Tag: Holidays

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Mothers Day, by Ray S

On Mothers Day
We lock all children far away,
It’s only fair for us to say,
So all those mothers can go out to play.

Do you know what is a limerick?
It must have four linking lines,
And they all have to rhyme,
So if you take the thymes, you have a limerick.

What is hot and certainly arousing?
Many a lass 
And boys with that kind of class
That’s what leads to intimate carousing. 

There is a cute fellow from Pawtuckit,
Who believes he can always luck it
’Til along came Ella, 
Who said “No,” to our fella 
Not without a raincoat and umbrella.

Until today we were limerick ignorant
To know what that is or why could it be signiforant?
So you find it’s a four line thing that rhymes on its ends
And is a county in Eire where they all talk different.

© 15 May 2017

About the Author

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When I Played Santa Clause, by Pat Gourley

Full disclosure right out of the box here I have never played Santa Claus. I did get to read the “Jesus lines’ in a Catholic grade school play around Easter time my 8th grade year. We were “performing” part of one of the New Testament gospels right up to the crucifixion, which was allowed to happen only off stage in people’s imaginations. I imagine there was a sibling or cousin or classmate or two who would have liked to see me actually get nailed to a cross.

Certainly for anyone who has known me over the past 50 plus years my being selected to read the Jesus lines was irony at it’s finest. As mentioned above it was an 8th grade play and that would have made me 13 or 14 and in the throws of my budding and extremely confused feelings of being somehow profoundly different from most around me.

It seems right for a Grateful Dead reference here especially since it’s been at least a few months since I have included one in my writing. These are a couple of short verses from a 1972 song written by Robert Hunter and several members of the band titled Playin’ in the Band”:

Some folks look for answers
Others look for fights
Some folks up in treetops
Just look to see the sights

But I can tell your future Well, just look what’s in your hand But I can’t stop for nothing I’m just playing in the band

Believe me when I tell you what was in my hand a disturbing amount of the time at age 14 was not the New Testament, but rather a bodily appendage that rhymes with sock.

Christmas with my family when growing up was really a pretty big deal. There was at least tons of excitement if not always a lot of money to shovel Santa’s way for presents. Being the oldest child, not just in my immediate family but also among the many cousins living within close proximity, I was the first I think to get the news that this was all a ruse and that Santa did not exist. He bit the dust along with the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny. It was a series of crushing childhood blows but amazingly I did survive even after indulging for a few years in that sort of magical thinking which certainly was soothing.

In hindsight I wish the myth debunking had extended to most of the religious indoctrination I had received in my first 14 years. Unfortunately it did not and it would take another decade to get that monkey off my back.

The harsh reality that Santa and a whole host of other magical figures and beliefs do not exist does make me long at times for a safer and sweeter time that existed for me before age 6. Though Santa Claus is certainly a specific culturally bound source of joy and solace, and according to Megyn Kelly he is white, I would hope there are similar myths for kids of other cultures, ah the innocence and bliss of early childhood. It does make me very sad though to think how we, and by that I mean the U.S.A, are destroying the wonderful early years of myth for so many in the world today.

It is, I imagine, hard to have wonderful fanciful thoughts when you are dying of cholera in Yemen or shaking in abject terror when U.S. made barrel bombs are landing in Syrian cities destroying any semblance of safety and security to say nothing of your life many times. A bit of understanding as to why we as a country participate in such atrocities in the world at large may be provided in how willingly we all to often treat one another here at home.

The examples are legion of course but a recent one came to my attention the other day in a piece in the Huffington Post. It was the story of a 93-year-old woman in Orlando Florida who was forcibly removed from her senior housing apartment and arrested for not paying rent. Partial rent payments had been made but apparently Scrooge didn’t feel that was adequate for an old woman undoubtedly on a very fixed income. Perhaps Senator Grassley is right and she was frittering away her income on male escorts, booze and movies. After two days in jail and turning 94 she was released to a motel and a local homeless coalition is helping her find housing.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/93-year-old-woman-arrested-rent_us_5a314874e4b091ca26849ee3?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

Of course there are also legions of Americans doing right by one another every day in many ways. I can’t help but think though that Santa would say it is not enough.

In an attempt at least to be a bit upbeat at this time of the returning sun we could all engage for a day or two in the old Thick Nhat Hahn meditation. That would involve noting or keeping track of all the small human courtesies one encounters in going about our daily lives. The smiles, nodding acknowledgements, doors held open, the ‘excuse me’s and of course the hugs and kisses that come our way. These often inadvertent and spontaneous loving gestures of humanity almost always far outnumber the nasty ones. So there is hope and maybe we can make Santa proud.

© December 2017

About the Author

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

(published in this blog previously on June 20, 2014)

When I was around 11 or 12 years old, I remember having Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and brothers in College Point. It was the mid-1950’s. Dwight Eisenhower was the President. I was a child happy with life, but my parents were very poor. I was too young to understand the inconveniences of poverty. We lived in a two-family house, and the upstairs tenant was a mother and daughter, Edna. They were poorer than we were. Edna got herself invited to our Thanksgiving and enjoyed setting up for the feast.

My parents and especially my mother and grandmother wanted us to remember that once upon a time the Brown family and my maternal grandmother’s family, the Wilcoxes, in the 19th century were enormous affluent, influential families. On the wall were a picture of Abraham Lincoln in an oak oval frame and another of my great grandfather Captain Francis Leicester Brown of the Union Army in an oak oval frame. There was a petty point sampler that read “God bless the family in this household,” completed by me on my 15th birthday, May 10, 1819, Hannah Hopkins Hodge.

In the 17th and 18th centuries my ancestors were prominent Puritan ministers. Even back then there were seemingly endless irreconcilable theological battles going on. On the other hand, my mother warned us that, though we should remember our ancestors, we should not be like her great aunt and become ancestor worshipers. It wasn’t wholesome either.

The meal consisted of turkey, creamed onions, turnips, yams, rather traditional. What made it memorable was the chinaware: Limoges and Haviland plates and platters, a Wedgewood chocolate pitcher, Limoges demitasse espresso coffee cups that were works of art. Crystal goblets for the cider, a magnificent Damask table cloth and napkins. Ornate sterling silverware, Victorian style. Our attic was full of these remnants and memorabilia of an affluent comfortable 19th century past. Corny but beautiful oil paintings, more petit point samplers, lavish gowns with the finest French laces. More Victorian extravagance. Edna from a Catholic family really enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinners. For a day we Browns were again important people though the reference point was to another earlier century. For a day we were ancestor worshipers.

Moral: How do poor people become whole happy well-adjusted people in a hostile social environment? I think poor people learning survival skills is probably more important than measuring one’s personal worth by the balance in our checking accounts and the influence we have in our communities.

Catholic Edna for example is happy. She started out poor. She is still poor, but she has a good understanding of why certain politicians say what they say. She has a spiritual dimension to her belief system. She survives, she is well-adjusted. She also proves that Puritans and Catholics can get along just fine, thank you.

Personally, I am still a “mal-content”. I am dissatisfied with church-sponsored homophobia, and the establishment’s irrational hostility to poor people, but I am on the mend.

Our best teachers in the current environment are Occupy Wall Street and the Radical Faeries. I heard clearly what they have to say. They are convincing. We Americans should object to Wall Street giving orders to our elected leaders about how they should victimize the public for the sake of increasing profits for billionaires. The Radical Faeries in their presentations at the Lesbian and Gay Center in New York City pointed out the need for Lesgay people to develop a spiritual side to their personalities, to revere their sexual orientation rather than skulking around hating ourselves for the convenience of homophobes. We are an international “tribe”. Guess what, there are gay people in Morocco and Australia.

In her personal search to find meaning in life outside of material success, Edna feels that she should boast about her family, her two children. In general, since Lesgay people are banished from traditional families, we have to devise another system that suits our communal interests.

What do we tell Lesbian and gay homeless teenagers who have been tossed out of their fundamentalist parents’ homes because of their sexual orientation? In other words, empower the out-groups. Amen.

© 31 March 2014  




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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How I Learned Some Turkey Anatomy, by Nicholas

It was our first Thanksgiving together so we invited a bunch of friends over to share a dinner. Jamie and I were to cook the turkey and other people were assigned other courses for a sumptuous meal.


We got the bird which was frozen but no problem, we knew enough to leave it in the frig for a few days to thaw out. It seemed to be doing so nicely and on Thanksgiving morning as I prepared the stuffing and prepped the turkey, things were moving along smoothly.Turkey in the oven, we were on our way to a feast.

The first sign of trouble came innocently enough when Jamie was talking to his mother about our celebration. I should point out that this Thanksgiving was a kind of late rebellion on his part. We had decided not to go to his parents for dinner, even though they were nearby, so we could have our own gathering with friends. But mothers have that knack for asking questions that can throw your plans right into the rubbish.

Bragging about our turkey in the oven, mom posed the question, “Did you get the giblets and stuff out of both ends of the turkey?”

What “both ends,” I demanded. Of course we’d pried out a bag of turkey parts from its hollow innards. But was there more in some other secret cavity? Was there something stuffed up its ass, too?

So, we hauled the bird out of the oven and poked around its backside to find out that not only was there another pouch of miscellaneous bits but that our future dinner was still, actually, frozen. Well, it did seem a little stiff when we stuffed it but now we realized we had a still frozen 12-15 pound animal and all bets were off as just when dinner would be served.

We threw the thing back into the oven and cranked up the temperature. Nothing much happened. We turned the oven up higher. Still, not much changed. It was turkey’s revenge—it would cook in its own time and never mind our plans for dinner.

Our guests started arriving and our main course was just thawing out. We had appetizers and wine and conversation while the bird began to show some sign of cooking. We reversed the order of the meal and served other courses like salad, potatoes and vegetable and more wine until at long last we pulled from the oven what we hoped was a cooked turkey. I can’t even remember what it tasted like. I guess it was good or we were all too hungry to care. Everybody ate it, nobody got sick. It was a fun time, even though a disaster.

My first venture into real cooking did not augur well for pursuing culinary delights. But, as it happens, one gets hungry and has to repeatedly do something about it. Peanut butter sandwiches as a diet are not that appealing. So, despite being shamed by a turkey, the lowest form of conscious life on this planet, I did go back into that kitchen with the intention of turning food into meals.

I am happy to report that success followed my persistence. Hunger is a good teacher and I have come since to associate the kitchen with many satisfactions and pleasures.

I love to indulge myself and what higher form of indulgence is there than food. And food grows ever more satisfying with age. Taste grows more complex and nuanced with age and taste buds, unlike other body parts, actually work better as you grow older. Kids can be finicky eaters, it has been said, because their underdeveloped taste buds aren’t working to their full capacity with just sweet and bitter dominating their little palates.

I like food. I like everything to do with food—shopping for it, growing it, picking it in the garden, preparing it, cooking it, eating and sharing it with others. I like reading about food and cooking; I like planning big meals. My favorite store in the whole world is the Savory Spice Shop down on Platte Street. Walking in their door is entering a different world full of wonderful aromas that hint of countless flavors from the dozens of herbs, spices and exotic salts on the shelves. The variations and sensations are near endless in my imagination.

Cooking is now part of my identity. I love to cook. Well, I just love food. Cooking is now a creative endeavor as I tend to use recipes not as instructions but for inspiration and as suggestions as to what goes well together and in what measure. Many times I simply dispense with recipes and make it up on the basis of what’s in the frig and hunches. The hunches—like adding paprika and dry mustard to a stew—usually pay off, i.e., are edible, but sometimes they do not turn out so well. Those I won’t go into.

Food has its rituals that can be likened to religious liturgies culminating with the sharing of sacrament. Food is work and joy, is nourishment and pleasure and connotes special relationships to those you share it with and to the earth it comes from.

So, let me officially launch this great season of holiday feasting—my favorite time of the year—with the words: Ladies and gentlemen, start your ovens. Let the eating begin!

[Editor’s note: This piece was first published in this blog in 2012.]


© November 2012

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

How I Learned Some Turkey Anatomy, by Nicholas


It was our first Thanksgiving together so we invited a bunch of friends over to share a dinner. Jamie and I were to cook the turkey and other people were assigned other courses for a sumptuous meal.

We got the bird which was frozen but no problem, we knew enough to leave it in the frig for a few days to thaw out. It seemed to be doing so nicely and on Thanksgiving morning as I prepared the stuffing and prepped the turkey, things were moving along smoothly.Turkey in the oven, we were on our way to a feast.

The first sign of trouble came innocently enough when Jamie was talking to his mother about our celebration. I should point out that this Thanksgiving was a kind of late rebellion on his part. We had decided not to go to his parents for dinner, even though they were nearby, so we could have our own gathering with friends. But mothers have that knack for asking questions that can throw your plans right into the rubbish.

Bragging about our turkey in the oven, mom posed the question, “Did you get the giblets and stuff out of both ends of the turkey?”

What “both ends,” I demanded. Of course we’d pried out a bag of turkey parts from its hollow innards. But was there more in some other secret cavity? Was there something stuffed up its ass, too?

So, we hauled the bird out of the oven and poked around its backside to find out that not only was there another pouch of miscellaneous bits but that our future dinner was still, actually, frozen. Well, it did seem a little stiff when we stuffed it but now we realized we had a still frozen 12-15 pound animal and all bets were off as just when dinner would be served.

We threw the thing back into the oven and cranked up the temperature. Nothing much happened. We turned the oven up higher. Still, not much changed. It was turkey’s revenge—it would cook in its own time and never mind our plans for dinner.

Our guests started arriving and our main course was just thawing out. We had appetizers and wine and conversation while the bird began to show some sign of cooking. We reversed the order of the meal and served other courses like salad, potatoes and vegetable and more wine until at long last we pulled from the oven what we hoped was a cooked turkey. I can’t even remember what it tasted like. I guess it was good or we were all too hungry to care. Everybody ate it, nobody got sick. It was a fun time, even though a disaster.

My first venture into real cooking did not augur well for pursuing culinary delights. But, as it happens, one gets hungry and has to repeatedly do something about it. Peanut butter sandwiches as a diet are not that appealing. So, despite being shamed by a turkey, the lowest form of conscious life on this planet, I did go back into that kitchen with the intention of turning food into meals.

I am happy to report that success followed my persistence. Hunger is a good teacher and I have come since to associate the kitchen with many satisfactions and pleasures.

I love to indulge myself and what higher form of indulgence is there than food. And food grows ever more satisfying with age. Taste grows more complex and nuanced with age and taste buds, unlike other body parts, actually work better as you grow older. Kids can be finicky eaters, it has been said, because their underdeveloped taste buds aren’t working to their full capacity with just sweet and bitter dominating their little palates.

I like food. I like everything to do with food—shopping for it, growing it, picking it in the garden, preparing it, cooking it, eating and sharing it with others. I like reading about food and cooking; I like planning big meals. My favorite store in the whole world is the Savory Spice Shop down on Platte Street. Walking in their door is entering a different world full of wonderful aromas that hint of countless flavors from the dozens of herbs, spices and exotic salts on the shelves. The variations and sensations are near endless in my imagination.

Cooking is now part of my identity. I love to cook. Well, I just love food. Cooking is now a creative endeavor as I tend to use recipes not as instructions but for inspiration and as suggestions as to what goes well together and in what measure. Many times I simply dispense with recipes and make it up on the basis of what’s in the frig and hunches. The hunches—like adding paprika and dry mustard to a stew—usually pay off, i.e., are edible, but sometimes they do not turn out so well. Those I won’t go into.

Food has its rituals that can be likened to religious liturgies culminating with the sharing of sacrament. Food is work and joy, is nourishment and pleasure and connotes special relationships to those you share it with and to the earth it comes from.

So, let me officially launch this great season of holiday feasting—my favorite time of the year—with the words: Ladies and gentlemen, start your ovens. Let the eating begin!

[Editor’s note: This piece was first published in this blog in 2012.]
© November 2012

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

Thanksgiving Dinner at the Brown House by Louie

(published in this blog previously on June 20, 2014)

When I was around 11 or 12 years old, I remember having Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and brothers in College Point. It was the mid-1950’s. Dwight Eisenhower was the President. I was a child happy with life, but my parents were very poor. I was too young to understand the inconveniences of poverty. We lived in a two-family house, and the upstairs tenant was a mother and daughter, Edna. They were poorer than we were. Edna got herself invited to our Thanksgiving and enjoyed setting up for the feast.

My parents and especially my mother and grandmother wanted us to remember that once upon a time the Brown family and my maternal grandmother’s family, the Wilcoxes, in the 19th century were enormous affluent, influential families. On the wall were a picture of Abraham Lincoln in an oak oval frame and another of my great grandfather Captain Francis Leicester Brown of the Union Army in an oak oval frame. There was a petty point sampler that read “God bless the family in this household,” completed by me on my 15th birthday, May 10, 1819, Hannah Hopkins Hodge.

In the 17th and 18th centuries my ancestors were prominent Puritan ministers. Even back then there were seemingly endless irreconcilable theological battles going on. On the other hand, my mother warned us that, though we should remember our ancestors, we should not be like her great aunt and become ancestor worshipers. It wasn’t wholesome either.

The meal consisted of turkey, creamed onions, turnips, yams, rather traditional. What made it memorable was the chinaware: Limoges and Haviland plates and platters, a Wedgewood chocolate pitcher, Limoges demitasse espresso coffee cups that were works of art. Crystal goblets for the cider, a magnificent Damask table cloth and napkins. Ornate sterling silverware, Victorian style. Our attic was full of these remnants and memorabilia of an affluent comfortable 19th century past. Corny but beautiful oil paintings, more petit point samplers, lavish gowns with the finest French laces. More Victorian extravagance. Edna from a Catholic family really enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinners. For a day we Browns were again important people though the reference point was to another earlier century. For a day we were ancestor worshipers.

Moral: How do poor people become whole happy well-adjusted people in a hostile social environment? I think poor people learning survival skills is probably more important than measuring one’s personal worth by the balance in our checking accounts and the influence we have in our communities.

Catholic Edna for example is happy. She started out poor. She is still poor, but she has a good understanding of why certain politicians say what they say. She has a spiritual dimension to her belief system. She survives, she is well-adjusted. She also proves that Puritans and Catholics can get along just fine, thank you.

Personally, I am still a “mal-content”. I am dissatisfied with church-sponsored homophobia, and the establishment’s irrational hostility to poor people, but I am on the mend.

Our best teachers in the current environment are Occupy Wall Street and the Radical Faeries. I heard clearly what they have to say. They are convincing. We Americans should object to Wall Street giving orders to our elected leaders about how they should victimize the public for the sake of increasing profits for billionaires. The Radical Faeries in their presentations at the Lesbian and Gay Center in New York City pointed out the need for Lesgay people to develop a spiritual side to their personalities, to revere their sexual orientation rather than skulking around hating ourselves for the convenience of homophobes. We are an international “tribe”. Guess what, there are gay people in Morocco and Australia.

In her personal search to find meaning in life outside of material success, Edna feels that she should boast about her family, her two children. In general, since Lesgay people are banished from traditional families, we have to devise another system that suits our communal interests.

What do we tell Lesbian and gay homeless teenagers who have been tossed out of their fundamentalist parents’ homes because of their sexual orientation? In other words, empower the out-groups. Amen.

© 31 March 2014  




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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Giving Thanks by Nicholas

(published previously in this blog on June 10, 2014)

It was our first Thanksgiving together in our first flat together in San Francisco. We loved the place up the hill from Parnassus Avenue above Cole Valley. The street was Woodland, named so, we presumed, because it ended in a small forest of eucalyptus that ran up Mt. Sutro in the heart of the city. The rent was a bit steep even then but we fell in love with the redwood shingle house of which we occupied the first floor. We were right at the usual fog line so we could watch the fog roll in from the ocean at the front and see the sun at the back.

Our flat was elegant. Old wood trim, arched front window with beveled glass, neat little kitchen with lots of counter space that was a deep, lustrous purple. I loved those deep purple countertops. That was the first kitchen that I loved to cook in.

Being our first Thanksgiving in our own place, we decided to entertain at home with friends coming over instead of joining Jamie’s family in Menlo Park, an hour south. It was kind of a statement of independence from the family and a statement that holidays were ours. So, we invited a bunch of friends and began planning dinner for eight on Thanksgiving Day. We asked each person or couple to contribute something like an appetizer, a salad, a side dish, dessert, wine. We ordered the turkey and would roast it and make stuffing.

We got a 12 pound bird and studied up on what to do with it. What’s to cooking a turkey, we thought. You throw it in the oven early in the morning, check it now and then, and, voila, dinner was ready. Truth is, this wasn’t the very first turkey I had cooked. A previous boyfriend and I had cooked a turkey one holiday so I thought I knew what I was doing. I should have learned more from that turkey, I mean, the boyfriend.

With the bird in the oven in plenty of time, we thought we were in fine shape to get other things done. Jamie decided to call his mom just to wish her a happy holiday and remind her of what a wonderful time we were having. Mom, being mom, couldn’t leave things alone and had to start asking questions about what was, to her, our cooking experiment. Had we washed the turkey, had we wrapped it in foil or a roasting bag, had we made stuffing, had we gotten the giblets and other parts out of both ends.

Wait a minute, I said, both ends? Turkeys have two ends? I know they do in nature but in the supermarket? I had pulled some extra body parts out of one end, where was this other end and what was supposed to come out of it? Humbled and desperate, we dashed to the oven and yanked the damned bird out of the heat. The cavity was empty, as it was supposed to be. We pried open the other end, having discovered that indeed there was an opening there too. That’s when we realized we were in trouble. The back side, or maybe it was the front, was still frozen solid. I neglected to mention that we had gotten a frozen turkey and had given it what we thought was a proper 2-3 day thawing, but the damn thing was still ice inside.

We threw it back into the oven, cranked up the temp and hoped it would cook. Guests were due to arrive soon. Turkeys are slow birds, especially in the oven. Hours seemed to go by and it was only warm.

Since we’d planned a leisurely meal, we told people to come over early so we could nosh. We did just that. Guests and their dishes arrived to great cheer and our anxious announcement that dinner might be a little later than planned. We did not elaborate.

We opened the wine. We ate the appetizers. We ate the salad. We opened more wine. The turkey was gradually getting warmer, even starting to cook.

Then the second disaster of our elegant holiday feast arrived. The friend assigned to bring a nice dessert showed up late, though that was no problem compared to the one in the oven. “What did you bring for dessert,” we asked. He proudly pulled out a five-pound bag of apples, just apples, like from a tree. He said it would be a healthy dessert. I said, let me show you where the flour, butter and sugar are and you can bake a pie, like now. Or, I gave him a choice, I could put one of his apples in his mouth and throw him into the oven so we could have two turkeys. He opted instead to go out and buy something.

We were just about ready for dessert by then anyway since we had consumed the entire meal including sweet potatoes and vegetables when at long last the fucking turkey was ready to eat.

We did have our lovely Thanksgiving dinner though the order was slightly reversed with the main course last. I’ve never again purchased a frozen turkey but have successfully cooked fresh, never frozen birds to the delight of hungry guests. I do not recommend buying frozen turkeys.

© March 2014



About the Author


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

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Some Ramblng Explorations by Ray S

It was during the summer of his eighth year. Father had set up camp for the family at the Indiana Sand Dunes State Park. Close enough so he could commute into the city and be with the family all weekend. When you’re that young you take a lot for granted and looking back now it is amazing to realize how well planned and engineered the little camp community was. Besides his family, mother, father, and older brother, there were three other families that met at the camp grounds each summer. All with various canvas domiciles. One was even a real circus tent with the interior sub divided by sheets hung on clothes line to allow for some degree of privacy and decorum. But nothing in his mind could compare with Father’s layout.

There were three of the latest no-center-pole square tents. If memory doesn’t fail, they were interestingly or curiously named Dickey Bird tents. Father set the two tents up facing each other with the front flaps joining to make a dining-sitting area–the sides draped with a zippered doorway and made of something called ”bobbinette.” All of this was set upon a 6 inch high wooden deck to keep the sand out and dry in case of rain. The T bird tent was for him and his brother.

The little kids would go swimming, or learned to swim assisted by adults in beautiful Lake Michigan–oblivious of the nearby steel mills of Gary.

There were exploring expeditions in the shore line sand hills collecting little pails full of wild blueberries which Mother made into wonderful pies for the crew’s communal dinners. And, yes, she baked them in a fireside tin oven. The lady was quite adept at camping culinary cuisine.

Usually on the 2nd of July a pit was dug a little way from the tents. About 5 feet square and 4 feet deep. Then the men would build a big fire and keep it going until morning when there would be a goodly pile of hot coals. Fresh ham roasts, loins and pork ribs were seasoned and wrapped tightly in layers of butcher paper followed by three layers of wet burlap sacks, all tied and bound. The bundles were lowered into the pit of coals and then covered over with the excavated soil.

The next day the 4th of July was celebrated with everyone enjoying the pit roasted barbecue and all the trimmings.

Brother and his buddies all went down to the lakeside in hopes of finding some teenage romance. The little kids sat around the campfire watching the adults doing what adults do when it is party time and celebrating the demise of prohibition.

Summer at camp, swim and play, and know there would never be an end to those happy days.

But he does recall how everybody became so quiet and spoke in hushed voices one day. He finally asked Mother and Father why this change in the people’s mood. One of the families actually had a car radio and had heard the announcement of the plane crash and subsequent deaths of the pilot–one Wiley Post and his passenger friend Will Rogers. This was the major national tragedy of the time, the Great Depression not withstanding.

Exploring the childhood days of the early half of the 20th century has led from blueberries, sand and camp to realities of the Graf Zepplin at Lakehurst, the soup kitchens and bread lines in all the cities, the underworlds personalities of John Dillinger, Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde, the rise of totalitarian governments in Europe and the Orient, and the ultimate reality, World War II.

So much for exploring. On to our next topic “No Good Will Come of It.”

About the Author

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Holiday by Phillip Hoyle

Holiday: an old word arising from the elision of holy and day back in the years of Middle English. Often the word connotes in modern usage a break from the usual, its old religious origin often forgotten. Philosopher Josef Pieper’s essays on Festivity bases holidays as a break in schedule, a change from the norm. The European origin, and probably others, is located in setting aside time and activity in honor of the Gods and in some Christian groups to the Saints who afford access to God.

I can ask: What holy things are found in the American Christmas Holiday? Of course there is always the theme of deified incarnation, the reading of holy stories from a holy book, the cult of midnight mass, Christmas communion, and a vast array of holy songs sung. But I often attend a family Christmas Eve function of my partner’s clan in which not one word of religion or prayer is spoken. There is a tree in each of the houses through which the celebration circulates. There may be Christmas music on the stereo system, but movies watched are not religious in nature. No word of piety is breathed. If there is a religious symbol present, it is the family itself or a bauble on the tree.

My guess is that my partner’s father, the one who died over ten years ago, did lead a prayer before the meal. He was pious in some sense related to his Holiness Methodist upbringing and may have led a prayer with and for his family at such gatherings. When his voice ceased, no son or daughter took up the task.

Well, back to the philosopher Pieper. The clan does leave work and gather on such days as Christmas and Easer. Some of these folk do go to church—two Catholic families, one Lutheran, and one wife in another who is Pentecostal. Most grandkids and great grandkids seem to have no current religious connection. The concept of civil religion seems to have triumphed in my partner’s Scots-Irish derived clan. The day off is sacred in itself; family responsibility rules the gathering; and thankfully, individuals in the group generally like one another.

But this analysis begs the question of our storytelling group. I’m supposed to be telling my story. I do retain a meaningful relationship with holy notions and practices. I attend the annual confab as the gay partner of a son of the family.
They are kind of my family now—well, one of them—these past years.

But what about me, about my Christmas? I pulled away from the church, professionally; a dozen years ago I left the planning, programming, and pastoring aspects of church life. I attended a number of churches after that but didn’t find a home. I began to work on some Sundays. I ended up with gay partners who didn’t attend services or otherwise identify with a congregation.

So Christmas comes. Do I want any part of it? (I analyze so much I can’t stand it), but I do like the gatherings, the giving, and the great gobs of goodwill, to say nothing about the generous portions of food. I like the decorations. I like the specials on TV and radio. I like the music although I tire of its incessant use for sales promotion.

I like the music but don’t believe literally the mythology of births, Santas, elves, Saints, shepherds, kings, and angels. I loathe the content of the well-meant sentiment of putting Christ back into Christmas as if he were a commodity to be manipulated. I laugh at statuettes of ol’ Santa (that means holy) Clause kneeling before a manger that cradles a holy baby. I accept that such symbols may be meaningful, sacredly meaningful, to others, and I don’t sneer publicly. I simply groan inwardly and think how relieved I am that I don’t anymore work daily in the task of religious education!

I want to keep Christmas, so my Cratchet asks Morley for the day away from the office. I want to keep the day holy. It’s in the Big Ten to remember certain days to keep them holy. So I do keep a holiday in which to recall a divine idea that lets laborers and working animals rest as the old myth asserts of the creator who rested on the seventh day.

I try to relax, sing a song, laugh, tell a story, give gifts, receive gifts with gratitude, take stock of the human condition as I understand it, have sex, read a book, tell a joke, hug and kiss my partner’s relatives, and say “Merry Christmas” in a polite and warm manner. 

So on this day of days I say “Merry Christmas to you, too.”
Denver, 2010 (revised 2013)

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. He worked in churches for thirty years, and for fifteen years kept a massage practice that funded his art activities. He has retired and now focuses on creating beauty in art and writing. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Memorials by Ricky

In Memoriam of Sandy Hook Elementary Victims
(14 December 2012)

          One of my early girlfriends narrowly missed being a casualty of the sniper at the University of Texas–Austin on 1 August 1966.  Thus, I find the topic “In Memoriam” depressing when I think about it too long, or in too much detail (like trying to write this life memory story).  Since 1981, my blocked negative emotions are returning and I am increasingly more sensitive and emotional over sad and tragic incidents and events.  Undoubtedly, at some point while writing this, I will stop to regain composure and dry my eyes.
          There are individual and personalized types of memorials.  To honor our mother after she passed away, my brother grew the fingernail on his left little finger to a little over ¼ inch in length.  He kept it that way right up to his passing in 2011.  At his death, his twin sister installed a flagpole in her front yard and placed an engraved plaque on it to honor him.  His ashes are on top of our mother’s grave and a Veterans Affairs plaque marks his location.  I occasionally wear a violet wristband in remembrance of the slain Matthew Sheppard, a hate-crime victim.
          The most horrific memorials to my mind and causes me a great deal of sobbing, are the ones dedicated to those senseless killings of innocents attending colleges and schools.  Since that August 1966 sniper in Austin, the shootings at schools and colleges did not stop and governments did nothing effective to stop the violence.  What is worse is the voting public did nothing to force legislators to act.  Living in metro Denver, I clearly remember the Columbine shooting (20 April 1999) and I have been to the memorial. 
Columbine Memorial – Never Forgotten

           No government did anything productive to prevent future violence.  Between the Columbine killings and the recent murders at Sandy Hook Elementary, there were 55 additional school shootings in the US (including three in Colorado: Bailey (Platte Canyon High School), Littleton (Deer Creek Middle School), and Aurora Central High School).  Neither governments nor the people did anything effective.  After the Sandy Hook shootings (as of 2 November 2013), there have been 18 more school shootings with 16 more fatalities and 21 more injured.¹  Perhaps governments and the populace will take effective action this time.

          Why did it take the mass killings of 6 and 7-year olds to motivate Congress to try and solve the problem?  Is Congress not concerned about the adult and teens that died at Columbine (or for that matter anywhere else since the 1970’s)?  Do members of Congress place their highest level of concern, and highest priority, on staying in office and increasing their party’s political power over serving the nation?  Do they even care about what is good for the people and nation?  In my opinion, their inaction cheapens the value of the lives lost.  [NOTE:  On 17 April 2013, Republican and Democrat members of the U.S. Senate once again turned their collective backs on the safety of the citizens by “killing” a bill to close background check “loopholes” in firearms law.] Since inaction speaks louder than words, it appears they really don’t care about us or US.
          I hope the following photographs forever haunt the dreams of our Congress’s heartless, soulless, and cowardly elected members who voted down (or blocked) the background checks bill. May they never have another peaceful night of sleep!   

In Memoriam of Sandy Hook Elementary Victims
(14 December 2012)
The Adults
Rachel D’Avino (Teacher’s Aid with her dog)
Dawn Hochsprung (Principal)

Nancy Lanza (Mother of the murderer)

Anne Marie Murphy (Teacher)

Lauren Rousseau (Teacher)

Mary Sherlach (School Psychologist)

Victoria “Vicki” Soto (Teacher)

The Children
Charlotte Bacon 6

Daniel Barden 7

Olivia Engel 6

Josephine Gay 7

Dylan Hockley 6

Madeleine F. Hsu 6

Catherine V. Hubbard 6

Chase Kowalski 6

Jesse Lewis 6

Grace McDonnell 7

Ana Marques-Greene 6

James Mattioli 6

Emillie Parker 6

Jack Pinto 6

Noah Pozner 6

Caroline Previdi 6

Jessica Rekos 6

Avielle Richman 6

Benjamin Wheeler 6

¹ For a list of school shootings in the U.S. from 26 July 1764 through 2 November 2013 visit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States
© 29 January 2013, revised 18 March 2013, 27 April 2013, 5 May 2013 and 9 November 2013. 

About the Author

Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, CA

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”.