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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Death in Utopia by Gillian

When I rule the world, we will all have a sane, legal, choice of death’s time and place. Not everyone will make their own choice, but for those who wish to, it will be available.

Why must people be faced with detestable choices when they find themselves, for whatever reason, at the end of their rope? Blow your brains out and leave them all over the wall for loved ones to clean up. Die in a dirty stinking ally from a purposeful O.D. of drugs and/or alcohol. Drive your car off a cliff and leave others to identify the charred remains. Get in the bathtub and slit your wrists; only perhaps you don’t do it just right, or perhaps some well-meaning friend comes along and finds you too soon, so you’re left to struggle on with your disastrous life or try it again.

Why must those who chose the time of their passing, and those who love them, be forced into such indignity?

What do so many old people worry about?

Outliving their money. Outliving the effectiveness of their minds or bodies or both.

So why not remove those worries? If we outlive anything, and chose to go, we can. With dignity and serenity.

When I rule the world, there will be The Utopia Center available to you. It will be very much along the lines of Hospice, but with certain key differences. You check in to a pleasant, quiet room, and nothing can happen for 24 hours. It seems to me that a certain time to reconsider should be mandatory. At the appointed time, if you have had no change of heart, the end process is put in motion. If you wish to have loved ones with you, they can be there. If you prefer to be alone, it’s OK. They have a choice of CDs with music for you to play if you wish, or perhaps you choose to bring a favorite of your own. You lie peacefully on the bed and are gently administered some drug cocktail which will carry you painlessly away. I know Switzerland has something similar, but you have to have two doctors determine that you are terminal with some awful disease, or something like that. Why? Why can’t I simply say, I’ve had enough. For whatever reason. I’m ready to go. I shouldn’t have to explain or apologize. It’s my life; now I’m ready for my death.

What worries a place, a process, like that would relieve us of, would it not? Oh I know I am portraying a very simplified version. There would of course need to be controls re: coercion, undue influence, minors and third parties, to name but a few. But we could do it. But we never will. Religion, alas stands firmly between us and my sincerely held vision of Utopia, or at least one aspect of it. I fear it always will.

October 2014

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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Scars by Betsy

I can hear it now. “She will be scarred for life if she tries to live a lesbian life-style.” Had my mother not died as a young woman, had she been present when I came out, I believe this is what she might have said. Her mother, my grandmother well may have said this too. The two women had a great deal of influence on me as I was growing up. Neither knew I was homosexual as they both died well before I came out.

They may have been right in making that imaginary statement, however. We all have scars—physical and emotional or psychological. Growing up gay in a homophobic society will inevitably produce wounds. Even after wounds heal scars can be left as evidence of the damage.

I have some scars on my physical body as well as my psyche. Most people do. One I acquired early in life represents a wound caused when I lost control of my bicycle going about 20 MPH down a hill hitting a curb head on, and landing completely unconscious by a street lamp. I was rescued by my dentist who happened to be looking out his window when the accident happened. I had a bad cut on my face which had to be sown up by a surgeon. The scar is still visible, but barely.

I suppose analogous to that might be that I was born into a world which had no understanding, certainly no acceptance, of gays or lesbians—most certainly not of their lifestyles. One might say the accident was that I was born homosexual, but I don’t see that as an accident—just the way it is. There are most definitely scars left from being born into and living in this non-accepting environment. As I have written before I have a passion for the truth and a great respect for living honestly and with integrity. Yet I lived half my life in a life-style that was a lie.

It was not an unhappy time of life, but it was basically flawed. That flaw of the fraudulent lifestyle is the wound. The wound is now healed, but a scar reveals that there had been a wound—a wound caused by an accident?

While I’m making analogies, allow me one more. Another scar is in the middle of my lower back, about a 10 inch line right down my spine. The reason I have this scar is because I had pain brought on by spondylolisthesis. Because I had pain a surgeon cut into my back and treated the source of the pain. The corresponding scar in my psyche might be represented as the result of treating a deep emotional hurt. The pain in this case I see as the years of self denial and the fear of rejection brought about by my unwillingness to express my true self that resulted.

All in all I think it is safe to say some scars, probably most scars, are good. Why? Because they are the result of healing. They are what is left of a wound or an adverse condition which causes pain. A scar implies that a fix has been made. The wound cannot fester and the pain is just a memory.

It is said that one cannot remember pain. I translate that to: one cannot reproduce a former pain, however one can remember that a particular wound or experience was painful. In this case HOLD THAT THOUGHT. Living freely the life style of one’s choosing is a precious thing.

It can also be a precarious thing. Never to be taken for granted.

© 22 June 2015

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Acting by Ricky

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.


Did I mewl as an infant? Of course. All infants do; but I refused to puke “in the nurse’s arms,” because I had class even as an infant. Because I had class, I only burped up on my parents.

Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.


As a schoolboy I never carried a satchel, just a binder and a handful of books. Those were the days before backpacks became popular to carry school supplies. Naturally, I never, never whined about school; only about having to walk 5 miles to school and back in 3 feet of snow, uphill–both ways. Even then that was only to my children not other school mates and only for those times I missed the school bus.

And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow.


Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Down here you fool. The ladder broke.

(I’m just playing my part as the group’s smart alec.)

I must admit I was hot with passion to and for my female better half and my coming out was quite woeful but I just couldn’t put it into a ballad. Somehow singing, “I’ll be coming out the closet when I come. I’ll be coming out the closet when I come,” just didn’t seem appropriate. Unfortunately, while my ladder still works, it just doesn’t reach the balcony anymore.

Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, 

Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth.

I hold that being an officer in the Air Force is better than being a soldier, at least comfort wise. In any case, we did take an oath and we couldn’t have beards “like the pard.” (A “pard” is a literary noun meaning a leopard or panther.) There is much emphasis on honor in the military and in-fighting or back-stabbing among members who should be cooperating with each other is also common. Even when facing the “cannon’s mouth” soldiers will defy logic and do the most selfless and heroic deeds but not to advance their reputations; that honor goes to the leaders who order men into foolish battles.

And then the justice 

In fair round belly, with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part.

I’m not sure my children would agree that I ever meted out justice. They would agree about the round belly but the “fair” part is questionable. My eyes are not severe (unless I’m angry) and once again I have no beard–this week. My wise saws are mostly interpreted to be wise cracks, but I do play my part.

The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav’d, a world too wide,
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.

I’ve definitely arrived in this age but still passing through. I wear slippers and also wear sleep-pants which in my opinion can pass for pantaloons here. Clearly I wear spectacles on my nose but my pouch is a paunch and is in front. My youthful hose I abandoned long ago when they began to smell up the house. Fortunately, I’ve not lost my big manly voice, yet and I’m not looking forward to it either.

Last scene of all, 

That ends this strange eventful history, 
Is second childishness and mere oblivion, 
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

I’m not sure I ever left my first childishness but when I get to the “last scene,” I suspect that I will not be in any condition to recognize it — or any other actors still on stage with me.

© 29 Mar 2012

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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Scarves: A Scarfy Story, by Lewis J. Thompson, III

It was a night much like any other for the watchman at Glasgow’s Dock Number Three, Lewis James MacScarvey, as he made his rounds. The only sounds were that of the water sloshing against the piles and an occasion distant fog horn or well-sotted human being noisily making his way home after closing time.

It was his habit to pace to-and-fro in front of a streetlamp and park bench where said humans were prone to sleep and dispose of their spent bottles in the nearby trash receptacle in hopes of averting a disturbance. When he turned to the north he could see about 100 meters away another bench with trash receptacle and lamplight nearly identical to his. Only there was no one patrolling that space so he liked to occasionally cast his eye in that direction to make sure there was no mischief-making going on.

On this particular night, at about 1:30 in the morning, he thought he saw a figure standing near the water. It appeared to be a woman, perhaps wearing a red full-length coat and something on her head. He had made several turnings on his well-worn loop and each time checked to see if the person was still there.

After about 15 minutes or so, he turned and noticed that the figure had vanished. Curious, he rushed down to see if there was a problem. When he arrived at the spot where the woman had been standing, he saw only a pair of earrings carefully placed on the seat of the bench and, when he looked into the water, a red scarf floating on the surface. Not even a ripple disturbed the water’s calm. Using his nightstick, he was able, with some effort, to retrieve the scarf. Embroidered on one corner were initials. He could barely make them out in the dim light–“LJM”. They were his initials. He backed away from the edge of the water until his legs collided with the bench, whereupon he sat down hard.

Although he never learned the identity of the mysterious lonely woman he saw that night–no body was ever found–he could not bring himself to reveal to the police even the existence of the scarf. He kept it for himself and every night before he went on-duty, he would tie the scarf around his neck, hoping against hope that the rightful owner would some night come looking for it.

© March 23, 2015

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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Once upon a Time by Gillian

Progressive Dinner parties were the in thing, at least with my social group, once upon a way back when. I guess they’re still around, but I haven’t been involved in one in decades. It must have been the 1970’s when I was, because I was still married to my husband and living in Jamestown in Boulder County. Did you ever get caught up in those things?

Between about ten and twenty people gather, say, at our house. We have a drink or two to kick off the evening. Cocktails were popular then, though beer was always my drug of choice; or becoming a wino held a certain appeal, but I never cared for mixed drinks. Most of us, of course, puffed cigarettes as we chugged our drinks in those carefree days. After all, you’re already wrecking your liver so what’s the point in worrying about your lungs? From Jamestown we convoy to, say, South Boulder. There we gather at another home for hors d’oevres and another drink. Then on to Longmont and another home for what I think we called, back then, the main course, or simply dinner, the term entree not coming along until later. And, needless to say, more drinks. And off to Lafayette, then still a small town out in the sticks, for desert and after-dinner drinks, then to one of those new things called condos for a night cap. Finally off home in different directions, not a designated driver in sight. By some miracle no-one ever had an accident amongst all this. Nobody even got a drunk driving ticket. But of course in those days, even if you were spotted weaving your way along the center line, it usually earned you little more than an urge to be more careful next time, which you knew you could translate freely as, be more careful not to get caught next time.

In the here and now, Betsy and I might go to East Denver in the morning, to take an old friend who can no longer drive, out for lunch. On the way home perhaps we’ll make a detour to deliver a favorite candy bar to another old friend in a nursing home. Not so very different from a Progressive Dinner, is it? OK, maybe, but at least we’re sober. There is nothing good about the headline, “Great-grandmother arrested for drunk driving.”

Once upon a time, my calendar was covered in scrawled names, places, and times. But only around the edges. Essentially everything was crammed into evening and weekends. The big black hole in the middle was all WORK, leaving little opportunity for personal life. The other little squares were crowded with ferrying kids to endless varieties of activities, and adult celebrations.The future was looking wide and bright on a limitless horizon, and we were ready! We celebrated friends’ new jobs, new cars, new babies, new homes, new marriages, new lovers, and new divorces: promotions, graduations, undreamed of vacations.

In the here and now, the calendar on the fridge looks very similar. Except that it’s reversed. All the crowded-in names and places and times are in the middle, in that space once occupied solely by WORK. The outer squares are largely empty. We, like many older people, really do not like to drive after dark unless absolutely necessary. So we, and our friends and those accommodating family members, plan most things so that we can get home before dark. Somewhat in the same way, if not to the same extent, we tend to schedule activities on weekdays. Weekends are all crowded out with those wild young working folks who have to be accommodated so that they can keep on paying our Social Security.

If we are among the really fortunate, our children’s calendars are now covered in times and places they are ferrying us. The very fact that we’re still here means we are still having birthdays.

We probably still go on great vacations, but although many of us continue our education in one form or another, we don’t bother much about promotions and graduations – our own, that is. Our celebrations have taken on a different view. They tend to be celebrations of the past rather than future.Our calendars have a few too many memorials scheduled on them, our friends number among them too many now living alone, and if someone is moving it is usually to somewhere smaller, and sometimes to a place where they really do not want to be.

So the once upon a way back whenever was a much better place than the here and now? I’d go back in an instant given the chance?

NO WAY!!

For one thing, there’s one mighty steep learning curve I had to struggle my way up between there and here. I never want to have to do that again. And anyway, I sincerely love life, here and now.

Yes, the calendar has a few too many memorials and hospital visits, but it still denotes many other wonderful things – like Monday afternoons. The dates I now keep with friends seem so much more meaningful somehow than the endless get-togethers of my youth. The people mean more to me. In reviewing the memories of those Progressive Dinners, I realized that, other than my ex-husband, I couldn’t recall who any of the people were. Back then, anything that happened was just another excuse for a party rather than a true celebration of the event, or even the people involved. A “Celebration of Life” as we like to call memorials these days, has a whole lot more sincerity about it, and in some ways more true joy, than all that meaningless round of long ago parties.

No, of course they were wonderful times. My life has been great, I have terrific memories. But, from my current viewpoint, I have to say it seems almost as ridiculous to wish I were in my twenties as it would for someone twenty-five to yearn to be seventy-five.

© May 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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Sports by Ricky

While growing up, I loved to play some physically active games that would be called by the general term “sports”. In grade school in Cambridge, Minnesota, I liked to play one version of marbles.

During some past construction on the school grounds a couple of 8-foot tall piles of dirt were left on the edge of the playground right next to the surrounding woods. As a 3rd and 4th grader, I played “King of the Hill” with classmates. It was fun to climb to the top while others tried to do the same all the while trying to keep me from getting to the top. Of course I was also trying to stop them as well. I got to the top many times but it was impossible to stay there with all the pushing and shoving. Sliding or rolling down the side of the dirt hill was also fun. Sadly, the playground teachers finally put a stop to our play and made the hill forbidden territory. Being boys, we naturally disobeyed and played on the hill anyway but more secretively.

In the winter we would build snowmen and snow-forts on the playground from which we would have snowball fights. The teachers did not interfere as long as we were not throwing “ice balls”.

Back in California, in 5th grade we would play organized games for some PE class times, games like kick-ball, jump rope, and tether-ball. Organized PE time did not occur very often so we boys chose to play softball in the spring and autumn and touch or flag football in late autumn and throughout the winter.

The summer I turned 11, I began to try out for Little League baseball. I was not good enough for a “major” team but I did play two years on a “minor league” team.

In high school during PE classes, I learned to play football much better but I could not throw the ball well enough to be a quarterback and I was too light to be of much use blocking. Also, I was not all that fast running so while I enjoyed playing the game, I was not future NFL material. During our basketball scrimmages, I loved to play but could not dribble the ball very well nor could I shoot and sink baskets consistently. My shooting never got better. My best friend and I did do very well in the badminton tournament however and we loved to play it.

During those four years of high school, the New York Yankees were my favorite baseball team because my favorite players were on that team. They were Mickey Mantle (my favorite), Roger Maris, and Yogi Berra. While most of my peers could cite team and player statistics ad nausium, I could not care less about those statistics, the same for professional or college teams. My favorite football team was not formed until the Minnesota Vikings was formed. It might seem strange that a California boy would have a Minnesota team as his favorite, but we were connected by circumstance. I lived for a time in Minnesota and my high school’s mascot was and still is the Vikings.

After high school my interest in sports gradually waned as I grew older. The only exception is for my college’s teams. But even then, I grew tired of watching the football team snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The last time I got excited for a sport was when my oldest daughter developed a crush on Jose Canseco and his baseball team. So, for three years I became a baseball fan again. She lost interest and one year later so did I. Not until the Colorado Rockies went to the World Series did I catch baseball fever again. Fortunately, I recovered.

It all boils down to this. For me, I would rather play a game for fun rather than sit, watch, or listen to it. Sports like boxing, golf, swimming, track and field, auto racing, horse racing, air races, fencing, bobsledding, mountain climbing, and skiing, hold no interest for me even to participate in them. The only sport I would enjoy would be to lie on a deserted beach with my companion some late evening and watch the submarine races while making out.

© 3 November 2014

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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For a Good Time by Phillip Hoyle

I’m not easily manipulated by advertising. I can watch ads on TV, even enjoy their art, humor, and images, but I never buy their products. I can pour over magazine ads but end up only cutting them into pieces for collages rather than purchasing their wares. I knew this about myself for years, but I learned a valuable exception one night early in my coming out—during my first year living in Denver. I was at Charlie’s of Denver dancing with my friend Dianne. We’d go there once in awhile to practice our emerging bar-stool massage techniques, to drink some beers, and to dance. We were laughing and carrying on when I noticed a decent looking man standing by a table watching me. He smiled. I smiled. I went over to talk with him and invite him to dance with us. Before long he said to me, “Let’s go have sex.”

I responded to his direct message. Perhaps I was also attracted to his strong southern accent, his black hair, his darker skin (I assumed he might be Hispanic), his smile revealing clean, slightly irregular teeth, and his stature just a bit shorter than mine. He seemed my kind of guy although I really didn’t know I had a preferred type. He advertised no price tag attached to sex—just sex. We went to my place and figured out what to do together.

I realized that while I liked what I saw and otherwise sensed, and I enjoyed our simple negotiations, conversation, and other contortions, the good time I experienced really arose from my inner core. All my deepest pleasures originate from an introvert place and preference, although in this instance assisted by a shot of adrenalin, a combination of other hormones, and perhaps was bolstered by a bit of alcohol. They spoke from deep within.

Usually I am happy to be alone, but there are times I easily enough share myself more publically. For instance, there are things I enjoy doing with others, like the visit to the Denver Art Museum with my friend Dianne to see the Yves St. Laurent couture show. I probably would have missed it if she hadn’t encouraged me to take her. Dianne had modeled clothes in Paris in her late teens and twenties and did her first runway job for the designer whose clothing we were viewing as we walked through the rooms displaying his work. Her perspectives drew me deeper into the multitude of beautiful items on display and the world that had produced them. I liked that conjunction immensely.

Furthermore, I enjoy going on trips with Jim, like the trip to North Dakota (a place that requires a local guide for anyone to appreciate it at all). Jim showed me all the places he had lived and had loved way up there in the north, including the field where he sometimes saw moose sitting in the snow when as a child he walked to catch the school bus, the train station where he used to work for the Great Northern Railroad, and the statue of the world’s largest cow. His insistence on driving the whole way through Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota and Wyoming freed me to pay close attention to the landforms where many scenes from 19th century American history were played out and where for millennia great herds of bison were hunted by tribes in their annual cycles of hunt and harvest. And I met many of Jim and Ruth’s family members. Furthermore, I got to know both my partner and his mother in ways I would have perceived only slowly if we had not travelled together. I enjoyed the trip and the things I learned by experiencing it with these two who have become so important in my life.

For a good time: in its popular usage connotes a sexual element and is often a prostitute’s come on complete with phone number and perhaps prices. In my two examples there was something sexual, even if deeply sublimated. Dianne is one of the sexiest people I have ever known. And of course I was having sex with Jim on our North Dakota Odyssey.

And then there are my good times with a Writers group, an Artist Trading Card gathering, and weekly meetings of this Storytelling group. I enjoy seeing friends for coffee or lunch, having sex with a lover, going somewhere to dance (Indian dancing at demonstrations or powwows in my school years, social dances in junior high and high school, two-stepping or rock dancing with my wife, or techno dancing with a good friend in my gay days). I like day trips to the mountains for short walks or visiting a tourist trap, some combination of exercise, shopping, sightseeing, picture taking, and eating. And of course, lots of gab.

For a good time: pleasure can only be defined by the person seeking or experiencing it. For instance, three people share an activity. One simply bears it, another one finds it just okay, while the third declares it was a really good time, one of the best. The pleasure itself is due to personal emotions and feelings, not due to owning an art museum membership or being able to afford an occasional trip. For me, the good time arises from being somehow transformed by the viewings, travel, thoughts and feelings when my social activities become a scene in a story or the inspiration for a piece of artwork. Then I feel even more deep pleasure, my deepest satisfaction. And that’s a really good time!

Denver, © 2013

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

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What Makes Homophobes Tick? by Lewis Thompson

The easy answer to this query would be that “homophobe” means “a person with an irrational or obsessive fear of homosexuals”, according to Wikipedia. But it would be important to dig a little beneath the surface to examine not only where the “irrational or obsessive fear” arises from but also why it seems to persist over many years.

Any American born in the last century almost certainly spent their formative years being inculcated with certain “inalienable truths”. Among these were–

* To be white is better than to be a person of color;

* To be male is better than to be female;

* To be a female is better than to be a male who wants to become a female (if a female wants to become a male, well, who can blame them?);

* To be rich is better than to be poor;

* To be rich and a crook is also better than being poor;

* To be a Christian is better than to be a non-Christian;

* To be a non-Christian is better than to be an atheist;

* To be an atheist is better than being a homosexual because, at least usually, you’re not an embarrassment to your relatives;

* To be conservative is better than being liberal (because all of the Founding Fathers were conservative, otherwise, they would never have written the Second Amendment);

* To be black, female, liberal, a non-believer, and gay is the worst thing that can possibly happen to a person and they surely should be imprisoned at birth and executed as soon as their politics, non-believer status, and sexual orientation become manifest.

So, we can readily comprehend that homophobia is the natural outgrowth of a society based upon gender, race, religious and countless other biases. It is endemic, almost akin to fluoridated water, which, as we all know, was responsible for the rise of the John Birch Society.

© January 12, 2015

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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Piece of Cake by Gillian

It isn’t just my age that makes it seem like many things that surely should be are not a piece of cake these days. Oh yes, I forget where I put things and logic occasionally skips a beat, but I’m talking about things made more complicated than they need to be by others, not myself.

Betsy and I regretfully sold our old camper van a few months ago. It was eating money and parts were becoming too hard to find. The man who bought it apparently drove it home on a toll road because a few weeks later we got a bill from the toll company for $3.20. Now even I am not going to quibble over three bucks, so I mailed the check and forgot all about it. Piece of cake! A few weeks later we received another bill for the same vehicle, time, and date, from a differently named company. It seems the toll collection passed to a different company without, surprise surprise, much communication. Other than the fact that this bill was mysteriously thirty cents higher, the bills were identical so we printed off a copy of the processed check, mailed it and forgot about it. Just last week we got a second bill from the toll company for sixty unexplained cents. Honestly! Can’t someone program their computer not to generate bills for amounts below a dollar? I am tempted to tape sixty pennies to a sheet of paper, but I know the computer wouldn’t know what to do with that. The next thing we’d receive would be a bill for $20.60 after they added a twenty dollar late charge. So I guess I’ll just write a check. I can honestly say I have never written a check for less than a dollar, but then, a woman in her seventies should probably be grateful for any new experience!

Have you noticed how people these days have developed the skill of completely ignoring evidence right in front of their eyes? Betsy’s granddaughter Lisi owed us some money and was paying it back via automated monthly checks mailed to us from her bank. Piece of cake! When she later closed out that account, the checks kept right on coming. After three monthly checks we should not have had, we visited a local branch of the bank and explained the situation. Yes, the young man agreed, that account was indeed closed and contained no money, therefore we would receive no checks. I pounded my poor pinkie on the paper until it pained me. There were the checks. Three of them. Keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the computer screen he continued to nod his agreement that the account was closed and empty and no checks could be issued. He simply refused to see the evidence before him. Really! What kind of bank continues to send out checks from a closed account with no money in it??

In fact, closing accounts just seems to cause problems. I closed out a savings account, withdrawing all the money. The next month I got a statement claiming I had thirty-nine cents in that account. I called the branch, but neither they nor I had any explanation for the thirty-nine cents.

“Oh well,” I said, “Just cut a check for the amount and toss it in the trash, then close the account.”

She explained that she could not do that, as the computer would not create checks for less than a dollar.

“Can I just pop in and you give me the cash then?”

Cash, all thirty-nine cents of it, was apparently, for some incomprehensible reason, not an option. I gave up.

After a couple of months my thirty-nine cent statement was accompanied by a letter expounding upon the joys of paperless banking. Yes! I thought, hastily completing the authorization. At least I would no longer be irritated every month by this three-page documentation of my thirty-nine
cents. I would never have to go on-line to look at it; it would be forgotten. Piece of cake! After the second month of continuing to receive the mailed statement, I phoned the 24 hour customer service number. Definitely, I was told, since I had signed up for paperless banking I no longer received hard-copy statements. I assured her that I was holding one in my hand at that very moment, and she continued to affirm that I no longer received statements by mail. I gave up, but the following month I took my apparently imaginary paper statement to the local branch and explained my problem. Eyes glued to the screen, the young woman agreed wholeheartedly with me. Yes, I had signed up for paperless accounts and no longer received hard copy. No amount of waving pages at her could distract her attention from that screen. I gave up. Now, each month as I watch my three-page proof of thirty-nine cents die an ignominious death in the shredder, I remind myself that I no longer receive hard copy.

I find, more and more, that I fail to understand what people are telling me. And no, it’s not because I can’t hear, or that English is their second language. No, English, as far as I know, is their first language. Yet they somehow speak it in a way I cannot follow. I understand the words, but the way they put them together makes no sense to me. Betsy recently e-mailed a very simple question to our insurance company. The reply, and I promise you this is a direct quote, read, “Yes your property is currently covered (but not now).” How in God’s name is a person to interpret that? How can something be currently but not now?

I think hell on earth must be struggling, from half way around the world, to deal helpfully and politely in a relatively unfamiliar language, with an angry American trying to set up his Smart TV. A few years ago, Betsy and I bought a new flat-screen TV, and, for the first time, splurged on Cable. The Comcast techie rushed off after a very speedy installation, leaving me no chance to ask questions. I could not figure out where to attach the DVD player, so in desperation I called the HELP number. After many minuets on hold and many more in conversation with a very frustrated young man, both he and I had had just about enough. His voice had risen an octave over the time we had spent together, and I was beginning to doubt his chances of reaching his twenty-first birthday without a heart attack.

“No no no! You are not listening to me. How then can I help if you do not listen?”

“I’m sorry. I am listening. Really.”

Like a recalcitrant three year old.

“Now.” He sighed; at the end of his tether.

“We are at the very top, on the left side of the television. This TV is not a person. It is not the left side of it of which we speak. No! It is your left. You are facing the screen. Yes?”

Without waiting for confirmation he plunged on.

“You are reaching out your left hand and placing it on the top of the side of the television that is there, closest to your exact left hand. Very good! Now, the first connection on top of all the connections on that very side. You see it. It is being very red and you do not use it.”

I replied that actually it was yellow, but no I did not use it.

“It is red!” he said, dismissively. “Now you move down your exact left hand and the next one is yellow and you do not use it.”

I saw little point in saying that it was white, and we moved rapidly on to the next which was supposedly white but was in fact red. Why wasn’t my TV like his picture of it? We had confirmed the model number.

“Now,” he said with an air of accomplishment, “in the next one below under your exact left hand is the unused white into which you place the white of your DVD cable.

I willed the thick cable already plugged into the dirty-mustard yellow connection to disappear, but it remained.

“Something’s already in that one. The cable box. Or maybe the DVR …” I said doubtfully, peering into the dark corner behind the TV and the tanglement of wires and cables nesting there.

“No no no! You are indeed not following me!”

I thanked him for his time and hung up.

And you know, among the endless frustrations of modern life, occasionally someone appears who reinvigorates your faith in people and even technology. Forgetting the DVD player, I worked on getting the DVR to work. Having failed on that score too, I called Comcast where the phone techie agreed that it was not working correctly and scheduled a real person techie visit in two days. She strode into the living room, an obvious lesbian wearing her overstuffed tool belt with pride. After a cursory glance, she began ripping out cables and wires and dumping them in a tangled mangled heap on the carpet. She scooped up the messy bundle and retreated to her van, returning with new, neatly coiled and labeled, cables and wires and connectors. In what seemed like no time she was demonstrating to me that the TV worked, the DVD player worked, the cable box worked, and the DVR worked. She gathered up her tools and waved a cheery goodbye.

Piece of cake!

© March 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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Spiritual Journey by Will Stanton

I regard myself as a highly spiritual person. I’m not quite sure why that is. If so, it has come about naturally. I never was raised in a church, temple, or mosque. Many Americans regard religion as the one and only means to achieve spiritual development. I have heard some people, like Bill O’Reilly, even claim that spiritual development outside of church is impossible. I have had no formal religious teaching in Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Zoroastrian dogma. I don’t pray to Zeus, although I do admire his selection of cup-bearer.

Yet, I instinctively always have been concerned with listening to “the better angels of our nature” and trying to develop a relationship with others and the world that is positive and commendable. I prefer to treat others as I would have them treat me, a precept similar to the instructions expressed in most religions. I feel that my instincts have lead me in the right direction on my spiritual journey.

Throughout my life, however, I have encountered, or been made aware of, a large percentage of people who do not think nor feel as I do. My positive values, my being sensitive to others’ needs and feelings, often have been regarded as being “too sensitive, too selfless, too impractical.” I also abhor all forms of violence and mistreatment of others. My heightened sense of what is most precious and beautiful in the world apparently is not shared by the majority of people. The more of the world I have seen around me, the more I feel that I am a member of that minority of humans living in a world full of troglodytes. Could one of the factors contributing to this increased sensitivity and spirituality be natural orientation?

There does seem to be a sense that those persons most interested in spiritual development have greater sensitivity than many others. People may think that priests and ministers may be more sensitive, more empathetic, and perhaps even sexually suspect. That may be a stereotype, but there also may be some truth in it. Certainly, many gay men go into the church. Pope John-Paul II (now “Saint John-Paul II”) once estimated that half the Catholic clergy were gay. (Or, was it the former Hitler-Youth pope who said that?) The previous Archbishop of Canterbury at the time also estimated that seventy percent of the clergy in the Anglican Church were homosexual. Did their orientation lead them to greater spirtual exploration?

I have been aware over the years that I feel deeply the spirituality in the most sublime music, such as Mozart’s “Ave verum corpus.” I know that greater understanding and feeling for sublime music is partly the result of one of the several heightened levels of secondary intelligences; yet possibly orientation does, too.

I often have seen men, who regard themselves as quite macho, raise an eyebrow in suspicion of anyone who has a passion for the arts or chooses a profession that is regarded as un-macho. This stereotypical attitude is not limited to modern American men. For several hundred years, the aristocratic men of Europe were convinced than any man who spent too much time involved with music or the arts would deplete his masculinity and become more feminized. It may be true that a devoté of art and music might devote too many hours to his passion to permit him to, for example, conduct a war in Iraq, or work twelve hours per day to become a multi-billionaire, or slander all political opponents to gain a seat in Congress. I am certain that, if I were to spend my life around such troglodytes in any form, I would be committing spiritual suicide. I prefer to associate with friends who possess an admirable spirituality about them. In my working years, my own sensitivity and empathy enhanced my ability to help others with their problems. It has been, however, in my passion for sublime music and art that I personally have found the greatest spiritual fulfillment, finding within such creations intrinsic value, a value that I enjoy sharing with others who are like-minded.

© 05 June 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.