Tag: Life Stories

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Exploring, by Ricky

Boys and “exploring” naturally fit together like peanut butter and jelly or love and civil-unions because it is part of a boy’s job description. I began my career as an explorer in January 1949 when I began to explore my home by crawling about on the floor and tasting small objects I encountered. Eventually, I reached other rooms as I began to walk and could “disappear” if my mother turned her back for more than 2-seconds. I don’t think the term “baby-proofing” existed yet so drawers and cupboards were never off-limits to me. Mom did empress upon my mind, via my behind, exactly which bottles and boxes were dangerous to me.

Somewhere between the ages of 1 and 3, I learned without spankings that spiders with the red hour-glass emblem were very dangerous and to stay away from them. I suspect what I actually learned was, “if it has red, stay away.” Once I began to open doors and explore outside the house, it was child’s play to open the gate in the fence and do some serious exploring. I quickly learned to take the dog with me so no one would notice I was gone.

My exploration of kindergarten began in September 1953. I looked over my classmates for a suitable playmate (I mean classmate) with which to be friends and chose a girl of all people, Sandra Flora. I loved to color and play with all the messy artistic stuff. In first grade, Sandra and I were sent to a fifth grade class to be an example to the other kids on how to work quietly. I’m sure I did not measure up to the teacher’s expectations as I kept getting out of my seat, quietly of course, and going to the book shelves trying to find a book with lots of pictures. Being unsuccessful in finding a book to keep me interested, I think the teacher became frustrated and eventually sent us back to our class.
Now enter 1956, I (a newly arrived eight-year old), was sent to live on my grandparents farm in central Minnesota while my parents were arranging their divorce. Suddenly, I had a whole farm to explore that summer (and ultimately), autumn, winter, and spring in rotation. Eighty acres of new frontier for the world’s greatest explorer and trapper to collect beautiful animal pelts and bring them in for the women back east to wear. (Okay, so they really were not bison or bear pelts, but if an 8-year old boy squints, just right, under the proper lighting conditions, gopher skins can look just like bison or bear hides only smaller.)
1956 was the year of my awakening to the expanded world of exploring everything on the farm: the barn, milk house, hayloft, silo, chicken coop guarded by a vicious rooster, granary, workshop (nice adult stuff in there), equipment shed where various farm implements were stored until needed, and the outhouse (the stink you “enjoyed” twice a day). State and county fair time brought other places to explore: animal barns for varieties of chickens, pigs, cows, sheep, horses, etc., judging of canning, 4-H, displays of quilts, new farm machinery (tractors, bailers, rakes, yucky manure spreaders, thrashers, and combines), and of course the midway in the evenings.
As summer waned and school began, I met and made a few friends.
I rode a school bus for three years in Los Angeles so that was not new. One of my neighboring farm friends and I were part of the “space race” as we would design rocket ships every evening and then compare them on the bus ride to school the next morning. Another farm boy and I did a bit of exploring of another type while riding the bus to school with our coats covering our crotches (use your imagination—and “No” we never were caught).
Another schoolyard “exploratory” activity involved games. One favorite among all students (townies and farm boys) was marbles. Our version involved scooping out a shallow depression next to the wall of the school, placing the marbles we wanted to risk (bet) into the depression, and then stepping back a distance (which increased with each turn) and attempting to roll a “shooter” into the depression so it stayed. If more than one boy’s shooter stayed in, the two “winners” would roll again from a greater distance and repeat the process until there was only one shooter in the depression. The winner would then collect all the marbles in the hole and the betting process would begin again. Sadly, I don’t remember the name of this game.
The second game we called Stretch. I can’t speak for the townies, but all self-respecting farm boys had a small pocket knife in one of his pockets all the time (including at school). In this game two boys would face each other and one would start by throwing his knife at the ground at a distance calculated to be beyond the reach of the other boy’s leg. If the knife didn’t stick, it was retrieved and the other boy took his turn. If the knife stuck, the other boy would have to “stretch” one leg/foot to touch the knife all the while keeping the other leg/foot firmly in place where he had been standing. If he was successful in touching the knife without moving the other foot, he retrieved the knife, returned it to its owner, and then took his turn of throwing the knife. If he could not touch the knife, he lost the game and another boy would take his place challenging the winner.
The third and fourth games were “King of the Hill” and snowball fights (obviously reserved for winter recess). I trust I do not need to describe these. In all of these games, we boys were “exploring” our limits or increasing our skills.
The elementary part of this school was of the old style, a “square” three-story edifice with one classroom located at each of the corners of the first two floors and storage rooms on the third floor. The restrooms were in the basement and (miracles of miracles) the rope to ring the bell up in the cupola on the roof ran all the way into the boys’ restroom. “Yes,” even during a pee break (raise one finger and wait for permission) I would occasionally “just have to” “explore” pulling on that rope and then run back to class, (mischievous is in a boy’s job description).
Once I turned 10, I began to explore the woods around our home sites in South Lake Tahoe. My Boy Scout Troop provided many opportunities to explore not only the great outdoors but also my own leadership skills and camping abilities. About this time, I also began to explore other boys; not sexually, but socially; learning to interact with them and developing an understanding of what “boy culture” is and is not. Well, to be completely honest, of course there was a little pubescent sex play occasionally, but not on troop hikes or campouts.
During those halcyon days of early adolescence, more and more I learned that it is not what a person looks like on the outside but what a person is on the inside that really matters. Therefore, I now explore the minds of new acquaintances by getting to know them enough to determine if they are friend or faux material.
Those early years of exploring my environment’s people, places, and things shaped my personality and instilled within my mind, a large dose of curiosity combined with a love of knowledge. Those who know me best can certify that I ponder on the strangest things or ask unexpected questions on unusual topics in my searches for answers. If that bothers some people, it is just too bad, because this is who I am; a curious little boy trapped in an adult body.
© 29 April 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

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Where Do We Go from Here? by Ray S

Where Do We Go from Here? (or something like that)

“What are you thinking about?” my drinking partner Jack inquired. My mind wondered: this may be the last time we’ll get together here in the rosy glow of the pink neon—the trademark of the famous art deco watering hole. Everyone owes it to themselves to visit this Denver landmark in the equally landmark Oxford Hotel. The post-Prohibition décor is purported to be an architect’s interpretation of a cocktail lounge on the HMS Queen Mary. Enough background history.

“Well,” I replied, “you’re leaving for Phoenix and a new home and a new life.” I thought to myself, as long as he can keep the cancer at bay. I wanted Jack to be my friend from the first time we met, and he is that, but now he is slipping out of my life as effortlessly as he slipped in. Where do we go from here? With that, Jack excused himself to go to the Men’s.

Almost magically, Harry the bartender set down two new Martinis—each a one olive and Tanquary up. My thoughts moved from the loss of my friend Jack to the last part of my question, “Where do we go from here?” Jack knew and I realized, like the rest of my past life, I had not inkling. If I woke up in the morning, I only knew to make a pot of coffee—from there on it was up for grabs—once I finally gained consciousness. Unless someone had engaged me for some sort of business, it always was me on call or demand. That is the way I was, am, “housebroken or trained.” Seemingly never having to make an important decision on my own—someone or circumstances always did that for me. When my Day Timer was full each day I could just move from one hour to the next until the dance card was filled—no thought, just move on.

Lost in thought, I stared at that olive at the bottom of its sea of gin and willed it to come up and jump into the little bowl of munchies next to my glass. Better drink some so I can save that poor olive from a possible drowning.

The other day a friend was telling me about discussion with his son the subject of always looking ahead and having a goal, and then go for it. Easier said than done for me, especially when one’s parents hadn’t alluded to any such philosophy—let nature take its course, and I have stumbled on in the realm of being the reactor, always in the state of “ignorance is bliss,” but at this age and the advent of another year to what kind of bliss? Seek a goal seems much too late, besides I don’t think I would be able to recognize a goal, even if that olive made its trip.

Where do I go from here? It is like standing at forks on this road of NOW. The signposts are myriad.

The Yellow Brick Road—but I never got Over the Rainbow.

The Road Home—You Can’t Go Home Again.

The Primrose Path—not all it’s crocked up to be.

The Road to Shangri-La—no way, it’s too cold a trip.

The Road to Mandalay or to Loch Lehman—don’t like to travel abroad

There’s a Long, Long Road a ‘Winding—now there’s one I’ve been on, and haven’t come to its destination yet. Not certain when, but this I am sure of: it will end when you’re not planning for it. You see someone else will make that decision for you.

The hotel restrooms here are a long way too, but Jack made the return safe and sound. “Did you notice the original antique features? Part of the ‘charm’ of this old place?” Those urinals were built for some by-gone giants. You had to be careful; you were a goner if you fell in!

While my friend began a detailed description of what he had learned about the old place, my mind wandered to my recent escape from my self-imposed closet. Finally, a decision I made of my own volition. Ironically, along with the joy of liberation, discovering a loving community, finding and acknowledging the real me, the monkey on my back, self loathing, is still with me.

The Gay Road was a good choice, now which road leads to this self love/hate resolution?

“Hey, snap out of it, you’re missing my Cook’s tour of this place, and put that olive back in the glass.”

© 4 January 2016

About the Author

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Mushrooms, by Phillip Hoyle

I read a lot of Carlos Casteneda, his reports and stories of learning about healing plants used by Yaqui healers and magicians. I wondered about the drug effects, but they were not a part of my life in Kansas or Texas, Missouri or New Mexico, Oklahoma or Colorado. But in those same places his ideas and experiences were emulated by others, even by people I knew. I read—I do a lot of that—but I didn’t experience firsthand what these others knew. Oh, I did occasionally use mushrooms in salads or omelets; I ate them on steaks. I liked them but always thought of them as a luxury, a kind of decadent French sort of thing. But of course those were simple mushrooms with no powers beyond pleasing the pallet or filling the stomach.

One of my friends used the other kind of mushrooms for quite a few years. He always seemed on a quest for esoteric knowledge. Once he told me that if he wasn’t drugging, his quest went flat. High he could convince himself that the worlds of ESP, Zodiac, and other mind-bending pursuits and readings seemed wonderful: the Truth. Later, when seriously addicted and then having a cancer removed my friend was scared away from the drugs he had used and abused. Now he uses only prescribed pain killers and some un-prescribed alcohol. He’s calmed down and in his drug-lite life is saving enough money to pay off his school debts. He’s changed and seems unconcerned about special knowledge. He may feel like he’s once again living life in small-town Mid-America. I suspect, though, dancing to techno music with a light show in some cool bar could easily transport him back into the world of visions, but without the drugs he’d still be saving a lot of money. (Perhaps I’m a bit too hopeful and way too practical.) My friend’s doing well now on a path of self-preservation rather than destruction. His mind is keen. I hope he can keep it that way. Still I fear post traumatic stress reactions could become too much.

I’ve never seemed to need any kind of hallucinogen to get my mind rolling with images of the exotic, unseen, and overwhelming excitement. Always a daydreamer, I experience the unusual and incorporate those ideas and images in my teaching, writing, and artwork. I have done so not to escape, not to clutch or control power, not to become extraordinary; I have done so because the acts and perspectives seem to be what I am. Look at my life: I may seem strange.

See me…

Standing there looking at landforms I somehow love, like the relatively flat tops and steep slopes of the Kansas Flint Hills; OR

Dancing like a traditional American Indian decked out in leather and feathers, wool and beads; OR

Frightening preschoolers when I am wearing an African shaman’s mask at church; OR

Looking at a painting in the Denver Art Museum while I imagine that I am riding a horse across the high plains; OR

Dancing in rehearsal to get my middle aged and elder white choir members into the rhythm of an African American spiritual; OR

Standing alone on a hill at age twenty feeling filled with wonder at my body’s sexual relationship with nature; OR

Smoking my annual cigar at a retreat while I take in the act with a sense of exultation; OR

Sipping a beer while I prepare paints at the outset of an art project in my studio; OR

Prancing with wild abandon while I dance with a friend or alone in a techno bar on an urban Saturday night; OR

Standing on a western Colorado escarpment surrounded by hundreds of petroglyphs imagining that I can hear the horses, smell the fires of piñón and juniper, hear the chant of the singers, respond to the beating of the drum and ratcheting of bull roarers, and watching the lines of dancers greet the vernal equinox; OR

Sitting in my room as I imagine bears emerging from their winter caves to begin the seasons of warmth; OR

Seeing hunters track the deer, the sheep, and the buffalo; OR

Watching a poet friend prostrate himself before the dancing Shiva in the temple of his lonely Denver apartment made full, light, and lively by the divine presence.

I feel, see, smell, touch, taste the world, common, daily, and extraordinarily a swirl of life and love.

Guess I’ll forego the mushrooms and simply close my over-active eyes to explore some other part of my mind.

Well, something like that.

Denver, © 2013

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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Away from Home, by Betsy

Home is where the heart is and my heart has changed location many times. In my adult life that has been on the average every 10 years or so. I’ve noticed that the older I get the harder it is to move—to change my home. I guess we become less flexible in many ways as we age. This is a sad fact for the 3 million elderly Americans who are now living away from home in so called nursing homes because they can no longer take care of themselves. I’m sure that there is not a middle aged person or elder anywhere who does not pray everyday that he/she will not be one of those who must at some time live away from home. I certainly am one of those.

My first move was at the age of 15. I had to move with my parents, brother, and sister from New Jersey to Louisiana. That move in itself resulted in a huge culture shock but I was young and resilient and adjusted fairly easily. I spent three years of high school in small town Louisiana, assimilated quite easily into the culture, but I never felt in my heart that it was my home. Not so for my brother and sister who adopted the southern life style and called it home for the rest of their lives. After the three years of high school, I left the south never to return save for visits to my parents. I returned east to New York State to attend college.

After college I married a man, settled in Rochester, New York where my three children were born. We actually had a house in Scottsville, NY, a rural community near Rochester. All told, we lived in the area for six years. At the age of 20 something that seems like a long, long time. Then came the opportunity to live in a foreign country for a year. So we sold our house and moved to the Netherlands with the 3 children age 2-6. This was not a sad move as we knew from the beginning that Scottsville was a temporary situation, and besides, we were focused on our new adventure in a foreign country.

We ended up staying in Holland for 2 and 1/2 years—not 1 year as originally planned. We lived in three different apartments in the same place, the ancient city of Leiden. Needless to say, the Netherlands never felt like home—foreign language, foreign customs, unfamiliar food, clothes, etc. In spite of this and the joy of returning to the US, we were at loose ends upon our arrival back home in the US because my husband had to complete his deferred mandatory military service of two years and we knew not where that would be. We were truly homeless for a couple of months until he was assigned to Fort Derrick, Maryland, germ warfare center of the USA.

There we lived for two years—on an army post in Maryland—a place with a lifestyle almost as unfamiliar as the deep south or the Netherlands. Life was good at Ft. Derrick, but that place never felt like home either. I can imagine that military families who are jockeyed around frequently without much prior notification feel much the same. My guess is that for military families the post or base culture and lifestyle is their heart home regardless of where it is located.

Our move from Ft. Derrick and out of the army was to Denver. Our home in Park Hill was the first permanent-feeling home I had experienced in my adult life. We actually lived in the same house for almost fifteen years. Park Hill neighborhood, Denver, Colorado was my first heart home. A place I knew I would live for many years and potentially could live there the rest of my life. This, of course, would not come to pass because after 15 years in this home my life changed, my marriage ended, my children were grown and leaving home. This is when I came out as a lesbian. I continued to live in Park Hill in another house. After I met Gill and we decided to live together, we bought yet another house in the neighborhood together and lived there for 12 years. Park Hill had been my heart home for 40 years although I had lived in four different houses in the neighborhood during that time.

It rather reminded me of the backpacking trips in the Colorado mountains we took every summer for a number of years as our children were growing up. We knew we would not be sleeping in the same place more than one night. Every home we established on the journey was temporary, yet the mountain environment was our home away from home. Much the same as the many trips Gill and I took in our camper van. We would search for the perfect campsite and once found settled in and made it our home at least for a night or sometimes for several days and nights. In these cases, however, I think of our stopping place more as a nest rather than a home. The total mountain environment was our home when backpacking and moving on everyday. The van was our home when on the road trips, the campsite our nest.

A few years ago we decided to move to Lakewood. Park Hill was becoming too noisy and too young. I no longer had children in Denver, Gill had no ties to the neighborhood or the city of Denver. We had some friends living in an HOA community in Lakewood and we liked the area, so we started looking at a couple of the units for sale. Next thing we knew we were moving to Lakewood. I did not anticipate that I would feel away from home for the next few years. But I did, in spite of the fact that I liked our new home. Finally, though five years after our move I am well settled in there and love the quiet, peaceful, and friendly environment. It feels much more like home now.

Yet, Gill and I both spend a lot of time in Denver. Since I moved to Lakewood, one of my daughters moved from Baltimore to Denver. She is settled in a house in Park Hill—her heart home. Part of my heart is still there for sure. But Lakewood Green is my home now and it feels like home. I honestly do not think I have it in me to establish another home—at least not a heart home—a nest maybe, but not a heart home. One of my final supplications may well be that my last departure from my heart home be in a box. I do hope I will be one of the lucky ones and not ever be forced to move to a care facility away from home.

© 1 August 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.

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Purple, by Will Stanton

How much can one say about purple? The person who chose this topic told me that he had something quite special in mind. I don’t. So, I guess I will have to settle with simply commenting upon a few situations involving the color purple which I have observed over the years.

To start off with, I’ll be blunt and succinct about this first example just to get it out of the way.
Unfortunately (and I will not dwell on these points, either), purple often can be an indication of some serious medical crisis. I recall seeing a very elderly, fragile man whose lips were a scary dark purple, almost black. Of course, we all are familiar with the ominous purple lesions too often seen on people of our generation, Kaposi’s sarcoma, the infection with human herpesvirus that often has been associated with AIDS. And, if you permit me to quickly mention it, I never will erase from my memory seeing the faint streaks of purple as I watched my partner die from lung-cancer. Enough of that, however.
Moving on, some people claim that certain ethnic cultures prefer various colors. I recall early in my education, I worked one summer for an architect, my entertaining the idea that I might choose architecture as a profession. The firm, at that time, was drawing up plans for some low-income housing, most of the residents predicted to be blacks. One architect stated that a major color theme for the interior would be the color purple “because blacks like the color purple.” His comment struck me as an over-generalization, although I do recall seeing groups of blacks elegantly dressed in their Sunday finest at Black Eyed Pea. Often, their suit-coats and fancy dresses were in various shades of purple.
The school color for South High School is purple, a color most prominently displayed on football outfits. Unlike the 1950s or 60s, I never see, these days, students wearing school jackets or shirts sporting the color purple. I have seen some girls, however, with purple hair. 
I also know someone who claims the color of his vehicle, known as a “Cube,” is burgundy, although it looks more like a dark purple to me. I have to look carefully in the sunlight to conclude that, however.
Here, I have another opportunity to use one of my favorite phrases, “bloviating ignoramus.” I had no desire ever to watch Rush Limbaugh on TV, although I occasionally have stumbled upon some clips on the news. I recall seeing Rush so fired up and blustering with some false accusation he wished to spread about someone whom he hates that, I swear, his face seemed to be turning purple. Somehow, he appears to have avoided a heart attack or stroke.
I have witnessed that purple-faced phenomenon first-hand, too, with a local intellectual-Neanderthal whom I refer to as “Neanderthal-Joe.” Back in the early days of the Bush junta and the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I casually mentioned to Joe that I was disappointed with Bush. Joe stood up, starting screaming at me, stomping around the room, slathering at the lips. He retorted that “Bush is doing God’s work!” His face literally was turning purple.
That happened also with a mutual acquaintance and good friend of Joe, a man who quickly had become a millionaire working for the sleaziest mortgage-banking company in America. When the Colorado Supreme Court declared Amendment 2, which in effect denied civil rights to gays, was unconstitutional, this man was infuriated, stating to me that, “Nine unelected men in black robes denied the will of the people.” I “pushed his button” by replying, “When I was in grade school, we were taught that America is a constitutional democracy.” At that, he exploded, sputtering and shouting. His face was a slightly different shade of purple from Joe’s.
Last of all, and on a more positive side, there also are some purple things that give me great pleasure. I have enjoyed seeing nature’s paintbrush at work with purple flowers, sunsets, Purple Martin birds, and bushes of wild berries, so dark that they look almost black. And, who can resist a heaping helping of homemade berry cobbler? Now, there’s something purple that is enjoyable to think about.

© 8 January 2016

About the Author

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

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Acceptance, by Ricky

While I was under 6-years old, I enjoyed playing with both boys and girls whenever they were around. I was not particular as to the items we played with either. If I was at my house, we played with my toys and if at another’s home, we played with their toys, which would include dolls if the playmate was a girl.

Somewhere between 3 and 4-years old, one of the girl playmates and I played doctor and we both learned the difference between girls and boys. Of course we got caught, but the visual images could not be erased.

As I aged to 6-years old and above, I gravitated to playing with boys only as the girls suddenly had cooties. I gave up playing with dolls and chose to play more active games like cowboys and Indians or war in an obvious imitation of the movies on television. For some reason, I never wanted to play Peter Pan after I saw the Disney animated feature. Perhaps I did want too, but my other playmates thought playing it was too sissy like.

At age 9 ¾ (not to be confused with platform 9 ¾ in the Kings Cross station), another boy and I fondled each other two nights in a row. Up until then, I never desired to see another person naked, but from those two days forward, I wanted to see other boys’ genitals. I had no desire to see girls’ private areas because I had learned playing doctor that girls have nothing to play with down there whereas, all boys have a built-in toy.

I experienced both oral and anal sex at age 10, learned about masturbation and had my first orgasm at age 11. At 11 I also noticed that I was attracted to some boys but not others. Since, I was still in the girls-have-cooties frame of mind, I thought nothing of it. However, as I continued to age, I became increasingly aware that my schoolmates no longer believed in females having cooties. That is when I began to feel different because I was not attracted to girls, only boys. I didn’t dislike girls and had several classmates that I got along with really well. If the opportunity had presented itself, I would have willingly gone to bed with them. But no such opportunity occurred and I became more and more confused and worried. I kept telling myself that I would probably “grow out of” my interest in males and I accepted that and internalized it for years.

I remained hopeful until 2010, when I finally accepted that I was never going to change and I was, in fact, gay. But now I am confused again.

Based upon my life experience growing up, I believe that children about 5 or 6 began to prefer being around members of their own gender. It is just my opinion as I have never read anything about child development in that context. It is just a self-declared fact I “made up” based upon my observations. So, why am I confused now?

I have recently watched several “coming out” stories that pre-teen and young teens have posted on YouTube. Most of them parallel my experience at that age except for one major difference. In most cases the boys state that they knew they were different at young ages. I didn’t know at that age, so how can they know? Is my so called natural-preference-for-one’s-own-gender-when-young theory real or is it just a desire to play active “boy games” and not passive doll games? Is it really a sexual attraction these video coming out story boys feel or just a non-sexual desire to be with and do boy things that they are misinterpreting as evidence or proof they are gay? Are they, in fact, in the early stages of puberty (as I was) at ever increasingly younger ages and these desires really are “sexual” in nature or just curiosity?

I just don’t know the answer to my questions. Until some straight boys of the same ages tell their stories on how they came out as heterosexual, there is nothing to compare the experiences of the two groups. So, I’ll just accept that I am going to be confused about these questions and probably something else as well for the foreseeable future.

© 21 December 2015

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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Alice’s Adventure in Purple Passionland, by Ray S

The question had been looming in my frustrated mind for at least forty-five minutes. Where the hell am I, and what can I do? In my haste to leave for this dinner date I neglected to confirm the specifics like apartment number. When I had confirmed that I was at the right building, I was unable to find their names on the directory much less their apartment number. This occurred after mindless wandering between a couple of other similar high-rise buildings. In case you wonder why I failed simply to use my cell phone to let them come rescue me from the street people, I couldn’t remember their number. Would the papers announce: “Little old man found comatose under a loading dock; Doctors suspect senior molestation.”

At that moment I looked up to see two men approaching. Who else but Marty and Bob, one of my hosts and the other dinner guest whom I hadn’t seen for at least a year. I dropped my bag and almost floored them as I threw my arms around them and kissed my saviors. “We thought you had forgotten about tonight,” was all they could say in disbelief, probably thinking, “He really must be slipping.”

As dinner was about ready friend Bob produced a small box of hors d’oeuvres and invited all to sample freshly made brownies. They were made by him and Betty Crocker with the addition of Bob’s own prepared formula of something with the unfamiliar name “Lower List” and “Purple Mist.”

Then Marty’s husband Tucker inquired, “Haven’t you ever smoked pot?” He was incredulously amazed that it was possible that pot wasn’t a part of everyone’s life.

Bob allowed as how just a crumb of the “edible” would be okay. “Go ahead; take this chocolately bit. It won’t hurt.” I later learned that all three of the boys were tripping along nicely. I am reminded of Alice and the bottle with the inscription: DRINK ME.

Sometime between the soup and salad courses I began to wonder at Marty’s mastering the kitchen activities, but the plated dinners made it to the table perfectly. About part way into the salad course and then to entrée, I became aware of a soft haze dropping down over the dinner guests. Having my trained eye for color I can describe for you that it was soft and transparent and in shadings of lavender edged in the finest corona of deep purple no more than a thirty-second of an inch wide. I had been told that that little crumb MIGHT start to react but not to worry.

Dessert was a luscious apple strudel a la mode. I looked down at it on its dessert plate, and it looked up at me as if to say: TRY ME, you’ll like it.” I’d heard that before.

I was enveloped in that Purple Mist when I heard the other three discussing:

What can we do with his car?

It’s parked on the street.

Well, he certainly can’t drive it.

They decided to see if I was able to walk. So Tucker decided to see if I could walk twenty feet. Success! So I could accompany Bob to show him if I could find my car, and then he would drive it into the garage. Then what are we going to do with him besides an anti-climax of strong coffee—as if it made any difference.

What fun I was having wallowing in all of this attention. Yes it was another time and place.

Dear Bob had done wonderfully guiding the old sedan to the garage, after which he took leave of our jolly band. For the next three hours some sort of trigger activated my talking machine. Marty and Tucker kept an eye on their errant guest by sitting up and encouraging other-worldly philosophies on how love prevails.

About 3:30 AM Marty pointed me to the guest bedroom with the firm suggestion I fall into the bed. Tucker said “Good night or morning.” and the two of them offed to their own bed, with the assurance I’d be wakened for breakfast.

After some coffee and fruit I found a good degree of sobriety and lots of sleepiness. No more ethereal lavender-purple mist. As I set about the trip back home, I reviewed this most recent TRIP and what gratitude I had for my two Fairy God Fathers.

Pulling out of the garage, I stopped at the gate and looked up to their balcony and there the two of them were waiving their magic wands in a farewell gesture with one hand while holding onto their diamond tiaras with the other.

“Adieu, my two Fairy queens, with love and appreciation for the finer joie d’vie.”

Alice

Denver, © 7 March 2016

About the Author

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Forgiveness, by Phillip Hoyle

I grew up in a religious community that preached forgiveness of sin, that awful impediment to right relationship with the divine. One sought salvation or, more exactly, reconciliation with God and sought baptism as a symbol of the washing away of sin. Our church taught that baptism was not magically cleansing but symbolically so. Magic and miracles belonged to the pre-Enlightenment past. The religion was modern, rational, and even democratic. Still, the religious life and congregational experience were not without feeling. As members tried to live what was often called the Christian life some folk felt forgiveness, others did not.

Forgiveness was tied in with a moral insistence that if we were to be forgiven, we must be forgiving. For me, the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi seemed to capture the relationship. It ends with these words:

O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

To my way of thinking, that sixth line could easily and logically read, “It is in forgiving that we are forgiven.” The religious and moral sentiment was: if we wanted “in” we had to invite others in, if we wanted love we had to love, if we wanted hope we had to offer hope to others.

When I was around twenty-five I talked on the phone to a woman who could not forgive herself for an abortion she had sought years before. From my naïve and inexperienced perspective I suggested that God had already forgiven her. I guess I was kind of pep talking her into a theological affirmation that somehow didn’t address the forgiveness issues in her life. In the ensuing years I replayed that conversation and eventually heard in her voice evidence that she was drunk. (As I said, I was naïve.) I suspect that she probably called a different church every time she took up the bottle. There was something in her behavior that harkened back to experiences, teachings, accusations, probably preaching, and perhaps emotional instability. The only thing I could say about my end of the conversation is that I was open, positive, caring, and long-suffering. Eventually I came to understand how difficult forgiveness could be for some folk, especially in being able to forgive themselves or, in a religious sense, to accept that God has forgiven them. My twenties-something world was so simple. I was not plagued with guilt feelings; I was preoccupied with the challenges of career and family-building, enjoying life in a city church where I wasn’t expected to pray for rain. (I had left small churches in farm towns.)

Over the years of ministerial practice I learned to be more compassionate to and tolerant of other people whose beliefs sometimes seemed pathetic to me. I learned to listen with greater complication and to move myself into work most appropriate to my gifts. I felt good in my ministry. Still I knew more and more that I was living in a strange and probably unhealthy environment. My homosexual proclivity placed me in a precarious position, especially as the conservative powers of the 1980s and 90s focused more and more on a concept of otherness, opposed the gay and lesbian search for freedom as legalizing the unpardonable sin. I knew better. I knew the great humanity of homosexual love, its enriching effects in my own life. I valued my homosexuality as well as my heterosexuality and realized that for this to become generally known would relegate me to outer darkness in the view of many parishioners and even many of my colleagues. They would see me as sinful—you know: he desires the wrong sex and he is not monogamous—sins that even if tolerated in distant relatives certainly could not be countenanced in clergy. Quite often I had to forgive people their ignorance and hate while promoting a strategy and spirit of tolerance, service, and love.

At the family core of my life I knew that whatever happened between my wife and me would be forgiven. I already knew that and trusted the two of us to weather the storms of our relationship. It has been so. She forgave; I forgave. She forgave my needs and the pain I brought to her; I forgave her chosen unawareness and temporary anger. We forgave but still separated, and at age 50 I did not want to spend any time trying to represent my complicated self to the churches of my denomination. I chose to continue my St. Francis perspective and prayer outside that organization although I remain connected with my family and some long-time friends. I presume their forgiveness just as I do the forgiveness of the profligately loving God. And I live in open acceptance of others even when they are not particularly open to me.

Denver, © March 9, 2015


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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Preparation, by Gillian

Oh, Heavens! The things
that spring to mind! An ounce of preparation is worth a pound of cure,  Preparation H, emergency
preparedness, hope for the best and prepare for the worst, look to the past to
prepare for the future, and prepare to meet your maker.
In my younger days I
suppose I did quite a lot of preparation. I recall preparing, with my mother,
for my first day of school, for my church Confirmation and after it for my
first Communion, and probably many more firsts. They tend to pile up on you in
your youth. Then, in school and college, there were endless tests and exams to
prepare for. I prepared to go to college and, in what seemed like no time,
prepared to leave.
Then, without any
conscious intent, I seem to have entered a long phase of my life when I made
little, if any, preparation for anything. Events occurred in an apparently
random, haphazard, way. This went well; that did not. This happened; that did
not. Oh well! Shrug it off. Move on. I most assuredly did not prepare to come
out; certainly not to myself, anyway. You cannot really prepare to be hit by a
runaway train.
Now, in the latter part
of life, I find myself regressing, in the matter of preparation as with many
other things, to the ways of my youth. If I don’t prepare for just about
anything and everything, I shall forget some vitally important words or deeds,
or both. When we prepare for camping or road trips, Betsy and I now set up
‘staging areas’ where we collect things for weeks before we leave, so as not to
forget some essential. We used to basically just get in the car and start
driving, and get wherever we got. Not anymore! We plan the route, fussing over
getting through congested areas before or after rush hour. Or sometimes we plan
quite lengthy detours to avoid braving six lanes of freeway at 5.00pm. On the
other hand, we need to prepare a route that gets us to a campground in time to
settle in before dark. No more midnight arrivals for us!
One thing I know for sure
about preparation; it can be incredibly beneficial when it comes to
practicalities, but for emotions it’s a bust. At least for me. I tried, if only
vaguely, most of my life, to prepare myself for the death of my parents. That
is, after all, the normal natural course of events for most of us. It didn’t
work; I might as well never have given it a thought. I was simply felled by
their deaths. Devastated. And the heartbreak went on and on. It was at least
ten years before I was really OK with it, and that was only after a lot of work
on my spirituality. We have too many friends ending up in hospice lately.
Naturally, given those circumstances, we give it our best to prepare ourselves
emotionally for imminent loss. It doesn’t seem to help. Grief remains grief
even though it is not accompanied by shock. Even though we tell ourselves it
was for the best they didn’t linger longer.
When Betsy and I decided,
two years ago, to get legally married while we were on a visit to California,
we truly meant it when we said to family and friends, ‘Oh it’s no big deal.
We’ve been together for ever after all. It’s just signing a piece of paper.’
Wrong again! We were both
completely taken by surprise by the strength of emotion we felt. Both so close
to tears, we could barely say those words we had waited almost thirty years to
say.  We had thought we were completely
prepared, and once more might as well not have given it a thought for as wrong
as we got it.
So all I’m trying to do
now, as far as emotional preparedness goes, is preparing to be surprised. I
shall prepare by acknowledging that I don’t have a clue how I’m going to feel,
wherever and whenever, about anything. And again I surprise myself. This
unpreparedness actually feels good. It’s liberating. It’s living in the moment.
I shall know what I feel
when I feel it. What on earth is wrong with that?
© 24 Aug 2015 
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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What I Did on My Vacation from Story Time, by Ray S

Some time ago I met this
lovely Brit on the Waterloo Bridge in London. She had transported me there
through the medium of Story Time at the GLBTQ Center. That is when I fell in
love with her and also her equally lovely partner.
Since then we have
enjoyed a warm friendship. You can imagine what a pleasant surprise it was when
I answered her phone call. Her message told of the distressing news that due to
the impending blizzard and snowstorm, we wouldn’t be able to meet for Story Time
that day.
Thus all of the storytellers were left to their own devices. That opened a can of worms for so many
worms. I’d guess it was very dangerous for some. For me, I was reduced to doing
the laundry.
But what a chance to break
the routine and not do a darn thing—except all of the stuff in the
procrastination file.
Low and behold the snow
didn’t quite live up to the weather man’s expectation—nothing new there—and I
didn’t have to get dressed or undressed for bed. I never got out of my robe all
day. What luxury. All of that and a good book that saved me from another
edition of the Antiques Road Show.
© February 2016 
About
the Author