Tag: History

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Summer Camp by Betsy

Unlike their counterpart the Boy
Scouts of America, the Girl Scouts of the USA have historically been accepting
of their lesbian members–girls and adult leaders and professional staff
members.   The policy regarding sexual
orientation is and always has been not to condemn or condone any sexual
behavior, and that displays of or promotion of any lifestyle over another is
inappropriate and has no place in the conduct of adult leaders or girl
members.  Inappropriate conduct sexual or
otherwise is subject to evaluation and condemnation by the administrative
authorities of the organization.
I had a 25 year career as a
professional staff member and about 40 years as a girl member and a volunteer
leader and administrator.  In those 65
years I have known many women both gay and straight who have been dedicated to
the Girl Scout program and ideals.
The Girl Scout program and the
places where it is carried out offer girls something unique; namely, a place
for girls only, a place where girls can carry out their activities and projects
without the presence of boys.  In a
girls-only environment, the dynamics are different from an environment where
boys are present.  Expectations of the
girls are higher and their performance is often higher.  The stereotypes assigned by society to
females usually disappear in an all-girl setting.  Stereotypes of acceptable female roles simply
do not apply in such circumstances. 
Studies have shown clearly that students in an all girl setting
consistently out perform those in co-ed settings.  Girl Scouting offers this all-girl setting
where recreational activities can be carried out.
It seems that homophobia has never
been an issue in my experience in girl scouting with one exception.  Summer camp. 
One can certainly understand how a
college aged lesbian seeking summer employment would be attracted to the Girl
Scout summer camp counsellor job.  How
many times have I heard these words from many of my lesbian acquaintances: “Oh,
you worked for the Girl Scouts?  I was a
summer camp counsellor when I was in college.”
There are very few times the
homophobia monster reared its ugly head in the 25 years I was with Mile Hi
Council staff.   Both were very ugly
indeed. 
I was not involved in the camp
program so I heard this story second hand but I am sure it’s accurate.  During one two-week session of camp somehow
word got out that there were two lesbians on the camp staff–maybe more.  The word got to some of the campers’
parents–parents who did not want their children exposed to homosexuality.  In the middle of the session two of the
parents appeared one day at camp and publicly and loudly demanded that their
children be removed immediately from whatever they were doing.  The mothers were there to take there darlings
home lest they fall under the damaging 
influence of the lesbian counsellors.
The second appearance of the
monster occurred when an acquaintance, the administrator of a camping program
told me that she had been directed by her CEO to be sure not to recruit camp
staff from the lesbian community.  How do
we know an applicant is a lesbian,” she asked.  
“We can’t ask.”  “They all have
short hair,” was the reply from the CEO, who, by the way, herself had never
been known to have anything but short hair.
Ahh! Summer camp.  No wonder I loved it so much myself.  Crawling with lesbians.  How is it that I ended up with a life-long
partner who doesn’t even know what summer camp is!
© 25 August 2014
About the Author

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

The Romantic music of Tchaikovsky is some of the most deeply emotional music ever written. Like millions of listeners spanning more than a century since his death, I have held a deep appreciation for his musical genius. More so, and ever since I was a child, I have deeply sensed the true meaning lying within his final composition, his “Pathétique” symphony. Whether or not my musical sense or Tchaikovsky’s ability to communicate is responsible for my insight, that sense now has been proven to be accurate, which I’ll explain further along.

Tchaikovsky’s music ranges from apparent joy and love to the darkest abyss of despair. Now that additional information has come to light, we at last understand that the full extent of Tchaikovsky’s musical creativity most likely never would have found expression had it not been for the fact that he was homosexual, an orientation that, at that time and place, caused him life-long torment and depression.

Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composer

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, born in Votkinsk, Russia, experienced a childhood of misery. Although his father was minor aristocracy and a civil servant, the family was poor and eventually became destitute. Already an extremely sensitive and introspective child, his mother’s unhappiness affected Tchaikovsky, especially after they moved to Moscow when he was eight. She died when he was only fourteen, a contributing factor to his depression.

He first enrolled in, what was called, the Imperial School of Jurisprudence, an all-boys school that prepared them for civil service, engineering, and the military. Here, he was exposed to much sexual experimentation among the boys, and he soon realized that this was his own preference. At that time in Russia, and especially in the capital of Moscow, clandestine homosexual acts did occur, but the terrible sin was being caught.

Tchaikovsky changed the direction of his career upon attending a performance of Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni,” an experience that greatly impressed him and resulted in his enrolling in the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Upon graduation, he returned to Moscow to join its conservatory. In such an environment, he found his career flourishing but, at the same time, having to live in a city that biographers have described as “violently homophobic.” Consequently, he suffered frequent bouts of self-doubt and depression, fearing exposure. He revealed to his younger brother Anatoly that his homosexual tendencies, caused “an unbridgeable gulf between the majority of people and myself. They impart to my character…a sense of alienation, fear of others, timidity, excessive shyness, mistrustfulness, which make me more and more unsociable.” Increasingly, these feelings found expression in his music.

Despite his fears of exposure, Tchaikovsky could not suppress his desires. He became deeply in love with fifteen-year-old Eduard Zak. Eduard, however, suffered his own despair and committed suicide at nineteen. Sometime later, Tchaikovsky wrote in his diary, “How amazingly clearly I remember him: the sound of his voice, his movements, but especially the extraordinarily wonderful expression on his face at times. I cannot conceive that he is no more. The death of this boy, the fact that he no longer exists, is beyond my understanding. It seems to me that I have never loved anyone so strongly as him.”

Stories of love, and doomed love, found expression in his music. Musicologists feel that Eduard was the inspiration for his composition “Romeo and Juliet,” based upon the tragedy by Shakespeare and written at the time Tchaikovsky was in love with Eduard.

Tchaikovsky himself had a doomed marriage, an attempt to appear and to feel “normal.” He wrote to his brother Modest that he would marry absolutely anyone, which he did at age thirty-seven. He attempted to propose to his new wife having simply a platonic relationship, which apparently she did not understand. This experiment failed and contributed further to his depression. They separated within a few months but never officially divorced because the legally required infidelity never had occurred.

One woman became his unseen patron, Nadezhda von Meck, widow of a wealthy railroad tycoon. Although they never met face to face, they frequently wrote to each other. This abruptly came to an end at age fifty when von Meck’s relatives, jealous of the money given to Tchaikovsky, blackmailed her with the threat of public exposure of Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality unless she ceased supporting him, which she did rather than risk that exposure. He was not told of this blackmail and became dismayed and embittered by the sudden severing of their relationship.

The most emotional and despondent music composed by Tchaikovsky was his final work, the Symphony No. 6 referred to as the “Pathétique.” The first movement begins with a solemn and even ominous introduction by bassoons. It then leads into one of the most beautiful yet heart-rending melodic themes, very much like a soulful remembrance of love.

The fourth and final movement is unusual in that it is the opposite of the expected exuberant ending. Instead, it begins with total resignation, climbs to a peak of angst and despair, and then, in a dramatically long and ever-descending passage, plummets into a deep, final abyss, much like a jumbo-jet falling from the sky, plunging into the sea, and sinking to the bottom. Recent research since the fall of the Soviet Union reveals why.

In Tchaikovsky’s fifty-third year, the final year of his life, he had an affair with Alexandre Vladimirovich Stenbok-Fermor, the eighteen-year-old son of Count Alexei Alexandrovich Stenbok-Fermor. The great sin of exposure came to pass. The count discovered the liaison and wrote an angry letter denouncing Tchaikovsky to Czar Alexander III, his close friend. The count’s lawyer, rather than delivering the letter immediately to the Czar, instead, contacted his powerful legal and political colleagues, all alumni from the Imperial School of Jurisprudence. They convened a “Court of Honor” and summoned Tchaikovsky to appear before them. He was told that they were prepared to deliver the damning letter to the Czar, thereby destroying his reputation and exposing him to censure and shame. They then informed him that the only way for him to avoid scandal and disgrace was to commit suicide.

Tchaikovsky was confronted with this shock and ultimatum while he was composing the “Pathétique.” It now appears that he completed the symphony as a farewell to life. His death by arsenic poisoning was slow and painful. To prevent the public from learning the facts behind Tchaikovsky’s death, the word went out that he died from cholera.

Anyone who truly cares for other people must be empathetic for Tchaikovsky and regret his having lead such a tortured life. His brother Modest speculated that composing music was “an attempt to drive out the somber demons that had so long plagued him.” We might wish that the man never have suffered so greatly. Yet, without a life of suffering, we might never have had given to us such extraordinary music. I’ll go further; it is safe to say that this “symphony of defeat,” and especially the suicidal fourth movement, never would have been written as it was. As for myself, who have appreciated the beauty and power of the “Pathétique” for so long, it is a sad consolation to have my sense, from the very first hearing, of what Tchaikovsky was saying confirmed. I heard his voice; I felt his despair.

Click on the link below to watch the final
movement of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony Number 6, the “Pathétique”: Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, V. Gergiev, conductor, 13:20 minutes.  

The “Pathétique” 


January, 2014

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

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Mirror Image by Will Stanton

Back in the 1930s when millions of people were out of work, most people thought that it was OK, even wonderful, that the federal government would step in and help to provide good jobs for people, especially since there was so much work that needed to be done. Much of that needed work was fixing what previous generations of people had broken through lack of foresight, no sense of wise land use, and even from simple greed. That certainly was true in the rural areas of Ohio where I grew up. Forests had been stripped, top-soil had eroded away, mine tailings dumped near water sources, and streams had been polluted. Many poor homesteads and small villages were left to decay. Work was scarce, the economy poor.

So F.D.R., the President that some people chose to hate, created the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps. Just in our area alone, hundreds upon hundreds of people were given useful jobs during the 1930s. Thousands of trees were planted to prevent further soil erosion and pollution of waterways. Roads were improved, and small concrete bridges replaced fords through streams.

Nature had created no natural lakes in the area; so to help control water-flow and to boost the local economy in the Zaleski Forest region, a small damn was built, creating a many-fingered lake. Workers built a swimming area with wooden docks and diving towers. They made places for boating and canoeing. They added a picnic area with benches and fireplaces along side of the shore. They built a road to a scenic overlook where, eventually, a rustic lodge was constructed. Nearby, they made several wooden cabins for campers. The Division of Forestry officially opened the Zaleski Forest Park in 1940. Once the Division of Parks and Recreation was created 1949, it was renamed Lake Hope State Park. The area has provided employment and recreation ever since.

I recall with pleasure and a good amount of nostalgia visiting Lake Hope on many occasions from as young as age two. Sometimes it was just our family; at other times it was with family friends. During those first years, the three routes to the lake were gravel. The northern route was the shortest and passed by the remains of a stone structure resembling an oversize barbeque chimney. It was just one of several dozen 18th and 19th-century iron furnaces long abandoned since the charcoal and ore had been depleted in the area. The southern route took us through miles of hilly rural forest including many acres of pines planted by the C.C.C. And, the eastern route was the most primitive route of all, winding its way through the dense woods past abandoned and near-abandoned settlements and crossing the railroad tracks near the Moonville Tunnel, built in the mid-1800s. The tracks are long-gone, and the tunnel now is rumored to be haunted.

I recall how with excitement I would catch the first sight of the lake, eagerly looking forward to going to the man-made beach. We would wind our way to the parking lot and head for the wooden bathhouse. At age two, I was taken by my mother to the women’s side. (Yes, I can remember that young.) When older, my father took me to the men’s. When so young, I was required to stay near the beach, but I remember seeing my oldest brother going out to the wooden diving tower, climbing up so high, and diving in.

Vintage photo of
Lake Hope’s swimming area

My family and friends would bring along picnics, and afterwards we would find a picnic table near the water’s edge and lay out our food on one of the tables. Little stone fireplaces were provided in case we wished to grill hamburgers or hotdogs. We did not know in those days that potato chips were not so healthful, but we loved them and looked forward to our friends bringing them. They actually brought commercial-size bucketsful. Then there was desert.

Once sated with picnic-food, we would stroll along a path that closely followed the edge of the lake, listening for birds and watching for water foul. In the time of my childhood, the lake was surrounded by old-growth as well as reforested hills. Looking across the lake in any direction, I enjoyed seeing the wooded hills reflected, mirror-image, in the calm water.

Vintage photo of Lake Hope — a mirror image

On other occasions, we rented a small cabin up near the lodge. They had few real amenities, but at least there was a roof over our heads. We brought food and supplies with us, and the lodge was nearby in case we needed anything more.

Later, when my grandmother once came visiting, we took her with us to Lake Hope. It was my birthday, and she thought that I was old enough by then for me to have a Camp King jackknife. My mother did not; she was sure that I would cut myself. Of course, I did, but it was only a slight wound on my thumb.

And as we grew older, we made use of the beautiful stone and wood lodge for dinner. It was perched high on the ridge and had a fine view through the trees to the shimmering lake below. Near the entrance to the dining room, they had placed a Skittles game, and we kids enjoyed playing it when we had some time after our meal. I was sorry to learn that the lodge burned to the ground in 2006. I new one has been built to replace it.

More than seventy years have passed since Lake Hope was opened to the public. Generations of families, locals, and students from surrounding colleges, have enjoyed the facilities and the beauty of this lake. When I last visited there, my memories flowed. Looking across the lake and admiring the mirror-image reflections from the wooded hills, I felt a twinge of nostalgia. I knew that generations more of employees and visitors would continue to enjoy this little Eden. Those 1930s politicians who opposed such projects, those hard-nosed naysayers, were proved wrong. Thank you, you far-sighted individuals who made possible the many benefits from their proposed work projects. Thank you W.P.A. and C.C.C. for work well done.   

© 11 February 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.

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All My Exes Live in Texas by Lewis

[Disclaimer:
I sincerely hope that I do not offend anyone by what I am about
to say.  If Texas is the state of your
birth, please forgive me.  I understand
that you had no choice in the matter and would naturally feel somewhat defensive.  I apologize in advance for my unbridled
antagonism toward your home state.  If
Texas is your adopted state, however, then we must simply agree to disagree.  Since you are gay and because Texan’s in
general are about as homophobic as you can get, I have no desire to add to your
mental anguish. I hope you can get some help.]
 It’s safe to assume, I
suppose, that by the term “ex” is meant “erstwhile”.  It would also likely be safe to assume that
the “erstwhile” refers to lovers. 
Since I have had only two lovers in my lifetime and one of them is dead
and the other lives in Michigan, there is very little I can say about this
subject directly.  However, I do have a
few things to say about the state of Texas in general.
If I ever have a lover who
says to me, “Let’s move to Texas”, the next words out of my mouth
will be, “So long, pardner. 
Remember to roll your pant legs up so they don’t get in the horse
shit”.  I hate Texas so much that,
whenever I think of the Alamo, I’m overcome not with pride but with
regret.  My most hated actor, John Wayne,
not only directed the movie, The Alamo,
but cast himself in the role of Col. Davy Crockett.  As fate would have it, I had been planning to
watch the movie the very evening the call came that my father had died of a
massive stroke.  That was not the cause
of my regret, however.  No, that was
because the wrong side lost.
My daddy had a brother–the
youngest of four–who moved his family to Austin.  He was a high muckety-muck with the state
school Board.  When I say
“high”, I mean tall–he was about 6 foot 4.  He was also the first of the four brothers to
die.  I’m not going to say that Texas
politics killed him but the Texan he married might have been implicated had
there been an investigation.  Not only
did she have a drawl that would have shamed the two Andy’s–Devine and
Griffith–into going back to acting school, she had a temper that had me hiding
beneath the dining room buffet in abject fear.
Oh, they sure do take their
football serious down there.  I once attended
a game between the Texas Longhorns and the Aggies.  It was the only time I saw a referee get
knocked out.  I think the crowd made more
noise over that than any of the scoring plays.
During the OPEC-induced
recession of 1984, I and several of my co-workers at Ford Motor in Dearborn,
MI, were laid off.  One of them moved to
Texas looking for work.  He stayed less
than a year due to culture shock.
And what’s the deal with
“The Lone Star State” as their motto? 
According to Wikipedia, “Texas
is nicknamed the Lone Star State to signify Texas as a former
independent republic and as a reminder of the state’s struggle for independence
from Mexico”.  Sounds like a lot of
“Texas hooey” to me.  I think
the motto is a way to remind the other 49 states how special Texas is and that
they just might secede at any time.
Secession is no idle threat,
coming as it did from Texas’ governor himself. 
I would humbly suggest that the U.S. cede Texas to Mexico in exchange
for Tijuana.  Not only would this overnight
raise the cultural and political intelligence of the United States as a whole
but also cure a good bit of our problems with border security.
As a boy, I was enamored of
the Lone Ranger.  As a man, I’ve learned
that the real Texas Rangers used to take Mexicans out into the desert and shoot
them, leaving their corpses to rot, just as I’ve seen John Wayne do in the
movie, Red River.
Well, I don’t want this to
turn into a rant.  If you’ve ever been to
Amarillo, you’ll understand why I think that the people of Texas have suffered
enough already.  I’m just biding my time
for the day when the brown-skinned immigrant voters outnumber the knuckle-heads
that control the politics down there today. 
Better the state turn purple than my face.
© 13 January 2014 

About
the Author  

I came to the beautiful state of
Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married
and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of
Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an
engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26
happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I
should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t
getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just
happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both
fortuitous and smooth.
 Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver,
my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in
October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility
is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there
to light the way.
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Mirror Image by Betsy

My partner Gill and I often inadvertently have interesting discussions at tea time. Someone makes a statement and before we know it we find ourselves delving deeply into one subject or another.

Just a couple of days ago we got into a discussion about growing up female in the United States in the 1940‘s-50’s vs. growing up female in the U. K. in the 1940’s-50’s.

The thought that triggered this conversation had to do with confidence, rather the lack of it, in women of our generation. I am suggesting that certainly not all women but many American women raised in the 30‘s and 40‘s are more likely to lack confidence whereas British women do not. How and why did this come to pass?

I speculate that as I was growing up in middle class America I was expected to become some man’s wife and my role would be to facilitate his career, be his support staff, and to raise a family. This may not be the same for all women, but this is the message I received in some form every day of my life as a youngster. Certainly my development was not focused on learning a particular skill, pursuing a talent, or being exposed to a profession, or even learning professional behavior, or how to be assertive. Nor did I have the role models for such behavior or for such an attitude. The ultimate outcome for me was to be a wife and a mother. Mind you, there is nothing wrong or demeaning about this particular outcome, if a woman is given the choice and chooses it.

The college I attended for four years, Wells College, was founded by a man in 1868 for the purpose of providing suitable wives for the men of Cornell. This is the stated purpose of the institution, the assumption being at the time that men wanted educated wives–not so their wives could develop their own careers, of course, but so they could have intelligent conversation and have their children cared for by an educated mother.

That was the 19th century. After World War II women realized that there might be more for them than kitchens and nurseries. After all, they had had to go to work during the war to produce guns and tanks while the men were off fighting. Many women realized life might offer some choices for them. Maybe there was a life outside of the home–an interesting life. After all, raising children does not last forever–actually only a few years when taking an entire lifetime into account.

By the time I attended Wells College attitudes had become much more progressive and women were encouraged to develop a profession or a career if they so chose. So I was exposed to this attitude as a young adult in the college I attended and sometimes from other sources. I remember clearly my grandmother, whom I called “Abita,” encouraging me to think about a career in math or science. She had clipped from the paper an article pointing out the surge of interest among women in careers in science and the opportunities that were coming available, suggesting that I might be encouraged to fly in that direction. This was a brand new idea to me–something I had never considered.

By the time I graduated from college, I no longer saw myself as a wife alone, but perhaps as a wife and a member of one of three professions which by that time had been assigned to women: nursing, teaching, and social work. In 1957 it was quite acceptable, even promoted, that a woman could have a career and a husband. However, despite the changes in the attitudes and the social norms of the time, the message I received from the adults in the early years of my life were a part of my psyche.

Listening to partner Gill’s description of growing up female in Britain, I realize there is a contrast, but at the same time, the image is the same–much like a mirror image.

In Britain, at least in Gill’s experience and the experience of most of the females she knew, girls grew up with the expectation that they would be independent, able to take care of themselves, if needed, and it turns out that it was needed thanks to two world wars. Girls would marry and raise families, and they would be making choices for themselves all along. British women, according to her story, were raised to be strong and independent–in contrast to American women who were supposed to be happily dependent and at least appear to be the demure little wife sitting at home taking care of the house.

Interesting mirror image! The same, but turned around. But why not, I say. Look at the role models the British women have: Elizabeth, Victoria, the current Elizabeth. The kings, with a few exceptions, messed up. But the queens–just look at them. And what did our ancestors who were British do with that heritage? They chose to leave the country and sail across the ocean and start a new country where there would be no monarchy–no role models.

Besides that, two world wars in Europe had taken out a huge chunk of the British male population. World War I in particular. It was not a given for a woman in 1930’s Britain that she would become someone’s wife, she knew that she would very likely soon become someone’s widow. Men were in short supply during both wars. The women had been left at home to run the household and to continue doing so when their men did not return from war. It was the women who raised the next generation of adults in post war Britain. These adults certainly did not grow up with a vision of females as being anything but strong and self sufficient.

This topic can certainly stand on its own as an opportunity for further consideration, writing, and listening, or another discussion at tea time. But in this case I will leave it here with the two similar and opposing images to contemplate.

©18 March 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.

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Dresden by Will Stanton

The fire-bombing and destruction of Dresden happened close to seventy years ago, in another era, another country, with other people. In raising the subject, many people might respond by saying, “Why should we remember? Why should we care? That was a long time ago and has nothing to do with me or today.”

George Santayana is credited with saying, “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” And, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

By nature, I am a very empathetic person. Hate and violence perpetrated against others, present or past, disturbs me greatly. Also, I have a great appreciation for the good works of humanity; and when they wantonly are destroyed, that, too, concerns me.

Before World War II, Dresden, the capital of German state of Saxony, was known as “The Florence of the Elba” because of its extraordinary beauty. Elaborate Baroque stone architecture was expressed in its churches and cathedrals, its opera house and symphony hall, its university and museums, the choirboys school, its grand manor houses, and in its middle-class homes and shops. This peaceful city was built for living, not for war and destruction. There were no military facilities or industries in Dresden. For that reason, Dresden remained untouched until almost the very end of the war…almost.

In a statement by J.M. Spraight, Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry, he stated the following: “Charles Portal of the British Air Staff advocated that entire German cities and towns should be bombed. He claimed that this would quickly bring about the collapse of civilian morale in Germany. Air Marshall Arthur Harris agreed, and when he became head of R.A.F. Bomber Command in February 1942, he introduced a policy of area bombing where entire cities and towns were targeted. We began to bomb objectives on the German mainland before the Germans began to bomb objectives on the British mainland… Because we were doubtful about the psychological effect of…the truth that it was we who started the strategic bombing offensive, we have shrunk from giving our great decision of May 11th, 1940, the publicity it deserves.”

Ironically, an in-depth study after the war indicated that, had the Allies concentrated strictly upon military-related targets, the war could have been ended several months earlier, saved thousands of lives, and avoided the devastation of civilians’ towns and cities. Despite these facts, Harris was convinced that bombing civilian populations was the best way to win the war.

The bombing tactic developed by the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Corps was the creation of fire-storms. This was achieved by dropping incendiary bombs, filled with highly combustible chemicals such as magnesium, phosphorus or petroleum jelly (napalm), in clusters over a specific target. After the area caught fire, the air above the bombed area, became extremely hot and rose rapidly. Cold air then rushed in at ground level from the outside, and people were sucked into the fire. The Allies first tested this concept over the city of Hamburg. The resulting fire-storm created tornadoes of fire. Even the civilians who jumped into the river burned. Harris considered the test to have been a success.

By February, 1945, the war was almost over. The Allies were closing in from the west and the Russians from the east upon what remained of Germany. So far, the non-military city of Dresden was untouched.

It was at this point that Winston Churchill, the British Air Marshall (who became known as “Bomber Harris),” and his staff, decided that the Allies should make, shall we say, “a statement” by demonstrating their power to obliterate an entire, previously untouched city. It has been said that this decision so near to the end of the war was based partially upon revenge for bombing the British munitions-producing city of Coventry. Perhaps more importantly, it was to choose a previously undamaged city to demonstrate to Stalin and the Soviet armed forces, who rapidly were moving west across Germany, that the western contingent of the Allies was very powerful and could obliterate an entire city. The Soviet Union, therefore, would see the West’s determination to finish off Germany and also that the Russians should think twice about occupying lands too far to the west.

David Pedlow, in a letter to The Guardian (14th February, 2004), wrote about a rather revealing scenario supporting the fact that the bombing of Dresden was no militarily strategic objective. He stated, “My father was one of the…R.A.F. meteorological officers (who) finally sealed Dresden’s fate…The Dresden briefing was only one of many that he routinely attended, and even before the crews left the ground, he was troubled because of one notable omission from the routine.

Normally, crews were given a strategic aiming point – anything from a major factory in the middle of nowhere to a small but significant railway junction within a built-up area. The smaller the aiming point and the heavier the concentration of housing around it, the greater would be the civilian casualties; but given that the strike was at a strategic aiming point, those casualties could be justified. Only at the Dresden briefing, my father told me, were the crews given no strategic aiming point. They were simply told that anywhere within the built-up area of the city would serve.

He felt that Dresden and its civilian population had been the prime target of the raid and that its destruction and their deaths served no strategic purpose, even in the widest terms, that this was a significant departure from accepting civilian deaths as a regrettable but inevitable consequence of the bomber war, and that he had been complicit in what was, at best, a very dubious operation.”

The British Royal Air Force, with the assistance of the United States Army Air Corps, chose to bomb the historic Dresden in six raids over three days and nights [13th, 14th, and 15th] during February, 1945. The four British raids over Dresden, followed by two American raids, consisted of 3,600 bombers and other planes, 650,000 incendiaries, plus over 6,000 tons of explosives. The high explosives and incendiaries resulted in a raging firestorm that sucked all the oxygen out of the city, suffocating the citizens hiding in basements. Those above ground were incinerated or crushed by falling buildings. The bombing completely destroyed seventeen square miles of the historic city and damaged many additional square miles surrounding the city center.

At first, apologists for the bombing claimed that the obliteration of Dresden was a “navigation error” – – over a three-day period. Later, some claimed that the bombing was necessary to take out military targets, although the only minor, war-related facilities were far from the city. Those facilities remained untouched by the bombing and are intact to this day. They also claimed that “only 50,000 civilians” were killed in the bombing and resulting firestorm; however, this figure ignores the fact that 300,000 refugees recently had fled to Dresden for safety, knowing that the city was a non-military location and that the war was almost over. More accurate estimates range far higher with additional tens of thousand of souls lost in the devastation. This included eleven of the church choirboys and their school.
Dozens of photographs were taken of the aftermath of the firebombing, many of them, such as mountains of dead being burned in the streets, too horrifying and gruesome to view without being emotionally shaken. The most poignant, haunting picture that I’ve seen is the charred remains of a nine-year-old, blond boy clinging to his dead mother.

Ironically, there were American prisoners of war in outlying areas of Dresden at that time. Fortunately, some of them survived the bombardment by taking refuge in the basements of homes. My family had a friend who had been an American POW and survived the bombing in that manner. He mentioned that, by the end of the war, Germany had lost so many adult soldiers that mere boys had been assigned to guard them. Also held with him and the other soldiers was Kurt Vonnegut who, as a now-famous author, wrote about his Dresden experience in his 1969 book “Slaughterhouse Five.”

American soldiers were recruited to carry the dead to the burning grounds. Many were found seated in basements and shelters, dead from carbon monoxide and lack of oxygen. Many others were burned beyond recognition. Kurt Vonnegut later reported, “American prisoners, at first, were ordered to move thousands of bodies to pyres for burning (of which there are photographs); however, there were so many bodies that they were provided flame-throwers to burn the bodies just where they lay, turning them into ash and, therefore, no longer identifiable as human remains. Thousands of the dead likely were refugees and not listed on resident rolls, making almost impossible estimation of the final tally.”

Otto Sailer-Jackson was a keeper at Dresden Zoo on February 13th, 1945. He recalled being at the zoo when the bombing occurred. “The elephants gave spine-chilling screams. The baby cow elephant was lying in the narrow barrier-moat on her back, her legs up in the sky. She had suffered severe stomach injuries and could not move. A…cow-elephant had been flung clear across the barrier-moat and the fence by some terrific blast-wave, and stood there trembling. I had no choice but to leave these animals to their fate…We did what we had to do, but it broke my heart.”

The famous stone-domed cathedral Frauenkirche stood for just one day after the bombing; however, the heat from the fire-bombing was so great that it turned the stone porous. The cathedral collapsed the following day.

Because Dresden had no food and little shelter, our friend and the other Americans were marched north, out of the ruins of Dresden. Years later, our friend returned to Dresden and found the very same house in which a German lady had protected him. He knocked upon the door. An elderly lady answered, looked at him, and then broke into a broad smile. She remembered him.

In addition to the destruction of the city itself, great works of art and other prized creations made by human hands were destroyed. Also, sitting on a railroad siding was a whole train-load of valuable artwork that had been brought there for safe-keeping. The “Florence of the Elba” was no more.

After the war, Churchill began to back off from previous statements about the supposed necessity of bombing Dresden, whereas Harris continued to defend the decision. Suspicion concerning that decision grew even among the British public. Partially for that reason, Harris moved to South Africa and lived there from 1946 through 1953. No special medal was offered to the crews who flew the Dresden missions. Whereas a statue of the war-time supreme commander of the R.A.F. was erected soon after the war, no such statue of Harris was considered until several decades later.

Despite protests from Germany as well as some in Britain, the “Bomber Harris Trust” (an R.A.F. veterans’ organisation formed to defend the good name of their commander) erected a statue of him outside the R.A.F. Church of St. Clement Danes, London, in 1992. It was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, who looked surprised when she was jeered by protesters, one of whom shouted, “Harris was a war criminal.” The line on the statue reads, “The Nation owes them all an immense debt.” The statue had to be kept under 24-hour guard for a period of months because it was often vandalised by protesters. Apparently, some people do remember, and they do care.

© 21 December, 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.

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History by Ricky

Writers and commentators often quote Edmund Burke’s famous line, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”  I was a teenager when I heard that phrase for the first time. Since then I have occasionally had flashes of insight (or maybe they were epiphanies) linking some aspects of world history to more recent events in a nearly unbroken chain of repeating history because the lessons were not learned. Unfortunately, my insights are linking the past to present trends, which I find distressing.

This past week was exceptionally depressing for me. Historically, it was this week exactly 11 years ago in 2001 that my wife entered the hospital the day after 9-11 and passed away on the following Saturday, 15 September.

Yesterday it was Saturday the 15th. So I finally recognized why I was feeling “down” and that helped a bit. I learned that lesson from history – death happens; nonetheless, I was living through it again.

Yesterday, I read an article in the October 2012 issue of Vanity Fair by Michael Lewis titled “Obama’s Way.” It was a very interesting article and gave some historical background on world changing events from the perspective of how President Obama lives and makes decisions and how he keeps from becoming mentally ill from the stress of making decisions. It would be worth everyone’s time to read it.

Yesterday, I also watched a history channel special presentation. It was a two part series about the Rise of the Third Reich and the second part was the Fall of the Third Reich. It was shown using “home movies” taken by several German citizens, which showed German society following WWI and the conditions, which led to the rise of the Nazi Party from the perspective of the average German. Letters from and movies taken by German soldiers told another view of the war.

I understand many of the causes of WWI and those factors that lead up to WWII, but it still appears that those in power and those who agitate for or initiate violence, still have not learned from history that the death and destruction that follow greatly exceed the instigator’s estimates. Even William Shakespeare seemed to understand the concept that “war is hell.” Of course his version was more poetic, “Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war.”  (Or was that the Klingons who said that?  It makes no difference to reality.)

I suppose it should not be so strange to understand why humans keep failing to learn from history. My humble (but probably accurate) opinion is that over the course of human existence, from the earliest days of recorded history unto now, every generation believes that it knows more and knows better than their progenitors. Therefore, forgets that people are still people and human nature is still the same throughout all time and places. “We are superior to the ancients in wisdom, knowledge, and technology.” “We are superior to our previous generations.” “Our society is superior to other societies.” “Where others have failed we will succeed.” Therefore, every rising generation ends up making the same mistakes all over again with weapons increasingly more destructive and the death toll keeps rising.

I am reminded of Bobby Rydell’s A World Without Love, one verse of which is, “Birds sing out of tune, and rain clouds hide the moon, I’m Ok, here I stay with my loneliness, I don’t care what they say I won’t stay in a world without love.”

The sad thing is, I do not know how to change it and make it better; no one does and so it just keeps going on and on in one eternal round; like a nightmare play where every act has different actors, sets, backdrops, and costumes, but the action and dialogue remain consistently the same, scene to scene and from one act to another; yet the audience does not wake up so the nightmare can end.

Wake up you people! I am tired of crying myself to sleep over all this hatred and violence!

© 16 September 2012

About the Author

Ricky was born in 1948 in downtown Los Angeles. He lived first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach both suburbs of LA. Just days prior to turning 8 years old, he was sent to live with his grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years while (unknown to him) his parents obtained a divorce.

When reunited with his mother and new stepfather, he lived one summer at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, he moved to Denver, Colorado where he lived with his wife of 27 years and their four children. His wife passed away from complications of breast cancer four days after 9-11.

He came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. He says, “I find writing these memories to be very therapeutic.”

Ricky’s story blog is “TheTahoeBoy.blogspot.com”

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One Monday Afternoon by Merlyn

I like to go on vacation the week after Labor Day; the kids are back in school and most of the places we liked to go to would still be open without all the people. We moved into a new place three years earlier and had been busy repairing and remodeled our new home. The only thing left to do was update the laundry room. I had redone the pumping, wiring and replaced the flooring. The only thing left to do on Monday was put the new washer and dryer in place. Load the old ones in the trailer and take them to be recycled. Then get out of town. The weather was supposed to be nice in southern Nevada and Arizona so we were planning on heading that way.

We were still in bed sleeping when the phone started ringing; my girlfriend’s son called to tell to turn on the TV, a plane had crashed into the world trade center. We were lying in bed watching the news when the second tower was hit.

I had been reading stories on line about possible terrorist attacks against us but I had dismissed them.

We spend the morning watching the TV and finishing the laundry room. The news was reporting that all of the planes that were flying were ordered to land at the nearest airport. I had the computer on a site that showed all of the planes in the air anywhere in the country, within an hour there were only a few planes left as one by one they landed and the sky was empty.

Around noon I went outside and was loading the old washer and dryer on the trailer when I realized how quiet everything was. We lived about a mile from the flight path to PDX airport and could always see and hear planes going over. I looked at the sky and realized our country would never be the same.

I went back inside and we watched the TV as we ate lunch and talked about what might happen next. Since no one knew what was going to happen we decided we did not want to be 1000 + miles from home and not be able to get back if the attacks continued.

We spent a week on the Oregon coast and spent the rest of our vacation just hanging around home.

After twenty years we never made a big trip together again after September 11, 2001

P.S. After I finished this story I was thinking about it and realized 911 was on a Tuesday. We were planning on leaving on Monday but the washer was not available to be picked up until Monday afternoon.

© 5
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.

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The Rise of the Guardian Angels by Louis

From September 1962 to June 1966 I attended Flushing High School in Flushing, Queens, NY. There were 3 types of preparation regimens one could follow. First there was the academic or college preparatory. I was in that group. Most of my classmates were Jewish. Then there was the commercial course, consisting primarily of teenage girls preparing to become secretaries. The boys in the commercial course studied woodworking and some English. The commercial course people were primarily white. Then there was the General Course leading to a minimal type of high school diploma. This was almost exclusively black and Hispanic.

The first year I attended, I was assaulted a few times by some white gang members. Even back then they called themselves the “Aryans”. They were mostly Germans from my home town of College Point. Then there were the Amazons, the girls’ gang. They invited me to join their gang. I agreed. They knew I was gay and said I was their type of client. They attacked members of the Aryans, and I was never bothered again. Once the Amazons wanted to attack a certain girl named Monica. Monica was very refined and soft-spoken. The Amazons were heavily made-up and somewhat aggressive. I beseeched them not to beat up Monica. So they spared Monica. Once the Amazons wanted to attack a small-statured Jewish boy, Charles, who read a lot of books. I again beseeched them not to attack him. So Charles was spared.

Once, before I went to high school, I was in the local park, Chisholm Park, in College Point, and I was sitting with my brother Wally, who was reading The New York Times. For some reason this enraged one of the local Aryans, who came over and set fire to the paper with a cigarette lighter. We were more amused than intimidated. We also had an Italian-American friend, Patsy (at home Pasquale), and he liked to read books and poetry. So the Aryans used to bully him too. I guess College Pointers were expected to stay away from books.

Although I was spared being bullied any more, the gangs still made life unpleasant in High School. One of the Aryans told me that, in their meeting, they really wanted to attack the black gang, the Panthers (or what have you), but they couldn’t because the Panthers were too numerous. So they decided to attack the Hispanic gang, well more precisely the Puerto Rican gang, the Borinqueños. Gradually, Flushing High School became a police state. Sections of the school were separated by large metal gates manned by policemen sporting well-displayed pistols.

The friction between the Aryans and the Borinqueños intensified, and a “rumble” was declared. The rumble or “armed” confrontation was planned for a summer evening on Main Street of College Point. The Borinqueños had machetes while the Aryans had heavy-duty chains. The rumble started by both gangs breaking out the front windows of almost all the stores on our Main Street. No gang member got killed, but many were injured and hospitalized. When the police first showed up, they could do nothing because they were outnumbered. Reinforcements did not show up for another couple of hours. By then most of the gang warriors had disappeared. They were particularly proud of the damage they had caused and of the injuries they had inflicted on members of the opposing gang.

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.

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Bishop’s Castle and Beyond by Gillian

Bishop’s Castle, where I went to high school, is a tiny town on the border between England and Wales, and about as far from being a city as a settlement can get, but it’s what I had. It had a population of a little over a thousand then, and less than 1500 now. A prehistoric Bronze Age route runs from the town but there is evidence of human habitation there several thousand years before that.
In the early 1200s the Bishop of Hereford built a castle there, hence the name, and the settlement received royal borough status in 1249.
In 1642, the Three Tuns Brewery was established on its current site, making it the oldest licensed brewery site in Britain. Now that is a real claim to fame. Need I say that any time I visit my friends who still live in B.C. as it’s known locally, I make it a point to have a pint or two in the Three Tuns pub?
Some of my friends live in a row of cottages all with curved back walls and flanking a gently curving street, as the original curved castle wall was used as it stood when they were built in the 1600s.  
Now I see it as a fascinating spot alive with history, but of course when I was at school there I simply found it a peacefully boring backwater I couldn’t wait to leave.
I did leave a little piece of my heart there, though. Inevitably, I think, we are left with some fondness for anywhere we spend much time, even if it is all distorted by nostalgia.
And anyway, I was in love there.
I was in love everywhere.
In that serial monogamy existing, secretly, only in my mind, I have been in love everywhere I have lived, and so scattered other little pieces of my heart.

In B.C. I was in love with Sarah who now lives in New Zealand and is a great-grandmother.

Bishop’s Castle, with its few tiny medieval shops, was useless for serious shopping so for that we rode the local bus into Shrewsbury, a town of 100,000 now and maybe half that in the 1940s.
Shrewsbury was founded as a town in the 8th century, built on the site of the Roman town of Viriconium of which many beautiful parts remain. The earliest written mention of the town is from the year 901, when it was part an important border post between the Anglo-Saxons of England and the Britons in Wales. By the reign of Athelstan (925-939) coinage was being issued by the Shrewsbury mint and many coins from that time are still being unearthed today.
The town fell to Welsh forces led by Llywelyn the Great in 1215 and again in 1234. In 1283 Edward I held a Parliament, the first to include a House of Commons, at Shrewsbury to decide the fate of Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the last free Welsh ruler of Wales. Dafydd was executed – hanged, drawn and quartered – for high treason in Shrewsbury.
Personally, I prefer the history of the Three Tuns!
Later, after the formation of the Church of England, the town was offered  a cathedral  by Henry VIII, but for some undocumented reason the citizens of the town rejected this offer. 
I like to think they had enough sense to know that Henry Vlll was mad bad and dangerous to know and preferred to keep their distance.
One of Shrewsbury’s main claims to fame is that it was the home of Charles Darwin.

I was in love with Rosemary who sold her mother’s beautiful hand-knitted creations in the market held in the Shrewsbury town square every Saturday.

I left this tranquil corner and went to college in the rough tough and extremely polluted city of Sheffield which at that time was wall to wall steel mills belching endless plumes of black choking smoke. We used to have “smog days” when the whole city was instructed to shut down, with the exception, of course, of the factories actually producing the smog. Classes were cancelled, shops closed, no buses ran. We all stayed inside with doors and windows tightly shut and did our best not to breathe.
And don’t panic, we’re not going on another forced march through history but I do have to say that Sheffield is where stainless steel was invented and patented, and recent discoveries date human habitation of that area to the end of the last ice age 13,000 years ago.

My years in Sheffield were blessed or cursed, depending on my mood at the time, with a deeply felt and equally deeply hidden love for Jane, who had lost her home and family to German bombs.

Next it was across The Pond to New York City. That’s as far as the ship went so that’s far as I went, at least till I earned some money. It was late October and the stores were all hiring temps for the Xmas rush. For some reason I don’t even remember, I ended up at Altman’s on 5th Avenue. 
There’s a line in the movie Miracle on 34th Street, I can’t quote it exactly but the gist of it is that Hell is Altman’s department store at Xmas. It was all such a new and foreign world to me that I don’t think I was even capable of judging it as Hell, but it certainly was not my idea of Heaven. I mean, Bishop’s Castle can get a bit rowdy at the Three Tuns on a Saturday night, and those Sheffield foundry workers could quite frighten the opposition crowd at a soccer game, but those women battling for basement bargains at Altman’s took aggression to a whole new level. I had simply never experienced anything remotely like any of it.
But one thing I adored. 
In the display windows of Alman’s, and many other of the big department stores nearby, there were wonderful mechanical toys, animated depictions of Santa’s Workshop in one window, his slay and reindeer swooping over snowy rooftops in another, excited children opening presents in a third.
I was completely enchanted.
I had never seen such things in my life. Depressed post-war Europe had had no excess resources to squander on such things. Every coffee break I dashed outside to gaze at them along with crowds of little children. Children, not to mention a few adults, were less sophisticated in those days.
(Some years later I dragged my reluctant husband and step-children all the way from Jamestown in a snowstorm to see similar displays in the May D&F windows in Denver. Dean, a mechanical engineer, was interested objectively in their workings, The kids were clearly if politely mystified as to why we were there. The overall reaction was a resounding hmmmmm.)

The other bit of my heart that remains in New York was extracted that first Xmas Day of my life in this country, when some kind family took pity on my friends and me, poor hopeless helpless imigrantes, and invited us to their home.
How on earth we had met these people I don’t remember, but their chauffeur-driven Cadillac carried us in a style I had never known to a mansion somewhere on Long Island. There were Xmas lights in the trees with bigger, richer lights blazing in the windows. Our gracious hosts had gifts for each of us, and managed to make us feel like much-loved daughters returning home for the holidays. 
I can’t remember their name or where exactly they lived, but I have never forgotten that Xmas and that family’s kindness to strangers. So, yes, New York does hold on to little pieces of my heart.

And anyway I was madly, secretly, in love. Infatuated with Lucie, the woman I had followed to New York as I would have followed her to Timbuktu.
And I did.

Well, I followed her to Houston: much the same thing.
This was as strange and foreign a world to me as New York City but in a very different way, and there for the first time in my life I encountered blatant discrimination.
I worked as a waitress at a diner in a new sprawling outdoor shopping mall in a completely white part of town. On my second day, I served coffee to two black people. Now this was the early sixties and racial discrimination was no longer legal, but I guess Texas, along with many parts of the South at that time, simply ignored that little detail. I was told to refuse to serve them any food and ask them to leave.
Needless to say, that was the end of my job at that café, but if I thank Houston for little else, I am grateful for it slapping me in the face with the realities of certain aspects of life in the Land of the Free.

I finally broke free of my obsession with Lucie, who married a multi-millionaire Texan and now lives in Venezuela.

Yes, I had scattered bits of my heart about, but it was intact enough to engulf Denver when I arrived here, and later, my beautiful Betsy.

1954’s #1 hit was Doris Day singing:

          Once I Had a Secret Love
          That lived within the heart of me
          All too soon my secret love
          Became impatient to be free

          So I told a friendly star
          The way that dreamers often do
          Just how wonderful you are
          And why I am so in love with you

          Now I shout it from the highest hills
          Even told the golden daffodils

          At last my heart’s an open door
          And my secret love’s no secret anymore

My love is certainly no secret, anymore.

1/23/2012


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.