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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Right Now by Betsy

If there is nothing else that I have learned over the years, I have learned this: be present and focus on the moment, the RIGHT NOW, because it really is all there is. It is all that we have in reality. The past is made up of memories, and memories are, after all, a product of one’s mind. As for the future: it is unknown and thoughts of the future are also a product of the mind.

We have a whole lot of ”right nows” happening all the time in succession. By the time I read this, what I am doing right now will be a memory; that is, a vision I create in my mind.

Right now is the most important time of my life. When I contemplate this I realize that right now IS all that is real. So why not make the most of it.

In a recent Monday afternoon story called My Favorite Place I wrote: my favorite place is wherever I am at the moment. Right now my favorite place is here, trying to sort out my thoughts and put them down on paper so you all can get some understanding of what I am trying to say.

Have you ever been in a place where you wanted desperately to capture the moment and make it last forever, such as a place of indescribable beauty and awe such as the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls. Today’s cameras help to do that and make it possible to take home a reminder of that place. But what I cannot take home with me is how it FELT to experience the incredible beauty of the canyon and that awesome power of the falls. The memory is not the same as the experience itself. EkhartTolle speaks of being at one with the universe. Surrounded by incredible natural beauty and power and really taking in the feeling and the peace that it engenders is perhaps the closest I will ever be in my current human form to that connection. This can only happen in the right now.

How many of us have ever completely tormented ourselves over something that happened in the past–a few minutes ago or long ago. Or something bad happens a few minutes ago or long ago and we cannot let go of it. We go over and over and over it in our minds. Both past and future are constructs of the mind, says Tolle. Only the now is real. I like the concept. But yet being human I am flawed. My fragile ego was injured, for example, when I was inadvertently left off a groups’ luncheon e-mail list. A group of which I am a long time member. Did someone deliberately forget me. So I started in with the tapes going round and round in my head. “Why was I ignored? Who did it? Does someone hate me? Why does she hate me? Oh! For Heaven’s sake, Betsy, let it go. It was a simple mistake.” Focusing on the right now has helped me to better manage my vulnerability in such situations. Keeps me grounded in reality.

We all have known people who “live” in the past or “live”” in the future. I can understand how a person could fall into this behavior. When I retired from my job, for an instant I panicked. “ Who will I be? Maybe I will no longer have an identity. I’ll be a nothing,” etc. etc. Fortunately that thought was only fleeting. I immediately shifted gears, found other activities and interests, and established a new identity as an active retired person–a sports enthusiast, a community volunteer, etc. So for me, adjustment to retirement took only a week or so.

Coming out of the closet I had many moments of doubt about what I was doing at the time. I had left a very comfortable marriage and entered a world of insecurities and unfamiliar territory. I had never really lived alone. At the time it was not easy to find, much less join, a community of which I knew little; and on occasion finding members of that community with whom I could hardly relate. This produced moments of anxiety when I longed for my old familiar, comfortable situation I had left–my old, familiar past. But right now, I then said to myself, I know that past was intolerable and that is why I am doing this. I struggled but coached myself to stay grounded in the present.

During the months and years when I was in that marriage but starting to question whether I should be there, I started living in the future. Talk about having your head in the clouds–imagining what it would be like to be in a relationship with a woman and envisioning life as a lesbian. It seems clear that we all need to plan and to dream at times in our lives. But living one’s life and identifying with the future all the time can be dangerous. Would it not be terrifying to wake up one day and realize you’ve missed out on all the right nows and there are none left.

We do get ourselves into trouble, and we do ourselves a disservice when we anticipate not only that a certain something will happen in the future, but also we envision how we will feel about it. We may be setting ourselves up for disappointment or disillusionment.

When I first came out I had much to learn about life and about people. And that is not because I was young. Well, compared to now I was young. But I was not a youngster. I was in my late forties. Yet I had lots to learn. So I experienced a couple of stormy years and stormy relationships and had many moments of doubt about the steps I had taken to change my life. Yes, I was a lesbian, but was this the life I wanted? At first I had many moments of disillusionment with my new life.

The future is not right now. What we think about the future is a contrivance of our thinking mind and not a reality. Does the future therefore deserve any of our energy in the form of anxiety, concern, worry, trepidation. Or on the positive side does it deserve premature visions of happiness, joy, calm, peace, etc. I do believe it does to some extent. Half the fun of a trip, or a party is the planning of it, right? For me it is. And planning for the future is a necessity, no doubt about it. But planning is a useful action done, when? In the right now. What does not deserve our time and energy is wasted worry and anxiety about the future.

In my dotage I am learning that life requires adjustments, sometimes just fine tuning, other times big changes all along the way. I have recently learned that I am having to cut back on many activities that I don’t want to cut back on. Some fine tuning is necessary. If I stick to the right nows, I should be able to make that adjustment easily and positively. I’m finding that being and staying in the right now helps me to do that. No doubt about it. The NOW is a good place to be.
So, what am I doing right now? I am getting ready for another right now.

December 16, 2013

About the Author

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

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Drinking by Will Stanton

Regardless of the fact that there may be a few people here who have had personal difficulties with alcohol in their past, I have reason to be quite aware about the pervasive problems excessive drinking causes individuals, families, and society as a whole. In my working with peoples’ heads for thirty years, I frequently had to deal with people who have had problems with drinking, as well as drugs. I could write a thousand pages on the subject. I’m not. I’m not even going to write one page on it. I’m retired – – and tired. I don’t wish to revisit those problems.

As for myself, I never have had a problem with alcohol or drugs, Fortunately, my family and I were not genetically prone to substance abuse. Also, alcohol never was a big deal in our home while I was growing up, so I never made drinking a habit. In college, I never cared to go out drinking, get drunk, throw up, pass out, participate in riots, be arrested, or get DUIs. None of that seemed like fun to me.

Throughout my life, I always have been able to (quote) “get high” naturally, both emotionally and biochemically, pumping out endorphins and dopamine. All I have to do is engage in activities that I truly enjoy, either alone or especially with good friends. Not only do such activities raise my spirits, but also, especially when I am passionate about something, my own body pumps out chemicals that go to the pleasure center of the brain and make me feel good. And, this is without bad side-effects and without breaking the law and being arrested.

When I was in college, I was puzzled when other students seemed not to be able to know what to do with their spare time. I remember some Friday evenings in the dormitory when I’d hear a couple of students trying to figure out what to do with themselves for the evening. The dialogue usually was, “Hay, Joe, what d’yuh wanna do tonight?” “I dunno. What do you wanna do?” “I dunno. Wanna go up town drinkin’?” “Yeah.”

I’m well aware that people being drunk has been regarded as an easy way to make jokes. Many jokes I don’t find to be funny at all. Some I do, but that is because the humor is truly witty, no person is denigrated in any way, and there may be some redeeming features to the humor. Foster Brooks kidding Don Rickles on the Dean Martin Roast is a classic example. Check it out on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdPcjIrSvcs

So, what do I drink? Lots and lots of charcoal-filtered water, for one thing. Occasionally limited amounts of fruit juices, limited quantities of coffee or tea, and only occasionally an alcoholic drink. If I do have an alcoholic drink, it literally is only for the taste, not to get a buzz. I don’t need two or three or four of something to get the taste. As far as that goes, it’s the same thing for me with ice cream. One dip provides plenty of taste. I don’t need two or three or four dips to enjoy the taste. (I hope that I didn’t embarrass any “ice-cream-aholics” in the group.)

Alcohol is so unimportant in my life that I do not have a bar in my home, I don’t hang out in bars, and I usually don’t bother to have alcohol at social gatherings. I don’t believe that alcohol needs to be outlawed. Human nature already has proved that this won’t work. But, if it were, that would not bother me. I don’t need it; I can live without it.

© 02 April 2014

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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Point of View by Ricky

If one were to confine this topic to politics and politicians, there really is no such thing as “point of view” but only points of contention or disagreement. One only has to look at our present Congress to see the truth of this statement, which just happens to be my point of view on the subject of politics.

But leaving politics behind and moving to religion, a similar situation arises. Ephesians 4:5 states, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism …” but different Christian denominations baptize members using non-standardized methods and (in the case of children) at different ages. Some even claim that baptism is not even necessary. Wars have started over such points of contention.

So, leaving both politics and religion out of any further consideration I can limit my thoughts to points of view between common citizens. Obviously, disagreements between people can also escalate into confrontations which may or may not become violent. After all, points of view are dangerous in the wrong minds attached to uncontrollable mouths or a word processor. Therefore, I will continue to shrink the viewing of my points to the times I served in the U.S. Air Force.

I first served from December 1967 to September 1971 when I was released early to attend college as the Vietnam non-war was ending. I enjoyed my time in the service mostly because I was stationed in Florida after basic training and my Commander and First Sergeant were good and decent people who treated all the enlisted personnel under their authority very well. This I can contrast with my next period of service which began in May of 1978 when I graduated college.

The only thing I did not like about my enlisted time was being told where and when I could live somewhere. Between the end of my enlistment and my graduation, I had married and now where ever I lived my family would be with me so that particular peeve no longer applied. I returned to the Air Force as an officer in the Security Police career field. I spent the next 12-years supervising the enlisted force guarding nuclear missiles, nuclear armed bombers, and nuclear weapons in storage and the base law enforcement personnel, and also as a nuclear weapons convoy commander.

I was assigned to units of the Strategic Air Command (SAC). The military officer culture of SAC is tightly structured and controlled because SAC was always one-step closer to going to war than all other units of the Air Force. SAC’s official motto was “Peace is Our Profession.” The unofficial version was, “Peace is Our Profession—War is Our Hobby.” This is probably the last point where our points of view coincided.

POINT OF VIEW #1—Training – My View: Training activities are to be used to teach and improve performance of personnel. Their View: Any mistake in training is to be severely criticized and appropriate punishment inflicted. There are too many examples in my military life to even try to pick one, so I won’t.

POINT OF VIEW #2—Suggestions – My View: When a senior officer asks for comments, suggestions, or opinions, the person asking wants an answer, so respond. Their View: “I did not mean it. If you choose to answer, give me the answer I want to hear. Be a ‘Yes-man’.” (It took me way too long to realize this truth.)

I once reminded my colonel (the Security Police Group Commander) of a commitment he made to the personnel in my squadron. (I did this at the morning briefing with all the intermediate commanders in attendance. I was still a lieutenant.) He had told our personnel that he was going to visit each flight on the midnight-shift. I reminded him that he had done this for the other three flights but not my flight and the men had asked me about it. As a result, he came out and visited that very night. I took the opportunity to suggest that he ride with me and I gave him a tour of the nuclear weapons storage area and demonstrated a “starlight scope.”

The men had been complaining about the bag lunches delivered to them. The colonel just happened to be there when the lunches arrived and got to see them first hand. The men wanted to know why they could not have hot lunches delivered like the aircraft maintenance personnel who were brought hot lunches in specially insulated cabinets. Back-office personnel had known about this issue for over a year but had done nothing to make it happen. As a result of that visit and my suggestions, within a week hot meals were delivered and the starlight scopes were posted with the security patrols and not just kept locked up in the armory

Also, as a result, my commander and the back-office personnel took a strong dislike to me. My commander because in his point of view, I had jumped the chain-of-command and made him look bad or ineffective. The back-office personnel because in their point of view, I made them look lazy and uncaring. In my point of view, I had taken care of my men and enhanced the security of the base.

POINT OF VIEW #3—Disposition of Personnel – My View: The right person in the right position. Their View: Reward the “team-players” with positions on the day-shift.

In peace-time how do you evaluate the readiness and effectiveness of military personnel? There are perhaps several different methods, but the one I saw most often would be called dramaturgical behaviors—how well do personnel march; are their uniforms clean, starched, and shoes and metal parts shiny; is their military “bearing” above reproach; is all paperwork perfect in every way; and are their equipment or weapons clean and in good repair? In other words, does everything and everyone look good?

One variation of this concept I saw consistently throughout my career. The most knowledgeable and experienced officers and enlisted personnel were assigned to the day-shift where they could impress all commanders on base, who almost to the man, only worked day-shift hours. All the less knowledgeable officers and enlisted personnel worked the rotating swing and mid-shifts out of sight, while those who are responsible for training and observing performance sleep. My view point is that you should put the most experienced and knowledgeable personnel on shifts where they need little or no supervision while everyone else sleeps at night.

These are a few of the reasons why the Air Force decided we need to part company. Our points of view were never really compatible.

© 25 November 2013

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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Don’t Touch Me There by Will Stanton

This topic seems immediately to imply unwanted physical contact. Perhaps that’s what the person who chose it was thinking. I suppose one could, by extension, think of “touching the mind,” or “touching the soul.” But then again, maybe that’s stretching it; those approaches sound too philosophical for such a small presentation.

So, what can a person such as I write about unwanted touching? Any form of touching is foreign to my experience growing up and into my early adulthood. Coming from a rather Puritanical home where touching and expressions of love were extremely limited, I craved the kind of attention that psychologists have learned is so important for helping to develop happy, healthy people with a good sense of self-esteem. I’m speaking of wanted touching, of course. I would not have been comfortable with unwanted touching. In my case, that was not a problem. My having had a very controlled childhood, apparently I never was placed into a situation where I was vulnerable to unwanted touching.

So, rather than my speaking of my own limited experience, I’ll address the fact that the human need to be touched, to be held, to have sex, is a powerful need; and if a majority of people, or those people with power and authority, feel that some expressions are outside their experience and therefore not normal, they tend to make such expressions taboo. What human expressions are deemed to be abnormal and worthy of being demonized or punished has changed from era to era and country to country. This certainly is true with same-sex relationships and relationships of individuals of disparate ages.

What once was accepted may no longer be accepted. The spreading of the Judeo-Christian mindset and influence in the West and the Muslim belief-system in the Middle East is what turned same-sex attraction taboo and instilled greatly varying limits upon age-of-consent. Societies do change. To exist in contemporary society, one needs to makes certain rational accommodations if for no other reason than for self-preservation. Such accommodations, however, should not result in denying the reality of one’s own nature or the acceptance of the facts of human nature in general. Ignorance and fear should not negate empathy and love for other people. Unfortunately, that ignorance, intolerance, and even stupidity continue to be pervasive, and with terrible consequences to the health and wellbeing of individuals and society as a whole.

I have observed cases of persons suddenly developing extremely painful emotions with terrible shame and guilt when it has been drummed into them that they should, they must, harbor such destructive feelings. Churches with intolerant, antiquated dogma and social groups that have lived with such bias firmly ingrained for generations continue to contribute to a social atmosphere that harms rather than helps. The legal system and courts have exacerbated fears of human sex, both straight and gay.

In one case, the Denver County District Attorney charged a young man with ten felony counts for a several-month, mutually agreed-upon relationship because his girlfriend was not yet eighteen. Under the laws of age-of-consent in France, the relationship would have been legal. Those felony charges must have succeeded in causing life-long trauma to both individuals and also destroyed for life the reputation of the young man. I was so disturbed by seeing the young man crushed by the weight of authority and law that I could not stomach the idea of serving on the jury. I fortunately was able to have myself excused from the jury because of my work obligations.

In another example, had seventeen-year-old Daniel Radcliffe opened his play “Equus” in New York rather than London, he could have been arrested for public nudity because what was legal in England was not in New York. There are implied moral determinations here, too. What was moral in England would have been immoral in New York. A rational person would be right in questioning if this made any sense.

The news media also do their share of sensationalizing sex, too, turning human nature into titillating, yet shocking, tales of human depravity. The viewing audience and voting public, therefore, focus on sex rather than the important issues of the day.

Mind you, I’m not excusing unwanted touching or harming other people. Instead, I’m speaking of the profound need of humans for love and touch that often goes unmet. Years of psychological research has proved that emotional closeness and physical touch are essential for good mental and physical health. Without loving contact, the mind and body suffer. In addition, without them, the young, from frustration, may place themselves into undesirable situations, seeking that needed love and touch. A college friend of mine revealed to me that, during high school, he had been so desperate for love and touch that he briefly had turned to prostitution, not so much for money, but rather for hoped-for comfort.

I’ll relate a case of someone I met who described in detail his experience of touching. From his telling, it was hard to discern what his current feelings are regarding his experience, wanted or unwanted touching.

When I first met him, the scandal involving the Catholic Church was just breaking. At thirty, he still looked very boyish and attractive, although he also had made a macho place for himself in society by forming a successful concrete-cutting company. During a group-conversation about the apparent molestation of boys by priests, he ironically quipped, “None of the priests touched me. What was wrong with me?”

I say “ironically” because what he experienced was far more significant than a mere occasion or two being fondled by an adult. His experience also began at an age that even ancient Greeks thought to be too young, eleven; and the man was twenty-one.

There were stereotypical aspects to his childhood, such as a totally dysfunctional family and an absence of love. Lacking guidance, support, and affection, he was an easy target, as often is the case with such boys. Yet, the boy and the man apparently derived sufficient comfort and satisfaction from the relationship because it lasted ten years. One would assume that, as he grew into adulthood and gained some more mature perspective of his situation, he might have felt more comfortable withdrawing from the relationship if he had developed growing misgivings. Apparently, he had not.

As it turned out, it took an outside force to radically change his perspective. The disharmony and dysfunction within his family had only increased, so he sought professional help. Now, I know something about how to work constructively with patients, and immediately imposing one’s own, personal beliefs upon a patient, especially when such beliefs are intolerant and deny human nature, should be avoided. Apparently however, avoidance is precisely what this therapist did not do. When he was informed of the ten-year relationship, the therapist told the young man that he had been taken advantage of, abused, molested, scarred for life, that he always would feel guilt and shame. Not surprisingly, he consequently concluded that the therapist must be right and developed agitated feelings of having been scarred for life and shamed. So rather than coming to comfortable terms with his homosexuality, he became confused and angry.

All this occurred unbeknownst to the older man. To celebrate his young friend’s birthday, he had delivered to him a nice, new television set. Still feeling his new-found rage, the young man walked it over to the other’s home and smashed the TV on his front porch. Obviously, that was the end of their relationship.

Any thinking person who has become familiar with history can not escape the realization that such desires and relationships are ubiquitous and have existed for many centuries. This is not a limited nor new phenomenon. If any rational person takes the time and makes the effort to dispassionately analyze this fact, some logical questions are raised. What kind of touching is, in the truest sense, natural; what kind unnatural? What kind of intimacy is healthful; what kind unhealthful? If society or religion make normal human needs taboo, and people’s attempts to meet their desires become misunderstood, feared, corrupted, and unnatural, its logical to conclude that the resulting behaviors may become fear-laden, twisted and unnatural. Harm may come to one or both parties. Skewed behavior may turn even to violence.

Nobody should take advantage of another person, young or old, to selfishly attempt to satisfy a need. This is especially true with very young people who have not yet developed their minds and personalities to the extent where they can make rational decisions for themselves. That is precisely why the ancient Greeks assumed that young adolescents where not appropriate for intimate relationships, although courting older ephebes was not only accepted but celebrated. A thinking person might conclude that ancient Greeks had a more normal, healthful attitude about sex than modern societies. For any person to hold intolerant beliefs and to instill in others self-destructive thoughts and feelings not felt naturally is thoughtless and harmful.

Too little effort has been made by professionals and the general public to understand natural human needs, needs that have gone unmet with so many people for so long. I have read some surprising comments posted on YouTube regarding the film “For a Lost Soldier,” an autobiographical account similar to my description of the relationship told to me. There were several posted comments from viewers who, when young, apparently had lacked the love and touch they so desperately needed. Several of them said, “I wish that had happened to me.” How the relationship in the story happened was not the most healthful or desirable; however, I can understand the feelings of those who still felt hurt that they were denied a loving touch.

© 04/18/2013

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

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Camping by Ricky

In the summer of 1986, I was in the Air Force and stationed at Little Rock AFB in Jacksonville, Arkansas. While there my wife, Deborah and I got the irresistible urge to buy a tent trailer in which to go camping with our three children. We looked at several models and finally decided to purchase the top-of-the-line Coleman tent camper. We were mesmerized by the quality and creature comforts built into the unit.

It had a queen size bed at one end and a double bed at the other. The table could be converted into a space for one or two small children. The refrigerator could be run on propane, electricity, or the battery. There was an outside compartment for the Coleman stove as well as a stove on the inside. An electric air conditioner was mounted in the roof along with a fresh air vent. The hot water heater ran on either gas or electricity. Besides plenty of storage space, there was a room for a standup shower and another room for the indoor port-a-potty. Completely prepared for travel, the unit was slightly longer than our Chevy Astro van.

We promised each other that due to the cost, we would go camping at least twice a month. That promise was easy to make but hard to maintain in the short to long term. My duty schedule enabled me to have weekends off but not consistently. So, gradually our commitment to camping waned.

Deborah and I loved to visit and camp in state and federal parks. Our thought was that the camper was a good deal because many parks do not have motels or hotels within their boundaries so the camper would be our portable home at a park.

In February 1987, Deborah became pregnant with our last child and that spring, I received orders transferring me to Ellsworth AFB, near Rapid City, SD. We were all excited to go but me most of all, as I had finally “had it” up the “ying-yang” with a completely incompetent commander and really “could not wait” to get away from there.

We left Jacksonville in late May or early June enroute to Ellsworth. Deborah was feeling pretty pregnant and enduring morning sickness, fatigue, and gestational diabetes. Greatly adding to her discomfort was the oppressive muggy heat. We only made about 150-miles that day and spent the night in our camper in northern Arkansas in a “mom & pop” tiny campground where other RV‘s were parked within 3-feet on either side.

The next day we only went about 50-miles because Deborah was so stressed and uncomfortable. We camped in a Missouri state part a few miles off the main highway. Our spot was under a canopy formed by overarching trees which kept out the direct sunlight and provided much shade to keep the temperature way down. There was even a children’s play area close by.

The next morning, Deborah was feeling better and we and the kids all took a walk along one of the park nature trails. This one was about ¾-mile long and remained in the forest mostly under the trees where it was shady and cool. Along the trail we discovered wild strawberries and raspberries. We stopped and ate a few each then finished our walk. The trail began and ended very near our campsite. By this time Deborah was a little “tuckered out” and wanted to rest quietly (i.e. without the kids making noise), so she made an offer we did not want to refuse. Deborah suggested that while she rested, that all of us go back along the trail with some small buckets and pick as many strawberries and raspberries as we could. She said that when we got back, she would then make us some pancakes with the berries included. She didn’t need to say it twice. In a couple of minutes we were off and she was asleep.

We stayed at that campground another day and Deborah recuperated quite well and the kids had fun playing in a new environment with other kids whom also were camping overnight. The next day, we continued our journey to South Dakota without any further significant problems except for the “Are we there yet?” and “How much longer?” routine as the endless miles of the Great Plains rolled by.

© 17 March 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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Feeling Different by Phillip Hoyle


As a young adult in seminary discussions I realized that sometimes students and professors alike didn’t know what I was going on about. A professor would listen to my ideas and respond, “Very interesting, Mr. Hoyle.” I took it he had no clear understanding of my perspective. That was okay, something I had encountered most of my life. I was talking about one of these seminary “interesting” instances with my mentor Katherine Williams. “They must think I’m strange,” I concluded.

“You are strange, Phillip,” she replied without hesitation.
Strange was not new to me. Although I didn’t feel particularly unaccepted or unacceptable as a teenager, I was aware that my sexual yearnings were unusual enough that they could get me into a lot of trouble or at least make my life a problem to other folk. Besides that, I was mildly nerdy but found my niche in music. If any musician fits in, I fit in easily enough singing in church, school and community. I was a reluctant leader in a couple of school organizations. I felt different; I was different: for instance, I didn’t know any other kids my age who organized music groups; I didn’t know very many guys who studied as attentively as I did although I admit I didn’t over-do it; I was physically rather uncoordinated, but not so much as to be made into a fool; I had good humor; I was independent and happy to be so. My feeling different didn’t make me feel particularly bad since I was easily entertained, easy going, and tolerant of groups and different kinds of people. By that time in my life I was reconciled to the fact that I was quite different and that the difference was acceptable to me if not to anyone else.

In college, I felt attracted to three guys: Todd, Dirk, and Chad. Todd and Chad seemed straight. I assumed Dirk was but now wonder if he was bisexual. He seemed somehow attracted to me as if he knew I was do-able. We never went beyond touching disguised as wrestling. Straight Chad was rather needy, and I fell for him. He was the first person I ever lost sleep over. But I was on an earnest straight road toward marriage. After seven years of marriage, I had a one-night stand with a gay friend. Our friendship continued. After nine years of marriage, I fell in love with a man and forged a friendship that after five years added a sexual element. The sex was sporadic, yet the love and interest remained constant.

While living in Albuquerque, a mid-life crisis led me into two homosexual affairs. I conducted these contacts with less care than before as I explored an increasingly gay world. The feelings had changed; my feelings.

Around that time a gay friend said to me, “No one can grow up gay in America without developing some neurosis.” His assertion would mean all gays need psychiatric help. I objected to the notion but then recalled hearing a lecture by a psychiatrist who reckoned ninety per cent of his patients didn’t really need his help. He judged they needed trusted friends to talk with. He laughed at himself saying he was a highly paid substitute friend. The neurosis, if that is the accurate term, subsides when one is accepted in love.

My Albuquerque affairs seemed that to me: the friendships that could sustain me and my sanity. They also were sexual. The first one would never be more than sex play, play I found exciting and that helped me understand so much about my own needs. It afforded the sexual contrast, the complement I desired. The second affair had an emotionally complicated excitement the first did not proffer yet it was sexually boring: the techniques my partner initiated were always the same. I realized sex in my marriage had measures of all these experiences, but the feelings of the homosex offered an amazing contrast. I discovered needs and joys that thrilled me when with these two men. (No, there was never a three-way. Oh well.)


Much of my life I have felt different. I continue to feel different. I’m sure it’s not just because I am gay or that I was always homosexual. It’s the whole package of my life, my different and strange life. I love it. I love myself. I love life.


© Denver, 2011

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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Lavender University by Pat Gourley

My involvement in the Gay Community Center began back in 1976. My first volunteer duties started very shortly after it opened at its first location in the 1400 block of Lafayette. This was an old brick two story duplex that I think was owned at the time by the Unitarian Church on the corner and the Center was renting the space from them. My main duties initially involved phone volunteering and coordinating other phone volunteers along with building our database of referrals, which we kept on a single Rolodex! A majority of our calls were for social referrals to local bars and bathes and the emerging number of local LGBT organizations, and also not a few requests for gay-sensitive therapists and health care providers. We referred men frequently to the Men’s Coming Out Group still in existence today, which met early on in the Unitarian Church itself, their library I think.

1976 was the year I started nursing school and eventually did my Community Health rotation at the Center. One of my nursing student activities was participating, as a tester, in a weekly STD clinic at the Center on Friday evenings. I am not sure why it wasn’t on a Monday rather than a Friday since the business would have probably been more brisk after a busy weekend in the late seventies, the age of thriving bathhouses. These clinics involved a fair amount of counseling on STD’s and how you got them and how to possibly avoid getting them. Unfortunately, though, we gay men rather cavalierly thought of STD’s as just the cost of doing business and not something to particularly strive to avoid. We drew blood for syphilis and did throat, penis and rectal cultures for gonorrhea. HIV was still several years away.

My Center volunteer activities drifted from phone work and coordination to milking penises and swabbing buttholes to the much more highbrow efforts involved with a program of the Center called Lavender University. Where or from whom the name came has been lost in the mist but it was a queer take off at the time on the very successful Denver Free University. I was a member of the Center’s University Staff from its inception until probably early 1984 when The Center kind of imploded around a variety of issues including extreme tension between some community-based organizations, the tumultuous resignation of Carol Lease and the demands and urgency of the emerging AIDS epidemic. I do believe much of this tumult was fueled in no small part at the time by often-blatant sexism and an at times over the top focus on the perceived supremacy of the penis within the gay male community but that is a topic for another time.

Our quasi mission statement read as follows: “Lavender University of the Rockies is a free school by and for the lesbian and gay communities of Colorado. It is dedicated to the free exchange of ideas, to the examination of diverse points of view and to free speech without censorship.” In addition to being on the University staff I was an occasional instructor offering often erudite classes including one called: Evolving Queer Spirituality or The Potential Significance of Paganism For Gay Men further subtitled “might Christianity just be paganism with the gayness taken out.” In only three of the course catalogs I managed to keep I also see I offered a class on the Tarot and one year a November 1st celebration of the Harvest Sabbat. Yeah, what can I say this was certainly my “witch-phase?”

The most fulfilling repeated offering I made though was one for gay men and involved a series of writings we would read and dissect by gay visionaries including Edward Carpenter, Gerald Heard, Harry Hay, Mitch Walker, and Don Kilhefner among others. These offerings were usually weekly and involved spirited group discussion around that week’s selected piece and food. Most of the sessions were held at the Center or my house up in Five Points. Many of the attendees were budding radical fairies and some friendships were made that last until this day.

These were probably the peak years of what I will rather presumptuously and ostentatiously call my Queer-Radical-Phase. These years of my life involved hours and hours of community work and play with many other often very receptive comrades in arms. It was a very exciting and challenging time for me personally and I think for the larger LGBT community, the world was truly becoming our oyster. It was constantly being reinforced for me on a daily basis that Harry Hay was right-on that we were a distinct people and a real cultural minority.

It is my belief that it was the slowing emerging AIDS nightmare that derailed this truly grassroots revolution and really forced a refocusing of our energies into survival. The tensions created by that little retrovirus locally nearly led to the end of The Gay and Lesbian Community Center and certainly to lots of soul searching and critique of the rich expressions of much of the gay male world we had come to know and love in the 1970’s.

I like to fantasize that if AIDS had not come along we would have seen a much more radical queer community and force for seminal social change than we are today. The community might have led a nationwide revolt that would have tossed Ronald Reagan out of office in 1984 and reversed the countries unfortunate slide into oligarchy. Perhaps igniting a re-election of Jimmy Carter and a return of the solar panels to the roof of the White House. We might well have been in the vanguard of the dissolution of traditional marriage, replacing it with a much more polymorphous and rich arrangement of human interaction and loving support.

A severe curtailing and redefinition of the American military into a force truly devoted to peace on earth would have been another goal. Instead of the race to the local recruiters office for those with no other economic choice everyone would do two years or more of service to the community that would have been of great benefit to the entire world and health of the planet. But perhaps I am putting way too much on our plate or …. hmm … maybe I did do too much LSD in the 70’s.

© April 2014

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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On Boredom by Nicholas

A woman I know tells me that she cannot sink. She dives into the lake and just pops right back up to the surface. She tries to dive down head first into the water and her feet stick out on top kicking air. She has even worn weights to help her plumb the depths. All to no avail. She just buoyantly pops up and floats on.

That’s similar to my experience with boredom. I can’t seem to get bored. I can’t sink into a quiet melancholia that comes with having nothing to do, nothing of interest or amusement. I have almost forgotten how to softly sigh in sad ennui. Oh, for some emptiness, I pine.

This is a problem. I envy those who can avail themselves of such delights. I wake up some mornings and say to myself, this is it, this morning I am going to do nothing, just get bored. Mope around the house with nothing on my mind except that there is nothing on my mind. Time to gaze at the ceiling or my navel and try not to think about it.

So, I head off to the coffee shop with my New Yorker and there’s the mistake. I’m sitting there all blank and bored and, idly leafing through the magazine, I find a piece about something I didn’t even know I was interested in. I can’t put it down until I’ve finished reading about people who spend weeks underground exploring deep caves a mile and a half below the surface of the earth. Oops, there I go again not being bored.

There’s always something to do–something I want to do–that I can’t find the time to get bored. Or should I say, I can’t find the interest in getting bored? I’ll go for a bike ride on a sunny, warm day down along the river. I’ll start a project in the yard like getting the garden ready for planting. I’ll draw diagrams of what I want to plant where. There’s always something in the house needing doing or cleaning or fixing. I have to get the guest room ready for my mother-in-law’s visit. And then there’s yoga classes, writing classes, preparing stories to tell on Mondays, and volunteer work at Project Angel Heart on Thursdays. And there are books to read, trips to plan, friends to have lunch with or coffee or dinner, plays to see, and art exhibits to stand in awe of.

When am I ever going to get around to being bored? Do I need to write it down in my day-timer? It’s set then—1 p.m., Tuesday: get bored.

It must take determination to get bored, I think, and I just don’t have it. But that seems counter to the whole idea. Isn’t boredom supposed to happen to you, like flu, not something you can plan and manipulate? Boredom is supposed to be unwanted, not sought after. Something to get over, not luxuriate in.

Maybe I’m easily distracted and easily entertained or just plain shallow and shallow people don’t get bored because we just don’t get it at all and go on being easily entertained.

Now, I’m not saying I’m always happy. That’s another issue entirely. In fact, I spent most of last year unhappy though not bored. That was the January my husband nearly died in surgery. His recovery was slow, long and difficult and for two months we didn’t know if he was going to make it. It wasn’t until one day in September that I realized that he had actually made it and recovered and therefore, so could I and a little happiness crept back into my life. I might even have gotten a bit bored then when I realized I was no longer a 24-hour, on-call nurse and had to find something else to do, like get back to my life. What did I used to do, I remember asking myself one day.

My quest to be bored doesn’t mean that I am against happiness. I don’t march around the house like Lady Macbeth saying, “Out damned spot of happiness, out!” although happy people can really get on one’s nerves. Like Starbucks caffeine jockeys who always want to know how my day is going so far. It’s none of your business and you don’t care, I want to say, and besides I’m trying not to be chipper because I’m trying to be bored and just hang and let my mind dry out in the breeze. Maybe caffeine isn’t a good idea here.

When I was a kid, I remember getting bored late in the summer when it was really hot and the thrill of summer vacation had faded like the lawn I wasn’t interested in watering. Of course, we, the kids on my block, weren’t about to admit that we were ready to go back to school where we at least had something to do, so we just hung out and did nothing until one of our parents caught on and they always had a million things to do, like water the lawn. You never complained about being bored to your parents. That was dangerous and, besides, defeated the purpose of being bored.

Boredom seems to me to be a tremendous luxury. It’s not merely a matter of quiet time—though that’s hard enough to find. It’s more like a psychological desperation, a sense of being at the end of a rope. Nothing appeals. Nothing excites. It lets you empty your mind, let it go dry.

And then when the psychic rain does fall a new seed will sprout and you’ll go, “That’s cool,” and you’re off on a starry new trail of fascination. Boredom can turn around to a path to happiness. Find a new book to read, a new project to write, a new recipe to try for dinner. Something, anything to get out of the doldrums, put wind back into my sails and get my little boat moving.

But right now I need to stop moving, let the wind die down, let the clouds gather. I’ve been retired for five years and—though nobody believes me–what I need is a day off. To get bored.

© June, 2014

About the Author

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

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Hmmm, Strange by Betsy

I have an in-law, a cousin, who, himself is not so strange, rather his world of knowledge and know-how seems strange to one who does not study physics. Bill, and his wife Marion, my cousin, are a couple of those spoon benders you may have heard about. Because of his knowledge and belief in the world of quantum physics, and, shall we say some sort of a heightened awareness, Bill and his associates are able to bend heavy spoons with their bare hands, no tools. They twist the handles into cork screw shape using nothing but 10 frail digits and the power of their minds.

Now, you may be saying, “Well, it’s some sort of trick, perhaps a visual trick.”

Trust me, it’s not a trick. Gill and I witnesses the feat with our own eyes.

My cousin gave us the spoon as a souvenir, or as a reminder of the power of the mind. The twisted spoon was carefully laid away amongst our most prized possessions, but somehow is not making its presence known when we most would like to put our hands on it. Perhaps we hid it too well or the magic continues and it has vaporized into a billion particles, but the tortured tool is not to be found in the house. Hmmm, strange.

Bill did the spoon bending as a demonstration of a concept of quantum physics. The fact that it works, perhaps is the result of synchronicity. The phenomenon is based on the theory of quantum mechanics which explains the synchronization of the vibrations of the particles that make up energy with matter. Now apparently, if you can synchronize these things, you too can be a spoon-bender. Hmmm, strange.

String theory is another subject on the agenda of these scientists. String theory has to do with particle theory. I do not speak the language of physics and do not have the concepts and therefore can neither understand nor attempt to communicate what any of it is about. Only that it has to do with the make-up of subatomic particles–the make-up of all matter. The recent discovery of the so-called God Particle has brought much of this to light recently. Even the popular explanations are mind-boggling, I find.

Subatomic particles leave me cold. I cannot see them bouncing around when I look at something and, therefore, am not terribly interested in them.

The theories of quantum physics are to an unsophisticated mind such as mine are, well, strange. Take for example the concept that time is not moving. According to some physicists the idea that the past is gone, the present is here now, and the future is yet to come is but an illusion to us earthly creatures. All of time, all that ever was and all that ever will be is actually present now.

We’ve all heard the advise given that we should live in the NOW, not worry about the future or live with regret for the past. The idea that the Now consists of the past and the future as well as the present moment in time, that the flow of time is an illusion, I find, presents problems when trying to apply this simple advise, live in the now.

All I can do is continue to try to live in my illusionary world and try to focus on what appears to me to be the NOW, hopefully learn from the past, and look forward to the future, but mind you, stay focused on the NOW– and right at this particular NOW I can’t stop scratching my head when I think of my cousin and all those twisted spoons. Hmmm, strange.

© July, 2014

About the Author

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

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Birth Experiences by Will Stanton

Unlike much of the rest of the world, I have no first-hand experience with this topic “Birth Experiences.” I never was married, and I never sired children, not even as a randy sailor sowing his oats in various foreign ports. I never watched a human birth, and I certainly never was a pediatric physician. So again, it looks like I’m limited to writing something just for fun, which I enjoyed doing.

Let’s assume that some people can actually remember being born. That’s a bit of a stretch, no pun intended. That was for me in 1945, a date now seeming to be in antiquity. Well, that doesn’t make much of a story. So, let’s assume that people claiming to remember previous lives is factual and legitimate. I never have put much stock in that; however, to my surprise, there are some reputable people who claim to have become converted believers.

I was reminded of the topic of reincarnation by today’s TV news interview with psychiatrist Dr. James Tucker. He states in his book “Return to Life: Extraordinary Cases of Children Who Remember Past Lives” that he has researched many convincing cases. He described one of his cases about a very young boy who kept dreaming of the exact details of being shot down in his fighter-plane and also mentioning the name of his close friend and wing-man. Dr. Tucker thoroughly researched all the details related by the boy and found that they were factual. Apparently, Dr. Tucker’s many remarkable cases have converted him to being a believer to the extent that he had the courage to announce it and to write about it.

All this reminded me of a book that I had read several years ago by the head of the psychiatric unit in a Florida hospital, Dr. Brian Weiss, who, later in his career, employed for the first time therapeutic hypnotic age-regression for one patient. He was astounded that she claimed to recall, not one, but several lives spanning over many centuries and reported them in great detail. No, she did not claim to have been the Queen of Sheba, but, rather, she recounted lives of hardship and, sometimes, of illness and death.

At the time that I was reading this book, I mentioned that fact to my friend, a psychologist, who surprised me by stating that he coincidentally was reading a similar book, “Suggestive Reincarnation,” by psychiatrist Dr. Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia, who had been engaged in careful, scientifically conservative research ever since the 1950s.

All of this is very interesting; however, my being a “Doubting Thomas” by nature, I can not become particularly excited by it. I can, however, feel mildly curious and interested in the topic considering the fact that such reputable medical scientists have expressed such surprising findings.

So for fun, what birth years and lives can I claim to remember? How about 344 B.C.E., 1705, 1845, 1904, 1934, 1943, and 1945? There seem to be several gaps there, especially in the early years. What’s wrong with my memory? Why can’t I remember? Regardless, apparently I’m not sufficiently motivated to run right out and engage in hypnotic age-regression. My current life is more than enough to try to contend with.
© January, 2014

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.