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
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Away from Home, by Betsy

Home is where the heart is and my heart has changed location many times. In my adult life that has been on the average every 10 years or so. I’ve noticed that the older I get the harder it is to move—to change my home. I guess we become less flexible in many ways as we age. This is a sad fact for the 3 million elderly Americans who are now living away from home in so called nursing homes because they can no longer take care of themselves. I’m sure that there is not a middle aged person or elder anywhere who does not pray everyday that he/she will not be one of those who must at some time live away from home. I certainly am one of those.

My first move was at the age of 15. I had to move with my parents, brother, and sister from New Jersey to Louisiana. That move in itself resulted in a huge culture shock but I was young and resilient and adjusted fairly easily. I spent three years of high school in small town Louisiana, assimilated quite easily into the culture, but I never felt in my heart that it was my home. Not so for my brother and sister who adopted the southern life style and called it home for the rest of their lives. After the three years of high school, I left the south never to return save for visits to my parents. I returned east to New York State to attend college.

After college I married a man, settled in Rochester, New York where my three children were born. We actually had a house in Scottsville, NY, a rural community near Rochester. All told, we lived in the area for six years. At the age of 20 something that seems like a long, long time. Then came the opportunity to live in a foreign country for a year. So we sold our house and moved to the Netherlands with the 3 children age 2-6. This was not a sad move as we knew from the beginning that Scottsville was a temporary situation, and besides, we were focused on our new adventure in a foreign country.

We ended up staying in Holland for 2 and 1/2 years—not 1 year as originally planned. We lived in three different apartments in the same place, the ancient city of Leiden. Needless to say, the Netherlands never felt like home—foreign language, foreign customs, unfamiliar food, clothes, etc. In spite of this and the joy of returning to the US, we were at loose ends upon our arrival back home in the US because my husband had to complete his deferred mandatory military service of two years and we knew not where that would be. We were truly homeless for a couple of months until he was assigned to Fort Derrick, Maryland, germ warfare center of the USA.

There we lived for two years—on an army post in Maryland—a place with a lifestyle almost as unfamiliar as the deep south or the Netherlands. Life was good at Ft. Derrick, but that place never felt like home either. I can imagine that military families who are jockeyed around frequently without much prior notification feel much the same. My guess is that for military families the post or base culture and lifestyle is their heart home regardless of where it is located.

Our move from Ft. Derrick and out of the army was to Denver. Our home in Park Hill was the first permanent-feeling home I had experienced in my adult life. We actually lived in the same house for almost fifteen years. Park Hill neighborhood, Denver, Colorado was my first heart home. A place I knew I would live for many years and potentially could live there the rest of my life. This, of course, would not come to pass because after 15 years in this home my life changed, my marriage ended, my children were grown and leaving home. This is when I came out as a lesbian. I continued to live in Park Hill in another house. After I met Gill and we decided to live together, we bought yet another house in the neighborhood together and lived there for 12 years. Park Hill had been my heart home for 40 years although I had lived in four different houses in the neighborhood during that time.

It rather reminded me of the backpacking trips in the Colorado mountains we took every summer for a number of years as our children were growing up. We knew we would not be sleeping in the same place more than one night. Every home we established on the journey was temporary, yet the mountain environment was our home away from home. Much the same as the many trips Gill and I took in our camper van. We would search for the perfect campsite and once found settled in and made it our home at least for a night or sometimes for several days and nights. In these cases, however, I think of our stopping place more as a nest rather than a home. The total mountain environment was our home when backpacking and moving on everyday. The van was our home when on the road trips, the campsite our nest.

A few years ago we decided to move to Lakewood. Park Hill was becoming too noisy and too young. I no longer had children in Denver, Gill had no ties to the neighborhood or the city of Denver. We had some friends living in an HOA community in Lakewood and we liked the area, so we started looking at a couple of the units for sale. Next thing we knew we were moving to Lakewood. I did not anticipate that I would feel away from home for the next few years. But I did, in spite of the fact that I liked our new home. Finally, though five years after our move I am well settled in there and love the quiet, peaceful, and friendly environment. It feels much more like home now.

Yet, Gill and I both spend a lot of time in Denver. Since I moved to Lakewood, one of my daughters moved from Baltimore to Denver. She is settled in a house in Park Hill—her heart home. Part of my heart is still there for sure. But Lakewood Green is my home now and it feels like home. I honestly do not think I have it in me to establish another home—at least not a heart home—a nest maybe, but not a heart home. One of my final supplications may well be that my last departure from my heart home be in a box. I do hope I will be one of the lucky ones and not ever be forced to move to a care facility away from home.

© 1 August 2015

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.

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Purple, by Will Stanton

How much can one say about purple? The person who chose this topic told me that he had something quite special in mind. I don’t. So, I guess I will have to settle with simply commenting upon a few situations involving the color purple which I have observed over the years.

To start off with, I’ll be blunt and succinct about this first example just to get it out of the way.
Unfortunately (and I will not dwell on these points, either), purple often can be an indication of some serious medical crisis. I recall seeing a very elderly, fragile man whose lips were a scary dark purple, almost black. Of course, we all are familiar with the ominous purple lesions too often seen on people of our generation, Kaposi’s sarcoma, the infection with human herpesvirus that often has been associated with AIDS. And, if you permit me to quickly mention it, I never will erase from my memory seeing the faint streaks of purple as I watched my partner die from lung-cancer. Enough of that, however.
Moving on, some people claim that certain ethnic cultures prefer various colors. I recall early in my education, I worked one summer for an architect, my entertaining the idea that I might choose architecture as a profession. The firm, at that time, was drawing up plans for some low-income housing, most of the residents predicted to be blacks. One architect stated that a major color theme for the interior would be the color purple “because blacks like the color purple.” His comment struck me as an over-generalization, although I do recall seeing groups of blacks elegantly dressed in their Sunday finest at Black Eyed Pea. Often, their suit-coats and fancy dresses were in various shades of purple.
The school color for South High School is purple, a color most prominently displayed on football outfits. Unlike the 1950s or 60s, I never see, these days, students wearing school jackets or shirts sporting the color purple. I have seen some girls, however, with purple hair. 
I also know someone who claims the color of his vehicle, known as a “Cube,” is burgundy, although it looks more like a dark purple to me. I have to look carefully in the sunlight to conclude that, however.
Here, I have another opportunity to use one of my favorite phrases, “bloviating ignoramus.” I had no desire ever to watch Rush Limbaugh on TV, although I occasionally have stumbled upon some clips on the news. I recall seeing Rush so fired up and blustering with some false accusation he wished to spread about someone whom he hates that, I swear, his face seemed to be turning purple. Somehow, he appears to have avoided a heart attack or stroke.
I have witnessed that purple-faced phenomenon first-hand, too, with a local intellectual-Neanderthal whom I refer to as “Neanderthal-Joe.” Back in the early days of the Bush junta and the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I casually mentioned to Joe that I was disappointed with Bush. Joe stood up, starting screaming at me, stomping around the room, slathering at the lips. He retorted that “Bush is doing God’s work!” His face literally was turning purple.
That happened also with a mutual acquaintance and good friend of Joe, a man who quickly had become a millionaire working for the sleaziest mortgage-banking company in America. When the Colorado Supreme Court declared Amendment 2, which in effect denied civil rights to gays, was unconstitutional, this man was infuriated, stating to me that, “Nine unelected men in black robes denied the will of the people.” I “pushed his button” by replying, “When I was in grade school, we were taught that America is a constitutional democracy.” At that, he exploded, sputtering and shouting. His face was a slightly different shade of purple from Joe’s.
Last of all, and on a more positive side, there also are some purple things that give me great pleasure. I have enjoyed seeing nature’s paintbrush at work with purple flowers, sunsets, Purple Martin birds, and bushes of wild berries, so dark that they look almost black. And, who can resist a heaping helping of homemade berry cobbler? Now, there’s something purple that is enjoyable to think about.

© 8 January 2016

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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Acceptance, by Ricky

While I was under 6-years old, I enjoyed playing with both boys and girls whenever they were around. I was not particular as to the items we played with either. If I was at my house, we played with my toys and if at another’s home, we played with their toys, which would include dolls if the playmate was a girl.

Somewhere between 3 and 4-years old, one of the girl playmates and I played doctor and we both learned the difference between girls and boys. Of course we got caught, but the visual images could not be erased.

As I aged to 6-years old and above, I gravitated to playing with boys only as the girls suddenly had cooties. I gave up playing with dolls and chose to play more active games like cowboys and Indians or war in an obvious imitation of the movies on television. For some reason, I never wanted to play Peter Pan after I saw the Disney animated feature. Perhaps I did want too, but my other playmates thought playing it was too sissy like.

At age 9 ¾ (not to be confused with platform 9 ¾ in the Kings Cross station), another boy and I fondled each other two nights in a row. Up until then, I never desired to see another person naked, but from those two days forward, I wanted to see other boys’ genitals. I had no desire to see girls’ private areas because I had learned playing doctor that girls have nothing to play with down there whereas, all boys have a built-in toy.

I experienced both oral and anal sex at age 10, learned about masturbation and had my first orgasm at age 11. At 11 I also noticed that I was attracted to some boys but not others. Since, I was still in the girls-have-cooties frame of mind, I thought nothing of it. However, as I continued to age, I became increasingly aware that my schoolmates no longer believed in females having cooties. That is when I began to feel different because I was not attracted to girls, only boys. I didn’t dislike girls and had several classmates that I got along with really well. If the opportunity had presented itself, I would have willingly gone to bed with them. But no such opportunity occurred and I became more and more confused and worried. I kept telling myself that I would probably “grow out of” my interest in males and I accepted that and internalized it for years.

I remained hopeful until 2010, when I finally accepted that I was never going to change and I was, in fact, gay. But now I am confused again.

Based upon my life experience growing up, I believe that children about 5 or 6 began to prefer being around members of their own gender. It is just my opinion as I have never read anything about child development in that context. It is just a self-declared fact I “made up” based upon my observations. So, why am I confused now?

I have recently watched several “coming out” stories that pre-teen and young teens have posted on YouTube. Most of them parallel my experience at that age except for one major difference. In most cases the boys state that they knew they were different at young ages. I didn’t know at that age, so how can they know? Is my so called natural-preference-for-one’s-own-gender-when-young theory real or is it just a desire to play active “boy games” and not passive doll games? Is it really a sexual attraction these video coming out story boys feel or just a non-sexual desire to be with and do boy things that they are misinterpreting as evidence or proof they are gay? Are they, in fact, in the early stages of puberty (as I was) at ever increasingly younger ages and these desires really are “sexual” in nature or just curiosity?

I just don’t know the answer to my questions. Until some straight boys of the same ages tell their stories on how they came out as heterosexual, there is nothing to compare the experiences of the two groups. So, I’ll just accept that I am going to be confused about these questions and probably something else as well for the foreseeable future.

© 21 December 2015

About the Author

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

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

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

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

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Alice’s Adventure in Purple Passionland, by Ray S

The question had been looming in my frustrated mind for at least forty-five minutes. Where the hell am I, and what can I do? In my haste to leave for this dinner date I neglected to confirm the specifics like apartment number. When I had confirmed that I was at the right building, I was unable to find their names on the directory much less their apartment number. This occurred after mindless wandering between a couple of other similar high-rise buildings. In case you wonder why I failed simply to use my cell phone to let them come rescue me from the street people, I couldn’t remember their number. Would the papers announce: “Little old man found comatose under a loading dock; Doctors suspect senior molestation.”

At that moment I looked up to see two men approaching. Who else but Marty and Bob, one of my hosts and the other dinner guest whom I hadn’t seen for at least a year. I dropped my bag and almost floored them as I threw my arms around them and kissed my saviors. “We thought you had forgotten about tonight,” was all they could say in disbelief, probably thinking, “He really must be slipping.”

As dinner was about ready friend Bob produced a small box of hors d’oeuvres and invited all to sample freshly made brownies. They were made by him and Betty Crocker with the addition of Bob’s own prepared formula of something with the unfamiliar name “Lower List” and “Purple Mist.”

Then Marty’s husband Tucker inquired, “Haven’t you ever smoked pot?” He was incredulously amazed that it was possible that pot wasn’t a part of everyone’s life.

Bob allowed as how just a crumb of the “edible” would be okay. “Go ahead; take this chocolately bit. It won’t hurt.” I later learned that all three of the boys were tripping along nicely. I am reminded of Alice and the bottle with the inscription: DRINK ME.

Sometime between the soup and salad courses I began to wonder at Marty’s mastering the kitchen activities, but the plated dinners made it to the table perfectly. About part way into the salad course and then to entrée, I became aware of a soft haze dropping down over the dinner guests. Having my trained eye for color I can describe for you that it was soft and transparent and in shadings of lavender edged in the finest corona of deep purple no more than a thirty-second of an inch wide. I had been told that that little crumb MIGHT start to react but not to worry.

Dessert was a luscious apple strudel a la mode. I looked down at it on its dessert plate, and it looked up at me as if to say: TRY ME, you’ll like it.” I’d heard that before.

I was enveloped in that Purple Mist when I heard the other three discussing:

What can we do with his car?

It’s parked on the street.

Well, he certainly can’t drive it.

They decided to see if I was able to walk. So Tucker decided to see if I could walk twenty feet. Success! So I could accompany Bob to show him if I could find my car, and then he would drive it into the garage. Then what are we going to do with him besides an anti-climax of strong coffee—as if it made any difference.

What fun I was having wallowing in all of this attention. Yes it was another time and place.

Dear Bob had done wonderfully guiding the old sedan to the garage, after which he took leave of our jolly band. For the next three hours some sort of trigger activated my talking machine. Marty and Tucker kept an eye on their errant guest by sitting up and encouraging other-worldly philosophies on how love prevails.

About 3:30 AM Marty pointed me to the guest bedroom with the firm suggestion I fall into the bed. Tucker said “Good night or morning.” and the two of them offed to their own bed, with the assurance I’d be wakened for breakfast.

After some coffee and fruit I found a good degree of sobriety and lots of sleepiness. No more ethereal lavender-purple mist. As I set about the trip back home, I reviewed this most recent TRIP and what gratitude I had for my two Fairy God Fathers.

Pulling out of the garage, I stopped at the gate and looked up to their balcony and there the two of them were waiving their magic wands in a farewell gesture with one hand while holding onto their diamond tiaras with the other.

“Adieu, my two Fairy queens, with love and appreciation for the finer joie d’vie.”

Alice

Denver, © 7 March 2016

About the Author

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Forgiveness, by Phillip Hoyle

I grew up in a religious community that preached forgiveness of sin, that awful impediment to right relationship with the divine. One sought salvation or, more exactly, reconciliation with God and sought baptism as a symbol of the washing away of sin. Our church taught that baptism was not magically cleansing but symbolically so. Magic and miracles belonged to the pre-Enlightenment past. The religion was modern, rational, and even democratic. Still, the religious life and congregational experience were not without feeling. As members tried to live what was often called the Christian life some folk felt forgiveness, others did not.

Forgiveness was tied in with a moral insistence that if we were to be forgiven, we must be forgiving. For me, the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi seemed to capture the relationship. It ends with these words:

O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

To my way of thinking, that sixth line could easily and logically read, “It is in forgiving that we are forgiven.” The religious and moral sentiment was: if we wanted “in” we had to invite others in, if we wanted love we had to love, if we wanted hope we had to offer hope to others.

When I was around twenty-five I talked on the phone to a woman who could not forgive herself for an abortion she had sought years before. From my naïve and inexperienced perspective I suggested that God had already forgiven her. I guess I was kind of pep talking her into a theological affirmation that somehow didn’t address the forgiveness issues in her life. In the ensuing years I replayed that conversation and eventually heard in her voice evidence that she was drunk. (As I said, I was naïve.) I suspect that she probably called a different church every time she took up the bottle. There was something in her behavior that harkened back to experiences, teachings, accusations, probably preaching, and perhaps emotional instability. The only thing I could say about my end of the conversation is that I was open, positive, caring, and long-suffering. Eventually I came to understand how difficult forgiveness could be for some folk, especially in being able to forgive themselves or, in a religious sense, to accept that God has forgiven them. My twenties-something world was so simple. I was not plagued with guilt feelings; I was preoccupied with the challenges of career and family-building, enjoying life in a city church where I wasn’t expected to pray for rain. (I had left small churches in farm towns.)

Over the years of ministerial practice I learned to be more compassionate to and tolerant of other people whose beliefs sometimes seemed pathetic to me. I learned to listen with greater complication and to move myself into work most appropriate to my gifts. I felt good in my ministry. Still I knew more and more that I was living in a strange and probably unhealthy environment. My homosexual proclivity placed me in a precarious position, especially as the conservative powers of the 1980s and 90s focused more and more on a concept of otherness, opposed the gay and lesbian search for freedom as legalizing the unpardonable sin. I knew better. I knew the great humanity of homosexual love, its enriching effects in my own life. I valued my homosexuality as well as my heterosexuality and realized that for this to become generally known would relegate me to outer darkness in the view of many parishioners and even many of my colleagues. They would see me as sinful—you know: he desires the wrong sex and he is not monogamous—sins that even if tolerated in distant relatives certainly could not be countenanced in clergy. Quite often I had to forgive people their ignorance and hate while promoting a strategy and spirit of tolerance, service, and love.

At the family core of my life I knew that whatever happened between my wife and me would be forgiven. I already knew that and trusted the two of us to weather the storms of our relationship. It has been so. She forgave; I forgave. She forgave my needs and the pain I brought to her; I forgave her chosen unawareness and temporary anger. We forgave but still separated, and at age 50 I did not want to spend any time trying to represent my complicated self to the churches of my denomination. I chose to continue my St. Francis perspective and prayer outside that organization although I remain connected with my family and some long-time friends. I presume their forgiveness just as I do the forgiveness of the profligately loving God. And I live in open acceptance of others even when they are not particularly open to me.

Denver, © March 9, 2015


About the Author

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

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Where Do We Go from Here? by Will Stanton

Where do we go from here? It beats the hell out of me. I will, however, give you a few personal thoughts that come to mind. These reflect my own nature and values.

It’s hard for me to surmise the fate of our future. There are some good people and positive events in our country and the world that, theoretically, could lead us to a better future; however, there also is so much negativity and violence that I am not particularly encouraged. Yes, I realize that such concerns are not unique to our times. I am very aware that history is replete with hate, violence, and stupidity. I would think, or at least hope, however, that humankind would steadily improve over the centuries. A selective minority of people may have advanced, yet it appears to me that the vast majority of people still are prone to the same insanity that has plagued mankind forever. This fact mystifies and discourages me; for, by nature, I cherish honesty and empathy, along with my wish for all people to engage in helpful, constructive behavior.

Too often, those few people who are more knowledgeable, who are positive and empathetic, are vilified and overwhelmed by the masses of reptilian-minded hordes whose inclinations lead to greed, mindless policies, and harm to people and nations. Had President Gore been permitted to serve his two terms in office, I can only imagine how different our country and the world would be today. Instead, the Neocons in the Bush junta lied us into an unwarranted war that so severely disrupted the Middle East that we now are suffering the horrendous consequences of their hubris and stupidity. Such people continue to promote harmful domestic policies and political machinations that are equally counterproductive.

And now, we are plagued with a slate of Republican Presidential candidates who display many of the same religiosity traits that got us into so much trouble in the first place. Their continual character assassinations and bellicose rhetoric offend my deeply ingrained sense of honesty, morality, and empathy. Listening to all those (and here’s a phrase I frequently am prone to use because I have ample opportunity now) bloviating ignoramuses on the debate stage nauseates me. I find watching them disturbing and toxic, so much so that I feel that I do not possess the endurance and resilience to listen to them for extended lengths of time.

The only rational solution that I have heard recently has been from candidate Bernie Sanders. He repeatedly has explained, and quite rightly, too, that he sees the only way of improving our situation is for our young to become very knowledgeable, active, and to organize and vote in great numbers. To some extent, this was done for the first election of President Obama. Since then, however, young people seem to have drifted off into their own little worlds.

I know of no other recourse. If nothing is done to reverse this descent into an abyss of banality and chaos, I guess that I will have to find some way of moving to Shangri-La, perhaps Lyonesse, or the Elysian Fields.

© 18 December 2015

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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Believe, by Ray S

Dear Friends,

I come to this meeting in hopes to gain some insight into what you have to write about this subject. For me “seeing is believing” is irrefutable.

But, then when we are so often confronted with America’s bumper sticker mentality “BELIEVE,” dare we ask in what? There are the declarations of the drivers’ school, fraternity, fish sign or amphibious fish, sexual persuasion, political beliefs, etc., etc.

Now this is where BELIEVE becomes nebulous, it’s every man or woman to his/her best. Watch out as this can sometimes be disastrous, and sometimes mind enlightening—depends on which side of the bed you got up on and sometimes with whom.

I expect to hear some inspiring and personally emotional beliefs. Thinking about how much of a private belief one owns can often be so much so that it is never shared or open for inspection.

The beliefs worn on the sleeves are far too often imposed on us by the “true believers.” They are the ones who are enlightened and always available for an opinion or argument—that is one of the negatives that arise more times than you would wish for. On the positive e side as is evidenced here we or most of us do have some self-evident beliefs that we share when the appropriate time shows up. These are the spiritual beliefs, not the ones you see, except in the responses by your friend or neighbor to your actions. This action has many names, but can be consolidated with the word LOVE. 

Denver, © 2016
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Practical Joke, by Phillip Hoyle

Recalling clearly my eldest sister’s evaluation of the girls in her dorm five years before, [“They’re all so immature,” she said,] I wondered what I’d find in the boys dorm at the same small church-related college in north central Kansas five years later. Would there be a lot of horseplay, silliness, competition? Would the talk be rough, derisive, pious? I was pretty excited by the prospect of living around so many other guys because I had no brothers. Would I find a brother there? If so, would I like it? Who would I room with? Questions. What would be the answers? I already knew a little about the small burdens in that dorm, of needing to keep the room clean in order to pass periodic inspections, to fulfill duties of dust mopping hallways, straightening lounges, or cleaning shower rooms. Would I enjoy bull sessions?

I trudged up the steps of the rather new dorm toting my bags and boxes, depositing them in my room. Then in came my roommate—Roy his name—from a small southwest Kansas town out in the Great Plains where one can drive for a hundred miles without seeing trees or hills, where the wind blew without stop, where he attended a school with one hundred students including elementary and high school. I was lucky for, like me, Roy was studious, a seriously mature student. That helped both of us to get in good shape academically. And he was nice this slender, strong, black haired boy with a resonant voice and good manners. And he was clean.

I came to school with a stereo, a small LP collection, artwork to hang on the dorm room wall, and a two-drawer file cabinet. He came with some books, a basketball, running shoes, and a car. I came with years of musical experience; he with years of playing high school sports. We had both worked regular jobs. We shared our room, shared respect, and shared some classes for we were both ministerial students. We got along well.

Roy was athletic. He’d been the all-around great student in his graduating class: going out for all the sports, singing in the choir, dating the girls, even entering the state speech and debate tournament where he presented an interpretation of T. S. Elliot’s “The Hollow Men” for which he was awarded recognition. My eighteen-year-old mind didn’t grasp that serious poem; I wonder if his did. Some nights when Roy and I were studying in the dorm, he at his desk beneath the window, I in the middle of the room, I’d notice the floor vibrating. The first time I looked up for an explanation, I found Roy unconsciously bouncing his legs, setting the room shaking. This nervous habit may have been related to his fast speech, his hand movements when making some point, his fast metabolism that kept him slender.

There were some shenanigans in the dorm; what else would one expect from a group of undergraduates thrown together in close proximity with dorm hours that gathered us in at 10:00 pm. There was the din that finally quieted around 11:30. There were wrestling matches organized at odd hours. In general, we lived surrounded by other guys about our age, nice guys at that.

I noticed that most afternoons at the same hour Roy would return to the room following one of his classes. That particular afternoon I was reading at my desk when I got the idea, surely inspired by a current scary movie or simply by remembering life at home where one of us kids would scare another. I wondered if I’d really pull the practical joke becoming as immature as some of my dorm mates. When Roy was due to return, I turned off the light, crawled under his bed, and waited. It seemed a long wait, but finally the door opened. Roy walked over to put his books on his desk, then opened his closet door. All I could see were his feet. I was trying to figure out how most effectively to scare him: scream, grab, jump? Waiting I decided simply to reach out and clasp his ankles. Finally he took a step toward the bed and turned around into the perfect position with his back turned. I reached out, clasped his ankles and said nothing.

He said something, probably not anything he’d say from the pulpit, and screaming jumped. I suppressed my laughter and crawled from my hiding place. That was it. Fortunately Roy didn’t faint, and the practical joke did not end our friendship. It probably didn’t strengthen it though. We lived together two years more before the summer we both married our girlfriends. In fact, I gave my girlfriend an engagement ring in the backseat of his car while we were on a double date. My best guess? He forgave me.

© Denver, 2014

About the Author

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

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Moving by Pat Gourley

Moving from one abode to another has been something I have done quite a bit of since moving to Colorado in December of 1972. A quick and probably incomplete count would indicate at least 13 moves and different living situations. And as of today I am seriously entertaining the possibility of a move back to San Francisco after the 1st of the year.

Now I suppose this could be viewed as an immature and possibly pathological inability to settle down but I prefer to look at as a chance to cleanse. This was brought home to me in a short comment on Facebook that someone made to a friend’s post about “moving again”. The commenter said he viewed his many moves as cleansing behavior since these changes in locale usually resulted in the jettisoning of fair amount of accumulated stuff.

I suppose if I tried to further rationalize my frequent moves I could put a Buddhist spin on it and think of it as one more lesson in impermanence. Now this lesson of impermanence certainly has come easier to me in my life than say a Syrian refugee whose home has been blown to bits or the Palestinian family who have repeatedly had their homes demolished by the Israeli army. It is even hard for me to imagine the loss experienced by people whose homes in South Carolina that were recently flooded or abodes blown completely away by a Kansas tornado.

When I think about it though my major lesson in impermanence has not been related to any physical moves I have made but rather by the death of my loving companion David in September of 1995. In the last days before his death when he would lay down to try to temper the significant pain he was experiencing and that liquid morphine was only dulling he would ask to be covered in a purple sarong I had purchased at some Grateful Dead concert a few years earlier. It was this simple piece of cloth that somewhat soothed his soul. It wasn’t his nice car, his extensive Haviland China collection, our nice home or the many of his beautiful stain glass creations but rather my foot rubs and then covering him with that shawl.

I still have that shawl now tattered and frayed and it lives on my zafu as stark reminder of my own impermanence. These days as I contemplate a move back to OZ the main driver for this planned relocation is to get back to the strong village aspect to living at the B&B. I have many more friends here but I don’t live with any of them and this is really a bit of a lonely situation. The likelihood of an old wrinkled HIV+ queen finding another partner is slim to non-existent.

I have used my current job at Urgent Care to partially fill this void of being alone and though I like and enjoy the company of my co-workers the seemingly endless stream of folks with abdominal pain, bleeding vaginas, heroin addiction and homelessness can be taxing.

I do enjoy people being in my business on a daily basis in my actual living situation. If I were to die at home now my cat would eat me before anyone would find me. In San Francisco I would have folks looking for me frequently if for no other reason than that they want their breakfast and it would be highly unlikely that they are seeking me out because their vagina is bleeding or they are jonesing bad for their next smack pop.

So once again I will be moving as a way of dealing with my own inevitable impermanence and hoping my last dance is in the company of folks who love me and I them.

Addendum February 18th, 2016: I will not be moving back to San Francisco but rather staying in Denver and making a concerted effort to incorporate even more fully the many friends I have here into my everyday life. Details on this decision will follow in future ramblings.

© November 2015

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.

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We’re Not Done Yet, by Nicholas

I’m terrible at giving directions. I love maps but I don’t carry one in my head, so I have to pause and really think through how to get somewhere when asked. I also have set routine routes which, if departed from, leave me momentarily confused. I sometimes have to remind myself where I’m headed so I don’t automatically go somewhere else more familiar. And, of course, it’s hard to figure out where you should be going when, really, you’re not going anywhere at all.

New Year’s Day is always a time to reflect on where we’ve been and where we might want to go. A new year always provides the illusion of hope for a new start, a change from old bad habits before we sink back to those comfortable old bad habits.

This topic also seems to be buzzing around the blogosphere with online commentators—of whom there are about ten million—pondering where the LGBT movement is headed now that so much of the agenda that we always denied having has been accomplished. Some advocacy organizations, like Freedom to Marry, are actually closing up shop since they have accomplished their mission. Of course, we will still get funding solicitations from them. Other groups have begun to scale back their operations now that LGB, but maybe not T, issues have gone mainstream.

There needs to be a new agenda, say the blog masters. We’re at a point of having seen many—though not all—statutory barriers to living life gay or lesbian, and sometimes even trans, removed. Now what do we do?

Well, as the line goes, it ain’t over till it’s over. And, guess what, it ain’t over. I get suspicious or maybe even just paranoid when someone declares a movement over. Here it seems to mean that straight-acting, white men have gotten what they want, so everybody else should just quiet down and get on with things, like making money now that Big Money has found that the gay community is very easy to get along with.

So, we still have kids living on the street with practically no chance of a decent future without an education and a home. Bullying is still rampant in schools and school administrators are still reluctant to do anything about it.

If you’re in any way an effeminate male, a drag queen, a fairy, don’t expect the corporate law firms to welcome you. If you’re too strong a woman, your chances for success are probably reduced as well. And trans still makes most people squirm in their executive suites. Remember, in the TV show Will and Grace, Will operated in the corporate office while his flamboyant friend Jack was always scheming for ways to make it.

And, then, there’s us. The aging lesbian and gay and trans segment of the population that the still youth-obsessed society still doesn’t want to face. Many of us live in fearful isolation. Many, if not most, of us still fear being trapped and vulnerable in hostile situations such as nursing homes that are clueless if not simply hateful to LGBT elders. I don’t see myself as shy about who I am and who I live with, but I dread being consigned to some miserable and hostile facility. If school principals are reluctant to deal with bullying, nursing home administrators are about two centuries behind them.

Plenty of LGBT people are still marginalized and there is something we can do about it. Gay marriage was never the whole agenda and now that we have that we can get back to the original idea. We still need to build communities. We still need to figure out in a positive light who we are, how we are different, what we have to offer. In a way, the assimilation phase is over with marriage. Now we can go back to being ourselves. Not just dealing with needs and demands and issues, but with supporting one another and valuing one another in all our crazy diversity. We still need to find each other and join together.

Till death do us part, you might say.

© 4 January 2016

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.