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The Wisdom of LGBT Identity, by Phillip Hoyle

Cecelia started it when she told me about a book she wanted me to teach. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron was no ordinary book but, rather, a spiritual process of self-examination, exercises, and disciplines to help the reader overcome barriers to self-expression as an artist. The content and activities were meant for writers, visual artists, performers, and just about anyone who wanted to explore his or her own artistic bent. I was skeptical, but Cecelia was persistent. Agreeing to share the task of facilitating the thirteen sessions, we settled on an approach that seemed well balanced.

A group of writers, poets, painters, illustrators, sculptors, musicians, and educators—all members of the church where I worked—assembled that first night. They received their copies of the book and listened patiently as we explained the process for both the group and the individual participants. The work focused daily on the infamous “Morning Pages,” periodically on completing short writing and art exercises, and weekly on “Artist Dates.” Oh, we read the book, too, and met each week to share our work, objections, pains, elation, pasts, and dreams.

What Cecelia knew and I hoped would happen did occur. We changed our views of ourselves, our appreciation of one another, and our ability to engage in creative work. Due to our weeks together, our lives have continued to change to this day.

For example, some seventeen years later I am still writing my three hand-written, first-thing-in-the-morning pages. I have been writing and painting on a regular basis. I know others have as well. Since that time I have led several other groups through Cameron’s process, often sharing the leadership with others as Cecelia taught me. People are still changing. But the most unexpected change occurred in me, and it wasn’t directly related to seeing myself as an artist.

The child, the inner child, a concept with which I was familiar, showed up prominently in The Artists Way. I had always been slightly put off by the concept, not because it made no sense, but because I heard it used so trivially so often. I read Cameron critically and did not find her explications very enlightening, but I did respond to her process. As a teacher I had pledged myself to engage fully in the process the book proffered. I answered all the questions the author posed, made all the lists she asked for, and on Artist Dates took my inner child to the museums, through parks, down streets of mansions, to mountain meadows, streams and caves, into paper shops, hardware stores and artist supply companies just like the writer instructed. During our times together I recalled many childhood scenes. Somehow Cameron showed me that my inner child is not just some kind of memory of past events but that I am still all that I have ever been at whatever age: confident or afraid, victorious or at a loss, praised or put down.

So I got reacquainted with my inner child’s hurt even though the idea seemed corny. Then I wrote about my fifth grade teacher who derided my Purple Cow illustration but offered me no help with my drawing. I was embarrassed and convinced I couldn’t draw. Two years later I enrolled in seventh grade woodshop instead of the art class I really wanted. But in shop I discovered I couldn’t do the projects very well not being strong enough to control the awkward tools I had to use. My only really fine work that year was the design I burned in the wooden bookends I made. I wrote about these things in the exercises and in my Morning Pages and grew more and more to love my hurt inner artist child.

The more Artist Dates I went on the more artistic and the more gay I got! That’s when I remembered the comment a gay friend of mine said about my work in religious education. “It’s more like art than education,” he observed. I trusted the judgment of this fellow minister, educator, and artist but felt confused. Looking critically into my own experience I finally realized what was right about his analysis, that my play with religious ideas, symbols, and characters was enacted through art forms. And then I started to wonder if my fifth grade teacher was wrong. I quit planning art processes for children and began doing them for myself.

Cameron’s process expanded. She wanted us to costume on our Artist Dates wearing artsy clothes—surely black outfits with berets and scarves. She encouraged us to hang around with other artists. She suggested we introduce ourselves as artists. In so doing, she opened my imagination by encouraging an identity. In my response I discovered that not only was the artist child wounded in me but the gay child as well.

Then the goofy New Age intruded. Cameron wanted us to make affirmations, to write over and over certain sentences. I did so even though I hated doing it. But how else does one learn? I still write one of these sentences, still slightly irritated because, I’m sure, I hear a writing teacher saying not to write in the first person and because to me the affirmation seems exaggerated, not exactly true. Stifling my objections I write: “I, Phillip Hoyle, am a brilliant and prolific artist.” The first time I encountered it, I simply filled in the blank with my name, first and last, just as she instructed. Then I started writing it at the end of the Morning Pages sometimes as an additional page of mantra-like affirmations, at other times to fill out the third page when I felt like I was running out of time or ideas to write.

What I learned through identifying myself as an artist transformed me. I sought out other artists. I laughed when I dressed in black like our church organist. I continued the artist dates long after the thirteen weeks ended. I continued to write the Morning Pages. And the more I did all these exercises, I found my artistic intertwined with my gay. I was doubly identified. My hurt artist child was always an artist and was always gay. That’s me.

My mantra now included this: I am Phillip Hoyle. I am an artist. AND I am gay. I was always an artist, and I was always gay.

The advantage of this identity? I was able to change my life knowing a community of acceptance, understanding, and living. A way to see myself. A structure of self-acceptance and understanding. A way to find friends. The wisdom of LGBTQA coalition identity. Something more than politics. Rather the creation of a world-view of inclusion, tolerance, acceptance, relationship, and growth within diversity.

© Denver, 2012

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.”

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Aw, Shucks, by Lewis

The
summer of 1954 is now being set down in the history of my life as the worst
summer of my entire worldly existence. 
Not only did I contract ringworm of the scalp on a family vacation to
the East Coast that summer, heretofore already recounted in this forum, but I
tried to crack a rock with my head, as well.
Here’s
how it went down–literally.  Granddad
Homer had just presented me with my first bicycle, complete with training
wheels.  I was eight years old and ready
for the next leap in mode of transportation beyond relying solely on the soles
of my feet.  So, I joined a couple of older
boys who were riding their bikes in the street in front of my house.  Not yet comfortable with the dynamics of bike
riding, I suddenly found my path cut off by one of the other boys and, rather
than collide with him, I steered into the curb. 
Aw, shucks!
Upon
impact, I was thrown off my bike headfirst into a flood-control ditch four feet
below the street surface.  Aw,
shucks!  My forehead collided with a
piece of broken concrete.  Aw,
shucks!  I will never forget the odd
feeling I had after taking a blow to the head–not so much pain, as a feeling
of stupor or disconnectedness.  I was
bleeding and my parents took me to a doctor. 
I was expecting to get stitched but instead the doc used metal staples
to hold my wound shut.  Aw, shucks!  He also gave me a tetanus shot.  This resulted in the second-worst “Aw,
shucks!”  of that star-crossed
summer.
The
next day, my family embarked upon their annual vacation trek to the mountains
of Colorado.  That first night in the
cabin, I started to feel really crappy. 
I was nauseous and feverish and couldn’t sleep.  Neither could my parents or grandfather.  Turns out that I was having an allergic
reaction to the tetanus shot, which was derived from a serum made from
horses.  Aw, shucks!  Our vacation was cut short and we headed
home.  Aw, shucks!  To this day, I always think of this story
when I’m asked by a medical professional if I have any allergies to
medications, even though horses as the source of vaccine against tetanus has
long been abandoned.  For which, I’m sure
horses everywhere are grateful.
© 6 April 2015 

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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Death Genes, by Gillian

Our very own favorite
quote-maker, Benjamin Franklin, held that death and taxes were the only
certainties ……. in …… well …… life. Sorry Ben, but that’s not quite
right. Many many people escape taxes by fair means and foul; legal and illegal.
I have never yet known, nor even heard of, anyone escaping death.
It comes, inevitably, to us
all.
When we are young it’s
something, though inevitable for sure, that happens to other people; the old,
the sick, the careless, the unfortunate. But not to us. Oh, sure, some day. But
not now.
As we age, that
inevitability looms larger. It no longer peeps over a distant horizon but leaps
up on the front porch, like some Halloween specter, yelling,
“Booooo!” It hides, ready to jump out at us, in our TV, mailbox, newspaper
and telephone. It lurks around every corner. With the death of every loved one,
friend, casual acquaintance, or even that celebrity who seems always to have
been there, it comes closer.
They say that the death of
your second parent is one of the most traumatic events in life: loss squared. I
have no argument with that. Suddenly bereft; orphaned. Oh yes, that must be
dreadful when you’re six. But it’s not a whole lot better when you’re
sixty-six. It hurts like hell. You are left with no-one who knew you that well
or for that long. It’s like someone cut off your leg, and you had to start all
over again learning how to walk. You have to start all over again learning how
to live, cut adrift in reality. That’s how it felt to me, anyway.
And then, suddenly, it
seems, it’s almost time for your turn.
And, after all, death
doesn’t seem so bad. Even if you have no religion, or perhaps because you do,
death remains a mystery; but not such a very scary one. Unless, perhaps, you
truly believe in Hell Fire and Damnation, in which case it must be just
terrifying. But for me, anyway, simply facing the Great Unknown is really no
scarier than getting on a plane headed for some place I’ve never been before
and have no idea what to expect.
A shrug. A nap.
“Oh, well. We’ll find
out when we get there.”
At this stage, I think, most
of us do not really fear death itself, but rather the manner of our dying. Please,
we scream inside our heads to a God we may or not believe in, don’t let me
get something like Lou Gehrig’s Disease, fully cognizant, feeling death come
piece by agonizing piece. On the other hand, please don’t let me have
alzheimer’s and lose that very cognizance.
In their eighties, my
parents became the worst possible combination. My father was physically fit as
a fiddle, but had dementia. My mother was smart as a tack but had, after a
broken hip, been confined to a wheelchair. They were rendered totally incapable
of looking out for each other, and ended up in separate wings of the same
nursing home.
But, in the end, I have damn
good death genes.
My dad died first;
peacefully, in his sleep, as the phrase goes, but in his case it was true, or
so they assured me. He had suffered little, physically, and somewhere in the
night his heart had simply stopped.
My mother, a couple of years
later, was awoken as she was every day, by an assistant serving her morning cup
of tea in bed. (Do I need to remind you that this is a Nursing Home in
England?)
When they returned to get
the cup, it was empty and Mum was dead. What a way to go!
She looked so at peace, the
undertaker told me. Of course, he was a lifelong friend, so he might have been
saying what I wanted to hear, but I choose not to think so.
My very best hope is that I
might emulate my mother’s death, though I have a longtime recovering-alcoholic
friend who says it’s more likely that in my case I will swig a pint and then
fall off my barstool.
Whatever!  As long as it’s swift and sudden.  And for that I have very good genes!
© 13 October 2014 
About
the Author 
 I
was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to
the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the
Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised
four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting
myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25
years.
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Writing is Like a Gondola Ride, by Carlos

Writing is an Exploration.
You start from nothing
and learn as you go….E. L.
Doctorow
Last
week when my husband Ron and I first boarded the Venetian-inspired gondola
intent on riding the canals of Fort Lauderdale, I felt a bit self-conscious.
After all, we are not overt crusaders of gay rights, instead changing the world
one grain of sand at a time. Yet, here we were about to draft a testament
declaring our emancipation. As sole passengers of our flat-bottomed boat decked
out in sensuous cushions, billowing curtains, and floral bouquets, we were making
an emotive and political statement about our right to love as our gondolier
guided us through the circuitous waterways. Tito, our gondolier, greeted us
warmly, taking pictures of the happy couple as we smiled in romantic bliss, I
probably smiling more like a shy bridegroom than a well-seasoned lover. At the
table next to a divan in which we reclined, we laid out a feast, cold English
ginger ale, honeyed matzo crackers, a disc of Boursin cheese flecked with
cracked black pepper, and strawberries with sensuous nipples begging to be tongued,
nibbled and devoured. Having requested classical romantic music, Chopin,
Debussy, Rachmaninoff, I soon discovered that the music wafted out into the
canals and walkways, enrapturing the world around us with love’s hymns. We made
an adorable couple, as we lounged and fed each other blissfully, basking in the
gentle heartbeats of lyrical watery refrains. 
The
gentle waves beneath us gurgled in a rhythmical flow as they massed and fell like
the breathing of my beloved sleeping under a field of stars keeping watch. The
gondola sliced through the water slow and steady, its bow knifing through the
glassy reflection and creating undulating waves measuring a beat out to shore.
The sound of the waters kissing the shoreline commingled with the soft strains
of piano and violins billowing around us. We nuzzled against each other, toasting
our relationship like a candle flame damning the night as we drifted off into
inner worlds so infrequently traversed. Visually, we could not get enough of Camelot;
with every turn, we were met by tiered pagodas crowned with brass finials, red-tiled
Mediterranean villas, and by expansive lush grounds populated by strutting
peafowl, colorful Muscovy ducks, and oblivious loons sauntering amidst Eden. Although
I subconsciously rebelled at the ostentatious wealth surrounding me, where
money built empires on the backs of the working class, at this particular moment
in time, I decided to suspend my political sensibilities, recognizing that my
own feet are often unwashed.
Around
us, the scarlet pendants of flamboyant blossoms dangled from leafy canopies
like ruby earrings worn by a royal Persian bride, contrasting with the rosy
fingers of the tenderly setting sun in the horizon. When the sea breezes tickled
them, coconut palms sashayed in unison, like a well-syncopated troupe performing
a choreographed repertoire. We drifted through the sun-dappled canals,
surrounded by a Crayola calliope of rainbow colors, citron, Bahama water blues,
egg yolk yellows, and the ever present shades of island paradise greens.
In
the downtown section of the canals, boatloads of tourists shared the waterway
with us. On the river walk, they sauntered along the meandering sidewalks graced
by restaurants, art galleries, and parkways. Ron and I noticed numerous interesting,
but for the most part gratifying, reactions to our presence in the slow-moving
gondola as we cuddled and kissed openly. Certainly, we were not attempting to
be the standard of a gay couple in love. We simply sought our rightful place as
two men standing before the altar of history.  Some people, especially older men with paunchy
bellies and Republican scowls on their face, simply ignored us as though choosing
to deny our presence by cloaking themselves in the vestments of moral
indignation. Some just gawked at us with an incredulous
did-we-really-see-what-we-thought-we-saw open-mouthed gape. However, most, and
especially the millennial generation, smiled and waved at us, clearly conveying
that despite the Scalias and Alitos slithering under their rocks, despite
homophobic political and religious ideologues, America is changing. Violators
of human rights may continue to reject our rights to love, refusing to condone
our way of life to justify their holier-than-thou prejudices, but America is
evolving as it comes to recognize that I love him and he loves me, and that’s
all that matters. Fortune has sided with those who dare!
Writing
is the equivalent of a gay couple gliding on a gondola scrutinized by the
world. Writing requires courage and conviction. It requires standing up against
the fear that we will divulge too much of our souls, placing ourselves in a
position of being misunderstood, judged, rejected. When we write, we open
ourselves up to the eyes of others, never knowing whether our creation, our
lives, our authentic voices will be validated or whether reviewers’ accusations
will have us shrivel up, becoming small and voiceless. Thus, to be a writer requires
taking risks, recognizing that fear has the potential to open up new venues,
new worlds, new ideals for the writer as well as for those fortunate enough to
be a part of the sacred journey. A writer needs to unleash her/his fears,
embrace his identity, and glide, not necessarily fearlessly, but with
conviction that only when he is true to himself, will others smile back and be
transformed. The writer himself shall be transformed. He will give himself
permission to sit on a beach and witness the rising of the sun; he will recline
upon the earth and in a blade of grass commune with the cosmos as it unfolds
majestically before him; he will dance with the stars above him, and know that
he originated from some deep longing out there, as well as within him. Writers
do not work in a vacuum. We are aware of the coconut palms’ calypso waltzes, of
the droplets of water that nourish the countless ancestors of our pasts as well
as the progeny of our futures. As Toni Morrison wrote, “all water has a perfect
memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”  As a writer, I capture, awkward and unevolved
as it may be, a moment of time, a beam of sunlight glistening on the surface, a
coiled blossom whose epicenter holds intangible truths. I am a wayfarer
blissfully celebrating as I glide  down
the currents that are but a Mobius strip of eternity. Writers are listeners and
observers and thus responsible for capturing moments that will dissipate as
quickly as a lifetime, but in surrendering to those moments, our explorations
come to an end, and we arrive where we started, recognizing the point where it
all began. Like all artists and philosophers, we embrace what and where we are,
we face our fears, swim the currents, and remind our fellow wayfarers that we
are all enlightened mediators on the canals in which we are carried. Therefore,
if my good reader will excuse me, I will return to the embrace of my beloved
word, knowing that the journey begins with a cadenced breath.
© 27 July 2015 – Denver
About
the Author 
Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.”  In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter.  I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic.  Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming.  Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth.  My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun.  I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time.  My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands.  I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty.  I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.
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Pushing the Buttons, by Betsy

One thing that pushes my buttons is deception
and dishonesty.
This is about pushing MY buttons when I am
pushing the buttons of my computer.
There is some excellent honest reporting and
investigative work done in the media. But all too often the words deception and
dishonesty bring to mind t certain media sources and motives behind publishing
certain bits of information.
The internet is such a great source of instant
information.  Put in a search word and in
a nano-second you have more information than you ever needed.  Often more information than you know what to
do with. Sifting through it can be daunting. 
Can you trust that the information is true?  To separate the reliable from the suspicious,
I apply this criterion: what or who is the source and are they trying to sell
me something or promote a product or service. 
If the answer is “yes” I toss it out as untrustworthy.   The motive for putting the information out
there is to get me to buy something, not to disseminate information that could
be helpful or to help get to the truth, or to advance someone’s knowledge.
 To
report and promote the truth simply for the sake of truth itself is a noble
cause.  Most people, organizations, and
corporations have ulterior motives for promoting their “truth.”   If this is the case when I am searching the
internet I cannot trust the information I am reading.
We are all familiar with some of the books
promoting certain diets–often promoted as cure-alls for what ever ails
you.  For example the vegan diet will
keep your heart healthy well into old-age. 
It can actually reverse heart disease and diabetes claim its
authors.  The Paleo diet of meat and
vegetables, no grains, no starch will keep you from ever getting any disease at
all.  I truly believe the authors of these
books are sincere and I know they are scientific in their research and
presentations of the facts they have determined to be true.  But I also know they cannot all be touting
the truth. The research they have done and they will continue to do is going to
be exclusively designed to support their truth, not destroy it.
 I cannot say enough on the subject of the media
and its lack of trustworthiness.  Many
mainstream TV programs claim to be reporting the news.  But some are actually making political comments
at the expense of the truth.  The truth
all too often never gets out until it is too late.  Even if the true story is reported, we still
must be very suspicious as to whether it is accurate.
Consider the now known fact that the Iraq war
was based on a lie.  The people and the
news media were told that Saddam Hussein had WMD’s.  We had proof. 
Our government reported this information unequivocally knowing that it
was not true and the media passed it on. 
Yes, the media did report the lie accurately.  And then later reported accurately that it
all was a lie, but some Watergate-type investigative reporting might have been
very useful at that time.   
So how do we know what to believe or not
believe.  People often select one belief
over another because they WANT to believe it. 
This turns out to be simply a case of self-deception.  Try changing the mind of a person who has
deceived himself into believing what he wants to believe.  I personally know very few people who behave
this way.  I suppose that’s because I
prefer to hang with people who value the truth and the ability to think, and
choose to use that ability when searching for the truth.
So when it comes to pushing the buttons on my
lap-top or getting my buttons pushed I try to evaluate as I am reading or
listening, I avoid Fox so-called news, and pick and choose the reporters I read
or listen to.
© 23 June 2014
About the Author  

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community
including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for
Change).  She has been retired from the
Human Services field for about 15 years. 
Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping,
traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports
Center for the Disabled, and learning. 
Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close
relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four
grandchildren.  Betsy says her greatest
and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of
25 years, Gillian Edwards.
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Scars, by Will Stanton

Like each of us, I have
suffered, throughout my years, scars, some physical and some emotional.  I have accumulated scars resulting from
incidents of injury, cancer, unwarranted personal attacks, emotional abuse, dishonesty,
greed, and lack of common human decency. 
Frankly, I’d rather not dwell upon them. 
Dredging up those memories is very uncomfortable for me.
There is something else
about me that people should come to understand.   There is something about me that has made
me, throughout my life, particularly sensitive to the misfortune of
others.  I understand their hurt; I
empathize with their plight; I can imagine walking in their shoes.  I am prone to feeling regret and sorrow; and
I tend not to forget.  I wish more people
were like that.  In addition, the
traumatic incident need not be a recent one. 
I know something about history; and, unfortunately, history is replete
with sorrow.  Yes, those incidents
happened a long time ago; and, no, they did not happen to me.  However, I still wish that those so many sad
incidents never had happened, especially when they have happened to the young,
those who had too short a time to experience the world, to grow, to live.
     
Let me relate one such
incident that, when I heard it told to me and my family, surprised and saddened
me.  It is a remarkable experience of
mine when I was ten years old.  For those
of you who were in this group two years ago, you may recall that I briefly
mentioned this episode in my story about my time in Europe.  This time, I would like to go into greater
detail to clarify the impact this incident had upon me.  The two persons suffering deep scars were two
former soldiers, one Canadian, one German. 
The very end of this story is the main point, a coincidence that is most
amazing.  I never have forgotten that
moment.
In 1954 through ’55, my dad
was an exchange-teacher doing research in Germany.  Our family went with him, living and
traveling throughout Europe during that time. 
I recall one sunny afternoon when we sat at an outdoor café while my dad
talked with several young men who now were exchange-students.  One man in particular (I’ll call him “Tom,”
for I do not remember his name) stated that he originally was from Canada and
had fought, along with the Canadian and British troops, on the beaches of
Normandy and onward, trying to capture Caen. 
He began to relate at length his experiences, unforeseen experiences
that had left a deep, emotional scar; for he just could not forget what
happened.  He had been prepared to fight
German soldiers, but he was not psychologically prepared to fight children.
I never forgot Tom’s
poignant tale.  I became perplexed about
Germany’s immoral use and waste of young people, throwing them into battle
during Germany’s inevitable collapse and defeat.  Recently, I wished to understand more about
Tom’s having to battle boy-soldiers.
Under Nazi rule, joining the
Hitlerjugend became compulsory.  From an
early age, obedience and fanaticism were drilled into them.  The children’s mothers were inundated with
propaganda to assure that this indoctrination continued at home.  Boys as young as nine received paramilitary
training.  This was the only world-view
these youngsters had.  Consequently, most
did not perceive the insanity of sending children to war.
Not all parents or children
wished to have anything to do with the Hitler Youth.  Punishment for noncooperation was swift and
harsh.  The Gestapo could arrest parents
and send them to concentration camps. 
There even were reports of some SS officers using compulsion to force
boys to sign up as so-called volunteers. 
Boys would be held in locked rooms without contact with their parents,
and denied food, water and toilet facilities until they signed.  Others, some members of the regular army complained,
had been physically beaten into submission.
Some parents and boys, of
course, were “true-believers,” and boys eagerly joined.  Those whom the authorities judged to possess
special qualities were invited to enter into the élite NAPOLA schools (Nationalpolitische
Lehranstalt, National Political
Institution of Teaching). 
Those boys likely felt proud of their handsome uniforms and their own
Solingen-steel daggers.  Along with a
steady dose of political propaganda, they received regular military training,
all under the guise of “playing games.” 
They had no idea of what lay before them.
Since Germany’s defeat at
Stalingrad in 1943, Germany faced defeat after defeat with tens of thousands of
soldiers killed or captured.  In
desperation, the authorities began to rely upon underage boys to fill the
gap.  One such division, sent to the
front just before the Normandy invasion, was the 12th SS Hitlerjugend Division,
made up boys mostly fifteen to eightteen, although many were younger.  For example, when captured, Willy Eischenberg
was just fourteen and Hubert Heinrichs only ten years old. 
Willy Etschenberg 14, Hubert Heinrichs 10 Oct 1944
In place of the traditional
tobacco ration, these boy-soldiers received candy, and in place of the beer
ration, they received milk, if and when it was available. Otherwise, they
trained hard to fight like adult SS men. 
I consider war and violence in all forms to be evil, let alone warping
young minds toward fighting wars. 
The Allies, with their
overwhelmingly superior air power, attacked repeatedly to take the area around
Caen and eventually the city itself. 
26,000 tons of bombs were dropped on the old city, crushing it to
rubble.  The remnants of two German
armies were trapped around Falaise and attempted to break out, but they needed
a rear guard.  Sixty of the 12th
Hitlerjugend Division were given that suicidal task and took positions in the
École Superieure.  Firepower from
attacking soldiers and artillery constantly bombarded the young defenders.  The boys, however, refused to retreat.  Of the sixty, only two, chosen as messengers,
survived.
Once the Allied soldiers
discovered that they were fighting just kids, they were surprised and
shocked.  Yet, the ferocity of the boys
astounded the allied forces.  One British
tank commander recalled how Hitler Youth soldiers had sprung at Allied tanks
“- – – like young wolves, until we were forced to kill them against our
will.”  Their fearlessness and
determination reportedly was explained by their training in the NAPOLA schools,
along with their bitterness regarding the massive Allied bombing of civilians
in their homes and cities.
From June 7th through July 9th,
the combined 12th Hitlerjugend Division lost more than 4,000 dead
and 8,000 wounded or missing.  Even the
replacement division commander, Kurt Meyer, wrote down his feelings of dismay
and sorrow.  “That, which l now
experienced, was not war any more, but naked murder.  I knew every one of these boys. – – These
boys had not yet learned how to live; but, God knows, they knew how to
die!  The crushing chains of the tanks
ended their young lives.  Tears rolled
over my face.”  A few days later,
Field Marshal von Rundstedt lamented, “It is a shame that these faithful youth
were being sacrificed in a hopeless cause.” Erwin Rommel made similar remarks
shortly before he was forced to commit suicide.
Later, an Allied soldier
found an undelivered letter on the body of a youth, killed in the battle.  The boy had expressed the feelings of many of
the division’s boys: “I write during one of the momentous hours before we attack,
full of excitement and expectation of what the next days will bring. – – – Some
believe in living, but life is not everything! 
It is enough to know that we attack and will throw the enemy from our
homeland.  It is a holy task.  Above me is the terrific noise of rockets and
artillery, the voice of war.”

That
is what I learned about the young soldiers whom Tom faced around Caen and
Falaise.  When he discovered whom he was
fighting, when he saw the slaughter, he was shocked.  Yet, the memory which most disturbed Tom, the
memory that left such a long-term emotional scar, was the scene of backing some
of the tattered remains of the Hitlerjugend into the river.  He and his fellow soldiers stood on the bank,
picking off every fighter they could see.
The whole point of this
story, the one that I could not forget, is what happened next as Tom finished
his sad tale. He ended by saying, “We didn’t stop firing until we saw no more
figures in the water.  I don’t think any
of them survived.”  At that point, a young
man, sitting alone at a nearby table, quietly turned to our group and stated
simply, “I did.”
 All of us at our table sat in stunned
silence.  After we recovered from our
initial shock, my father spoke to the person and discovered that, as a young teen,
he had been a member of the 12th Hitlerjugend Division and had
barely reached the other side of the river as all his friends perished in a
hail of bullets.  Tom’s scar, or that
other young man’s scar, were not my scar; yet I was deeply moved by what I had
just heard.  Not a scar, but the sad
memory of that day, shall remain with me forever.                                                       © 27 May 2015
Scars:
Postscript, Battle of the Bulge
(as told by Joseph
Robertson at age 86)

Those
remaining boys who survived the fighting around Caen regrouped to fight in the
Battle of the Bulge.  American
infantryman Joseph Robertson fought against them.  One incident in particular left him with a
deep, life-long scar.  He was interviewed
at age 86, when he told his story in his own words.

“I was hid behind the big
tree that was knocked down or fallen, and I could see these Germans in the
woods across this big field.  And, I saw
this young kid crawling up a ditch straight towards my tree.  So I let him crawl.  I didn’t fire at him.  But, when he got up within three or four foot
of me, I screamed at him to surrender. 
And instead of surrendering, he started to pull his gun towards me,
which was instant death for him.  But,
this young man, he was blond, blue eyes, fair skin, so handsome.  He was like a little angel.  But, I still had to shoot him.  And, it didn’t bother me the first night
because I went to sleep, and I was so tired. 
But, the second night, I woke up crying because that kid was there.  And to this day, I wake up many nights crying
over this kid.  I still see him in my
dreams and I don’t know how to get him off my mind.”
Those dreams, that scar,
haunted Joseph Robertson for sixty-five years until his death at age ninety in
2009.

© 27 May 2015 

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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Scarves: A Scarfy Story, by Lewis J. Thompson, III

It was a night much like any other for the watchman at Glasgow’s Dock Number Three, Lewis James MacScarvey, as he made his rounds. The only sounds were that of the water sloshing against the piles and an occasion distant fog horn or well-sotted human being noisily making his way home after closing time.

It was his habit to pace to-and-fro in front of a streetlamp and park bench where said humans were prone to sleep and dispose of their spent bottles in the nearby trash receptacle in hopes of averting a disturbance. When he turned to the north he could see about 100 meters away another bench with trash receptacle and lamplight nearly identical to his. Only there was no one patrolling that space so he liked to occasionally cast his eye in that direction to make sure there was no mischief-making going on.

On this particular night, at about 1:30 in the morning, he thought he saw a figure standing near the water. It appeared to be a woman, perhaps wearing a red full-length coat and something on her head. He had made several turnings on his well-worn loop and each time checked to see if the person was still there.

After about 15 minutes or so, he turned and noticed that the figure had vanished. Curious, he rushed down to see if there was a problem. When he arrived at the spot where the woman had been standing, he saw only a pair of earrings carefully placed on the seat of the bench and, when he looked into the water, a red scarf floating on the surface. Not even a ripple disturbed the water’s calm. Using his nightstick, he was able, with some effort, to retrieve the scarf. Embroidered on one corner were initials. He could barely make them out in the dim light–“LJM”. They were his initials. He backed away from the edge of the water until his legs collided with the bench, whereupon he sat down hard.

Although he never learned the identity of the mysterious lonely woman he saw that night–no body was ever found–he could not bring himself to reveal to the police even the existence of the scarf. He kept it for himself and every night before he went on-duty, he would tie the scarf around his neck, hoping against hope that the rightful owner would some night come looking for it.

© March 23, 2015

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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Once upon a Time by Gillian

Progressive Dinner parties were the in thing, at least with my social group, once upon a way back when. I guess they’re still around, but I haven’t been involved in one in decades. It must have been the 1970’s when I was, because I was still married to my husband and living in Jamestown in Boulder County. Did you ever get caught up in those things?

Between about ten and twenty people gather, say, at our house. We have a drink or two to kick off the evening. Cocktails were popular then, though beer was always my drug of choice; or becoming a wino held a certain appeal, but I never cared for mixed drinks. Most of us, of course, puffed cigarettes as we chugged our drinks in those carefree days. After all, you’re already wrecking your liver so what’s the point in worrying about your lungs? From Jamestown we convoy to, say, South Boulder. There we gather at another home for hors d’oevres and another drink. Then on to Longmont and another home for what I think we called, back then, the main course, or simply dinner, the term entree not coming along until later. And, needless to say, more drinks. And off to Lafayette, then still a small town out in the sticks, for desert and after-dinner drinks, then to one of those new things called condos for a night cap. Finally off home in different directions, not a designated driver in sight. By some miracle no-one ever had an accident amongst all this. Nobody even got a drunk driving ticket. But of course in those days, even if you were spotted weaving your way along the center line, it usually earned you little more than an urge to be more careful next time, which you knew you could translate freely as, be more careful not to get caught next time.

In the here and now, Betsy and I might go to East Denver in the morning, to take an old friend who can no longer drive, out for lunch. On the way home perhaps we’ll make a detour to deliver a favorite candy bar to another old friend in a nursing home. Not so very different from a Progressive Dinner, is it? OK, maybe, but at least we’re sober. There is nothing good about the headline, “Great-grandmother arrested for drunk driving.”

Once upon a time, my calendar was covered in scrawled names, places, and times. But only around the edges. Essentially everything was crammed into evening and weekends. The big black hole in the middle was all WORK, leaving little opportunity for personal life. The other little squares were crowded with ferrying kids to endless varieties of activities, and adult celebrations.The future was looking wide and bright on a limitless horizon, and we were ready! We celebrated friends’ new jobs, new cars, new babies, new homes, new marriages, new lovers, and new divorces: promotions, graduations, undreamed of vacations.

In the here and now, the calendar on the fridge looks very similar. Except that it’s reversed. All the crowded-in names and places and times are in the middle, in that space once occupied solely by WORK. The outer squares are largely empty. We, like many older people, really do not like to drive after dark unless absolutely necessary. So we, and our friends and those accommodating family members, plan most things so that we can get home before dark. Somewhat in the same way, if not to the same extent, we tend to schedule activities on weekdays. Weekends are all crowded out with those wild young working folks who have to be accommodated so that they can keep on paying our Social Security.

If we are among the really fortunate, our children’s calendars are now covered in times and places they are ferrying us. The very fact that we’re still here means we are still having birthdays.

We probably still go on great vacations, but although many of us continue our education in one form or another, we don’t bother much about promotions and graduations – our own, that is. Our celebrations have taken on a different view. They tend to be celebrations of the past rather than future.Our calendars have a few too many memorials scheduled on them, our friends number among them too many now living alone, and if someone is moving it is usually to somewhere smaller, and sometimes to a place where they really do not want to be.

So the once upon a way back whenever was a much better place than the here and now? I’d go back in an instant given the chance?

NO WAY!!

For one thing, there’s one mighty steep learning curve I had to struggle my way up between there and here. I never want to have to do that again. And anyway, I sincerely love life, here and now.

Yes, the calendar has a few too many memorials and hospital visits, but it still denotes many other wonderful things – like Monday afternoons. The dates I now keep with friends seem so much more meaningful somehow than the endless get-togethers of my youth. The people mean more to me. In reviewing the memories of those Progressive Dinners, I realized that, other than my ex-husband, I couldn’t recall who any of the people were. Back then, anything that happened was just another excuse for a party rather than a true celebration of the event, or even the people involved. A “Celebration of Life” as we like to call memorials these days, has a whole lot more sincerity about it, and in some ways more true joy, than all that meaningless round of long ago parties.

No, of course they were wonderful times. My life has been great, I have terrific memories. But, from my current viewpoint, I have to say it seems almost as ridiculous to wish I were in my twenties as it would for someone twenty-five to yearn to be seventy-five.

© May 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 now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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Sports by Ricky

While growing up, I loved to play some physically active games that would be called by the general term “sports”. In grade school in Cambridge, Minnesota, I liked to play one version of marbles.

During some past construction on the school grounds a couple of 8-foot tall piles of dirt were left on the edge of the playground right next to the surrounding woods. As a 3rd and 4th grader, I played “King of the Hill” with classmates. It was fun to climb to the top while others tried to do the same all the while trying to keep me from getting to the top. Of course I was also trying to stop them as well. I got to the top many times but it was impossible to stay there with all the pushing and shoving. Sliding or rolling down the side of the dirt hill was also fun. Sadly, the playground teachers finally put a stop to our play and made the hill forbidden territory. Being boys, we naturally disobeyed and played on the hill anyway but more secretively.

In the winter we would build snowmen and snow-forts on the playground from which we would have snowball fights. The teachers did not interfere as long as we were not throwing “ice balls”.

Back in California, in 5th grade we would play organized games for some PE class times, games like kick-ball, jump rope, and tether-ball. Organized PE time did not occur very often so we boys chose to play softball in the spring and autumn and touch or flag football in late autumn and throughout the winter.

The summer I turned 11, I began to try out for Little League baseball. I was not good enough for a “major” team but I did play two years on a “minor league” team.

In high school during PE classes, I learned to play football much better but I could not throw the ball well enough to be a quarterback and I was too light to be of much use blocking. Also, I was not all that fast running so while I enjoyed playing the game, I was not future NFL material. During our basketball scrimmages, I loved to play but could not dribble the ball very well nor could I shoot and sink baskets consistently. My shooting never got better. My best friend and I did do very well in the badminton tournament however and we loved to play it.

During those four years of high school, the New York Yankees were my favorite baseball team because my favorite players were on that team. They were Mickey Mantle (my favorite), Roger Maris, and Yogi Berra. While most of my peers could cite team and player statistics ad nausium, I could not care less about those statistics, the same for professional or college teams. My favorite football team was not formed until the Minnesota Vikings was formed. It might seem strange that a California boy would have a Minnesota team as his favorite, but we were connected by circumstance. I lived for a time in Minnesota and my high school’s mascot was and still is the Vikings.

After high school my interest in sports gradually waned as I grew older. The only exception is for my college’s teams. But even then, I grew tired of watching the football team snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The last time I got excited for a sport was when my oldest daughter developed a crush on Jose Canseco and his baseball team. So, for three years I became a baseball fan again. She lost interest and one year later so did I. Not until the Colorado Rockies went to the World Series did I catch baseball fever again. Fortunately, I recovered.

It all boils down to this. For me, I would rather play a game for fun rather than sit, watch, or listen to it. Sports like boxing, golf, swimming, track and field, auto racing, horse racing, air races, fencing, bobsledding, mountain climbing, and skiing, hold no interest for me even to participate in them. The only sport I would enjoy would be to lie on a deserted beach with my companion some late evening and watch the submarine races while making out.

© 3 November 2014

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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For a Good Time by Phillip Hoyle

I’m not easily manipulated by advertising. I can watch ads on TV, even enjoy their art, humor, and images, but I never buy their products. I can pour over magazine ads but end up only cutting them into pieces for collages rather than purchasing their wares. I knew this about myself for years, but I learned a valuable exception one night early in my coming out—during my first year living in Denver. I was at Charlie’s of Denver dancing with my friend Dianne. We’d go there once in awhile to practice our emerging bar-stool massage techniques, to drink some beers, and to dance. We were laughing and carrying on when I noticed a decent looking man standing by a table watching me. He smiled. I smiled. I went over to talk with him and invite him to dance with us. Before long he said to me, “Let’s go have sex.”

I responded to his direct message. Perhaps I was also attracted to his strong southern accent, his black hair, his darker skin (I assumed he might be Hispanic), his smile revealing clean, slightly irregular teeth, and his stature just a bit shorter than mine. He seemed my kind of guy although I really didn’t know I had a preferred type. He advertised no price tag attached to sex—just sex. We went to my place and figured out what to do together.

I realized that while I liked what I saw and otherwise sensed, and I enjoyed our simple negotiations, conversation, and other contortions, the good time I experienced really arose from my inner core. All my deepest pleasures originate from an introvert place and preference, although in this instance assisted by a shot of adrenalin, a combination of other hormones, and perhaps was bolstered by a bit of alcohol. They spoke from deep within.

Usually I am happy to be alone, but there are times I easily enough share myself more publically. For instance, there are things I enjoy doing with others, like the visit to the Denver Art Museum with my friend Dianne to see the Yves St. Laurent couture show. I probably would have missed it if she hadn’t encouraged me to take her. Dianne had modeled clothes in Paris in her late teens and twenties and did her first runway job for the designer whose clothing we were viewing as we walked through the rooms displaying his work. Her perspectives drew me deeper into the multitude of beautiful items on display and the world that had produced them. I liked that conjunction immensely.

Furthermore, I enjoy going on trips with Jim, like the trip to North Dakota (a place that requires a local guide for anyone to appreciate it at all). Jim showed me all the places he had lived and had loved way up there in the north, including the field where he sometimes saw moose sitting in the snow when as a child he walked to catch the school bus, the train station where he used to work for the Great Northern Railroad, and the statue of the world’s largest cow. His insistence on driving the whole way through Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota and Wyoming freed me to pay close attention to the landforms where many scenes from 19th century American history were played out and where for millennia great herds of bison were hunted by tribes in their annual cycles of hunt and harvest. And I met many of Jim and Ruth’s family members. Furthermore, I got to know both my partner and his mother in ways I would have perceived only slowly if we had not travelled together. I enjoyed the trip and the things I learned by experiencing it with these two who have become so important in my life.

For a good time: in its popular usage connotes a sexual element and is often a prostitute’s come on complete with phone number and perhaps prices. In my two examples there was something sexual, even if deeply sublimated. Dianne is one of the sexiest people I have ever known. And of course I was having sex with Jim on our North Dakota Odyssey.

And then there are my good times with a Writers group, an Artist Trading Card gathering, and weekly meetings of this Storytelling group. I enjoy seeing friends for coffee or lunch, having sex with a lover, going somewhere to dance (Indian dancing at demonstrations or powwows in my school years, social dances in junior high and high school, two-stepping or rock dancing with my wife, or techno dancing with a good friend in my gay days). I like day trips to the mountains for short walks or visiting a tourist trap, some combination of exercise, shopping, sightseeing, picture taking, and eating. And of course, lots of gab.

For a good time: pleasure can only be defined by the person seeking or experiencing it. For instance, three people share an activity. One simply bears it, another one finds it just okay, while the third declares it was a really good time, one of the best. The pleasure itself is due to personal emotions and feelings, not due to owning an art museum membership or being able to afford an occasional trip. For me, the good time arises from being somehow transformed by the viewings, travel, thoughts and feelings when my social activities become a scene in a story or the inspiration for a piece of artwork. Then I feel even more deep pleasure, my deepest satisfaction. And that’s a really good time!

Denver, © 2013

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