Sage Telling Your Story – Page 13 – Presented by: The Center on Colfax – Denver, CO

February 2, 2018February 26, 2019

Ice, by Louis Brown

My take on “The Iceman Cometh,” a drama by Eugene O’Neill

The year is 1912 about 10 years after the Boer War. The dramatis personae are all extreme alcoholics and are clinically depressed. They also wax philosophical. The scenes all take place in a bar with a boarding house upstairs, owned by Harry Hope who is also a severe alcoholic and is a doomsday philosopher. His bar and hotel are located in western Greenwich Village (where else?)

In a way, the drinkers are actually rather close to each other – most of them have known each other for years — although they also quarrel frequently and fiercely. In their lengthy exchanges with one another, they try and convince themselves that they are not clinically depressed, that, if only they could work up enough courage, they could/would walk out through the doors of the bar and start a steady job or even develop a career.

Of course, these steady jobs and careers are actually pipe-dreams. Pete Wetjohn is the Dutchman, a veteran of the Boer War (1899-1902). Joe is the one “angry” black man.

As noted above, Harry Hope is the proprietor of the Harry Hope Bar and Hotel and is second in importance as a play character to Theodore Hickman (Hickey).

Some play characters include James Cameron as Jimmy Tomorrow, and there are three prostitutes, Pearl, Margie and Cora. Harry Hope and Hugo are their pimps. All the characters are heavy drinkers (“drunks” or “drunkards”) and party almost constantly in the barroom. Rocky is the Italian night bartender.

All the barroom imbibers, including Harry Hope, proprietor, live for their pipe-dreams. After each pipe-dream tirade, each drinker returns to hitting the bottle, hoping to have a brain-numbing blackout.

The main character, the protagonist, the “hero” of the play is Theodore Hickman (Hickey) who eventually admits he shot his wife Evelyn to death. The reader assumes this was because he had discovered that she was having an affair with the iceman (whence the play’s title).

In a rather verbose but famous soliloquy, pp. 689-702, Hickey tries to make an extremely unconvincing case that he shot his wife to death because he loved her and because he was temporarily insane. Also unconvincing was his argument that he wanted to free Evelyn of her love for him, in which, no matter what he did, including frequenting prostitutes when he was on his hardware salesman journeys, she would always forgive him.

Unforgettable quote (that I still remember from 50 years ago): Harry Hope (note ironic last name), during Hickey’s verbose soliloquy, tells Hickey: “Get it over, you long-winded bastard. You married her [Evelyn], and you caught her cheating with the iceman and you croaked her, and who the hell cares?”

P. 700, Hickey finally admits: “I killed her.” Hickman had forewarned the police, so that, when the moment came, NYC Police Officer Moran was ready and arrested Hickey right after his soliloquy.

Hickey was so guilt-ridden, he expected and welcomed the prospect of suffering capital punishment in the electric chair.

Also in his soliloquy, Hickey preached to his own real inebriated friends that, once you give up your pipe dreams, you will find inner peace and happiness. Of course, Hickey, as preacher, has a credibility problem. The “drunks” interpreted that as meaning suicide was the only answer, and Don Parritt took him up on his correctly or incorrectly interpreted recommendation.

I must say I got the impression that Evelyn and Hickey did not actually live in New York City and P. O. Moran was a NYC police officer so that there might have been an unresolved issue of jurisdiction. This was not resolved in the play.

Another sub-plot revolves around Don Parritt, another of Harry Hope’s roomers in his hotel. Don Parritt had accepted a hefty payment from the Federal government for turning in his own mother who was permanently incarcerated in Federal prison for advocating, as an anarchist, the overthrow of the U. S. government.

Don Parritt also went on and on about how guilty he felt about betraying his own mother for a few silver coins so that, on p. 710, he throws himself out of the window of his rented room.

My reaction to this play was the playwright was matching his play’s themes to the public mood. He wrote the play in 1939 when the public was getting psychologically prepared for World War II, and in 1946 when the play was actually presented to the public, matched their doomsday mood, despite their victory over the Nazi’s. The play was a smashing success.

1 December 2016

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

February 1, 2018February 26, 2019

Reading, by Gillian

I was probably lonely as a child. I had good friends at school but when school was out I had no nearby children to play with, and I had no siblings. But I don’t recall ever feeling lonely as I was always accompanied by friends from books. (I originally wrote ‘from fiction’ but as The Bible was one of the few books available to me, I imagine some might take exception to including The Bible as fiction.)

I say few books were available not because of any failure on the part of my family to love books, but because paper was scarce in post-war Britain and so few books were published. There was a library in the local town but that was a long and infrequent bus ride away.

So my personal book collection contained four Winnie the Pooh books, published long before the war and once belonging to my mother, an old and very tattered family Bible, and a book called Mystery at Witchend by Malcolm Saville, a prolific author of children’s books in Britain in the 1940’s and ’50’s.

So I roamed the countryside accompanied sometimes by the roly poly Pooh and a bouncing Tigger, sometimes by all or some of the five children from Witchend who formed The Lone Pine Club and together had many harmless adventures and solved gentle crimes with never a hint of violence. Indeed the only violence I ever read about was in The Bible. But the Jesus who occasionally accompanied me was the gentle fatherly figure depicted in The Children’s Pictorial Bible which we read in Sunday School. Because of one of the pictures in this book, my friend Jesus always had a lamb draped around his neck like a fat wooly scarf. Looking back I rather suspect that my child mind had confused the picture of Jesus with one of the shepherds greeting His birth, but never mind. As Jesus and I frequently walked through fields dotted with grazing sheep my vision was appropriate enough.

Fast forward a few decades. I am in my early forties and finally coming out to myself, and very shortly after, to others. So. I was homosexual. A lesbian. What did that mean? Obviously I knew the meaning of the words, the definition, but what did it mean? To me, to my life. Where did I go from here? I felt very alone. Who could I talk to about all this? My friends might be very supportive, but what could they tell me? No-one I knew would have any answers.

So of course I turned to books and headed for the library. This was before the advent of internet so I searched through the catalog card files, in their long narrow boxes, for the pertinent categories. Although I was ‘out’ to anyone who mattered, I must confess to peeking furtively over my shoulder as I searched the LESBIAN section, the word seeming about a foot high and glaringly obvious to all who passed by.

There was amazingly little available regarding lesbians at that time, fiction or non-fiction.

What little there was, was awful. I rushed home with the few books on the library shelf, avidly read them, and wondered why I had bothered. Beyond depressing, they were just plain frightening. If this was where I was headed, I was in serious trouble. The Well of Loneliness, by Radcliffe Hall, was my introduction to lesbian fiction; one of the most depressing books I have ever read. The title alone, if you know that is the road you are now taking, is enough to to make you rush back in the closet and throw away the key. This book has become something of ‘classic’ in the lesbian world, in the sense that most of us have read it, though not a ‘classic’ in a positive sense as any mention of it is greeted by groans. I don’t recall now the titles of the other few books, but in all of them the lesbian character seemed destined for a life of abject misery, or suicide, or else they are saved by a return to heterosexuality. My reaction to this introduction to lesbian fiction was, essentially, what the hell have I done??

So, lacking new characters to jump from the pages and accompany me, I thought longingly of my childhood buddies. Somehow I didn’t think they would be much help. Pooh Bear would just sink his chubby head further into his honey pot, Tigger and Kanga are too busy bouncing and hopping to listen. Eeyore would say, as always,

‘It doesn’t matter anyway.’

But it does. It matters very much.

Those kids from the heterogeneous, clean-scrubbed families of Witchend, would look ascanse at each other and say,

‘Oh dear oh dear but this is awfully difficult,’

and probably run home to mother.

I, who do not identify as a Christian, actually did have a little chat with Jesus. And He actually helped. Asking myself the question what would Jesus do, I answered myself, with every confidence, that he would love me and accept me whoever and whatever I am.

Pretty soon, I discovered Beebo’s bookstore in Louisville and discovered that there really were positive portrayals of fictional lesbians. Claimed as the first of these is Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, in which neither of the two women has a nervous breakdown, dies tragically, faces a lonely and desolate future, commits suicide, or returns to being with a male. But by then I no longer had need for fictitious playmates. Women at Beebo’s had introduced me to the life-saving – or at least lesbian-saving – Boulder group TLC, The Lesbian Connection, which in turn introduced me to many wonderful women; real women, who in turn led me to my Beautiful Betsy.

With a real woman like that, who needs fiction?

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 been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

January 31, 2018February 26, 2019

Finding My Voice, by Ricky

When I was a baby, I had a voice and I used it often when I was awake and hungry or wet and hungry or smelly, wet, and hungry. Did I mention that I used it often at that age? The wailing I used as my voice was rewarded with attention, dryness, and food. It served me well for a few months when I realized that I needed a new voice. So, I switched from simple wailing to irritating screaming combined with sobbing, sniffling, and whimpering. I was well on the way to training my parents to cater to my every whim.

I accelerated their training schedule when I added cooing, giggling, and laughing to my repertoire of sounds my voice could use. These were most effective in keeping my parent’s attention when combined with smiling.

They seemed easier to train when I began to teach them some of my language. It is truly amazing just how fast they learned to repeat after me words like: goo-goo, gaa-gaa, didy, wa-wa, ma-ma, da-da, and poopy. My greatest failure in their training program happened when I was two-years old. For some reason, my parents just could not understand the concept of “NO!” when I said it to them. I noticed just how frustrated we became when we realized that they just did not understand the meaning even though I tried to teach them the meaning at least 20 or 30 times a day. By the time I was three-years old, they finally understood and the level of frustration between us nearly disappeared.

After their training disaster when I was two, as I turned three I realized they were to long out of the womb to learn any more of my language. Since I was smarter and younger than mom and dad (no brag, just fact), I decided to just give up and learn their language instead of keeping myself frustrated by their failures. Communication between us then became clearer and life at home became more fun.

I became increasingly comfortable with my voice and everyone I interacted with seemed to like it also. That is, until I attended first-grade at the Hawthorn Christian School. Don’t religious teachers of non-religious subjects in a private Christian school have to obtain state certification to teach children? I guess not, because my first-grade teacher apparently had no understanding of child development and curiosity and desire to avoid doing things to displease adults. One day, a boy said a word the teacher did not like and had him come up to the front and put a small square of soap on his tongue. She then called two other boys up and did the same thing. Now, I had heard the word but did not know if that was the problem word. I wanted to know what the word was for certain, so I could be sure not to say it and get in trouble at school or at home. Therefore, I raised my hand and when called upon I asked, “What word was the problem word?” The teacher said to never mind. (I guess she did not want to teach, just for us to listen and obey). I then responded, “Was it ‘shit’?” (Not my smartest question.) Whereupon, she had me come up and put the soap on my tongue. I was so scared of my parents finding out and of the soap, my mouth went completely dry. Thus, the soap never dissolved on my tongue and her lesson was lost on me, much to my relief. Fortunately, after second-grade, I was off to public school in Minnesota and out from Christian school domination. This event marks the precursor display of my innate, and soon to be developing, smartassyness.

Since my father had taught me that human excrement was called “ish”, it was several years later that I learned the correct meaning of “shit”. Even when I was living on my grandparent’s farm for two years, I never heard that word. Grandpa and my uncle always referred to cow manure. My grandma did use the word “ish”, but I could tell she was giving it a completely different meaning.

In December of 1958, I did lose my voice for two-weeks due to laryngitis. When the soreness departed, I found my voice was a new voice. It was different, and I did not like it at first. It felt a bit rough due to the laryngitis I suppose, and I wanted to “clear my throat” all the time, but it didn’t help. I seem to be caught between a low tenor and a high bass when I sing, and I don’t do much of that. So, this is my voice now and I’m sticking to it.

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

January 30, 2018February 26, 2019

Reading, by Phillip Hoyle

Mom read to us kids with expression she had developed in high school drama. The five of us liked our introduction to children’s literature and to poetry—especially the poems she had memorized—and others she read out of books. It took a long time for me to start reading much on my own although I did like books, studying the pictures, reading the captions, and sometimes reading paragraphs. Still I didn’t read many books for myself until 8th grade when I discovered historical fiction, chapter books in story form. I soon became addicted to reading stories, a practice that continued uninterrupted until about age 42 when I went on a book fast. For a year I determined not to read any whole books.

My confession: During my fast I did re-read one favorite novel (perhaps Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony) and then allowed myself one new novel (probably on a gay theme).

My success: I turned my free time into piano practice.

My practicality: I still consulted books when I had to teach a class or preach a sermon.

My learning: I already knew enough about the topics I was teaching so began relying more and more on my memory.

Perhaps I had read just too many novels beginning in junior and senior high school, during five years of undergraduate school, during three years of graduate school, and during two and a half years of graduate seminary. None of these books were required reading but they probably did help me keep balance in my life. I read many international books in translation thus broadening my view of the world. I read novels between semesters and years of schooling. I read on family vacations. Plus I read every assigned book and textbook and many more related to my studies.

I’m still at my reading although my practice has changed. I’ve added memoir to my list, also books about writing. I read quite a few books about visual arts as well, but now I spend more time writing and doing visual art projects. (Well I AM retired.) I’m reading books I borrow from several libraries, buy at bookstores, receive from family members, or find at ARC; and I keep reading and revising stories I have written. In my retirement I don’t read five books a week anymore but I often am reading five books at a time. In short, I continue my almost life-long practice of reading, and I love it.

Over the past several weeks I have been reading and re-reading Phillip Lopate’s To Show and To Tell, a fine book on essay writing. Lopate teaches non-fiction writing in the graduate program at Columbia University, NYC. On Tuesday I read through his very long suggested reading list and noted Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography. On Wednesday I stopped by a used books store and was surprised to find the book on their shelves. Now I’m reading it, tickled by its style, intrigued by its information, analyzing its writing given what I’ve been learning from Lopate and other teachers, and taking note of how one of the founders of our country understood what he was doing. I never expected to read such a book but am so pleased I knew about it, stopped to look through it, and paid the five dollar price. I’m still reading. This book may take awhile.

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

January 29, 2018February 26, 2019

GLBT Hopes, by Nicholas

According to my records, with this piece, I am starting my seventh year of coming to tell and listen to stories on Monday afternoon.

It seems odd to think about hope in this grim start to what may be a long and grim year of frustration, setbacks and bad news. This is not a very hopeful time we live in. But maybe this is when we most need to remind ourselves that hope is possible, hope is what keeps us going, hope is what gets us out of bed each morning. And hope, no matter how irrational, is good to have.

So, my hope for the lesbian, gay and trans community is that we learn to turn to each other more for joy and less out of necessity. I know that fearsome problems still haunt our world and community. Violence and bullying is a daily fact for many of our youth. Discrimination still runs rampant in many areas. Determined gay-haters, like the soon to be vice-president of the United States, persist in their work to undo the dignity and security of LGBT lives and generate hostility toward us. There is still plenty of inequality and prejudice out there.

But in many ways, our world is getting less frightening and our grasp on basic rights is growing more secure. It is no longer acceptable to openly degrade gay people—which is why our enemies have to resort to ever greater subterfuges to try to harass us. They’ve lost the sanctity of marriage so now they are reduced to fighting for the sanctity of toilets and who shall be allowed to do their business in which ones.

We still have battles to fight, but my hope is that we will seek out each other’s company less out of a sense of a need for protection, less out of desperation, and more because we just want to be around other L, G, B and T people. We come together not so much because we need to seek shelter in a hostile world but more because we can best express ourselves with each other.

I have many non-gay friends and love them dearly. It’s not that I sense any barriers between us. Yet, there is still more I sense in sharing with queer folk. We share experiences that we’ve all known and don’t have to explain. We share a humor derived from being outsiders. We share spiritualities, arts and a sharp sense of just what community is—or is not. We have been forced to make up our own culture and so we have. We are different and we should relish opportunities to engage those differences.

Most of us come out of a time when lesbians and gays could never take anything for granted. And we shouldn’t. Above all, we shouldn’t take each other for granted. You can find very fulfilling relationships with non-gay people but I do believe that there is one thing we can find only with our own kind—happiness. I do hope that organizations such as the community center we are in continue to thrive—not out of fear and self-defense but from joy. We still need to find each other. I hope that we continue to come here because we want to, not because we have to.

Even in a world more tolerant and open, there is still that special depth of connection that we get to see only in each other. Call it love or desire or a magical ability to coordinate colors and a flare for decorating, you won’t find it outside. You may be welcome to watch football games with legions of Broncos fans, but you won’t get much of a response by commenting that Eli Manning is so much better looking than his brother Peyton. They just don’t get it.

© 8 Jan 2017

[Editor’s note: This was first published last year. It still seems so pertinent. Enjoy and be moved.]

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.

January 26, 2018February 26, 2019

My Diploma is Green and White, by Carlos

Almost fifty years have passed since I graduated from Technical High School, and as I recall those years of innocence and impertinence, frames materialize like a strange harvest in a room long abandoned and musty with disuse. Being introspective by nature, I am ambivalent about pulling back the curtain of time. Nevertheless, as soon as I activate my memory banks, endless frames of quasi-like silent-era flashbacks emblazon the darkness. In my mind’s eye, we, the young people from a former time, beam with the radiance of youth and expectations, anxious to discover our horizons, to journey down the gurgling eddies of time.

From a historical context, 1968 was a cataclysmic year in American history. Most of us were well aware that our fates were changing. Our nation was in the throes of war in Southeast Asia, and many of us could no longer bury our heads in denial. Soon, we would be called to fight in foreign shores, forfeiting our innocence, and in some cases our lives. Our duty done, we would return to the States to face averted eyes and whispered silence due to the war’s unpopularity. By 1968, the civil rights movement was roaring. America was burning, citizens were taking up the call for righteous causes, and democracy was being tested. Only weeks before my graduation, a great prophet for justice was assassinated in Memphis, prompting a renewed awareness to activism, to an acknowledgement that a democracy of the few and the privileged is but a Portuguese man-of-war ensnaring with its venomous tentacles. Furthermore, in 1968 feminist protestors targeted the Miss America Beauty Pageant as sexist and demeaning to women, further highlighting a civil rights movement that continues to this day. Unfortunately, our last vestige of hope withered on the vine when the hopeful rhetoric of Robert Kennedy was silenced and our disillusioned with American politics germinated in full. Thus, we, resplendent in our graduating colors, green and white, recognized that due to changing social norms, the world we were inheriting was a powder keg. We found ourselves confronting realities over which we had so little control and conflicted about the role we would ultimately play in the annals of history. We were being catapulted headlong into a microburst of epic proportions.

In a sense, my diploma was a rite of passage. For one moment we allowed ourselves to believe that we were stepping forward into a new America. We were idealistic and naïve. After all, most of my classmates were first generation Americans or newly arrived immigrants whose fathers slaved long hours to keep afloat and whose mothers struggled with day-to-day economics as homemakers or underpaid laborers. Nonetheless, our parents had placed their hopes for the future on our generation, yet within a year most of us would recognize we were small fish thrust into a deep and turbulent sea. The fact is, this was Texas in the late l960’s. Although I had wanted to attend a college-preparatory high school, my advisor felt I would be better off going to a vocational school. My parents, in spite of their acknowledgement that I was gifted and capable, deferred to the counselor since they, my parents, could not navigate through the shoals of English. An unspoken atmosphere permeated society that people from the barrio were better off goaded into the future by benign agents acting on our behalf. Thus, I accepted my fate. Although I was on the “college trek”, I recall reading Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in my senior English class, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized it wasn’t a play about a foolish donkey, but a metaphor about how love often deludes and eludes so many. At Technical, I never grasped calculus or physics, nor did I ever interact academically with the best of the college preparatory students from other high schools. Most of us were struggling with English, with citizenship, with self-validation. At graduation, we were appropriately attired in a white and green cap and gown, tassel to the right; no deviation to the norm was tolerated. Most of us simply accepted the realities of our lives with stoic resignation, or more tragic yet, with blind obliviousness. In spite of the reality that the late sixties ushered in a generation of malcontents and politically active young people, for the most part we accepted our reality. Only with time would we become conscientious warriors, gay and lesbian activists, feminist advocates as we rebelled against the constraints that bound us. Unfortunately, by then, our numbers had been culled by war, by AIDS, by poverty, and by the bitterness of life on the fringes. Nevertheless, some of us remained true to our zealous ideals in our attempts to forge a new world of inclusiveness. Speaking for myself, being resilient and tenacious, I burned the midnight oil and rolled up my sleeves and lived to tell my tale.

It goes without saying that I struggled, and continue to struggle, with my being gay after high school. I had no mentors nor role models to inspire me. I was weaned on misguided, homophobic values by ill-informed proseltyzers of morality. Even after I became an adult, I retained the shame of condemnation, feeling tainted, miserable, and lost. So much of our LGBTQ history has been a divine comedy as we journeyed into inner circles of hell. Too many have died from the ravages of AIDS; too many have committed suicide, often brought about by alcoholism and drug abuse. Too many have struggled to find a niche, disappearing into the shadows like the characters in John Rechy’s City of Night. So much has changed; so much remains to be done. Just last semester one of my students, a gifted 19-year-old man, committed suicide when he could not come to terms with his identity. Thus, we the survivors and the sages of our society, need to continue to provide direction, being that we have accrued a litany of survivors’ tales and remain standing nonetheless.

As I return from the journey of my youth, I recognize the timelessness of memories. The flickering images capture a moment in time that becomes my on-going narrative. The fact is that like Dorothy, Kansas or Texas or wherever will always be our foundations. In spite of Thomas Wolfe’s admonishment that we can’t go home again, we need to return if we are to recalibrate our navigating sextants. The journey into my green-and-white past reminds me that life must be lived without regret, since there is no point in wishing the pilgrimage had been different; it is what it is, but if I choose to do so, I can glean the knowledge that it has served me well. Therefore, though in retrospect I might have preferred a different map, the map I was offered was, in fact, a cartographer’s masterwork. Thus, guided by that blueprint, I look forward to the golden days that remain with the same fervor and curiosity as I did the green days now accomplished. Any regret is nothing more than a bowl of warm, curdled milk.

[Editor’s note: Although this story was published here previously, its message is an inspiration and needs to be heard.]

About the Author

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

January 25, 2018February 26, 2019

Hope, by Gillian

In my early days of working for IBM, on the bottom rung of the jobs ladder, I had a sign hanging by my workstation. It read,

I FEEL MUCH BETTER NOW THAT
I’VE COMPLETELY GIVEN UP HOPE.

I don’t know why I found this so amusing, but I did. Of course, as soon as I advanced to the next rung of the ladder I had to trash it, but I and my co-workers enjoyed it at the time – indeed it became quite a catch phrase for a while.

Perhaps it seemed funny at the time because I was, then, so far from giving up hope. I was full of hope and dreams. It was 1966; the midst of the swinging sixties with their promise of change and freedom. I was twenty-four and had a job which paid more than I had ever dreamed of making – eighty-four dollars a week. My future was awash with wonders! I was not to be disappointed. My life became awash with wonders, as it still is.

But the words from that silly little sign have never left my head. They pop up from time to time. There are certain circumstances when I find them to be true. Hope is not always your best friend; certainly not when it morphs into denial. On one visit to England to see my parents, I noticed a certain confusion of thinking in my dad. Oh well! I shrugged it off. He was, after all, in his seventies. It was only to be expected. (He was, of course, the age I am now – something else I would rather not think too much about.) Filled with false hope I returned to Colorado, only to be summoned back across the Pond after a few months, to deal with the reality of Dad’s dementia, which had worsened rapidly. My mother and I were both forced to abandon our hopes that he could remain at home and I set about learning my way through the bureaucracy of the British National Health Care System. I felt much better then, having abandoned all hope. Dad ended up in a facility for those with dementia in what was once the work-house in a local town. It was a very grim-looking building, but inside they had done everything possible to make it bright and cheerful, and the staff was wonderful. And it was free. I don’t think Alzheimer existed back then, and we didn’t have the knowledge of dementia which, sadly, we do now, but I knew enough to know there was no hope; that he would only get worse. The next, and last, time I saw him, he had no idea who I was. That was hard, but nothing like the shock it would have been had I been harboring false hopes.

One of my stepsons suddenly developed juvenile diabetes when he was eleven years old. Out of the blue, no more Xmas cookies, no birthday cake, no more of most of the food he loved. On top of that came the prospect of having to give himself an insulin injection every day of the rest of his life, and having constantly to measure and adjust his sugar levels. He cried. He raged. He threw things. He punched out at any of us who tried to hold him. Then suddenly, after a few crazy days, everything changed. He had given up hope and accepted his new reality. Of course he was not happy about it, but he had stopped fighting it. He is now retired from a lifetime at the post office, living happily in Nevada with his wife and large extended family. He told me once that the only time his diabetes really upset him was on a few occasions when he heard of the possibility of some big medical breakthrough, and felt a surge of new hope only to have it dashed. He had learned that hope was better avoided.

I have known people, and heard of many more, who, on receiving the terrible diagnosis of a terminal illness, were able to be at peace with it once they truly accepted that there was no hope. That is really living in the now, as our spiritual teachers would have us do. Hope is one of many things which prevent our doing that. We can never be fully in the present moment if we are forever dwelling in hopes and dreams of some future moment.

On the other hand, hopes and dreams of that better future can help those who see nothing to be grateful for in their ugly now. We recently watched a TV program, doubtless on PBS, about children growing up in poverty in this country. It was striking how many teenage boys found an incentive to stay in school, and more than that, to do well in their studies, because they hoped to get a football scholarship to college and go from there to professional football. It offered them at least a hope of a way out. What happens when they find they are not to belong to that tiny percentage of footballers, I don’t know. Has hope set them up for a mighty fall, or have they by virtue of that very hope, found some other way out?

What the Tangerine Tyrant did to his voters is nothing short of cruel. (See, I just cannot get through one story without him creeping into it!) He gave gullible people hope; but false hope.

By now most of theirs must be crashing down. Where are the re-opened mines and factories they were promised? Where is the nice clean swamp? And now, certainly, what has happened to that tax break? Oh, it suddenly became a tax increase. And they are about to lose their healthcare. No, he has taken away what hope they had and left them much worse than they were before.

You just have to get your mind off all this stuff, so thank goodness for football season! I don’t care that the Broncos are having the worst season in over fifty years. At least they know how to do it right. They are not only bad, they are spectacularly bad. Every week they fail to disappoint.

Yesterday they managed to have not one but two safeties scored against them. No team has done that since 1961. I mean, how good is that at being bad? Very clearly, they will not turn this season around.

I FEEL MUCH BETTER NOW THAT
I’VE COMPLETELY GIVEN UP HOPE.

About the Author

January 24, 2018February 26, 2019

Fingers and Toes, by Ricky

I’m pretty sure one of the first things my mother and father wanted to know just after I was born was how many fingers and toes I was born with. Apparently, back in the 30’s and 40’s there was much talk among mothers about how someone they knew told them about someone else who knew someone who told how a child had been born with too many or too few fingers or toes. Perhaps the gossip included those who were born with webbed fingers or toes and other birth defects. So, parents were concerned about having a “normal” baby. Nothing about that has changed although the “rumors” about how common those type of defects are seeming to have faded. Nonetheless, when my children were born, I was in the delivery room for each birth and either the doctor or nurse would tell me the finger and toe count without my asking.

Looking back with my senior citizen point-of-view, I can say with confidence that it is not all that important how many fingers or toes one has, or even if they are different from the expected norm. What is truly important is, what one does with the fingers and toes he is given. Many people use their fingers to: create beautiful artwork; construct buildings; drive taxis or buses; win medals as Olympic victors; compose or play outstanding music; write stories based on their life after being given a weird keyword to jog memories loose, and et cetera. Unfortunately, there are also those who will use their fingers and toes for unpleasant or evil purposes, examples of which I won’t bother to list.

I played toe games with my urchins until they became too big for baby games. My two favorite toe games were “Toes to Your Nose” and “This Little Piggy”. Both resulted in smiles and giggling, except the little piggy one which ended up in uncontrollable laughter as the foot was tickled as the piggy went “wee, wee, wee, all the way home”.

Even those with “unusual” fingers or toes can have productive and positive impacts upon their cultures. While serving as a deputy sheriff in Tucson, I had another deputy as my best friend. He was involved in a shotgun mishap as a teenager; losing two fingers on his left hand. Yet he didn’t let that stop him from achieving his goal of becoming a deputy.

It is our reaction to the challenges life places before us that grow our character traits and make us the people we are. Sadly, all too many people fail to grow towards the light and instead emulate the stereotypical ostrich by sticking their heads in darkness and following roots down away from sunshine; their talents and skills either withering away or being used to weaken and destroy.

It is never too late to grow towards the light. Which direction are you growing?

About the Author

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

January 23, 2018February 26, 2019

Shades of Winter, by Ray S

During the past thirty years archaeologists have reconstructed important areas of the city of Ephesus in what was Asia Minor, now western Turkey. Although ranked a secondary discovery by comparison to the major art work, the so called Winter Shades have an importantly obscure presence to a small group of art historians. These scholars are referred to by their academic name of Winterous Shaditis.

This small group of long-buried paintings and mosaics are remarkable due to their very limited palette of neutral to very dark colors. There is little evidence of any warm hues. Theory has it that it is the celebration of the pagan Autumnal Equinox. A very cool time of the year.

Beside the almost colorless landscapes there is pictured a series of erotic celebrants surrounding a large fire pit—only instead of red hot flames there appears an ethereal cloud against a pale blue sky. The flesh tones of the nude women and men stand out against the soft gray and blue shades. Thus, the name Shadites.

Since this discovery, the temple of Winter Shades has become a very popular tourist attraction, to rival the other majestic remains of the city Ephesus, especially at the Autumnal Equinox when hotels and other accommodations are fully booked by new celebrants of the “Winter Shades of the Goddess Artemis”. There are many smoking pots now and luxurious warming rooms segregated for all persuasions. The holiday lasts for about ten days and then the ethereal clouds subside and collapse from exhaustion.

Make your reservations at least a year ahead for the Shadite lecture series to be followed by the circle celebration.

Temple of Artemis, Ephesus, 6th Century BCE

This concludes my Winter Shades lecture; but review your notes and do further research as there will be an exam next week.

Anyone interested in a practice circle may attend rehearsal on next Saturday at the university gym, 8 to 12 pm. Clothing not optional.

About the Author

January 22, 2018February 26, 2019

Stories that Shaped My Life

Early on the nursery rhyme “Georgie Porgie puddin’ and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry, when the boys came out to play Georgie Porgie ran away” spoke to me because my mom sometimes called me Georgie Porgie. I may have been that little boy. But in my version he liked looking at the boys he sometimes ran away from. He learned to play with them also. Well you can imagine more parts to that story.

James Fennimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans grabbed my attention in 9th grade. I little understood it except to know that Indians were living where whites wanted to live and that Indians had Indian enemies and used the whites against them just as the whites used Indians against each other. While Cooper was a white, he opened the idea for me of becoming friends and benefitting from the Indians who knew the land so well and had their own ways of understanding and relating to it. Back then I understood little of the real conflict except to realize that these native people were being manipulated in ways I judged immoral. I was fascinated by the tribal ways of perceiving the world and appreciated their familial and tribal loyalties.

At church, missionaries told stories of carrying the gospel to other lands. I didn’t want to be a missionary but I did want to meet the people who understood the world so differently. This story structure challenged me to be open to others from far-away places and to appreciate the otherized perspectives of those who lived nearby. Dr. Victor Rambo’s story of finding a true and useful medical mission in India made sense to me. Son of missionaries, he wanted to help Indian people. His first attempts were unsuccessful. He earned a specialty in ophthalmology and returned to be very helpful for many years. Emulating him, his determination and courage, I realized his practical approach could help guide my own personal and ministerial development. I realized I needed to see real people with real needs.

For a long time the David cycle in the Bible, those stories about the boy, the young man, even the older man who became King of Israel, helped shape my moral life. I liked the David stories of loyalty, bravery, friendship, love, sin, and most important, of being a person one biblical author described as “a man after God’s own heart.” I liked that and its great flexibility. I was able to pattern myself somewhat like David (although I had little power and never murdered anyone for personal or political reasons), and I often used his stories in religious education resources I developed.

The stories of my Cambodian friend Narin Oum inspired me with his collecting and valuing of various religious traditions, seeing their connection in his own life journey. His conversion model was very tolerantly Asian Buddhist as he studied and became a Muslim and later a Christian. Hearing his story opened my imagination to new outcomes for my own life. I learned to value all my experiences and to let them instruct me how to understand my new life.

Ethan Mordden’s series of books about gay life in Manhattan with titles like I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore, Buddies, and How’s your romance? helped shape my gay life. These stories, some of them extreme, opened me to a vast world of information that exceeded what I’d learned from other writers and from my gay friend Ted. I got a view of the diversity of what is sometimes called gay identity and community. I realized my own experiences would be a tiny part of what actually takes place. I did find my own space within this diverse world of my own people, one that embraces GLBTs and many other queer folk.

I’m sure I still little understand how all these stories came together even in my mind. Still they help me navigate my life and open my eyes to possibilities that were never directly part of the curriculum of any school I attended or any theological or philosophical approach I encountered.

I love stories and their power to transform. I hope to keep learning in my maturity and plan to keep listening to your stories told here at The GLBT Center of Colorado.

About the Author

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com