Posts

Posted on

Reflections on Bayard Rustin for MLK Day, 2013 by Pat Gourley

“The barometer of where one is on human rights questions is no longer the black community, it’s the gay community. Because it is the community which is most easily mistreated.” 
Bayard Rustin, 1986.

          I grew up in an all white Irish farming community and went to Catholic schools where African Americans, or any people of color for that matter, were as rare as hen’s teeth. FYI, hens have no teeth. I did though have the opportunity to be informed and sensitized to the amazing reality of racial inequality in America in the late 1960’s by my high school government/civics teacher. This teacher was a Holy Cross nun whose enlightenment on these issues put her truly in a league of her own in northern Illinois in 1967. An amazingly dynamic woman named Sister Alberta Marie (SAM) showed me the harsh realties of racial injustice in America and the horrible folly and crime that was the war in Vietnam.

          SAM was herself very involved in peace activist work primarily, though not exclusively, aimed at opposing the war in Vietnam. She brought the great Jesuit activist Father Daniel Barrigan to our high school my senior year, an effort I always thought instrumental in getting her booted out of the Order a short time later. Important for me personally she arranged to send a small group of her students, myself included, to rural Mississippi to observe the activities of literacy teachers working primarily with poor black farm workers. This trip to Mississippi coincided closely with my own first male sexual encounters with a wonderful mentor several decades older than myself. My senior year was quite busy and many of my activities had lifelong and very positive implications.

          The harsh realities of life for the black folks I ran into in Mississippi were almost incomprehensible for a little middle class white kid. I was though aware of Martin Luther King Jr. and viewed him as the leader of the Civil Rights movement but it was this trip that started to bring it all home in a very real and substantive fashion. I knew about the 1963 march on Washington and the “I Have a Dream Speech.” Someone I was not aware of, though I may have at least heard his name, was Bayard Rustin. As it turns out this very openly gay man was not only a mentor for Dr. King, he was the main architect for the 1963 March on Washington and the person most responsible for bringing the potent concept of nonviolent action to the Civil Rights movement.

          Remarkably Bayard was boldly open about his sexuality in the 1940’s and 1950’s. It was an arrest and conviction on “morals charges” in California in 1953 that was to haunt him and in many respects diminish the credit he richly deserves for his role in the Civil Rights movement. The “crime” he was convicted of was sex with a couple other men in the back seat of a car; it did not even involve being busted in a public cruising area—the most common form of institutional terror inflicted on gay men at the time. He was throughout his life a frequent target of FBI surveillance and, I suspect, mischief meant to discredit his powerful organizing capabilities that in many respects made him such a potent target of the racist forces opposed to civil liberties for African Americans in the early 1960’s. Strom Thurmond in an attempt to derail the 1963 March made a point of publically stating that a “pervert” was largely organizing the whole affair.

          Bayard was though a very active proponent of civil rights long before the 1960’s and was pushing to sit in the front of the bus long before Rosa Parks. He was a Quaker and had been involved and active in a group called the Fellowship of Reconciliation. His involvement with this group also was curtailed by the public humiliation that came along with his arrest and conviction for the “crime” of loving another man. He was also a strong advocate of workers rights and a strong supporter of the Trade Unions. He was of course, as were most activists worth their salt back in the 1930’s and 1940’s, involved with the Communist Party. He did significant prison time in the 1940’s for resisting the draft. This activist pedigree when looked at in its totality including in part being a felon, a draft dodger, a pervert, a nonviolent disciple of Gandhi, an African American and a communist is quite impressive and really has no equal when compared with LGBT leaders of today.

          One of his most profound insights and something he stressed through sixty years of activism is that we are all in this together. Certain Buddhists refer to this as the concept of One Taste. Bayard Rustin truly grasped the essence of One Taste in the following statement: “We are all one and if we don’t know it we will learn it the hard way”. So on this MLK day in 2013 I would encourage all my LGBT brothers and sisters to remember these words from our dear comrade Bayard and be willing to expand our work and activism beyond our own, albeit legitimate, concerns of marriage and military service. What a great gift from our community if we could produce more Bayard Rustin’s fighting for income equality, world peace, repeal of the Second Amendment and a Manhattan project to address climate change.

          If you are more interested in the life of this great gay man who played such an integral role in the life and activism of Martin Luther King, Jr. I highly suggest the award-winning documentary film Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin (2003), available on Netflix. Also the very extensive biography, The Lost Prophet (2003) available on Kindle by John D’Emilio, is well worth the read.

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 am currently on an extended sabbatical in San
Francisco, California.
Posted on

Breaking into Gay Culture by Donny Kaye

          My new home is only a couple blocks down the street and along the park from the coffee shop where my most recent introduction to gay culture started, some ten years ago. To understand the significance of my new home’s location I must go back in time to my earliest introduction to gay culture.

          After I graduated from college and before I was married I hung out with several colleagues who were friends of mine. The selection of hangout spots was always determined by a couple of the gals within the group. Their choice was either a country and western themed dance club or a gay bar on the outskirts of the city limits. We partied weekly as we danced and drank together unwinding from the challenges of work.

          On those nights when we would decide to go beyond the city limits and visit the bar heading up the hillside to the west of town, I paid close attention to the men who flirted with one another in the darkened recesses of the bar, typically men with men seeming very much at ease as they maintained close physical proximity with one another. Once in a while I would observe knees touching, hands caressing one another and even an occasional extended kiss. My heart would quicken and my mind engage. A few different nights I went back to that bar alone to not only watch but to be.

          On each of those occasions, feelings of excitement stirred deep within me. I got what I was looking for in terms of physical connection that would lead to the parking lot just outside and on one occasion; I actually went home with someone, caressing each other as I excitedly drove down the darkened roadway. My excitement was accelerated by desire and the experience of allowing what I then tried to repress and consciously deny.

           Within moments after the exchange I would be filled with guilt and shame as the awareness that within months I was to be married returned to my consciousness. It seemed so right and yet at the same time not allowable within my understandings of relationship, sexuality and my naïveté regarding models I had experienced for “doing” life, as defined by religion. There seemed to be no other choices. Being like I wanted to be seemed to also include the diagnosis of me having a psychiatric disorder! I just liked guys, why did it have to be so complex?

          Ten years ago I was helping my good friend with the opening of her hair salon, immediately next door to one of the area’s leading gay coffee shops. On each of those days after my early morning work at her shop, I always enjoyed sauntering into the coffee shop ordering my coffee, watching, wondering, and considering the possibilities. I felt very much at home there and I recognized in that setting my secret wasn’t of significance.

          In the interim between those early days and the coffee shop on ninth Avenue there were experiences, especially when work-related travel removed me from the confines of suburban life as a married man. I frequented various theaters, on occasion a gay bar, porn stores and occasionally an extended eye contact followed by a wink, a touch and caress. My experience of gay culture was reduced to a rich fantasy life and the expression of short stories in my creative mind as I ran miles at a time, trying to control my interests in men.

          The coffee shop became a weekly haunt, long after the work at the hair salon was completed. I began to relate to other gay men whom I met through a close friend who is gay. The longing to be in gay culture, at least as I had always known it to be, had started to shift from that of cruising, sexual connection and guilt, to something much different.

          My desire increasingly has included wanting honest relationships with men and women who understood me; who accept my desire, passion, and longing as a man of a certain sexual persuasion. I want to be around those who seemingly understood me and who have an allowance for me being the me that I have always wanted to be AND who are like me in that they are more diverse in their sexual orientation.

          The gift of my life now is the opportunity to integrate a culture rich in sexual diversity with the aspects of my former life, especially my children and grand children.

          Living within the hood allows me to interact in a much more complete and authentic way than I ever considered possible. The culture is no longer someplace I visit in secret in the dark of night and the anonymity of a setting where I’m just passing through. It is no longer restricted to Thursday mornings when I would linger at the coffee shop for hours on end, dreading the return to life as I had crafted it to be.

          My experience of my culture now allows not only for the expression of my natural sexual orientation, but allows for you my dearest of friends. It allows for this space, this time this opportunity to just be me.

          I live just up the block and through the park. I look from my balcony onto the streets and across the space of my neighborhood, which allows the experience of my culture. No longer separate or someplace I’m passing through. It’s where I flourish, the place I call home. My culture. My family. The place I rest in for this moment in time.  

About the Author

Donny Kaye-Is a native born Denverite.  He has lived his life posing as a
hetero-sexual male, while always knowing that his sexual orientation was that
of a gay male.  In recent years he has
confronted the pressures of society that forced him into deep denial regarding
his sexuality and an experience of living somewhat of a disintegrated
life.  “I never forgot for a minute that
I was what my childhood friends mocked, what I thought my parents would reject
and what my loving God supposedly condemned to limitless suffering.” StoryTime
at The Center has been essential to assisting him with not only telling the
stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood but also to merely recall
the stories of his past that were covered with lies and repressed in to the
deepest corners of his memory.  Within
the past two years he has “come out” not only to himself but to his wife of
four decades, his three children, their partners and countless extended family
and friends.  Donny is divorced and yet
remains closely connected with his family. 
He lives in the Capitol Hill Community of Denver, in integrity with
himself and in a way that has resulted in an experience of more fully realizing
integration within his life experiences. He participates in many functions of
the GLBTQ community.  

Posted on

Neverland by Will Stanton

The document that I am reading is a transcript taken from a 2002 video tape of a home security camera placed in an exclusive mansion.

The transcript documents the sound and movements recorded on the video.
[Transcriber’s note: the room is very large and the ceiling is tall, but the camera covers the entire area.]

9:00 PM, no sound no movement.

9:10, a slight scraping noise is heard near one of the windows, followed by a “click.”

Outdoor sounds now can be heard.

Recording picks up soft fluttering and tinkling sounds.

What appear to be tiny golden sparks quickly stream from the window across the room, making a few circular movements, then landing on a high shelf.

A small figure appears in the shadows of the window.
The figure slowly floats into the room and gently lands upon the carpet.

The figure appears to be an adolescent boy, blond, slightly built, and oddly dressed in some material that looks like green leaves.
The boy’s face now can be seen clearly:

he seems to have an expression of excitement. He speaks:

“This is a part of Neverland I haven’t seen before. It’s all different and new to me. This should be a great adventure. Let’s explore!”

The figure moves about the room, picking up various objects, studying them, and then discarding them.

The golden sparks on the shelf suddenly move and fly around the room from shelf to shelf, finally settling upon a tall bureau.

The boy picks up two objects and again speaks,

“Look at those, Tink. I wonder what they are for.”

The figure moves to a desk and sees a large photo album.
He opens it and is studying it.

There is a pause.

The boy suddenly jumps back and then shoots straight up to the ceiling, plastering his back against the corner.

The boy seems to have a terrified look upon his face.
He shouts:

“Tink! I’m in terrible danger!
This isn’t Neverland. This is the Neverland Ranch!”

Both figures shoot out the window.

9:15, all is quiet; nothing to report.

[Image from video tape attached.]

© 11 March 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.
Posted on

The House by Phillip Hoyle

          We moved up to Clay Center, Kansas, on my fifteenth birthday, two counties away from my hometown Junction City. I was born in that Army town with population of around 20,000, adjoining Fort Riley, an Army post with a similar population, that sat next to another small city, Manhattan, with 20,000 population, home of a state university with about the same number of students. Although we weren’t leaving a metropolitan center, compared with the county seat town where we were headed, with its 5,000 population and one stop light, I felt like I was giving up civilization and moving to the center of nowhere.

          At least we were moving into an interesting house. We’d looked at several, each with strong points that appealed to me. Finally Dad and Mom purchased a roomy place with four bedrooms and a bath upstairs; parlor, family, dining, and utility rooms, entry hall with an exposed staircase that my sisters fantasized walking down in formals or wedding gowns, plus a kitchen on the main level; rough partial basement below and unfinished attic above; and an unattached garage, all sitting on three lots on the corner of Crawford and US 24, just one block east of Highway 15. It was a beautiful old place, built sixty years before for a local banker and his family. As the only boy, I got my own room but also a power mower so I could tend the huge yard. Around the same time as our move I dropped my long-standing subscription to The American Indian Hobbyist and began reading House Beautiful.

          Decorating became my theme. Mom was into the house project ordering drapes for the front rooms, buying an extra couch and slipper chairs for the parlor, shopping for a proper dining room set, bringing home fabrics, pillows, and endless ideas for making this house our home. I, too, started thinking about furniture, fabric, and fancy dishes. So immediately after the move, my next older sister Holly and I began haunting Mrs. Stedman’s antique store. We read House Beautiful and discussed our likes and dislikes. Then we shopped to see what we could find to realize our ideas. For months we saved our change and bought a Victorian marble-top coffee table as a gift for Mom. At the end of that first year my sister went off to college in another town. I still pored over the magazine to find ideas for my room.

          One day I noticed an ad for an art print company in New York City and sent off a letter requesting their catalogue. In a couple of weeks I received the illustrated listing and found myself entranced by a print of a painting depicting the torso of a young man wearing no shirt and the top button of his Levi’s open. I wanted that print but couldn’t imagine how anyone would hang such a picture in their house or room. But there it was in a nationally-advertised magazine in full color like an invitation into another world.

          I ordered several prints although not the one I most wanted. In figuring out what to do with them, I realized I needed frames and returned to the antique store we now called the junk shop. For years I had hung prints on my bedroom walls with straight pins. Now I needed to frame them, a need that has persisted throughout my adult life. I enjoyed my years in that beautiful old house with its fancy woodwork, neat window treatments, and the pictures I’d framed.

          A couple of years later I was moving into a college dorm and then three years after that was living in an apartment with my wife. Over the decades of our marriage we lived in several houses and apartments. Together we decorated creating a blend of our tastes. Often she’d move the furniture; I’d hang the pictures selected from an ever growing collection of framed paintings and prints that represented a diversity of style and content. Still there was no torso on display except in the bathroom mirror.

          Years later, after our separation, I started spending nights with my lover Rafael. He’d invited me to his house after a flirtation of several months. There we made love to one another. I was content to spend night after night in this boyish man’s apartment; he was intent on making a marriage of sorts out of our connection. Finally he said I should bring my clothes. “This will be our home, your apartment your office,” he said. Although I was quite taken with him and our relationship, I clearly saw that his apartment lacked style and ornament. It consisted of a large open room with a kitchen along one wall, a bedroom, and a bathroom. Rafael owned two couches, a floor lamp, a small table with two chairs for meals, a big TV that sometimes worked sitting on a large sewing table, a double bed mattress and springs, a single mattress leaning against the wall, a small chest of drawers, his clothes and several boxes of whatnots. From my point of view the apartment’s best feature was a small air conditioning unit in the bedroom wall.

          Together we sought to make this California-style apartment house unit our home. As we moved the furniture, I recalled my House Beautiful interest, the transformation of that old house in my teen years, my cooperative decorating experiences with my wife, and my continuing fascination with furniture and much more. Rafael and I found a bed frame and a lamp in the alley. From my office, I brought over my great grandmother’s wardrobe for the bedroom, a chair for the living area, and a portable sewing machine for Rafael to use. Then one day when Rafael was at work I brought framed paintings and prints to decorate the walls of this cold apartment. The transformation was immediate. The place finally looked lived in and warm. As I hung a collage of a pair of cowboy saints and other gay-themed art, I recalled the print that had so attracted my high school self but realized that this house didn’t need such a picture, for here I lived with a sexually inviting man who thrilled me in ways much more complex and satisfying than that intriguing image of years ago.

          The apartment finally complemented the warmth of our love. There we fixed Mexican, French, Italian, Spanish, Asian, and American dishes for one another. We entertained each other with stories of our lives. We cleaned, shopped, kissed, and kidded. We lived in that house beautiful a couple’s life of delight.

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.”

Posted on

Cooking by Ray S

  
        Call it puppy love, infatuation, envy, or hero worship. One day on my way to a design consult with my client Don I realized I must be in love with the guy. Of course, he didn’t know it and the only time we got physically close was several years later when I kissed him goodbye before he moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. So much for unrequited love.

          One of the clinchers that turned me on about him (and there were many) was that he was a refugee from the Cordon Bleu and a disciple of Saint Julia Child. The fact was I had been summoned to consult on the decor of the newly modernized 1901 vintage kitchen. Besides the professional style appliances the focal point, as the designers say, was a framed poster of the famed Ms. Child. No NFL stars portraits or macho icons. This was my kind of guy.

          We picked up on the Cordon Bleu theme and ultimately covered the kitchen walls in blue denim vinyl. Of course it was washable. I’m nothing but practical with my clients.

          From the kitchen we moved on to complete the master bedroom. Never got any further there beyond the very butch wallpaper and paint colors. The final challenge was to create a library in what had been the front parlor.

          By this time a beautiful Platonic friendship had developed, but no more cooking on the romantic side.

          Many years have passed and we still exchange Christmas cards. Many changes have resolved various conflicts of my approach to sexual orientation, and my love for Don mellowed to occasional fantasy about what should have been and never was.

          The one bonding element for me is our mutual appreciation for cooking especially when done in the nude.

About the Author 

Posted on

Natural Enemies by Gillian

          Where we live in Lakewood there are several Rec. Centers within a few miles, and through Kaiser’s Silver Sneakers program membership to all of them, including 24 Hour Fitness, is free.

          So I have a stack of membership cards of which I was quite proud until Betsy the physical fitness freak explained patiently to me one day that the cards themselves in fact do very little to improve my fitness.

          I have to go to these godawful places.

          And worse than that, I have to stay there. For an hour, two, or even three.

          And still worse, I have to do unspeakable things while I’m there.

          Ah well, I suspect The Gym and I are simply natural enemies in the way of the fabled snake and mongoose. I will never learn to love it, but if I could simply leave my body there to get on with it and send my mind off elsewhere it wouldn’t really be too bad.

          However, much as The Gym is the epitome of mindless activity, there are pitfalls associated with excusing my brain from attendance.

          I find it necessary to count and/or time my activities, or else I cheat; 100 of this repetition, 50 of that, ten minutes on this machine, fifteen on that.

          I would so much prefer not to think of any of it and free my mind to write about our current week’s topic or listen to a book on CD, but alas I’ve found that when I try this, my workout is miraculously curtailed. Twenty minutes and I’m done!

          Well I thought I did at least 100 leg lifts, and surely I sweated on that machine for half an hour?

          No, I’m not to be trusted, so my mind must remain in the dreaded gym with my body at all times.

          By it’s very nature, the Gym is an unlovely place.

          But those who are in charge seem to go out of their way to add to the awfulness in all possible ways.

          Walls of mirrors, for God’s sake! What’s that about? Whatever nasty activity I’m performing I’m forced to see myself at it from ten different angles with no place to go to get away from myself.

          Now perhaps some of those young svelte creatures, bodies apparently not yet affected by the pull of gravity and clearly created without sweat glands, like nothing better than watching themselves in fluid effortless motion.

          And, I have to admit, why not? Their brightly colored form-fitting Spandex clings to every perfect curve without even a hint of one ounce of excess fat.

          I on the other hand am in little danger of engendering narcissism as I catch glances, no matter how hard I try not to, of this lumbering old body draped in ragged sweats, huffing and puffing amidst rolls of misplaced misshapen flabby flesh.

          It really should be confined to the privacy of it’s on home.

          So, yes, I try not to look at the mirrors which grace every wall, but what other choices are there?

          I can of course simply gaze with longing upon the aforementioned nubile young things, but I’m forced to confess that palls after only a few minutes.

          At my age it’s a bit like a dog chasing a car. Whatever would I do if I caught one??

          What does that leave? Oh God forbid, the TV. Banks of them, high up on the wall beyond the reach of prying hands hoping to change channels.

           Oh no! You will watch what they, whoever they may be, want you to watch or whatever they have decided you should want to watch. That means half a dozen sets tuned to ESPN and the rest of them showing FOX News. The latter is definitely not on my agenda so that leaves endless replays of Sunday’s NFL games or, no, wait a minute, there’s live football…oh, but it’s two local high school teams and the score is 73 to 3 – and it’s still the first half.

          The best, perhaps the only entertainment provided by the TV is the automated translation of the spoken word into printed words on the screen, as of course all the sets are muted.

          The computer programs which perform this function work much better than they did not so long ago but they still fall into frequent misinterpretation.

          President Obama undressed Congress. Now there’s an ugly vision.

          Dozens of thinks roll down the streets of Lybia. In fact a few thinks might be more beneficial than tanks….but..

          Well at least it’s good for a laugh, which is something not widely on offer at the Gym. This is a serious place.

          And that’s just one more reason I don’t like it, and I suspect it doesn’t particularly care for me. I don’t greatly enhance its image after all.

          But, like that snake and mongoose or the wolf and the moose or many other of nature’s natural enemies, The Gym and I need each other and so our fraught relationship continues.

          As it will, with luck, for many years to come.

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.

Posted on

Writing Your Story by Peg

          A few years ago I decided to write my memoir, a project that soon occupied most of my conscious thinking. I would write for hours, often till two or three o’clock the next morning. A friend who was writing a fictional account of her family invited me to join a writing group she liked and for a year or so I attended their twice-monthly meetings. What I learned from those meetings was that my writing was not very good; my writing had no depth and didn’t hold the readers attention. A memoir, I was told is probably the hardest form of writing because it can speak from only one voice, a singular perspective and in a case like mine, a very narrow view of the world.

          I was asked to include the words of observers, the thoughts that friends had of our interactions to include the world we lived in from their perspective as well. But how could I, when this story was of a secret that only I knew and was too confused about to share with anyone, even my very best friend. I had no other perspective from which to write.

          As I continued writing a catharsis settled in, I wrote about things I had long ago put behind me, but as I saw those words appear on the screen, I began to better understand decisions that resulted in missed opportunities, and prevented essential understanding of the world and my place in it. I wrote about someone who was more an observer than participant, a boy who had to watch and learn how to act; I learned to fake my way to get along, without exposing my confusion about much of what was happening around me.

          I read about a small, safe, and risk free life. The world I devised was kept small because I had more control, I could better protect my environment and if I felt that my ignorance regarding what other boys were doing, saying or things they already knew that I didn’t know about would be exposed; I could find some excuse to leave.

          Writing my story opened up many doors, giving me a second look at a life that once seemed to have no place for me, and no one else to connect with in a healthy way. I saw a lonely over protected ignorant boy, the older I got, the more naïve I was socially, the farther I fell behind the other boys the more I secluded myself.

          Leaving High School was a great relief for me, I was able to start over, meet new people, men who were my dad’s age and my new role as their only apprentice gave me a secure position free of competition and an opportunity to express new skills and develop a realistic sense of self that I didn’t have while in school.

          While learning a trade, or wearing the uniform of an airman, and surviving in the macho military environment, forced me grow in spite of a continuing ignorance of what I was supposed to be, and how I was to act. Somehow I found strength, a toughness that I had not known before, I learned that I did have a self after all, that I did have individuality. I created a person who could fit in, some of that new me was genuine; some was a copy of others who I admired.

          I married and together we raised our family, two boys who are and always will be the grandest accomplishment of my life. Seeing both of our sons grown and finding their own passages in life. One raises his own family, while the other explores new knowledge with his research in far away London, each in his own way has given us great satisfaction.

          I wrote a memoir that was much criticized and after many changes, rewrites and re-arranging I wound up with a jumbled up mess. I still have what is left in a large folder, standing in a corner of my closet. When the time is right, I may try to put it together again. Who knows; perhaps someday someone will dust it off and read it.

          That written story has already succeeded in putting me at peace with myself. It helped me understand an uncommon life but hopefully it has been useful in educating some who never understood that Gender is not a nice neat binary package. There are many genders, a hundred different ways to express who we are, and different ways to couple and love one another.

          I long ago departed from religion, but I did learn much from my exposure to it. Something I learned is how many people miss the meaning in a popular prayer. It is not just about receiving gifts from God, but a charge…. To first give love before expecting that gift to be given you. “Thy WILL” (my wish for you) will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. These are directions, not suggestions.

          My own warning to the believers; what your build here, you will be building for your future experience… Willful ignorance? Discrimination? Bigotry? Build it here; know it there.

          All of us; Gay, Lesbian, Trans, Bi or Questioning have a story; I wish we could all shine a bright light into the corners of fear and ignorance that still drives the beliefs of narrow minds. I hope that each story we tell will open at least one heart, one mind that had otherwise been closed to a much wider world.

          Writing my story….I’m glad I did it.

About the Author

I was born and raised in Denver Colorado and I have a divided history, I went to school, learned a trade, served in the military, married and fathered two sons. And I am Trans; I transitioned in 1986 after being fired for “not fitting in to their program.” 18 years ago I fulfilled my lifelong need to shed the package and become female. I continued working in my trade until retiring in 2006. I have been active in PFLAG Denver and served five years on the board of directors, two years as President of our chapter. Living now as a woman has let me be who I always knew I was and I am genuinely happy.

Posted on

Navy Man by Lewis T

     The dark cap is tipped to the back of his head like a macabre halo, perhaps held there by two ears ample enough to suggest a signalman guiding a plane onto the deck of an aircraft carrier.  His thick, dark brown hair is swept up and back, with highlights that suggest murky surf crashing onto the wide alabaster beach of his forehead.  The brows hang close over narrow eyes, perhaps useful when assaulted by wind and spray.  His fine nose is poised above a perfect mouth, inscrutable and delicious.  The graceful lines of his symmetrical jaw and chin converge over a throat that is at once manly and vulnerable.  The tunic, adorned by a vestigial slash of “fruit salad,” a collar marked by three parallel white lines suggestive of the “no passing zone” of some lonely asphalt highway, the incongruous intrusion of an undershirt, and the unexpected glamour of a satin scarf snaking its way across his sternum seem to remind the casual observer that this bit of bone, gut, and flesh is destined not to be the object of desire but rather the means by which the ambitions of admirals are achieved.

In loving memory of a sailor, scholar, soldier, husband, father, teacher, and lover,

Don L. (“Laurin”) Foxworth, age 18

©  December 12, 2012 Lewis J. Thompson, III

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 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.”

Posted on

Coping with Loved Ones by Michael King

          After all we are apes and in spite of our self-concepts of advanced culture and civilization we still have the quarrelsome and emotional nature similar to what we see in our wild cousins. Any group, family or pair of humans in association will encounter frustrations and anger either individually or collectively. Our natures can be modified and we can learn to control the way we interact and we can suppress the urge to strike out when upset, but even with those closest to us and that we love the most, we will occasionally have to cope with both their words and actions that bother us as well as our own thoughts and feelings.

          My daughter, yesterday, when I asked her how things were going with their new dog which the whole family loves, said “She has her moments.” I interpreted this to mean that there was a little coping going on.

          My grandparents were always bickering. I decided not to do that. My mother was always bitching and gossiping while my father seldom spoke. I decided to not be like them. I never liked confrontation, arguments or violence so I guess I developed coping techniques that modifies my tendency to strike out, accuse, argue, etc.

          My 25 years of marriages fortunately went by with few disagreements. Merlyn and I don’t argue. However under it all there is that conscious awareness of maintaining mutual respect, courteous and kind interaction and above it all a show of affection, love and understanding while we cope with the amazingly different ways each of us thinks and acts.

          Both of us have been single parents and I’m sure that having experienced the myriad of coping tests one has under those circumstances has helped us develop the abilities to somewhat satisfactorily deal with coping with loved ones.

          I am so grateful to have the privilege of coping with Merlyn. There is nothing I would rather do. It seems that he doesn’t mind coping with me.

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, 4 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.
Posted on

Cooking by Bobbi

          “Hey, hey, good looking. Whatcha got cookin’? How’s about cookin’ somethin’ up for me.”

          As a child, the only person in our home who did all the cookin’ somethin’ up for us was my Bubi Kate. (Bubi means grandma.) She and my great uncle, Yenny, lived with us. Katie wanted that small kitchen all to herself, and the only time I was allowed in was when she needed help with washing and drying dishes.

          She never made knishes which were Jewish fare, and we never had any pork. We didn’t dare.

          Katie and Yenny were from Hungary so we never went hungry. My mother never learned to cook until Grandma Kate died.

          A short history of my family is needed here in order for my story to be clear. Kate and Bela were from Hungary and met in Philadelphia. Love, marriage, and two daughters later, but they had to leave for Colorado or Bela’s lungs would crater. Tuberculosis had taken hold so Go West Young Man, they were told.

          So they settled in Denver where my mama Sallie was born in 1897 and Bela started a picture frame factory out of their home and it was like heaven. But Bela’s health continued to go down and he needed help in the business so he asked one of his brothers in Hungary to come to this town. Uncle Yenny came, learned the business, and when Bela died, he took care of Kate and raised the three little girls.

          When Sallie married Harry, my sister was born. Sallie was five months pregnant with me, and things got harried with Harry. Harry was an attorney, got into legal trouble, left town, ended up in Canyon City Penitentiary. This all caused Sallie’s bubble to burst.

          That’s why Bubi Kate and Uncle Yenny came to live with us.

          While cleaning out my Mama’s home, I found a wonderful cookbook. It’s called Famous Cook Book and was written in 1916 by the Ladies Auxiliary and given to Temple de Hirsch in Seattle. Pages 147 and 148 have Ham recipes. Baked Ham No. 1, Baked Ham No. 2, and Baked Ham and Eggs. Wonder if they got into the Dr. Seuss craze.

          My first husband, Nonny, from Brooklyn, was a pretty good cook but I struggled along with a cook book. My second husband, Max, did not cook so I learned from a Jewish cookbook. It’s called Love and Knishes and I made many good dishes.

          Alas, the Sprue has hit my gut, so I am gluten free, BUT I’ve learned to cook gluten free and my partner, Linda, has mastered gluten-free zucchini bread and other sweets so my life now is just full of treats.

About the Author

Bobbi, 82, a native Denverite, came out at age 45. “I’m glad to be alive.”