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A Ring to Prove It by Gillian

I don’t believe I’ve ever actually told anyone this. Not because it’s shameful or embarrassing but because it held really no significance for me; so I say, but here I am remembering it after almost 45 years, so it must figure somewhere, if remotely, in my psyche.

It was, I think, 1970. Maybe ’71. I lived with my husband and step-children in Jamestown, a small, one might say tiny, old mining town in the foothills north-west of Boulder. It’s roughly ten miles up Left Hand Canyon, off highway 36 which runs between Boulder and Lyons. In those days there were few houses in the canyon until you reached Jamestown, with its impressive population of around 200.

I put in many extra hours of work at IBM, built a few years earlier between Boulder and Longmont. Being by nature a morning person, I preferred to arrive early rather than stay late, and frequently began work around 5 am. This particular day I must have had some compelling task ahead, though I have no memory of it, as I started out to work under dire conditions.

It was a dark and stormy night.

No, really! It was.

I set out down the canyon about 4:30 in the morning, in our old Willys jeep, hardly able to see anything for the snow swirling in the headlights. I doubt I had reached 20 m.p.h. when I thought I saw something moving ahead of me: just a vague dark shape against the snow which had already built up on the road, drifting against the trees. Deer, I thought. They were often about on the canyon road. I slowed even more, knowing how skittish they could be. I crept up on the shadow still moving ahead of me. Not a deer. A shambling, half running, half walking, figure on two legs.

What on earth was he, for some unknown reason I identified the figure as a man, doing, walking down the canyon in this weather? Had his car broken down? Crashed? I had seen no vehicle beside the road, but with the dreadful visibility maybe I’d have missed it.

I stopped beside him. He was beside the passenger door, and before I knew what was happening the door was torn open against the wind and this dark figure hauled itself into the passenger seat. Well? Wasn’t that why I had stopped? You can’t, at least I can’t, ignore a fellow human being under these circumstances. And anyway, he must be a neighbor; at the very least someone I knew by sight. Who else would be in Left Hand Canyon on foot in the middle of a blizzard?

Socially, I introduced myself, then politely enquired,

“Who are you?”

Silence.

“Do you live in Jimtown?” I asked, using the local vernacular.

In the absence of a reply, I asked, “Where you trying to go?”

A grunt which could have been interpreted as “hospital,” emerged from the dark shape beside me.

“Boulder? Which one?” Boulder at that time had two.

Another grunt.

By this time, my common sense was reasserting itself.

Who was he? Why, in God’s name, was he heading for a hospital on a night like this?

Was he hurt?

I glanced occasionally in his direction but could see nothing but a dark shapeless mass of clothes. What to do, what to do!

I tried occasionally to engender conversation, but failed miserably.

My imagination took over.

Perhaps he was riddled with bullets! Was he, at this very moment, dripping, no, pouring, blood all over the jeep? Worse – well, maybe worse – was he suffering from some highly infectious disease and in two days I and all my family would be at death’s door?

What to do, what to do?

I breathed deeply and calmed myself.

Of course! He had had a phone call. Some loved one had had an accident, only to be expected on a night like this. They were in E.R. and he was going to their bedside. Or he himself had had an accident. The car had gone over the bank into the creek, quite likely in this storm, and explaining the absence of a vehicle. Was he, perhaps, drunk? I sniffed the air surreptitiously but could detect no hint of alcohol.

Whatever the truth, I should get to Community Hospital as fast as possible, which actually was very slowly indeed, and part company with my guest. Alone with this silent, apparently unknown, man, on a night like this in the pitch-black canyon, was seriously not comfortable.

As the friendly street lights of Boulder approached, I glanced in his direction as often as I could possibly afford to take my eyes off the road, which in fact was pretty infrequently.

He had one hand, I managed to see, tucked into his coat, Napoleon style.

My imagination took off at a run.

Was that hand injured? Or holding a gun? Or, I tried to bring myself back to earth, just cold?

He was resting, I now saw, with his head on the back of the seat, (no head-rests in those carefree days!) with his eyes closed. He looked much more vulnerable than scary as his head rolled with every turn. Was he asleep? Passed out?

The coat which carefully encased his left hand looked like an army great-coat.

A sick Vet? A deserter? The Vietnam War still raged. It was possible. I liked the idea and warmed to him on the strength of it.

I pulled into the brightly-lit entrance drive to the hospital. I had no idea if this was where I should take him, being as ignorant of hospital etiquette as I was of his needs. As I pulled up, he pushed himself up in the seat, blinking his eyes.

“Community Hospital,” I said, sounding terse even to myself.

He, however, became positively verbose.

“You’re good person,” he said, or something like that.

“No money. Here.”

As he stumbled from the jeep into the still swirling snow, he pushed his right hand towards me.

It held a ring between the thumb and index finger.

He gave a heavy shrug.

“Not worth much I ‘spect. All I got …. “

I gazed at it, stupefied.

“No, no, I don’t need anything. Just hope …,” I had no idea what to say, “everything’s OK,” I finished, lamely.

He slid gracelessly off the seat into the drifting snow and staggered into the hospital without another word or a wave of the hand.

What did I expect, that he would wave a goodbye kiss?

I went to work.

As happens sometimes in Colorado, the sun was out by noon. The cars steamed in the parking lot. By late afternoon there was nothing to suggest the raging blizzard of twelve hours before. My midnight rider seemed surreal to me. Could I have imagined the whole thing? I wasn’t sure if that worried me more, or the fact that it had actually happened.

It was still vaguely light when I left work. I studied the jeep passenger seat carefully. It wasn’t wet; perhaps slightly damp. There was no hint of blood. I ran my hand once more over the seat and brushed against something hard. I picked it up, held it up. and peered through the dim light.

A ring.

Had he dropped it when he got out of the jeep? That seemed unlikely. I realized that it had been centrally located in the middle of the seat. Placed there. It was his payment for my assistance. I slid it into my pocket. It was nothing I wanted to explain to my husband, however I cared to view it.

For the next week or so I monitored local radio and read the Boulder Camera from cover to cover. I looked for gangland shootings, hippie overdoses, army deserters, and deadly viruses. Nothing. Then I went off into true paranoia. There were no reports in the media because he was a #1 FBI fugitive and they wanted no publicity. He had a highly communicable disease and they were keeping it quiet to prevent panic. He was a Communist spy – this was still the Cold War, remember – so they were keeping him under wraps.

Slowly the years went by and of course I forgot all about it. It had, after all, little if any impact on my life. But for whatever reason, doubtless nothing more than inertia, I still have the ring. And that is the only reason I know that this really did happen.

© 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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Mother Goose (and Writing My Story) by Betsy

“Let’s see…. Mother goose. What can I possibly write about an old woman who flies through the air atop a goose,” I mused. “Or about the Mother Goose rhymes, for that matter.” Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean. I know there is a hidden political statement there, but, do I really want to research that?”

“Well, Mother Goose and I have one thing in common. We’re both mothers. Further research is required here. Besides, I want to write about writing my story. Maybe I can combine the two subjects,” I speculate.

Facts about the Canada Goose: The species mates for life. Well, we don’t have that in common. Although I am monogamous, and faithful to my mate.

Many Canada Geese use the same nest each year and also build their nests in the same spot as their parent’s nest. My nests have moved around about every 15 years of my life and I have never nested anywhere near my parents nest.

Enough with the comparisons already. The Canada Goose is a very interesting creature. I read on.

Most people are familiar with the Canada goose. However there is great variation among them. There are 7 subspecies of the Greater Canada Goose in North America ranging in weight from 3 to 24 pounds. These waterfowl live for 10-25 years.

Mother-to-be goose (and father-designate) find each other at 2-3 years of age usually. It seems they find each other strictly for the purpose of breeding that very same season. No honeymoon. They go right at it. If one dies, a new mate will likely replace the deceased before long. Otherwise Canada Geese mate for life.

The nest is constructed of grass materials and feathers from mother goose’s breast. The eggs once laid are incubated for 28 days and hatched all at the same time. After being hatched the goslings are led away from the nest and cared for by both mother and father goose. The goslings have the protection of both their parents for 10-12 weeks after which time they are able to fly.

Mother Goose spends most of the day foraging for food which consists of grasses, roots, and leaves. That makes us both grazers–another point in common. She sticks pretty well to a vegetarian diet including lawn grass. A walk through the park attests to the amount of time spent consuming their food. One must carefully place one’s foot when walking through heavily goose-populated areas.

We have all witnessed the familiar V formation of the flying flock of geese. Why the formation? The V formation makes it easier to fly and facilitates communication among the flock. They migrate from the northern hemisphere in the late fall when the ground begins to freeze. These birds can travel more than 1000 miles per day on their journey to the Southern U.S. or Mexico. This puts my mileage to shame if you will permit me another comparison. The furthest I can go using my own muscle power is 100 miles in 1 day. That’s on a bicycle which allows me the aid of wheels and a drive chain. Even going that far in a car on interstate highways would be unthinkable for me even with two or three alternating drivers for that matter.

Canada Goose populations are expanding in urban areas attesting to the adaptability of the species. Well, I have been known to adapt to new environments–but not without complaint. But I do suspect that mother and father goose complain quite often. At least they sure look like it when they are hissing and honking.

So these are a few basic facts about goose behavior and habits. As for combining this subject with writing my story…I think that project must wait for another day and another topic. It turns out Mother Goose and I have very little in common.

© 12 May 2012

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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Internal Misery by Beth Kahmann

Can’t cope so I dope,

Can’t stand taunts, jabs, injustices and lack of humanity.

Being ‘Gay’ I’m terrorized and teased mercilessly.

Can’t cope, so I dope and dream after taking lots of Dramamine warding off perpetrators inside my head.

I dream of ending it all.

If I do will that stop bullies, homophobes and the like?

Or will they still harass and call me a Dyke?

Perhaps they swim in their own internal misery.

From schoolyards, to back yards, to cemeteries, my life and death won’t even end in peace.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones-but words can never hurt me”

Yeah, tell that to the teen or Mom or brother that wants to end it all because year after agonizing year they were called Queer.

Denver, © January 2015

About the Author

Beth is an artist, educator, and is very passionate about poetry.

She owns Kahmann Sense Communications bethkahmann@yahoo.com

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Snow by Will Stanton

“Let it snow, let it snow!” Seems like years ago, long before climate change, we had a lot more snow in the winters here in Denver. That may just be a fignewton of my imagination, but warmer, drier winters seem more evident now.

I recall thirty years ago, I was saddled with the task of shoveling knee-deep snow off my sidewalks. I even had a friend stop by one Christmas Eve who ended being a house-guest for the next three days. We quickly became snowed in, and he could not get home.

Back in the early days, I bought a little two-stage snow-blower, only to find out that it had no chance of contending with deep snow and deeper, wind-blown snow-drifts. So I sold it and found a second-hand, tractor-tread snow blower. It was so big that the little lady who first purchased it could not wrestle it around the sidewalks. So she decided to sell it. I was happy to use “Big Foot” the first few years that I had it and even did the sidewalk of the retired teacher next door. Then as the years passed, I would prepare the snow-blower at the beginning of each winter and fill it with fresh gasoline. Then it sat there and sat there, waiting for the big snows which rarely if ever came. I ended up going through the messy effort of draining the unused gas each spring. “Big Foot” has been sitting abandoned in my garage for the last several years.

Living here in Denver, I can’t say I care for snow, having to shovel it and drive on it. I’m not like so many avid skiers who can’t wait to make the arduous drive up to the mountains just to ski the fresh powder. When I first arrived in Denver many years ago, I guess that I felt obligated to try out skiing the first couple of years. I had to pay more money than I cared to for rental skis, boots, polls, and gasoline. The long drive up and back through endless stop-and-go traffic meant limited time on the slopes. I certainly never have been one of the well-heeled who have condos up in the mountains and do not have to rush back all in one day. I let skiing go and limited my physical activities to sports that I could do right around home.

I see that, over the last several years, the northeast U.S. seems to have been overwhelmed with heavy snowfalls, taking out power to thousands and closing highways. Of course, some areas always have been prone to bitter winters, but it also appears now that climate change is increasing the ferocity of some storms. Not surprisingly, the mindless congressmen in charge of the science committees point to snowy winters as supposed evidence of no such thing as climate change, or “global warming,” as they prefer to call it.

Going back many decades to where I was growing up as a young child, I recall that we had some memorable snow-storms. One of the biggest was when I was five. I have an old photo of me standing on a cleared sidewalk with the snow on either side as high as my chest. Few cars ever drove by our house even during good weather, but it was a rare, brave soul who tried to drive through that heavy snow in winter.

One of my most pleasant memories was of my oldest brother Ted sledding on the empty, snowy street. Now when I say “sledding,” I really mean sledding. There was a wealthy family who owned a lot of land on a forested hill just north of us; and they had a long, steep drive that wound its way up the hill to their house. I recall one day seeing Ted make the long hike up the steep slope to the first bend in the road and then sled all the way down to the street below and past our house. With that much momentum, he continued on for some distance. Now that must have been a grand ride. I don’t know how many times he did this, for that was quite a long hike up the hill.

Our growing up with snow during Christmas, we naturally became habituated with the idea of there having to be snow on Christmas. “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.” That is all well and good, provided one has a home, heat, maybe a warm fire in the fireplace, and the heat stays on. The image of that cozy ambiance still is ingrained in me, although Denver’s Christmases usually are brown. If I had some logs, I’d put another log into the fireplace, if only I had a fireplace.

Now that I am discernibly superannuated and I don’t ski, I just don’t want to hear the song, “Let it snow, let it snow.” I never cheerfully hum that while trying to shovel my walks, often in the dark of early morning before the high-school scholars tramp it down to unremovalbe ice. And, I can’t imagine any terrified driver whistling that song as his car is sliding uncontrollably down-hill toward a busy intersection. That happened to me once. I was very lucky; there was a momentary lull in traffic at that time. I’ll reserve snowy scenes for the home-made Christmas-card images that I send to people.

© 11 December 2014

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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Lonely Places by Ricky

Deserted Islands

Sinai Desert

Gobi Desert

Death Valley

Rural Nevada

I-90 between Minnesota and Montana

Wyoming

West Texas

Occupied Life Rafts in the Pacific

Australian Outback

Antarctica

SW Arizona

Trapped under the rubble of a collapsed building

Buried Alive

The mind of an Alzheimer patient

Hospitals while an in-patient

Walking on the moon

Graveyards

Empty Theaters

Ancient Ruins

Your home after the death of a spouse or partner

Memories

Broken Hearts

Jail and prison cells

Working in unrewarding or unfulfilling jobs

And last but not least: Sitting in front of a PC at 2AM writing a list of lonely places.

© 11 August 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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A Few Words about Sex and Relationships by Phillip Hoyle

At times I am a thinker. So here is a summary of “I used to think…, but now I think…” although it really is “I used to do…, and then I thought…, and then I did a lot more, and then I thought some more, and now I think….”

As a child I was open to sex with my friends. I never had it with my siblings and was unaware of any of my friends having sex with their siblings. Nor was I aware that any friend or acquaintance was having sex with an adult. The play happened occasionally over several years, with a number of kids around my age.

When I was fourteen, an older man molested me as it is defined by law. I wasn’t upset. What he did felt good, but I was not interested to spend time with him and within a year my family moved to another town.

Then at age fifteen I had quite a lot of sex with a friend a year younger than I. With him, the sex came complete with all the pleasures afforded by increasing hormones—that double testosterone fix as it were—and some things the other guy had learned somewhere else. His family moved away the following summer, just before I turned sixteen. I didn’t have another boyfriend for years.

What did I think of all this? I wasn’t bothered by it and since I also had girlfriends, I reasoned it might be a sort of phase I was going through. I did not have sex with my girlfriends although we did dance and hug and kiss on occasion.

Upon graduation from high school I went to college and applied myself to my studies but found no girlfriend or boyfriend. As a sophomore I met and started dating the young woman who would become my wife. Unlike some other students in our church-related school, we were conventional in our expectation to wait until the wedding before having sex. At the same time I read books on the matter. I learned about hymens and pain and how men and women often have quite differing relationships with sex and differing expectations related to the interactions. I found helpful the ideas about how to have sex and how to sustain the loving relationship for years and years. I paid attention. I taught my wife what I had learned and we commenced our marriage with gently-approached, though vigorous, sex. We continued that exploration for twenty-eight years and the sex was an important feature of the way we communicated and loved one another.

At the same time during these years that were characterized in our nation by the sexual revolution, I evaluated ideas of sex and relationship. Not being very ceremonial, I came to think that if a man and woman get together sexually, they become married—at least in terms of the religious universe in which I lived and, of course, state statutes of common-law marriage. I was not at all concerned about premarital sex assuming it was just that. When one of my sisters and her boyfriend talked with me about their pregnancy, I was accepting and reassuring, a fact that surprised her ROTC boyfriend who was sure I’d beat him up. I laughed when he said it. He was the soldier and quite a bit bigger and stronger than I. I had no judgment against them for I was aware that I had been sexually active as a child and teen. In fact, co-habitation followed by marriage after pregnancy seemed to become the norm in American society around that time.

When at age thirty I fell in love with a man, I realized I had a few more things to consider. I had no idea of leaving my marriage and family. My only fear related to what the other man might think or desire. I would have loved having sex with him but he, too, was married, and I valued marriage. So that relationship didn’t go sexual for several years. By the time it did, I knew him well enough to hope he’d never want to leave his marriage. While I was somewhat crazy for him, I didn’t want his debt or his expectations regarding what he owed his offspring. By that time—in my mid-30s—I knew about men getting it on and sometimes living together in committed love relationships. (I had kept reading!) I knew about lesbian relationships also. I started wondering about even more complicated relationships.

The churches I worked in often had more conservative views than I. As clergy I conducted weddings—rituals with simple Hollywood-like vows—ones I found realistic given what I had learned over the years. Still I wasn’t interested in counseling couples and some years later felt relieved when I was out of the marriage business altogether. Perhaps that’s why I argue for the adequacy of civil union services for all kinds of marriage. For me it’s kind of like this: People who willingly make babies together must shoulder the responsibilities. But I know well that a union or marriage certificate has little correlation with folks’ behaviors or their ability to shoulder the burdens. I have become more European in my assumptions about marriage and extra marital affairs and have let go of all fairy tale assumptions about romance and royalty and marriage. No man’s house is his castle. No woman dolled up in a long dress adorned with flowers is Eve or a princes or a queen, and the man she is marrying is not prince charming however good looking. For me, the same sorts of things apply to all marital-type pairings, with or without children.

Oh—I remember—we live in a democracy. I’m happy to be here. I’m happy to see laws change toward more tolerance and equal rights for all citizens. I’m happy to define my own relationships. I’m happy to work out my relationships in ways that to me seem moral, helpful, and loving. That’s what I think now about sex and relationships.

Denver, © 2014

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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Artistic by Lewis

[To my
audience:  Please be forewarned that what
you are about to hear may be infused with more than a soupcon (süp- sän) of “artistic
license”.]

When
I was about eleven and on the cusp of discovering that there was something
about me that was likely to relegate me to the margins of society, I began to
explore the ways in which American popular culture might open up avenues of
expression to me that would help me to wrap my arms around who I was and, more
importantly, how I might fit in. 
It
was 1957 and there were circles of American society wherein people leaving the
movie theater or concert hall might be heard to say things like, “You may
have noticed that [take your pick] Liberace/Sal
Mineo/Anthony Perkins/Montgomery Clift is a bit on the ‘artistic’ side.”
As
people who say such things often were prone to doing so in soft voices, I
mistakenly heard them to say that the actor at issue was “a bit autistic”.  I thought it appalling that a loving god
would see fit to bestow two such strikes upon a child from the moment of their
birth but I counted my blessings in that I seemed to have been passed over for
the autism part and moved on.
Knowing
little about autism and anxious to avoid drawing attention to my own proclivities
when it comes to members of the male gender, I, thenceforth, associated being “autistic”
with anyone exhibiting a combination of three or more of the characteristics of
the classical homosexual persona.  That
is–as Wikipedia describes Franklin
Pangborn, surely one of the most “artistic actors” in Hollywood
history–“fussy…, polite, elegant, and highly energetic, often
officious, fastidious, somewhat nervous, prone to becoming flustered but
essentially upbeat, and with an immediately recognizable high-speed patter-type
speech pattern.”
I
thought I had stumbled upon a fool-proof guide as to how to behave so as not to
elicit any suspicion whatsoever that I might be “queer”.  I set about to find the movie personality who
embodied every antithetical quality so I could emulate him.  He had to be stoic, insensitive, blunt,
laid-back, modest (even falsely so), unflappable but downbeat, slow-spoken and
have nerves of steel.  In a matter of seconds,
it came to me–Rock Hudson.  We all know
how that turned out.
© 8 September 2014 

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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Pets by Gillian

My mother was
a great one for pets. She had pet peeves, pet grievances, pet projects, pet
phrases, and, being a school teacher, even teacher’s pets! She herself used
these expressions.
“Oh, you know
that’s one of my pet peeves,” she’d say as a hand projected from a
passing car to deposit unsightly fish-and-chip wrapping in the flowering
hedgerow. Split infinitives was another. Star Trek was after her time, but I
cannot hear that phrase, to boldly go, without imagining how she would
have given a sharp intake of breath, shaken her head sadly, and told the TV,
admonishingly, “It’s either boldly to go, or to go boldly,
NOT to boldly go!”  Split
infinitives, she always stated, set her teeth on edge. Fortunately for her,
being a teacher, fingernails on the blackboard did not!
I, also, have
pet peeves; people who, chatting on their cellphones, crash their grocery carts
into my ankles. Or almost crash their car into my car. Or shout into their
cellphones at the table next to mine in a restaurant, or in line at the
supermarket. Or those who, speaking of the supermarket line, react in
astonishment when the clerk implies that they need actually to pay (see, no
split infinitive!) for their groceries, and begin an endless hunt, in a
bottomless purse, for their checkbook.
Mom’s pet
grievances, and they were many, were all sub-titles. They related, mostly
directly, occasionally indirectly, to the the Grand Category of Grievances: my
father. What he had ever done to deserve this, I never could ascertain; but I
have written about this before so will not repeat myself. Suffice it to say
that I loved my dad, and never truly understood Mom’s animosity.
When I say I
loved him, I don’t mean that he was my dad so of course I loved him in spite of
all his faults and wrong-doings. I mean that I loved him because of who he was,
not despite it.
I have my own
grievances, but most of mine, or so I like to think, are general rather than
personal.  “A feeling of resentment
over something believed to be wrong or unfair,” says the online
dictionary.  Given that definition, yes,
I grieve every war and every youth sacrificed to it. I grieve every starving
person with no food to eat, and every thirsty person with no water to drink. I
grieve man’s inhumanity to man, but then you’ve heard all that before, too. In
the last couple of years or so I find myself forced to grieve for young black
people killed, no, let’s use the right word here, murdered, for no
reason other than the color of their skin, by angry bigoted white men.
My mother’s
pet projects, in the sense of those which go on, year after year, were writing,
both poetry and prose, and pressing flowers. I do my best with writing, and
truly love doing it, but the pressed flowers somehow passed me by. I do love to
photograph them, though, so perhaps that’s some kind of higher-tech equivalent.
My latest pet project is organizing my photos into a series of theme books.
And so to pet
phrases!
Do as you
would be done by. If the whole world lives by
those few words, what a wonderful world it would be!
If you can’t
say something nice, don’t say anything at all. We, as a society, definitely have abandoned that one!
Oh dear! What
will people think? Mom, a product of an age when
appearances greatly mattered, said that quite frequently to both me and my dad,
neither of us great respecters of neighbors’ judgments.  
This one was
somewhat at odds with another pet phrase of Mom’s.
“Just be
comfortable,” she’d respond, in any discussion of what to wear, but then
proceed to “what will people think?” when I arrived in slacks or my
dad without a tie. Mom was not without her inconsistencies, but we learned
easily enough how to deal with them and my mother was, on the whole,
considerate, sweet, and kind. As with my dad, I loved her very much, simply for
who she was.
My mother had,
quite literally, generations of teacher’s pets. She began teaching in the local
two-room school in 1928 and retired in the early 1970’s, so, except for few
years out in the 40’s, she taught in the same room for about forty years. At
the end she was teaching some whose grandparents she had taught.  
“Oh that
little Johnny Batchett!” she’d exclaim. She never denied having favorites
but she would never have treated them as the classic teachers’ pets. She would
have taken great care never to show any hint of favoritism.
“He’s got
that same little cheeky smile as his granddad! He’s got his mother’s dimples
though. The girls are going to be round him like bees around the honey! Of
course, his dad was just the same. All ‘love them and leave them’ young Tom
was, till those dimples hooked him fair and square ….. ” and off she’d
go.
” ……
but that Yvonne Atkins! What a little madam! Still, what can you expect? Her
mum and dad, both such discipline problems at that age. I’ll never forget the
time …….”  My dad would give me
his covert wink, and we’d settle down to listen, or at least pretend we were.
Recalling
Mom’s pet thises and thats reminds me, once again, how the world has changed
over the course of my life. Not too many people these days are taught by the
same person who taught their grandparents, or even their parents. Or even, come
to that, an older sibling.
Most of us
care little what anyone thinks of the way we look, or often even the way we
act.  Those old admonitions such as the
Golden Rule, once painstakingly embroidered and hung on the wall, have more or
less disappeared; I’m quite sure they aren’t about to go viral any time soon.
I’m not suggesting we abided by such things in our day, but at least we were
aware of the concept; perhaps we tried.
Yes, I am
being an old curmudgeon. My own pet peeves and grievances grow apace.  Well why not? There is much of this Brave New
World I do not like.  But there would, I
suspect, be more to dislike, knowing what I now know, if I returned to that
rose-colored past, than there is in the reality of the present. Why would I
want to return to a world where homosexuality was illegal? A woman having a
baby was forced to quit her job, and for this reason could not get a loan to
buy a house or car in her own name, no matter how well paid she was. And even
after the birth control pill gave women much better control over their own
reproductive rights, it was illegal to provide [or] prescribe them for an
unmarried woman.  No. I really want np
part of it.
As for the
future, who knows?
As Jay Asher
says, in his novel Thirteen Reasons Why –
“You can’t stop the future
You can’t rewind the past
The only way to learn the secret
… is to press play.”
So as I’m not
yet quite ready to press the stop button, and certainly not the eject, I guess
I’d better do just that!
© 18 August 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.
Posted on

Camping by Will Stanton

I am one of those fortunate
people who grew up in an era that was not overwhelmed, as we appear to be
now-days, with digital technology.  We
found ways of entertaining ourselves and choosing enjoyable activities that
were more natural.  Camping was one of
those.
My mother and father thought
that camping was a good way to spend summer vacations.  Part of that stemmed from the fact that we
did not have much money and were not well-healed enough to take world cruises,
go to luxury resorts, or stay in fancy hotels. 
My father was able to pick up some army-surplus camping supplies, all of
it rather primitive by today’s camping standards.  He bought a heavy-canvas tent, big enough to
stand up in and to hold the five of us. 
He bought five army cots made of heavy oak supports and canvas.  We had a gas Coleman lantern that, when lit,
hissed and provided us with plenty  of
light.  We had a plywood icebox that he
made, lined with Celotex for insulation.
So for several summers, we
traveled in our station wagon to various states in central, north, and eastern
U.S., setting up camp in preselected campsites. 
Undoubtedly, these travels sparked my love of nature that has lasted all
my life.
Unlike many other boys who
found enjoyable experiences camping through joining the Cub Scouts, Boys
Scouts, or (as portrayed in the movie “Moonlight Kingdom”) the Khaki Scouts, my
brief participation in the scouts included almost no camping trips.  I don’t recall whether our local troops just
did not offer that many trips, or if my mother just did not bother to sign me
up.  As a consequence, I missed out on
some scouting experiences, enjoyable or less so, that many other boys have had.
I do recall that one of the
older boys, seventeen-year-old Bruce, apparently was very proud of his
developing masculinity, which was expressed in his being the hairiest
individual I ever had seen, to that date, outside of a zoo.  Between his questionable personality, very
chunky build, rather common features, and a mat of black hair covering almost
the entirety of his body, I did not find him to be a particularly attractive
person.
Bruce was noted for two
exceptional habits while on camping trips. 
One was that he prided himself on carrying with him a battery-pack and
electric razor to mow each morning the inevitable black stubble on his
face.  The other habit, which to this day
I have not been able to explain, was that he liked to spend the night in his
sleeping bag nude.  Boys being boys,
neither of these facts went unobserved.  And
boys being who they are, they decided to play a practical joke on Bruce.  All they had to do was hook up his electric
razor to his battery-pack, slip it down into his sleeping back, turn it on, and
then shout, “Snake!  Snake!” 
Bruce, waking up to the
warning shouts, along with the buzz and vibration down in his sleeping bag,
naturally panicked.  Terrified, and
struggling to extricate himself from the sleeping bag, Bruce quickly wiggled
out of the bag, stood up, and without stopping to further assess the situation,
took off running into the woods.  It took
a while for the boys to coax Bruce back into the camp.  He was relieved but also irritated to find
that there never was a snake in his sleeping bag.  He was even more irritated with the new
Indian name that the boys assigned to him, “Running Bare.”
© 23
January 2014    
About the Author 
 I have had a life-long fascination with people
and their life stories.  I also realize
that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too
have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones.  Since I joined this Story Time group, I have
derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my
stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.
Posted on

Feeling Loved by Ricky

In
hindsight, I am sure my parents sort of loved me.  Early photographs clearly show me smiling, especially
on my birthdays, Halloweens, and Christmases. 
I did not feel loved during my frequent spankings for being
disobedient.  I am fairly sure that my
dad did not like spanking me but felt that he had to; the old “spare the rod
and spoil the child” philosophy.
It is
rather ironic how our brains tend to be very selective about which memories it
chooses to give us access.  For example,
I get glimpses or figments of some happy or pleasing moments, but not a lengthy
detailed viewing.  I know I was cared for
and nourished, except for those darned stewed tomatoes, and yet I have no
memories of being hugged or kissed.  I am
sure I got hugs and kisses or I would be a complete basket case by now; I just
don’t remember any.
My
maternal grandparents loved me but were not demonstrative in showing it with
hugs or kisses.  Instead my grandfather
pulled a trick on me by pre-filling my lunch drinking glass with yogurt-like
“liquid” accurately named “long milk”, as it was thick like honey or molasses
but lacked a decent flavor.  That he, my
“hero” surrogate father, would do such a thing really hurt my feelings and I
definitely did not feel loved at that point.
At the end
of my first summer with them on their farm in Minnesota (June thru August
1956), my mother called me on the phone and talked me into staying there for my
3rd grade school year.  I
didn’t know about the divorce proceedings yet, but I still did not feel loved
by her.  When she came out later that
year to attend her sister’s wedding, I thought I would be returning to
California with her.  It did not happen
and I felt unloved again.
When I did
not get to go home at the end of that school year and had to stay for the 4th
grade too, I began to wonder why can’t I go home but no one would tell me
anything truthful.  I was loved, but
didn’t feel loved.
When my
dad came to visit at Christmas in 1957, I finally was told the important part
of the truth and why I could not go home with him.  I know he wanted to take me home but was
constrained by the law.  Nonetheless,
when he left I began to feel that I was unlovable.  At the end of May 1958, my mother came to the
farm with my infant twin brother and sister and my new step-father to introduce
him and them to her parents and to take me back to California.  I still did not feel loved, but I was very
happy to go back to a new home.
While
living at Lake Tahoe, we had three different residences but all felt like some
kind of home.  The last place is the one
I refer to as “home” during conversations. 
It was while living in that particular house, I began to feel loved
again, but not by people.  Of course my
baby siblings grew to love me of a sort since I was practically their parent
until I left for college, but the love I am referring to came from our pet
female dog, Peewee.  She was a lap-dog,
with long shaggy fur; a mixed breed of ¾ Oriental Poodle and ¼ Pomeranian. 
Peewee’s
previous owner was a woman who was moving and could not take her pet to the new
location, so my mother brought the dog home. 
Being a small dog, she was shaking with fear when she arrived and ran
under the couch to keep away from me (13) and the little-ones (both 3) whom all
wanted to touch and hold her.  After the
twins went to bed, I was still lying on the floor with my hand under the front
of the couch, while watching the television. 
After a while, I felt the dog licking my fingers.  I slowly pulled my hand back and she followed
and then walked to my side and cuddled with me. 
At that moment, we bonded and from then on, I was her’s and she was
mine.  That dog loved me and I loved her
back.  We both felt loved for many years
until I left for college and then the military. 
I was stationed in Florida when I learned that she had passed away.  In spite of my traumatized emotions, I
grieved for the loss of my first love, the one who was always there and never
made demands.  Since then, I have always
had deep affection for my pets.
When I was
11, 12, 13, and 14, my paternal grandmother babysat a Downs Syndrome pre-teen
girl named, Jackie.  When my dad took me
over to visit my grandmother, I also got to meet Jackie who always remembered
me after our first meeting and who also greeted me with a huge smile and strong
hug.  That was the way she greeted every
one, with pure innocent happiness and radiant love.  I have often wondered if Jesus would welcome
me like that someday.
Eventually,
I met my soul-mate and we were married. 
I felt loved again.  With each
child we both felt an increase in love. 
Naturally, a child’s love for his parents fluctuates with the pangs of
growing-up, but eventually equilibrium is obtained and love makes its presence
known again, unless the parent or child has done something to destroy it along
the way.
After my
wife passed away, I thought love was gone from this life.  The love of my children is there but just is
not the same.  Since attending the SAGE
Telling Your Story group sessions, I am receiving the love of friends, both
close and casual when I am around them. 
I feel loved but not the kind that lasts.  This kind of love needs frequent refreshing
just as if we were all partners or married and living together.
To close
with a borrowed quote from two movies, The Boy with Green Hair and Moulin Rouge, I leave you with, “The greatest
thing you will ever learn is to love and be loved in return.”
© 21 October 2013
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 9-11-2001
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.