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Stories of GLBT Organizations

My thirty-year career at Ford Motor Company reached its culmination at the end of the last century, coincident with the last of my 26 years of being in a straight marriage and the birth of the GLBT organization that has played the largest part in my personal journey toward wholeness. That organization is Ford GLOBE.

GLOBE is an acronym for Gay, Lesbian, Or Bisexual Employees. It was hatched in the minds of two Ford employees, a woman and a man, in Dearborn, MI, in July of 1994. By September, they had composed a letter to the Vice President of Employee Relations–with a copy to Ford CEO, Alex Trotman–expressing a desire to begin a dialogue with top management on workplace issues of concern to Ford’s gay, lesbian and bisexual employees. They were invited to meet with the VP of Employee Relations in November.

In 1995, the group, now flying in full view of corporate radar and growing, elected a five-member board, adopted its formal name of Ford GLOBE; designed their logo; adopted mission, vision, and objective statements; and adopted bylaws. The fresh-faced Board was invited to meet with the staff of the newly-created corporate Diversity Office. Soon after, “sexual orientation” was incorporated into Ford’s Global Diversity Initiative. Members of Ford GLOBE participated in the filming of two company videos on workplace diversity. Also that year, Ford was a sponsor of the world-premier on NBC of Serving in Silence, starring Glenn Close as Army Reserve Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer. By September of 1996, Ford GLOBE chapters were forming in Great Britain and Germany.

In March of 1996, Ford GLOBE submitted to upper management the coming-out stories of 23 members in hope of putting a human face on what had been an invisible minority. Along with the stories came a formal request for Ford’s non-discrimination policy to be rewritten to include sexual orientation. At the time, only Ford of Britain had such a policy.

Ford GLOBE was beginning to network with similar interest groups at General Motors and Chrysler, including sharing a table at the 1996 Pridefest and walking together in the Michigan Pride Parade in Lansing. After two years of discussion between Ford GLOBE and top management, on November 14, 1996, Ford CEO, Alex Trotman, issued Revised Corporate Policy Letter # 2, adding “sexual orientation” to the company’s official non-discrimination policy. To this day, some of our largest and most profitable corporations, including Exxon Mobile, have refused to do the same.

My involvement with Ford GLOBE began sometime in 1997. For that reason and the fact that I have scrapped many of my records of this period, I have relied heavily on Ford GLOBE’s website for the dates and particulars of these events.

In February of 1998, I attended a “Gay Issues in the Workplace” Workshop, led by Brian McNaught, at Ford World Headquarters, jointed sponsored by GLOBE and the Ford Diversity Office. I remember a Ford Vice President taking the podium at that event. He was a white man of considerable social cachet and I assumed that the privilege that normally goes with that status would have shielded him from any brushes with discrimination. In fact, he told a story of riding a public transit bus with his mother at the height of World War II. His family was German. His mother had warned him sternly not to speak German while riding the bus. Thus, he, too, had known the fear of being outed because of who he was. The experience had made him into an unlikely ally of GLOBE members over 50 years later.

In 1999, Ford GLOBE amended its by-laws to make it their mission to include transgendered employees in Ford’s non-discrimination policy and gender identity in Ford’s diversity training. Ford Motor Company was the first and only U.S. automotive company listed on the 1999 Gay and Lesbian Values Index of top 100 companies working on gay issues, an achievement noted by Ford CEO Jac Nasser. It was about this time that retired Ford Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer Alan Gilmore came out as gay. The Advocate named Ford Motor Company to its list of 25 companies that provide good environments for gay employees in its Oct. 26 edition.

Having earlier written the contract bargaining teams for Ford Motor Company, United Auto Workers, and Canadian Auto Workers requesting specific changes in the upcoming union contracts, Ford GLOBE was pleased to see that the resulting Ford/CAW union contract included provision for same-sex domestic partners to be treated as common law spouses in Canada, for sexual orientation to be added to the nondiscrimination statement of the Ford/UAW contract, and that Ford and the UAW agreed to investigate implementation of same-sex domestic partner benefits during the current four-year union contract.

The year 2000 was not only the year that I became Board Chair of Ford GLOBE but also the year that marked a momentous event in automotive history as Ford, General Motors, and the Chrysler Division of DaimlerChrysler issued a joint press release with the United Auto Workers announcing same-sex health care benefits for the Big Three auto companies’ salaried and hourly employees in the U.S. As the first-ever industry-wide joint announcement of domestic partner benefits and largest ever workforce of 465,000 U.S. employees eligible in one stroke, the historic announcement made headlines across the nation. It was truly a proud moment for all of us in the Ford GLOBE organization.

On January 1 of 2001, my last year with the company, Ford expanded its benefits program for the spouses of gay employees to include financial planning, legal services, the personal protection plan, vehicle programs, and the vision plan.

Since my departure from the company, Ford and GLOBE have continued to advance the cause of GLBT equality and fairness both within the corporation and without. I am fortunate to have been supported in my own coming out process by my associates within the company, both gay and straight, and to Ford GLOBE in particular for the bonds of friendship honed in the common struggle toward a better and freer world.

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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All My Exes Live in Texas by Gillian

George Strait’s rendition of this hit was at the top of the Country charts in the summer of 1987. It seems like last week that I danced many a night away to that song, but it doesn’t take higher math to figure out that it was actually over twenty-five years ago. It was also the year I came out, at the age of forty-five, and began dancing with women, and one woman in particular, which is doubtless the main reason I remember this particular track with such fondness. It was the year I met my beautiful Betsy. All in all, 1987 was just a bloody good year!

I was living alone in Lyons then, working at IBM in Boulder. I was prompted to come out to the world in a letter to the Boulder Camera newspaper on the subject of the upcoming referendum to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. The referendum passed that November, the first one in this country and quite a trail-blazer. It was only the year before, after all, that our trusty U.S. Supreme Court had declared that the right to privacy did not extend to homosexuals. How far we have come in the last quarter century.

In 1987, Charlie’s was further East on Colfax than it is now. That location became Ms C’s when Charlie’s moved, but before that there were few places for lesbians to dance, so every Thursday night Charlie’s was turned over to the women.

Oh how I loved those wonderful Thursday nights!

I had to practice up for them, though. I mean, if you plan to indulge in same-sex dancing, you need to be at ease either leading or following. So I practiced, leading an imaginary, very sexy, partner around my basement and, yes, often to the accompaniment of “All My Exes …. ”

I carpooled with a Lyons/Estes Park group. Katie, the leader of the pack, had a passenger van and in piled five or six of us every Thursday night, come rain or shine, come gale or snow. Women came from all over Colorado. I danced with lesbians from Grand Junction to Pueblo to Julesburg, and at least once during any Thursday night, we would two-step with much gusto to “All My Exes Live in Texas.”

Many were boycotting Coors at the time for their anti-gay bigotry, and Katie had a unique way of introducing herself to Coors-supping strangers. She bought another beer brand, took it over to the Coors-drinker, and wordlessly replaced the Coors with her preferred brand. Needless to say that engendered many interesting conversations!

When Charlie’s closed at two in the morning, the carpool group went to the White Spot for breakfast, accompanied by endless cups of caffeine stimulant, and an analysis of the night’s events. Then it was back to Lyons, a quick shower and change, and off to work.

Just the thought of it exhausts me, now! But how I enjoy those memories.

The beautiful, energetic, funny, Katie, now nearing ninety and lost to dementia, can no longer enjoy hers. The only other remaining member of our car-pool group lost her home to last year’s Estes Park fire. Yes, a lot has changed over twenty-five years; not all good.

And the moral of that story is; make your memories while you can, and enjoy them while you may, for who knows what the future may bring?

Sometime in ’87, a new women’s dance-bar called Divine Madness opened up, so the carpool extended to two nights a week, but thankfully we could go to DM on the weekend without work the next day looming over us, while of course we kept up our Thursdays at Charlie’s. And so we doubled the frequency of trying to pick up a good woman while dancing to “All My Exes Live in Texas.”

One Friday night in November 1987, I spotted Betsy across the floor at Divine Madness and asked her for a dance. This is where, obviously, I should say that the tune we danced to was “All My Exes Live in Texas,” but it was not, it was Ann Murray singing, “Could I Have This Dance,” a beautiful waltz. I returned to my car-pool group after that dance and announced, “I’m going to marry that woman!”

Of course I didn’t dream, at that time, that some day I would be able to make that statement literally become true. Oh, yes, a lot has changed since then; and some things have stayed the same. With sincere apologies to a great dance tune, I cannot say that “All My Exes … ” offers much in the way of romance: rather the opposite! But for me, “Could I Have This Dance,” is every bit as meaningful today as it was that November night in 1987.

I’ll always remember,
the song they were playing,
The first time we danced and I knew
As we swayed to the music,
and held to each other,
I fell in love with you.

Could I have this dance
for the rest of my life,
Could you be my partner
every night,
when we’re together
it feels so right,
Could I have this dance
for the rest of my life?

January, 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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A Revolution of Priorities by Carlos

Decades ago, it was probably apparent to the patrons at the Diamond Lil Bar, the only gay bar in El Paso at the time, that it was my first time crossing the threshold into a gay bar. Because it was in a basement of a 1920’s-vintage building that had seen better days, I had to descend down the stairs into the bar. It took me a moment to get my bearings in the darkness, but the aroma of stale beer and acrid cigarette smoke immediately validated what I had heard about gay bars, that they were dens of gratuitous, sensory depravity. I pondered whether this was the venue for me, since it seemed like such an alien world. Nevertheless, I hungered to be around my own in spite of the fact that they terrified me. After all, the only images of gay men I had ever encountered were the eerily unsettling gay stereotypes depicted in films like Boys in the Band or Cabaret. I had been weaned on rumors of men who frequented public restrooms at Greyhound terminals or lurked in parks in search of quick encounters. If only I had had positive role models, but my potential mentors were generally closeted men living unobtrusive, invisible lives. For years, I realized that I wanted to be with a man, but I failed to act on my inclinations, cloistering myself in a monastery of self-denial. The only man I had ever touched, in fact, was when I worked briefly as a dishwasher following my freshman year in high school. At the end of the second day, when the cook and I were alone, he approached me and guided my hand toward his erect self. Though I touched him with anticipation, momentarily I panicked and stormed out of the restaurant. I walked for hours tormented by my sin, asking God for forgiveness. The next morning, the cook fired me and because I was ashamed, I cataloged the experience neatly in my repertoire of painful memories, always conflicted by my desire to touch him, yet repulsed by the act. Now, I found myself walking down into a dark dungeon at the Diamond Lil, devoured by ambivalent confusion. On the one hand, all my senses were heightened and repulsed by sensory overload. On the other hand, I recognized that what I longed for might be waiting for me just on the other side of the shadows to which I was descending. I walked around nervously. Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I was horrified. The men I saw were effeminate men who laughed too loud and flittered around the bar like damselflies strutting atop a mirrored lake. The women, on the other hand, wore black leather, sported short-cropped hair and glared like birds of prey in search of victims. In retrospect, I wonder how much of what I remember was a fabrication of my own fears, a sepia cinematic scene from my reel of expectations. I thundered out of the bar in a state of stupor. If this is what awaited me as a gay man, I wanted no part of it. I had sore knees from kneeling before the crucified statue of a moribund Christ at church as I prayed that my curse be lifted. I had always believed that Spirit always answers all prayers with a “Yes, a Not Yet, or an I-have-something-better-in-mind-for-you” response. I walked home from the Diamond Lil conflicted by personal and theological implications. I didn’t want to be a husk of my former self, like the pod people who are possessed by alien-prodding, no pun intended, in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Based on the propaganda I had heard all my life, I nevertheless feared becoming a depressed, angry, lost soul lurking in the dark shadows like the roaches that proliferated on the steamy streets and dark alleyways. I feared a life of hurried sex acts behind greasy dumpsters and anonymous glory holes reeking of pungent ammonia. I longed to be held tenderly in the arms of one who would cradle me in his arms and assure me he would love me, yes love me, in spite of my fears that as a gay man I was undeserving. I hated that world where like Shakespeare’s Ophelia, God gave me one face and I made myself another. I lived a life in quiet desperation resulting from the insidious indoctrination from misguided propaganda. Although I wanted to be a good boy, with a relationship modeled after an unrealistic hetero romance movie-of-the-week fantasy, I also wanted dirty sex, and the dirtier, the better. And there lay my quandary. After all, while my inclinations dominated me, I was conflicted by my labeled offenses against nature, against family and community, and against God. I concluded that since I was unable to change the situation, I had to confront the challenge to change myself.

I decided that like Lucifer, I would have to rebel against the status quo and take the plunge into a new realm, hoping I would find myself not in pandemonium, but in some gay kingdom where I could eat my bread in gladness and where I could finally realize Spirit’s I-have-something-better-in-mind-for-you agenda. Only later did I realize that my act of rebellion, in fact, would materialize into my act of redemption. In years to come, I would embrace my gay and lesbian kin, as well as myself, as masterworks of creation. I would realize that although we are disparaged by the world, when we embrace our own core and honor our mystic journey, we reclaim our perfect selves.

Making changes is never easy. It took time and courage to know what I wanted and to give myself permission to direct myself toward those goals. There was a time when I felt I was not entitled to be happy because I preferred a man’s touch, a man’s affection, a man’s love. There was a time when like so many in our community, I felt that I was destined never to celebrate a healthy adult relationship, one in which he loved me regardless of my frailties, my fears, my challenges, and vice versa. More importantly, I acknowledged that I could be whole, whether in a relationship with another or not, as long as I honored the relationship with myself. When I walked into the Diamond Lil, it became a rewarding and life-altering experience. I walked in a frightened, vulnerable, defensive child, but I walked out a frightened, vulnerable, defensive adult. That evening, I discovered that I am lovable, and as such, I deserve a life in which I remove my armor and discover gratefulness and joy.

Demanding our rightful place in this world can be challenging and at times even dangerous. In spite of the many triumphs our community has won in the last few years, right-wing Republican bureaucrats and hate-mongering evangelical theocrats continue to advocate policies of hate, insisting being gay can never be affirmed or affirming. I, we, don’t need permission or approval to celebrate the milestones in our lives. For too much of my life, I was a victim of distorted, misguided lies leveled against me. It took me a lifetime to recognize that when I finally let go of the past, something better comes along. Spirit may not have changed me as I attempted to storm the gates of heaven, but before I called, Spirit did, in fact, answer.

© Denver, August 2014

About the Author

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.” In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter. I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic. Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming. Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth. My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun. I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time. My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands. I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty. I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.

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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

Posted on

The Gayest Person I Ever Met by Ray S

Of all the personalities in the history of mankind and
womankind such as the arts, science, politics, athletics, and some
miscellaneous criminal miscreants that qualify for membership in our GLBTQ
community – the one I find “most gayest” is my intimate acquaintance with a
very classic “closet case”.
It is a story of a gay man and actually nothing out of the
ordinary. As he relates the story it all started at the age of three or four
when a little girl from next door got them naked and compared minute genitalia,
5 & 6 years old found the usual little boys discovering each others
equipment. It wasn’t until he and a close boyhood family friend discovered the
fun of mutual sexual gratification – the manual method.
As he remembers about the advent of puberty did he learn that
these little pleasures were socially unacceptable in the yes of the straight
and narrow. And so sin arrives on the scene to raise its ugly head – no pun
intended.
The reality of learning how to reconcile little pleasures and
fitting in with mainstream conventional middle class America, i.e. what boys do
with girls, getting married – boys and girls style, making the future
generation, educating the little buggers, paying for the weddings and maybe a
divorce or two. Countless birthday cards to all of the family and extended
families. Making a living which includes figuring out what he thought would
possibly be lucrative, socially acceptable – never mind not doing something he
really wanted to do – if he ever figured that one out.
Does all of this sound familiar and routine – “been there
done that”. I began to really get weary as this story droned on and on.
He discovered at some point in this drama that sometimes the closet
door slammed back and hit him square in the ass. Such were the perils of
tripping on the tight rope of life in the gay light way.
Eventually, various resolutions over which he tells me he had
no control blew the closet door off its hinges (again no pun intended).
I am happy to report to all of you who are still listening –
those who excused themselves I sympathize and understand – if I hadn’t had to
feel compelled to tell this story I’d be gone too.
Suffice it to say like so many other late bloomers, he’s
wrapped himself in a rainbow flag and is attempting to live a most gay life –
but of course in good taste, quietly, and only as wild as his advanced years
will tolerate.
Moral: like the salmon swimming upstream on its way to spawn
– life goes on and then you die with a smile on your face.

© 14 July 2014  

About the Author






Posted on

How Did I Get Here by Phillip Hoyle

I never wanted to be a truck driver, but that’s how I got
to Denver. I rented the moving van in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was ending my
conventional life characterized by many years with work and family. I packed up
what was left of my belongings and set out on an adventure, one that continues
to this day.
Denver, the destination and site of my adventure, was the
large city of my childhood. Yearly trips usually brought our family to Loveland
and Estes Park, and sometimes Dad would take us through Denver where he almost
always got lost. The diagonal streets made navigating too tricky. (I sometimes
have the same problem when I’m downtown.) 
Here in Denver I saw my first dinosaur bones, my first skyscrapers, my
first art museum, and the then-new Cinerama movies. I was impressed. The town
seemed pretty clean, full of possibilities, and a place where unusual people
could gather and thrive. I had made quick visits to Kansas City, Missouri, and
Wichita, Kansas, but neither place made a lasting good impression or affected me
where it mattered: issues of art, archaeology, education, and scenery. I liked
Denver.
I had other visits to my favorite big city: an overnight
stay on my honeymoon, annual commutes from Kansas and Missouri to western
Colorado, and, in my forties, short sorties from Montrose into the city where I
stayed with a friend I had met in seminary. Then I often went to the Denver Art
Museum and the Denver Public Library. Both impressed me greatly. I even chose
my two favorite neighborhoods in which I might live should I ever move here.
I spent a short time in Tulsa. There my life really changed.
Things kind of caught up with me resulting in the ends of my marriage and of my
long career. I quit. I thought about where to go, what to do. I decided to move
to a western city and considered Denver, San Diego, and Seattle. My Denver
friend suggested I get out of Tulsa before I got in trouble; I could crash at
his place. His offer solved a few things for me, but mainly promised a place to
live while I found a job. Besides, I knew Denver had adequate public
transportation. So I packed up what things I had after my separation from my
wife and hit the road.
Now driving a truck was a new experience for me,
especially across four states. I knew I’d need a rather large van but didn’t
want one so large I’d be scared on the road. So I started giving away my
belongings—most of my library, music, records, cassette tapes, and even some
CDs. I culled my files and finally threw away almost all of them. I filled
several boxes with books for my kids and grandkids. I rented a big yellow truck,
packed it with what was left, and drove it to Missouri where I unpacked most of
the furniture at my daughter’s apartment.
Matthew, my six-year-old grandson, accompanied me on the
trip. We stopped near Booneville, Missouri, for gas and snacks. Before we
reached Kansas City my young companion was fast asleep. I gassed up at a 7-11
in Topeka, the city where my long-time friend-lover lived. Being so late, I
didn’t call him as I had promised I would always do in the letter I sent at the
end of our affair. I hated breaking this promise, but I had to keep going on
down the roads I’d begun traveling. We stopped at a rest area west of
Salina—the end of the Flint Hills where I was born and the beginning of the
high plains. It seemed a point of demarcation for me. There I realized I was
driving a little truck, so it then
seemed, parked alongside several huge rigs. The contrast helped me realize the
challenges I faced were not as large as I had been thinking. My grandson
awakened briefly. Then we slept several hours before cleaning up as well as one
can in such a place. The day dawned bright and beautiful. We drove west
stopping at high noon in Goodland where we picnicked at a city park. My
grandson ran through sprinklers of icy cold water on that hot summer afternoon
while I sat and then lay on a picnic table under a shelter. I watched his
cavorting, yelled out my encouragement, and enjoyed his display of enthusiasm. I
thought I’d need to be like that kid in Denver, in my new life, playful and in
the moment. At Burlington, Colorado, we stopped at the outdoors museum, a
reconstruction of old buildings. We went to the saloon and ordered root beers.
A young dancehall girl thought my grandson was so cute; he was embarrassed and
wouldn’t answer her questions or even look at her. I wondered what I could
learn from that, perhaps to be true to myself but not without confidence. We
drove a few miles beyond to another roadside park. I had to sleep so got a pad
out of the back of the van and rested on another picnic table. Finally we pulled
into Denver—worn out (I’d slept little in three days) but elated.
Someone questioned whether making so many changes so
radically and in so little time constituted a mental breakdown. I realize my
decisions happened a little late to be a classic mid-life crisis but as an
analytical tidbit, midlife works for me. The themes had been present my whole
life long: my homosexual proclivity, my being a rather parent-pleasing middle
child, my personal understanding of religious realities, my commitment to music
and other arts, my abilities and inabilities to communicate my feelings, and my
sense of individuality (some would call selfishness). Anyway, I had to change,
so I morphed into a person now true to some themes I had kept out of the center
of my life. How I actually got to Denver from Tulsa seemed a symbol of a much
greater change: my yearning for simplicity that resulted in throwing away many
things, those accoutrements of modern life—steady job, salary, husband/wife relationship,
and much more. These thoughts had swirled around my head while I drove west to
my new home.

I unloaded some things into my friend’s apartment. I
loaded the rest into and on top of my son’s van. I was left with clothes, art
supplies, six boxes of books (I’d ridded myself of fifty-four boxes), and one
piece of furniture. I had seriously lightened my load. Finally I returned the
truck to the rental company. And now I’m telling my story like a truck driver,
at times excitedly, milking its entertainment value, but still including its
essential truths. That’s how I got to Denver to begin a new chapter of my life.

© 25 November 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.com
Posted on

Wisdom by Pat Gourley

When looking at the definition of the word “wisdom”  -‘having or showing experience, knowledge and
good judgment’ – I have to honestly say it seems not much of that applies to me
at age 65. Perhaps real wisdom will come in the decades after 65 if I am lucky
enough to experience them. I am though relatively content with where I am with
how I move in the world and my overall view of it despite the fact that I don’t
appear to be offering up much to the eventual survival of the species.
I do think though I have a bit of wisdom incorporated into my
nursing work and I do believe that a level of true compassion, as opposed to
the often politically correct ‘idiot compassion’, has over four decades been
slowly ripened and gets expressed in perhaps actually helping the folks seeking
health care I run into these days. This involves an approach I really started
to only hone in the early 1990’s in the AIDS Clinic at Denver Health and
supported by the philosophical writings of my favorite nursing theorist
Margaret Newman. I have I think shared this quote from Newman’s work in the
past but here it is again: “The responsibility of the nurse is not to make
people well, or to prevent their getting sick, but to assist people to
recognize the power that is within them to move to higher levels of
consciousness”.
A recent example of this in practice is offering to take
certain select friends to see the documentary Fed Up currently playing at the Mayan Theatre. Rather than
continued harping at them about how their diet is fueling their metabolic
syndromes and in certain case frank diabetes, I am simply facilitating their
exposure to this wonderful film and maybe some of it will hit home and get
incorporated into changes in their diets. Though an after movie stop at Gigi’s
Cupcakes at 6th and Grant makes me wonder if I didn’t just piss away
a ten dollar movie ticket and in the interest of full disclosure that would be
my ten dollar ticket I am talking about. Hey, when it comes to taking direction
from almost any nurse it is best not to do what we do but rather do what we
say. Or perhaps more in the spirit of Margaret Newman look at where we are
pointing to and see what might be over there for you.
I’d like to change gears a bit here and turn my focus from
cupcakes to acronyms and an application to today’s topic of wisdom. Our Story
telling Group is part of the S-A-G-E activities offered by the Center. SAGE is
an acronym that stands for “Service and Advocacy for GLBT Elders”. That is
pretty much a big snooze as far as I am concerned. I would much rather have us
referred to as “sages” all small letters and no acronym even alluded to. The
acronym, SAGE, also seems to heavily imply that we are a group in need of
advocacy and services. There is certainly no denying that some of us queer elders
are in need of both service and advocacy at least at certain times during our
golden years. However, it is much more appealing to me to be recognized as a
sage with much to offer the larger queer world than a member of a group called
SAGE focused on providing advocacy and service.
One definition I ‘Googled’ on for a sage is someone “having,
showing or indicating great wisdom”. Well I think its time we all accepted that
definition and put on the mantle of sage. Again to cop a bit to Margaret Newman
I think many of us around this table are very capable of helping our LGBT
brothers and sisters to recognize the power that is within them to move to
higher levels of consciousness.
One form this might take is embedded in idea that Phil and I
have been lightly kicking around for sometime and that might be an e-book
perhaps, an anthology of stories from this group from those of you who have
come to openly queer consciousness in your SAGE years.
There has been so much wisdom expressed in many stories I
have heard here but I am often most moved and impressed with those coming out
stories being shared by folks who have come out in the last 10-15 years and
much more recently for a few. These stories would I think be a great benefit
and succor to those other elders contemplating this same leap. There is an old
Zen saying: ‘leap and a net shall appear”. What a great gift of a net these
stories could be for someone deciding at 50 or 60 or 70 to come out as queer.
I have shared many of my own coming out experiences primarily
from the late sixties but really how much would a 60 year old today relate to
my crazy ass stories of fucking with my high school mentor in the biology lab
of a Catholic prep school on a Good Friday afternoon no less. Rather people
relating stories of coming to queerness out of long and often very happy
heterosexual unions often resulting in offspring during the swirling years of
gay liberation, AIDS, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and marriage equality would most
likely resonate much more than tales of hallucinogenic trips at the bathhouses
of the 1970’s.
So in closing I would like to anoint us all as the true sages
we are and push us a bit to start sharing our deep wisdom about the many areas
of life we have occupied, particularly the queer corners.
© 22 June
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.
Posted on

Where Was I by Nicholas

          In the early 1960s,
I was in high school studying French, struggling with chemistry, hating algebra
and the jerk who taught it, but loving English Lit and the teacher who taught
that. High school was nothing until my senior year and then I learned to party
and enjoy myself. The promise of just getting out of high school was enough to
liberate my spirit. It was the great age of liberation with the civil rights
movement and its innumerable clashes on the nightly news every day.

          Liberation for me came in
drive down Interstate 71 from Cleveland to Columbus where I joined 45,000 other
students at Ohio State University. New people, new studies, new challenges and
suddenly I got to make my own decisions. OSU is where I took part in my first
political demonstrations, volunteered to work in a community development
project in Columbus, first doubted my Catholic faith, and first voiced
opposition to the Viet Nam War. It was also where I had my first disastrous
love affair that I didn’t even realize was a love affair until many years
later.  

          And then I
came out—to California, that is. Experiences in San Francisco and elsewhere in
California are what I associate with “what did you do in the 60s?” When the
‘60s began and ended is a matter of interpretation or maybe just mood. Like
many of the drug-induced experiences back then, the decade tends to wiggle and
undulate on and off the calendar. It is not contained in a simple ten year span
of time.
My political activism, however, was
short lived. I stayed on the fringe looking in. I was on the edge of the crowd
trying to escape the tear gas and bullets that summer day on Telegraph Avenue
in Berkeley, not in the thick of it getting beaten up by police. I was in the
back of the throng at the Altamont concert, kind of wishing I wasn’t there at
all, but thankfully not crushed in front of the stage and amidst some lethal
violence. I was stunned one day to see a friend appear in the bright California
sunshine when he ventured out of his heavily curtained, smoky sanctuary/den,
looking like a cadaver. But I wasn’t that drugged out cadaver and wasn’t headed
in that direction.
I would work for a few months and
then take off for a while, go hitchhiking, spend days climbing Mt. Tamalpais
and watching the ocean from a sunny meadow. I came to think that this is how
life ought to be. I would grow up, that is, settle down, commit to something,
have a career, later, I kept thinking. There was plenty of time for that.
My project then was to stay out of
the war and out of the army, a commitment based both on principle and downright
fear. The fear was as realistic as the principle was laudable. I was against
that war and couldn’t see myself joining in any war and when drafted to do so,
said, no.
The motivation for my and others’
actions did not stem entirely from a sense that we were acting out grand laws
of history as earlier revolutionaries might have but we came from a very
personal sense of what was at stake for us. Beyond mere egoism and
self-indulgence, it was an ethical standard based on me.
And there was music, always there was
the music. Rock music took on an artistry ranging from the Beatles’ tunes and
the poetry of Jim Morrison and the Doors to the blues of the Grateful Dead with
the exquisite guitar of Jerry Garcia and the hard rocking of the Rolling Stones.
From them I learned about Chicago blues, electric blues, hard and fast urban
blues.
So, where was I in the 60s. I was in
the city hearing black people tell their stories. I was on the all-night bus to
New York City for the first huge anti-war march. I was hiking through Point
Reyes on the Pacific Coast. I was filing appeal after appeal with my draft
board. I was discovering yoga and quiet and meditation. I was discovering brown
rice. I learned to bake bread. I was dodging cops to avoid getting arrested. I
was bouncing around Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park probably hearing the
Grateful Dead or Janis Joplin or Quicksilver Messenger Service. I was growing
up and life was good.

© 2 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.