Tag: college

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Practical Joke, by Phillip Hoyle

Recalling clearly my eldest sister’s evaluation of the girls in her dorm five years before, [“They’re all so immature,” she said,] I wondered what I’d find in the boys dorm at the same small church-related college in north central Kansas five years later. Would there be a lot of horseplay, silliness, competition? Would the talk be rough, derisive, pious? I was pretty excited by the prospect of living around so many other guys because I had no brothers. Would I find a brother there? If so, would I like it? Who would I room with? Questions. What would be the answers? I already knew a little about the small burdens in that dorm, of needing to keep the room clean in order to pass periodic inspections, to fulfill duties of dust mopping hallways, straightening lounges, or cleaning shower rooms. Would I enjoy bull sessions?

I trudged up the steps of the rather new dorm toting my bags and boxes, depositing them in my room. Then in came my roommate—Roy his name—from a small southwest Kansas town out in the Great Plains where one can drive for a hundred miles without seeing trees or hills, where the wind blew without stop, where he attended a school with one hundred students including elementary and high school. I was lucky for, like me, Roy was studious, a seriously mature student. That helped both of us to get in good shape academically. And he was nice this slender, strong, black haired boy with a resonant voice and good manners. And he was clean.

I came to school with a stereo, a small LP collection, artwork to hang on the dorm room wall, and a two-drawer file cabinet. He came with some books, a basketball, running shoes, and a car. I came with years of musical experience; he with years of playing high school sports. We had both worked regular jobs. We shared our room, shared respect, and shared some classes for we were both ministerial students. We got along well.

Roy was athletic. He’d been the all-around great student in his graduating class: going out for all the sports, singing in the choir, dating the girls, even entering the state speech and debate tournament where he presented an interpretation of T. S. Elliot’s “The Hollow Men” for which he was awarded recognition. My eighteen-year-old mind didn’t grasp that serious poem; I wonder if his did. Some nights when Roy and I were studying in the dorm, he at his desk beneath the window, I in the middle of the room, I’d notice the floor vibrating. The first time I looked up for an explanation, I found Roy unconsciously bouncing his legs, setting the room shaking. This nervous habit may have been related to his fast speech, his hand movements when making some point, his fast metabolism that kept him slender.

There were some shenanigans in the dorm; what else would one expect from a group of undergraduates thrown together in close proximity with dorm hours that gathered us in at 10:00 pm. There was the din that finally quieted around 11:30. There were wrestling matches organized at odd hours. In general, we lived surrounded by other guys about our age, nice guys at that.

I noticed that most afternoons at the same hour Roy would return to the room following one of his classes. That particular afternoon I was reading at my desk when I got the idea, surely inspired by a current scary movie or simply by remembering life at home where one of us kids would scare another. I wondered if I’d really pull the practical joke becoming as immature as some of my dorm mates. When Roy was due to return, I turned off the light, crawled under his bed, and waited. It seemed a long wait, but finally the door opened. Roy walked over to put his books on his desk, then opened his closet door. All I could see were his feet. I was trying to figure out how most effectively to scare him: scream, grab, jump? Waiting I decided simply to reach out and clasp his ankles. Finally he took a step toward the bed and turned around into the perfect position with his back turned. I reached out, clasped his ankles and said nothing.

He said something, probably not anything he’d say from the pulpit, and screaming jumped. I suppressed my laughter and crawled from my hiding place. That was it. Fortunately Roy didn’t faint, and the practical joke did not end our friendship. It probably didn’t strengthen it though. We lived together two years more before the summer we both married our girlfriends. In fact, I gave my girlfriend an engagement ring in the backseat of his car while we were on a double date. My best guess? He forgave me.

© 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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When I Decided by Gillian

Well, y’know what? If I’m
perfectly honest with myself, (if that is even a possibility for me or for
anyone, but I do my best,) I fear that there are few, if any statements, at
least with reference to my earlier years, that I could make beginning with those
words. At least if I did, they would all end up like this; “When I decided ….
whatever …. I didn’t
really decide at all but just drifted along due to inertia.  Or, was swept away by emotion.  Or, Let someone else decide for me.”
Really! And this came as a surprise to me! I
always thought I made decisions, but looking back I’m not so sure. Much of the time they certainly
did not add up to what I truly consider to be active decision-making; weighing
the odds, listing the choices, analyzing the figures. At best they were passive
decisions, if decisions at all. In my own defense I must say that I never
simply tossed a coin, but maybe even that would have been more pro-active. At
least the coin toss acknowledges that there is in fact a decision to be made. With
me it was often as if I spaced out the necessary decision completely, and, as
if sleepwalking suddenly woke up in a new situation. And to top off this sad
tale of inadequate thinking, it appears to me that sometimes when I did
actually decide something; it was for the wrong reasons. I have been mighty
lucky, then, that most changes I have drifted or been dragged into, have been
very positive.
Take, for example, my decision to go to
college. A good decision made, admittedly subliminally, in order to fix this
queerness I did not even acknowledge having. The men there would be different
from the farm boys at home. I would fall madly in love and live happily forever
after without this unidentified thing eating away at me. A great
decision, my college days were among the happiest in my life, but made for
completely the wrong reason. I hadn’t
been there a week before I fell madly in love with a woman in my class.
After college I fell into deep infatuation
with another woman, who one day casually tossed out the suggestion that we go
to the United States for a year. “OK,” I shrugged, and that was the extent of my
decision-making. Had she suggested an excursion to the South Pole I would have
responded in the same way. Talk about decisions for the wrong reasons! And
letting someone else make them for you.
My “decision” to come to Denver was mighty
casual, as well. I had trailed my ineffectual self around the U.S. in my
inamorata’s
wake, ending up in Houston where she married a very rich and mighty cute Texan,
which put an end to me as her shadow. I might as well start saving the money to
return to England, I thought, gloomily. The new unwanted man in my life had a
friends in Denver and said I should see Colorado before leaving the U.S.
“O.K.”
Another shrug decision. “Why not?”
I cannot even remember really deciding
to go to work for IBM, where I remained for 30 mostly very happy years. I
was working at Shwayder Brothers, later to become Samsonite, when the guy
working next to me said that if I wanted some quick bucks to get myself home, I
should apply at IBM, which at that time was rapidly filling it’s new plant in Boulder with just about anyone
walking in off the street. What an opportunity. It’s difficult in this day and age even to
imagine such a thing, never mind remember the actuality of it. But I don’t recall finding the prospect exciting at all.
“Yeah, O.K.” I responded, “Thanks. Why not”
I never did return to England
permanently, but again I have little recollection of actually making a
conscious decision to stay in Colorado, for all that I recognized I had found
God’s country. It was more a case of
drifting: allowing nothing to happen. In the absence of decisions, the status
quo remains.
My marriage was most definitely a
product of non-decision. (Which is, by the way, nothing like indecision,
which implies at least some attempt to make a decision.) I simply
drifted effortlessly into the vacuum created by my future husband’s needs.
As for coming out, to myself, that
is, there was no decision involved at all. I was picked up by the cowcatcher of
a runaway train and away I went. I couldn’t stop it and I couldn’t
get off.
When that train arrived and dumped
me firmly on the ground at it’s
destination, I of course had to leave my marriage. And it was as a result of a
very conscious decision that I left. Not long after that, I came out to
everyone else in my life; another conscious decision. When I asked Betsy if she
would consider actually, really, legally, marrying me last year, that again was
a serious decision.
You see, before I came out at least
to myself, in my early 40’s,
I wasn’t myself. I was an actor plugging
along on the stage of life, playing me. But I was not me. At some
deeply-buried intuitional level, I always knew this. So what did I care what
that person playing me did; where she went or how she lived? Why bother making
decisions about what moves this person, in some ways almost a stranger to me,
makes?
Then I came out and I was me. The
real me. The actor was gone. From then on, of course it mattered what happened
to me. ME. MYSELF. The original. The one and only. You talk about being born
again! Suddenly, in middle age, the real me was born. And I am important to me.
I care for me. I make decisions very carefully for me. I most emphatically do
care what I do and where I go and how I live. Finally and forever, I am me.
“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one
alive who is Youer than You.”
―
Dr. Seuss
© 15 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.
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The Gayest Person I Have Ever Known by Will Stanton

I know the world is full of
gay people (using the currently popular definition of the term), and they dress
and behave in many different ways.  If,
however, the person who chose this topic was thinking of the stereotypical gay
guy with distinctive apparel or mannerisms who often draws attention to
himself, I really have not hung around very many gays like that.  If I use that frame of reference, however,
then I would have to think of young Peter whom I met in college.
Peter did, in fact, draw
attention to himself; but he seemed to be able to do it in a way that
fascinated people, never repelled them. 
I suppose that he had the advantage of being remarkably good looking, as
well as intelligent and charismatic. 
I  observed  people’s body-language that supported this
fact.  Sometimes, I’d see straight guys
encounter a gay guy and then immediately draw away in distaste; whereas, with
Peter, they involuntarily would lean forward, eyes wide-open, fascinated.  Other gays on campus did not fare so well as
he did.  I know of at least one gay who
was beaten up, but even the homophobes just stared at Peter, and that is no
exaggeration.  Straight guys seemed to be
far too taken with Peter to ever consider being unkind to him.
Peter’s heritage was an
unlikely pairing of Polish and Sicilian ancestry.  He had the fine, classic facial features of a
Polish aristocrat, and I could imagine that his mother resembled Tadzio’s
mother in the film “Death in Venice.”  
He also flaunted a mane of golden locks, much like Tadzio’s.  His skin was a smooth, honey-tan.  Apparently, the only obvious inheritance from
his Sicilian father was the ability to tan without burning.
Peter obviously was very
aware of his good looks and their effect upon people.  He enjoyed being noticed.  He did confide in me, however, one concern
about his physical self.  His body appeared
to be rather soft and smooth, even slightly androgynous; and he wondered if he
innately was less masculine than most college-age guys.
Peter chose clothes that
straight guys would be embarrassed to wear. 
Between Peter’s physical appearance, his cute clothes, and his confident
way of talking and walking, he never failed to draw attention.
Peter had a large group of
gay friends, plus an endless string of guys persistently trying to get Peter
into bed, and a series of trailing hangers-on that people unkindly referred to
as “fag-hags.”  It was nothing to see
Peter cheerfully making his way somewhere, trailed by several enamored
acquaintances, much like moths to a flame.
Peter was an unabashed
flirt. He knew when people were staring at him. 
If he was in a teasing mood, he could embarrass his admirers by
sensuously displaying himself. He might smile at them and not leave until the
observers turned red with embarrassment. 
 
From what Peter told me, I
think that he enjoyed flirting with straight guys.  He once answered an ad to share expenses with
two straight guys in a van going to Florida for spring break. When they drove
up to Peter’s house, he appeared wearing tiny, baby-blue shorts and a little
pink sweater.  And, when he came
flouncing down the front steps to the van, his gay house-mate called out, “Have
a good time, and don’t get any nice boys into trouble!”  The two guys’ jaws dropped.  Apparently, the straight guys overcame their
initial surprise, for by the time they pulled over into a rest stop for the
night, Peter ended up being, as he later described it, “the meat in the
sandwich.”  Once Peter arrived in Florida,
he donned a diaphanous caftan, strutted upon the beach, and immediately found
housing and entertainment during his stay because he was picked up by a member
of one of America’s most wealthy and prominent families.  I have chosen not to mention the name.  Then he had the ride home with the two
straight guys to enjoy.
No one could mistake Peter
as being anything other than gay, but he had no interest in drag.  Some of his friends; however, thought that he
was too pretty not to try it, at least on one occasion.  They decided to dress Peter up for a big
party that would have lots of straight guys there with their dates.  At first, he resisted, but eventually he
agreed to do it.  As it turned out, his
appearance was so stunning that a lot of the guys abandoned their dates, went
over to Peter, and were trying to chat him up. Their abandoned dates were
furious. Peter was so convincing that they never discovered that he was a guy
in drag.  He could be flamboyant, but he did
not care for drag. He never did that again.
On a few occasions, I paled
around with Peter, but we never did anything particularly gay or
titillating.  We took a hike around the
state park, went to see the film “Death in Venice” together, and sometimes just
hung out talking.  Even though I admired
his good looks, I never asked to go to bed with Peter.  I liked him just for who he was.  He wondered why I had not asked.  I replied that, apparently, everyone else
continually asked him, and my asking him simply would place my friendship on
their same level.  My friendship could be
misinterpreted, implying that having sex was all that I really was interested
in.  That impressed him, for when he
graduated and left college, he gave me some gifts including three photos of
himself.  The color one is included with
this story.  I have one very large,
glass-framed composite-portrait in silver that was part of his final
commercial-art portfolio.  He wrote on
the back of the picture, “Love ya always, Peter.”
The last time that I talked
with Peter, he expressed, for the first time that I observed, some loss of
confidence.  Here he had graduated and
was going out into the real world.  He
was afraid of how people would treat him, his being so obviously gay.  He imagined that he might have to limit
himself to living on the East Coast or West Coast where there might be a
greater percentage of tolerant people.  I
hope that he chose well.
I often have wondered what
became of Peter.  Out of curiosity, I did
a couple of searches on the web.  All
that I found were listings for several people with the same name, but none
appeared to be “The Peter.”  Perhaps it
is it is just as well that I do not have a current photo of him.  We all have aged, and even he was not
immortal.  I’ll just remember him as he
was, the golden, cheerful, charismatic Peter. 
And just maybe, he might discover our blog and read this story.                                     
© 04 April 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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Do I Have Your Dutronic Veebleveetzer Transmogrifier? by Will Stanton

I hope that whatever idiosyncrasies I may have are not off-putting and that, perhaps, they even may be at least mildly charming. Throughout all the years of my life, I do not recall ever having met anyone who was not at least somewhat idiosyncratic. Some people were far more than that; some were downright strange. I think some of them really should have had help.

When I was in college (when was that, 1902?), I was living in a dorm my freshman year. Just in that one dorm, there sure were a lot of peculiar people.

The strangest one of all was the poor fellow who thought that he had traveled several times to other planets around the vast universe. I do not recall from his lecture in the student lounge exactly how he managed interstellar travel and certainly not just by himself. Perhaps it was through the use of a unique machine, the Dutronic Veebleveetzer Transmogrifier. Or, perhaps he simply could instantaneously zap himself from point A to point B anywhere in the universe without any danger or damage to his mortal self. That’s a pretty good trick, if you can do that.

He adamantly did maintain, however, that he could prove his claim by demonstrating some of the powers taught him by aliens. One of the supposed powers that he had learned was the ability to walk through solid objects such as walls. I should not have to remind everyone that people, especially young thoughtless people, can find humor in the afflictions and misfortunes of others, and this was the case here. The laughing, jeering students demanded a demonstration, whereupon the fellow walked headlong into the cinder-block wall, knocking himself out. The students, thinking that they were quite clever, quickly picked up the stunned fellow and moved him to the other side of the wall. When the dizzy space-traveler woke up, he naturally was convinced that he had proved his claim. The students thought that this was all great fun, but I felt very sorry for the delusional kid. I hope that he did receive the help that he needed.

The dorm proctor apparently felt that at least a dozen of his charges were weird enough to house them all in a few rooms along one short hallway apart from the other students, rather like a psych ward. He did have one diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. I’m not quite sure how he made it into college or whether he actually remained.

It was Joe, however, that I’ll mention next. He was one hunk of a masculine freshman whose natural, great physical strength usually was not noted because he looked so young. No one could beat him in arm-wrestling. He sometimes made money with that ability. He had a habit of traveling out of town to rural road-houses where the inebriated laborers liked to display their masculinity by challenging each other to arm-wrestling. Joe had perfected his hustler act, appearing to be innocent and losing some small wagers. Once enough beer bottles had been raised and enough cash had been placed on the table, Joe suddenly overpowered his very surprised, final opponent. Joe would do that hustle in each roadhouse only once. Scooping up the cash, he made a discreet exit before the mystified losers decided that they had been taken and became angry.

Then there was Ted S. I’ll be mentioning him again in my October 28th reading. Apparently, Ted had developed several bad habits long before he became a freshman. One of them was a frequent overindulgence of alcohol, which I suppose was not too unusual for a party-school. What made Ted different was that he physically looked to be only fifteen, although he actually was eighteen; and he looked deceptively innocent. The trouble was that he lost all control when he drank too much. His distressed roommate finally had enough when Ted arrived back at the dorm room late one night and mistook the clothes closet for pissoir. The next day, Ted was moved to the weird ward.

The surname of one kid was Love, and he obviously thought that he was cut out to be a great lover. Although he was extremely cute and sexy and drove a Corvette, he was not quite so handsome as he thought that he should be. Being blond, he thought he should have a year-around tan, which is virtually impossible in that part of the country. So he spread generous portions of fake tanning lotion all over himself. We could spot him a block away because he was orange. At one-half block away, we could smell the lotion.

Sagmeister was probably the only true sex maniac I’ve ever met. He was a handsome twenty-something, but he really had a problem. I recall his standing in the lounge in front of a TV, talking with someone. A TV commercial with a pretty, buxom blond came on, which caught his attention. His speech slowed as his eyes became glued upon the delectable image. Then his speech trailed off completely and was replaced with loud, heavy breathing.

Sagmeister seemed to have a steady flow of guests to his room. As long as the guests were female, age did not seem to be a problem. I recall that, on one occasion, a pretty sixteen-year-old girl came out of his room and was wearing only a long, white, man’s shirt. On another occasion, however, he linked up with the well known town whore “Black Julie.” She was fifty-five and not what one would call attractive. As a matter of fact, she looked like (as the Texans say) “She was rode hard hard and put back into the barn wet.” That did not seem to bother Sagmeister. I guess that there’s no substitute for experience.

Now that I think of it, I am reminded that there were a bunch of other students with strange personalities. And now that I think of it, I guess whatever idiosyncrasies that I might have had just were not weird enough for anyone to pay much attention. Thank goodness for small blessings.

© 6 September 2013




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.