, and it did fill in for the Don’t factor for the two of us.

I prescribed a few don’ts for myself. Don’t try to answer all the teacher’s questions; doing so will only make other students despise you. Don’t forget to smile. Don’t forget to stand up for your own ideas in discussion. Don’t argue needlessly. Don’t overdress or underdress. But those are not terribly important.

Eventually I advised myself a Do. Do find a guy to do that really fun kissing with, and do it now.

© 22 May 2017

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

Posted on

Maps, by Pat Gourley

It has now been nearly 37 years since the second national Radical Fairie Gathering here in Colorado in the late summer of 1980. That event was the brainchild of Don Kilhefner, Harry Hay, John Burnside, and Mitch Walker with logistical help from an energetic collective of gay fairies here in Denver.

There are many parts of that event that have stuck with me for these several decades but one in particular comes to mind from time to time. This recollection involves a workshop led by Harry Hay that I did not attend but that I got a first hand report on from James Broughton, the eclectic poet and film maker. I may have been too caught up in dealing with the endless stream of issues that arose before and throughout the gathering to get to this particular workshop. Pressing issues like why was only vegetarian food available and the decision to not have heated water for the showers, something of a logistical challenge but dismissed finally as too bourgeois.

Harry was always all about trying to get us to answer the question “who are we”. According to the workshop report I received from James, Harry had declared that afternoon that we were all Shamans. This seemed fitting I supposed at the time since the confab was called A Spiritual Gathering for Radical Fairies. There are many complex layers to being a Shaman but the one I relate to most is that of “healer”. I do think it is a very worthwhile endeavor on our part to explore the many traditional and contemporary roles we queers are so often disproportionally drawn to.

These often-queer related roles were explored in some detail in Christian de la Huerta’s wonderful 1999 book, Coming Out Spiritually. He delineated the following roles we are often drawn to:

· Catalytic Transformers: A taste for revolution

· Outsiders mirroring society

· Consciousness scouts: Going first and taking Risks

· Scared Clowns and eternal youth: A Gay Young Spirit

· Keepers of beauty: Reaching for the Sacred

· Caregivers: Taking for Each Other

· Mediators: The In-between people

· Shamans and Priests: Sacred functionaries

· The Divine Androgyne: An evolutionary role?

· Gatekeepers; Guardians of the Gates

So in the spirit of this week’s topic of “maps” I would like to add one more role that if I contort my logic enough could be one that underpins all of those listed above and that would be cartographer.

A cartographer of course is a mapmaker. Maps are used to find one’s way from here to there. The larger society certainly has not historically, and is only now just beginning, to provide us with any positive space to get in touch with “whom we are”. I would dare to say that of the roles identified by de la Huerta all are initially engaged in as attempts to map our way. Forms of self-expression that often blossom into roles of great benefit to ourselves and society as a whole.

How do we find our way out from under the suffocating heterosexual cocoon we are born into? I would say it is by being the very creative cartographers we have learned to be. The maps are many and varied some written down but many come in the rich forms of oral history we have developed. What is this SAGE story telling group really but a form of mapmaking and sharing?

All of our maps provide guidance in answering those initial Mattachine questions of “who are we, where did we come from and what are we for”. In whatever forms our maps really are, at their most base level, they are the means for ‘pointing the way’. They are not forms of recruitment but rather loving crumbs left along the path to queer enlightenment by those who have come before, back to our earliest human ancestors. Our job as queer cartographers of course leads to these roles that have great altruistic benefit to the whole dance that is sentient life on earth.

© March 2017

About the Author

I was born in La Porte, Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

Posted on

Maps: Scotland and the Presbyterian Church by Louis Brown

Last week one of our fellow authors made a harmless remark about the Presbyterian Church. I know Telling Your Story does not actually have a religious purpose. Nevertheless, a few interesting things have been happening in the world of American Christian churchdom. To celebrate this month, Women’s History Month, March 2017, you might want to choose to read The Red Tent (1997) by Anita Diamant. It is the story of Dinah, daughter of Jacob, and the plot takes place in the pre-Decalogue days of ancient Jewish history. Women had to go to live in the Red Tent once a month during menstruation and to go there to have their babies with the assistance of the numerous midwives.

Dinah was a midwife. Dinah finally decides to marry Shalem, son of the king of Shechem, fortified city in Egypt. Shalem and a large number of the adult men in Schechem are murdered by Simon and Reuben, two of Jacob’s sons. These two also strip brother Joseph of his colorful coat and toss him into a well. Joseph has the power of interpreting dreams so is taken up by the king of Egypt and is made into a Vizier. The Pharaohs come later. The plot goes on and on with war, betrayal, murder and generally a picture of a really blood-stained history of primitive society. It is an extremely well-written book and celebrates women, all women.

Another religious book worth noting is The Shack (2007) by William Paul Young. A 50 year old religious man, Mackenzie Phillips (“Mack”) whose wife Nan refers to God as Papa, goes on an outing with his three children in an Oregon woods near Multnomah Falls, and a murderer abducts his 6 year old daughter Melissa and murders her. Local Police and even the FBI go on a search for the girl and find her blood-stained dress in a Shack. Mack looks at the red dress and is horrified. Mack gets very angry with God for permitting such a crime to have taken place. Why wasn’t God there to protect his daughter? A few months later Mack received a short note from “Papa” (from God?) asking him to come to the Shack, the scene of the last sign of Missy (Melissa) was found.

Mack doubted the note actually came from God but accepted the invitation, and went with a gun in case the note was a ruse, a note sent by the murderer of Melissa or other malefactor. Once Mack gets to the Shack, he falls asleep and has a dream in which he visits with God, a black woman, the Holy Spirit, an Asian woman and with Jesus. He quarrels with God, but assists Sarayu, the Holy Spirit, with arrangements for his daughter’s burial. He finds the location of his daughter’s cadaver by following red signs on rocks and trees that the murderer had previously placed there. The new male God assists Jake with this discovery.

Mack wakes up from his dream, goes with the local police and discovers Missy’s body lying in a cave. I saw the movie of this book and everybody wept when Missy gets buried in a graveyard that was heavily decorated with flowers bay Sarayu. The Shack was an unusually well-written story. It discusses Christianity honestly.

If you recall, the other religious work that impressed me was the poetry of Rumi. Last night on MSNBC I saw a documentary about a Scottish doctor who got a job with his wife Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Scottish doctor was gay. When he got to Riyadh, he was forced to live in a dirty apartment, and, when he tried to make contact with any of a large number of willing same-sex partners, the religious police caught on to him, they spied on him, then threatened to send him to jail. Arabian homophobia does not come from the Koran, in my opinion, it comes from the Arabian government trying to brown-nose Queen Victoria, our true larger enemy.

Speaking of Scotland, the Church of Scotland is the Presbyterian Church. Donald Trump is a Scottish Presbyterian whereas my family were English Presbyterians. The Presbyterian Church is said to be the boring church. I am spiritually a Presbyterian, although, since I do not own property or have a million dollars in the bank, I actually do not qualify to become a “real” member of the Presbyterian Church which is ever so slightly snobby. But I am still knocking on their doors.

I descend from the Reverend Robert Brown who obtained his MDiv (Master of Divinity) from the University of Glasgow in 1725 and also from the right reverend James Bishop Wilcox who established the Presbyterian seminary in Middlebury, Vermont around 1830. Reverend Robert Brown became an itinerant minister in Northern Ireland. James Bishop Wilcox married a certain Prudence Aldrich and had many children, however, many of these children were still-born. In the daguerreotype from around 1835 I used to have of Prudence Aldrich, she looked very bitter in a Puritanical sort of way. My grandmother told me that was because of the many miscarriages she suffered.

© 20 March 2017

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

Posted on

My Gay Husband, by Jude Gassaway

Just because I am rather Butch, do not assume that I don’t have a man husband.

In the Spring of 1987, I went to the Desert & Mountain States Lesbian & Gay Conference in Albuquerque, where I met Hal and his partner, Gene, hosts for the event. Even though Hal could not direct me to a place in town where I might ‘parknik’ and spend the night for free in my truck, he was prescient in his advice to a strange Lesbian: that the entertainment for Saturday night, although a pair of men, was actually geared to both men’s and women’s senses of humor; and was not a man-only event. Romanofsky and Phillips was a good show.

I spent the night in the high school auditorium’s parking lot, for free.

The next year, the D&MS L&G conference was held in Denver. I arrived early and immediately ran into Hal. He demanded that we exchange last names, phone numbers, and addresses, right there, and he issued a standing invitation: Whenever doing any geology or travel in New Mexico, to be sure to stop by for a shower, laundry, fresh water, and I could sleep in his driveway, for free. Plus, the person who lived in the host city was responsible for finding a superb Thai restaurant, for a soon to be traditional Saturday night dinner, which I was able to do (Thai Heip).

The first Seminar that I attended was led by BJ Peck, a local therapist. Titled: Alcohol and 12-step programs. There were a dozen chairs arranged in a circle. I sat at 8 o’clock, and watched the others arrive. The attendees were all women I knew from Denver, some therapists, and others from the Denver Women’s Chorus, from the Women’s Coming Out Group at the Center, and from local AA groups. There was an empty chair to my left. Just as BJ got up to close the door and start the meeting, Hal walked by, caught my eye, and he came in and occupied the last seat, next to me. Hal was not known to the others in the room.

BJ started the introductions which included our reasons for being there, and we went clockwise around the room. Just like an AA Meeting: “Hi, my name is Jude and I am an alcoholic. I attend the Gay AA groups, and my interest in this group is to see what other recovery groups there are in Denver, and….” turning to the man on my left, I continued, “This is my husband, Hal.”

Hal, being both adult and sober, was able to introduce himself and proceed as if he hadn’t just gotten married to a Lesbian. We have been married ever since.

We communicate by frequent e-mails (calling each other Husby and Wiffi). Sometimes, Hal calls me his “Sweet Petunia Blossom”. This year is our 29th Anniversary.

© May 2017

About the Author

Retired USGS Field Geologist.
Founding member, Denver Womens Chorus 


Posted on

Ghosts, by Lewis Thompson

Ghosts are not the spirits of the dead hanging around to haunt us. They are creations of our own feelings of guilt. Regret is the only ghost we have to fear.

© 24 April 2017

About the Author

I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth. Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.