Tag: Denver

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Dancing with the Stars, by Betsy

For what reason I do not know, but this topic brings to mind images from my childhood. We can all remember being outside in the dark of night, lying on the ground on our backs looking up at the stars. If you look at a group of stars long enough, they start to dance. At least they look as if they are dancing-jumping from here to there in a very lively fashion. Of course we know the stars are not dancing, rather our eyes or brains are playing tricks on us. But I felt that vision from the past deserved space on this page.

Another image from childhood relates to dancing, but certainly not with any stars. In about the 6th grade in my homogeneous, non-diversified community of Mt Lakes, New Jersey, a suburban very small enclave within commuting distance of New York City, most of the boys and girls in my class at school were enrolled into dancing classes at the local community church.

The dances that were taught were the fox trot, the waltz, the rhumba, and the jitterbug. This was about 1946. Perhaps our parents’ motivation for sending us to dancing school included their belief that young children should be distracted from the news reports coming out of Europe in the aftermath of the 2nd world war revealing the horrors and the reality of the conflict.

More likely our parents sent us to dancing school not so much to learn to dance well, but to prepare us to enter the social world and to learn the proper decorum and social graces needed for high school years and beyond. Anyway, it was the thing to do and all my friends attended with me on those Saturday afternoons.

This was strictly ballroom dancing of course. So equal numbers of girls and boys were needed. My partners usually were Tom Brackin and Mousey MacMillan. STARS—they were not. I preferred Tom to Mousey, but somehow I always ended up with Mousey. I never did know what his real name was……

During college and early adulthood I mostly danced with the man I eventually married and who was the father of my three children. I can’t call it dancing as I think back on it, however. It was more like a shuffling of the feet, in place, more or less, or not at all, in time with the slow, dreamy music while in a bear hug type embrace. As for the jitterbug neither one of us ever felt confident enough to do it in public in spite of the dancing lessons of earlier years.

During the two decades of raising my children, I don’t think I danced much at all. I probably didn’t even think about it. So there was a huge gap of time between the pre marriage dancing and entering the world of dancing that the lesbian bars presented.

When I came out, never mind I was middle aged, dancing became very important. I was looking for some stars. If the dance floor was the place to find my star, then on the dance floor was the place to be. In the excitement of finding myself and my new life it seems at first I was somewhat blinded —not by the stars I danced with but by the ones that were in my eyes.

As the next several years raced by I learned a lot, stuff that I had been rather sheltered from in my youth. As a fledgling lesbian, dancing was an important part of my life. This is one of the few places where, I learned, we go to meet women—places where you dance—the Three Sisters, Divine Madness, Ms. C’s.

It was at Divine Madness one night that I did in fact meet the love of my life, the one with whom I would spend the rest of my life. It was not so much the dancing. She had other qualities and characteristics that attracted me. But dancing with her was fun. Thanks to the Mt. Lakes Community Church dance classes and Mousey McMillan, I could be waltzed around the dance floor as long as she was leading and she didn’t mind that I counted under my breath—1,2,3,1,2,3— rather than trying to converse. The conversation could come later after the dance. “This woman is very special,” I thought.

“Can you do the Two-Step?” she asked one Saturday night. She, being a lover of country music was a fan of this lively jig. The only two step I had ever known or heard of was the Aztec Two Step, some unpleasant digestive ailment I picked up while traveling in Mexico one summer.

“I’m not familiar with it,” I said, “but I’m game to try if you lead and don’t mind counting aloud for me if I need help.” Yes, I did need lots of help, but somehow it didn’t matter. I was dancing with a STAR—my star— and we’ve been dancing ever since.

© 23 July 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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The Eyes of Love, by Ray

She was standing nearby, and I couldn’t stop looking at her beautiful cornflower blue eyes. Having said this to you all, it could have been the conclusion of this Story Time offering, but there was no need to apologize for my surreal intrusion because a good ‘LGBTQ’ friend greeted me with a happy ‘L’ squeeze saying, “I want you to meet my partner.” Guess Who? The pretty young thing with those beautiful blue eyes! Serendipity maybe. The two of them are to be married next winter.

That afternoon at Denver Pridefest 2017 I found four eyes of love at the AIDS Quilt exhibit. Two beautiful or should I say handsome men arrived at the desk as volunteer docents. As we talked and got acquainted it wasn’t difficult to sense they were partners, it was so evident in the way they looked at each other. To me, it said not only love but also respect for each other. What a beautiful thing to experience; and how wonderful to know and witness and enjoy these testimonies of lesbian and gay love.

Sincerely,

“None But The Lonely Heart”

© 19 June 2017

About the Author

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True Colors, by Nicholas

Take a Walk in the Grove

I want to tell a story today that involves one of our own, a member of this group. It’s about a group of people who showed their true colors in their loyalty to one friend and created a unique space for our entire community. Along the South Platte River on the edge of downtown Denver, is an area of Commons Park designated as a spot to remember those who have died of HIV/AIDS and their caregivers. It’s called The Grove and it is one of only two AIDS memorial gardens in this country—the other is in San Francisco. Our own Randy Wren was part of that group that labored for seven years to make it happen.

The Grove started with one man’s vision. Doug McNeil knew of the memorial grove in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and asked, literally as his dying wish, why can’t Denver create such a spot. Doug died of AIDS in 1993, a time when the LGBT community was focused more on the battle to undo the infamous Amendment 2 than on the AIDS epidemic. Amendment 2, passed by Colorado voters in 1992, prohibited any government or government agency in this state from enacting any provisions to ban discrimination against lesbian and gay people. (There’s an excellent exhibition on that history outside this door in The Center’s lobby.) And it was a time of still rampant AIDS phobia.

A small group of Doug’s friends vowed to carry out his dream for The Grove. They weren’t the usual gaggle of community activists and politicos. They included socialites, arts community supporters, an attorney, and an Episcopal priest. Most were not gay. They organized a non-profit group called The Grove Project, got 501c3 IRS status so they could collect funds, and began the long process of taking on the bureaucracy of the city’s Parks Department.

The Parks Department never openly rejected the idea but negotiations dragged on for years. At first, the area in front of the performing arts complex on Speer Blvd was proposed. The city objected that theatre and concert goers wouldn’t want to be reminded of the awfulness of AIDS on their nights out on the town. Another location in a park in southeast Denver was suggested but that would have left the memorial far from the Capitol Hill neighborhood that was most affected by AIDS.

At some point, the riverfront came into the discussion. At that time, the area was just beginning to be developed. There was a quiet, somewhat out of the way spot in a new park—Commons Park—that the city was planning. That fit the criteria of being visible, centrally located and quiet enough to promote the atmosphere desired.

The Grove was envisioned to be a natural area for contemplation. It was landscaped very simply with trees, natural grasses and shrubs, and some rocks. A simple inscription reads: “Dedicated to the remembrance of those who have lost their lives to AIDS and to their loving caregivers who helped them live out those lives with dignity.”

The Grove was dedicated in a simple ceremony in August 2000. Doug McNeil’s loyal and persistent friends accomplished his dream after seven years of work.

Now, The Grove sits largely ignored and sort of neglected in a recessed corner of Commons Park, near 15th Street and Little Raven Street. It is surrounded by high priced condos and apartments but it is still a quiet and attractive area.

Recently, a movement got underway to renew the spot, clean it up, refresh the landscaping and, most importantly, make the community aware that this historical and spiritual resource exists. In recalling all the individuals who battled, and continue to battle AIDS, we remember how our community grew from that experience. We remember those we’ve lost. We remember when being gay changed from just giving the most fabulous parties to a truly mature community of caregivers and advocates. We remember our past and that we have a history. A history that is the root of our present and future.

I encourage everyone to seek out The Grove and spend a few quiet moments there remembering. And maybe you can help in its renewal. You too can show your true colors.

© 2016

About the Author 

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.

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Main Street Kansas, by Phillip Hoyle

I moved into my apartment on Capitol Hill soon after reaching Denver in my fifty-second year. There I lived in the third block south of Colfax Avenue, that old highway that has claimed to be the longest main street in America. Not owning a car, I walked everywhere, but was surprised when a friend asked, “Aren’t you afraid to walk along East Colfax?”

“No,” I immediately answered. “It’s just like the main street in the town where I grew up.” I wasn’t freaked out to walk down an avenue with bars, tattoo parlors, Army surplus stores, small groceries, gas stations, two-story buildings with markets below and apartments or offices above, theatres, people of various races, even drunks on the street. Strolling along Colfax always reminded me of my hometown Junction City, Kansas that was located adjacent to the US Army Base, Fort Riley.

I had spent my childhood and early teen years living in the third block west of Washington Street, the long main street that offered in addition to groceries, clothing, theaters, lawyers, and real estate, a variety of beers, tattoos, Army surplus, pawned goods, drunks, and prostitutes. My family lived on West Eleventh Street, but the more colorful array of folks and their bad habits rarely made it that far off the main drag.

Washington Street ran for eighteen blocks from Grand Avenue on the north, the gateway to Fort Riley, to I-70 on the south—well eventually when the Interstate made its way that far west. On the south end of Washington Street our family ate at the Circle Cafe that offered Cantonese and American food. Dad ordered Chinese food, Mom her favorite fried chicken, and we kids our regular hamburger, French fries, and a Coke. Later, when I began working at the store, I had lunch sometimes at the Downtown Cafe where, much to my junior high delight, I discovered chicken fried steaks. I already knew the middle part of Washington Street from walks with Mom when she shopped, but also from visits to the two Hoyle’s IGA stores, both located along Washington, one at 9th, the other at 13th. Then there was the Kaw Theater where we watched movies and ate the homemade cinnamon and horehound candies made by Mr. Hyle, the owner and the father of my Aunt Barbara. Duckwall’s and Woolworth’s stores sat on the east side of the street in the same block as Cole’s Department Store where Mother used to model clothes on occasion. I had seen photos of her as a young model posing on the runway.

I got to know Washington Street. North, between 15th and 16th streets stood Washington School where I attend grades one through five. On occasion I got to be the crossing guard on the main street, wearing the white halter that symbolized enough authority to push the button for the stop light and walk halfway across the four-lane street with a stop sign. No accidents occurred on my watch. The school playground for older students was on Washington Street so I saw its activity from swings, monkey bars, and see saws. Walking down that street one afternoon when our class went on an outing to visit the local potato chip factory seems as real today as it was then. Across the street from the school was Kroger’s, and across the street from our store that Dad managed, sat Dillon’s. I knew these stores to be the competition. Next to Dillon’s was the Dairy Queen where we kids liked to go on Sunday nights after church. I knew Washington Street.

As older elementary kids we neighborhood boys began to walk the street without adults. There we discovered the bars, a variety of shops including the Army Surplus stores where we looked longingly at the gear of soldiers, the barbershop where my best friend Keith got his flattop haircuts and where I first saw professional wresting on TV, and tattoo parlors where we’d choose our future body ornamentation from designs displayed in the windows. From Washington Street, we’d gaze down East Ninth where we knew several houses of prostitution stood. We’d continue on to Duckwalls and Woolworth’s where we loved to look at toys and sometimes swiped them, to the Junction Theater where we ogled the ads for adult films we never got to watch, or to Clewel’s Drug Store where we drank sodas at the fountain where they mixed drinks and I often ordered a grape Coke. Occasionally we’d walk on to Dewey Park where we saw small children dancing at the city band concerts, where a statue of the 19th century Admiral George Dewey with his drooping handlebar mustache stood atop a classical archway, and where large WWII cannons stood sentry. By day people sat there in the shade of huge elms and more than once on hot summer afternoons we waded in the fountain that dominated the middle of the park.

I never entered any of the many bars but was fascinated by their neon lights, dark spaces with cool air wafting strange odors out the front doors. I wondered about the men we saw inside sitting at the bar drinking beers, usually quiet but sometimes with juke box blaring and loud talk and laughter, especially around payday when the GIs came to town to squander their meager paychecks in the dives on Washington Street and the whore houses on East Ninth. The challenging presences rarely made it over to where I lived, but of course, we boys had planned all our escape routes in case we might have run-ins with drunks. Our survival tactics were actually just another form of play; after all we were kids, boys with dreams of self-sufficiency, survival, and strength.

Life changed for me over the decades between my fifteenth birthday when we left Junction City and my fifty-first birthday when I showed up along Denver’s Colfax Ave. My experiences along the unusual Kansas main street prepared me for living in the city. In my fifties I continued to spend time among people of various races and backgrounds. I ate Chinese food, chicken fried steaks, and really nice hamburgers along Colfax. In contrast to my childhood activities, I did go into bars and did get a tattoo. I still didn’t go into whorehouses. In this real, really large city I walked down many streets and greeted many people. I shared a new life with them but still kept my eyes open to possible developing trouble and chose my routes with the wisdom I had learned in childhood walking along Washington Street with my friends. Then I walked unafraid but never unaware. I still do.

Denver, © 2012

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Covered Wagon, by Cecil Bethea

Dear Sirs,
You all should know that Mary’s Bar
actually did exist here in Denver, but years ago it was urban renewed into a
parking lot.  About five years past the
parking lot became the site of the building housing the offices of the two newspapers.  An actual takeover of the bar took place
during World War II, but I know none of the details.  The result is that my account is fiction in
all details except for the name of the establishment.
Having had nothing published, I have
been told to include something about my life. 
A biography would be slight, I’m from Alabama but have lived in Denver
for over fifty years.  My life was
certainly not exciting and no doubt of little interest to almost any one.
Then on August 25th of
last year during the Democratic Convention, everything changed.  While coming home after doing some research
on the Battle of Lepanto at the public library, I became enmeshed in a
demonstration by the anarchists that bloomed into a full-fledged conflict with
the police.  Because the eldest of the protestors
could not have been thirty, my white hair made me stand out like the Statue of
Liberty.  The police in their contorted
wisdom decided to take me into custody. During their manhandling of me, a
photographer for the Rocky Mountain NEWS took a splendid photograph of me being
wrestled by two 225 pound policemen.
After the publication of the photograph and an explanatory
article in the NEWS, fame came suddenly and fleetingly.  However, I do understand that my name is
embedded somewhere on the Internet.
Since then I have testified in seven
trials of the protestors.  Also the
A.C.L.U. is working toward a lawsuit for me. 
Not the sort of suit that stirs up visions of orgies in Las Vegas with
the payoff.  The lawyer has warned me not
to splurge at MacDonald’s.
The best!
© 23 Feb 2009 
About the Author 
Although
I have done other things, my fame now rests upon the durability of my
partnership with Carl Shepherd; we have been together for forty-two years and
nine months as of today, August 18th, 2012.
Although
I was born in Macon, Georgia in 1928, I was raised in Birmingham during the
Great Depression.  No doubt I still carry
invisible scars caused by that era.  No
matter we survived.  I am talking about
my sister, brother, and I.  There are two
things that set me apart from people. 
From about the third-grade I was a voracious reader of books on almost
any subject.  Had I concentrated, I would
have been an authority by now; but I didn’t with no regrets.
After
the University of Alabama and the Air Force, I came to Denver.  Here I met Carl, who picked me up in Mary’s
Bar.  Through our early life, we traveled
extensively in the mountain West.  Carl
is from Helena, Montana, and is a Blackfoot Indian.  Our being from nearly opposite ends of the
country made “going to see the folks” a broadening experience.  We went so many times that we finally had
“must see” places on each route like the Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky and
the polo games in Sheridan, Wyoming.  Now
those happy travels are only memories.
I was
amongst the first members of the memory writing class.  While it doesn’t offer criticism, it does
offer feedback.  Also, just trying to
improve your writing helps no end.
Carl
is now in a nursing home; I don’t drive any more.  We totter on.
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Public Places, by Betsy

I recently had occasion to kill some time in downtown Denver. Gill and I were meeting family for brunch one Sunday morning. The restaurant was on the 16th St. mall so we took the W line train to Union Station, hopped a mall shuttle and arrived on time, fresh, unstressed, and hassle-free— made possible by our choice of public transportation—no fighting traffic, no searching for a place to park, etc.

After breakfast and visiting, Gill returned home on the W line. The others went their way. I had two hours to wait before attending the 1:00 pm performance of Carmina Burana by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at Boettcher Concert Hall.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning so I decided to amble down 16th St. mall and see what I could see.

I was immediately reminded of how I love downtown Denver. I was struck by the numbers of people bustling about on a Sunday morning. Half the stores were closed it seemed. So, what were all these people doing? Going somewhere and most of them in a hurry. Many were sitting in restaurant patios drinking whatever or eating, but mostly just enjoying the environment, the clear blue sky, and warm temperatures.

I immediately realized that the magic about this mall environment is made possible by the fact that there is no automobile traffic. Only and occasional shuttle bus, bicycles, skateboards, and scooters. Even the hand/foot propelled vehicles are not allowed to be ridden on the mall. Everyone is required to be a pedestrian.

There appears pop art at every turn of the head—the buffalo herd near Wazee St.—six or eight life-size buffalo silhouettes standing on the side walk, musicians at almost every block playing guitar on one corner, flute on the next. And then there are the brightly painted upright pianos sparsely scattered throughout the mall waiting to be played by anyone who cares to try.

The center of the mall strip is a cultural center of its own: people playing board games on the stationary checkerboards, permanent concrete fixtures in the center of the mall strip, people reading the Sunday morning paper, people reading a local map, people playing the pianos. I’ve often wondered what they do with those pianos when it rains or worse when it hails which we all noticed it has a tendency to do here.

In spite of its location in the heart of downtown, the mall is amazingly peaceful, at least one gets that sense. The benches and chairs and tables and especially the plantings make it so. The trees, grown to maturity now, are plentiful complemented by the ever-present giant flower pots displaying a splash of color here and there.

I almost ran into a steer on the mall. Beautifully painted light blue with colorful depictions of the Denver skyline, DIA, some trees and mountains representing our beautiful area parks. These words were written clearly on its rump.

“DIA Denver International Airport is the nation’s largest—53 square miles

Denver has the nation’s largest city park system with more than 200 parks within its city limits.

Not to mention the 300 days of sunshine each year.”

No wonder I love this place. Especially in the summer. I love the park-and-ride bicycles standing neatly in a row on their racks waiting for the next rider to jump on. What a great idea. I’m glad to see this grab-a bike-program being used and persisting. If I were in a real hurry, I could pay the fee pull a bike out of its stall jump on and pedal to Botcher, deposit my borrowed vehicle and be in my seat in 10 minutes. But I have plenty of time so I continue with my amble.

Arriving at the DCPA I am struck immediately by the awesome view straight ahead of me—the snow-covered peaks of the Front Range between a bright blue sky behind and the green foot hills in front. All this from a vantage point in the midst of downtown Denver. Takes your breath away. Again, now on the main concourse of the DCPA, I realize that it is the absence of traffic that makes this environment so special—relaxing and hassle free in spite of the numbers of people moving about.

It was time to go into the concert hall and take my seat. Soon I was again transposed momentarily to some other world by the awesome beauty of this powerful piece of music by Carl Orff, Carmina Burana. There is something so special about listening to live music. The performance was inspiring. I felt a wave of pride in MY orchestra, MY chorus, MY concert hall—all mine because we all belong to MY hometown.

I have been to many awesome public places most in this country and some in other countries. On this day, I could easily say that downtown Denver is just about my favorite.

© 6 June 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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Denver, by Cecil Bethea

February 23rd. 2009

Dear Sirs,

You all should know that Mary’s Bar actually did exist here in Denver, but years ago it was urban renewed into a parking lot. About five years past the parking lot became the site of the building housing the offices of the two news papers. An actual take-over of the bar took place during World War II, but I know none of the details. The result is that my account is fiction in all details except for the name of the establishment.

Having had nothing published, I have been told to include something about my life. A biography would be slight. I’m from Alabama but have lived in Denver for over fifty years. My life was certainly not exciting and no doubt of little interest to almost any one.

Then on August 25th of last year during the Democratic Convention [2008], everything changed. While coming home after doing some research on the Battle of Lepanto at the public library, I became enmeshed in a demonstration by the anarchists that bloomed into a full-fledged conflict with the police. Because the eldest of the protestors could not have been thirty, my white hair made me stand out like the Statue of Liberty. The police in their contorted wisdom decided to take me into custody. During their manhandling of me, a photographer for the Rocky Mountain NEWS took a splendid photograph of me being wrestled by two 225 pound policemen.

After the publication of the photograph and an explanatory article in the NEWS, fame came suddenly and fleetingly. However I do understand that my name is embedded somewhere on the Internet.

Since then I have testified in seven trials of the protestors. Also the A.C.L.U. is working toward a lawsuit for me. Not the sort of suit that stirs up visions of orgies in Las Vegas with the payoff. The lawyer has warned me not to splurge at MacDonald’s.

The best!

[Editor’s note. This letter was written as a cover letter when Mr. Bethea was asked for local gay history. As always, Cecil’s humor makes it memorable. For more of his stories, go to Pages in the right-hand column of this blog and click. Then click on Cecil Bethea to find more of his stories.]
© Denver 2009

About the Author

Although I have done other things, my fame now rests upon the durability of my partnership with Carl Shepherd; we have been together for forty-two years and nine months as of today, August 18the, 2012.

Although I was born in Macon, Georgia in 1928, I was raised in Birmingham during the Great Depression. No doubt I still carry invisible scars caused by that era. No matter we survived. I am talking about my sister, brother, and I. There are two things that set me apart from people. From about the third grade I was a voracious reader of books on almost any subject. Had I concentrated, I would have been an authority by now; but I didn’t with no regrets.

After the University of Alabama and the Air Force, I came to Denver. Here I met Carl, who picked me up in Mary’s Bar. Through our early life we traveled extensively in the mountain West. Carl is from Helena, Montana, and is a Blackfoot Indian. Our being from nearly opposite ends of the country made “going to see the folks” a broadening experience. We went so many times that we finally had “must see” places on each route like the Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky and the polo games in Sheridan, Wyoming. Now those happy travels are only memories.

I was amongst the first members of the memoir writing class. While it doesn’t offer criticism, it does offer feedback. Also just trying to improve your writing helps no end.

Carl is now in a nursing home, I don’t drive any more. We totter on.

Posted on

Lavender University, by Pat Gourley

My involvement in the Gay Community Center began back in 1976. My first volunteer duties started very shortly after it opened at its first location in the 1400 block of Lafayette. This was an old brick two story duplex that I think was owned at the time by the Unitarian Church on the corner and the Center was renting the space from them. My main duties initially involved phone volunteering and coordinating other phone volunteers along with building our database of referrals, which we kept on a single Rolodex! A majority of our calls were for social referrals to local bars and bathes and the emerging number of local LGBT organizations, and also not a few requests for gay-sensitive therapists and health care providers. We referred men frequently to the Men’s Coming Out Group still in existence today, which met early on in the Unitarian Church itself, their library I think.

1976 was the year I started nursing school and eventually did my Community Health rotation at the Center. One of my nursing student activities was participating, as a tester, in a weekly STD clinic at the Center on Friday evenings. I am not sure why it wasn’t on a Monday rather than a Friday since the business would have probably been more brisk after a busy weekend in the late seventies, the age of thriving bathhouses. These clinics involved a fair amount of counseling on STD’s and how you got them and how to possibly avoid getting them. Unfortunately, though, we gay men rather cavalierly thought of STD’s as just the cost of doing business and not something to particularly strive to avoid. We drew blood for syphilis and did throat, penis and rectal cultures for gonorrhea. HIV was still several years away.

My Center volunteer activities drifted from phone work and coordination to milking penises and swabbing buttholes to the much more highbrow efforts involved with a program of the Center called Lavender University. Where or from whom the name came has been lost in the mist but it was a queer take off at the time on the very successful Denver Free University. I was a member of the Center’s University Staff from its inception until probably early 1984 when The Center kind of imploded around a variety of issues including extreme tension between some community-based organizations, the tumultuous resignation of Carol Lease and the demands and urgency of the emerging AIDS epidemic. I do believe much of this tumult was fueled in no small part at the time by often-blatant sexism and an at times over the top focus on the perceived supremacy of the penis within the gay male community but that is a topic for another time.

Our quasi mission statement read as follows: “Lavender University of the Rockies is a free school by and for the lesbian and gay communities of Colorado. It is dedicated to the free exchange of ideas, to the examination of diverse points of view and to free speech without censorship.” In addition to being on the University staff I was an occasional instructor offering often erudite classes including one called: Evolving Queer Spirituality or The Potential Significance of Paganism For Gay Men further subtitled “might Christianity just be paganism with the gayness taken out.” In only three of the course catalogs I managed to keep I also see I offered a class on the Tarot and one year a November 1st celebration of the Harvest Sabbat. Yeah, what can I say this was certainly my “witch-phase?”

The most fulfilling repeated offering I made though was one for gay men and involved a series of writings we would read and dissect by gay visionaries including Edward Carpenter, Gerald Heard, Harry Hay, Mitch Walker, and Don Kilhefner among others. These offerings were usually weekly and involved spirited group discussion around that week’s selected piece and food. Most of the sessions were held at the Center or my house up in Five Points. Many of the attendees were budding radical fairies and some friendships were made that last until this day.

These were probably the peak years of what I will rather presumptuously and ostentatiously call my Queer-Radical-Phase. These years of my life involved hours and hours of community work and play with many other often very receptive comrades in arms. It was a very exciting and challenging time for me personally and I think for the larger LGBT community, the world was truly becoming our oyster. It was constantly being reinforced for me on a daily basis that Harry Hay was right-on that we were a distinct people and a real cultural minority.

It is my belief that it was the slowing emerging AIDS nightmare that derailed this truly grassroots revolution and really forced a refocusing of our energies into survival. The tensions created by that little retrovirus locally nearly led to the end of The Gay and Lesbian Community Center and certainly to lots of soul searching and critique of the rich expressions of much of the gay male world we had come to know and love in the 1970’s.

I like to fantasize that if AIDS had not come along we would have seen a much more radical queer community and force for seminal social change than we are today. The community might have led a nationwide revolt that would have tossed Ronald Reagan out of office in 1984 and reversed the countries unfortunate slide into oligarchy. Perhaps igniting a re-election of Jimmy Carter and a return of the solar panels to the roof of the White House. We might well have been in the vanguard of the dissolution of traditional marriage, replacing it with a much more polymorphous and rich arrangement of human interaction and loving support.

A severe curtailing and redefinition of the American military into a force truly devoted to peace on earth would have been another goal. Instead of the race to the local recruiters office for those with no other economic choice everyone would do two years or more of service to the community that would have been of great benefit to the entire world and health of the planet. But perhaps I am putting way too much on our plate or …. hmm … maybe I did do too much LSD in the 70’s.

© April 2014

[Editor’s note: This story was published previously in this blog.]

About the Author

I was born in La Porte, Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

Posted on

Setting Up House, by Nicholas

I’ve set up house a number of times. Sometimes alone and
sometimes with others. Either way, it’s a lot of work bringing order out of the
sheer chaos of boxes strewn about the new empty place. I remember when Jamie
and I packed up our things in San Francisco, hired a mover, saw all our stuff
go off down the street and hoped we’d see it again in Denver. We did. That was
in 1990. We moved into a house on East Third Avenue in which the first thing we
did—before we unpacked anything—was go buy candy to give away since it was
Halloween and we wanted to be part of our new neighborhood.
We got a bedroom set up and the bed made so we could at least
go to sleep in our new house. Next day we set about sorting and arranging our
things in the place we were to live in. For me, the kitchen is the most
important. My kitchen must have a logic to it. Pots and pans close to where
they will be used. Spices and herbs within reach of cooking. Wine and wine
glasses always handy. Less used supplies in more distant cabinets.
We stayed there three years and then moved to where we live
now. We have lived longer at our present address than either of us ever had lived
anywhere else in our lives. We do not intend to move again for some time unless
we are forced to. Forget moving and setting up a new house.
Actually, we are heading in the opposite direction. Not
setting up a house, but sort of tearing one down. Our house is big with lots of
places to stash things. We have watched the detritus pile up. Fortunately, we
have a two car garage that is just about big enough for two cars and not much
else. And we insist on using the garage as a garage, not for extra storage. So,
there are limitations. But stuff still accumulates.
We are trying to slow that accumulation. For birthdays and
anniversaries, we ask for no gifts, please. We even try to get rid of stuff. We
like to call it de-accessioning. I cleared out a shelf of flower vases, for
example, by unloading them on a nearby florist who was glad to take them and
will likely re-use them. Packing material, like those annoying popcorn things
and bubble wrap, if reasonably clean, is welcomed by packing and shipping
places. I have recycled bags full of the stuff. Jamie recently took a trunk
load of old computer bits and accessories to a recycling center. Better they
get broken down into usable parts than sit in our attic.
It takes a little work but it’s easy getting rid of stuff you
don’t like. Now we want to start getting rid of stuff we do like. I plan to
cull through books which I hate to part with but, after a time, they do only
collect dust on a shelf. Clothes too. I have too much now so, I’ve decided that
if I want to buy new clothes, I have to get rid of some of the old.
Largely as an accident, I ended up being the keeper of old
family photo albums. One day, I parceled out some of the ten albums my mother
had put together and sent some to my sisters. After all, their pictures were in
there too.
Some folks become hoarders as they age. They can’t give up
anything. Maybe, they think that’ll be the mark they leave on the world. Maybe
that’s how they establish that they have lived—show a bunch of stuff for it.
Maybe that’s how they remember all they’ve seen and done. If I leave a mark on
this world, I hope it won’t be just a pile of junk for someone else to pitch.
I’m not a hoarder. I take great delight in getting rid of
things. I love downsizing. It’s like losing weight (which is something else I
ought to look into). But while stuff is easy to pass up, ice cream is not.
If I ever set up another house, it will be with less stuff.
Of course, it will probably be smaller so I will be forced to de-accessionize
even more. Some of that may be difficult with tough choices. But really it will
be a joy. Taking apart a house is as much fun as setting one up.
© 12 Sep 2016 
About the Author 
Nicholas grew up in Cleveland,
then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from
work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga,
writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.
Posted on

Public Places — Do It In Public, by Nicholas

I like doing it in public. I’ve always liked doing it in
public. There’s something about being out there that adds an extra pleasure.
I get tired of staying home and when I get antsy, I love to
go out into the city. I like city spaces. I like being with people even if it’s
a lot of people I don’t really want to be with. I’m talking about that
superficial, but still meaningful, social contact that city streets and spaces
provide. Cities like New York and San Francisco are full of such spots from
crowded subway trains to busy streets to popular parks with great views. People
like being around other people even if there is nothing close to relationship
material present. Look at any Starbucks or any coffeeshop. No sooner does one
open than every seat is taken with people chatting, working online, and just
reading The New Yorker. That would be me reading The New Yorker.
Coming from Eastern cities and San Francisco, Denver and
Denverites have never struck me as very socially inclined. Coloradans are much
more taken up with maintaining their own personal space and they think they
need lots of it. One person on an eight-foot long park bench is considered
crowded here. I have unintentionally jumped many ques when I didn’t realize
that the guy standing 15 feet back from a counter was actually next in line.
To my delight, Denver is coming to have some urban spaces,
places where you can wander and dawdle and people-watch among the crowds on a
sunny day.
First among them, of course, is Union Station which is not
just a building but an entire complex of buildings and streets and pedestrian
passageways. The station itself is impressive as an urban interior. It amazes
me how it is always busy with folks eating and drinking, lingering and passing
through to catch their buses and trains.
Our concept of space seems to be changing. Suddenly,
Denverites want to be around each other. The plaza in front of Union Station is
always streaming with pedestrians. Some eating ice cream. Some kids playing in the
open fountain. Some on their way to or from work. Some disappear around corners
and down alleyways to the train platforms behind the station or to the new
condos just built on what used to be empty, rusting railyards. One day I found
a place that makes Saigon coffee (now called Vietnamese coffee) tucked away in
a passage on the side of the station.
To the west of Union Station is a series of bridges and parks
that provide views of the city. Cross the first bridge and you come to Commons
Park with walkways along the Platte River. Nestled at the south end of the park
is the refurbished AIDS Grove, a peaceful spot tucked away amidst the busy
city. The next bridge takes you over the river to Platte Street with its
interesting shops like the Savory Spice Shoppe (my favorite) and the English
Tea Room. A third bridge crosses Interstate 25 and leads to what may be
Denver’s most charming neighborhood, Highlands, which is hilly and down right
quaint and lined with great eateries with great views. If you lived there, you
could walk to work in downtown and lots of people do.
Other spaces intrigue me as well. Like the plaza around the
main library and the art museum. Another pedestrian entrance into downtown from
the south through Civic Center, which, when it isn’t packed with crowds for
special events (like Pride Fest coming up), is generally empty. Except when the
lunchtime food trucks pull up and lunchers pour out of nearby offices.
Of course, I have to mention Denver’s first public space, the
16th Street Mall, sometimes called the city’s front porch. It’s way
too urban to be anybody’s front porch. By that I mean there is plenty to
dislike there from loud teenagers to haranguing preachers. That’s what makes it
urban—this is no small town square where everybody knows everybody else. It’s a
raw mix and you never can control what’s in the mix that day or evening. But
it’s still a pleasure to stroll down the always busy mall.
So, there you have a brief tour of public places I like. It
seems that Denver is getting to be more like a city every day. And I’m glad.
More people should do it in public.
© 3 Jun 2016 
About the Author 

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland,
then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from
work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga,
writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.