Lewis – Page 6 – Sage Telling Your Story

October 7, 2014February 26, 2019

Getting Caught by Lewis

As a boy, I was not afraid of heights. By the age of four, I was jumping off the roof of the garage. I could climb almost anything. My mother—never too watchful—soon learned to find me not by looking “around” but by looking “up”.

Our house was a one-story bungalow. Next door lived an elderly widow whose house towered over ours. One day, I was playing outside, between our houses, and I heard a strange and frightening cry from an upstairs window. I could see her face. She appeared to be talking to me. She hadn’t done that before. What did she want, if anything? How could I help? She appeared OK to me. I walked away. She scared me. I had never known my grandmothers.

Soon, I learned, to my horror, that she had been doing laundry and caught her hand in the rollers of her Maytag dryer. I wasn’t punished; she was the one who “got caught”. But I sure learned something about the hazards of daily living and the need to be more responsive.

Around that time—the years have grown somewhat fungible with their passage—I noticed that a very long ladder had been placed against the side of her house. It reached all the way from the ground to her roof at the exact location of her brick chimney, from which, I was certain, an excellent panorama of our entire neighborhood could be enjoyed.

The opportunity was a prime example of what in the liability law profession is known as an “attractive nuisance”—especially for a boy who loves to climb.

So, I climbed, hand-over-hand, to the rain gutter 25 feet or so above the sidewalk upon which rested the ladder. The roof was fairly steep but negotiable, so I soon found myself perched on top of her chimney thoroughly enjoying the spectacular view.

Before long, my reverie was shattered by my mother’s voice somewhat exasperatedly calling out my name in a context that suggested some kind of a response was in order. She clearly did not see me. I waited until I thought she might have the police out looking for me.

“Up here, Mom,” I said, hoping-against-hope that she would be impressed.

“Lewis, you get down here this instant!”

Mother had made similar demands in the past but I was pretty sure this time she didn’t mean to be taken literally.

Anyone who climbs at all knows that climbing down is far scarier and more risky than climbing up, if for no other reason than you’re looking at hard objects rather than clouds and the sky. Nevertheless, I managed to make it safely down to the ground without so much as a scratch. I imagined my mother rushing over to me, sweeping me up in her grateful arms and showering my cheeks with kisses, as I’m sure I had seen done in Lassie Come Home. Instead, I got a firm thumb and forefinger on either side of my right ear lobe and a brusque shepherding through our side door and into the kitchen, where my mother posed to me the type of question designed to instill shame and guilt in the heart of a 4-year-old, naïve, novitiate Christian.

“What would you do if you had a little boy who pulled a stunt like that?”

Now, I immediately recognized her query as a “trick question”, the answer to which might very well seal my fate. Rejecting rejoinders such as “give him a spanking”, “ground him”, or “send him to bed without his dinner”, I happened upon a response that might just turn a lemon into lemonade.

“I guess I would simply ask God to watch out for him.”

I never knew whether she actually did make such an appeal. I just knew that I had had a very close brush with disaster. I also learned that religion can easily be used to manipulate.

About the Author

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.

September 25, 2014February 26, 2019

Goofy Tales: Draggin’ Main by Lewis

Draggin’ Main Street is a uniquely American teenage ritual. At least, it was in my home town of Hutchinson, Kansas. It didn’t matter whether you were male or female, drove a new Corvette or Thunderbird or your grandfather’s 1951 Plymouth. The main point was just makin’ the scene.

Of course, there were rules of decorum. If you were a boy-becoming-man, you were expected to look like Marlon Brando in The Wild One, aloof and unapproachable. Above all, you had to appear the master of all you surveyed, most especially, your “wheels.” “Goofiness,” meaning any mistake as insignificant as forgetting to put your tranny in a lower gear at a red light or, heaven forbid, stalling your engine on a jackrabbit start, was certain to make you the subject of an urban legend that would shame your progeny for generations.

Such was the milieu within which the story of my most embarrassing goofiness unfolded.

I was about 20 and the season was summer. My “baby” was a British racing green 1958 Ford Fairlane 500 convertible. Ensconced within, loosely speaking, were I and three long-time best buds. The Main Street run extended from downtown to a Sandy’s (nee McDonald’s) restaurant near 27th Street—a distance of about 2 miles. Just past the restaurant was a gas station.

On this particular day, my attention was captured by something other than the rapid approach of the driveway into which it was customary to turn to make the southbound leg of the Main Street Drag. Realizing my predicament, I attempted to compensate by making my version of a ‘J Turn’ which, as every bootlegger knows, involves a skillfully coordinated application of the brakes combined with a violent spin of the steering wheel. As executed by me, however, it resulted in a yawing, skewing slide across three lanes of opposing traffic, up the drive of the gas station, and coming to a stop in a cloud of tire smoke within arm’s reach of the first pump.

The looks on my passengers’ faces reminded me of the time I had taken a group of friends to see Psycho at the South Hutch drive-in. Wanting to set their minds at ease—and mine, as well—I said the first thing that popped into my head, “Fill ’er up!”

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.

September 17, 2014February 26, 2019

Mayan Pottery by Lewis

I haven’t much to say on the subject of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican art for the simple reason that this is all made up and I know nothing about the subject. However, were that not the case, I would probably write something like the following–

Sadly, my only exposure to Mayan pottery was a very brief time of possession of a single artifact, purchased by a great uncle at a Pottery Barn in La Paz and given to me as a gift three Christmases ago. I say “brief” because over a year ago, I was visited by a brace of scientists from the Smithsonian Museum of Columbian antiquities. I say “sadly” because of what happened soon after. The scientists were interested in the piece because of the hubbub over the legend that the Mayan calendar prognosticates that the world will end in the year 2012, exactly on the day of the winter solstice. One of the frescos on the piece that I had interpreted as the second coming of Christ with souls being lifted into heaven was, according to them, actually what happens when Earth’s gravity suddenly stops gravitating.

They offered a tidy sum to “borrow” my vase for a few months, which I readily accepted, as I was in dire need of replenishing my hash stash. To my horror, who should show up a few weeks later than the Drug Enforcement Administration, armed with a warrant for my arrest for pot possession. It seems that when the Smithsonian technicians upended the vase to get to the bottom of the apocalyptic mystery, three cannabis seeds fell out. So, actually, you see, for me this whole farce is more about the end of my world as I knew it than anything else. By the way, if you’re interested, the vase was returned to me and I have put it up for sale in the classified section of The Onion under “antiquities.”

December 17,2012

About the Author

September 8, 2014February 26, 2019

Stories of GLBT Organizations

My thirty-year career at Ford Motor Company reached its culmination at the end of the last century, coincident with the last of my 26 years of being in a straight marriage and the birth of the GLBT organization that has played the largest part in my personal journey toward wholeness. That organization is Ford GLOBE.

GLOBE is an acronym for Gay, Lesbian, Or Bisexual Employees. It was hatched in the minds of two Ford employees, a woman and a man, in Dearborn, MI, in July of 1994. By September, they had composed a letter to the Vice President of Employee Relations–with a copy to Ford CEO, Alex Trotman–expressing a desire to begin a dialogue with top management on workplace issues of concern to Ford’s gay, lesbian and bisexual employees. They were invited to meet with the VP of Employee Relations in November.

In 1995, the group, now flying in full view of corporate radar and growing, elected a five-member board, adopted its formal name of Ford GLOBE; designed their logo; adopted mission, vision, and objective statements; and adopted bylaws. The fresh-faced Board was invited to meet with the staff of the newly-created corporate Diversity Office. Soon after, “sexual orientation” was incorporated into Ford’s Global Diversity Initiative. Members of Ford GLOBE participated in the filming of two company videos on workplace diversity. Also that year, Ford was a sponsor of the world-premier on NBC of Serving in Silence, starring Glenn Close as Army Reserve Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer. By September of 1996, Ford GLOBE chapters were forming in Great Britain and Germany.

In March of 1996, Ford GLOBE submitted to upper management the coming-out stories of 23 members in hope of putting a human face on what had been an invisible minority. Along with the stories came a formal request for Ford’s non-discrimination policy to be rewritten to include sexual orientation. At the time, only Ford of Britain had such a policy.

Ford GLOBE was beginning to network with similar interest groups at General Motors and Chrysler, including sharing a table at the 1996 Pridefest and walking together in the Michigan Pride Parade in Lansing. After two years of discussion between Ford GLOBE and top management, on November 14, 1996, Ford CEO, Alex Trotman, issued Revised Corporate Policy Letter # 2, adding “sexual orientation” to the company’s official non-discrimination policy. To this day, some of our largest and most profitable corporations, including Exxon Mobile, have refused to do the same.

My involvement with Ford GLOBE began sometime in 1997. For that reason and the fact that I have scrapped many of my records of this period, I have relied heavily on Ford GLOBE’s website for the dates and particulars of these events.

In February of 1998, I attended a “Gay Issues in the Workplace” Workshop, led by Brian McNaught, at Ford World Headquarters, jointed sponsored by GLOBE and the Ford Diversity Office. I remember a Ford Vice President taking the podium at that event. He was a white man of considerable social cachet and I assumed that the privilege that normally goes with that status would have shielded him from any brushes with discrimination. In fact, he told a story of riding a public transit bus with his mother at the height of World War II. His family was German. His mother had warned him sternly not to speak German while riding the bus. Thus, he, too, had known the fear of being outed because of who he was. The experience had made him into an unlikely ally of GLOBE members over 50 years later.

In 1999, Ford GLOBE amended its by-laws to make it their mission to include transgendered employees in Ford’s non-discrimination policy and gender identity in Ford’s diversity training. Ford Motor Company was the first and only U.S. automotive company listed on the 1999 Gay and Lesbian Values Index of top 100 companies working on gay issues, an achievement noted by Ford CEO Jac Nasser. It was about this time that retired Ford Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer Alan Gilmore came out as gay. The Advocate named Ford Motor Company to its list of 25 companies that provide good environments for gay employees in its Oct. 26 edition.

Having earlier written the contract bargaining teams for Ford Motor Company, United Auto Workers, and Canadian Auto Workers requesting specific changes in the upcoming union contracts, Ford GLOBE was pleased to see that the resulting Ford/CAW union contract included provision for same-sex domestic partners to be treated as common law spouses in Canada, for sexual orientation to be added to the nondiscrimination statement of the Ford/UAW contract, and that Ford and the UAW agreed to investigate implementation of same-sex domestic partner benefits during the current four-year union contract.

The year 2000 was not only the year that I became Board Chair of Ford GLOBE but also the year that marked a momentous event in automotive history as Ford, General Motors, and the Chrysler Division of DaimlerChrysler issued a joint press release with the United Auto Workers announcing same-sex health care benefits for the Big Three auto companies’ salaried and hourly employees in the U.S. As the first-ever industry-wide joint announcement of domestic partner benefits and largest ever workforce of 465,000 U.S. employees eligible in one stroke, the historic announcement made headlines across the nation. It was truly a proud moment for all of us in the Ford GLOBE organization.

On January 1 of 2001, my last year with the company, Ford expanded its benefits program for the spouses of gay employees to include financial planning, legal services, the personal protection plan, vehicle programs, and the vision plan.

Since my departure from the company, Ford and GLOBE have continued to advance the cause of GLBT equality and fairness both within the corporation and without. I am fortunate to have been supported in my own coming out process by my associates within the company, both gay and straight, and to Ford GLOBE in particular for the bonds of friendship honed in the common struggle toward a better and freer world.

About the Author

August 22, 2014February 26, 2019

Mom by Lewis

I hardly know where to begin to
write about my one-and-only mother.
“Mother” is the last descriptor she would ever want to define
her function in life. If she could, she
would surely prefer to be remembered for her contributions to education,
journalism, or faith than maternalism.
If I had to choose, I would say she bore more resemblance to the Mary
Tyler Moore character in Ordinary People
than Barbara Billingsley in Leave It to
Beaver. That is to say, she had few of
the maternal instincts that we normally associate with Midwestern families of
the post-World War II era.

Like Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, my
parents slept in twin beds. My dad
dressed in a separate bedroom, which also served as his office. Although my bedroom was just across a narrow
hallway, I don’t remember ever hearing any sounds coming from their bedroom
that would suggest anything physical took place in that sterile space. I never saw them hug or kiss, not even a peck
on the cheek. My parents didn’t even
argue, at least, in my presence. My dad
was a solid breadwinner, meek and mild-mannered as Clark Kent. Together, they were the very model of the
modern, Middle American, Methodist couple–except for their fondness for a
highball before dinner.

Mother grew up in the small, rural,
southwest-Kansas town of Pratt. She was
proud of the fact that Alfred Hitchcock’s one-time-favored actress, Vera Miles,
attended school there. Her father, the
only grandparent I ever knew, was an engineer on the Rock Island railroad. They raised chickens and a few cows on their
small property on the edge of town.
There were six children, three girls and three boys. Mother was the oldest. As such, she had many responsibilities for
home-making and child-rearing. I suspect
that that had much to do with her distaste for such menial labor in her
adulthood. She had more dignified
aspirations.

Mother was quite intelligent. She graduated from high school at the age of
sixteen with her sights set on going to college. It was 1923, however, and her parents saw no
value in a daughter of theirs staying in school. She was on her own. She held a lifelong deep resentment over the
fact that her brothers, none of whom were in the least interested in further
matriculation, were given a car as their graduation present.

Denied any way of supporting herself
on her own, she soon married. By the
time she was 23, she had given birth to a son and a daughter. More and more, she was feeling trapped in a
hopeless and loveless situation. She
wanted a career. She was bright and
ambitious. Living with a man who she
felt was never going anywhere in life and being saddled with two small kids was
like being entombed alive. So, in 1936,
she filed for divorce. Almost
shockingly, she did not ask for custody of the children. In those times, it was almost automatic that
the children would be placed in the care of the mother. Not so this time. BJ and Joyce were placed with their paternal
aunt, also living in Pratt.

Before long, mom and another woman
had opened a beauty parlor above the Sears department store in Pratt. She took the two kids to the movies every
Wednesday evening. Sixty years later, as
Mom was brushing my daughter’s hair at our house in Michigan, she started
talking about the time she and the other woman ran a beauty parlor. My daughter, who is bisexual, later related
that she was getting the impression that there might have been more than
business on the two women’s minds.
Mother had told me some years before that her partner had, quite
abruptly, sold her interest in the shop to her and taken off for California,
never to be heard from again. A lover’s
quarrel or a simple commercial transaction?
I’ll never be certain.

The beauty shop was down the hall
from the office of the man who would become my father. They dated and were married in 1940. It would be 4-1/2 years before mom got
pregnant with me. Perhaps it was the
turmoil of WWII. My dad didn’t serve in
the war because of his limp from polio contracted when he was 20. Mixed blessing, I would say.

On the other hand, my suspicion is
that Mom was just not interested in having another child. By 1945, she was 38 years old. She was still hoping for a career as a writer
or secretary or something. My fantasy is
that on VE Day–May 7, 1945–my father swept my mom up in his arms and carried
her to the bedroom where they had their own private celebration of the
sweepingly historic occasion. I was born
on February 3rd of the following year. A
new era of American domination was dawning and I would be in on the ground
floor.

There were a few small hitches,
however. Mom made plain many years later
that I was the child my father wanted–his one and only. In addition, in her view, I was a
“deficit baby”, that is, a parasite that siphoned off the calcium
from her bones and teeth. At the baby
shower in my honor, they played a game where the guests attempt to estimate the
birth weight of the baby. All of the guesses,
duly preserved in my baby book, were on the low side, suggesting to me that Mom
may not have been taking enough nourishment.
My actual birth weight was over seven pounds, close to normal.

One of my earliest memories is Mom
singing a lullaby to me. The lyrics,
written by Paul Robeson, are, in part and adapted, as follows:

Evenin’
breezes sighin’, moon is in the sky.
Little man, it’s time for bed.
Mommy’s little hero is tired and wants to cry;
Now, come along and rest your weary head.
Little man, you’re cryin’, I know why you’re blue.
Someone took your kiddy-car away.
You better go to sleep now
Little man, you’ve had a busy day.
Johnny won your marbles, tell you what we’ll do,
Mom’ll get you new ones right away.

Sadly, that was a rare moment of
tranquility between Mom and me. Most of
my recollections of close contact with Mom involved physical pain on my
part. Not to paint myself as a complete
innocent, however. Some of you may
remember my story of many months ago about climbing the neighbor’s
chimney. Years later, there was the time
I walked home from school in a light rain without a jacket. Mom was standing in the front doorway. As I opened the door, she slapped my face,
hard.

“How dare you not wear a coat
in the rain. Do you want to get
sick?”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking”, I said in complete
contrition, hoping to appease her anger.
(After all, it had worked before when I suggested that mom stop worrying
and ask God to take care of me.) Still,
I was blind-sided by her action. Looking
back on it now, I believe that Mom resented being stuck at home as a lowly housewife
and my getting a cold would only aggravate her sense of obligation and
despondency.

When I had a spanking coming, it’s
delivery came at the hand of my mother.
Her hands were good for other things, as well. When I had ringworm of the scalp, it was she
who was stuck with the most unpleasant job of removing the hairs from a
circular patch of my scalp about two inches in diameter with a pair of
tweezers, one-by-one. About five minutes
at a time was all either she or I could stand.
When I got stabbed in the hand with a pencil at school, it fell upon Mom
to dig out the remnants of graphite with a needle.

I believe that Mom simply did not
have the disposition for being a caregiver.
I remember her telling me about having to care for my paternal grandmother,
who was dying of colon cancer in the early 1940’s. It was clear it was not something she found
rewarding.

But Mom’s hardness was shown in
other, perhaps even less endearing ways.
When I graduated from law school, my parents drove to Detroit from Hutchinson,
Kansas, for the ceremony in Ford Auditorium downtown. With about an hour to go before the
procession began, Mom announced that she wasn’t feeling well and wanted to stay
at our house. I was terribly
disappointed but not surprised. She had
been deprived of the opportunity to be a part of such an occasion in her own
right; how tough it must of been for her to look back on her life of nearly
three-quarters of a century as principally a home-maker and not feel big-time
self-pity.

Her predicament came most into focus
for me on her 50th birthday. I was
practicing my Hawaiian steel guitar–hats off to The Lawrence Welk Show–in the utility room across the tiny dining
room from the kitchen, where Mom was ironing.
All of a sudden, she burst into tears.
I had never witnessed such a scene in our emotionally sterile
household. Being gay–though closeted
even to myself–I wanted to rush over to her side to comfort her. But I had not the slightest idea what to say
to her. I had no clue what was going through
her head. Had Dad said something before
leaving for work? So, I just kept on
playing my syrupy music, which seemed to be of no help whatsoever. Fifty years old, ambitious, and still ironing
in the kitchen. That’s enough to depress
anybody. I myself don’t iron to this
day.

On my parents last visit to Michigan
in 1989, Mom was sitting in the new family room addition. At one point, she said, “I think I must
have left my cane upstairs”. We had
no upstairs.

After my Dad died in 1990, my entire
family–wife, two kids and I–went to Kansas to take care of Mom. It soon became apparent that Dad had been
covering for Mom for months. She was not
able to live by herself. We moved her to
a “progressive living” type of senior housing–independent living, assisted
living, and nursing care.

Initially, we thought independent
living would be the best choice, as she was still able to do quite a few things
for herself. Ten weeks later, we got a
call from the staff. Mom was having
hallucinations about someone being under her bed and was not regular about
showing up for meals. They suggested
moving her to the nursing section.

Within a week or two, we got another
call, one which caused my mind to harken back to my daughter’s story about my
Mom’s possible sexual orientation. My
mother had gotten out of bed and dragged her roommate from her bed onto the
floor. Then, Mom had sat astride the
other woman demanding sex, saying, “You are my husband and you owe
me!” The institution informed me
that they had to tie my mother into her bed with straps and that she would have
to be moved to a different facility as they were not equipped to handle such
behavior.

Not only was Mom suffering from the
side effects of medications that lower one’s inhibitions, but she also was apparently
afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease. It
was Christmas Season. I had to quickly
find her a place with an Alzheimer’s patient wing. The nearest decent one was in Wichita. We moved Mom there as soon as the
arrangements could be made.

At this point, I would have given
almost anything to have my old Mom back.
Her disease may have dulled the loneliness and frustration of losing all
track of time and familiarity of face and habitat but I can only imagine that those
last three years were nearly unbearable, both for her and the staff and other
inhabitants, for whom Mom had nary a kind word to say. It was during that period that my
half-brother–her son–died of lung disease at the age of 63. I never told her. How could I, when she kept saying that BJ was
coming to pick her up for a drive? At
the end, she no longer recognized me.
She died surrounded by strangers, pushing a walker down the hallway,
saying antagonistic things to those she passed.
Was she ever truly happy? Did I
ever make her smile? Either I don’t know
or I can’t remember or both. I do know
that I made my Dad smile and I guess that will have to do.

About the Author

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.

August 8, 2014February 26, 2019

No Good Will Come of It by Lewis

“No good will come of it,” usually prefaced by “believe me,” is a line I don’t believe I have ever used in ordinary conversation. I have read the line in books, heard it voiced on the silver screen or from a stage, and can imagine it spoken by a finger-wagging false prophet from an obscure pulpit or a domineering parent in an American backwater community. Typically, in my experience, the person to whom such an admonition is directed would proceed to do the very thing against which he or she has been warned, presumably motivated by the realization that the odds that said act would result in an outcome that the doer was hoping for have been measurably increased.

In 99% of life’s daily situations, to announce as fact the conviction that doing act ‘a’ will inevitably lead to result ‘b’–‘b’ being shorthand for “bad”—is a presumption scarcely justified by the vast convolutions of possibility that life throws at us. Even to say to a person who has a cocked and loaded gun at their temple, “If you pull that trigger, no good will come of it,” may not be true in the opinion of everyone who knows the poor despondent in question. Or, the gun may misfire, in which case the owner at least knows not to rely on that particular weapon for protection against intruders.

If I were to say to you, as you are about to set fire to a stock certificate worth $10 million, “Surely, no good will come of that,” again, I would be liar, because its demise would mean that the value of every other shareholders holdings would thereby be increased.

Tell someone who is addicted that to imbibe would surely lead to no good, and they might respond, “But at least, I’ll feel better for awhile.”

Tell that to the boy who is about to throw the pet cat into a bathtub full of water and he might well answer, “But it’s funny.”

Tell the husband or wife who is about to have a fling with a third party and they might tell you to mind your own business.

In short, hardly anything good can come from saying to someone, “No good will come of it.” Either you may well lose the love or respect of your friend or you will prove to have been wrong. A better approach would be to express what, in your mind, the consequences of doing such-and-such will be and those consequences had better be ones over which you have control, such as “I will never speak to you again” (and mean it). This kind of trade-off the person you are admonishing can understand and actually has a chance of influencing their behavior.

About the Author

July 10, 2014February 26, 2019

Boredom by Lewis

Boredom is a condition of the conscious mind with which imagination, creativity, and initiative seldom run afoul. I have never felt myself being bored in a situation over which I have even a smidgeon of intellectual or physical control. There are few things more tiresome than to hear someone complain to another that they are “bored,” as if it is up to someone else to entertain them.

Occasionally, I run into a situation that makes me wish I could get the heck out of. It could be a well-meaning individual who simply does not realize how hard it is for me to maintain any level of interest in what they are rambling on about. It’s not that they are boring me. The issue is that I do not know how to tell them how I feel at the moment. As with anyone who might say that they are “bored,” it is my problem, not theirs. I still have not found a polite way to say, “You’re making me sleepy.”

Fortunately, minds once plagued by lack of imagination now have the capability of overcoming that unfortunate situation with the advent of Twitter, texting, FaceBook, YouTube, and Google. Boredom may well be on its way to consignment to the endangered species list along with, sadly, face-to-face human interaction.

In a complementary way, I have a phobia about boring others. My motto is, “It’s a gamble to ramble.” Of course, now, with my failing memory, I cannot remember half of what I wanted to say in the first place. Thus, my sentences are tending to be interspersed with long pauses, which truly are very boring. Thus, I tend to be much more interesting when I write than when I speak. I won’t say any more than this, so as not to risk boring you.

About the Author

June 30, 2014February 26, 2019

Do I Have Your … Hand In Marriage by Lewis

[The
following readings are taken from the Commitment Ceremony of Laurin Foxworth
and Lewis Thompson held on November 18, 2000, exactly three years before
same-sex marriages first became legal in any state of the United States. The venue was the First Unitarian Universalist
Church of Detroit, MI. It began with a
poem written by Laurin….]

Connection

The sun, moon, stars, and clouds,
Rain, snow, drizzle, fog,
All accept me as I am
Love me, caress me, enfold me.
Water and sun envelope me,
Warm me to the core.
Breezes play with me–all over!
Branches and stalks brush me to say, “Hello”!
The green shoots, the myriad flowers,
The many-colored leaves and clouds
Delight my eyes, my soul.
Soaring, flitting birds lift my spirits.
Earth’s aromas intoxicate, enthrall.
And we are one with the universe,
Whole, content, loved. You and me.

[Next
came the “Welcoming of the Guests”, written by me and spoken by the
Rev. Larry Hutchison.]

Dear friends and family, Laurin and Lewis have called us here today to witness the public declaration of their love and caring for each other. In that sense, this is a very personal event but because this is a union service of two gay men, it is also unavoidably a political one. No singular act of loving and commitment undertaken by two individuals on behalf of each other causes so much consternation as this one. It has baffled churches in America for decades–even centuries–and continues to stir the ire of “average” Americans like no other issue. Therefore, your presence today is in itself an act of courage, as well as of love. For what greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined together in order to strengthen each other in all labor, to minister to each other in all sorrow, to share with each other all gladness, to be one with each other in the silent, unspeakable memories of the heart, and to transform their private happiness into social blessing?

[The
following reading is from One Hour to Madness and Joy from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.]

O, the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all untied and illumin’d!

O, to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!
To be absolv’d from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and you from yours!
To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature!
To have the gag remov’d from one’s mouth!
To have the feeling today or any day, “I am sufficient as I am.”

O, something unprov’d! Something in a trance!

To escape utterly from others’ anchors and holds!

To drive free! To love free! To dash reckless and dangerous!

To court destruction with taunts, with invitations!

To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!

To rise thither with my inebriate soul!

To be lost if it must be so!

To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fullness and freedom,

With one brief hour of madness and joy!

[That
which follows is the “Blessing of the Congregation”, written by me
and read by the minister.]

The ceremony in which we are all now participating is a bold, even revolutionary act. As you all know, many in our society do not yet recognize the validity and worth of the Holy Union we today celebrate and affirm. Indeed, many are openly hostile to two persons of the same gender who decide to commit their lives to one another. We hope that, some day, men who love men and women who love women will no longer feel the scorn of those who do not understand that love on its worst day is holier than scorn on its best. In the meantime, we can express the joy and approval which we feel for Laurin and Lewis as they publicly affirm the love they feel for each other and the commitment they make to one another today. Let me therefore ask those gathered here this question: “Do you–friends and family of Lewis and Laurin–freely give them your blessing now as they enter into this new relationship and do you promise to give them your love, understanding, and support during both good times and bad? If so, say “We do.”

[The
following was the vow that we each spoke in turn to the other.]

Do you…promise and covenant before these friends and family assembled to take this man…to be your life partner, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health? Do you hereby pledge your faith to love and honor him all the days of your life?

[Next
came the exchange of rings.]

Round like the earth, sun, and moon, bright as the skies and worked by the craft of human hands, these rings are symbolic of the foundation of your lives together and they will give brightness in the days to come. They call from you the human craft of loving. As you give, receive, and wear these rings, remember the vows you have made.

[The
closure of vows. The five lines at the
end were borrowed from an author whose name I do not remember. I posted them at
the end of a letter I wrote to Laurin when he was wavering between staying with
his wife, Mary Lou, or leaving his home in Hylton Head and moving to Dearborn
to live with me.]

As your civil union brings a new meaning to love, so your
love brings a new meaning to life.
Because love comes from the heart, true love comes from knowing your own
heart–

“You have to find out who you are and be that.

You have to decide what comes first and do that.

You have to discover your strengths and use them.

You have to learn not to compete with others,

Because no one else is in the contest of being you.”

[The
“Charge to the Couple” is borrowed from “The Book of Pagan
Rituals”.]

Above you are the stars

Below you are the stones.

As time does pass

Remember…

Like a star should your love be constant.

Like a stone should your love be firm.

Be close, yet, not too close.

Possess one another, yet be understanding.

Have patience each with the other

For storms will come, but they will go quickly.

Be free in giving of affection and warmth.

Make love often and be sensuous to one another.

Have no fear and let not the ways or words

Of the unenlightened give you unease.

For the spirit is with you,

Now and always.

[Next
followed recorded music from the album “Exile” by the San Francisco
Gay Men’s Chorus. These are the lyrics….]

Take to your road, as I to mine.

But let us walk

This time together.

Our two roads lie side-by-side,

So, let us walk,

To walk this time together.

Hold to your mountain,

As I to mine.

But let us love

This time together.

Both our mountains touch

The same blue sky,

So, let us love,

To love this time together.

Cling to your house, as I to mine.

But let us live

This time together.

One light we share,

One love we claim.

So, let us live,

To live this time together.

One road, one mountain,

One house,

And together…

One family.

[Finally,
the Pronouncement/Declaration of Civil Union.]

Inasmuch as Laurin and Lewis have grown in knowledge and love of one another, because they have agreed in their desire to go forward in life together, seeking an ever-richer, deepening relationship, and because they have pledged themselves to meet sorrow and joy as one family, we rejoice to recognize them as partners in life. Will you kiss as a seal of your Holy Union?

About
the Author

June 19, 2014February 26, 2019

Coming Out Spiritually by Lewis

I was born into a central Kansas Methodist family. My father, though a regular church-goer, did not make a show of his faith. My mother, who also attended church every Sunday, made daily devotions a part of her routine. She read from a Methodist publication called The Upper Room and another daily devotional guide put out by the Unity Church in Kansas City. I believe it was titled, The Daily Word. As the only child of my father and the only child of my mother at home, naturally I made the weekly trek to Trinity United Methodist in Hutchinson, KS, every Sunday with my parents.

Having a spiritual nature, I took to religion rather easily. I also sight-read well, so it wasn’t more than nine or ten years before my mother had me reading The Upper Room aloud to her as she prepared breakfast. By the time I was in the 9th grade, I was convinced that I wanted to be a preacher when I grew up. I even gave the religious opening to an assembly at my junior high school and at one of the other junior highs. I’m sure I had flashes of being the next Rev. Billy Graham or Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.

However, with the onset of puberty, my aspirations began to change. My religiosity seemed to diminish in inverse proportion to my testosterone levels. By the time I was a senior, I had stopped attending church altogether. I suspect that peer influence had something to do with that, as well.

Once away to college, the worldly influences multiplied faster than my living costs. It was at the University of Kansas that I met my first atheists. Worse than that, I had a roommate who was a Unitarian Universalist–from San Francisco, naturally. I took an intense dislike to him. He loved progressive jazz, Gerry Mulligan, in particular. I thought the music was subversive. Worse, Michael [Blasberg] would pace the room saying, doo-wap-a-doo, bee-bop-a-dupe-a-dupe-a-doo-wah, while lifting his eyebrows and scrunching up his face. Oh, yes, on top of all this, the little twerp’s hobby was making scale-model drawings of Third Reich Luftwaffe aircraft, complete with the pilot’s insignias and number of kills.

After graduation and moving to Michigan, when I felt a need to find a church, I naturally began where I was most familiar–the Methodist Church a block from where I was living. I showed up there on a Sunday morning when the Grand Dragon of the Michigan Ku Klux Klan was scheduled to speak at the Dearborn Civic Center that same afternoon. I was pleased that the minister announced to the congregation that, during the coffee hour following the service, a sign-up sheet would be available for those who wished to express their displeasure that their city was providing a forum for hate speech. When the service was over, I went over to the table for the express purpose of signing the petition. I noticed that no one else seemed interested, either in the petition or in me.

So, I continued on my own spiritual odyssey. It’s almost worthy of a Twilight Zone episode that I should then turn to searching for a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Detroit. After all, the only UU person I had ever known was also one of the most obnoxious. Perhaps it was Michael’s principled opposition to the Viet Nam War–a position I arrived at later than he–that planted a tiny seed in my soul that later resulted in my spiritual blooming.

Unitarian Universalism is not a true religion. It does not tell people what they must believe about God or anything else. It does make demands upon how its members treat each other and asks that they commit to a life-long search for the truth, wherever that search may lead. We welcome people of all religious backgrounds as just one more aspect of the boundless diversity of the human race. And we put our money and elbow grease where our mouth is.

For me, all this was like coming home spiritually. But there have been hiccups. Once a firm atheist, I have recently come to believe that there are mysteries in the world beyond my present understanding. One such mystery I shared with this very group. It had to do with Kleenex.

Actually, I found it harder to come out as an atheist than gay. Most polls indicate that more Americans would vote for a gay person for high office than an atheist. Furthermore, I’m sure they wouldn’t want their son or daughter to marry one. You see, most atheists are Commie, pinko, liberals, who run around with gay people and child molesters–not the priests but the other child molesters.

About
the Author

June 5, 2014February 26, 2019

Don’t Touch Me There by Lewis

[Note: The following anecdote is not based upon actual events.]

He looked straight down at me, expectantly, and asked, “May I touch you here?”

“Be my guest”, I replied.

Then, again, “May I touch you there?”

“Naturally,” I responded.

It was only sex, without commitment or depth of feeling beyond the corporeal. It was fun, entertaining, spontaneous, and more than a little frightening. After all, he was only the third man I had “been with” in my nearly seven decades of existence.

I am not enamored with the concept of “casual sex”, unless it is self-inflicted” or, to put it a little more aptly, self-administered. I hold nothing against those with a less risk-adverse attitude toward sex. Perhaps, I, for reasons meritorious or otherwise, have greater expectations as to the payoff that should come from bestowing upon someone the most precious and personal gift I can give–save for one–that being my heart.

For the moment, my heart resides in the rose garden in Cheesman Park, where lie the ashes of my late husband, Laurin. My heart is occupied, for the moment, with reminiscences of his mind, his body, his heart, his loving touch. So, I invite others to offer me a handshake, a hug, a kiss on the cheek. But, for now, please don’t touch my heart.