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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Scarves, by Phillip Hoyle

I started wearing scarves when I lived in New Mexico. The mild winters there when compared with the previous nine seasons of harsh weather in mid-Missouri made it possible for me to wear a jacket, scarf, and gloves and be plenty warm most of the time. I liked the light-weight effect. Of course, keeping track of scarves presented a new challenge to me. I lost several when upon leaving coffee shops I failed to put them around my neck.

Actually scarves and their care were the least of my complications in those days. I started doing quite a few different things during my Albuquerque mid-forties years and now realize that in addition to a change of scenery and culture, the exit of our children from the home had a lot to do with my adaptations. For the first time in my adult life I had freedoms I had longed for but had never exercised. It seemed like the challenges of my homosexuality were not going to be overlooked. Wearing scarves was the least among my new behaviors although not unimportant.

Looking back on it all I can say that scarves significantly symbolized a feminizing of my life, a simple step of my living into my girlishness fostered by being reared with four girls and by my personality that I now identify as gay, or at least as the gay part of it. I wasn’t at all surprised. I had long wondered how I got through childhood and youth without being beat up for being a sissy, a weakling, too girlish, somehow not a man. I wondered but thought happily about my enduring good luck. And then, in my middle-age-moving-toward-old-age, I could flip a scarf around my neck without a care. For me, scarves were a bit like umbrellas, things most men I knew had no truck with. Still, I had learned to use umbrellas in Missouri where it often rains, and then in arid and mild Albuquerque I sported scarves.

In my well-compartmentalized life I had already known scarves, actually worn them. They were present in our house due to having two older sisters who sometimes wore them when the bop was popular, poodle skirts and saddle oxfords reigned on the dance floor, and scarves in complementary colors were worn around the neck. Now I couldn’t wear them to school dances, but I did wear them when dancing at powwows. They were a standard part of my straight dance costume with its roach headdress, old fashioned bustle, beaded and mirror rosettes, trailers, apron, sheepskin anklets, bells, and moccasins. I preferred dark blue scarves and wore them in this other cultural compartment of my life. But when I left home for college, I left those costumes packed away in two suitcases and a few boxes wondering if I’d ever wear them again. They were stowed along with memories of childhood sex with boys, a nine-month affair with another teen, my love for doing artwork, and the like.

By the time I got to Denver a few years after leaving Albuquerque, I was wearing scarves almost every winter day. I also learned to pull a scarf into my sleeve so I wouldn’t have to remember it when donning my jacket. I now prefer plaid scarves although they often clash with my plaid shirts. I have even encouraged my partner to wear scarves and have noticed now he wants to tie them in a more girlish fashion like some kind of off duty drag queen! Oh, did that just slip out? Well, you can see that I have learned a lot but probably have a lot more to learn about myself. I wonder what else I may discover in those old suitcases of lost dreams.

Denver, ©23 March 2014

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Grief, by Pat Gourley

“By meditating on death, we paradoxically become conscious of life”.
Stephen Batchelor – from Buddhism Without Beliefs. 1997

This is one of those Story Telling Topics that really brings home to me what a lazy undisciplined writer I am. My life certainly dating from the death of my father in August of 1980 up until my most recent shift in Urgent Care, which was yesterday, has been chock-full of experience after experience of life’s impermanence and the personal grief that causes. I should be writing at least several chapters on grief if I were ever to get off my ass and write a memoir. The reality though is that the topic of Grief is going to get less than a thousand words as usual.

If I were in a really self-indulgent mood I suppose I could conjure up reams on grief around my own HIV infection and that of many, many friends and clients and their suffering and too often deaths over the past 35 years. An issue of self-exploration here for me would perhaps be how much of my own grief over the decades has really just been self-indulgent wallowing in the pool of “poor pitiful me”. How unfair that I am “forced” to face my own mortality every day when I swallow my HIV meds. And even worse how come I have witnessed so much suffering and death of others? I really need to watch this tendency in myself carefully and continually realize that no one gets out alive and many through the ages up until this minute have it so much worse than I do or ever will.

Nevertheless, that all said let me delve self-indulgently just a bit into my own grief issues, as they seem to come into focus for me especially this time of year. Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Jerry Garcia’s death. The Grateful Dead were an integral part my life for decades. During the darkest years of the AIDS epidemic, from the late 1980’s until 1995 when I was not only looking down the barrel of my own infection I was also the nursing manger in the AIDS clinic at Denver Health and living with the love of my life who was dying in front of me. The music of the Grateful Dead was a great solace in those years and remains so today actually. I was at the last two shows Garcia and the Dead performed at Soldier’s Field in Chicago July. 1995.

Those shows were not particularly memorable at the time in large part because Garcia was not well but it never occurred to me that he would be gone himself in a few short weeks. The memory of hearing the news of his death on August 9th, 1995 is indelibly etched in my mind but not for the reason you may think.

Minutes after the news exploded across the world of Garcia’s death of a heart attack in a rehab center in Marin County my life partner David Woodyard, who was battling several major HIIV related issues of his own at the time, was on the phone deeply concerned about me and how I was taking the news.

This was and still is for me the real lesson on how to handle the feeling of grief in my own life. I need to always take a moment or several no matter what the circumstances and look around, outside my own little puddle and attempt to be “conscious of life’ and what an amazing trip it is to get to experience that at all, even when filled with grief.

David was teaching me that lesson right up until his own death five weeks later at 9 AM on September 17th, 1995. That was when my own real grieving began in earnest with no Grateful Dead song able to console me. Not even the beautiful lyrics of Brokedown Palace, which we played at his memorial.

Fare you well my honey
Fare you well my only true one
All the birds that were singing
Have flown except you alone

Going to leave this broke-down palace
On my hands and my knees I will roll roll roll
Make myself a bed by the waterside
In my time, in my time, I will roll roll roll
In a bed, in a bed


By the waterside I will lay my head
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul
River gonna take me

Sing me sweet and sleepy
Sing me sweet and sleepy
All the way back home

It’s a far-gone lullaby
Sung many years ago
Mama, Mama, many worlds I’ve come
Since I first left home


Going home, going home
By the waterside I will rest my bones
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Going to plant a weeping willow
On the banks green edge it will grow grow grow
Sing a lullaby beside the water


Lovers come and go, the river roll roll roll
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs

To rock my soul

Songwriters: GARCIA, JERRY / HUNTER, ROBERT

Brokedown Palace lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group

© August 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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Extreme Sport, by Lewis

Let me begin by saying that my idea of “extreme sport” is playing tag football with the tag tucked into the front of one’s britches rather than the rear–it makes for more of a thrill for both the offense and defense. Beyond that, it seems to me that every sport requires a level of skill, coordination, and ruggedness that has always seemed extreme to me.

The sports that I enjoyed the most in my youth involved putting a pretty, round ball into a hole swathed in leather using a long, stiff, woody instrument with a little lubricant on the tip–namely, pool and snooker. I found the activity quite challenging while still allowing the competitors the opportunity to swill a little tomato beer, if so inclined.

The sport that I believe has taken this basic idea to its extreme is golf. With golf, the player must stand hundreds of yards away from the hole, drive a much smaller ball placed much further from his eyes, with an instrument that is much longer and less balanced, leaving him unable to either sight along it or steady it with his hand. Rather than a smooth, flat table, the golfer must navigate terrain that has been deliberately made treacherous with hills and valleys and even obstacles like sand traps and little bodies of water. It is a game invented by a sadist for masochists or, as Mark Twain so cryptically put it, “A good walk spoilt”. Thereby have I forever been discouraged from setting foot on a golf course despite how pretty they may look.

The only other sport in which I have taken a serious interest is motor racing. No doubt, it is an extreme sport, whether measured by expense, danger, difficulty, or destruction. My favorite form of motor racing was road racing, which is a rough simulation of cruising an overcrowded parking lot trying to beat the other person into that last open space. My son also had an interest in racing, gymkhana racing in particular, which is even more like parking lot competitions as they are held in empty parking lots using orange cones to mark the course.

It, therefore, seemed the perfect college graduation gift for him to send him to the Bob Bondurant School of High-Performance Driving near Phoenix, Arizona. The more I thought about the fun he was going to have there, the more tempted I became to enroll as well. So, I signed him up for the 5-day class, while I settled for the 3-day. When we arrived, the temperature most days was 107 degrees and the action on the asphalt was just as hot. After the first couple of days, I’m guessing that the instructors had to draw straws to see who would have to accompany me whilst I attempted to learn the secrets of high-performance driving. We were taught how to find a turn-in spot on the upcoming curves to have the right line coming out of the corner, how to control a skid, and lots of other stuff which I will never again use.

On day 3, we were being trained how to react quickly to dangerous developments ahead of us on the road, such as a spinning car. The course was laid out something like a drag strip with three lanes instead of two. Ahead of us about 75 yards was a structure that looked a little like a toll booth, also with three lanes. But the lanes were separated only by traffic cones. Beyond the booth was a series of lights, red or green, for each lane. The object of this exercise was for the driver of a car–in my case, a Mustang GT–to roar away from the starting line at full throttle up to 45 miles per hour and look for two of the green lights at the end of the track to turn red, at which point you had one second or so to steer the car into the one lane whose light was still green.

On my first and second attempts, I had only managed to alter the configuration of a few cones, never quite making the smooth lane-change that I so anxiously hoped for. On my third-and-final attempt, my nerves were as jangled as if I were making my first sky-dive. I roared away from the start line at full throttle, quickly glanced down at the speedometer to make sure I didn’t go over 45 mph, at which point I think I went glassy eyed, recognizing only that some of the lights had changed color and I had to do something right away. The Mustang ended up in a long sideways slide through the middle of two lanes until it came to a screeching stop in a cloud of tire smoke.

My instructor, trying to look serious, rushed up to me to see if I was OK, which I was, other than a severely bruised ego. Any trace of romanticism I had for auto racing had disappeared in a cloud of tire smoke and discombobulation.

Fortunately, my son made out much better than I. He even got to train in open-wheel race cars, similar to Indy racers but much smaller. One of his fellow students, a young man of about 17, had raced open-wheeled cars before, likely beginning with go-karts. His mother told me that he had won one race after scraping the bottom of his car on the pavement so much that it had worn through and soon began working on his driving suit. When he finished, his bottom was worn raw but it didn’t matter–he was a winner in one of the many extreme sports.

© 2015

Find date by comparing Phillip’s

About the Author

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

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Hinterland, part two, by Gillian

Grief

A few days after my time-travel to Aberystwyth, I returned to Episode One of Hinterland only to find Matthias dashing off to Devil’s Bridge. Well, duh, that was the title of the episode. I just hadn’t noticed.

Devil’s Bridge is a little village up in the mountains about ten miles inland from Aberystwyth and it was a very, very, special place to my parents. My mother wrote in her photo album in 1930 that it was the most beautiful place she had ever been. You can’t tell from the faded old sepia photograph but it is a pretty spot, though I suspect Mum’s enthusiasm for it was more because it was where she and Dad spent their honeymoon. Several years later, we went there quite frequently on our day trips to Aberystwyth, always stopping there for tea and a walk down to the waterfall no matter how hard it was raining. It is the only place where the three of us ever stayed overnight, in the same hotel where they had honeymooned; inevitable as there was, at that time, only one hotel. (Now, I am astonished to find, Expedia lists eight right there, and a hundred and forty-six nearby!)

Now, I sit here in Colorado watching Matthias hurrying down to the falls, where of course he finds a dead body. I am amazed to see solid stone steps with handrails zig-zagging down the little gorge. No such thing in my day! We simply scrambled over wet muddy slippery rocks until, one way or another, we landed at the bottom. I am disappointed in this development, but have no time to dwell on it as Matthias is now entering the hotel. THE hotel. The one I stayed in with my parents, and where we used to go for tea. In the series they call it the Devil’s Bridge Hotel but I recognize it instantly as the old Hafod Hotel, as it is actually still called, they just changed the name for the TV series. It has been there since the 1700’s when it opened as a hunting lodge, and there was probably some kind of hostelry long before that, as there have been bridges across the gorge at Devil’s Bridge since the 1100’s.

Probably I was already sensitized by my Aberystwyth experience, but seeing the waterfalls, and the bridge, and following the path of the TV camera into that very hotel, overwhelmed me. I had an intensity of grief for my parents such as I have rarely felt, and certainly not for many years. As I have said before, I seem unable to come to grips with being an orphan, but this pain astonished me How can I possibly feel such sorrow after … what is it now? Thirty years. I guess real grief never leaves us, despite the healing qualities of time. We feel it less often, perhaps, but it is never gone. It sneaks up on us when we least expect it, and stops us in our tracks.

I turn off the TV.

Again.

I have decided that Hinterland Episode One is not for me.

Warily, a few days later, I did watch the other three episodes. All was well. Matthias trots his grim path around many places I recognize, but none that tear at my heart. I’m not sure if I will ever return to Episode One.

Who needs what the critics are calling ‘Welsh noir,’ anyway? At this moment I am grieving for a longtime friend who died last week. There’s enough ‘aging noir’ in real life these days, I don’t need to borrow grief from the television.

© 10 August 2015

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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Hinterland, part one, by Gillian

Going Home

Although I spent the first twenty years of my life in Britain, I have been away from that home so long that it has long ceased to be ‘home’ to me. Colorado has been my home for fifty years. I have fond memories, sometimes sliding into nostalgia, of that original home, but most of us occasionally succumb to such sentiments for the days of our long-lost youth. Once in a while, though, something propels me instantly, unexpectedly, through time and space, and there I am as surely as if I had clicked my little red heels.

A few weeks ago I watched, on DVD, a Brit police drama entitled Hinterland. A strange choice of title, you’d think they would have chosen from an endless array of lyrical Welsh words. It is set in the wet wilds of Wales, and is all a bit dark and dour. I don’t think the main character, the investigating cop, Matthias, smiles once in the entire series. Actually I’m not sure anyone smiles once in the entire series. But the police are headquartered in Aberystwyth, a small seaside town; a place very close to my heart.

I’ve bored you endlessly about when I was a little kid and gas was still rationed and the British economy shot to hell, so few people had cars, and no-one took unnecessary trips. But by the early nineteen-fifties things were finally looking up. My dad bought a small, very used, car, and we fell into the habit, on rare summer sunny Sundays, of spending the day in Aberystwyth. It was only about an hour’s drive, and a breathtakingly beautiful one; up and over the rugged Welsh mountains and down to the jagged rocks greeting the crashing waves of the Irish Sea. These were always special days. Just Mum and Dad and me, carefree and silly.

Back on the DVD, the camera, seeing the world through the Matthias’s eyes, rolls down an Aberystwyth street, between solid Victorian buildings of local Welsh stone, towards the pebbly beach. I had walked down that very street, exactly there, many times. And suddenly I was there. I was there! Walking down that street. I was no longer watching. No longer seeing through other eyes; nor through the camera lens. I feel and hear the crunch of my feet on the sandy, gritty, pavement. Mum and I have our arms linked and are half walking half skipping like little kids.

My dad, who of course will have no part of skipping, is striding beside us, swinging my hand up and back in big arcs. I am too old for real hand-holding, probably ten or eleven, but swinging seems OK.

Dad looks down at me and winks.

“By ‘eck, i’n’t this grrrand!”

He rolls his r’s. He is Welsh and being in Wales makes him more so.

We are at the end of the street, where we have to turn either left or right to follow the waterfront.

Dad releases my hand. I am suddenly in a dark, smoky, room. Matthias is growling something.

No. I am not there. I am no longer there. I am, once more, the watcher.

I am in my house in Colorado.

It’s 2015.

I turn off the TV.

This incident bothered me so much that I did not return to that DVD for a few days. I felt all discombobulated. What had happened? I tried to shrug it off. Nothing so surreal, in fact. Just a very vivid memory, as some childhood memories seem to be. But why that one? Why that street? It wasn’t as if it ended in some terrible trauma, causing it to be burned into my memory. And to be honest, it wasn’t really a memory. Not like memories are, usually, where you are outside them, just looking in. Just remembering. It was more like a dream. A very vivid dream. I was there. I was there.

No, don’t panic. I’m not about to deliver a diatribe on the space/time continuum. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t. I just recognize how grateful I am that I was blessed with such an all-encompassing flash back, and hope for more to come. Living away from home is fine, but it was great to go back and visit.

© 3 August 2015

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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Clear as Mud, by Betsy and Gillian

(Betsy)

This past summer while strolling through downtown Denver with some visiting relatives, we came upon a sign that read,

RESTROOMS ARE LOCKED

TO PROVIDE CLEAN FACILITIES

FOR OUR CUSTOMERS.

The sign caught our attention especially because we had been searching for a restroom for quite some time and were more than ready to find one. “If they are locked how do we get in?” the three of us said almost in unison. The sign was not posted on the door of any particular store, rather on a door from a walkway into a hall leading to nowhere except the two restrooms. We were not customers then, but neither was anyone else. The walkway belonged to the entire pavilion which housed many stores. “Do we have to buy something to get a key from one of the stores?” I queried to myself. How long will that take. There are no stores immediately handy.

Fortunately in a most timely fashion, a woman came out of the walkway door and informed us that she had been given the secret code to open the restroom by the previous user and she would gladly pass it on to us. It turns out that we did the same for the next person in need. It seems the only way for this restroom to be used at all is to have a constant stream of users passing on the code. Otherwise the facilities would most surely stay clean forever. A good way to keep your facility clean: lock it.

One day while driving on I 70 through eastern Colorado on our recent trip to the east coast, my mind was wandering as it does on such roads. I began thinking about the next topic we would be writing about when we returned at the end of the month. MUD, hmmm. The phrase “clear as mud” jumped into my head and reminded me of the puzzling sign I had recently seen on the door at the pavilion in downtown Denver.

It was then that Gill and I decided to make a collection of such signs on this trip.Gill would take photos of them, otherwise no one would believe we had actually seen such a sign. We would then pass on these gems of wisdom to our friends at Storytime.

(Gillian)

On one of those narrow winding backroads that are quite common in the eastern states, we got stuck behind a slow-moving truck. On the back of the truck a big red sign said,

CONSTRUCTION VEHICLE

DO NOT FOLLOW

Now, it’s not as if we were following from choice. We were simply heading down the same road without a chance to overtake. What is expected here?? Are we supposed to find an alternate route to avoid following this truck? Not so easily done in the mountains of West Virginia. Was he heading for a top-secret destination?? We’re probably on yet another CIA/FBI shit-list now.

(Betsy) 

Sometimes if we have time and we are in an area with which we are not familiar, we like to travel the back roads. It does mean a lot of stop and go, especially in the more populated parts of the country. But it presents so many opportunities to learn—and laugh.

We’ve driven through many, many small towns with very unusual names.

We had to turn around a get a picture of this one.


WELCOME TO ACCIDENT

I forget in what state the town of Accident is—it doesn’t really matter. What makes this sign memorable is the sign just beyond it directing passersby to the nearby hospital with an arrow (unfortunately we were unable to photograph the two signs together.)

Welcome to Accident—the hospital is right around the corner, it said to us. I wanted to add “for your convenience.”

(Gillian) 

At a gas station a sign in the window read,

BE A GOOD ROLE MODEL!

DISAPPROVE OF UNDERAGE DRINKING

An admirable sentiment, doubtless, but surely a little wimpy? Nobody, including all those underage drinkers, gives a toss if I disapprove. The word has no power; my disapproval has no power. Perhaps I might accomplish something by fighting underage drinking, or by not drinking with minors, or by not buying booze for them, but disapprove?? I think it is actually the first time in my life that I have been urged to disapprove of something. Ah, lots of ‘firsts’ to be found on road-trips!

(Betsy) 

What this negative message says to me is: My advise to you adults driving cars(hopefully sober) and reading this sign is as follows: model for young people how to judge others—never mind taking positive action to suggest a better behavior.

(Gillian) 

Next to this gas station was a big sign,

Arby’s

DO NOT ENTER

Of course there are these signs at the exit of all drive-throughs, but this one was big and quite threatening. Well, OK then. We had never intended to enter. We drove happily away.

(Betsy) We don’t use Arby’s really, but couldn’t help but notice the unwelcoming sign. I guess we all know what they really mean, but couldn’t they come up with a better presentation. They certainly know how to present their food—if one dares to enter.

(Gillian) 

This one is not exactly about a sign, but rather a tale of two billboards. One was positioned directly above the other. I have no photo as we zoomed past at 75mph. The upper one had the usual pitiful baby picture accompanied by the statement,
ABORTION is MURDER

NOBODY HAS THE RIGHT TO TAKE A LIFE

The lower one had a picture of a man bearing arms; and was he ever! Six-shooters in a gun-belt, cartridges slung across his manly chest, rifles over his shoulders, machine-guns at his feet. It read, simply,

IT’S YOUR RIGHT

I have no idea if the two signs were put together on purpose, but the irony is delicious.

(Betsy) 

The last day of our trip and back in our home state we were not disappointed by Colorado road signs. No one can miss the huge sign on I 70 entering Colorado. It is written in lights across the highway like a Broadway marquee.

0 FATALITIES 0 TOLERANCE 2015

Clearly because of its in-your-face presentation, this is a very important notice announcing, “ Please, all those entering the state, take heed.” We did just that. We did take heed and we definitely took note of the sign. I am still contemplating its meaning, however! Have there been no fatalities at all in 2015 in Colorado. No wonder the population is increasing at record rates. And it will continue to do so. This clearly is 

THE PLACE TO BE
—a place where one dies only of natural causes.

But then we must remember there is zero tolerance here. Does this mean all entering are on notice that the state of Colorado 

WILL NOT TOLERATE THE CURRENT RATE OF ZERO FATALITIES?
Surely that can’t be what they meant.

Maybe it means: the state of Colorado has zero tolerance for any fatalities. But when you put the phrase zero tolerance directly below the phrase zero fatalities??? I’m left scratching my head. Now if you put the sign “0 Tolerance” by itself, then one might be deterred from entering the state.

(Gillian) 

According to Colorado Department of Transportation’s own statistics, as of October 1st of this year there have been 398 highway fatalities, so the meaning of this sign completely eludes me. Apparently staying here in this state of zero tolerance will not preserve us from danger. We might as well keep on taking road trips!

© October 2015

About the Authors

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.

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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Horseshoes, by Will Stanton

Who in the devil came up with this topic “horseshoes?” What am I supposed to do with it? I know that people for generations have tossed horseshoes at metal stakes as a game. My dad used to many years ago. Washington Park even included a brand new horseshoe pitch as part of recent renovation. Apparently, my great-grandfather was a skilled farrier, although I heard mention of it only once. I am not an equestrian nor a Western cowboy, so I don’t hang around horses or blacksmiths.

It seems that we non-rural folks occasionally use the odd horseshoe or two as decoration, sometimes nailing them over doors for supposed good luck. I’m told that the shoe must point up; otherwise, all the good luck will run out. So, how did that old custom of good-luck horseshoes come about? Apparently, the horseshoes keep the Devil and witches away.

Some say that the horseshoe legend goes back as far as the year 969 CE when a blacksmith named Dunstin supposedly was visited by the Devil. The visitor surprised Dunstin by requesting that he have horseshoes nailed to his feet. Dunstin was even more surprised to discover that, rather than feet, the individual had cloven hooves. Apparently, this was a dead give-away that this was not a man but, instead, the Devil himself. Dunstin quickly stated that the individual had to be placed in the oxen-lift and hoisted up in order to do the shoeing. This was agreed to, and Dunstin began his labors, deliberately making the process as prolonged and as painful as possible. Howling in pain, the Devil pleaded to cease the shoeing.

Dunstin promised to let the Devil go but with one condition, that any home with a horseshoe nailed to a wall or over a doorway was off limits to the Devil. He could not harm anyone living in or visiting that place. The Devil agreed and was released.

The historically known Dunstin became the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is said that Christians were the first to move the horseshoes down onto the center of their front and back doors to be used as doorknockers. The knock of iron on wood was thought to ward away the devil and awaken guardian angels. So, it’s advisable to have a good pair of knockers.

Legend has it that displayed horseshoes also could keep witches away. Of course in this case, we are not talking about the anthropologically accurate nature of these pre-Christian pagans. Historically, they did not believe in, nor engage in, evil. Instead, the later misrepresentation and popular portrayal of evil, old hags is addressed here.

There is a 1666 legend concerning a Goody Chandler of Newbury, Massachusetts, who claimed that her illness was caused by her very unpopular neighbor Elizabeth Morse. Once a horseshoe was nailed above the door, supposedly Elizabeth could not enter the house.

The story goes on to say that her nosy, fundamentalist neighbor William Moody removed the horseshoe, stating that he was opposed to any kind of magic, that it was just as bad as witchcraft. I know how religiously uptight some people can be. My mother’s ancestors are of Puritan stock, arriving here in 1630 with Governor Winthrop; and I suspect that they may have participated in hanging a couple of witches in Salem. Not straying outside the Bible was the official platform of the Puritan church in New England. Cotton Mather wrote in Wonders of the Invisible World that, “The Children of New-England have Secretly done many things that have been pleasing to the Devil. They say, That in some Towns, it ha’s been an usual Thing for People to Cure Hurts with Spells, or to use Detestable Conjurations, with Sieves, & Keyes, and Pease, and Nails, and Horse-Shooes… ‘Tis in the Devils Name that such Things are done.”

Removing the horseshoe from above the door was followed by renewed visits by Elizabeth, whereupon, Goody became worse and eventually died. I am sure that this tale is apocryphal, but it does reflect the mindset of the time.

A horseshoe could also be used to keep a dead witch in her grave. The towns-people of Hampton, New Hampshire, staked the heart of suspected witch Goody Cole after she died. They tied a horseshoe to the stake. Perhaps it was because of the iron, believing that supernatural creatures such as witches fear iron. In the British Isles, witches often were accused of associating with fairies, so peasants nailed horseshoes over their doors to keep fairies out of the house. I was quick to notice that there is no horseshoe nailed over the door here. What would happen if there were? Oh well, as an old Celtic blessing says. “May the charm and good luck of the horseshoe be with you and yours always!”

© 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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Brick(s), by Terry Dart

Bricks for sure make up some formidable walls. They are a well understood building material.

In metaphor a brick wall can be for protection from one bad event (say a house fire) spreading and multiplying problems.

Or a wall can keep out of sight unwanted entities. If I am depressed a metaphorical wall rises up within my consciousness. Of course that is not brick so I digress. I will leave.

“Like talking to a brick wall.” Well that has been tried many a time and always unsuccessfully as anyone who has tried will attest. But I have always thought it a terrific simile.

The most extreme use or misuse of brick is when it winds up being thrown through a window or at someone’s head.

Bricks can be broken with a hammer and often are broken in two by a bricklayer in the process of building. He may be building a house, of course. If you have ever watched a bricklayer at work, you can see the careful almost meditative work at this ancient craft.

So there: bricks. That about covers it.

Oh, there is a literary piece, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ by Edgar Allen Poe that makes great use of brick. But don’t read it. It’s Way too Scary!

© 12 October 2015

About the Author

I am an artist and writer after having spent the greater part of my career serving variously as a child care counselor, a special needs teacher, a mental health worker with teens and young adults, and a home health care giver for elderly and Alzheimer patients. Now that I am in my senior years I have returned to writing and art, which I have enjoyed throughout my life.

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Exercising, by Ricky

For my entire life, exercising is an exercise in futility. Futile because I never liked to “exercise”. In elementary school I enjoyed playing at recess. Even the time labeled Physical Fitness was just a fancy term for recess. 

When I arrived in High School, recess became Physical Education or PE for short. After a few pushups, sit-ups, deep knee bends, toe touching, and trunk twisting to warm up (all of which I detested), the rest of the period was nothing more than organized recess in which we played softball, football, basketball or ran laps on the track. The best part of PE recess was the mandatory gang showers at the end of the period. Apparently, most of the teachers objected to smelly adolescent boys and girls in their classrooms. Perhaps the sweat laden pheromones were too much for teachers to handle professionally by causing them too much temptation.

Another exercise in futility was resisting the temptations created by a female teacher who would wear loosely fitting low-cut blouses while sitting on the front edge of her desk lecturing and frequently leaning forward exposing the beginning of her bosoms and a bit of frilly bra or slip. My desk was directly in front of her desk. It was hard for this 14-year old to concentrate and pay attention with all that exposure staring me in the face. 

Speaking of hard, I always had to leave the room with my book binder held in front of my crotch for a few minutes. Alas poor me. It was futile to even fantasize a breach of the “look but don’t touch a teacher” rule because, she never said anything to encourage or tease out a fantasy or a grope. Alas, none of the male teachers did either. If any teacher had done so, I willingly would have given in and had real sex at a much earlier age.

Yet another reason exercise was futile became apparent as I joined the Air Force to avoid the draft when I flunked out of my first year of college. Whatever benefits I gained from all those recesses, PE classes, and basic training were completely lost when the Air Force assigned me to a desk job. At the time, there was no exercise requirement so all that “benefit” wore off and the time I spent playing at exercising was wasted on me.

© 24 August 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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Bricks, by Ray S

Victorian brick-a-brac, whatnots, antimacassars make for a stifling museum-like atmosphere. You could liken it to a visit to the mummies in the museum’s ancient Egypt department—all hushed and stuffy.

Perfectly reproduced in every detail and hermetically sealed, the era of the romanticized 19th century heralded the Post Victorian revival of the 20th century.

The restoration of the rambling home built by a gold mine owner was managed by one Sir Leonardo Q. Brickington, noted historic preservationist and design authority of this period, reportedly from the U.K.

Actually Brickington—formerly AKA in his New York days—Herbby Flassbender; employed as a stock boy and gopher for Bloomingdales display department.

What happened after Herbby completed his Victorian restoration in a little mountain town is not quite clear. However there is a rumor he went on to form a company that sold franchises for architectural plans for building historically accurate 19th century Victorian BRICK “necessities”, more commonly known as privies. The end of this story is lost somewhere in one of his creations.

Moving along, here is another unfinished story. It is 11 PM on a Friday night. The show will begin in half an hour. Long enough to find a good seat and order a tall drink.

Tonight is the opening of a new show at the Silver Pole Boys Club; a review starring BRIQUE BUFFETT and his chorus of BUFF BRIQUETTES.

The house lights dim, canned music begins and the BRIQUETTES costumed as the Village People begin to gyrate to the recorded strains of “YMCA”. The audience joins in; the boys begin the traditional striptease.

Then the stage momentarily goes dark followed by a loud thunderclap and blinding strobe light, heralding the appearance of our star Brique Buffett, his beautiful gym-built body set off by his block Rhinestone studded thong. At this point five silver poles arose from the stage floor. The pole dancing burst forth to the Village People song “San Francisco”.

The club was ecstatic, patrons stripping their shirts and dancing in the box. The poles were getting a glorious polishing and the dancers’ bikinis began to bulge with dollar bills deftly tucked in by appreciative audience.

The temperature of the club as well as the patrons kept rising. The tall gin and tonic was long gone and so was I. the tab paid, I found the front door and escaped the writhing sweaty crowd. For what some have called a “Cow Town,” tonight the Silver Pole Boys Club could have passed for a latter-day reincarnation of the onetime famous NYC Studio 54.

On the way home I wondered what would become of all that sweat, heat and craziness; and you can too.

Once we emerged from the ooze of creation, and the “First Couple” with their misguided offspring, accompanied by knowledge, dressed in snake-drag got the show on the road, and civilization was on its way. The “Ah Hah” moment was the appearance of the adobe brick. From the earth and water came the building blocks of prehistoric architecture, from which followed the culture of mankind. Good and evil (There’s that drag queen snake again.)

The resulting temples built brick by brick, have resulted in wars, power struggles, avarice, and hate; and there are the eternal temples of good bricks that will prevail. Maybe, you can work on the end of this muddy little myth.

© 12 October 2015

About the Author