Tag: Life Stories

Posted on

What Gillian Did for Love, by Betsy

When I started thinking about this topic, all that came to mind were things that my spouse Gill had done for love. A big one being giving up her cat. When we first got together back in the 1980’s she had a cat named “Smokey.” I’ve always been allergic to cats. Being in their presence brings on sometimes serious breathing problems, like not being able to get enough air into my lungs. As time went on and I made more and more visits to her house in Lyons, I became increasingly sensitive to the cat allergen to which I was exposed. It was particularly bad in bed because the cat climbed a lot on the drapes which were hanging on the window at the head of the bed. Putting the cat out of the room did not help the situation—the dander left behind by the cat remains in the room. And in this case close to where I was breathing during the night.

Finally one night the situation became quite desperate and Gill had to get up in the middle of the night and drive to Longmont to get an inhaler for me so I could breath.

What I did for love during that time was to continue the weekend visits to Lyons and avoid suffocation by using an inhaler.

Later when we decided to live together, what she did for love was to say goodbye to Smokey and turn her over to a friend. The choice finally had to be made: Smoky the cat or Betsy the girl friend.

© 16 November 2015

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.

Posted on

My Favorite Childhood Hero, by Ray S

The Millennials have their “E” social network. The “Hip” generation had its rebellion and protests and rock and roll. The Baby Boomers had post-war back to the normalcy of the establishment, the Eisenhower years, Big Bond Era, “Leave It to Beaver” and “Ozzie and Harriet.”

So much as I’ve tried, it has been with “tremendous” (a Trumpian term) effort that I have been able to resurrect any memory of my onetime childhood, much less a hero.

I am of a time influenced and resulting from the inventions of Thomas Edison, Alex G. Bell, and Mr. Marconi. By the time I arrived on the scene all of these scientific advances were well established, in the early 20th C. So instead of TV or the internet, I lived in a world of radio and black and white moving pictures, including “talkies” by the 30’s.

“Heroes”, depending on your interpretation of the term, lived in the air waves. Little Orphan Annie and her dog Sandy every weekday at 5:45, just after Jack Armstrong—the All American Boy. Jack didn’t thrill me, but secretly I did wonder about Annie’s beau, John Corntassel.

There were a bunch of potential heroes on serials like Mary Marlin, Mr. Keen, Trurser of Last Persons, John’s Other Wife, and One Man’s Family. Life was so much more exciting in never never radio land with Ovaltine, Wheaties, The Singing Lady, and the Lux Radio Theater.

Then there was Saturday afternoon at the Roxy to catch the continuing serials: Tom Mix, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Flash Gordon, etc.

Sundays I was sometimes deposited at the little movie house in the next door village when they were going out and just had to get me out from underfoot. Then I danced the afternoon with Fred and Ginger as we all flew “Down to Rio.”

All of this “KULTUR” may have been stultifying for a young child, but it made for some character framing personality that is hard to erase once imprinted on the psyche.

Still no specific childhood hero or heroes—unless you count the moment I discovered how I would like to be Randolph Scott.

© 26 March 2018

About the Author

Posted on

Pet Peeves, by Phillip Hoyle

The home my wife and I made included kids and several pets. When the kids were out of elementary school there were three notable additions to the household: a terrapin that loved fresh strawberries, a white rat that doubled its size from nine inches to a nine inch body plus a nine inch tail, and a white rabbit I told my daughter and her boyfriend who gave it to her for Christmas, “How nice. It will be fully grown for Easter dinner.” Long before that rabbit ran away and procreated with the cottontails that lived in the woods, we had Marcie, a mostly black miniature French poodle one of the support staff at the church gave us. Myrna and I brought Marcie to our Wichita, Kansas, home to provide a pet for our children, then ages three and five.

Marcie was a hit. The kids adored her as did Myrna and I. She had an outgoing, enthusiastic personality and loved to play. We had a fenced-in back yard where she could run and where the kids could chase her or encourage her to chase them. She was a fine complement to the family. Myrna, though, was a little more conservative than the rest of us about the prospect of an animal in the house. She’d grown up on a farm where dogs and cats lived out of doors, helped bring in livestock, and controlled the ever-plentiful pest population. But when the weather was bad little Marcie wanted to be indoors. She was allowed to stay in the back entryway. We closed the door to the office, but the opening to the kitchen had no door. We were amused at how she’d come up to the threshold, wag her tail, and look like an under-privileged child. (Well, you know how pet owners so often attribute human qualities to pets.) She’d look happy. She started lying on the floor with her head resting on the threshold. So cute. A day or two later she put her front paws on the threshold and laid her head on them. She’d look sad. Then she rested the front half of her friendly little body on the threshold. So hard to resist. Then she begin sitting on the threshold looking adorable. I laughed at her antics, somewhat like an American version of the Arab story about the camel that during a storm first stuck its head into the tent and eventually, due to the Arab’s empathy over weather and his camel’s needs, took over the tent, the man sitting outside in the weather. Marcie entertained me with her astute training of us humans to be humane toward her, that tiny fluff ball of doggie wisdom and energy.

She hadn’t yet made it to the point of sharing our beds, but nearly so when we knew we were going to move to Texas. We took her to Colorado to give her to some of Myrna’s in-laws before we had to pack and leave. She moved in with a family that was even more responsive to her educational ways. Had she been a writer, she surely would have written to say, “See, I made a perfectly fine house dog.” She did seem to be in charge of the whole place in her new home.

We moved into a Texas apartment that allowed no pets. Still we visited Marcie over the years, saw her hair turn silver, and eventually heard of her death at the end of good life entertaining her owners. No peeves on my part, just fond memories of a few pets.

© 7 May 2018

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

Posted on

Will O’ the Wisp, by Betsy

Will o’ the wisp is a term I have never used—I have heard it, but never used it as I’ve never really in all honesty known what it means. I ponder. “Let’s see. What could it mean.” Maybe a wispy will, i.e., a wimpy will, or maybe, I’ m thinking, it just might be referring to fly-away wispy hair, you know, hair that has a will of its own.

Fortunately I have my trusty computer handy and I can go to wikipedia and look it up with no trouble at all and get an immediate answer to the question of the meaning of will o’ the wisp.

Then maybe I’ll have something to say about it. I’m not sure.

So I see that it refers to a ghostly, flickering light seen in bogs and swamps and marshes. It seems this ghostly light has an evil purpose; that is, to draw people from safe pathways.

When I think of swamps and bogs in relation to my life experiences, one thing comes immediately to mind. In 1950 when I was almost fifteen years old, my family was forced to make a major change in our living situation. We lived in New Jersey in a town called Mt Lakes, a rather idyllic place to live. Mt. Lakes had a small mountain and two lakes. I enjoyed a lake in my back yard and a woods in my front yard. I walked to school, played in my boat, rode my bike, skated on the frozen lake in the winter. Life was good in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. My parents were happy there, too.

One day because of changes in my father’s business we had to leave Mt. Lakes and start living in Louisiana. I knew nothing about Louisiana at the time, but when I learned I would be living there I sought as much information as I could about the new place that would be my home.

One of the first things I learned was that Louisiana is a swampy place. I discovered that bit of information first because my father explained that some of the trees he would be cutting for his lumber mill would come from the swamps. He would be harvesting cypress trees and cypress trees grow in swamps.

I was not happy about going to such a place. I don’t like dark, dank, watery places that harbor slimy creatures such as snakes and alligators. I am especially afraid of snakes, poisonous or not. Never mind, I said, I’m not going into any swamps. I’ll just have to stay on the high ground in the town where we would be living.

I felt, on the one hand, a bit of excitement about moving to a completely different place. But on the other hand, I did feel I was being drawn from the safe, predictable pathway I had been on for the first fourteen years of my life. I was not happy about leaving my friends, my school, my lake, my woods, and all the things around me I had grown to love. No ice skating in Louisiana. It’s hot there and buggy too.

It turns out that my life in Louisiana was not so different from my life in New Jersey. I had many wonderful friends, I liked my school, and I never had to go wading through the swamp. Instead I enjoyed spending time with my friends in boats on the many rivers in our area and doing the kinds of things high school kids do. I had a fairly normal existence in my last three years of high school in Louisiana. However, immediately after high school I went back up north to attend college. I definitely did not want to stay in that part of the world.

That ghostly light actually did eventually draw our family from its safe pathway. My family consisted of my mother, my father, my older brother and younger sister. After 5 years in Louisiana, my mother developed cancer and succumbed at the age of 47 after 2 years of suffering. My brother stayed in Louisiana, married a local woman and had 3 children before he, too, developed brain cancer and died at the age of 29 a few months before his fourth child was born.

It is said that Louisiana is in the “cancer belt.” Perhaps because of the toxins in the wind that blows east from the Texas oil refineries. The area where we lived is located between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. This area on the Mississippi River formerly known as the “petrochemical corridor” is also known as “Cancer Alley.” Louisiana has the 2nd highest cancer rate in the U.S. Our home was not on the river, but located close to cancer alley

Fortunately my father who stay in the area, survived into his 70’s. My sister left after high school to live in Alabama. She is still living.

It turns out that the term will o’ the wisp does have meaning for me. Not a very joyful meaning even though living in Louisiana was not unpleasant for me. The experience opened my eyes and greatly expanded my view of the world. I learned about a culture and a way of life and attitudes that were totally different from what I knew in my closed, protected, homogeneous community of Mt. Lakes. I was exposed to the real world in Louisiana. Leaving the safe pathway it turns out had an enlightening effect. Although I only lived there for three years before I went off to college, those years were formative years and very important years. I am not totally ungrateful for being lured to the swamp by that will o the wisp.

© 26 February 2018

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.

Posted on

Gym 3, by Ricky

(A tale of 3 “gyms”)

Gym1

It was in early June 1956, when I was banished (due to divorce proceedings) from California and sent to Minnesota to live with my grandparents on their farm. I had just turned 8 years old on the 9th. At the time, I expected to be gone for only the summer; but it turned into a 2 year “prison sentence” away from home and “loving” parents.

I shared a room and bed with my uncle, Dixon, who was 11 in December of 1955 and 11 ½ by June of ’56; and about to enter 6th grade, while I was looking at starting 3rd grade. Due to that traumatic spanking I received when only 4 or 5, I was extremely shy and reluctant to let anyone see me dressing, undressing, in my underwear, or bathing; and would “pitch a fit” if someone tried. Of course, I couldn’t do much when Grandma bathed me the first two times in the summer kitchen’s galvanized “wash tub” because I hadn’t washed all the dirt off by myself. I quickly learned to do that however. I was dirty because farm life is not soil free and baths were only on Saturday nights to be fresh for church on Sunday. I had to use my uncle’s used bathwater so perhaps I never really got clean.

When school began, my uncle, who by then knew from personal experience of my extreme reactions to any attempt to breach my “modesty”, began to tell me about having to take showers naked with other boys present after gym classes beginning in 6th grade. Daily school showers were a necessity back then as most farms did not have indoor plumbing and once a week bathing on the farm just wasn’t sufficient in a close social environment. Pubescent boys smell as they perspire during gym activities and recess playtime.

As a result of my uncle’s teasing about showering naked with other boys, I began to develop a fear of 6th grade, even though it was 3 school years away and I expected to return to California soon. The months of my exile passed and a new school year began and I realized that 6th grade was now closer than desired and my fear level increased but mostly ignored for the time being. Fortunately, I was given a reprieve and my “sentence” was commuted in late May of 1958 and I was taken back to California to live with my mother and her new husband.

When I began 5th grade at So. Lake Tahoe, I discovered that there were no showers after recess or any P.E. classes in elementary school, those being reserved and mandatory in high school only. I was able to put my fear and stress level on hold for 4 more years, while I got to “enjoy” the beginnings of puberty.

In September of 1962 I finally had to face my fear as I had finally arrived at high school and the dreaded after P.E. mandatory naked showers with other boys. By now, due to my well-established desire to see any boy naked, I no longer feared being naked among boys (or girls for that matter). What I was afraid of was having a spontaneous erection while showering, because at 14, I was still having random ones.

At school, they mostly struck when I was sitting in front of my 9th grade English teacher, Mrs. Joyce Holmstad. She wore low cut blouses and sat on the front edge of her desk (directly in front of me) and would often lean forward revealing to me (or maybe exposing to me) some bra and more than sufficient for erection purposes, cleavage. I always had to hide my crotch with books when I left at the end of the class period. But I digress from the gym. In all the four years of mandatory PE showers, no one ever got an erection that I could tell, and I certainly took every opportunity to look for one.

Gym2

Actually, gym2 is really Jim #1. I met Jim Robertson when he was 11 and I was 13. We became friends and he asked me to go to church with him one Sunday and we went for about one month until the pastor and his baby were killed in a car crash. I invited Jim to join Boy Scouts with me and he did. We were two of seven boys who ended up starting a new troop at So. Lake Tahoe. I taught him about sex and we became sex-playmates on sleep over nights but never did anything together during scout campouts. He ended up going to live with his aunt and, according to him, began to really enjoy sex with his female cousin.

Gym3

As you may have guessed, gym3 is really Jim #2. Jim Dunn was the son of a California highway patrolman and joined my scout troop when he was 12 and I was 14. He was taller than most boys his age and matched my height of 5′ 11”. His hair was blondish and eyes a very nice shade of blue. I liked him for his looks and gentle personality. Strangely, I was never sexually attracted to him probably because he did not look “interested”. I was so naïve about that stuff.

As we aged and moved into Explorer Scouts, we shared a couple of experiences that should have tipped me off that he was interested in boy sex play but I never caught on. As an adult, I learned that he died early from AIDS.

That’s all of my “gym” memories.

© 24 Oct 2011

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

Posted on

Dark, by Gillian

I grew up in the dark. Quite literally. And yes, here we go again, back to the England of World War Two. (Pause for communal groan.) Born in 1942, I was three when the war ended and, along with it, the blackout regulations. So for the first three years of my life I truly had no experience, nor even concept, of artificial lights shining through the darkness outside. Every window of every single building, no matter it’s use, had to be completely covered in thick, black, material. If the tiniest chink of light showed through, one of the blackout wardens who roamed the dark streets would very shortly be banging on the door. For many people it was almost impossible to go through this entire process every evening as darkness began to descend, so they simply didn’t bother. Their windows remained covered, 24/7 as we’d say these days, for the duration of the war. I certainly don’t remember any of our upstairs windows ever being uncovered, though we had one window in the living-room which my dad relieved of it’s burden every morning before he left for work.

Equally needing to save their energy for all the other things demanded of them, shopkeepers often failed to remove much of the blackout covers when they opened their shops in the morning. They frequently had very little to sell anyway, so what did it matter? My very early memories of shopping with my mother provide vague glimpses of standing in line for what seemed to me to be the entire day, frequently – of course – in the rain. Finally gaining access beyond the dark doorway, we were encompassed in a cold gray gloom not much different from that outside. At least it was out of the rain, but as everyone in the crowded room was dripping water down onto the little toddler me, my environment seemed to have changed remarkably little. I would peer about me as my mother did, though I’m sure I had no idea what I was looking for.

“No bread today?” Mum gazed longingly at the rows of empty shelves behind the counter.

The exhausted-looking woman at the till shook her head.

“Just sold the last one Luv, sorry. Out of flour now so God knows when I’ll have more.

And so the dark days days went by.

Because of Dad’s war work we lived fairly close to London at that time, but London was as dark, or probably from necessity even darker, than our nearby town. There was very little civilian traffic at the time, but all vehicles – military or not – was made to have all lights covered or painted black. This made what traffic there was, and the streets and roads themselves, extremely hazardous. In fact, at first more people were dying from traffic accidents than were being killed by the enemy. In the first month of The War alone, there had been 1130 road deaths attributed to the blackout.* The whole of Britain, at that time, was a very, very, dark place.

The War over, we were free to move as needed. My father felt obligated to move us in with his aging parents to help care for them, and so we landed in a remote sheep-farming part of the west of England. All national improvements had been delayed for years by The War, the preceding years of preparation for it, and the recovery from it. Our new home, like all those for many miles around it, had no running water and no gas or electricity. Artificial light came in the form of candles and ancient oil lamps. We had flashlights but batteries were strictly rationed and hard to come by so mostly they were useless. We might as well have remained in the blackout. Inside, the house was cold and dark and silent. Outside after dark there were no lights from neighboring windows to help guide your footsteps, and certainly no street lights. Well, there were no streets, just a quiet winding country road. I fell quite often while scurrying to the little shed at the far end of the garden in the middle of the night, especially if I had waited a little too long and was really having to hurry.

This darkness never bothered me. I loved living there. I don’t remember exactly but I think I was in high-school by the time we got indoor plumbing and electricity. My dad never once as far as I know, deigned to use the new indoor toilet. Neither of them liked the electric lights, which Mum described as “much too harsh and glaring”. She, an avid reader, was quickly seduced, however, by the length of time her tired eyes could pour over a book under this new glaring light versus peering shortsightedly at the pages in the dim gray/yellow light of the oil lamp. I certainly found it much easier to do my homework!

When I went off to Sheffield to college, I couldn’t sleep at first. The curtains of my little dorm room were thin and beige, doing little to keep out the light: light from street lights, light from houses and businesses, light from passing cars and trucks and buses. Of course the hustle and bustle and bright lights of a city still recovering from The War were nothing compared to that of cities today, but I found it overwhelming.

Of course I got used to it; learned to love it. Yet occasionally, still, I long for the silent darkness of my childhood. But I know that’s nothing but nostalgia, which can fool us all. If I were to return to that darkness, I would also be returning to the other, metaphorical, darkness. The darkness of ignorance. The darkness of not even knowing there were homosexuals in this world, and far, far, from the acceptance that I was one of them. No thanks, I’ll stay here in that “harsh and glaring” light and be grateful for it.

*https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/01/blackout-britain-wartime

© November 2017

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.

Posted on

Writing, by Ricky

Last year I documented how I write my stories for this group under the title of Writing My Story. So this time, I choose to write about someone else’s writing, Tyler Myers’.

Tyler Myers
STHS Class of 2013

“From the US, Tyler Myers!” The head of the Russian Forest Service intones these words as the stage coordinator escorts me to center stage. The Forest Service director speaks with a language unfamiliar to me; however, I understand one phrase: my name. The crowd cheers, for they understand every remark the host exclaims. The noise makes the situation more difficult because—now—I can’t hear a word he says. A man approaches me, handing me a certificate and a medal. The medal has the Roman numeral “III” engraved on the face of it. Now I get it.

Standing on the stage, I remember the comments: “You really think you’ll go?” “Your project isn’t that amazing,” and “Do you even understand the statistics?” The remarks don’t matter now. As I stand in Moscow, I receive confirmation that the summer I spent working on the study deserved recognition, regardless of what others told me. My reminiscing changes to a rant as the rest of the top projects receive recognition. Why isn’t anything good enough for them? Why must they criticize everything I do? My friends are starting to think I’m insane for taking on so many challenges, so why can’t my family see it? My understanding deepens as the spot light widens to display the top three contestants.

My questioning of the past leads me to remember why I try so hard to begin with. Even when I mentioned an opportunity to work with the Forest Service’s Regional Ecologist to develop a project, my mom remained unaffected. She laughed when I told her of the deadline for the project, claiming that I should use my time to work this summer and make some money. Much to her surprise, I landed a job with the Forest Service as a Botanist and Aquatics crew member and, in my free time, completed the project. Ultimately, I wished for any positive reaction from her, any type of motivation or encouragement besides her posting pictures of me on Facebook, boasting to her friends. Regardless of my actions, she remains uninterested. From the AP classes to the varsity letters to the clubs I ran on a weekly basis, she remains distant. As I stand on stage, my disposition changes as I realize I wouldn’t have taken on some of the early challenges and developed my habit to get involved if it wasn’t for my family’s harsh comments. I begin to appreciate the high standard I hold myself to; however, now I can’t resist getting involved. This time—this project—and the accomplishments to come, they start, and end, simply with my impulse to achieve.

Now there’s an idea, my life as an extended metaphor. Ok then, now what should I be? How about a diamond—under pressure, showing perfection—Nah, that’s too cliché. Oh, I got it; a calculator—a useful object with a nerdy connotation—on second thought, I can do more than just math. Well how about something abstract? I am the derivative of x3 and my slope is always positive—except when x=0—only becoming greater as time progresses. Well, lets be honest; if I plan to go that route, I might as well be the calculator. What if I am the Earth and each of my friends and family members feed off of my resources causing me to become drained? Well, I can see that being more creative but I don’t think everyone necessarily feeds on me; they aren’t all parasites.

Ok, so now that I know metaphors aren’t my thing, what else can I do? If I think back to second grade, I do remember stories being quite enjoyable, so maybe an anecdote is my ticket to writing a witty personal statement. I’ll start by introducing my alien nature amongst generally everyone. Now let me introduce my low-income family: with my video gaming brother, assumed to be gangster brother, non-existent father and PTSD mom. Or, I can describe how I struggle to fit in at home, where intelligence is labeled as disrespect, and at school, where people treat me like I’m too far out there; ultimately I’ll describe my situation in which there isn’t a niche for a person with an interest for sports, music, school, and the environment. Ok, so I am alienated. Aren’t I supposed to come out victorious or something?

All right, Tyler—BAM!—Problem solved. I can get over it—all of it. My mom was in abusive relationships and that led to psychotic people sabotaging our house by rerouting the ventilation system.

From that, I don’t trust many people—if any at all. Now I’m independent. My mom drags the past into the future constantly and doesn’t trust my friends or me. She also insists on criticizing anything I do. From her, I can deal with the most paranoid people and rely on myself for motivation. Now I’m compassionate and self-motivated. My father abandoned my mother, brother, and I, forcing us to live without a father figure or another parent for support. His absence led to me working to help my family and working alone to learn due to the lack of education on my mother’s behalf. Now I can shop for a family, budget money, and learn skills like playing the guitar, playing the bass, math, and English independently.

Through the persistence of time, memories such as these, and many others, dissipate leaving only the shape of the character they molded. Their significance doesn’t exist in the fact that the event took place; rather, the importance of my memories—the persistence of my memories—exists in the dents the occurrence left on my character.

Well, I guess I don’t need an extended metaphor after all.

In the inland of South America, a co-worker approaches me to describe the nature of the situation; of course, to my liking, he replies in Spanish. He explains how the deforestation of the local forests has decreased due to our implemented regulations on the removal of trees and we are now in a state of soil and forest restoration. He continues to explain that we can now retreat to my engineering firm’s headquarters to finish our work on the other various environmental issues involving deforestation and energy consumption. As I hear the update, the news causes me to appreciate the reality of the situation…oh wait; I guess I am ten years ahead of myself.

As far as my goals go, I figure I have set myself up for a rigorous path, yet, I know I wouldn’t want my life aspirations to be any different. I see that, when I look as my past, I could have earned higher grades if I cut Cross Country Running, Cross Country Skiing, and Track and Field out of my life, but most of my friends come from my extracurricular activities; I also see how my GPA could have improved if I dropped Orchestra for another AP class. Still, I feel uneasy at the thought of dropping things like Generation Green and Glee Club. It is stressful being the president of both of the clubs, but the involvement with the environment and the students who love to sing is irreplaceable.

Recently, I have reached the point in the high school student’s life where the college financial reality hits—and it isn’t gentle. Even with the help of FAFSA, various colleges cost $40,000 to attend and, honestly, that is an expensive price for to pay. Sincerely, I believe any scholarship can help me complete college.

Tyler Myers

Tyler’s photo and writings included with his permission.

My high school class of 1966 established a modest scholarship fund a few years ago. The past two years I have been one of 18 classmates who review the final list of applicants and vote on who should receive the modest funds. In the past, we have awarded one student a $200 scholarship. This year, due to a “last minute” donation of $25,000, we elected to give a $2,000 scholarship to each of three students.

We evaluated seven finalists that one of my best friends in high school culled from all the applicants. A week ago Saturday afternoon, I received an email listing the three selectees along with a table showing how each of the evaluators gave out the points used for voting. Two of my three picks won. All the applicants have excellent grade point averages so I based my selection primarily, but not exclusively, upon the writing samples on the student’s application. One of my choices, Tyler, actually would have won even if we had awarded only one scholarship.

The week before the release of the winner’s names, I had wanted to email Tyler and comment on his writing sample after I submitted my choices; but I never did. After reading his name as a scholarship winner, I could not contain myself and did email him around midnight Saturday night Sunday morning.

My email said in part, “… Upon reading your “Student Summary” section, I concluded that I have no idea what kind of an Environmental Engineer you would become. However, I do believe you could have a career in writing or journalism. I really enjoyed the creativity and the way you expressed your ideas. I hope you continue to develop your skill in this area. Congratulations and best of luck in your future.”

Surprisingly, within a few minutes, Tyler replied to my email. “Thank you so much for the compliment! I am actually pretty excited to hear that my creative writing skills come off as impressive rather than corny 🙂

So does this email mean I am a recipient of the scholarship?

And thank you again for the delightful email. It was a brightening addition to my night.”

I responded to his question with the following. “I am sure I am not supposed to have emailed you at this point (but no one said not to either and I’ve pretty much been a rule breaker most of my life) and I wanted to do it last week
right after I reviewed your application and before results were sent out to all the reviewers, but did not. I just received the results today. Your counselors know of course, and I just could not wait any longer than now to make my comments.

You are shortly to be an STHS grad and I know you already have figured out what “congratulations” implies. Tell your family of course, but keep the secret from others until the results are officially announced. (If you are like I was at your age, you won’t keep the secret. Just be considerate of those who also applied but are still waiting to hear since you probably don’t know exactly who else applied.)

Another thing, this year we are giving out 3 scholarships instead of just one. Contact me again after the official announcement and I’ll tell you one more thing you might want to know.

Now just one last thing…it’s 1:18 AM in Denver so it is 12:18 AM in South Lake Tahoe…go to bed and get some sleep. I lived on 4 hours of sleep all through high school and nothing good came of it.”

You may have noticed that I did not tell Tyler of the amount of the award. It is likely that when he applied, he knew we only give out $200. He probably does not know of the increase, so I left him and the others to be surprised.

I want to believe that my few words of encouragement may lead to Tyler writing the “great American environmental engineer novel” someday and perhaps being recognized as the 21st Century’s equivalent of Mark Twain. Maybe I should write him again and remind him that our farming economy thrives on corn and so he should keep writing what he termed “corny” stories.

© 13 May 2013

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

Posted on

Finding Your Voice, by Phillip Hoyle

I started out a soprano. Then on Sunday nights at church I decided to harmonize as an alto and learned to read the line and sing the part. When my voice cracked too many times in Glee Club, I became a tenor. I stayed with that for many years. Since I was a choir director, I learned to sing all the parts, SAT and B. In the choirs we worked hard to increase everyone’s tone and range using techniques I learned from one of my voice teachers. If a section was weak on a Sunday morning, I could bolster them with my own screaming. It may have horrified some people. Who knows?

Finding my voice as a writer was another story, one that didn’t depend on timbre or range. In fact the discussion of that concept goes on. I developed a terse style for use in academic writing. I had to warm it up it for the church newsletter and did so with a little bit of success. When I accepted contracts for writing curriculum resources I got more at home with addressing volunteer teachers. The reading level for them was eighth or ninth grade. Writing for students of different ages was more fun and challenging. That work served as my introduction to creative writing. I experimented but still don’t know that I actually developed a voice.

When I started writing for myself, I tried for something consistent and my efforts seemed to help. But I believe I didn’t really find my voice until I had written a couple of years of weekly stories for this Telling Your Story group. Meeting that weekly goal and encouraging others to do the same, telling stories to almost the same people each week, and having an appreciative audience and being a part of this group did something for my sense of voice. I like the entertainment part of that work that reminds me so much of talking with a group of children on Sundays during many years of church work. Sometimes I made up the stories on the spot and encouraged the children to help me tell them. That got me started. Many years later I feel like I have a rather consistent voice and am happy to share my many stories with you. Mostly they are accurate to the extent of my ability to recall, but you know how that goes with the years stacking up, hearing reducing, and eyesight dimming. I appreciate that the story telling group allows me to speak whatever my voice is, found or not.

Thanks for listening, or on the blog, thanks for reading.

© 23 October 2017

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

Posted on

Birds, by Gillian

What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird?

David Attenborough

I have always loved birds. I love their colors: their grace: their amusing antics: and , in many but not all cases, their melodious voices. I love the effortless way they ride the airwaves. I love the way they cock their heads to look at me through curious little black eyes.

I first learned to appreciate them, and many other things in our natural world, through my aunt and my mother. Then in elementary school I learned to identify a dozen or so of the most common local birds from pictures. From there we progressed to coloring in outline shapes of these same birds, and thence to drawing them ourselves freehand and then adding crayon or paint. I am happy to say that none of my efforts have survived, as I’m sure my attempts were pretty dismal. But never mind – I learned so much from trying.

I don’t know the details of the current British Elementary School System, but I seriously doubt that bird identification looms large. In my day, before the advent of TV and expensive trips to distant places, with little more than the occasional radio program or book to divert us, I think we paid, and were expected to pay, much closer attention to the world immediately around us.

Anyway, between family and school, I formed an early fascination with birds. Somewhere along the lines my parents gave me a bird book for Xmas, and I began trying to identify some of the rarer birds I was not so familiar with. I kept this up for most of my life, always taking a bird book with me on vacations and even on business trips. The birds don’t care why I’m there, after all. I was never quite sufficiently serious to succumb to the tyranny of that ‘Life List’ which all ‘real’ birders carry. Some of them become utterly obsessive to the extent of making special trips to likely places at likely times to see the birds without a triumphant X beside their names on ‘The List’. They go out at four in the morning in the pouring rain, accompanied by cloud of excited mosquitoes, in the hope of glimpsing the Crested Weewee so they can legitimately add that definitive X. No! I’m never going to be one of them. If I had a Life List I’d most likely cheat, anyway. I’d open one eye at the crack of dawn, see rain streaming down the window and imagine all those mosquito bites and snuggle back under the blankets. ‘Let’s not and say we did,’ I would shrug to myself, and probably put down a big firm X regardless. Or, on the search for the rare Lesser Spotted Peterpecker I would claim the sighting while knowing full well that in fact I had seen the much commoner Greater Spotted Pussygrabber.

I did go as far as trying to photograph an unfamiliar bird and check it out in the bird book when I eventually got the photos developed, but really! Can you even remember what it was like before zoom lenses? To snap a tiny bird with an old Box Brownie you’d have to be about two feet away and glue its feet to the branch! With a zoom lens chances were better, but still I wasted a fortune on blurry shots and/or too many versions of the same bird because I wouldn’t know until days or weeks later whether the previous dozen shots were any good.

Then along came the true gift to all photography, digital cameras. At first I admit I was a bit obsessive, snapping away at every bird I saw. But, you know, it was almost too easy! So I took to photographing birds in flight; much more challenging but still relatively easy with a good camera. After all, it only takes one good shot. The other fifty cost nothing and just go in the trash. And that’s the digital trash, of course, so I no longer even end up with a plastic bag full of 4 x 6 visions of blurry flapping wings or, more often, an empty sky.

My next obsession was with online printing. I found discounts for wall-size prints, prints on metal, on glass, on wood, and made to look like paintings. I gave gifts of them until everyone cringed and no-one chose mine in any gift exchange. I covered the walls of our house with them until my poor Beautiful Betsy howled enough!

Then I turned to digital photo books, which I devoted not entirely to birds but they usually featured prominently. These books greatly thrilled me at first but now languish under dust in the bookcase, rarely opened.

Finally, I am free! Free to enjoy birds as I once did. I still look up the occasional one in the bird book, but mostly I don’t bother because I shall immediately forget what it was, anyway. I simply enjoy the sight and sound of them. I watch in delight as the magpies play their silly games with the squirrels, as the chickadees flit so effortlessly from branch to branch, as the seabirds soar. I listen with joy to the trill of the robins and finches as they greet the spring. I am no longer driven to do anything more. Sometimes, growing older can be such a blessing!

© January 2018

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.

Posted on

Leaving, by Betsy

My cycling adventure, an amazing trip across the country in 2005, has given me endless material for story time. Once again I call on my journal to remind me of the many places we found ourselves leaving and the experiences which followed the many “leavings” that took place. Leaving Dog Beach in San Diego, the tour’s place of origin, was by far the most exciting departure from anywhere that I can recall ever making. Reading from my journal: “Saturday, March 20: The first day we left from Dog Beach. We dipped our tires in the Pacific Ocean, rode out of San Diego and started up the coastal range. This was a 33 mile ride. It was a day of city traffic and then climbing. We climbed almost 2000 feet.” There are a couple of places where it was too steep for me to ride, so I had to walk, pushing my bike. This was the first of many such walks on this trip. Cycling clip-in shoes are not designed for walking. They have metal devises installed on the soles that clip into devises on the pedals. Once on the bike, shoes clipped to pedals, one is not stuck in this clipped-in position as a quick flick of the ankle releases you from the pedals. It turns out this is ever so handy when you come to a stop and have to put your foot on the ground.

Back to the journal: “Glenda, who is our oldest member—I thought I was the oldest—Glenda didn’t want anyone to know how old she was. She disclosed her secret to the Fox News people when they were interviewing us at the start of the trip on Dog Beach. Fox News is a bad choice when revealing something you don’t want anyone else to know. I guess she couldn’t resist the notoriety of being the most …whatever.” I remember how cold I was when we arrived at our first night’s stop—a place called Alpine, CA. Our accommodations provided a Jacuzzi which was most welcome. Another memorable departure on that cycling adventure happened a couple of weeks into the trip.

It was Sunday morning, April 3rd. We had been instructed the night before by our leader Susan as follows: “Now ladies, I know we are all tired having just completed a 90 mile ride today. But I want you to be alert enough to remember to turn your clocks back one hour as we switch to day light saving time at midnight. Now be sure to get up an hour early because we will lose an hour tomorrow. We have a long ride and i want everyone in before dark.” Yawning and stretching we all promised we would get with the correct time. We obediently turned our clocks back before going to sleep. Up an hour early in the morning and it’s pitch dark. Now breakfast is over and it’s time to saddle up and leave. We never leave in the dark. But we know we must because our leader told us we would lose an hour today so dark or not, we better get on the road. We LOSE an hour today. Let’s get going. Wait, a couple of the women have tires that went flat over night. That creates a serious delay for several of us. We need about 5 women to hold flashlights while four women fix the two flats. We’re finally leaving and it’s still dark.

It was about mid-morning coffee time, at the first SAG stop. After a few sips of the beloved beverage, it dawned on just about everyone at the same time: we actually gain an hour today. This is spring. Spring forward, right. We were supposed to turn our clocks forward an hour. We could have stayed in bed an extra hour. Where is leader Susan? I want to kill her. Moral of that story. Just because you are paying your leader to direct you, doesn’t mean you turn off your brain completely. We rode across 8 different states. That meant leaving California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi on our bicycles. I clearly remember celebrating our entry into a new state at the end of the day with drinks at dinner. Except for the state’s welcome sign on the road, leaving one state and entering another was more of the same: pedal, pedal, pedal. But it was exciting and satisfying to be able to mark our progress with a huge sign on the road as we rode out of Texas: “Welcome to Louisiana.” This was especially true after pedaling for nearly three weeks as we journeyed through the endless countryside. We thought Texas would never end. Texas was full of exciting encounters, however. First there was the border patrol outside of El Paso. We cyclist were not suspect, but Bo Peep our SAG wagon was stopped and searched. The search took a long time, too. That vehicle was full of supplies. Fortunately nothing suspicious. In Texas we encountered every kind of terrain and environmental condition known to man: mountain passes, magnificent wildflowers, dessert flat, wind, rain , heat, cold, cities, wide open roads with nothing in sight except fields and more road. The scenic terrain of the Texas Hill Country may not have been the longest or highest in elevation, but those hills were definitely the steepest. One thing that remained the same throughout the state of Texas was the rough surface of the roads. This I found to be very annoying and hard on my aging joints. “Chip-seal” they called it. I called it cheap road surface. For this one reason I was thrilled when we arrived at our last Texas stop. Tomorrow we would leave Texas. We were at our Super 8 Motel in a small town in East Texas having our usual evening map meeting to prepare for the next day’s ride. We were told by Susan to be alert when riding in Louisiana, the state we would enter tomorrow just after crossing the Sabine River. “ Louisiana has lots of dogs,” she warned—“loose dogs.

There are no laws requiring people to keep their dogs under control in Louisiana. They love to run out at you and nip at your ankles.” “Oh dear,” I thought. “I think maybe I’ll bargain for more rough road in preference to loose, angry dogs. “Just look them in the eye and firmly yell ‘NO.” was Susan’s advise. Our leader’s counsel did nothing to ease my anxiety at the time, but I found on the couple of occasions when the foreseen event actually took place, the firm ‘no’ worked.

Leaving Texas felt good that time. A few weeks later leaving the Florida panhandle and approaching the Atlantic coast felt different. It was bittersweet. We were all aware this adventure was coming to an end. At this point in Florida I was having trouble focusing on anything other than pushing my pedals. Again from my journal: “It hasn’t fully registered in my head the fact that we have just ridden across the country 3165 miles. I expect it will sink in at some point, or maybe not. It’s a bit overwhelming. No question about it, it was the trip of a lifetime and a most extraordinary experience and a most extraordinary group of people.” Over the 58 days we made 52 departures from locations across eight different states. On those early morning departures, I was never more motivated to leave a place and so totally focused on arriving at the next place. I’m glad I have the day to day journal of the trip. I’m also grateful for the occasional appropriate story time topic to push me to get out the journal and relive some of the magical moments.

© 7 November 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.