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Our Path, by EyM

True leaders
willingly follow.
Best leading
tunes in, listens, cares, inspires,
and then
moves upward.
Maybe the
loneliest person is the one
who could
never learn to share,
so clamored
instead to take control.
If well
trained unworthiness kneels
at the feet
of the selfish controller, oppression results.
There on top
of their own oppression,
ever pushing
downward,
the
controller has no chance to rise.
No one comes
to them on the tennis court of life,
to receive
their perfect deadly serve.
The domineer
stands waiting ball in hand in,
completely in
control, and completely alone.
The upward
path emerges from courageous sharing
and the ever
liberating ability to trust.
A true and
strong light shines from each person
and standing
side by side these lights
make bright
the path for everyone
to travel
onward, and upward
together.
© October 2014 
About the Author 
 A native of
Colorado, she followed her Dad to the work bench to develop a love of using
tools, building things and solving problems. Her Mother supported her talents
in the arts. She sang her first solo at age 8. Childhood memories include
playing cowboy with a real horse in the great outdoors. Professional
involvements have included music, teaching, human services, and being a helper
and handy woman. Her writing reflects her sixties identity and a noted
fascination with nature, people and human causes. For Eydie, life is deep and
joyous, ever challenging and so much fun.
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Disconnect and Fear in the Aftermath of the Orlando Massacre, by Donaciano Martinez

There is a major disconnect between the
experiences of LGBTQ young people of color and the broader LGBTQ community.
That was the main message behind the need for a separate vigil that took place
in mid-June 2016 in Denver to remember the victims of the Orlando massacre.
Organized by the nonprofit Survivors Organizing for Liberation (SOL) and Buried
Seedz of Resistance (BSEEDZ), a youth project of SOL, the vigil was led by
LGBTQ young people of color.
The separate vigil was in direct response to the
first vigil that was hastily organized at a Denver gay nightclub that featured
speeches by public officials and spokespeople from a few nonprofit
organizations. When two carloads of SOL and BSEEDZ activists arrived at the
nightclub, they were shocked at the extensive presence of police officers who
were searching people as they entered the building. Appalled, SOL and BSEEDZ
activists unanimously decided not to attend the event.
“The history of queer and trans communal spaces
are rooted in acts of resistance against police brutality,” proclaimed the
public statement of BSEEDZ and SOL in direct reference to the 1969 Stonewall
Rebellion, which is widely recognized as the start of the movement that has
evolved to the modern-day fight for human rights for LGBTQ people. “We refuse
to accept suggestions that increased police presence in our queer and trans
spaces will improve risks of violence or increase any sense of safety.”
The BSEEDZ and SOL vigil was attended by a
diverse group of about 100 people from the Latina/Latino, Muslim, LGBTQ,
American Indian, Two-Spirit communities and allies. In addition to remembering
and reading the names of the victims of the Orlando massacre, attendees paid
tribute to and read the names of 14 trans women of color who have been murdered
so far in 2016.
“We wanted to let everybody know and remind
folks that this isn’t an isolated incident, that this has been happening, that
we forget the 25 plus transwomen who were murdered last year, the 14 transwomen
who have already been murdered this year,” stated BSEEDZ activist Diana Amaya
at the start of the vigil. “All of this is just part of genocide to our
people.”
The murders of 25 transwomen last year marked
the deadliest on record for transgender people in the U.S., according to
statistics tracked by SOL and other nonprofit entities that are part of the
National Coalition of Anti Violence Programs (NCAVP). According to NCAVP, last
year’s record does not include trans women whose deaths were not reported or
investigated nor do the statistics include victims whose gender was
misidentified or not even recognized by police and the media.
Speaking about why LGBTQ young people of color
oftentimes feel disconnected from Denver’s Pride event that has been organized
annually over the past 40 years by the nonprofit GLBT Community Center, a
BSEEDZ activist noted that it “hurts so much” that Pride’s history is being
erased and that the LGBTQ largest organizations “sell out.” Attendees were
urged to remember Pride’s history, which started as an act of resistance at the
Stonewall Rebellion.
Other vigil speakers included an American Indian
Two-Spirit individual who is transgender from female to male. Recognizing the
privilege that comes with being a man, he said his life has been so much easier
as a man and he has been negligent upon forgetting that other people in the
LGBTQ community are not as fortunate as he is as a man. One mother spoke about
being “scared” and having a “hard time” upon learning that her child is a transboy. Another woman attendee recounted her gay brother’s recent experience of
being escorted off stage at his college graduation when he raised his fist and
yelled the “Orlando” word.
Ayla Sullivan and Emery Vela, both members of
the slam poetry team called Minor Disturbance, read a poem they wrote for the
occasion. Before reading the poem to the attendees, they acknowledged:
“Queerness has not always been something that was shamed before the colonizers
came, it was something that was sacred. It was something that was beautiful and
it’s still something that is beautiful.”
Addressing the irrational fears of LGBTQ people
and Muslims, BSEEDZ activist Amanas pointed out that the Orlando killer’s
Muslim identity makes all Muslims vulnerable to acts of violence by white
racists. “We know Islamophobia and homophobia as the same monster known by
different names,” said Amanas, who urged vigil attendees to break the fast
during the Muslim religious season of Ramadan by sharing a bowl of dates with
other people.
Fear was the topic of a recent communication
sent to the constituents of Denver City Council (DCC) elected member Robin
Kniech, an open lesbian who represents all of Denver as the at-large
representative at DCC. She stated that, despite the vigils and the camaraderie
at Denver’s Pride parade (which she noted had fewer spectators this year), she
is “not feeling better” nowadays. “Most of my LGBTQ friends and colleagues
don’t report feeling better, not when you ask them privately,” she added.
“The reason I don’t feel better is because I
feel fear,” proclaimed Representative Kniech. “And for me, it isn’t a new fear.
It’s about fears I’ve long held. Fears I struggled with, tried to talk myself
out of, suppressed. The inability to shake the feeling that all of these fears
were real and true after all. That at some point, someone who has real issues
with gay people, will want to hurt me because of who I am. Hurt
my partner. My son because he is with me. My friends. I am afraid, and angry
about my fear. In a state where I’m protected from being fired, could get
married, and was elected as an out lesbian, I am once again thinking twice
about whether and where to hold hands with my partner.”
Acknowledging that she has a certain privilege
status despite being a woman and an out lesbian, DCC Representative Kniech
stated: “Many folks who see me on the street don’t assume I’m gay, and I’m
white in a world where violence still happens less to those of my ethnic
background. So I feel even more fear for those in our community who don’t share
those privileges. And more anger about that fear.”
Regarding many people’s rush to prove that the
“terrorists haven’t won” in an effort to resume a life of normalcy,
Representative Kniech declared: “I write this piece to honor pausing. Pausing
to feel and name the personal fear and pain that was lying in wait and has been
triggered by these events, whether among Latino/a or LGBTQ folks, those
impacted by other forms of gun violence, or others. I don’t think naming this
personal pain disrespects those who were lost, or the causes that have to be
fought.”
Upon addressing the issue that pausing to face
the fear and pain somehow means that the terrorists have achieved their goal of
making people emotionally paralyzed from fear, Representative Kniech ended her
insightful communication by stating: “It doesn’t reward terrorists. In fact, I
think talking about fear, and how dangerous it can be, within ourselves, or
motivating evil acts by others, might be important to really changing the world
where these acts of hate motivated by fear are proliferating.”
© 12 Jul 2016 
About the Author 

Since 1964 Donaciano Martinez has
been an activist in peace and social justice movements in Colorado. His
activism began in 1964 by knocking on doors to urge people to vote for peace
and justice, but in 1965 he and other activists began marching in the streets
to protest against war and injustice. His family was part of a big migration of
Mexican-Americans from northern New Mexico to Colorado Springs in the 1940s. He
lived in Colorado Springs until 1975 and then moved to Denver, where he still
resides. He was among 20 people arrested and jailed in Colorado Springs during
a 1972 protest in support of the United Farm Workers union that was co-founded
by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. For his many years of activism, Martinez
received the 1998 Equality Award, 1999 Founders Award, 2000 Paul Hunter Award,
2001 Community Activist Award, 2005 Movement Veterans Award, 2006 Champion of
Health Award, 2008 Cesar Chavez Award, 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award, and the
2013 Pendleton Award. La Gente Unida,
a nonprofit co-founded by Martinez, received the 2002 Civil Rights Award. The
year 2014 marked the 50-year anniversary of his volunteer work in numerous
nonprofit situations.
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GALA Festival X – Music Can Heal, by Carol White

On the third day out from
having been immersed in the music of GALA Choruses Festival X for six days and
nights, with songs and melodies and harmonies and words swirling around in my
brain and my heart, I feel compelled to write down just a few stories from my
own personal experiences at the Festival to illustrate the Power of Music to
heal our souls and perhaps even to transform the world.
On Saturday, July 2,
2016, 6,600 gay and lesbian people from around the world showed up in Denver,
Colorado at our esteemed Performing Arts Complex with one goal in mind:  To Sing. 
There were over 200 choruses and ensembles who had been scheduled to
perform for each other at Boettcher Concert Hall, Temple Buell Theater, Ellie
Caulkins Opera House, the smaller Stage Theater, and the gigantic 5,000-seat
Bellco Theater.
The buzz in the air was
palpable at registration, lifting us to another plane before the music even
began.  And then it started — with over
400 voices from all of the Colorado GLBT choruses lined up on four levels of
the parking garage, overlooking the Galleria outside the theaters. 
The trumpets began and
the voices rang out with a special power as they proclaimed “In praise of song”
that echoed throughout the space in the garage and the covered Galleria, so
that the sound appeared to emanate straight from heaven itself.
This was followed by a
big and stirring arrangement of “America the Beautiful,” during which song
several large banners on the different levels were unfurled that said, “We
Stand With Orlando.”  Coming so soon
after the worst mass shooting in American history at a gay nightclub in
Orlando, Florida, the mass chorus added a verse for those we had lost, and
ended the song after the last verse with a rousing “America, America, America,”
each higher and louder and with more harmony than the one before.  Chill bumps and tears came easily and
naturally.  And a measure of pride that
said, “Those are MY PEOPLE singing that!”
Then came the third piece
commissioned for the occasion and conducted by the composer, “Mountains and
Rivers,” a song about Colorado to give a rousing welcome to everyone at the
Festival.
All this and we had not
even started yet.  On to Boettcher for
the Opening Ceremony, so to speak, featuring several choruses, including the
New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, One Voice mixed chorus from Minneapolis, the
Atlanta mixed chorus, the San Diego Women’s Chorus, and Take Note from Denver,
all singing in the round throughout the hall. 
And this concert had to be repeated to accommodate all of the attendees.
Keep in mind that, in
order to give everyone a chance to perform for at least a half-hour set,
concerts were happening in these three halls simultaneously mornings and
afternoons every day of the week, making it impossible to hear everyone and
forcing us to choose what to attend, and where and when.  So I can only comment on a few that Judith
and I attended, with no intention to leave anyone out.  We heard about 50 choruses out of 200, so
there were many that we unfortunately missed.
Probably the most moving
and memorable moment of the Festival came on the second day in Ellie Calkins
Opera House.  It was during the 3 to 5
p.m. “block concert,” each of which featured four different choruses.  The last choir to perform in this block was
the Orlando Gay Chorus.  Every seat in
Ellie was taken and people were standing behind every section in the
audience.  As approximately 65 men and women
took the stage and got onto the risers, there was a several-minutes-long
standing ovation before they sounded a note.
The conductor took the
podium and they sang three or four songs. 
Then he grabbed the microphone and began talking about the Pulse
Nightclub shooting and how it had shocked their whole community, and that their
chorus had come together and answered the call to help to heal the LGBTs and
everyone else in their city by singing at over 20 different events, vigils, and
memorial services within the last two weeks. 
Then he said, “If you know this next song, sing along with us.”  The song was “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” 
Well, 2,000 singers in
the audience joined with the Orlando chorus and we all raised our voices in a
gorgeous mutual message of assurance that gave that song more meaning than it
had ever had before.  The second time
through everyone was standing and holding hands as tears flowed freely down our
collective cheeks.  No one who was there
will ever forget it.
On the way out of the
theater, as the Orlando Chorus filed through the lobby and into the Galleria
outside, they were surrounded by 2,000 cheering and clapping and hugging
fans.  They said they had never
experienced such love.
Just to mention a few
other highlights:
1.   A chorus of 1,000 gay men with orchestra in
the Bellco Theater singing “I Am Harvey Milk” cantata with the composer from
Broadway singing the part of Harvey Milk.
2.  The Seattle Men’s Chorus performing with the
Seattle Women’s Chorus on stage at the Buell Theater for a mixed chorus of
approximately 300 people singing a stunning arrangement of “I Love You” and
“What A Wonderful World.”
3.  The Las Vegas Men’s Chorus singing a deeply
moving song called “Tell My Father” from the Civil War musical.
4.  One Voice mixed chorus from Charlotte singing
about “Glenda and Lauree: Certain Kinds of Love Never Die.”
5.  Our Song: The Atlanta Gay and Lesbian Chorus
singing and staging Eric Whitacre’s “Fly To Paradise.”
6.  The 200-voice Turtle Creek Chorale from
Dallas singing “Angels Calling.”
7.  Combined choirs at the Opening Concert singing
“Glory” from the movie Selma.
8.  The Classical Masterworks Singalong in
Boettcher where hundreds of us got to sing with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra
on some famous choruses by Bach, Handel, Mozart, Brahms, Verdi, etc.
9.  International groups such as Mano a Mano,
five fabulous flamboyant men from Cuba; Homonics, three men in suits from
Dublin, Ireland; the European Queer Choir; Schola
Cantorosa, 25 excellent singers from Hamburg, Germany; the Beijing Queer
Choir, 12 darling women and men from China who were able to remove their masks
for the first time; and a combined International Chorus at the Closing Concert
singing “Imagine.”
10.  The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus recounting their
tour to the Middle East.
11.  Charis – St. Louis Women’s Chorus doing
“Sometimes we have to sing in unison, Sometimes we have to sing in harmony.”
12.  Denver Women’s Chorus singing “An
Exhortation,” words by Barack Obama, and “You Are My Music.”
13.  Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus, when the woman
conductor walked out onto the stage, had everyone in Boettcher stand, and on
July 4 conducted all of us in the best “Star Spangled Banner” I have ever
heard.
14.  Jubilate! The Women’s Chorus of Corvallis,
Oregon, singing “Endangered Species” by Denver’s own Diane Reeves.
15.  The largest and arguably the best – San
Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus – at least 300 men in tuxes and top hats overflowing
the risers at Boettcher and singing Broadway and more.
16.  The Turtle Creek Chorale Chamber Chorus doing
“Come Ye Disconsolate,” including the text, “Earth has no sorrow that heaven
cannot heal.” 
As you can tell, I could
go on and on.  Maybe from this small
sampling you get the idea.  The GALA
Festival that happens every four years is a coming together of GLBT voices that
is at the same time joyful and healing and powerful and unifying.  It is life-affirming and life-changing. 
When I was conducting
GALA choruses years ago, I had a motto: 
“Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, and inspire ‘em.”  This Festival did all of that and more.  As they said at the end of the week, “We have
started a song and it cannot stop.” 
GALA Festival X has 6,600
stories.  This has been one of them.
© 19 Jul 2016 
About
the Author 
 I was born in Louisiana in
1939, went to Southern Methodist University in Dallas from 1957 through 1963,
with majors in sacred music and choral conducting, was a minister of music for
a large Methodist church in Houston for four years, and was fired for being gay
in 1967.  After five years of searching,
I settled in Denver and spent 30 years here as a freelance court reporter.  From 1980 forward I have been involved with
PFLAG Denver, and started and conducted four GLBT choruses:  the PFLAG Festival Chorus, the Denver Women’s
Chorus, the Celebration ’90 Festival Chorus for the Gay Games in Vancouver, and
Harmony.  I am enjoying my 11-year
retirement with my life partner of 32 years, Judith Nelson, riding our bikes, going
to concerts, and writing stories for the great SAGE group.
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Believing, by Lewis

In every corner of the
world, from the time a child is first able to understand her or his native
tongue, they are taught to believe what their parents believe.  They learn what “truth” is in the same way
that they learn how to wash their hands before dinner or how to dress
themselves.  At first, they do it because
their parents make them do it.  Later,
they do it because they see the sense in it. 
They learn not to touch a hot stove because it burns, just as Mommy or
Daddy told them.  They soon realize that
Mommy and Daddy are pretty smart and they could learn a lot from listening to
them.
Before long, Mommy and
Daddy are taking them to church.  In
church, they learn all kinds of new rules and “truths”.  Most, if not all, of these “truths” cannot be
verified through personal observation. 
But because they have come to trust their parents to be truthful with
them, they believe them.  Why not?  Lots of good things are supposed to happen to
them if they will only believe.
As the children begin to
go out into the broader world more and more, they soon discover that some of
the other children do not hold the same truths as “self-evident”.  This causes conflict and confusion.  Some parents—hoping at the very least to
postpone this internal uncertainty—“home school” their kids.  Others send their kids to schools whose
teachings include faith-based instruction.
So far, so good.  The parents are happy and their children are
content.  As they grow older, they become
more-and-more convinced that their view is the way things really are.  In fact, they may not even be aware that
there are people who see the world in an entirely different way.
Sooner or later, however,
they are almost certain to bump up against something they read in the newspaper
or a magazine or book that seems inconsistent with what their parents and
religious leaders taught them.  This
could affect them in a couple of ways—it might cause them to become defensive
and contentious or they might begin to question what they have always been
taught and seek to find the truth on their own.
For example, let’s say
the child has been taught and has come to believe in the story of the “creation”
of the universe as taught in Genesis.  In
fourth grade science class one day or at the movies or on TV, she or he hears
that the earth and universe were formed over billions of years.  These two ideas are hard to reconcile.  It would require quite a fertile imagination to
embrace both concepts simultaneously. 
Now, the child or adolescent is faced with making a choice between two
“truths”.  One choice will risk the child
losing the good graces of one or both parents and the other will call into
question all he or she knows about their faith, including their standing with
God. 
It’s pretty clear to me
which choice is the one to make if you want to cut your losses.  Thus, many will cling tenaciously to the
spiritual tenants of their parents, regardless of what the vast majority of
well-educated scholars and learned professors may tell them. 
This would not create too
much of a stir if not for the inconvenient truth that these individuals, whose
political philosophy is grounded in the same mythology as their religion, use
their vote and their voice in furtherance of ideas grounded not in what is
known but in what is Legend.  For these
people, knowledge is the enemy, since truth is “revealed” but only to the
“favored”.  Since they are among the
“favored”, they are not morally obligated to ever change their beliefs.  In fact, it is part of their mission to try
to prevent ideas they disfavor from ever being seen by the unwashed public.
As members of one or
another sexual minority group, we have been victimized by such people for
millennia.  Other victims include Jews,
atheists, agnostics, Muslims, Buddhists, Farsi, Hindi, Native Americans,
Africans, women seeking abortions, socialists, liberals and too many others to
name.  Would the U.S. have unleashed the
hydrogen bomb on Japan if they had been Caucasian Christians like the Germans?
I must make it clear that
I do not see “belief” per se as the problem. 
Rather, as Karen Armstrong has brilliantly lain out in her book, The
Battle for God, the curse of all civilizations throughout time is
Fundamentalism, in any of its myriad forms. 
Essentially, Fundamentalism is the conviction (I hesitate to use the
word ‘belief”) that there is but one Truth with a capital ‘T’.  All other opinions are blasphemy and must be
wiped out.  Most certainly, they must not
ever be given any thought for fear that they might pollute the Pure Mind.  For these folks, to think, as was the
official slogan of the General Electric Co. in the 1950’s and ‘60’s that
“Progress Is Our Most Important Product” is nothing short of Devil’s Talk.
© 11 Jan 2016 

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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What I Did for Love, by Gillian

My mother and I had a
strange relationship. (Boy, how many of us could start our autobiographies with
those exact same words, I wonder!) It’s not that it was not a loving
relationship. It was. But it was strangely inverted: inside out and upside
down. I, the child, was the protector, the defender; my mother the one who
needed care and protection from the rigors of reality. I intuited, at a very
early age, as little children often just feel things, that Mum was filled
inside with an aching sadness. It was, of course, my job to fix it, or at very
least to provide a counterbalance.
The first time I remember
this inversion of roles, was with reading. Of course when I was very little my
mother used to read to me, but as soon as I began to learn to read myself, she
had me read to her. Nothing so odd there, I was simply demonstrating my reading
skills. The strange thing was, that pattern remained, really, for the rest of
her life. Before I started my homework I would sit beside her and read the next
installment of the latest novel. When I visited from college or from my U.S.
home, she always wanted me to make time each day to read to her. Late in her
life, in the nursing home, I would read to her until she fell asleep. I have
often thought how much she would have loved recorded books, had they been
around in her day, but actually I’m not too sure about that. I suspect it was
more about the reader being me, so close there beside her.
The other way I was
always called upon to entertain Mum was playing cards and board games.  She loved any and all of them, and was as
excited as a little kid when she won. The result was that I consented to play
games that I felt I had long outgrown when I would have much preferred other
activities, but this was my job. It was my purpose in life. As time went by, I
found myself letting her win. Now, parents sometimes might encourage a child,
perhaps, by losing on purpose occasionally, but I have never heard any child
admit to faking a win for an adult.
My father would have no
truck with games or reading aloud, but in other ways he silently validated this
subliminal need of mine to cheer my mother, to keep her happy, to protect her.  I learned very early on that when he winked
at me, in a way I so loved, it meant that we were now to collude in some fakery
or falsehood so as not to hurt her. Mum’s culinary and needlework skills were,
shall we say, not well developed. Of course, it’s also fair to say that she was
severely handicapped by strict postwar rationing, but I couldn’t help but notice
that other women managed many and various creations with much greater
success.  None of this was ever alluded
to. After every meal, no matter how insipid or just plain burned, Dad would sit
back in his chair, pat his tummy affectionately, wink wickedly at me, and say
with great gusto, ‘By ‘eck but that was grrrand!’ or words to that effect.  
I invariably tried to
emulate his praise, but rarely managed the right degree of enthusiasm.  I wore, without complaint, strange
unidentifiable garments which were too big here and too tight there, and
sometimes had wildly undulating hemlines. My dad suffered more from Mum’s
attempts at knitting. One of my fondest memories is of him donning a
newly-knitted wool hat.  
It was too small, and the
harder he tried to pull it down to cover his shiny bald head, the more
determinedly it sprang back to sit way too high above his ears where it perched
jauntily at a dangerous angle. It came to a weird point at the top and gave my
big, solid, father something of a look of a drunken elf. The anticipated wink
made my urge to giggle almost uncontrollable. 
‘By ‘eck,’ he said, struggling to keep it from popping off the top of
his head, ‘That’ll be grrrand!’
When, in my high school
years, my aunt told me that my parents had had two children before me, both of
whom had died of meningitis at the ages of two and four, my psyche blazed with
newfound light. So it was all real. Mom really did have a huge sadness inside
her. All the time I knew it, but didn’t know it: didn’t know it was real, didn’t
know why. The knowledge changed nothing of our dynamic, it was much too deeply
ingrained. But it did make me feel less crazy, more in control. I was making
conscious choices, rather than everything I did being driven at some
subconscious level.
I could tell endless
tales of ways in which I mothered my mother, but you get the drift. But what
effect did that topsy-turvy relationship have on me at such a vital stage of
character development? Much of my life has been spent un-learning a lot of what
I learned as a child.
I found out quite rapidly
that my desire to fix others’ problems was one which must be denied. In the big
outside world, attempts to do so result in resentment and are doomed to fail.
We can each only fix our own problems, not each other’s.
My competitive spirit, if
I ever had such a thing, was still-born. I simply am incapable of feeling that
will to win which practically everyone else seems to share. So it still feels
unfair to me, to win at all, ever, when I am perfectly happy losing and no-one
else is. But I learned, quite early, that losing on purpose is not appreciated.
I got caught cheating to lose in a card game by two college friends, one of
whom I was madly in love with at the time. Ever after that game, I would catch
her looking intently at me sometimes with a puzzled expression, and our
friendship – which was all it was – was never the same again. Or maybe I just
imagined it. But it cured me of the losing habit, though not of the instinct to
do it.
On the positive side, I
learned to appreciate something done for me or given to me for the effort made,
and the love that drove it, rather than the end result. The first gift my
youngest step-son gave me was a frighteningly huge bottle of perfume. It
obviously came from some low-end dime store. The cloying, sickly-sweet smell it
gave off when opened was literally nauseating. But every morning, for what
seemed like years, I left for work bearing a big dab of the stuff, only to
scrub it off in the car. Just as my dad, leaving the house in his ill-fitting
elfin hat, doubtless stuffed it in his pocket immediately he rounded the
corner.
I am forced to wonder,
looking back on my childhood, if I actually got it all wrong. Did I, by meeting
Mum’s every need as far as I was able, in fact prolong her suffering? Had I
refused to play the mothering role, would she have been forced to be the
mother, and I allowed to be the child? But I was just a child, with no
more than instinct to guide me, and whether I got it right or wrong or some
mixture of both, I suffered too. I knew my mother loved me, but there was
something not quite right there. I felt it deep down in my young soul. I so
longed for a pure, unsullied, mother-love, which was never to be. I still yearn
for it, even as I know it can never be.
But, if I have learned
only one good lesson from my battered inner child, it is not to judge. And
especially not the judge a past which I can do nothing to change. If I got it
all wrong, and maybe my dad did too, we did the wrong things for the very best
of reasons.
We did it all for love.
© 18 Nov 2015  
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.
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Puzzling People, by Will Stanton

People puzzle me. In fact, just about everything regarding human beings puzzles me – – – emotions overriding rational thinking, beliefs that defy fact and reality, faulty decision-making, taking irrational high-risks. Such thinking and behavior can result in harmful consequences, such as my young friend thinking he could leap from a cliff and safely catch a vine just like Tarzan (that actually happened; he fell and broke his back) to starting World War I, a devastating and totally unnecessary war that permanently disrupted world-order, killed millions, and ended up resulting in World War II.

One type of puzzling behavior that I have witnessed has taken place during dangerous storms. Mother Nature often can be quite dramatic, wreaking havoc upon people, their homes, and the land around them. Some people must feel that they are special, that they are invulnerable the dangers and immune to possible consequences of not taking shelter. They see harm to others portrayed on the TV news, but that just won’t happen to them.

I recall on one occasion sitting inside a café having coffee. It was an old-fashioned, converted mercantile store. A tornado warning-siren went off, and several of us descended into the basement for safety. After waiting for the tornado to pass, I returned upstairs only to find that several people, apparently curious about tornadoes, had remained standing right in front of the plate-glass windows. As it turned out, the tornado, albeit only an RF1, had come straight toward the building but, at the last moment, had risen and skipped over the building.

If it had not, there could have been broken glass and bleeding people all over the place.

The all-clear signal went off, and I headed back to my office, already having been delayed by the tornado. As I dashed out the door, the first person I came out to was a colleague coming in. He had a strange expression on his face, and his eyes looked like saucers. He explained that he had been in his car in the parking lot when the tornado went over, and the air pressure was so strong that it nearly pulled out his windows.

Later, a friend who worked in an office-tower in the business district nearby told me that many of the well-dressed businessmen, who had offices on the top floors, had stood by their windows to watch. I could just imagine, had the tornado hit their buildings, pin-stripe suits could have been flying all over the sky.

I witnessed a second episode when overly confident people ignored a tornado warning and thunderstorm. One day, I was sitting in my livingroom looking out the window at a torrential rainstorm. Sheets of rain were pounding down, and the flooded street overflowed up over my lawn. Suddenly, a tremendous boom sounded with a simultaneous flash. I don’t recall moving a muscle, but somehow I think I levitated several inches off the couch. I dashed to the window to look out and saw that the old pine tree directly across the street was blown away. And only a few feet away from the lighting strike was a jogger, running in the storm. Now, I admit that this is an example of dedicated exercise; however, it must be an example of lunacy as well.

Then the tornado warning-siren went off. I extricated my dog from behind the couch and headed downstairs to a basement-closet. We stayed there for twenty minutes, and it was just as well that we did so. I learned later that a tornado had come up from the southwest, touched down at Broadway and Evans damaging some businesses, and then headed straight for my house and the park across the street. Again, fortunately, the tornado lifted up somewhat and skipped over my house and the park. It continued northeast to Monaco Parkway and took out a whole swath of grand old pine trees. One man lost all the trees around his house, but he was lucky not to have had damage to the house.

Once the storm passed on beyond my house and the park, I stepped out to my front porch to take a look at the destroyed tree across the street. The first person I met coming out the door was my neighbor who was about ready to push my doorbell. He said that a branch had knocked down his electric and phone lines; he had lost his power and phone, and he would like to use my phone. As I was about ready to come back inside, we both looked across the street at the park, and we saw a group of tennis players standing under a tree. How wise was that? They were very lucky not to have been harmed. Only a few years later, three people stood under a tree in the middle of the park and were struck by lightning. Two were badly hurt; the third did not make it.

Just what were all these people thinking – – – that they were immortal, that harm comes only to others? Yes, people puzzle me, and this was only one type of behavior among many that I don’t understand.

© 12 February 2016

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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Breaking into Gay Culture, by Ricky

Interesting topic this is. It makes me think of many possibilities but, I reject most of them because I don’t want to break into anything. A prison sentence might follow on a charge of burglary.

The word “gay” includes the entire range of homosexual behaviors for both females and males, just as the word “mankind” includes both genders. However, for the purposes of this presentation, “gay” just refers to the male homosexual culture. The obvious reason for this is that I am gay and I know nothing about lesbian or transgender issues or culture.

While I’ve only admitted to myself that I am gay since about June of 2010 and thus began to associate with gay males and having a limited exposure to “gay culture,” I have 64 years of exposure to gay stereotypes, jokes, comments, putdowns, movies, music, history, biographies, porn movies and videos, miscellaneous sex play, and 27 happy years of heterosexual marriage which produced four wonderful children. As a result, my views on this topic are from those of an outsider still putting together pieces of a puzzle when I am not sure what the puzzle is all about or if I have all the pieces. In a way, the situation is similar to looking for a map to lead you to a destination but not knowing what the destination really is.

This may seem strange or even unbelievable to gay men that knowingly have been gay their whole lives and lived with that knowledge without the benefit (or perhaps burden) of being “in the closet.” However, this is my story and I believe I have explained my perceptions and exposed my biases with regard to the topic. So, just what is “gay culture” anyway? Is it just a culture of disease, loneliness, and death; or is it something else?

I am not convinced that there even is an “over arching” gay culture. I had some blood tests done but that only revealed that there are heterosexual antibodies throughout my system. (Wow! I am immune to straightness.) In an attempt to culture gay organisms, some of my various bodily fluids were smeared onto Petri dishes. No growth of gay organisms appeared. So, how can I break into a gay culture if none exists, can be grown, or found?

All I know for a fact is that most (if not all) gay men seem to like to play with the penises of other men. If that were all, then that is the definition of “gay culture.” But, I am aware of subcategories of gay behaviors and preferred activities which would put the lie to such a simplistic definition.

Some straight or gay men are cross-dressers. Some men like pornography (stories or videos) but not all gay men do. Some like gay themed movies. Some love operas. Some love men older than they are. Some love younger men. Some like “golden showers.” Some like to party hardy. Some use the noxious weed or drink to excess. Some are into the BDSM scene. Some are homebodies. Some are homeless.

Some love to travel the world and can afford it. Some are major philanthropists while others are dirt poor. Some are bikers or leather-men. Some have “fashion sense” while others (like myself) could care less about fashion. Some are effeminate and others the epitome of masculinity. All have their faults and foibles with some holding what people would classify as loose morals. Yet others have the most amazing sense of morality and have higher standards than the heterosexual world. Some are spiritual and others not so much. Some live “in the closet” and others are openly gay now or throughout their entire lives. Some were (or are) married, while others lived the bachelor life.

Many are highly successful executives or entrepreneurs while others teach, fight fires, or police society. Nonetheless, with all the gay men I have met personally, I discovered that every one of them is a fine and decent person.

All these various subcategories exist and any one gay man might fit into several groups but no one person fits into all of them. Unfortunately, there exists “conflict” between some of these groups, which is a totally unbecoming and unnecessary practice for gay men. The conflict seems to be over who can or cannot be a member of a particular category of gay men or in other words, who is a member of that particular narrow and exclusive “culture.” Hence, my assertion that there is no one answer to the question of “what is gay culture” and so there is no way to break into it. The best I can hope for is to find a group of gay men who share my desires, likes, and dislikes and to be around as many of them as I can manage.

Therefore, here are my desires, likes, and dislikes and you tell me where I fit in. I desire to live a good and decent life trying to be a better person today than I was yesterday. I try to live the Boy Scout Law and be: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty (that’s a hard one for me), Brave, Clean, and Reverent. I try to keep my Boy Scout Oath: On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong; mentally awake; and morally straight.

I like gay themed movies, stories, books, and videos; some opera; classical music; 40’s, 50′, 60’s, and some additional decades’ music (but I’m very particular about which music). I do not like to eat cooked spinach, stewed tomatoes, yellow squash, or most fish.

I have seen lots of gay and straight porn videos and, frankly, they don’t turn me on anymore so I don’t enjoy them like I used to. I like talking with friends and going out to dinner even though I cannot afford to do it so much, but I go anyway. I like to travel and visit places, but not alone. I am not into leather or biker stuff although I do like riding my Honda scooter. I like adventure movies featuring children and teens, space movies, and Disney movies. I do not like the “slice’em and dice’em” gratuitous blood and gore movies. I like to read adventure novels, fantasy novels, and science fiction novels. I don’t drink, smoke, or do illegal or recreational drugs.

So what over-arching gay culture do I belong to? Or, am I just an uncultured gay man?

© August 2010

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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The Men in My Life, by Ray S

Where do I start? Don’t expect a laundry list of passionate trysts or deep meaningful relationships. Conquests? If there ever are any, much less worth sharing with you, I have acute memory loss. Must be the latent Puritan coming to the surface!

What a question to put before a gay man or a lesbian, the latter could more be interesting, the first could be redundant, to say the least. Of course, it is every man to his own.

Moving on to the more intellectual and cerebral evaluation of this subject one can’t overlook memories, fond or otherwise, of the cause of our being her today, namely our fathers and mothers (Whoa, I am back to biology again), male family members, the teacher or professor, perhaps a priest or rabbi, a man of a particular political persuasion, even Presidents Washington and Lincoln. I must confess that long, long ago I was smitten for a few years with Jolly Old St. Nicholas. Some of us had a thing for “older men.” Now that I’m in the same stage of my life, I’ve found that I lack the girth an temperament—and besides I don’t look good in red!

Alas, as time slips on I find I am still available and waiting for that special gay knight riding the white unicorn to come and swoop me up into his arms and carry me off to the land of cupid where we will live forever in a state of gay bliss.

Aside from all that foolishness, our subject has happily brought to my recollection the many wonderful men that have contributed to my well being, with their friendship and love. Last but surely not least the same goes for the beautiful lesbians I have been blessed to know.

© 28 March 2016

About the Author

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Preparation for Grief, by Phillip Hoyle

There is no prep work for grief. Still we can discover resources to assist us in adapting to and recovering from grief. For instance, ritual, conceptual, and relational props of congregational life surrounded me as I grew up. Of course, my perception of them changed greatly over the years of my life. I knew something about death due to losing pets and finding dead animals. These we buried beneath the forsythia bush in the backyard. I don’t remember ceremonies, but we kids may have said something. Because my dad was a church organist I grew up hearing of many funeral services and had attended those of my grandfathers and a grandmother. Emotionally our family was not very demonstrative, so scenes from movies in which people let loose to sob and scream, seemed terribly over-played and somehow inappropriate. I didn’t understand it but did accept that some people made a show of their emotions. Then, in what seemed like a few short years, (I was twenty) I was leading those services but with little personal perception of grief’s dimensions.

Being aware of the dynamics of dying, of doctrines that may comfort, of meanings attached to rites and rituals prepared this minister for dealing with a parishioner’s death, but that preparation did not serve so well when I myself faced grief. Around age fifty I really came to know the feelings that accompany deep loss. In short order I lost a long-time friend to HIV; then I lost my father to an automobile accident that also left my mother bedfast. I realized I was going to leave my marriage to a fine woman and leave my ministry in a fine church. My mother died. My father-in-law died. I did separate from my wife and then left my career. I was learning about the personal dimensions of grief quickly, too quickly.

In Denver I learned even more when I gave massages at a free AIDS clinic. There I learned a new grief related to when a client no longer showed up for appointments, a grief of uncertainty. Had the client moved away or died from the disease or found another, better therapist? I tried to find out information but the protocols of the organization did not allow the release of such facts to volunteers in the program. I also realized that the organization didn’t always know as much as I did. In churches, by comparison, there was always a supporting community, always access, always information in the organization even if its responses were sometimes inept. I had to imagine my way into experiencing grief without ceremony or formal community.

With clients in the clinic I was only an occasional touch point in what was still widely perceived as a death sentence. The realization that these persons were sometimes alone grew as I heard too often that I was the only person who touched them. I did my work but knew the important touch of massage couldn’t relieve their fears of dying or do much or even anything at the end. I wasn’t there to touch and love and reassure. I was neither called nor available. Such is life, but I had to learn to deal with my grief in new ways.

Grief changed again with my lover Michael. At least I had the dying person with me and got to trace his whole dying process, right to his last breaths. Then too soon it happened again. Within two and a half years I had lost two partners, two men I tended to as their bodies betrayed them. I touched, caressed, cleaned up after, talked, kissed, and otherwise loved them throughout their final months. Then I wept, wrote, and weathered my own losses.

In the process I saw the truth of so much that Kuebler-Ross analyzed in her clinical theory of dying and grief. I already knew so much theory but got even more insight thorough my direct experiences. The doing was most helpful for me, serving my lovers in myriad ways. But still there was the being over, being alone, just being itself, being myself.

Live. I heard the word, its challenge, and believed its possibility.

Yes. I am alive. Now I must forgive myself for not always understanding. I must continue on: laughing at death’s often ugly face, laughing into life, getting back into life’s dance. But getting back into the light fantastic is never easy, not even for one like me who is sometimes perceived as somewhat light in the loafers. I know I will again and again face grief, yes unprepared and often unanticipated. But life and the music go on whether one feels prepared or not!

Denver © 17 August 2015

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

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Raindrops for the People! by Pat Gourley

“Raindrops” was a topic that I was truly drawing a blank on though thanks I suppose to my Irish roots I love the rain and the more rainy days the better. Perhaps this explains in part my draw to those rainy San Francisco winter days.

I was however rescued on this topic by the impending changes, perhaps this week, in Colorado law around the personal collection of raindrops that fall on your own property and specifically collecting the runoff from your own roof. Believe it or not such collection, i.e. a rain barrel collecting raindrops from your roof’s drain spout is illegal in Colorado, the only state in the Union where this is the case. The exact wording of the current law is as follows:

Although it is permissible to direct your residential property roof downspouts toward landscaped areas, unless you own a specific type of exempt well permit, you cannot collect rainwater in any other manner, such as storage in a cistern or tank, for later use.

Though I realize that many of us LGBTQ folks are urban and live in apartments and therefore this is a truly a moot issue it is a bit of a reassuringly small victory for “the people” that this archaic law is finally about to be changed. I suppose this is more a libertarian victory rather than a socialist one but I’ll take it. Though rainwater runoff could also be easily collected from the roofs of large apartment/condo buildings and go to watering communal gardening space in addition to homeowner’s personal tomato plants.

I have lived in several single-family homes and collecting run-off rainwater for my often-thirsty gardens always had appeal. I never got around to breaking the law on a cistern level but I do confess to collecting the occasional bucketful most often during a late summer downpour and them dumping it on my tomato plants. Once more the immortal words of the Jefferson Airplane come to mind: “We are all outlaws in the eyes of America”.

It is my understanding that HB16-1005 has passed the Senate and will be signed into law this week by the Governor freeing up raindrops for collection by the people. Now if we could get this same Governor, who is a super-delegate to the Democratic convention, to realize that he is not bound to cast his vote for Hilary Clinton. He could instead acknowledge and respect the wishes of the significant majority of caucus goers in Colorado and switch his vote to Bernie Sanders. Oh, what am I thinking? Why should access to a few raindrops make us get all uppity and think we actually live in a democracy. We are being told I guess to sit down and don’t rock the boat and just be happy with a few more raindrops.

© April 2016


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.