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Eerie by Ricky

The eerie thing is that I’m fairly certain that someone besides me in our group will write about or comment on the Erie Canal or Erie, Pennsylvania so I’m not going to do that even though my first thought was to muddy-the-waters doing so. No, today I’m going to try and stick to the topic.

For me, “eerie” has several synonyms that come to mind and trigger memories; and are in more common usage. Weird, spooky, creepy, scary, and the phrases gives-me-the-chills or gives-me-the-willies or it-gave-me-goosebumps are some of these.

When I was just a young Tenderfoot scout, the sounds of the forest at night, when all of us boys were still and quiet, were spooky and scary. The ghost stories told during the evening campfire didn’t help calm my mind for sleeping. The quiet hooting of owls; the creaking of the trees; the rustling of leaves and pine needles as the light breeze disturbed their rest; the chirping of crickets and croaking of frogs when suddenly stopped; and the howling of coyotes all combined to make the unfamiliar sounds of the nighttime forest a bit spooky and scary. No way was I going to leave my tent for a 3AM trip to the nearest tree urinal under those conditions. Somehow I just knew the crickets and frogs went silent due to some larger than me predator of the forest being nearby.

Then there were the times when I was alone in the daytime forest armed with a .22 rifle hunting squirrels or birds and the woods would go silent. But I knew I was the large predator so I was only frustrated until I learned to stop moving and sit still until the noises came back. The spooky and occasionally scary times were when in the daylight I was unarmed and the forest went silent. I would again sit still until sound returned but was unnerved for awhile because I was sure the forest creatures could tell I was no threat being unarmed so I did not know why they went silent. I imagined mountain lions, tigers, and bears (Oh my!) to be nearby. I finally became educated enough to remember that tigers were only in zoos or India so that left me with imaginary mountain lions and bears to worry about. Once I learned that lions and bears were relatively rare in the Tahoe Basin, I stopped worrying so much about them. After arriving in Colorado and reading about the people killed by mountain lions near Boulder and elsewhere, and the bears along the Bear Creek Greenbelt, those fears have resurfaced somewhat. And, now even within the city limits of South Lake Tahoe, bears regularly raid the residential garbage cans as the city refuses to keep bears out of the city.

Perhaps the eeriest experience I ever had was between me and my fiance. At the time, I was living in Marana, Arizona and she was living in Salt Lake City. I was watching a TV talk show where an author was “plugging” his newest book titled, Open Marriage. I thought it might be interesting to read and discuss its concepts before we married so, I wrote her a letter and mailed it that day. The next day in the mail, I received a package from her. When I opened it, the package contained the book Open Marriage. She had sent me the book before I had even heard of it and before she had received my letter.

Ever since that day, until the day she passed away, we were constantly being connected by some type of a psychic “link” at unexpected times; for example, one of us would call the other just as the recipient was reaching for the phone to initiate the call or writing and receiving letters that crossed-in-the-mail answering questions that the other person had asked in the letter we had not read yet. (Now that is eerie.)

The most wonderful and life effecting eerie experience I had was when I was reading the Book of Mormon, and asked in my mind, “Could this possibly be true?” Instantly I had the most intense “spiritual” experience of my 20-year old life as I was filled with pure love and the warm feelings of being loved completely and also filled with the knowledge that the book was true.

Sometimes weird, eerie, and spooky things are not scary, but uplifting.

© 13 March 2012



About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com. 

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Ever Neverland by Phillip

I live on an island at times, one I visit when I need space, need to be away from responsibility, or need to exercise my imagination. I’ve gone there many times, flying away from my peers, my family, my school, and my work. I have been aware of such flight since childhood.

Was I a flighty kid?
Was I lost in dreams?
Was I?
Am I now?

I know my dreams have been important, especially the daydreams that tend to take me away into adventures I could not in any other way experience. But once I entered a dream that endured and became real.

I had a dream of love, a dream of love shared with a man. A dream of love discovered. I shared and cultivated a relationship with another man who also needed and desired the same. A dream of love that transforms to the depths and heights and that still occurs daily, feels grounded, and fulfills common needs. I entered this Neverland holding hands with a man.

There was no map. Oh, if you compared the plats, you might think you were in Denver, but that’s not really where this story occurred. No pirates lived there. Perhaps some Indians did and some lost boys! I loved the place. I’m pretty sure there was buried treasure; I’m sure I found it. The cast of characters: only two mattered then, Rafael and I.

Awaiting the arrival of the No. 10 bus I met a younger man named Rafael. I didn’t ask for his last name as I proffered Phil from my end of the pleasant conversation. (I wonder now if I had, would he have said Martinez or Pan?) We boarded the bus; that’s when we began to fly. We talked together as we rode about a mile, then he—this cute, warm, smiling man—got off to make a transfer that would take him to work. The contact seemed to me so much more than a bus ride. It was more like freedom of movement, even flying as we talked and laughed and studied one another. The experience happened again the next week—same place, same bus, but more information, more smiles, more laughter, more looking into one another’s faces, and less awareness of others who didn’t even seem to be present. A third experience seemed to establish a yearning for more, much more, but my Rafael Pan didn’t visit the nursery of my infatuation. I started searching for him—walking the streets near the bus stop alert to every biped in pants, wondering where this young man could be. Finally I met him again. We talked. I touched him, I touched him again. I gave him my phone number and an invitation to get together. Then two months (they could have been years) of no contact convinced me I needed this man in my life. I wanted his friendship, his presence, his charm, and his love. I would survive without him but kept alert to the possibility of seeing him again in some unexpected place. There and then I wouldn’t be as casual in my conversation. My friends were amused. One thought I was giving the situation over to the universe. I had a different thought. Finally Rafael phoned leaving a message. That next day and for many days to follow we flew together.

We met by happenstance the morning we waited to board a bus. A few months later we connected with a passion that was so total as to make us two the only occupants of my Neverland. Rafael Pan and I played house, played lovers, played sex, played decorator, played god. We came together in our fantasy island with an intensity neither of us had ever experienced.

Rafael was living alone when I met him and not doing very well. He was always late, always short of cash, always in crisis. His crisis was much larger than he could imagine. He was dying from hepatitis C, a disease that had reached full term (over fifteen years) and that was having a devastating effect on his liver, spleen, and brain. Already it had ruined his life. Already it had robbed him of much of his cognitive function. What I met was a dying man out of control, a beautiful, sweet man with a funny voice and endearing misuses of English who seemed to like me, a younger man who was lively, conversational, warm, loving, needy, sweet, open, vulnerable, and who became an obsession for me.

I lived there in Neverland with a double life. So did my Pan. We both worked daily but found great relief when we got home at night. Rafael greeted me with open arms then as if we had never before met but had known each other for millennia. Some of my friends got to meet my charmer, eat his cooking, and enjoy his warmth. For awhile life seemed good.

Although life in Neverland thrilled me, it wasn’t perfect. Its ATM was flat broke. There were money problems, clinic appointments, and a court appearance for a problem that only slowly revealed its true parameters. The clock inside Rafael’s bad-health crocodile kept ticking away towards its pursuit of dominance. But Pan transformed it with his own enfolding heart. In the extremity of his life I watched as he reached out with strength and love to a nurse, to his parents, and to me, his lover.

I worked through it all knowing I needed to keep a passable bridge between my worlds, knowing someday I would have to leave this fantasy place. I spent a huge amount of time helping his family cope with his homosexuality and eminent death. Finally I lost Pan who flew away from our love nest on the summit of the Hill. Unable to fly, I trudged home along the streets of Denver, the city to which I had moved in order to rebuild my life. Of course, I was sad, sad, sad as I reentered the life I had never really left. The going there now seemed difficult, the letting go painful. Where did my Pan go? Of course I don’t know, but he left me with a fantastic treasure of love I keep warmly nurtured in the innermost sanctuary of my heart. Our brief life together changed me, and I am determined to keep alive the treasure I discovered forever in Neverland.

Denver, 2012

© 23 November 2012

About the Author


Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Favorite Place by Pat Gourley

I actually have many favorite places currently and have had many different ones over the years. Implied in a favorite place for me is the component of safety along with joy and contentment. Unlike many in the world now, into the future and certainly in the past, being able to experience safety, joy and simultaneously contentment is illusive much of the time. For many of us I imagine our most favorite place often exists in our head and we find ourselves trying to go there often.

The trick for me is to make where I am at the moment, which is always an undeniable reality that should be honored, my favorite place. There is often no other choice. I rarely succeed at this but am getting better at it than I was for much of my life. Before I wonder too deep into the woods with Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now or Ram Dass and Be Here Now or the Buddha’s timeless invocation to simply sit quietly with the breath, I need to acknowledge many places cannot be called “favorite”. Like being stuck in traffic on a hot day, or on an airplane next to a screaming kid or driving across southern Wyoming or recently having to be with a good friend who has shared he may have metastatic prostate cancer, this after decades of HIV.

I also have to acknowledge that I have really led a pretty privileged life. I have never been in a crowded jail cell, tortured or worse perhaps put in solitary confinement. I have never been in an abusive relationship and my childhood was pretty idyllic despite the stifling reality of the Catholic Church. I don’t live with the constant sound of an American drone hovering above and the horrific but occasional blasting of relatives into oblivion as unfortunate collateral damage. I always felt safe with and experienced endless unconditional positive regard from my parents. I can only imagine the constant horror and struggle of trying to get to a favorite pace if you are a child in an abusive and unsafe environment.

I imagine nearly all people have a favorite place the trick is just being able to get there as often as possible. So should we all be trying to cultivate this “favorite place” as somewhere we can go to mentally rather than always be physically present there? How often have we all imagined if only I was there it would all be perfect? Once we got there however it soon became boring and we wanted to be onto the next favorite place. That certainly has been my M.O. Craving is the ultimate cause of all suffering according to some guy called the Buddha.

So I have a basket full of real favorite places ranging from the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park to my own small patio in the early morning hours with that rare east breeze carrying the scent of fresh mown alfalfa. The smell of freshly cut hay particularly when mixed with the scent of a recent rain has been and remains like mainlining Valium for me invoking my best childhood memories. So in those situations I guess that makes my favorite place an olfactory one. Another favorite place is hearing and dancing with 9,000 of my closest friends at Red Rocks as Furthur launches into a favorite tune like Golden Road to Devotion or Franklin’s Tower. Oh and of course that favorite place of savoring the taste of a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Karamel Sutra on my living room couch and sharing licks of the vanilla with my one cat, Cassidy, who eats dairy. These days a favorite place are the Capital Hill neighborhoods I walk through on my way to the gym and taking in the rainbow of flowers blooming this time of the year and enjoying the daily changes in the many small vegetable gardens popping up with more frequency. And of course a very favorite place is the state of sexual arousal leading to orgasm, that one never seems to get old. It seems perhaps that favorite places vary with the senses and a key for me is to focus on the one sense being stroked most intensely at the moment.

Not to be greedy or in a terminal state of craving but how wonderful it would be to be sitting in the Tea Garden with a pint of ice cream while being jacked off by George Clooney with my ear buds in listening to a recent Furthur jam in the Fall right after a nice rain shower and the Japanese Maples in their brilliant red glory in full view. But really I suppose my head would then explode and it would all be over rather abruptly. To be fully appreciated perhaps it really is best to take my favorite places one sense at a time.

© 28 August 2013

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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Memorials by Michael King

My first memory of a memorial was when I was four or five. In rural Kansas there would be a fenced area with trees on the side if the road surrounded by wheat fields. Sometimes headstones could be seen. The one I remember was overgrown with tall grass and weeds when we arrived on Memorial Day.

It was the custom for families of those buried there to come, clean away the weeds, cut the grass and place flowers from their flower gardens on the graves of their relatives.

It was a beautiful day and I was unhappy to have to stay in the car while my parents and older sister were outside working on making the graves nice and neat. The reason I had to stay in the car other than insuring that I stayed out of the way was that I had asthma and my parents tried to avoid anything that might cause an attack. I’m sure that included an excuse to prevent me from running around like a normal boy of my age. I felt fine.

I looked out and noticed a child’s grave next to the car. It was a much smaller area covered with tall grasses and weeds. Since no one was there to properly groom the area I felt sorry that no one cared and wanted to do something about this sad situation.

I lowered the car window and got my sister’s attention, explained my concern, and convinced her to trim the grass. She got a sickle and was busy swinging it back and forth cutting the grass when I managed to open the car door and got out to watch. I got too close and on a back swing the sickle caught the skin along my eyebrows and tore it to about the center of my scalp.

Dr. Whalan in our little town had reattached my thumb when my father cut it off when I was two. I had stuck my hand out to touch the pretty blade he was potting in the mowing machine. Dr. Whalan later treated me when I was bitten by a spider and was in a coma for days. Now after I got scalped he gently worked the scalp and forehead skin back in place and told my parents that it would heal with less scaring without stitches. He was very skillful in that regard and over the years treated numerous face wounds that would have left me with some horrible scars. Most of the scars I have hardly show for which I can thank the country doctor.

After that first experience having to do with Memorials and Memorial Days I recall many: the poppies representing Flanders’ Field, many funerals, watching the laying of wreaths, standing by friends as they watched their loved ones being placed in a crypt or in the ground, and more recently when funerals have become celebrations of the lives of our friends.

The following is what I read at Bobby Gates Memorial celebration.

After I retired I found myself with no particular activities, no friends, as most were from work or lived far away, and I didn’t even have a plan or a direction. I attended the PrideFest and was given a card about the Prime Timers luncheon. I went and began my first association with a gay community. Bobby was the president of Prime Timers. Among the many things that he sponsored was the “Coffee Tyme” at Panera’s. Soon we became friends and when Bobby found out that I was almost totally un-knowledgeable in practically everything, he became my mentor. Of course at the time I wasn’t that aware, but looking back practically everything I found out, every activity I got involved in and most everyone I met had a connection to Bobby. I think he had been that way with many, many others. He organized activities, coordinated events and invited participation and friendship, thoughtfully sent birthday cards, etc., etc.

For me he introduced me to many restaurants, always surprised that I had never been to any of them. He introduced me to Front Rangers. He introduced me to movies. He was one in the coffee group that introduced me to the Denver Church and Jim Chandler. And he introduced me to my partner, Merlyn. Often he’d call me about an activity and asked if I needed a ride. I can’t imagine how my life would have been without Bobby.

I honor one of the most compassionate, thoughtful, and generous friends anyone could ever have. I feel that I have truly been blessed by his friendship, his kindness, his nurturing, and the love that he bestowed on everyone.

Even though Bobby didn’t have financial wealth, a couple of weeks ago Bobby’s son Marc and I were talking about how rich Bobby was in friendships, activities, experiences, and attitude.

I expect that we’ll meet again and that our friendship will continue. In the meantime I will continue to be thankful for the many ways he touched my life and continues to be an inspiration and an influence

I give thanks for Bobby

© 28 January 2013

About the Author

I go by the drag name, Queen Anne Tique. My real name is Michael King. I am a gay activist who finally came out of the closet at age 70. I live with my lover, Merlyn, in downtown Denver, Colorado. I was married twice, have 3 daughters, 5 grandchildren and a great grandson. Besides volunteering at the GLBT Center and doing the SAGE activities,” Telling your Story”,” Men’s Coffee” and the “Open Art Studio”. I am active in Prime Timers and Front Rangers. I now get to do many of the activities that I had hoped to do when I retired; traveling, writing, painting, doing sculpture, cooking and drag.

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Don’t Touch Me There by Merlyn

I did not like to be touched anywhere by anyone when I was a child. Touching each other was something we did not do in the house I grew up in. It always made me feel real uncomfortable. When a teacher or someone would stand in back of me and even rest their hand on my shoulder, I would want to run away.

People can touch each other in a lot of different ways. Experimenting with other preteen boys it was okay to look and touch each other physically, but I would not even think about sharing any affection with them by holding hands or hugging each other. My emotions would not allow that kind of touching. It would be against everything I was taught up to that point in my life.

When I became a teenager I learned what it was like to share affection and touch each other with one of my girlfriends. From then on I could not get enough. Most of the time there weren’t any limits where we touched. It felt good and we never really cared if someone saw what we were doing.

I was 64 years old the first time I allowed myself to have a emotional connection with a man. I will never forget what it felt like to wake up and realize that I had allowed myself to be relaxed enough to fall asleep in his arms.

Most women welcome a non-sexual hug, and I enjoy giving them one.

With men, I sometimes still have a hard time being natural and relaxed when it comes to non-sexual physical contact.

At this point in my life about the only time that I don’t enjoy having someone touch me is when I can smell and feel their perfume, or when I’m near the #15 bus.

© 22 April 2013

About
the Author

I’m a retired gay man now living in Denver Colorado with my partner Michael. I grew up in the Detroit area. Through the various kinds of work I have done I have seen most of the United States. I have been involved in technical and mechanical areas my whole life, all kinds of motors and computer systems. I like travel, searching for the unusual and enjoying life each day.

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The Essence of GLBTQ by Lewis

Wiktionary defines “essence” — in usage relevant to this topic — as 
     1) “the inherent nature of a thing or an idea” and 
     2) “a significant feature of something.”

Therefore, the “essence of GLBTQ” might be otherwise stated as, “What is it about gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer people that makes them unique from everyone else?” The inclusion of the terms “transgender” and “queer” complicates the answer to a degree that makes generalizations meaningless. In fact, the word “queer,” when appropriated to describe oneself, seems intended to obviate any attempt to characterize it in any meaningful, shorthand way. “Transgender,” because it has nothing to do with sexual attraction but is rather gender identity related, seems to me to also lie outside any attempt to describe the “essence” of the first three letters — GLB — which are primary referent to an individual’s sexual attractions.

Those who condemn homosexuality invariably do so on the basis of same-sex erotic behaviors. Those behaviors are not the “essence” of homosexuality but the manifestation — or “womanifestation,” if you prefer — of it. The essence is the innate part of our nature that is drawn to members of our gender, rather than the opposite gender. This seems to fly in the face of everything we know about Adam and Eve and Charles Darwin’s theory on the survival of the species. Consequently, it is subject to accusations that we are operating against the Will of God and Nature and, therefore, must be deviant, if not evil. It is as if we are the ugly duckling whose ugliness is on the inside and, therefore, never changing.

What distinguishes gay and lesbian individuals from heterosexuals is our being forced into the position of having either to conform to erotic behaviors that are unnatural — even repugnant — to us by repressing those desires that are such a vital part of who we are in order to appear “normal” or to act on our own natural inclinations at the risk of being ostracized by a significant portion of society. Our “essence,” in my opinion, is the strength of our characters that has developed during what is an existential struggle to be both true to ourselves and successful members of an intolerant society.

There are many gay men and women who have never allowed the prejudices of our society to interfere with what they see as their own natural and true behavior. A tip of my hat to them. They have displayed a courage and self-knowledge that I can only admire from a distance. Their “essence” has been knowing their own heart and following it wherever it might lead. This is a rare quality, even among those who have never experienced self doubt and the fear of social opprobrium.

For some who count themselves among the “GLB,” however, finding some sense of authenticity has come only with the undertaking of behaviors that are in themselves self-defacing — drug or alcohol abuse or unprotected sex, for example. For these, “essence” might well be overcoming addiction or dealing with the life-long consequences of HIV/AIDS.

Others of us have “gone along to get along.” We married in the traditional way, perhaps even had children. For these — and I count myself among them — our “essence” might be qualitatively analyzed in how we have related to our opposite-gender spouses and children, how we “came out” to them, whether or not we were faithful during the marriage, and what kind of relationship we have with them after moving on toward a state of greater authenticity.

I’m certain that there are gay men and lesbians who do not fall into any of the aforementioned categories. That is why I do not think that the notion of a “GLBTQ essence” is all that pragmatic. If anything, there may be an added layer or two of “essence” on our psychological auras. But, at the same time, we are all 99-94/100% pure human being, with, perhaps, a few more rough edges and/or a more highly-polished-surface here and there. I think the rest of the world is coming around to this view … and fairly rapidly. May it continue to be so.

We, the GLBTQ members of the most remarkable species of animal in the known universe have been granted a very special charter. We have been commissioned by the Great Mystery of All Existence not only to share our very special talents with the world but, in order to do so, to first learn to look in the mirror and see, not the “ugly duckling” that some of those we have loved may have so ignorantly and, perhaps, unknowingly branded us, but ourselves as whole and wholesome human beings whose lives will encompass a level of adventure that will make for many wonderful stories that beg to be shared.

[Everything that I have said above about “GLB” people would also apply to those on the “third rail” of sexual attraction discourse — men and women who are attracted to juveniles of either sex. Unfortunately, this subject is so fraught with phobia and loathing that merely to state that the sexual attraction toward children is akin to same-sex attractions to adults tends to elicit reactions one might expect from confessing to mass murder. I merely would state that none of us picked the type of persons to whom we are sexually attracted from a list like choosing the color of our next car. There are still perhaps 40% of Americans who believe that having same sex attractions is immoral. Those of us with a “glb” orientation should be the last to condemn anyone for attractions over which they have absolutely no control, unlike actions taken on those feelings, which are properly proscribed, just as statutory rape is properly proscribed.]

© 15 July 2013


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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My Favorite Holiday by Gillian

Well, I titled my Halloween story Bah Humbug on a Broomstick, and that just about says it all. Bah Humbug on the Xmas Star and the Fireworks of the Fourth and on the End of Summer Labor Day Picnic.

Bah Humbug on Memorial Day and Veterans Day and Flag Day, not from lack of respect for those who deserve remembrance but for lack of respect for those whose only purpose on these days is to go thousands of dollars into debt to save five hundred dollars on that house-high plasma TV that nobody needs.

Bah Humbug for sure on New Year’s Ridiculous Resolutions, and Bah Humbug on the Cuddly Easter Bloody Bunny and his multicolored eggs. Has no one, incidentally, ever noticed the total disconnect between rabbits and eggs?

And one collective resounding Bah Humbug for all those additional holidays our Government (and Bah Humbug there too, while I’m at on a roll) apparently feels obligated to provide, if only to give themselves another day off.

Presidents’ Day? I don’t know about other parts of the country but in Colorado that is one of the busiest ski weekends of the year. Is one single person shushing down the slopes mulling over the significance of even one President, never mind all of them?

Columbus Day, for God’s sake. What’s that about, other than flipping a government-sanctioned bird at all our Native Peoples?

The memory of Martin Luther King, a man deserving of national reverie, would, in my never humble opinion, be better served simply by an MLK Day, as opposed to a holiday. If you look up the definition of the word holiday all the answers specify a day free from work, which in fact most U.S. holidays for most people are not, or a day set aside for leisure and recreation, even festivity; no mention of contemplation, significance, history, sacrifice, peace and love, which is what we should be involved with in reference to King.

Even if you try to remain true to the original intent of holidays, though I wonder if most of us have a clue what that would be in many cases, they always seem to be the worst example of emotions to order. On this day you will feel this, on that day that, and by the way you are religious on Christmas and Easter quite regardless of the fact that you never set foot in any House of Worship the rest of the year.

I guess I just do better with spontaneous emotions than those ordered up by calendar dates.

However, I doubt the lack of my participation is going to change anything so in the spirit of the thing I recommend our next addition should be a gay holiday for us all to celebrate our queerness.

We’ll call it Bah Hum-bugger Day.

© 21 November 2011

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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Weather by Betsy


When you are on a bicycle every day for 2 months, what the
weather is or is going to be takes on rather major importance.  I learned this when riding across the U.S. in
2005.  I have written about having to
carry our bicycles through flooded country roads and having to push our
bicycles on foot for fear of being blown over the side of the cliff which runs
beside the highway on Needle’s Eye Pass. 
Or how about the day we rode 95 miles–the last 5 miles a climb straight
up a mountain to McDonald Observatory with temperatures hovering around 100;
the hardest ride of the entire trip. 
Weather is everything in situations like that. 
Oh, and by the way, never try riding or hiking over a
mountain pass even if there is the slightest threat of lightning.  VERY DANGEROUS!  Especially those high Colorado passes.  Plan to do the pass sometime before
noon.  Unless you like having your hair
stand up on end, which it will, trust me.
The subject of weather reminds me of the very first
long-distance cycling trip I ever took.
This was in 1982. 
The cycling equipment and comfort clothes we take for granted today were
unknown then, at least unknown to my daughter, her boy friend, and me.
The three of us set out on a fine summer day in western NY
state.  We would cycle along the rural
roads of western NY state and into Pennsylvania and the Alleghany
mountains.   We wore no helmets–also
unknown to us–and carried only day packs as we would overnight in motels in
the small towns we rode through.  This
was a fairly well planned trip which would take us back to our starting point
in about 1 week.  Plans were well laid
out except for rain gear.  We just didn’t
plan on having inclement weather. 
Well, we didn’t have inclement weather until the last 2
days of the trip.  And my, did it
rain!  And it would not let up.  For protection against the elements we had in
our joint possession 3 large size garbage bags. 
That was it.  We thought we could
wait it out but we all had deadlines and did not have the flexibility of
waiting for another weather system to replace the current wet one.   We were no where near a town large enough to
have a store that might have some decent cycling rain gear.  So we headed out in our garbage bags.   That gear was worse than inadequate.  I don’t mind being wet, but I don’t like
being cold.  And before long I was just
that.  I’m not sure about Lynne and
Dave.  I was too cold to ask.  Let’s just get home, I thought.  The rain never did let up.  Fortunately we did get home soon after the
cold crept in so there were no dire consequences to that.  So except for the last day, it was a
wonderful trip.  The vision of the three
drenched garbage bags riding into town still gives us a good laugh.
© 7 July 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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Dance by Will Stanton

When the movie “Alexander” was written, directed, and filmed, was Oliver Stone — stoned? Did he have absolutely no idea what he was doing? Or is there a pornographic element to his nature that he finally revealed in how he chose to film the dance scene?

If the reader does not know what the heck I’m talking about, then he apparently never bothered to see “Alexander,” which possibly is strange — or even unforgivable if the listener is gay; for Alexander and Hephaestion must be the most stunning gay love story of all times. Lovers since age thirteen until the end, no deeper love has been known. And then there was young Bagoas, who entered into the scene when he was sixteen.

Who was Bagoas? Of the great Persian king Darius the Third’s 30,000 slaves and concubines; Bagoas was his favorite, the one he kept by his side — and very often under him. Yet, Bagoas was far more than a concubine. He was from an aristocratic family, cultured, highly educated, and talented in music and dance. And dance — dance in reality and dance as portrayed in the movie — is what I’m talking about.

When the Persian king disgraced himself by fleeing from Alexander, he irrevocably shamed himself. He no longer was truly a great king. His general Nabarzenes perceived Alexander’s greatness and went to swear fealty to Alexander and to offer rich gifts. Among them was Bagoas (his having persuaded Bagoas that he was meant only for great kings) who, reportedly was “the most beautiful boy in all of Persia.” Bagoas was no mere servant. He knew the most intimate details of the Persian court, who the military leaders were, their personalities, Persian protocol, and a wealth of other information very useful to Alexander. As a consequence, Bagoas became an indispensable advisor, as well as an additional partner for Alexander.

Where does the dance come in? After surviving the trek across the great Gedrosian desert, Alexander and his troops held a celebration in Susa, during which they included a dance contest. Individuals performed traditional Persian dances and were appraised by Alexander and the troops. According to Plutarch and other contemporary writers, an episode documents that the love between the two was common knowledge among the troops, and much appreciated. At the dancing contest, Bagoas won the honors and then went to sit by Alexander’s side, “which so pleased the Macedonians that they shouted out for him to kiss Bagoas, and never stopped clapping their hands and shouting until Alexander took him in his arms and kissed him warmly.” (Plutarch, The Lives).

But what kind of dance was it? If Oliver “Stoned” and his writers had done the most basic research, they would have found that ancient Persian dances employed very traditionally structured, formal movements. The traditional dances often celebrated the sun-and-light god Mithra or some momentous event. Even to this day, traditional dances from the Mideast to Japan are very formal. If you saw, however, the ludicrous dance scene in the movie, you immediately would have noted that there was no semblance of reality or common sense. Filmed inside a set of a steamy palace and with Alexander supposedly drunk on wine, the revelers are entertained with Hollywood-1950’s-style movie-music. Several adult, semi-nude men dance all at the same time and with bizarre, willowy, supposedly sensuously suggestive movements. Some soldiers shout encouragement, while others find the scene distasteful. The dance culminates with Bagoas and a second dancer implying a sexual act. I suppose the point of the scene is to show the disgust on the faces of some of the Macedonian officers. Frankly, I probably had the same look on my face when I first saw it — not because I’m prudish, but because the writers were so profoundly ignorant and the scene so far from the historical truth.

If I were to fire up my time machine and bring back Alexander, Hephaestion, Bagoas, and Plutarch for that matter, and showed them the dance scene from the “Stoned” movie, I feel that they would be rather dismayed. Alexander, as a matter of fact, might be tempted to have a face-to-face conversation with Mr. Stone and, perhaps, provide a rather convincing example of the fate of those who dishonored Alexander or those whom he loved. And had I fired up my time machine, I would have brought Alexander, Hephaestion, Bagoas, and Plutarch here today and had Bagoas perform for you — dance, that is. And, you would have seen what I mean.

© 29 September 2012

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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The Wisdom of LGBT Identity by Ricky

Why should we expect any kind of “wisdom” from anyone who self-identifies as a member of the LGBT community, considering the extreme persecution of male homosexuals over the past few thousand years? It just does not seem very wise to risk public ridicule or hatred. Yet, over the centuries, thousands of men taken in the act of sodomy were/are punished in various ways (depending upon the society involved and the era of the occurrence). Punishments commonly used were death (by hanging, downing, decapitation, and burning), amputation of genitals, life imprisonment, pillorying, banishment, self-imposed exile to avoid prosecution, and ostracism.

It has been said, that “bisexuality” itself is but one stigmata of genius; which in itself is an interesting observation considering all the famous “genius” level homosexual men that have lived and advanced science, art, and literature over the centuries. Does it not follow then that the stigmata of non-bisexual lesbians and gays is “super genius?” Of course, many of us “geniuses” never fully develop our gifts, talents, and genius abilities, which appears to show a lack of wisdom.

In recently past centuries, homosexual men of great gifts and talents have through their poetry wrought great changes in public attitudes and social norms over time.

Shakespeare, Byron, Shelly, and others wrote tender poems of love to male youths disguised as sonnets and verse to women, and our present culture would be poorer, had they not been written even though disguised as they were. Thomas Mann’s work of Death in Venice is an example of how one can in slow stages fall in love with the natural beauty of a youth of the same sex. In all these examples, which are but a few of hundreds, the common denominator is “love.”

The slow outing of “love” between people regardless of sexual orientation is what over time has changed society’s view of gay relationships; views which ultimately forced the government out of bedrooms. England did not decriminalize homosexuality until 1967. For the one hundred years before that date, conviction of sodomy carried a life sentence and prior to that, a death sentence since 1533.

When Byron began studying the Greek classics, Plato’s writings were not available in his school. Plato’s Symposium was so full of homosexual content (labeled Greek Love) that homophobic England would not allow it taught to English schoolboys so as not to corrupt them. When other English scholars decided to translate Plato, they changed the text where they needed to, replacing male references to either female or “friend” or “servant,” etc. to hide the truth; a process called bowdlerization (a new word for me). At one point in his life, Shelly translated the “Symposium” himself, but so great was the homophobia remaining in England, that even he “toned down” the references to avoid public outrage. Sadly, after his death, the publisher and Shelly’s widow made changes that are even more egregious; the translation not published until 150 years after Shelly’s death; long after the need for “toning down the references” was necessary.

Since extreme homophobia existed in England to the point that England’s poets disguised the male object of their love poems as female and classic works of philosophy were deliberately “sanitized”, have you ever wondered if the King James Bible translation team (using original documents in Greek) altered their translation of the Bible to inflame or conform to society’s view (the king’s view) of homosexual behavior?

With extreme homophobia and persecution of the previous centuries now behind, perhaps the wisest thing about the LGBT identity is what continues to evolve from the Stonewall Riots; acceptance and recognition that love between two people is a beautiful thing and is no one else’s business or legitimate concern. Acceptance and recognition are the unanticipated consequences of bi and gay poets of past centuries openly expressing their love for another male in the only way available to them; camouflaged as love for a woman.

Sometimes, fear of negative consequences can cause one to make wise choices that still carry one’s message but generate praise.

© 3 December
2012


About the Author



I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.