Tag: Elder Life

Posted on

Signs of the Times by Betsy

When we are young we don’t recognize signs of the times because we have experienced everything for only a short time. Everything has always been that way. So the way things are at the time we experience them we consider to be normal.

I have noticed all too often in my old age the changes that have taken place in the world and the changes that are taking place before my very eyes it seems. After all, we older folks have experienced or at least observed many changes in many areas of our lives and in the life of our society and our culture. I find myself complaining about something that has become different from the way it used to be and the way I wanted it to be. It was just fine so why does it have to change. I end up explaining it away by saying, “It’s a sign of the times.”

I started compiling a list of some of the modern phenomena of our culture that have changed for the worse (in my opinion).

People talk too fast. Especially young adults. Has anyone else noticed that? Or could it be related to my failing hearing? Maybe I just think they are talking too fast. I wouldn’t really be surprised if they actually are because it goes along with the fact that everything else is moving faster. Communication is faster than we ever dreamed it could be when I was a youngster. Everything that moves is faster. Walking, running, skiing, cycling, thinking is faster, problem solving, information gathering, etc. Sometimes it makes my whole nervous system want to run and hide or at least take a rest. Here’s an ugly thought that hit me just the other day: Maybe, just maybe everything just appears to be speeding up because my brain is slowing down! Oh no, it can’t be anything like that, can it??

These days I hear many people talking about our government in Washington–Congress in particular–and what a lousy job they are doing. In reading any history of our government, as far as I can tell, disapproval of congress has always been a sign of the times for somebody, anyway. But I’ve heard the current disapproval rating is at an all-time high–number one–having surpassed number two colonoscopies, and number three root canals.

Another sign of the times I’ve noticed lately is that every processed food of any kind contains high fructose corn syrup. It’s easy to see why while driving across the country in the summer or fall. So much corn!! But then, why not? After all, we’re paying the farmers–be they corporate farmers or family farmers–we’re paying them to grow it. Too much corn and too much government support to make a living growing it, so they have to make up ways to use the resulting over abundant supply to keep the price up. The other positive for the food producers and processors is that high fructose corn syrup is a form of sugar and is a very addictive substance. Consumers will always come back for more. Guaranteed!

What about that ever present, in your face, obvious global phenomenon that is profoundly affecting almost everyone: CLIMATE CHANGE. Now here’s a sign of the times that should have everyone’s attention. Yet there are deniers who say it is not happening in spite of the 98% of the scientific community who exhibit proof that it is a fact. Here in Colorado the warm, dry weather we so often enjoy day after day does not directly affect most of us in a negative way. But tell those 300,000 people without power on the east coast today as I am writing this–tell them that storms are not bigger, more prevalent, more violent, than even ten years ago. However if you are ten years old I suppose it seems normal.

Finally, I could swear that much more time is spent for commercial advertising on television and radio than in the old days. Sometimes I’m tempted to time it. It seems it’s about fifty-fifty to me. Half programming, half advertising. Thanks to modern technology and the digital age, however, there is a way around it–another sign of the times. Video recording and that most important button on the remote, the mute button.

What did we ever do without those remote control devises? Imagine getting out of the car and manually lifting the garage door. Unthinkable! It’s even harder to imagine getting up from the sofa to change the channel on the TV or to turn the thing off. Well, I guess all the signs of the times are not for the worse.

What is your sign? 

Lakewood, 2013

About the Author

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

Posted on

Visiting the Doctor by Nicholas

I like my doctor. I believe that if you do not like your doctor, you should get a new doctor. It’s a very personal relationship but I do not want my doctor to be my friend. He or she has to know a lot or maybe even everything about me, but my doctor also has to be a scientist who might someday give me some bad news, bad news that I am better off knowing. So you see there’s intimacy involved but not a buddy kind of intimacy.

I used to prefer women doctors but then I had one for a while at Kaiser whom I didn’t like and then I found a male doctor whom I did like so I don’t care anymore about the gender of my doctor. The last woman doctor I had possessed all the traits that I used to identify with not liking in men doctors. She was abrupt, arrogant, and not very communicative. One visit we were dealing with high blood pressure and she just handed me a pill and a glass of water. I had to ask what it was and what I was supposed to do with it. Then she prescribed a medication that was totally wrong for me. It took months but I finally got her to come around to prescribing a better medication that does work for me. I pushed the issue because I got some good advice from friends who were doctors themselves.

After that doctor, I found a really good doc at Kaiser who was very friendly and communicative. He was a gay doctor, of course, and though I insist on being out to any doctor I meet, his being gay made things easier. He also could practice medicine by phone and email without office visits because Kaiser had a system set up to do that. One time I came home from travelling in Europe with a nasty intestinal bug. I described the symptoms to him and he said it sounded like a pretty common problem and I could either do lab tests to determine the precise bug or he could give me a prescription to treat it. I said, in my misery, just treat it. The treatment worked.

But then I changed health insurance plans and had to find a new doctor. I got some referrals from the GLBT Center’s list of gay-friendly providers and set up an appointment. I had some questions and wanted to talk to my doctor candidates to get to know them before I signed on for any treatment. I found a doctor who was easy going and friendly. I told him I was gay and I told him I had a partner whom I expected would be included in any medical issues. He had no problem with that.

I’ve since grown to like and trust my doctor. He doesn’t over treat problems and I am learning from him when to panic and when to just take some aspirin or a nap. He has a casual style I like. When I see him about some problem, he always asks me how big a deal it is, how much something is interfering with my life. There are always treatments doctors can order up, but do you really need or want them? For example, my doctor sent me to a physical therapist to help me through a knee problem instead of to a surgeon for replacement.

Given my own medical history—which is pretty minor—and having lived through the AIDS epidemic with friends and having a husband with a very complicated and ongoing medical condition, I have learned a lot about dealing with doctors and nurses. Here are some tips:

* Nurses are your friends. Do not abuse them, don’t ever get rude or annoyed even when they do things you don’t like. They might know more about you than you do and can really help.

* Do ask, do tell. Tell your doctor everything, ask about everything. Doctors really are people too though they might think they are gods.

* For god’s sake, come out if you haven’t already. Being lesbian or gay is just not the big deal it used to be. You don’t want the closet to interfere with your care and who gets to be with you in difficult times. Jamie and I were even in a hospital in Colorado Springs recently and he introduced me as his husband and I was not denied any access to him in the ER. Boy, did that surprise me. I was still relieved to get out of there.

* Give people a chance to do the right thing. One time we were talking with a nurse in a hospital, telling her our story and she told us about her lesbian sister. She also told us about the discrimination she’s experienced as a Japanese-American.

Going to the doctor can be frightening and worrisome but it doesn’t have to be. But you have to take charge.

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

Pig Latin by Phillip Hoyle

I feel like the kid on the playground who feels left out, the one chosen last for a team, the one who has to read to the class but knows she won’t do well, the only one that doesn’t know Pig Latin. I feel like my father did when he picked up one of his grandsons at middle school. My nephew and a friend sat together in the back seat and talked with one another about their computers. Dad said he didn’t understand a thing they said for the duration of the twenty-minute drive home. I feel like I’ve fallen behind the whole world, sure I’d find questions on the current GED test incomprehensible. I feel like I’m falling off the grid. “Stop the world, I want to get off” captures some of my sentiment, but why this despair? I get around life just fine, enjoy reasonable work, nice enough friends, and occasionally even leadership. I’m not sure what I feel is despair, but I do feel pressures of a new job, one that I am interested to do but realize that it pushes me into a world of assumed knowledge that I don’t possess.

Computers are not new to me. In the late 1980s I met several PCs with their word processors. For ten years I successfully wrote book-length manuscripts using my PC WPs. To my family’s consternation, I’d tie up the home phone line in order to visit a friend’s bulletin board that gave me access to Shareware and some games. I heard the talk, appreciated the crude graphics, and came to appreciate the advantages my computer and word processor gave me. I enjoyed my experiments with Paint Brush and even tried my hand with some simple data bases.

I had bought the PC in order to write. I bought it at the suggestion of a writer and an editor, purchasing it at the outset of a project I had agreed to do and finished paying it off when I received my writer’s fee. I learned on the job by making mistake after mistake and solving the problems sometimes on my own, sometimes following the advice of others more experienced than I. So I learned to adopt my software and computer function with DOS smart commands, a few new programs, and several creative uses. I paid attention to what the computer needed and became at least moderately efficient in my applications. In the 1990s I entered a conversation—one of those on-line things now usually called a blog—one concerned with topics of professional interest; but I didn’t find the discussions all that interesting or pertinent. I think my life was changing too quickly, my interests moving towards the visual arts.

Still, I wrote. Still I maintained some records in a database. Still I experimented with Paint Brush. But most of my attention was focused on my art table with paper and ink, canvass and paint, design and technique. When my editors at the publishing house no longer could tolerate my antique technology, I got an Apple, then another more modern PC, and finally my PC laptop that went so fast I could never keep up. By then I had lost the curiosity factor. The WP was okay although not as convenient as the writers software I’d liked for years. Word for Windows didn’t thrill me. In fact, I never really got used to Windows. It seemed as if the attempt to make the computer more user-friendly just irritated me. I couldn’t see what was happening.

I believe my quick forays into Cyberspace were really the most intimidating factor, the ones that left me feeling like I wasn’t cutting it. I recall scares when my computer would start doing frightening things. I wondered would it die a cruel death? Explode into flames? I didn’t know but timidly accommodated myself to this unfriendly playground world.

Oh it’s gotten better for me in the 2000s. I am more at home, but suddenly I am working with “The SAGE Blog”—it always reminds me of the old movie “The Blob”—and threatens to engulf me, taking over my time and attention, and threatening to alter me in ways I don’t invite. I guess the problem is that the Blog is so social in its nature: its contributions, comments, and maintenance. I’ve always worked with people successfully, but now it seems too many of them are speaking Pig Latin or some other language I don’t easily understand. One very friendly and helpful techie said, “Well, Phillip, welcome to the cyber world.” But I’m not a techie or even a Treckie. I’m on a journey of learning but feel like I’m floating through this new, endless space with no thrusters. Still I am learning.

This in Pig Latin:

Omesay aysday Iway eelfay atthay Iway annotcay understandway atwhay isway expectedway ofway emay. Easeplay ebay atientpay. Iway aymay otnay understandway ethay echnicaltay eedsnay ofway ybercay ommunicationscay ellway, utbay Iway amway oingday ethay objay. Eoplepay owhay oday understandway areway akingmay itway appenhay inway itespay ofway ymay eeblefay attemptsway. Ifway ingsthay ogay ellway, ouyay ancay eginbay eadingray oriesstay onway ourway ownway ogblay extnay Ondaymay. Atwhay unfay itway illway ebay.

Quick; back to English.

Some days I feel that I cannot understand what is expected of me. Please be patient. I may not understand the technical needs of cyber communications well, but I am doing the job. People who do understand are making it happen in spite of my feeble attempts. If things go well, you can begin reading stories on our own blog next Monday. What fun it will be.

Again, thanks for your patience. I’m learning. Say a prayer or something for me that I will do the work well.

Note: This piece was read to the SAGE Telling Our Stories group at the end of September last year, just before this blog appeared. We’re celebrating the completion of our first year this month!


About the Author


Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

Posted on

Three Little Words by Nicholas

Do you wanna?
Not now, dear.
Let’s do it.
Well, I guess.
Take your Viagra?
Who needs Viagra?
That feel good?
That feels good.
Not there, dear.
Oh yeah, baby!
Where’s the cat?
Put him out.
No, he’s in.
Ow, that hurt.
Cat’s right here.
More wine, dear?
Open another bottle.
Are you hungry?
Yeah, I’m starving.
That’s real tasty.
Ketchup on that?
Spice it up.
How about that?
Looks real good.
What’s for dessert?
More ice cream.
I want chocolate.
Do it again?
Let’s do it.
You did it. Stole my heart.
Please keep it.
I love you.
I love you.

© 2
July 2013

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

Remembering by Merlyn

I read a story on line a few years ago that made a lot of sense to me. It was about why time starts going faster as people get older. The point of the story is the fact that you only remember things that are new. When you are young everything is new, interesting and you remember everything. Days, weeks and years last forever.

As we get older we get set in our ways. Can you remember the last time you went to the store? Most of the time the memory of the trip just blends into all of the other times we made the same trip to the same store; the time is lost. We fill our lives doing the same things over and over there is hardly anything new to remember. Our lives are boring, we are boring, and life is boring.

The one point I want to make is this:

All God ever does is watch us.

He will kill us when we get boring!

Remember:

We must never ever be BORING!!!

© 30
March 2013



About the Author




I’m a retired gay man now living in Denver Colorado with my partner Michael. I grew up in the Detroit area. Through the various kinds of work I have done I have seen most of the United States. I have been involved in technical and mechanical areas my whole life, all kinds of motors and computer systems. I like travel, searching for the unusual and enjoying life each day.


Posted on

The Accident by Lewis


[Prologue: My story today concerns not a single life-altering event, such as a car wreck or fall, but a series of accidents of a related nature spread out over a period of many years. A month ago, I told a story of Laurin’s and my experience with various medical doctors and his radioactive seed implants that led to his fecal incontinence. I will not go over that ground again. What I want to tell you today is what the two of us went through during that period of about 8-1/2 years of gradual descent into constant misery and worry. It is mainly about shame and its effect on two human beings. My writing this and sharing it with you is not in any way a cry for pity. I seek only to assuage some of my own shame and trauma that have lay dormant, apparently without possibility of relief, and to impress upon you, when faced with a life-or-death decision about medical treatment for yourself or a loved one, to weigh carefully the importance of quality of life versus quantity.


In an effort not to oppress you good folk with negativity, I will occasionally indulge in attempts at humor. In that vein, in an effort to avoid the constant use of scatological words to refer to the natural end product of the digestive process, I have created an acronym for “End Product of Digestion”, EPOD. This term should not be confused with docking stations for recharging hand-held devices.


Because he was the faithful keeper of a daily journal–a practice which I have now adopted–I am able to reconstruct an exact timeline of his early history with fecal incontinence and deduce, with a high degree of certainty, it’s causation.



Laurin had the procedure known as “prostate seed implant” in December of 2003. Less than three weeks later, he reported the first instance of lack of bowel control with such an element of consternation that I am certain it was the first in his recent experience. Over the next four months, three other episodes followed. Slowly, they increased in urgency and, thus, frequency. What follows is a catalogue of some of the lowlights of our lives during the ensuing eight years.]

* We were walking to church one Sunday morning when Laurin suddenly needed to evacuate. The closest site offering some privacy was behind the large bushes in front of an apartment building. Terrified of being seen, I walked some distance away and stood at the corner trying to appear as if I were waiting for someone to pick me up.

* We drove to Mazatlan, Mexico, for a week’s stay at a timeshare resort. On our last day there, we were having breakfast in the dining room when Laurin suddenly needed to go. When ten minutes dragged out to fifteen, I knew that it hadn’t turned out well. I finished breakfast and went to the men’s room to check him out. There, on the floor was a trail of EPOD leading from the door to a stall, where Laurin was busy cleaning up. Terrified, that someone would come in and see it, I quickly cleaned it up with paper towels.

* We were at a concert of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. During the intermission, Laurin went to the bathroom. He was gone a long time. I was already seated when he returned. I could detect an odor. I hoped that it was only because I was sitting right beside him. Even before the next musical selection ended, a couple of people stood up and moved to more distant seats. During the interlude, even more did the same. Soon, we were sitting alone in the row.

* We were browsing at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in LoDo. Laurin went to the men’s room. I waited…and waited…and waited. I knew what the problem was. I noticed a line was forming outside the men’s room. I decided to check and see if I could do anything. I stepped inside the restroom where several men were waiting to use the single stall. I was ashamed to even say anything but I asked how it was going. He said, as always, “OK”. I left the bathroom. When he came out we took the 16th Street shuttle. He had EPOD on his socks and shoes. I hoped nobody could see or smell. No one indicated that anything unusual was going on.

* Saving the worst for last, we were driving around Glendale when Laurin said he needed to go to the bathroom NOW. The new King Soopers hadn’t been open long. I dropped him off in front and found a place to park and wait. Fifteen minutes rolled over into twenty. I decided to go and check on Laurin. I asked the security guard where the restrooms were. I turned down an aisle in the frozen food section. From a distance of 30 feet, I could see a pile of EPOD on the floor, perfectly formed like a soft-serve ice cream cone, complete with swirl at the top. I would have laughed out loud if I hadn’t been stricken with utter terror. Apparently, no one had reported it so far. But I had no way to clean it up. I thought, “I should find someone responsible and tell them so it could be cleaned up”. I walked the length of the store but could find not a single employee to tell. Perhaps my fear of how such a bit of news might go down blinded me. I left the store and returned to the car, watching the door to see if security guards were going to haul Laurin away. No, several minutes later–it seemed like hours–he comes sauntering out as if nothing untoward had happened.

It was then, after many visits to doctors about his condition and the utter embarrassment and terror of the “Incident in the Frozen Food Aisle” that we welcomed the additions of Pampers for Men and a shoulder bag with cleaning supplies to his wardrobe. Laurin even resorted to cutting off the tail of his dress shirts with scissors so they wouldn’t get soiled. Once, when I picked up one of his thus-modified shirts at the cleaners, the nice woman politely said, “I’m sorry, we couldn’t repair this.”

On one of our last visits to his internist, we were told, “I have just the cure for you.” I said, “What?” He answered, “Physical Therapy”. We would be happy to try anything so we said, “Sure”. Turns out that this particular therapy, as with many other forms, involves muscle-strengthening–namely, the sphincter muscle. Measuring the strength of that muscle requires the insertion of a probe which is connected to a machine that shows on a computer screen the intensity and duration of the muscle’s constrictions. This is something that would normally be of interest to many gay men but, unfortunately, the equipment is very expensive.

After eight sessions with the therapist, she recommended and the doctor concurred that further sessions would be fruitless. Laurin’s muscle or the nerve leading to it was unable to respond to treatment. I conclude that the seed implants had, over time, fried not only his prostate but this area, as well. Apparently, he was one of the ill-fated 5% that suffer such after-effects.

Laurin’s sole recourse at this point was a colostomy, whereby the colon is severed from the rectum and rerouted to exit the abdomen slightly to the left of the navel. The end of the colon is rolled over like the end of a balloon, sewn into place in the muscle wall, thus creating a new way for the EPOD to escape confinement. Thus, began a entirely new chapter in Laurin’s life story. Unfortunately, it was not to provide a happy ending, but that’s another story.

© 6 August 2013



About the Author


I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth.

Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.

Posted on

Searching for El Dorado by Louis

A Dominican youth selling his paintings

A favorite place – Dominican Republic

(a) I apologize this essay sounds like an advertisement for tourism to the Dominican Republic.

(b) Favorite protégé: Leonardo R.

(c) Some people would say one’s favorite place is Boulder, Colorado, or pre-AIDS Fire Island on south coast of Long Island, New York. Another beautiful city is Charleston, S. C.

(d) The first time I went to the Dominican Republic, la República Dominicana, was 25 years ago. I paid money gradually into a scholarship fund established by the NHYC HRA, Local 371, for needy Hispanics to go to school. A worthy cause. This paid for a flight on American Airlines from NYC to Santo Domingo Airport. I went to a “luxury” resort in Juan Dolio, a section of the Caribbean Sea Coastline, on the DR’s south shore, about 10 miles east of Boca Chica and 15 miles west of San Pedro de Macoris. I sat in the pool and got free daiquiris and rum and cokes. I got photographed sitting on a burro or was it a burra? I had a ball.

(e) Then there was the side trip to Santiago and Punta Cana on the north shore of the DR. Two more beautiful sun-drenched cities.

(f) 2nd visit, 2 years ago. The name of the resort I went to was the Albatross. A business woman was also there, she described how she came to DR to relax. She previously went to Breckenridge, Colorado. My brother and I had just visited Breckenridge, CO. A coincidence.

(g) Another coincidence is the 60-year old barber in College Point in NYC. He goes to DR every chance he gets because he has a Dominican girl friend there. He goes to Boca Chica.

(h) One afternoon, I was sitting on the beach enjoying watching the geckos and sea gulls, when I noticed a man swimming in the water. I looked a little closer. He wasn’t actually swimming, he was taking a bath. When he got out of the water, he approached me and said “Hola”; I got red in the face. We got acquainted.

(i) Leonardo served as my guide although he could only drive in the areas of DR where the police had no jurisdiction, which, for some reason I do not know, is inland and covers a lot of territory.

(j) If you get stopped by a local cop, and it does happen more or less regularly, you have to hand over the equivalent of $3.00 or US $3.00. One cop told me they have to do this because their pay is not sufficient for them to buy lunch.

(k) I visited with Leonardo’s relatives. L. loves his mother, his aunt, his uncles, his cousins.

(l) His very petite elderly aunt looked sort of dried up like a raisin. But I knew that was the tropical sun that had made her skin a dark brown. She looked very different from what I am used to. But she looked fine. I asked Leonardo’s relatives if they had enough to eat. The aunt and uncle said they have plenty to eat. They harvest the veggies from their garden plots and they have chickens laying eggs, and pigs, and goats and bulls and cows for milk. The point is they were 3rd world dirt farmers, but they sort of lived well without any cash.

(m) They showed me where they live. In the U. S. I have noticed the popularity of tool sheds, sometimes designed like little houses in the backyards. In the DR a “casa” is the size of one of these tool sheds. Which was fine. They were living in paradise, right? So what does the size of their house mean? And then of course the hurricanes blow down big houses so easily anyway.

(n) I had a rented car so Leonardo and his (beautiful) cousin piled into the vehicle and led me on a little trip through the back woods where they all got pretty much naked and netted some fish in a babbling brook. They said that would be their dinner. I thought to myself, “How delightfully primitive.”

(o) In the DR, you can take a trip on a catamaran that takes you to a town about 30 miles east of Juan Dolio, called San Pedro de Macoris. I took the trip, more champán, more booze, more beautiful boys swimming. More beautiful tropical coastlines.

(p) Then there were the horse rides, the casino, the really ritzy resort , the Talanquera Beach Resort, at the end of the roadway in front of my resort, the Albatross. The Talanquera had a boutique selling Dominican style clothes; it had a French restaurant, an African restaurant decorated with a large black shield, more lovely primitive art, decorating the main hotel, an American restaurant. There were three reflecting ponds: the palm gardens pond, the flamingo ponds with beautiful pink flamingos eating shrimp; and the orchid pond with a magnificent floral display.

(q) The Talanquera displayed the local art which consisted primarily of gorgeous oil paintings. I am fussy about my art. The local artists enjoyed painting palm trees on beaches, scenes from the sugar plantation days of 150 years ago and abstract paintings depicting African themes of mother earth. These paintings are tasteful and magnificent. They are hung on the fences of all the tourist resorts. The colors are rich and vibrant.

(r) Once when I was sitting in the front yard of my pseudo-luxury resort, the Albatross, I observed the passing of a herd of wild goats. They were adorable, and, like the humans, they were enjoying themselves. The resort architecturally was substantial and lovely, but of course since we were in the 3rd world, one could not drink the water and the plumbing and electricity were iffy.

(s) I remember the week before I went to the DR in February of 2011. In New York it was a typical winter. I remember walking down the street being pelted with frozen ice pellets in my face. I said to myself it is time for DR.

(t) Unlike the Mexican diet, dominated by hot spicy tomato sauces, the Dominicans seem to prefer fresh fruits and vegetables. The tropical fruits are particularly tasty: mangos, guanábanos, guavas, tamarind juice, avocados and papayas.

(u) After a while, one wants to prepare one’s own food. This requires a short trip to the local supermercado, “Jumbo’s”. Leonardo and I went there. I told Leonardo to buy what he wanted. His favorite purchase was octopus tentacles. He said he and his family would really enjoy dining on this delicacy. For me personally, I never ate calamari and do not have plans on doing so. A chacun son goût.

(v) While I was in Jumbo’s shopping with Leonardo, I noticed an elderly blond American doing shopping with a young Dominican man who looked like a movie star. I knew instantly why this (I presume gay) American was enjoying the DR. Inwardly, I applauded his good judgment. Gather ye rosebuds …, right? I suppose the Pope would disapprove, but Oscar Wilde would have understood.

(w) I frequently had lunch in a nearby restaurant and made the acquaintance of several Italian businessmen who said they were investing in Juan Dolio to make it look like the Italian Riviera. Many of the other guests at the Talanquera were Italian, some Americans, and the French.

(x) I asked Leonardo if he knew how to read and write. He said sí. I thought Leonardo would be better off if he had a driver’s license, went to school to start to learn English and apply for a passport so that he could come to the U.S.A. For me that would have been a good investment. Leonardo agreed to all three of these projects but never followed through. We never found out how either how I could send him money other than via Western Union or Moneygram.

Denver, 2013

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

Posted on

My Favorite Place by Merlyn

My favorite place is where I’m at right now. Michael and I have been together for almost two years, we do everything together with very little DRAMA. I’m in the best relationship I have ever been in my life with Michael.

We both like to travel and we are spending a lot of time right now looking for fun things to do on our next road trip.

We will be gone for 5 to 8 weeks with only two destinations, Niagara Falls and Boston.

We plan to wander, we don’t to have to be anywhere at any given time.

We will be going through about 20 states. If we are having fun we will stay where ever we are as long as we want, if we get bored we will just head down the road.

We are both making lists of things we may or may not want to see or do in each State. Neither one of us are interested in going to a lot of the tourist traps in big cities.

Some of the things on our list so far.

Explore the nude beaches and small towns along the shoreline of three of the five great lakes.

Michael wants to shop at about a thousand antique malls.

We have a list of 15 gay campgrounds that we will be near to on the trip. Two of them have jumped to the top of the list.

Depending on where we are Labor Day weekend we may want to party in Gibson Pennsylvania at a gay campground with about 400 of our closest friends.

We will spend some time at the gay campground in Morgantown Indiana.


© 7 July 2013 



About the Author 



I’m a retired gay man now living in Denver Colorado with my partner Michael. I grew up in the Detroit area. Through the various kinds of work I have done I have seen most of the United States. I have been involved in technical and mechanical areas my whole life, all kinds of motors and computer systems. I like travel, searching for the unusual and enjoying life each day.

Posted on

Details by Michael King

Last night we were on our way to a party. On the way we wanted to go to a hardware store to pick up several items. When we looked up the address I thought it was only a few blocks from the Home Depot on Colorado Boulevard.

Leaving the parking lot, I told Merlyn to turn left. He couldn’t understand why when he knew that we needed to go north, not south. When he mentioned Colfax, I asked what Colfax had to do with anything? He said that where we are supposed to go would be only a couple of blocks off Colfax. I realized that I was thinking the address was on South Madison. It never dawned on me that we were over two miles south of our destination because I was only familiar with Madison Street near where I used to work and didn’t consider that it runs all the way through the Denver Metro area far south and far north.

This is an example of not paying attention to the details. We didn’t need to have gone the five or so miles extra just to get things from a hardware store. Merlyn thinks I know what I’m doing and sometimes I blow it. On the other hand sometimes I let him know that he needs to go right rather than left or vice-versa. It works out eventually and neither of us gets overly excited as we accept each other’s occasional imperfections and we let tolerance take over.

To begin to list all the times I don’t pay attention to details would totally destroy the image of always being perfect in my wonderful world of rose colored glasses and fuchsia accents. On the other hand I do get to give little touches of fun and perhaps a little uplift when I add a few details to enhance a plate of food, a conversation or maybe the way I give someone a special hug.

The details can give each day a little more meaning and joy, or if we let them a little disappointment. I try to avoid the latter. So I can now be the silly person that I sometimes like to be. The question is; are the details dehead, delegs. debelly, dearms, defingers or detoes the ones that are debest?

© 9 December 2012

About the Author

I go by the drag name, Queen Anne Tique. My real name is Michael King. I am a gay activist who finally came out of the closet at age 70. I live with my lover, Merlyn, in downtown Denver, Colorado. I was married twice, have 3 daughters, 5 grandchildren and a great grandson. Besides volunteering at the GLBT Center and doing the SAGE activities,” Telling your Story”,” Men’s Coffee” and the “Open Art Studio”. I am active in Prime Timers and Front Rangers. I now get to do many of the activities that I had hoped to do when I retired; traveling, writing, painting, doing sculpture, cooking and drag.

Posted on

Exploring by Merlyn

I have always loved to explore someplace I have never been before. The places I have been that I think about the most are the places I have just stumbled on.

We did not see anyone for three days at small lake in Utah. We were parked under a big tree with a cool breeze coming off the water that kept the bugs away from a clearing that went into the clean water. We had the freedom to be naked and do anything we wanted.

Michael and I are planning on taking a couple of trips this summer. The first one will be a short sentimental journey for Michael that will give us a few destinations in places that he hasn’t been to in 50 years. Michael grew up in Truth or Consequences NM; he went to college in Silver City NM and taught School in Artesia NM. We will spend most of our time south of Albuquerque in southern New Mexico

The rest of the time we plan on just wandering exploring places we have never been. Stopping in small towns and checking out the antique stores, galleries, and museums. The most interesting places we found on the last trip was from talking to people, asking them what there is to see and what they like to do in the area.

If everything works out OK we are planning a road trip east into New England in the fall. I haven’t been in DC in 30 years so I want to stop there for a day or so and see the new monuments that weren’t there then. We are talking about driving up the eastern seaboard from Delaware north then back across upstate New York. Michael wants to see Niagara Falls.

The rest of the time we will just wander.

An ex girl friend sent me the article she cut out of some paper and the picture she took of me on a trip we went on together in the early 80s along the Canadian border in Washington.
She called it “All that wander are not lost.”

About the Author

I’m a retired gay man now living in Denver Colorado with my partner Michael. I grew up in the Detroit area. Through the various kinds of work I have done I have seen most of the United States. I have been involved in technical and mechanical areas my whole life, all kinds of motors and computer systems. I like travel, searching for the unusual and enjoying life each day.