Tag: Life Stories

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Coming Out to the Cat, by Gillian

The first person I came out to was my cat; came out to out loud, in words, I mean. Of course, inevitably, the very first person I came out to was myself. You cannot tell someone something you don’t know yourself, can you? As I remember it, after more than thirty years, this bolt of lightning hit me out of the blue and all the bright lights suddenly blazed; my world became crystal clear. I know it was not really so very sudden. I had been mulling it over subliminally in the depths of my confused soul for as long as I can remember. It was the total recognition, the acceptance, of the reality which was sudden.

But, back to the cat. (And anyone here who does not consider a cat to be a person, clearly has never been owned by one.) My cat was female and liked to cuddle up to me on my bed at night, so I felt she ought to know. Besides, I had never said the actual words out loud and I thought I should probably practice. She jumped up on my lap and gazed curiously into my eyes as she so often did. I always wondered what she saw there.

‘So, Smokey,’ I said, looking back straight into her eyes, ‘Your human is a lesbian. Gay. Queer. What do you think about that?’

The words did not sound at all frightening to me, I discovered. But then I was addressing the cat.

She continued her unblinking gaze, then slowly narrowed her eyes to nothing more than little yellow slits. I could swear I heard a contemplative, hmmmmmmmm. The eyes sprang open and a little furry paw patted very gently at my cheek. She butted her head affectionately under my chin, then curled up on my lap and went into full-throttle purr mode.

Well! I thought. This coming out business is not so bad; not bad at all!

The next people I came out to were, of course, my husband and step-children. It was not easy, but the response from the kids was all of the as long as you’re happy that’s all that matters variety, as it was from my husband after a while when he had time to get over the shock.

I have no siblings, so next should have been my parents. I agonized over that one for some time, eventually deciding against it. They were in England, far from my day-to-day life. They were old. It seemed nothing other than selfishness to tell them something which I knew would cause them to worry. They would love me just the same, I knew that without the slightest doubt, but they would be unable to grasp what my new world looked like. At this stage, I scarcely new!

Had they still been alive later, when I found a happiness I had never dreamed of with my Beautiful Betsy, I would have shared it with them, but they were dead by then. I have no regrets. I believe I made the right decision.

I did come out to cousins and several childhood friends, who responded unanimously with the basic message that it must have made life difficult and I’m so glad you are happy now. I have some very good people in my life.

In fact, I have very many wonderful people in my life. Over the years I have come out to countless people, I have no idea how many. Very rarely the result was negative, occasionally a little tepid, but the overwhelming majority of people responded positively, with complete acceptance and support.

A few years ago, I was chatting with a group of people at the Senior Center. I mentioned my partner, and went on to talk of something, I forget what, that she was doing. Oh! I realized in surprise that I had just outed myself without any thought; without first shoving it through my internal filtering system of shoulds and whens and whys. Oh the freedom of it. I felt so liberated, and ever since then have really given little thought to coming out, or even of thinking of it in those terms.

It’s strange how things morph over time. In my early coming-out days, the word lesbian seemed a bit intimidating; a word to be whispered while glancing furtively over the shoulder to see who else might hear. From there I went into my out, loud, and proud years when I didn’t give a damn who heard, and now I see little need for the word at all. I am quite simply a woman very deeply in love with a woman. If you feel the need to put a label on that, feel free. I don’t.

In fact, rather to my own surprise, I find myself to be vaguely offended by those little boxes I am asked to check.

Do you consider yourself to be –

straight

gay

lesbian

bisexual

transgender

etc. etc. 

I want to add another box for me to check; None of the above. Or better still, All of the above. It’s nothing to do with you. Which, I suppose, is what the current queer direction is all about; not wanting to label yourself or to be labeled by others.

(And while we’re on the topic, stop asking me to check the box which tells you if I am single, married, widowed, or divorced. That is nothing to do with you, either. Except, possibly, if you are the IRS, which seems to be the possible exception to anything and everything.)

But, back to the cat. In all my coming-outs over thirty-something years, no response has ever come close to the lofty heights set by Smokey. No-one I came out to ever lovingly patted my cheek. Nobody nuzzled their head on my neck, and most assuredly no-one ever curled up on my lap. As with many of life’s experiences, the first was definitely the best.

© May 2016

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 been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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Dreams, by Gail Klock

As she strolled confidently past our car on that warm summer day I was struck by her beauty, inside and out. It’s been at least twenty years since our eyes met as she graced me with her heartwarming smile. I still think of her…I dream of having her spirit.


Twenty years ago having the self-assurance of this transvestite was beyond my being, but not beyond my dreams. I had some major internalized homophobia to overcome. Let me digress a little, well maybe more than a little, to my nascent years as a lesbian. Growing up in the fifties and sixties, and yes, in the seventies and eighties meant dealing with many negative thoughts about who I was as a sexual person, as a person who chose a lifelong mate of the same gender.

As a high school student the closest term to homosexual I ever heard was fairy. In the deprecating way it was used in hallway talk, “if you wear green and yellow on Thursdays everyone will know you are a fairy,” told me this conversation was not about wee little sprites of the enchanted forests. Out of some undisclosed shame I knew to wear orange, blue, lavender, anything but green and yellow on Thursdays.
In my freshman year of college I had my first sexual/emotional encounter with another woman. She was older and much more experienced in such matters. I can still vividly recall the warmth and excitement I felt when we secretly held hands in her car. I also remember when I spontaneously exclaimed, “Oh my God, it’s not fair, it’s not fair, when she demonstrated her sexuality by reaching out and touching my breast. My fear of identifying myself as a lesbian ended this relationship quickly but not those insistent feelings of attraction to women.

Innocent back massages, which slowly and delightfully crept to more erotic areas, began my sophomore year with my second girlfriend. A self-awareness was also beginning to surface that I had never felt this way with the nice, good looking men I was dating. Through-out the three years of this relationship I began internalizing homophobia. All of my available resources to help me figure out who I was were creating a sense of self-loathing. The books and movies of the time, when they dared create a theme of homosexuality, either ended with the woman leaving her female lover as soon as a man entered the picture or contained characters who were so miserable they said lines I could relate to all too easily such as, ‘I’m tired of living and scared of dying”. At the same time many of the conversations I had with my girlfriend were about the men we would meet and marry and the children we would have. This was the only pathway to have lasting love and having a family we knew about, totally betraying our love for one another.

These feelings of being involved in an inappropriate relationship were so overpowering and controlling that I never even discussed them with my roommates my junior and senior years, whom I suspected at the time and later confirmed to be true, were also gay. I even shared a small bedroom with one of these roommates, some nights each of us sleeping in our own little twin bed with our respective girlfriends. I knew what was happening in my bed; I didn’t know if my roommate was likewise engaged and was too ashamed to discuss it. Maybe there would have been some strength in numbers if these conversations had taken place and some of my shame would have been reduced.

Psychology 101, oh I was looking forward to this class, I thought it would be really interesting and I might learn more about myself, what it meant to love someone of the same gender. Well, I learned and it stung, “Homosexuality is a mental illness…”

Six years later the field of psychology was still more of a prison than a tool to help set me free of my unjust self-determined ideas of what it meant to be gay. A psychiatrist I was seeing to help me overcome my feelings of unrest and depression, which were due only in a small part to my sexuality, suggested I use shockwave treatments to cure me of my unnatural feelings of attraction to women. I did not need these treatments, but perhaps he did!

Gradually, as I followed my own proclivities, they became more normal in the eyes of society. The best decision I ever made was in the eighties. I chose to have a child through artificial insemination. My partner of seven years was very honest and told me she might leave me if I got pregnant. I really loved her and didn’t want to lose her but I had dreamed of having a child since I was in elementary school. Fortunately, by the time my oldest child turned three, my partner- yes the same one, and I were arguing about who was going to be the birth mother for our desired second child. Wisely, we followed the advice of a wonderful psychologist and I was not the birth mother. By making this decision we experienced both roles (birth mom and non-birth mom). At this time many people thought of the birth mother as the only “real” parent…the same as a relationship with a person of the opposite gender was the only “real” relationship. To this day some insensitive/ignorant people still ask me which of these young ladies is my “real” child.

I also, in solidarity with my partner, made a decision to be open with all of our children’s teachers about our relationship. At an unconscious level I sensed if we were open about who we were, our children would not take on the guilt and shame which homosexual closets spurned. As a result we received support from a lot of good people. Neighborhood children would sometimes ask their mothers why they didn’t get two mommies. Many people in Golden became a little more educated and liberal due to our family and at the same time my internalized homophobia began to dissipate. Coming out of the closet for my girls was an integral step of becoming what I had dreamed of so many years before.

Yesterday my oldest daughter and I enjoyed seeing “Kinky Boots”. One of my favorite lines was, “When you change your mind, you change the world”. Slowly my mind changed and slowly my world changed along with it. I have almost captured the essence of that beautiful transvestite I briefly encountered twenty or so years ago…she gave me a smile and a dream.

© 9 March 2015

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

About the Author

I grew up in Pueblo, CO with my two brothers and parents. Upon completion of high school I attended Colorado State University majoring in Physical Education. My first teaching job was at a high school in Madison, Wisconsin. After three years of teaching I moved to North Carolina to attend graduate school at UNC-Greensboro. After obtaining my MSPE I coached basketball, volleyball, and softball at the college level starting with Wake Forest University and moving on to Springfield College, Brown University, and Colorado School of Mines.


While coaching at Mines my long term partner and I had two daughters through artificial insemination. Due to the time away from home required by coaching I resigned from this position and got my elementary education certification. I taught in the gifted/talented program in Jefferson County Schools for ten years. As a retiree I enjoy helping take care of my granddaughter, playing senior basketball, writing/listening to stories in the storytelling group, gardening, reading, and attending OLOC and other GLBT organizations.

As a retiree I enjoy helping take care of my granddaughter, playing senior basketball, writing/listening to stories in the storytelling group, gardening, reading, and attending OLOC and other GLBT organizations.
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A Friendship, by Cecil Bethea

Keith Kirchner lived on the next block down from ours. He must have been five years older than me because he finished school in 1940. He was drafted in the spring ‘41. After basic he went into the Army Air Corps. Knowing the army like I do, I’d say he was pushed into the Air Corps–bombers, a machine gunner. My mother and his used to talk on the phone several times a week; this way we kept in touch with him and his training.

First the telegram came telling that he was wounded. For anybody with a star hanging in the window, any telegram was almost as bad as a death notice. Not knowing anything except he was alive and wounded must have been mighty bad. Slowly the news slipped across the ocean that he was badly burnt and couldn’t write. I wondered if his arms had been burnt off, A month or two later we found out that he’d been awarded a Medal of Honor. Talk about a splash! The paper printed on the front page the whole citation about how an incendiary bomb had exploded in his plane. He’d picked it up and thrown it out the window saving the other men but burning himself just about to a crisp. I was taking chemistry then and had just learned what a bitch phosphorus is. Now I know he was wearing one of those heavy leather flight suits which would have protected him somewhat. I see how he picked the bomb up in the first place. What I can’t understand is how he continued to hold on to the thing.

When he finally came home, we didn’t see him without his long sleeved shirt buttoned all the way up. Of course most of the time he had a tie on. His face and neck were scared something awful and his hands too. Couldn’t hide those parts. I’d wonder what his body looked like naked especially down there, you know.

I have been cogitating about this ever since. I did my time in Korea, All I got was a Purple Heart for being stupid and a Good Conduct Badge for not getting caught. Keith and I’d have a beer ever so often. While we were talking and drinking I noticed that his hands weren’t the color of mother-of pearl but more like unpolished opal. Another time I remember regretting to him not doing something brave and famous like him. He just said, “You didn’t have the chance.”

Class 2154 © 3 September 2008

About the Author

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

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

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

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

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

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Smoking, by Betsy

I started smoking in my last year of high school. It was presented to me not as an option, but rather as “of course your going to smoke, adults do it and now that you are an adult there is no reason not to be a smoker.” This was early 1950’s and there was nothing in my conscious mind that told me I shouldn’t. I knew my parents would disapprove. They would think I wasn’t old enough. But what did they know? And in a year or so they would realize I was old enough to smoke.

In college most of us smoked. Between classes, before classes, and after classes, mornings, evenings, and weekends. At parties and in our rooms. The father of one of my classmates was the CEO of Reynolds tobacco. The tobacco companies were “in high cotton” in those days.

All our heroes and heroines smoked. In the movies the doctor consulting with his patient was sitting at his desk smoking a cigarette. The advertisements led you to believe that if you smoked, your image would improve and you would become much more sophisticated and successful. Everyone smoked from the Marlboro man to the savvy housewife. Everyone smoked everywhere from the workplace to any public place including public transportation vehicles, eating places, drinking places, shopping places, the doctor’s office, and, of course, at home.

I don’t actually remember how I got started. Probably someone gave me a cigarette. I do remember how it felt the first time I took a drag and inhaled. It made me dizzy and made me cough. It didn’t particularly taste good either, but I persisted and after a couple of tries I was hooked.

I’ve never done any drugs other than tobacco and I do drink alcohol, but rather sparingly.

Cigarettes were my addiction of choice. I smoked about one pack a day until the early sixties.

I smoked through 3 pregnancies, by the grace of God with no apparent consequences to the babies. Then the revelation that it was hazardous to one’s health started to trickle out into the public consciousness. I remember we started calling cigarettes “coffin nails. I think I’ll have a coffin nail. Ha, ha,” We would say to our friends, not realizing this was no joke.

I read now that the link between tobacco and health problems was suspected in the 1930’s. The link to lung cancer was discovered and confirmed in Britain in the early 1950’s. Apparently the American cigarette companies did a really good job of keeping the information regarding the health effects of smoking to themselves and away from the public. Finally some surgeon general came out with the pronouncement in 1964 that cigarette smoking could cause lung cancer. Finally, our government took steps to make it much harder to be a smoker. But 10 years had passed since the British doctors had linked smoking with cancer and other deceases.

Quitting smoking was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. I did quit by 1964 or so. But when I came out in the 80’s I wanted the comfort of an old “friend” so I resurrected my old friend, cigarettes, and in no time at all was hooked again after two decades of not smoking. After a couple of cigarettes it was as if I had never stopped smoking for those 20 years.

Quitting smoking a second time was at least 2X harder than the first. In fact, it took several years of trying to stop before I was successful in staying quit—as they say.

I tried several different programs designed to help boost one’s resolve or scare one into quitting by relating all the horrors caused by habitual smoking. After struggling many times to quit I realized that what I hated most about smoking was my being dependent on something. Those darn things were controlling my life. My daily activities revolved around when I would have my next cigarette. I hated being controlled enough finally to say goodbye to the horrible things. How many packs of cigarettes did I buy, smoke one, destroy the rest of the pack in my resolve to quit, only to return to the store the next day or so to do it again. In those days a pack cost bout $1.25. That’s a lot of money for one cigarette.

I have seen friends of my age group with the same smoking history quit for a year or so, declare they can quit if they want to, and then return to smoking confident they can quit if they have to.

For one thing one year of no smoking is no where near long enough to be able to say you are free of the habit.

It is not only the drug nicotine that is addictive. Smoking quickly becomes a behavior addiction.

I think this is why it takes years and years to be free of the habit—long after all traces of the drug have left the body.

In my experience after five tobacco free years, I could say I was more or less safe from the danger of slipping back into the habit. As to the damage done to my body is concerned, I have no idea whether or not having smoked cigarettes for one quarter of my life will take a significant toll. But I have no doubt there must be some price to pay, hopefully insignificant. Did I benefit in any way from taking up the habit? That’s a no brainer. NO! Some say it’s pleasant to smoke. What that really means is that when the withdrawal from the drug begins to make you feel uncomfortable it feels pleasant to ward off the encroaching discomfort by lighting up once again.

Today the proven detrimental effects of smoking are known to almost everyone. Tobacco companies are held responsible for the harm their product causes in the U.S. Cigarette sales have plummeted in the U.S. in recent decades and young people do not seem to be taking up the slack and are choosing not to smoke.

Despite what is happening here big tobacco is thriving globally. Smoking rates in developing countries far exceed those here. Population growth and growing incomes contribute largely to the increasing rates of tobacco use in those countries. So cigarettes will continue to be produced and sold in growing amounts.

Because of my love affair with cigarettes I learned something very important about myself.

I learned to stay away from addictive substances of any kind. Once I had quit smoking I never ever wanted to go through quitting anything addictive again. For that lesson I am grateful.

© 15 August 2016

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Eavesdrop Followup, by Ricky

When my family and I were living in Great Falls, Montana last century, our house had a nice privacy fence around the back yard. On the south side of the house there was shed about 4 ½ feet wide and 5 feet long that fit between the fence and the side of the house. The shed was attached to the house and the fence. The center of the roof was located about 6-inches below and directly under my bedroom window.

The house next door was about 5-feet south of the fence. Their backyard had one sturdy tree in the middle with a decent “tree house” built in the forks of the branches. Among other treasures, the house also contained a family as one would expect. Besides the two parents, two boys lived there. One boy was 8-years old and fighting a battle with leukemia. The other boy was 12-years old at the time of the event I am recounting.

We moved into our house in the month of June when school was out in the city. The two boys came over almost instantly as we were unloading the rental truck. After introductions, the older of the two politely asked if he, his brother, and occasional friends could still sit on the roof of our shed. The boys were in the habit of periodically sitting on the shed’s roof to talk whenever they did not want to go in the tree-house. The previous owners of the house we were moving into had given them permission. I went with them to inspect the shed and found it very sturdy and stout enough to hold several adults let alone two or three or four boys. So, I also gave permission. I also cautioned them to be careful climbing up to the shed and jumping down.

One day, I had come home from working a midnight shift and opened the window located above the bed’s headboard and directly centered on the shed’s roof. I opened the window about 2-inches so the room would have cool fresh air circulating while I slept. Deborah had taken our two children somewhere so I could sleep undisturbed before I needed to go to work again.

After 3-hours, I was awakened by the sound of two boys climbing the fence and sitting down on the roof.

“The time has come,” one boy said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”

Such was the idle chatter of the two 12-year old boys. They finally ran out of things to talk about and just sat quietly for a bit. One of them said that he was bored and the other agreed and asked his friend what he wanted to do. There was no reply so the boy suggested that they go to the tree-house and “play with our dicks.” The first boy said that he didn’t feel like it. A few minutes later both boys left after deciding to go to the park.

I chose not to follow-up that bit of eavesdropping.

© 17 July 2016

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced. 

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

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Train Trips, by Phillip Hoyle

As a child I liked to go to Coronado
Park on South Washington Street to ride the miniature train. It puffed around
the perimeter of the park back then and to me seemed as real as could be, an
adventure of movement, a fascination with technology, a feeling of the wind on
one’s face while traveling at imagined breakneck speed. I’m sure I thought of
bandits or Indians like in some western movies I had seen. Of course the kiddy
train was tiny compared with the big black steam engines that pulled box cars,
fuel cars, grain cars, and the like. It was tiny compared with the big Union
Pacific passenger trains that came into our station at Junction City, Kansas.
I also recall sitting on a large
train at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo up above Colorado Springs, a train that for
years took passengers from the zoo to the Shrine to the Sun higher upon the
mountain. To four-year-old me it seemed gigantic but still would have looked puny
next to the Union Pacific trains back home. I was decked out in my western wear
at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Back home I would simply be a little boy, but
even at home the railroad loomed large. My grade-school best friend’s father
was an oil man on the Union Pacific and greeted and lubricated all the trains
on his daily shifts. I fantasized taking a trip by train, a real one that led
to something new.
One Sunday morning many, many years
later, a Sunday morning that turned traumatic for our mid-Missouri congregation,
I heard a train whistle blow as if to call me away.  That morning the senior minister Jack McInnis
died. He and I had worked with the church for seven years. My only thought was to
get on that train and get out of there. I did so two years later when I booked
a seat on the Southwest Chief to Albuquerque. But first I caught a ride on the
Amtrak that stopped at Jefferson City on its way to Kansas City. There I ran
around for a day with a dear friend to say goodbye.  
Finally, I got on the big train to
make my way west. At KC Union Station there was a long delay. We waited and
waited for the very late train. When we boarded, I got comfortable and waited
for the train to start moving. No go! I got out a book to read. (On trips I’m
always prepared to read.) I made my way through several chapters. Still the
train sat in the dark rail yard. Finally after three hours more the train took
off. There had been engine trouble. No quick fixes were available and no extra
engines could be substituted unless the train had been sitting on the track at Chicago
or Emeryville (near San Francisco)! We made our way across the Great Plains at
night.
Before I fell asleep I thought of my
Great Grandfather, Frederick Schmedemann, a German immigrant who in the late
1860s worked for the Union Pacific as its crews laid the first track across
Kansas. He cooked for the crew and during that time met William Cody who was
supplying meat for the workers at the expense of the vast and rapidly dwindling
buffalo population after which he was named. The family story says Buffalo Bill
was so pleased with the meal my great granddad prepared, he gave him a gold
piece. By the time I came along, though, there had been way too many
depressions in the US economy. The gold piece probably went towards improving
the farm or paid some doctor for caring for a family member with the flu. Who
knows? I never saw it, never heard any subsequent stories about it. Maybe it
was lost on a bet or paid for the first year’s coverage when crop insurance
first was introduced. There were such stories about those later days on the
farm, but no gold piece.
As the sun came up in mid-Kansas that
summer morning through the window I watched rabbits, deer, and groups of
domesticated cattle (no buffalo herds of course) and thought more about my
great grandfather, his new life in America, and the new life I was hoping to
begin in Albuquerque. Finally, I got a little breakfast, after which I returned
to my novel.
I felt sorry for elders on that trip
and for parents with little children. But when compared with wagon train travel
down the Santa Fe Trail, this mode of transportation was a breeze.  That afternoon, when we were starting up
Raton Pass, the train slowed to a stop and began backing up. The engineer
announced that a switch had failed. They would change it by hand to get us on
the sidetrack where we would be safe from the train hurtling down the pass
towards us now. When that train sped safely by, we still didn’t move. The
engineer said a computer engineer was on his way from La Junta, Co, to fix the
problem with the switch. I chose this time to clean up and shave so I’d look
good for my family. Finally, finally, finally we pulled into the Albuquerque
station where my family met me and drove me to our new apartment. The reunion
was grand, and a couple of days later I began a new job in that fair city.
© 22 July 2014 
About the Author 
 Phillip Hoyle
lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In
general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two
years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now
focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE
program “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com
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The First Person I Came Out To, by Pat Gourley

Strangely I find myself vacillating a bit on this topic. I
assume I would ordinarily not consider the first person I had sex with since
that would be a situation that would seem obvious to both of us. However in my
case it was with a man I sought out initially seeking an answer to the question
was “I gay or not”. More accurately what I was asking at the time was am I a
homosexual or not?
The person I sought out to help clarify whether I was really
a big homo or not was most certainly not an openly gay man.  This was after all 1965 in suburban Chicago
and he was on the faculty of a Catholic High school. It was a diocesan school
staffed by Holy Cross nuns and though several of those nuns were progressive in
the extreme there was no Gay-Straight alliance as an option for extracurricular
activity.
Initial contact with this man would have been in late 1965 or
more likely sometime in early 1966. Though I am not totally clear about this I
do think I was genuinely seeking him out, as one of my high school counselors
and a person 20 plus years my senior, to help me answer this perplexing
question with no pre-existing assumptions about his sexual preference. Even at
age 16 I was not seeking a cure but would have probably been very reassured to
be told it was just a phase and that I was actually quite a masculine straight
arrow.
There had certainly been lots of enjoyable nude swimming with
male siblings and cousins to say nothing of the nearly obsessive urge to see my
dad and the occasional uncle nude. These preoccupations proceeded by several
years my seeking out my guidance counselor for help and advice.  So I may have been drawn to him
subconsciously hoping he really was like me. And of course his Old Spice
shaving lotion and hairy physique I assumed, an assumption later validated, and
his being bald may have all helped to create a situation I would often in
future years find irresistible.
Minus the Old Spice aftershave, which thankfully faded from
the scene sometime in the 1970’s, I think the hairy and bald aspects are quite
accurate physical descriptions of both of my long-term lovers, both named David,
and they combined to occupy 30 years of my adult life. Why I remain today still
hard-wired to pursue the mature and preferably quite hairy older male is
interesting and a bit of mystery to me. So many of my queer male peers prefer at
least in their dream worlds something younger, thinner and less hirsute.
Some months into that year of counseling sessions before
fruition so to speak I decided this guy was really on my side and very sexually
attractive. Long story short we did it eventually and it was as I recall the
Friday before Palm Sunday after school in the biology lab. I absolutely did not
fall into spasms of guilt post orgasm but rather was on cloud-nine for days and
spent most waking hours relishing the thought of our next get together. I guess
when one has ejaculated all over another man you have then come out to them
certainly as someone with homosexual tendencies if not as full blown GAY.
The coming out process for many of us though is a recurrent
theme that we are required to play out repeatedly since the attitude of society
in general is that heterosexuality is always the unexamined assumption. I have
for years though preferred to always give everyone I meet the benefit of the
doubt and assume they are queer until proven otherwise.
© May
2016 
About the Author 
I was born in La Porte Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled
by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in
Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an
extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

Posted on

Setting Up House, by Nicholas

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

Lawlessness in New York City Welfare Office, by Louis Brown

The Webster’s Dictionary
says “Cowtown” by extension means a dull unsophisticated city or town where
cattle ranching is the major industry. Denver used to be called a
“Cowtown”.  That theme by itself could be
developed into an essay.
For me “Cowtown” reminds
me of the Wild West and lawlessness. Besides Denver, Colorado, what other
American cities come to mind where lawlessness prevails? One credible answer
would be Washington, D. C. That could be another essay.
I posit that New York City,
when Michael Bloomberg was the mayor, became a lawless Cowtown. In my last year
as a civil servant in NYC, I was brutally harassed by a less than sane
director, a certain Mr. Attikesse from Nigeria.
In the Human Resources
Administration in New York City, the personnel, including myself, are all
members of Local 371 of the Social Services Workers Union.
I was a social work
supervisor in the DAS, the Division of AIDS Services. The function and
responsibility of our office were to set up apartments for homeless PWA’s (homeless
Persons with AIDS). In itself, it was a very good and rewarding job.
The office hierarchy
consisted of a good number of caseworkers who made field visits, interviewed
clients then wrote reports of what they heard and saw. The Supervisor I’s (such
as myself) would read the reports and approve them with a countersignature. The
Sup. I’s were under the Sup. II;’s. The office was run by a Director.
The arrangement, the
established protocol was that, to get a promotion, you took a test for the next
higher job in your line. I was a Sup. I, the next job higher up was Sup. II. I
took the qualifying test and obtained a very high score. I was number 57 on the
list. The NYC civil service requires absolutely, that, if number 57 applies for
a job opening, the City has to give him (or her) the job and not give the job
to number 58 or higher. Civil Servants plan their careers based on that
guaranty.
I went to the Sup. II
hiring pool three times and was “skipped over” 3 times, and then my name was removed
from that Sup. II hiring list. What an outrage, and a perfect example of
lawlessness.
I blame this illegal
skip-over policy on Michael Bloomberg who evidently does not respect working
people. When I complained to Local 371, that the so-called “skip-over policy”
was illegal, the union rep said the skip-over policy was legal. Michael Bloomberg also corrupted the union.
The last year I was in
that job, I was being harassed by my Sup. II, that is, my supervisor, Ms.
Miller and by Mrs. Alvarez, another boss from central office. Mrs. Alvarez
would hover over my desk and berate me for ten minute sessions. I finally told
her that, if she did not stay away from my desk, I would call the police. She
finally stayed away.
The Director of the
office was Mr. Attikesse who would dream up long lists of imaginary examples of
incompetency “exhibited” by the workers in his office, of which there were
about 60. He would castigate, berate, scold, whine, write hostile, sometimes rather
incoherent memoranda to the Personnel Department. Mr. Attikesse harassed not
only me, but all the other Sup. I’s in the office and the Caseworkers and the
clerical staff. He did not single out white personnel. He was particularly
nasty with one black Caseworker from the Bronx, again citing imaginary examples
of incompetency.
About once a week, Mr.
Attikesse would change his shirt in front of the whole staff and show off his
beautiful muscular torso. Mr. A. was from Nigeria. When I saw this spectacle, I
said to myself that, if he were not such an abusive psycho, he would make a
nice boyfriend.
Eventually, Mr.
Attikesse, since he was only a provisional director, was demoted back down the
ladder to the Caseworker job, to the bottom of the heap.
In addition to abolishing
civil service protections, Michael Bloomberg also abused the poorest New
Yorkers, evicting them en masse, canceling their Food
Stamps, etc., etc. And now he is an enthusiastic supporter of Hillary Clinton.
It is a mutual admiration society duo. Hillary Clinton admires Michael Bloomberg
and MB admires Hillary Clinton who also admires Henry Kissinger. Two more good
reasons to scratch her name off your list.
© 25 Aug 2016 

[editor:  The political views expressed in this post are those of the author and not the LGBT Center of Colorado.]
About
the Author 
I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City,
Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker
for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally
impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s.
I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few
interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I
graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.
Posted on

A Meaningful Vacation, by Gillian

I
started out trawling through wonderful memories of countless vacations, seeking
out a really meaningful one, but quickly realized that every one of them, from
months-long volunteer ‘vacations’ to single day trips, have all been very
meaningful to me. If they were not, why would I take them? Why not simply stay
home?
I
have a passionate love of learning, and that is the primary reason vacations
are inevitably meaningful to me; they are great opportunities to learn new
things. I learn about people and places, wildlife and geology, languages and
the arts, and frequently I learn a little more about my beautiful Betsy, and
last but certainly not least, about myself.
I
have never been a fearful person, but travel has taught me that a little
caution is a good thing.  
In
places which pick-pockets and purse-snatchers may frequent, I wear a
well-hidden money belt. I try never to be in suspect neighborhoods alone and
especially after dark. When, on occasion, I have ended up in such a situation I
walk quickly and purposefully, attempting to look perfectly relaxed and as if I
know exactly where I am going. Betsy and I did that in Cape Town one night,
arriving unmolested at our hotel, as I did in San Paulo and St. Petersburg and,
I must admit, once when I was lost in a very dubious part of Miami.
Betsy
and I travelled all over this country in our camper van and I don’t recall one
single time we felt threatened in any way; two old women camping on their own.
But we always practiced a little elementary safety. We kept the van doors
locked while we slept. We always camped, as we faithfully promised loved ones
we would, in designated campgrounds, though there were several occasions when
we happened to be the only people actually camping there. National Forest
campgrounds, in particular, are often remote and with no other occupants, and
often in a location without cellphone service. But no-one ever bothered us.
Driving
long trips across the country we learned to keep a very careful watch on the
weather, and not to ignore those black skies ahead. We were under tornado
warnings a few times, and learned that there is no shame in running for the
closest hotel, and making sure they have a storm shelter before handing
over the credit card.
So
just this one aspect of travel has taught me not to be so stubborn; to be more
flexible. If circumstances dictate a hotel room rather than the planned camp
site, just enjoy that clean hot shower. Occasionally the camping spot we had
been heading towards for five hundred miles didn’t feel good to one or both of
us when we got there. Sometimes this was for no apparent, recognizable, reason.
It just didn’t feel good. So we would go on. We both always listened to those
inner whispers, no matter how unexpected or nonsensical they seemed, or how inconvenient
the result.
I
believe that vacations of all kinds have improved my character in many ways and
much more effectively than all the self-help books ever written could have
done.
I
will bore you all with further details of these character enhancements another
time.
© 25 Apr 2016 
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 been with
my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years. We have been married since 2013.