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What’s Your Sign? by Gillian


I’m a sign of the times.

I am a woman with more freedom than any previous generation in the history of humankind.

I have freedom of expression, and self-determination of my life, which women of the past could scarcely dream of.

I vote, a privilege not extended to all women in the U.S. until 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, although in Colorado, women gained the right to vote in 1893.

I have complete control over my own property, a privilege not extended to American women until 1900.

I can even purchase my own property, a privilege I was astonished to find not extended to me in 1966. I had a good job and determined to buy a house; a very modest, two-bedroom frame house, the likes of which have mostly become “scrape-offs” in recent years. However, I found that although I could qualify with my income, I could not get a loan. This refusal certainly had nothing to do with my being a lesbian; it would take another 20 years for ME to figure that one out! It was because …. What would happen if I became pregnant? As an unmarried woman I had no one to pick up my debts when I had to quit work. (Hey, perhaps being a lesbian might actually have been an advantage!) Poor innocent little ol’ me. I had no idea that only one in a thousand women (0.1%) owned homes in 1960, but, WOW, by 1970 we zoomed all the way up to a shaky two in a thousand (0.2%). Currently, single women are around 20% of homebuyers while single men account for only 10%.

Just in my lifetime, how things have changed. I own my home, I own and drive my car, I manage my own money. I haven’t worn a skirt since I retired; I am free to follow fashion or ignore it. I am free to follow social mores or ignore them.

I talk about religion and politics, very much verboten in my youth, and, still worse, about sex!

I have lived with my beautiful Betsy for over 25 years. Far from causing us to live in fear, this fact does not seem to faze anyone among our acquaintances, friends, and families. And now, in July 2013, neither does it, according to the Supreme Court, threaten all those straight marriages out there. Which, by the way, are failing at a rate exceeding 50%.

Like many older people, I get a bit curmudgeonly at times, bemoaning today’s world and muttering on about how things are not what they used to be.

How happy I should be that they are not!

I have lived, and am living, in the best possible time.

I am indeed, and delighted to be, a sign of the times.

© 6 July 1913 

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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May They Rest In Pieces by Betsy

I started smoking cigarettes in high school along with most of my classmates. It was, after all, the thing to do–the cool thing to do. Seventeen years old or so, we were old enough, cigarettes were relatively inexpensive at the time, and it was a way to feel more grown up thanks to the magazine ads. Smoking at home or in the presence of my parents was not an option for me, but that was not so important. What was important was us kids smoking in the presence of each other. The same was true in college only by then smoking with my parents was acceptable and absolutely everyone smoked it seemed. Makes sense. The tobacco industry was in its hay day at the time making more profits than ever and more than most industries.

That was the 1950s. Fast forward about eight years. Now a mother with young children cigarette smoking was not so fashionable and smoking’s hazards to human health were beginning to be realized and made known to the public. So my husband and I gave up the habit and became nonsmokers or rather ex-smokers.

Quitting then was not easy. But it was do-able and we successfully went cold turkey one day.

In the early 1980s my life started to change. My children were grown up, I started the coming out process, I knew my marriage would end as a result, and I felt the need of a crutch other than my support group. So without even thinking (big mistake!) I turned to my old friend, cigarettes. I could always quit later. No problem. I had done it before.

One week of the addictive behavior and one week of inhaling the addictive substance and I was back to where I had left off all those years ago–smoking at least a pack a day. Only this time I knew that it was hazardous to my health.

I must have felt some shame in my behavior because I didn’t want my husband or children to know I was smoking. So I did it in private. Never mind. I needed it now and I could quit later. I had done it before.

By 1990 my life had calmed down. I had gone through an amicable divorce, I still had the stable job I loved, and I had been through two stormy short term relationships, and I had met Gill, the love of my life and we were now in a committed relationship. I hated the fact that I smoked cigarettes, but I was truly hooked. I tried and tried but I couldn’t stop. I read books and articles on the subject, I took classes, I went to support groups, and there were a multitude of groups to choose from. Many people were trying to quit smoking in those days. In fact “how to quit smoking” was becoming a profitable industry. Advertisements for quitting smoking aides were abundant. I often wondered about the ad that declared that you could “quit smoking in less than two weeks” using their technique. Please. It takes at least ten years of not smoking to know that you are finally unhooked.

I will never forget one of the groups that I attended for only one trial session. The leader was ruthless. She was paid well, I am sure, because the cost of the class was considerable (if one chose to join it after trying one session). That leader, in the course of performing her job, humiliated a man who confessed that he had given in to temptation and had lit a cigarette but had not inhaled. She literally kicked him out of the group in front of everyone for the sin of backsliding. This action, I am sure, was supposed to be a deterrent to back sliding for the others. Well, it deterred me from paying the considerable fee and going back to that group.

A couple of years of this back and forth in and out of smoking behavior was becoming tiring and trying. My main problem was not so much the addiction to the behavior and the substance, rather I hated being dependent on something, especially something that was not good for me in any way. How many packs of cigarettes did I buy, smoke one and then throw the rest away somewhere like in a dumpster where I could not get to them later when the craving started. It was making Gill crazy too. “Either quit smoking or quit quitting, she said one day.”

Of the many words of advice I read on the subject, two in particular stuck with me. “Realize and accept that you will fail and back slide maybe many times even after you have made a strong commitment to quitting,” I read. Do not beat yourself up for this; do not view yourself as a failure. When it comes, wait the craving out. It WILL go away. Just keep trying and keep up the commitment.

The second piece of advice I found helpful for some strange reason I do not understand, was this. Make it a ritual. Take cigarettes outside and bury them deep in the ground, say goodbye, and grieve for them. One of my last cigarette purchases succumbed to this act of finality, this memorial service. For some reason it worked for me. Maybe I was just fed up and ready. Whatever the reason all I can say is “may they rest in pieces.”

© 28 January 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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What’s Your Sign? by Will Stanton

I am hoping that my sign does not become the humorous road-crossing sign that I downloaded from the web. Someone made and planted next to a street a road sign stating, “Warning. Geezer Crossing.”

On the sign, there was an image of a bent, old man with a cane. And in the background of the photo, was an actual bent, old man with a cane with an identical profile, slowly crossing the road. Funny, but a little sad, too.

When it comes to astrological signs, I cannot say that I “believe” in the art. My parents drummed into me to be, in their way of thinking, always “realistic.” So, I do not look at the daily horoscopes, nor do I ask to have astrological charts made for me. I have to say, however, that way back in college, a girl expressed a desire to do my chart; and the results were surprisingly accurate, even in small details. I found it to be somewhat interesting, but I stuck it away in a cupboard and never have referred to it in order to make decisions in life. I regarded it with the same mild curiosity as I have with the revelations of people who have read the lines in my palms or looked at Tarot cards. Those, too, seemed to be accurate. But again, I never felt that there was a practical use for that information. Maybe I missed out on something. Maybe I might have made better decisions in life.

I suppose that I could claim that various other signs, other than astrological, represent me, at least to some degree. The treble and bass clefs found on musical scores might be considered to be representative of my nature, music being a major interest of mine. Unfortunately, retardando might be my current sign, because I appear to be slowing down. Allegro, or more so, prestissimo, as I felt in my youth, no longer are my signs, although I wish that they were.

I am aware that, especially during rush-hour, many drivers utilize various signs. Those are not my signs; I don’t use them. I prefer not to be run off the road or shot. I use my fingers trying to play piano.

I do not know sign language. Perhaps more of us should. That would be considerate, should we encounter a hearing-impaired person. In addition, I certainly wish that, when my friends and I hope for a pleasant dinner in a restaurant, that far more people would use sign language as opposed to having too many drinks and then speaking extremely loudly and shrieking with laughter. In one restaurant, the noise was so intense that a couple and I gave up trying to carry on a conversation. They always carry ear plugs with them for loud movies, and they stuck in their ear plugs. I don’t blame them. The food was good, but we are not going back to that restaurant unless it is on an off-time.

There are signs that I prefer to use a lot. These are non-verbal signs that I use to communicate with others my affection and approval, my caring and empathy. A genuine smile has become one of my most naturally employed signs. Especially in today’s world, there is too little of that.

© 5
February 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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My Didn’t It Rain by Ricky

(Or Did It Rain, Rein,
Reign?)
         
A poet once wrote, “Rain, rain go away and come again another day for little Johnnie wants to play.” On rainy days, when I was little, I really liked that poem and would repeat it over and over until I realized the raindrops kept falling (on my head, they keep falling…) and my mother would finally tell me to be quiet and go play outside in spite of the rain. It didn’t make much sense to me because, she also said, “Don’t get dirty.” Apparently, getting wet was okay but not wet and dirty at the same time. So tell me, how is a little boy supposed to play in the rain without getting dirty? How is that any fun? It is definitely awkward to be the lone boy on the “sidelines” watching all the neighborhood boys splash in puddles, run through patches of mud, and even throw mud-balls at each other. Then, to add insult to injury, when called back to the house for the eventual “time-to-come-home” routine, mom would have me take a bath before dinner. What’s up with that? I could have had some fun just by being naked in the bathtub all day playing with my rubber ducky instead of being frustrated and jealous of all my wet and dirty playmates. Moms just don’t understand “boy-fun.”

The first “single date” my future spouse and I took was to the Mariana Caverns in NW Florida (a two-hour drive east of Ft. Walton Beach in the panhandle). About 30-minutes prior to our arrival it began to rain. By the time we arrived the rain had lessened to a light drizzle. I guess I must have commented (well, maybe bragged a bit) about building fires without matches while in the Boy Scouts. Naturally, like many young women I’ve met, Deborah thought I just made that up so, she challenged me to prove it. Like any young man, I could not just ignore the challenge (or maybe it was a dare) so I did it. After lunch was cooked on my matchless fire, for my punishment for showing her not to doubt my word, she did the “mom thing”; “John, let’s go walking in the rain.” By this time I had my “spirits” dampened by rain for several years at home, by excessive rain and wet sleeping bag during scout campouts, and rain during Air Force basic training situations so, I was not the least bit interested in walking in the rain. But, since I had no bath tub with rubber ducky in my car, in order to make a counter offer, I went with her on the walk. I’m sure if you could have seen my posture and the look on my face, they would have mimicked the illustrations of Alexander in the book titled, Alexander and The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. [On the bright side, I’m sure I didn’t accidentally call Australia.] In spite of Deborah’s assurances that I would not melt (because I wasn’t made of sugar and spice) I nearly did. Contrary to public opinion, snips and snails and puppy-dog tails are not waterproof.  
[Just for the record: I may not be made of sugar and spice, but I do
have a large chunk of “everything nice” within me—probably because I like to
eat chocolate and Baseball Nut ice
cream from Baskin and Robins.]

At one time I lived in Tucson, Arizona, with the family of a retired Air Force member. One day four of their children and I wanted to go to see a movie. So, we piled in my little two-door, four-cylinder Opel Kadet station wagon and set out. About half an hour earlier there had been one of those famous Arizona desert “gully washer” downpours; the kind that generate flash flood warnings. Time was pressuring us to arrive prior to the movie starting when we approached a “low” spot that had about 20 yards of cross-flowing water over the road. I was young and all grown up at 22, but still stupid, I decided that the movie was worth the risk of trying to drive through the flooded road. At the deepest spot, water was splashing over the front of the engine hood and appeared to be about 1/3 to 1/2 ways up the side of the driver’s door. We made it across, but I believe if I had been alone in the vehicle, it would have floated away.

Once, while in the forest with a female friend, I was saved from injury and embarrassment by about 3-feet of rein. We had come to a small creek and my friend had crossed easily. However, when I got there my horse balked and tossed me over his head, but I held tight to the reins and so landed on my feet. I smacked the horse alongside his head with the reins, got back on, and the horse walked calmly across the creek. Even on horseback, water and I don’t mix but this time the rein was my friend.

Genesis Chapter 2, Verses19-20 describe how God gave Adam the task of naming all species of animals. We know that many species of creatures are now extinct and yet thousands remain. I can just imagine Adam reaching a breaking point one day and sassing God about not having any more ideas for names, which resulted in a small cloud dumping a bucketful of rainwater on Adam and the creature standing next in line to be named. Adam recognized the hint, so that’s how the reindeer got its name. The name is misspelled due to a dictionary printing error centuries ago.

My spouse, Deborah, loved to do genealogy research on our family-lines. She discovered that she is a distant descendant of King Harold of England. He was involved in a six-month reign until he met his end at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. I guess he never heard, “He who fights and runs away, lives to reign another day.”

Eric “The Red” is another distant ancestor of Deborah’s. While he was more infamous than royal, he is the father of Leif Erickson, the probable leader of the Viking expedition, which landed in North America. Eric may have owned a herd of reindeer and I’ll bet he spelled it correctly in Runes as he had no dictionaries to confuse him.

© 17
October 2011

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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My Favorite Literary Character by Ray S

A footnote to our
storytelling: Don’t forget Peter Rabbit, Peanuts’ Charlie Brown, or Alice. “It
is an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San
Francisco.” Oscar Wilde.
Seven a.m. and
it’s my Monday morning challenge. No, not that—my muse and I have been fooling
around since last Monday with today’s subject and it’s been difficult to boil
down the vast numbers of characters, if you count the fictionally named heroes of
gay porn. But that’s a matter that does not qualify for the highly intellectual
subject matter for today.
As a child having
a reading difficulty, my character inventory was limited to the delightful
poems of Mr. Stevenson and his “A Child’s Garden of Verses”. What fond memories I
have of “The Land of Counterpane.”
When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay,
To keep me happy all the day.
And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;
And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.
I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.
Oh, and yes from a
more recent time when I used to read to my kids the adventures of Maurice
Sendak’s “Nutshell Library,” “Alligators All Around,” and “The Moral of Pierre
is: CARE” and many more.
My literary life
didn’t include Oscar or Gore, but with the advent of my SAGE time of life I
have discovered and learned to love a truly fabulous cast of characters through
the offices of the genius of my hero Armistead Maupin. I shall never forget the
tale of the long journey from the Blue Moon in Winnemucca, Nevada to the house
of Barberry Lane. That’s how I met my most favorite literary character—and
first acquaintance with the “T” in GLBT, the Queen of 28 Barberry Lane, Mrs.
Anna Madrigal. She is a role model for everyone—no matter which way you swing!

© 10 March 2014, Denver


About the Author 



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All My Exes Live In Texas by Pat Gourley

Actually none of my exes live in Texas, are from Texas or to my knowledge ever had any significant connection to Texas. I have been there only once. That was an overnight stay in Dallas for teaching purposes on a new HIV drug called ddc. We were beginning a study with it at the AIDS clinic where I worked. I believe the year was 1990 or 1991. I seem to recall that this overnighter was in August and other than staying in a very plush hotel it was the throat grabbing heat and humidity that I remember best. The short trip from cab to inside the hotel made me think ‘so this is what hell is like.’

For those of you who have not seen the Dallas Buyers Club, currently playing at the Esquire Theatre one of the drugs they were trying hard to have access to early was ddc. AZT was all that was available early on and many thought it was poison. Ironically it was the high dosage of AZT that was the big problem and in the long run it proved less toxic than ddc. AZT is still in use today in combinations with other drugs and ddc nowhere to be found.

I believe the first buyers clubs were in New York City and on the west coast a direct offshoot of ACT-UP organizing and efforts. They did not originate in Texas.

I strongly recommend the movie which I feel is great validation for folks not sitting by quietly waiting to be saved (or not) but rather taking matters into our own hands and strongly and forcefully demanding change and action. This is something we queers are quite adept at when we put our minds to it. There has been some controversy in the gay press about the movie and after last night’s Golden Globe awards where the best actor and best supporting actor awards were won by the stars of the movie some minor bitching continues. I won’t get into the controversies here other than to say I think it is perhaps a bit “much ado about not much.” Everyone does agree the acting was superb.

In retrospect I do feel bad that I was attending a drug company teaching session on ddc in Dallas in the early 1990’s rather than spending my time visiting their buyer’s club. We of course had to be properly trained on the drug before we could be designated a study site for it. I never got to meet the infamous Ron Woodroof and the charismatic Rayon, the lead characters in the Dallas Buyers Club.

In the movie the main protagonist is a man named Ron Woodroof played by Matthew McConaughey. The other main character is a trans-women played in quite dramatic fashion by Jared Leto named Rayon. A strong subtext throughout the movie is the genuine bonds that developed between her and McConaughey a supposedly straight man. The Dallas Buyers Club itself as an entity doesn’t really take off until Rayon becomes involved and brings in many customers. It needed a bit more legitimate queer street cred, which Rayon brought to it, countering the McConaughey character and his early on really vicious, drug addled homophobia.

Buyer’s Clubs became a quite widespread phenomenon in the late 1980’s and were a force even locally here in Denver until the late 1990’s when protease inhibitors came on the scene. The flawed but immensely better new drugs that actually worked to keep the virus at bay tended to take the desperate energy out of the sails of the various PWA coalitions and the often loosely affiliated buyers clubs.

Locally there was a strong PWA coalition and a loosely associated buyer’s club. I was never involved directly with either though I did on occasion contribute educational pieces for their newsletter called Resolute, my most infamous piece being one titled “Its Chemotherapy Stupid.” I might read it here some day.

I do though recall that our buyer’s club was run in a bit more egalitarian fashion than the Dallas Buyers Club was. Less profit motivated for sure and really queer run here. I only accessed them once and that was the day before my partner David died at Rose Medical Center on September 17th, 1995. His AIDS was quite advanced by this time and David had just been home a few days from a rather lengthy and traumatic hospital stay. He adamantly did not want to return for another stay or to die there if at all possible.

The big issue was controlling pain. All we had at home were morphine tables and plenty of them but they didn’t seem to be working and were a sustained release version. I thought a quicker acting liquid form might be more helpful but it was late in the evening and accessing it through his doc at Rose problematic. So I picked up the phone and called one of my friends, a local buyer’s club member. Within less than an hour our doorbell rang. No one was at the door but there was a small paper bag on the stoop with two bottles of liquid morphine.

Unfortunately, that didn’t work either. So we gave in and went back to Rose for IV pain relief. That did help immensely but David died the next morning at 9 A.M.

I am reminded constantly how lucky I am to be alive today. I turned 65 yesterday. I know that makes me a youngster in this room but in the AIDS community I am an old man. I do think I owe a great debt of gratitude to all the AIDS activists of the 1980’s and 1990’s for speeding up the process of drug development and access to these drugs for people with AIDS. If not for a lot of loudmouthed and uppity queens, including many in Texas, I might very well not be here today.

© January 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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HomoFaggot by Phillip Hoyle

I knew my life was changing when my wife advised, “You’d better tell the kids.” I thought about it and realized that to give words to my activity would necessarily change me. The assumption stemmed from a theological concept about the power of words, for in Genesis God spoke into existence the creation and then pronounced it good. Early Christian tradition called Jesus not only the Christ but also the word. I assumed words create, words value, and words move even mountains. I knew that the words I used to communicate with my grown children would have all these powers. I would be creating myself to both them and me. I would be moving myself and them into new worlds of experience and, hopefully, love. I would be testing all the values my wife and I had sought to foster in them.

I decided to describe my actions rather than call myself names. Still, to tell my daughter Desma about my activities would be to out myself not only to her but, because I assumed she would be more entertained than chagrined and not at all ashamed over what I had done, I would be known as homosexual to anyone who knew her very well. She wasn’t a gossip; she was just very open. I didn’t fault her, but I did know I’d be out in the city where she lived and where I had ministered in a congregation for nine years.

I asked my wife if she was sure about my telling them and was surprised at her answer. She didn’t want them to receive the word about my life at the same time they might have to hear that we were changing our relationship. I perceived her wisdom but wondered at her assumption that differed from mine. Still I bit the bullet and called the kids.

From years of reading queer theory, I realized that in telling them this information about myself, I would change in ways I could not yet imagine. I chose not to use categorizing words such as homosexual or bisexual, because I didn’t want to direct their ways of thinking. The main impact would be that my life and the marriage were changing. I also realized that whatever I said to them, I’d be homosexual. I knew that neither straights nor gays were comfortable with the designation bisexual. It didn’t matter that I had for many years understood and valued my bisexuality. It didn’t matter that the latest coalition of queers called itself GLBT. Yes, that B stands for bisexual, a term common in the literature of psychology, sociology, and sexology; that B represents a growing body of knowledge about humans; that B describes well the experience of thousands or even millions of human beings including me. When the story would be re-told, as I assumed it would, the B word would not be used. I would become a homosexual; I would be gay. Although that didn’t bother me at a personal level, the H word did not begin to describe my life. It was just too simple a designation. It was also one that would limit my access to work in the church.

Ironically, homosexual was more acceptable than bisexual in church work due to the possibility of being monogamous as a homosexual and the impossibility of such as a bisexual. A war of concepts and ideals seemed underway, one that would end my career. I didn’t know what I would do, what outcomes I’d find, but I did call my kids and tell them that in New Mexico I’d had two sexual affairs with men. I said their mom and I wanted them to know because we didn’t know what the future would hold. I reminded them that we loved them. My wife and I did separate. Within a year I’d left my ministerial profession and moved to Denver to live as a gay man. These choices seemed the best for everyone.

About four years later Desma heard her two boys call one another faggot. She asked them what the expression meant. Because they either didn’t know for sure or didn’t want to get into heavy trouble with their mom, they told her it meant you were strange. They’d heard it at school. She called together all four of her older children saying they needed to talk. She told them the word faggot and what it stood for: people who love and want to live with others of the same sex. They talked until she knew they understood the meaning of homosexual, gay, lesbian, and other related words. They discussed descriptive and pejorative uses of the terms. Then she said she wanted them to think for three hours, not to discuss but simply think, about people they knew that are homosexual. When she dismissed the children to go back to their play, she called her sister-in-law. “Heather,” she informed, “we’re talking about homosexuality over here. I thought you’d want to know before the kids got together again.” The families lived several blocks apart. The kids were in and out of each other’s homes. And Grandpa Phillip was coming to town in a few weeks.

When she got the kids together again, she asked them and made a list. They talked about what they knew including several homosexual people who were related to their family as friends and acquaintances. None of them suggested Grandpa Phillip. But some of the grandchildren had met Phil’s friend Tony and his male partner. They had walked his dog Shinti and had attended two gay parades with their grandpa. They had seen him greet gays and lesbians near his home. Two of them had met a transgender friend of his who bought them a cookie at a coffee shop. And since then the children and grandchildren have met Grandpa Phillip’s current partner Jim. They’ve met his mother Ruth. Most of them have stayed overnight in our home and have eaten Ruth’s homemade cookies. They have read my stories about Miss Shinti and her gay owner. They know something about their grandpa, information that will change for them as they mature. They also know they are deeply loved, even by their HomoFaggot grandpa.

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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Endless Joy by Nicholas

At a time in my life when I realize that nothing is endless, least of all joy, though perhaps torment is endless, but really not even that, I do not know what to say about endless joy. Is it possible? Would I even want it? Wouldn’t it become boring? Would it be bearable?

To conceive of something endless is not really possible, is beyond the capacity of our finite human minds which, if not finite themselves, can deal only in the finite world. This is what we mean by “getting my mind around” something—containing it, roping it in. Endless is not possible and is not even appealing. Endless is kind of an absurdity and joy can be even more problematic. Joy can be hard to find and quick to lose.

I have had from time to time a sense of what seems like eternity, a sense of timelessness. I can get so wrapped up in the now of whatever I’m doing that awareness of time passing simply escapes me. That’s how I imagine eternity, a perpetual, timeless now. We’re entering the boggle-sphere here. Concepts that just boggle the mind.

Now, if the topic were constant joy, I could list many things that fill my life with happiness. Being with Jamie for one. Celebrating holidays or anytime with good friends and family. A walk in the snow. Seeing the snow go away and flowers bloom. Cooking, eating, drinking wine. Riding a train. Sipping a cup of hot chocolate on a cold afternoon. Bicycling on a summer morning. Reading a good book. Dreaming of writing projects—actually doing them, that is.

But. Nothing is endless except endlessness itself. The universe has many endings but goes on and on. Time has many endings but goes on. Winter follows autumn and then spring follows winter and then summer and then autumn again in that endless cycle of beginnings and endings. The now-bare forsythia bush by my back door will one day sprout buds and then brilliant yellow flowers as it follows the perpetual, plodding and exhilarating cycle of life and seasons endlessly. And that is the source of joy.

January, 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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Do I Have Your Number…. ?? by Gillian

Do I have your number? No, I do not mean your phone number! I use the phrase in the way we say, or just think to ourselves, ‘Oh yes, I’ve got your number!’ meaning ‘Oh yes, I know what you are after, I know what is going on here, I know what you think and what you want; I know what you are about. I know who you are.

So, in that sense, do I have your number? Do all or any of you have mine? We have shared many of our most heartfelt emotions, thoughts, and ideas, over the last two or three years. We have held nothing back. We have laughed and cried together. We have hidden nothing from each other.

Still, I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. It makes me wonder if really deeply knowing someone, completely understanding them, is actually possible. Surely very few, if any, family members truly know each other, even those who consider themselves to be very close. After twenty-six years together, and with considerable help and spiritual guidance from such people as Eckhart Tolle, do Betsy and I really really know each other? Of course not. We still struggle to understand each other every single day, with mixed results.

But how can I even dream of a deep and flawless understanding of any other person when I still don’t know my own self? I try. I look deeply inside myself and try to interpret correctly what I find there, but I don’t always get it right. After all these years, I can still surprise, perhaps even shock, myself.

Some time ago our group’s topic for the week was Marriage. Some of you remember that my piece had the recurring theme: “marriage doesn’t freakin’ work!” I questioned why we, the GLBT community, are so determined to jump onto this faltering band-wagon.

Last week came the staggering announcement that the IRS now recognizes same-sex marriages. Perhaps Betsy and I should consider marriage, after all. But only, I firmly lectured my inner self, for purely fiscal reasons. After all, I insisted, we had no emotional need for any such thing. We are as committed to each other and our relationship as any two people could ever be, and we don’t need any official sanction to help us along.

So why on earth did I find myself, close to tears, asking Betsy if she would consider marrying me? In fact, I became so obsessed with the idea that I kept on asking. I guess I couldn’t quite believe the answer. Finally the poor beleaguered woman laughed,

“You’ve asked me three times and I’ve told you ‘yes’ three times. OK?”

Not the most romantic response, but I’ve finally got it; the answer is YES!

I am completely taken by surprise to find myself so thrilled at this that I feel almost sick with excitement, something we do not experience too frequently once we leave the uninhibited emotions of childhood behind us. Suddenly this is all about love and nothing about money; much more peering inside myself to be done!

No, I don’t have your number. I don’t even have my own!

September 2013

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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Sorry, I’m Allergic by Will Stanton

In my hometown, the head of the draft board, Mr. D—-, owned an auto-parts store. He knew auto-parts. Other than that, he was profoundly ignorant, prejudiced, delusional, and full of hate. I guess that there is a plague of such people in every generation; we have witnessed far too many of them over the last several years. Unfortunately as I said, he was in charge of the draft board, and he had every intention of using it to perpetuate his political agenda.

To begin with, he had fallen “hook, line, and sinker” for the now-documented lies about Vietnam. He was convinced that those godless, Vietcong Commies were close to invading our hometown, and we had to bomb them back to the stone-age to prevent it. Secondly, he thoroughly believed that anyone who was educated, highly informed, and had good critical thinking skills was obviously un-American and a Commie-sympathizer. That meant every college student and every son of a faculty member was un-American. That included me.

So, Mr. D. concocted a whole series of tricks trying to circumnavigate the draft regulations and the laws of the land to pull every student out of college, believing that education is of no real value, and sending them as soldiers to Vietnam, where they could do God’s work. If executing his plan required blatant lying, violating the law, or making false statements to the FBI and setting them out to arrest students, as one done to my brother, that was OK with him.

My brother had to enlist the aid of a U.S. Senator to counteract such nefarious abuse.

Like so many others, I was called in to face Mr. D. for a series of delightful sessions where, for example, he would state that my student deferment had been canceled because (quote) “I had failed to fill-out and mail-back a required statement,” all the time waving the delivered statement right in front of my face. Oh yes, he was a good Christian man; lying and illegal actions were OK when doing God’s work.

Our friend and neighbor Dr. K——, who was the head of a university department, had two sons who continuously had been harassed and finally declared “1-A.” The same happened to Professor W—‘s family, whom we knew. They were well informed about the true situation in Vietnam and were steadfastly against the war policies of the administration. Seeing no alternative, they finally advised their sons to go to Canada. After all, we already had lost several sons who were acquaintances of mine, and that was a small community.

So, I finally was deprived of my student deferment and ordered to be taken to the state capital for my induction physical. There was a whole bus-load of us from my hometown.

Traveling eighty-five miles by bus took a while, so I had plenty of opportunity to chat with some of the other guys. The fellow next to me sported a well trimmed beard, which suited his geology major very well. He enjoyed explaining the geology of the area as we moved along, a tutorial which I thoroughly enjoyed. Others expressed their anxieties about the draft.

Once we arrived at the center, we quickly were required to fill out forms. I recall that one question demanded to know if the individual was homosexual. I wondered how many had the courage to mark it “Yes,” whether actually straight or gay, simply to become ineligible for the draft. We then had to strip down and start through a long line of examiners.

I do not know if all potential inductees experienced the same treatment as we did, but I was rather surprised how uncivil and belligerent each and every examiner was there. I wondered if the reason was that each examiner considered himself to be a true American patriot, but the inductees were “reluctant laggards, not worthy of being seen as true Americans.”

I brought along my medical file with me, for I knew from having read draft regulations that my life-long allergy condition was so severe that I would not qualify for service. As far back as age five, our family had to cut short a Canadian camping trip because I could not breath from reacting to all the tree-pollen. By age ten, my year-around allergies were so severe that I was taken to see a specialist. The doctor was surprised to find out that I am allergic to just about everything in nature that I find attractive, trees, flowers, grass, but also weeds such as ragweed and goldenrod. I try to do the best I can, short of living in a bubble.

My allergic reactions were not just sneezing and having itchy eyes. My throat could close up, and I could break out in hives if I just touched dandelions. I was given a series of immunization shots, but they failed to diminish the symptoms. In college, the doctor tried even cortisone shots, ignoring the cumulative, toxic side-effects. That was not much help either.

Before the physical, I reviewed my file. Then I decided to take an eye-catching piece of colored paper and type a synopsis of my allergy history. I included that in the file.

So, going through the examination line from person to person and hearing the examiners’ snarling orders, I was not surprised that each and every one of us passed with flying colors despite whatever afflictions each of us had. It looked as though no one would be exempted from the privilege of going to Vietnam.

Then I came to the last examiner who reviewed my file. He casually glanced at each page in an obviously dismissive manner. But then, the colored paper caught his eye. He read through the medical synopsis, then glared at me and said, “You know the regulations too well.” I responded, “I’m familiar with the regulations.” He repeated, “Too well!” Then with one angry motion, he grabbed a rubber stamp, slammed it down on my form, and shoved it back into my hands I looked at it. It said “1-Y, that is, to be called-up only in the case of national emergency.” I was the only one from that bus-load not drafted.

I had much to think about on the long bus-ride home. Once I arrived home, I was eager to contact my friends Ned and Derrith to tell them the news. We had talked quite a bit about this situation before I went to Columbus. When I finally met up with them, they were very pleased to hear that I still would be around, that I would not be going into the army and being shipped off to Vietnam.

Then Derrith informed me, “We knew that you would have a hard time with all of the examiners. That’s why we decided to concentrate on just the last man.” I asked what she meant.

She answered, “Ned and I did a little ceremony and concentrated on the last man, telling him that he had to let you go.” 

I was puzzled. I thought that it was my colored page that saved me. Was Ned and Derrith’s little ceremony just a coincidence?” 

I still wonder.

November 7, 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.