Tag: Betsy

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Leaving, by Betsy

My cycling adventure, an amazing trip across the country in 2005, has given me endless material for story time. Once again I call on my journal to remind me of the many places we found ourselves leaving and the experiences which followed the many “leavings” that took place. Leaving Dog Beach in San Diego, the tour’s place of origin, was by far the most exciting departure from anywhere that I can recall ever making. Reading from my journal: “Saturday, March 20: The first day we left from Dog Beach. We dipped our tires in the Pacific Ocean, rode out of San Diego and started up the coastal range. This was a 33 mile ride. It was a day of city traffic and then climbing. We climbed almost 2000 feet.” There are a couple of places where it was too steep for me to ride, so I had to walk, pushing my bike. This was the first of many such walks on this trip. Cycling clip-in shoes are not designed for walking. They have metal devises installed on the soles that clip into devises on the pedals. Once on the bike, shoes clipped to pedals, one is not stuck in this clipped-in position as a quick flick of the ankle releases you from the pedals. It turns out this is ever so handy when you come to a stop and have to put your foot on the ground.

Back to the journal: “Glenda, who is our oldest member—I thought I was the oldest—Glenda didn’t want anyone to know how old she was. She disclosed her secret to the Fox News people when they were interviewing us at the start of the trip on Dog Beach. Fox News is a bad choice when revealing something you don’t want anyone else to know. I guess she couldn’t resist the notoriety of being the most …whatever.” I remember how cold I was when we arrived at our first night’s stop—a place called Alpine, CA. Our accommodations provided a Jacuzzi which was most welcome. Another memorable departure on that cycling adventure happened a couple of weeks into the trip.

It was Sunday morning, April 3rd. We had been instructed the night before by our leader Susan as follows: “Now ladies, I know we are all tired having just completed a 90 mile ride today. But I want you to be alert enough to remember to turn your clocks back one hour as we switch to day light saving time at midnight. Now be sure to get up an hour early because we will lose an hour tomorrow. We have a long ride and i want everyone in before dark.” Yawning and stretching we all promised we would get with the correct time. We obediently turned our clocks back before going to sleep. Up an hour early in the morning and it’s pitch dark. Now breakfast is over and it’s time to saddle up and leave. We never leave in the dark. But we know we must because our leader told us we would lose an hour today so dark or not, we better get on the road. We LOSE an hour today. Let’s get going. Wait, a couple of the women have tires that went flat over night. That creates a serious delay for several of us. We need about 5 women to hold flashlights while four women fix the two flats. We’re finally leaving and it’s still dark.

It was about mid-morning coffee time, at the first SAG stop. After a few sips of the beloved beverage, it dawned on just about everyone at the same time: we actually gain an hour today. This is spring. Spring forward, right. We were supposed to turn our clocks forward an hour. We could have stayed in bed an extra hour. Where is leader Susan? I want to kill her. Moral of that story. Just because you are paying your leader to direct you, doesn’t mean you turn off your brain completely. We rode across 8 different states. That meant leaving California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi on our bicycles. I clearly remember celebrating our entry into a new state at the end of the day with drinks at dinner. Except for the state’s welcome sign on the road, leaving one state and entering another was more of the same: pedal, pedal, pedal. But it was exciting and satisfying to be able to mark our progress with a huge sign on the road as we rode out of Texas: “Welcome to Louisiana.” This was especially true after pedaling for nearly three weeks as we journeyed through the endless countryside. We thought Texas would never end. Texas was full of exciting encounters, however. First there was the border patrol outside of El Paso. We cyclist were not suspect, but Bo Peep our SAG wagon was stopped and searched. The search took a long time, too. That vehicle was full of supplies. Fortunately nothing suspicious. In Texas we encountered every kind of terrain and environmental condition known to man: mountain passes, magnificent wildflowers, dessert flat, wind, rain , heat, cold, cities, wide open roads with nothing in sight except fields and more road. The scenic terrain of the Texas Hill Country may not have been the longest or highest in elevation, but those hills were definitely the steepest. One thing that remained the same throughout the state of Texas was the rough surface of the roads. This I found to be very annoying and hard on my aging joints. “Chip-seal” they called it. I called it cheap road surface. For this one reason I was thrilled when we arrived at our last Texas stop. Tomorrow we would leave Texas. We were at our Super 8 Motel in a small town in East Texas having our usual evening map meeting to prepare for the next day’s ride. We were told by Susan to be alert when riding in Louisiana, the state we would enter tomorrow just after crossing the Sabine River. “ Louisiana has lots of dogs,” she warned—“loose dogs.

There are no laws requiring people to keep their dogs under control in Louisiana. They love to run out at you and nip at your ankles.” “Oh dear,” I thought. “I think maybe I’ll bargain for more rough road in preference to loose, angry dogs. “Just look them in the eye and firmly yell ‘NO.” was Susan’s advise. Our leader’s counsel did nothing to ease my anxiety at the time, but I found on the couple of occasions when the foreseen event actually took place, the firm ‘no’ worked.

Leaving Texas felt good that time. A few weeks later leaving the Florida panhandle and approaching the Atlantic coast felt different. It was bittersweet. We were all aware this adventure was coming to an end. At this point in Florida I was having trouble focusing on anything other than pushing my pedals. Again from my journal: “It hasn’t fully registered in my head the fact that we have just ridden across the country 3165 miles. I expect it will sink in at some point, or maybe not. It’s a bit overwhelming. No question about it, it was the trip of a lifetime and a most extraordinary experience and a most extraordinary group of people.” Over the 58 days we made 52 departures from locations across eight different states. On those early morning departures, I was never more motivated to leave a place and so totally focused on arriving at the next place. I’m glad I have the day to day journal of the trip. I’m also grateful for the occasional appropriate story time topic to push me to get out the journal and relive some of the magical moments.

© 7 November 2016

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Bumper Stickers, by Betsy

So, why do people put stickers on their bumpers? The reasons probably vary from person to person. In my opinion most do it for identity reasons. They want the rest of the world to know who they are. Rather than putting a sticker on their chest or bum they put it on their bumper. After all, signs are specifically made for car bumpers and are readily available for purchase or for making a donation or showing support.

Another reason I think some people sport bumper stickers is that they think it will help to bring about that which they are promoting For example, the election of a particular candidate, or a more peaceful society (War is Not the Answer, Life is Short, Pray Hard, Close Guantanamo, better gun control, etc. ) You name it, there is a bumper sticker for just about any cause. But again, I think a cause soon becomes a part of one’s identity. And if you have a bumper sticker promoting your cause, you better stick with it because it ain’t comin’ off any time soon

Traveling in the northwest many years ago I saw this one: an image of an erupting volcano inside a circle with a line through it. I wondered who put this out. Could there be a movement starting dedicated to stopping volcanoes from erupting? Another one I saw in our travels also on the west coast somewhere. This one is even better than the one that addresses the volcano problem: STOP PLATE TECTONICS. That one was hysterical. I assume the people driving those vehicles want to be funny. I don’t suppose they actually think they can stop……..hmmm, I wonder. No, surely they don’t think they can…………….?? Now wouldn’t that be the ultimate in arrogance. I think they just have a good sense of humor.

Personally, I don’t like bumper stickers because they are impossible to take off the bumper once you put it on. There are solvents that will take off the residual adhesive. The down side is they also remove the paint. So I think twice before sticking the thing on there. One day you feel strongly about a cause. The next day you change your mind about whatever you are promoting. Or let’s say you want to change your image. It’s very hard to get rid of the old labels be they in people’s minds and perceptions or on your bumper. I would like some of the adhesive that is used to stick on bumper stickers; that is, I would like to have a supply of it at home. It’s stronger and longer lasting than super glue.

I guess the lesson of the bumper sticker is: be sure who you want to be or at least who you want to appear to be before you take on a label.

© 5 Jan 2015

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

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My Happiest Day, by Betsy

First of all. What’s happy? Until I define what happy is for me, I cannot begin to address the question of what was my happiest day. So I click on the dictionary on my dock. Happy: feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. This is not much help. Feeling and Showing are two different things—entirely different. And pleasure and contentment are equally different from one another. So which is it? Never mind. I’ll tackle the question from another angle.

I suppose the day I was born may have actually been my happiest day because if I hadn’t been born, there would have been no happy days—zero, zilch. Contemplating this I realize that something was missing in order for my entrance into the world to make me happy; namely, awareness. One must be aware—conscious—of a situation in order to qualify it. Further, to qualify it in the superlative one must have other experiences, situations, with which to compare.

Another problem with defining my happiest day is that my memory is not good enough for me to remember my degree of happiness in some distant time of my life. Nevertheless, allow me to take a chronological journey beginning with birth in my quest to pick out, well, maybe a few of my happiest days.

At 9 hours of age I was extremely happy, probably desperately happy, to have a nipple stuck in my mouth. I was desperately hungry. No conscious awareness there, just survival instinct. So that doesn’t qualify.

Nine months old—same thing—food and milk. Enter the smiling face looking at me and the cuddling and love I am feeling from my parents. I must be very happy. Look at me I’m laughing.But again there is little or no understanding, so I cant really qualify my feelings.

Nine years old and I have definitely learned the difference between happy and not happy. There are lots of things that make me happy now. Alas, though, today 70 plus years later I cannot bring back the feeling. I just know I probably was happy sometimes. But happiest eludes me. Again it’s just a memory—a pleasant memory, but still a memory.

Twenty nine, thirty nine. Yes that’s it! The birth of my children. Certainly three of the happiest events of my life. Forty nine, acknowledging my true self and coming out of the closet. I don’t remember that being my happiest day. It was a difficult time. Happiness and resolution being the result. Approaching 79 my wedding day to the love of my life, but then we had already been together and happy for nearly 30 years. That day did also represent the triumph of a political movement of which we had been a part. Certainly qualifies as one of my happiest days. But again, THE happiest? No way to measure.

All these nines— all the way up to seventy nine, I still cannot honestly say “without a doubt I remember my happiest day.”

One of my favorite spiritual guides, Ekhart Tolle says the past is an illusion because it, that is the memory, is a creation of our mind. It is no longer happening—it is no longer a reality. The only reality is the NOW.

Aha! I think I’ve got it! This exercise in contemplating my happiest day has brought me to one conclusion: my happiest day is NOW, this moment in time. It’s quite clear to me really. Now is the only thing that is real and I am a part of it. I am here, alive, conscious and aware and participating in life. THIS is my happiest day.

© 31 October 2016

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

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What Gillian Did for Love, by Betsy

When I started thinking about this topic, all that came to mind were things that my spouse Gill had done for love. A big one being giving up her cat. When we first got together back in the 1980’s she had a cat named “Smokey.” I’ve always been allergic to cats. Being in their presence brings on sometimes serious breathing problems, like not being able to get enough air into my lungs. As time went on and I made more and more visits to her house in Lyons, I became increasingly sensitive to the cat allergen to which I was exposed. It was particularly bad in bed because the cat climbed a lot on the drapes which were hanging on the window at the head of the bed. Putting the cat out of the room did not help the situation—the dander left behind by the cat remains in the room. And in this case close to where I was breathing during the night.

Finally one night the situation became quite desperate and Gill had to get up in the middle of the night and drive to Longmont to get an inhaler for me so I could breath.

What I did for love during that time was to continue the weekend visits to Lyons and avoid suffocation by using an inhaler.

Later when we decided to live together, what she did for love was to say goodbye to Smokey and turn her over to a friend. The choice finally had to be made: Smoky the cat or Betsy the girl friend.

© 16 November 2015

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Will O’ the Wisp, by Betsy

Will o’ the wisp is a term I have never used—I have heard it, but never used it as I’ve never really in all honesty known what it means. I ponder. “Let’s see. What could it mean.” Maybe a wispy will, i.e., a wimpy will, or maybe, I’ m thinking, it just might be referring to fly-away wispy hair, you know, hair that has a will of its own.

Fortunately I have my trusty computer handy and I can go to wikipedia and look it up with no trouble at all and get an immediate answer to the question of the meaning of will o’ the wisp.

Then maybe I’ll have something to say about it. I’m not sure.

So I see that it refers to a ghostly, flickering light seen in bogs and swamps and marshes. It seems this ghostly light has an evil purpose; that is, to draw people from safe pathways.

When I think of swamps and bogs in relation to my life experiences, one thing comes immediately to mind. In 1950 when I was almost fifteen years old, my family was forced to make a major change in our living situation. We lived in New Jersey in a town called Mt Lakes, a rather idyllic place to live. Mt. Lakes had a small mountain and two lakes. I enjoyed a lake in my back yard and a woods in my front yard. I walked to school, played in my boat, rode my bike, skated on the frozen lake in the winter. Life was good in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. My parents were happy there, too.

One day because of changes in my father’s business we had to leave Mt. Lakes and start living in Louisiana. I knew nothing about Louisiana at the time, but when I learned I would be living there I sought as much information as I could about the new place that would be my home.

One of the first things I learned was that Louisiana is a swampy place. I discovered that bit of information first because my father explained that some of the trees he would be cutting for his lumber mill would come from the swamps. He would be harvesting cypress trees and cypress trees grow in swamps.

I was not happy about going to such a place. I don’t like dark, dank, watery places that harbor slimy creatures such as snakes and alligators. I am especially afraid of snakes, poisonous or not. Never mind, I said, I’m not going into any swamps. I’ll just have to stay on the high ground in the town where we would be living.

I felt, on the one hand, a bit of excitement about moving to a completely different place. But on the other hand, I did feel I was being drawn from the safe, predictable pathway I had been on for the first fourteen years of my life. I was not happy about leaving my friends, my school, my lake, my woods, and all the things around me I had grown to love. No ice skating in Louisiana. It’s hot there and buggy too.

It turns out that my life in Louisiana was not so different from my life in New Jersey. I had many wonderful friends, I liked my school, and I never had to go wading through the swamp. Instead I enjoyed spending time with my friends in boats on the many rivers in our area and doing the kinds of things high school kids do. I had a fairly normal existence in my last three years of high school in Louisiana. However, immediately after high school I went back up north to attend college. I definitely did not want to stay in that part of the world.

That ghostly light actually did eventually draw our family from its safe pathway. My family consisted of my mother, my father, my older brother and younger sister. After 5 years in Louisiana, my mother developed cancer and succumbed at the age of 47 after 2 years of suffering. My brother stayed in Louisiana, married a local woman and had 3 children before he, too, developed brain cancer and died at the age of 29 a few months before his fourth child was born.

It is said that Louisiana is in the “cancer belt.” Perhaps because of the toxins in the wind that blows east from the Texas oil refineries. The area where we lived is located between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. This area on the Mississippi River formerly known as the “petrochemical corridor” is also known as “Cancer Alley.” Louisiana has the 2nd highest cancer rate in the U.S. Our home was not on the river, but located close to cancer alley

Fortunately my father who stay in the area, survived into his 70’s. My sister left after high school to live in Alabama. She is still living.

It turns out that the term will o’ the wisp does have meaning for me. Not a very joyful meaning even though living in Louisiana was not unpleasant for me. The experience opened my eyes and greatly expanded my view of the world. I learned about a culture and a way of life and attitudes that were totally different from what I knew in my closed, protected, homogeneous community of Mt. Lakes. I was exposed to the real world in Louisiana. Leaving the safe pathway it turns out had an enlightening effect. Although I only lived there for three years before I went off to college, those years were formative years and very important years. I am not totally ungrateful for being lured to the swamp by that will o the wisp.

© 26 February 2018

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Bumper Stickers, by Betsy

So, why do people put stickers on their bumpers? The reasons probably vary from person to person. In my opinion most do it for identity reasons. They want the rest of the world to know who they are. Rather than putting a sticker on their chest or bum they put it on their bumper. After all, signs are specifically made for car bumpers and are readily available for purchase or for making a donation or showing support.

Another reason I think some people sport bumper stickers is that they think it will help to bring about that which they are promoting For example, the election of a particular candidate, or a more peaceful society (War is Not the Answer, Life is Short, Pray Hard, Close Guantanamo, better gun control, etc. ) You name it, there is a bumper sticker for just about any cause. But again, I think a cause soon becomes a part of one’s identity. And if you have a bumper sticker promoting your cause, you better stick with it because it ain’t comin’ off any time soon

Traveling in the northwest many years ago I saw this one: an image of an erupting volcano inside a circle with a line through it. I wondered who put this out. Could there be a movement starting dedicated to stopping volcanoes from erupting? Another one I saw in our travels also on the west coast somewhere. This one is even better than the one that addresses the volcano problem: STOP PLATE TECTONICS. That one was hysterical. I assume the people driving those vehicles want to be funny. I don’t suppose they actually think they can stop……..hmmm, I wonder. No, surely they don’t think they can…………….?? Now wouldn’t that be the ultimate in arrogance. I think they just have a good sense of humor.

Personally, I don’t like bumper stickers because they are impossible to take off the bumper once you put it on. There are solvents that will take off the residual adhesive. The down side is they also remove the paint. So I think twice before sticking the thing on there. One day you feel strongly about a cause. The next day you change your mind about whatever you are promoting. Or let’s say you want to change your image. It’s very hard to get rid of the old labels be they in people’s minds and perceptions or on your bumper. I would like some of the adhesive that is used to stick on bumper stickers; that is, I would like to have a supply of it at home. It’s stronger and longer lasting than super glue.

I guess the lesson of the bumper sticker is: be sure who you want to be or at least who you want to appear to be before you take on a label.

© 5 January 2015

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Leaving, by Betsy

My cycling adventure, an amazing trip across the country in 2005, has given me endless material for story time. Once again I call on my journal to remind me of the many places we found ourselves leaving and the experiences which followed the many “leavings” that took place. Leaving Dog Beach in San Diego, the tour’s place of origin, was by far the most exciting departure from anywhere that I can recall ever making. Reading from my journal: “Saturday, March 20: The first day we left from Dog Beach. We dipped our tires in the Pacific Ocean, rode out of San Diego and started up the coastal range. This was a 33 mile ride. It was a day of city traffic and then climbing. We climbed almost 2000 feet.” There are a couple of places where it was too steep for me to ride, so I had to walk, pushing my bike. This was the first of many such walks on this trip. Cycling clip-in shoes are not designed for walking. They have metal devises installed on the soles that clip into devises on the pedals. Once on the bike, shoes clipped to pedals, one is not stuck in this clipped-in position as a quick flick of the ankle releases you from the pedals. It turns out this is ever so handy when you come to a stop and have to put your foot on the ground.

Back to the journal: “Glenda, who is our oldest member—I thought I was the oldest—Glenda didn’t want anyone to know how old she was. She disclosed her secret to the Fox News people when they were interviewing us at the start of the trip on Dog Beach. Fox News is a bad choice when revealing something you don’t want anyone else to know. I guess she couldn’t resist the notoriety of being the most …whatever.” I remember how cold I was when we arrived at our first night’s stop—a place called Alpine, CA. Our accommodations provided a Jacuzzi which was most welcome. Another memorable departure on that cycling adventure happened a couple of weeks into the trip.

It was Sunday morning, April 3rd. We had been instructed the night before by our leader Susan as follows: “Now ladies, I know we are all tired having just completed a 90 mile ride today. But I want you to be alert enough to remember to turn your clocks back one hour as we switch to day light saving time at midnight. Now be sure to get up an hour early because we will lose an hour tomorrow. We have a long ride and i want everyone in before dark.” Yawning and stretching we all promised we would get with the correct time. We obediently turned our clocks back before going to sleep. Up an hour early in the morning and it’s pitch dark. Now breakfast is over and it’s time to saddle up and leave. We never leave in the dark. But we know we must because our leader told us we would lose an hour today so dark or not, we better get on the road. We LOSE an hour today. Let’s get going. Wait, a couple of the women have tires that went flat over night. That creates a serious delay for several of us. We need about 5 women to hold flashlights while four women fix the two flats. We’re finally leaving and it’s still dark.

It was about mid-morning coffee time, at the first SAG stop. After a few sips of the beloved beverage, it dawned on just about everyone at the same time: we actually gain an hour today. This is spring. Spring forward, right. We were supposed to turn our clocks forward an hour. We could have stayed in bed an extra hour. Where is leader Susan? I want to kill her. Moral of that story. Just because you are paying your leader to direct you, doesn’t mean you turn off your brain completely. We rode across 8 different states. That meant leaving California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi on our bicycles. I clearly remember celebrating our entry into a new state at the end of the day with drinks at dinner. Except for the state’s welcome sign on the road, leaving one state and entering another was more of the same: pedal, pedal, pedal. But it was exciting and satisfying to be able to mark our progress with a huge sign on the road as we rode out of Texas: “Welcome to Louisiana.” This was especially true after pedaling for nearly three weeks as we journeyed through the endless countryside. We thought Texas would never end. Texas was full of exciting encounters, however. First there was the border patrol outside of El Paso. We cyclist were not suspect, but Bo Peep our SAG wagon was stopped and searched. The search took a long time, too. That vehicle was full of supplies. Fortunately nothing suspicious. In Texas we encountered every kind of terrain and environmental condition known to man: mountain passes, magnificent wildflowers, dessert flat, wind, rain , heat, cold, cities, wide open roads with nothing in sight except fields and more road. The scenic terrain of the Texas Hill Country may not have been the longest or highest in elevation, but those hills were definitely the steepest. One thing that remained the same throughout the state of Texas was the rough surface of the roads. This I found to be very annoying and hard on my aging joints. “Chip-seal” they called it. I called it cheap road surface. For this one reason I was thrilled when we arrived at our last Texas stop. Tomorrow we would leave Texas. We were at our Super 8 Motel in a small town in East Texas having our usual evening map meeting to prepare for the next day’s ride. We were told by Susan to be alert when riding in Louisiana, the state we would enter tomorrow just after crossing the Sabine River. “ Louisiana has lots of dogs,” she warned—“loose dogs.

There are no laws requiring people to keep their dogs under control in Louisiana. They love to run out at you and nip at your ankles.” “Oh dear,” I thought. “I think maybe I’ll bargain for more rough road in preference to loose, angry dogs. “Just look them in the eye and firmly yell ‘NO.” was Susan’s advise. Our leader’s counsel did nothing to ease my anxiety at the time, but I found on the couple of occasions when the foreseen event actually took place, the firm ‘no’ worked.

Leaving Texas felt good that time. A few weeks later leaving the Florida panhandle and approaching the Atlantic coast felt different. It was bittersweet. We were all aware this adventure was coming to an end. At this point in Florida I was having trouble focusing on anything other than pushing my pedals. Again from my journal: “It hasn’t fully registered in my head the fact that we have just ridden across the country 3165 miles. I expect it will sink in at some point, or maybe not. It’s a bit overwhelming. No question about it, it was the trip of a lifetime and a most extraordinary experience and a most extraordinary group of people.” Over the 58 days we made 52 departures from locations across eight different states. On those early morning departures, I was never more motivated to leave a place and so totally focused on arriving at the next place. I’m glad I have the day to day journal of the trip. I’m also grateful for the occasional appropriate story time topic to push me to get out the journal and relive some of the magical moments.

© 7 November 2016

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Choice, by Betsy

“When did you decide to be homosexual?” A gay man was once asked that question in an interview on TV. His answer was perfect: “When did YOU decide to be heterosexual.” That says it all, doesn’t it? Did any LGB or T ever make the choice to be LGB or T. I don’t think so. That is not to say there are no choices involved. “When did you decide to come out,” might be the more appropriate question. But is coming out or not coming out even a viable choice, really. In our society today, I would say “no,” not if an LGBT person wants to live life to the fullest, then he/she must come out. But the choice must be made and that is sometimes easier said than done.

Every day is replete with decisions from the moment we wake up in the morning. Shall I get out of bed or not? Shall I have eggs or cereal for breakfast? Shall I wear this or that? Shall I go shopping? Shall I go to Sprouts or Whole Foods? Most of these choices I can make easily because I am familiar with what is required to carry them out and I can easily imagine their respective outcomes.

Here’s when I have trouble: Let’s say (theoretically) I have never been to New Mexico or Arizona and (theoretically) I know absolutely nothing about either place. We’re on a road trip. Gill says to me, “You choose where we go. New Mexico or Arizona? Which will it be? Tell me right now because there is a fork in the road up ahead and I have to know which one to take.”

I have trouble with that. Since I have no information about either place and know nothing about them, it is not a choice. It’s a guess—a “pick a name, throw a dart exercise at best.” So, “no information” renders good choice-making difficult or impossible. This is not to say there is anything wrong with guessing and taking a chance, but only in some situations.

Even in the case of coming out or not, again it’s a matter of having some information to base your choice on. When I first became aware of my sexual attractions, I did not choose to come out because I had no information about what was going on with my feelings. I didn’t even know there was a choice involved. I was convinced that those feelings would change as I matured. I was totally unaware of any other person having homosexual feelings. When those feelings didn’t change I was convinced there was something wrong with me and I needed to fix it. Now, thanks to the gay rights movement and the general availability and dissemination of information, we know better and we can honor our feelings rather than denying them.

Another problem with choice making: Have you ever been in the store looking for say toothpaste? Your favorite old stand-by kind is no longer available—at least you cannot recognize anything that looks like it on the shelf. You need to choose a new kind. How do you choose one out of 250 boxes of toothpaste and you do not want to spend your entire day comparing them? Again you are faced with guessing because there is no way you are going to get all the information about all of the different brands in a reasonable amount of time. Sometimes choices can be overwhelming. Guessing and taking a chance on toothpaste in this situation makes sense.

When I was teaching young children in school I learned it’s best to give them a choice but make it very simple. Do you want “this” or “that?” Choose between no more than two things. This way the little buggers feel empowered because they are choosing, but the outcome of their choosing will be appropriate and doable for the teacher.

Sometimes I wish choices would be kept simple for adults; namely, our electorate. Take the presidential election of 2000. The voters were given a choice of two major candidates: George Bush, Al Gore, and multiple third-party candidates, most notably Ralph Nader. Had we been given a simpler choice; i.e., George Bush or Al Gore, Mr. Gore would have been elected according to many analysts, and the world would be quite a different place today; certainly our country would be a different place today. One has to wonder if it was true that the republicans paid Nader to run that year. They knew it would split the democrat’s vote.

That was not the problem in the recent Brexit vote in Britain. A simple choice was presented: in or out of the European Union. The majority, though the vote was close, chose to leave the EU. Now, in retrospect, it seems a couple of million British voters feel they made the wrong choice. But here is a good example of the choice-making problem described above: not enough information. It seems clear now that the dust has settled that many who voted to leave the EU were persuaded by the fear mongers of the opposing side.

Sounds very much like our current presidential campaign. Mr. Trump is an entertainer and gets huge media attention. He’s different—not establishment. Many people have chosen to support him for this reason alone—literally this reason alone—ignoring his ideology and dangerous policies and beliefs. Guessing and taking a chance when choosing a president does not make sense to me.

So, for me, to create an opportunity to make a good choice requires having enough factual information, not lies, not propaganda, not spins, plus information from both sides. Unfortunately, in politics most people are not willing to listen equally to both sides. Or they have already made the emotional decision that one side is good or maybe just okay, but the other side is so bad that they cannot be believed no matter what. Often, it seems, it’s a question of which lies are most convincing. I love “fact checker” and I wish journalists would use it on the spot in interviews and debates.

In the case of making a choice, say, to avoid an accident while driving a car one cannot take the time to gather information and ponder it even for a minute. A choice is made to swerve to one side or the other, but that fits my concept of a reaction rather than a choice.

The next time I am faced with a choice I only hope I have some, not TOO much, but SOME good information, factual information, and some time to apply it. I do not want to react instantly, unless I have to, but I prefer to have enough time to think it through. In the case of a presidential election, I don’t mean years. I should think a couple of months would be enough before one is ready to cast a vote. In the case of coming out, well, I see choices to come out occurring everyday as an ongoing, lifetime process. But once the basic choice is made to open the closet door, the rest should fall into place.

© 5 July 2015

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Men and Women, by Betsy

Outside of the biologically assigned functions of copulation, child bearing and nurturing I don’t see that much INNATELY different between men and women. Most people would not agree with me on this. But I emphasize that I don’t believe there to be huge INHERENT differences. I believe most of the differences are superficial and acquired. Right from day one in our culture it is of the utmost importance to raise your child’s awareness of and flaunt his/her gender. Pink or blue, dolls or trucks, ribbons and bows or baseball cap, long hair or short, everyone knows the norm. Ways of highlighting, accentuating, detailing, and belaboring the differences between the sexes seems to be a preoccupation, if not an obsession, present in our culture. 

This can be easily observed in the traditional roles men and women assign themselves as well. For example, women do the cooking and serving of food; that is until it’s time to cook on the grill outside. Then the man takes over. Is that because women are not supposed to get their hands dirty? I’ve never been able to figure that out. I know men who wouldn’t be caught dead cooking meat in the oven in the kitchen, yet pride themselves on grilling a piece of meat or an entire family dinner on the patio. 
Men fix things, build things, do the driving. Most likely it is the man who does the outside work and possesses the tools. But in reality women can do these things too. Personally, I did not and do not fit well into the traditional roles for which men and women have volunteered. I have always been the one who possessed the tools even when I was married to Bill. I wonder. Is that because I have always been a lesbian; i.e. a deviant female—even when I didn’t know it? I don’t think so. I think it’s because I like tools and I like fixing things. 
My father taught me to use an axe and to use it effectively. Even though I was a puny child I learned well how to split a large log. Fortunately, or maybe by design, I married a man who did not need to play the traditional male roles all the time in order to secure his feeling of manhood. Often I would find myself outside chopping wood for the fire while he was in the kitchen cooking. He actually loved to cook—once in a while. I give him credit too for doing the clean up as well. On the other hand I know some women who do not want and will not allow their husbands or anyone else in “their” kitchen. So perhaps domain has a lot to do with the roles people take on along with personal preference; not just intrinsic gender differences. 
Sure, bearing and nurturing the children and caring for them naturally falls to the female. That means women are more likely to stay home while the men go off to work, to hunt, to cultivate the fields, to fight the wars, etc. 
However, in these modern times it is not unheard of for the care-taking roles to be reversed. There are many women who actually prefer working outside of the home. This I suppose applies mostly to professional women on a career path. At the same time there are many men who love staying home and raising the children. As a mother, I stayed home when the children were babies. I considered myself fortunate to be able to do this, but at the same time I envied my husband who was developing his life-long career of choice. Although it was I who stayed home, I was not the ideal adult to take care of young children. As much as I love my children, I often felt trapped in those early days, unable to get out of my house and out into the adult world. I never felt that I was cut out to be a child care-taker. 
Many women and many men are very good at caring for and educating young children and love to do it. Today men and women do this professionally while mothers and fathers spend their days working their careers. Career or no, today in most cases both parents are working out of necessity. In any case at day’s end working parents are eager and happy to see their little ones. Maybe this is a better way of raising children. 
Another notable but superficial difference between men and women is the clothes they wear. Myself? I’ve always preferred men’s clothes to women’s. They are far more practical and far, far more comfortable. Whose idea was it to put 3 inch spike heels on women’s shoes? Probably someone related to the people who invented foot binding in China. Fortunately we women today are spared from wearing the corsets, bustles, petticoats and other such torture apparel of the past. The spike-heeled shoes are still prevalent however. 
Men, on the other hand, have not totally escaped the inconvenient dictates of fashion. Spats, top hats, and stiff collars would never be appealing in the comfort department. For convenience, simplicity, and ease I’ve often thought going back to the toga might not be a bad idea. This would not go over well with the fashion industry which is thriving in our capitalist system. Now there are the Chinese. The Chinese dress comfortably and in a unisex fashion. But I don’t care to dress in a quilt, no thanks. 
Men definitely have the edge when it comes to physical strength. And it’s a good thing. I am constantly looking for a man to open the cap on my water bottle. Women have better endurance and pain tolerance it seems. So even though we’re not the same in that department, we balance out. 
I have a friend who transitioned from male to female in middle age. She tells me that when you are born male you get a pass that females don’t ever get. Now there’s food for thought and maybe a topic for later discussion. It seems to me, after considering this subject, that there ARE, in fact, some, but very few, INNATE differences between men and women. I would say most of the distinguishing characteristics are the ones people, cultures, and societies have created over the ages and are still constantly devising and fostering.

© 1 May 2017

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Leaving, by Betsy

My cycling adventure, an amazing trip across the country in 2005, has given me endless material for story time. Once again I call on my journal to remind me of the many places we found ourselves leaving and the experiences which followed the many “leavings” that took place. Leaving Dog Beach in San Diego, the tour’s place of origin, was by far the most exciting departure from anywhere that I can recall ever making. Reading from my journal: “Saturday, March 20: The first day we left from Dog Beach. We dipped our tires in the Pacific Ocean, rode out of San Diego and started up the coastal range. This was a 33 mile ride. It was a day of city traffic and then climbing. We climbed almost 2000 feet.” There are a couple of places where it was too steep for me to ride, so I had to walk, pushing my bike. This was the first of many such walks on this trip. Cycling clip-in shoes are not designed for walking. They have metal devices installed on the soles that clip into devises on the pedals. Once on the bike, shoes clipped to pedals, one is not stuck in this clipped-in position as a quick flick of the ankle releases you from the pedals. It turns out this is ever so handy when you come to a stop and have to put your foot on the ground.

Back to the journal: “Glenda, who is our oldest member—I thought I was the oldest—Glenda didn’t want anyone to know how old she was. She disclosed her secret to the Fox News people when they were interviewing us at the start of the trip on Dog Beach. Fox News is a bad choice when revealing something you don’t want anyone else to know. I guess she couldn’t resist the notoriety of being the most …whatever.” I remember how cold I was when we arrived at our first night’s stop—a place called Alpine, CA. Our accommodations provided a Jacuzzi which was most welcome. Another memorable departure on that cycling adventure happened a couple of weeks into the trip.

It was Sunday morning, April 3rd. We had been instructed the night before by our leader Susan as follows: “Now ladies, I know we are all tired having just completed a 90 mile ride today. But I want you to be alert enough to remember to turn your clocks back one hour as we switch to day light saving time at midnight. Now be sure to get up an hour early because we will lose an hour tomorrow. We have a long ride and i want everyone in before dark.” Yawning and stretching we all promised we would get with the correct time. We obediently turned our clocks back before going to sleep. Up an hour early in the morning and it’s pitch dark. Now breakfast is over and it’s time to saddle up and leave. We never leave in the dark. But we know we must because our leader told us we would lose an hour today so dark or not, we better get on the road. We LOSE an hour today. Let’s get going. Wait, a couple of the women have tires that went flat over night. That creates a serious delay for several of us. We need about 5 women to hold flashlights while four women fix the two flats. We’re finally leaving and it’s still dark.

It was about mid-morning coffee time, at the first SAG stop. After a few sips of the beloved beverage, it dawned on just about everyone at the same time: we actually gain an hour today. This is spring. Spring forward, right. We were supposed to turn our clocks forward an hour. We could have stayed in bed an extra hour. Where is leader Susan? I want to kill her. Moral of that story. Just because you are paying your leader to direct you, doesn’t mean you turn off your brain completely. We rode across 8 different states. That meant leaving California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi on our bicycles. I clearly remember celebrating our entry into a new state at the end of the day with drinks at dinner. Except for the state’s welcome sign on the road, leaving one state and entering another was more of the same: pedal, pedal, pedal. But it was exciting and satisfying to be able to mark our progress with a huge sign on the road as we rode out of Texas: “Welcome to Louisiana.” This was especially true after pedaling for nearly three weeks as we journeyed through the endless countryside. We thought Texas would never end. Texas was full of exciting encounters, however. First there was the border patrol outside of El Paso. We cyclist were not suspect, but Bo Peep our SAG wagon was stopped and searched. The search took a long time, too. That vehicle was full of supplies. Fortunately nothing suspicious. In Texas we encountered every kind of terrain and environmental condition known to man: mountain passes, magnificent wildflowers, dessert flat, wind, rain , heat, cold, cities, wide open roads with nothing in sight except fields and more road. The scenic terrain of the Texas Hill Country may not have been the longest or highest in elevation, but those hills were definitely the steepest. One thing that remained the same throughout the state of Texas was the rough surface of the roads. This I found to be very annoying and hard on my aging joints. “Chip-seal” they called it. I called it cheap road surface. For this one reason I was thrilled when we arrived at our last Texas stop. Tomorrow we would leave Texas. We were at our Super 8 Motel in a small town in East Texas having our usual evening map meeting to prepare for the next day’s ride. We were told by Susan to be alert when riding in Louisiana, the state we would enter tomorrow just after crossing the Sabine River. “ Louisiana has lots of dogs,” she warned—“loose dogs.

There are no laws requiring people to keep their dogs under control in Louisiana. They love to run out at you and nip at your ankles.” “Oh dear,” I thought. “I think maybe I’ll bargain for more rough road in preference to loose, angry dogs. “Just look them in the eye and firmly yell ‘NO.” was Susan’s advise. Our leader’s counsel did nothing to ease my anxiety at the time, but I found on the couple of occasions when the foreseen event actually took place, the firm ‘no’ worked.

Leaving Texas felt good that time. A few weeks later leaving the Florida panhandle and approaching the Atlantic coast felt different. It was bittersweet. We were all aware this adventure was coming to an end. At this point in Florida I was having trouble focusing on anything other than pushing my pedals. Again from my journal: “It hasn’t fully registered in my head the fact that we have just ridden across the country 3165 miles. I expect it will sink in at some point, or maybe not. It’s a bit overwhelming. No question about it, it was the trip of a lifetime and a most extraordinary experience and a most extraordinary group of people.” Over the 58 days we made 52 departures from locations across eight different states. On those early morning departures, I was never more motivated to leave a place and so totally focused on arriving at the next place. I’m glad I have the day to day journal of the trip. I’m also grateful for the occasional appropriate story time topic to push me to get out the journal and relive some of the magical moments.

© 7 November 2016

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT
community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians
Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired
from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major
activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a
volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading,
writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage.
She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren.
Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her
life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.