Tag: Life Stories

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All My Exes Live In Texas by Pat Gourley

Actually none of my exes live in Texas, are from Texas or to my knowledge ever had any significant connection to Texas. I have been there only once. That was an overnight stay in Dallas for teaching purposes on a new HIV drug called ddc. We were beginning a study with it at the AIDS clinic where I worked. I believe the year was 1990 or 1991. I seem to recall that this overnighter was in August and other than staying in a very plush hotel it was the throat grabbing heat and humidity that I remember best. The short trip from cab to inside the hotel made me think ‘so this is what hell is like.’

For those of you who have not seen the Dallas Buyers Club, currently playing at the Esquire Theatre one of the drugs they were trying hard to have access to early was ddc. AZT was all that was available early on and many thought it was poison. Ironically it was the high dosage of AZT that was the big problem and in the long run it proved less toxic than ddc. AZT is still in use today in combinations with other drugs and ddc nowhere to be found.

I believe the first buyers clubs were in New York City and on the west coast a direct offshoot of ACT-UP organizing and efforts. They did not originate in Texas.

I strongly recommend the movie which I feel is great validation for folks not sitting by quietly waiting to be saved (or not) but rather taking matters into our own hands and strongly and forcefully demanding change and action. This is something we queers are quite adept at when we put our minds to it. There has been some controversy in the gay press about the movie and after last night’s Golden Globe awards where the best actor and best supporting actor awards were won by the stars of the movie some minor bitching continues. I won’t get into the controversies here other than to say I think it is perhaps a bit “much ado about not much.” Everyone does agree the acting was superb.

In retrospect I do feel bad that I was attending a drug company teaching session on ddc in Dallas in the early 1990’s rather than spending my time visiting their buyer’s club. We of course had to be properly trained on the drug before we could be designated a study site for it. I never got to meet the infamous Ron Woodroof and the charismatic Rayon, the lead characters in the Dallas Buyers Club.

In the movie the main protagonist is a man named Ron Woodroof played by Matthew McConaughey. The other main character is a trans-women played in quite dramatic fashion by Jared Leto named Rayon. A strong subtext throughout the movie is the genuine bonds that developed between her and McConaughey a supposedly straight man. The Dallas Buyers Club itself as an entity doesn’t really take off until Rayon becomes involved and brings in many customers. It needed a bit more legitimate queer street cred, which Rayon brought to it, countering the McConaughey character and his early on really vicious, drug addled homophobia.

Buyer’s Clubs became a quite widespread phenomenon in the late 1980’s and were a force even locally here in Denver until the late 1990’s when protease inhibitors came on the scene. The flawed but immensely better new drugs that actually worked to keep the virus at bay tended to take the desperate energy out of the sails of the various PWA coalitions and the often loosely affiliated buyers clubs.

Locally there was a strong PWA coalition and a loosely associated buyer’s club. I was never involved directly with either though I did on occasion contribute educational pieces for their newsletter called Resolute, my most infamous piece being one titled “Its Chemotherapy Stupid.” I might read it here some day.

I do though recall that our buyer’s club was run in a bit more egalitarian fashion than the Dallas Buyers Club was. Less profit motivated for sure and really queer run here. I only accessed them once and that was the day before my partner David died at Rose Medical Center on September 17th, 1995. His AIDS was quite advanced by this time and David had just been home a few days from a rather lengthy and traumatic hospital stay. He adamantly did not want to return for another stay or to die there if at all possible.

The big issue was controlling pain. All we had at home were morphine tables and plenty of them but they didn’t seem to be working and were a sustained release version. I thought a quicker acting liquid form might be more helpful but it was late in the evening and accessing it through his doc at Rose problematic. So I picked up the phone and called one of my friends, a local buyer’s club member. Within less than an hour our doorbell rang. No one was at the door but there was a small paper bag on the stoop with two bottles of liquid morphine.

Unfortunately, that didn’t work either. So we gave in and went back to Rose for IV pain relief. That did help immensely but David died the next morning at 9 A.M.

I am reminded constantly how lucky I am to be alive today. I turned 65 yesterday. I know that makes me a youngster in this room but in the AIDS community I am an old man. I do think I owe a great debt of gratitude to all the AIDS activists of the 1980’s and 1990’s for speeding up the process of drug development and access to these drugs for people with AIDS. If not for a lot of loudmouthed and uppity queens, including many in Texas, I might very well not be here today.

© January 2014

About the Author



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

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HomoFaggot by Phillip Hoyle

I knew my life was changing when my wife advised, “You’d better tell the kids.” I thought about it and realized that to give words to my activity would necessarily change me. The assumption stemmed from a theological concept about the power of words, for in Genesis God spoke into existence the creation and then pronounced it good. Early Christian tradition called Jesus not only the Christ but also the word. I assumed words create, words value, and words move even mountains. I knew that the words I used to communicate with my grown children would have all these powers. I would be creating myself to both them and me. I would be moving myself and them into new worlds of experience and, hopefully, love. I would be testing all the values my wife and I had sought to foster in them.

I decided to describe my actions rather than call myself names. Still, to tell my daughter Desma about my activities would be to out myself not only to her but, because I assumed she would be more entertained than chagrined and not at all ashamed over what I had done, I would be known as homosexual to anyone who knew her very well. She wasn’t a gossip; she was just very open. I didn’t fault her, but I did know I’d be out in the city where she lived and where I had ministered in a congregation for nine years.

I asked my wife if she was sure about my telling them and was surprised at her answer. She didn’t want them to receive the word about my life at the same time they might have to hear that we were changing our relationship. I perceived her wisdom but wondered at her assumption that differed from mine. Still I bit the bullet and called the kids.

From years of reading queer theory, I realized that in telling them this information about myself, I would change in ways I could not yet imagine. I chose not to use categorizing words such as homosexual or bisexual, because I didn’t want to direct their ways of thinking. The main impact would be that my life and the marriage were changing. I also realized that whatever I said to them, I’d be homosexual. I knew that neither straights nor gays were comfortable with the designation bisexual. It didn’t matter that I had for many years understood and valued my bisexuality. It didn’t matter that the latest coalition of queers called itself GLBT. Yes, that B stands for bisexual, a term common in the literature of psychology, sociology, and sexology; that B represents a growing body of knowledge about humans; that B describes well the experience of thousands or even millions of human beings including me. When the story would be re-told, as I assumed it would, the B word would not be used. I would become a homosexual; I would be gay. Although that didn’t bother me at a personal level, the H word did not begin to describe my life. It was just too simple a designation. It was also one that would limit my access to work in the church.

Ironically, homosexual was more acceptable than bisexual in church work due to the possibility of being monogamous as a homosexual and the impossibility of such as a bisexual. A war of concepts and ideals seemed underway, one that would end my career. I didn’t know what I would do, what outcomes I’d find, but I did call my kids and tell them that in New Mexico I’d had two sexual affairs with men. I said their mom and I wanted them to know because we didn’t know what the future would hold. I reminded them that we loved them. My wife and I did separate. Within a year I’d left my ministerial profession and moved to Denver to live as a gay man. These choices seemed the best for everyone.

About four years later Desma heard her two boys call one another faggot. She asked them what the expression meant. Because they either didn’t know for sure or didn’t want to get into heavy trouble with their mom, they told her it meant you were strange. They’d heard it at school. She called together all four of her older children saying they needed to talk. She told them the word faggot and what it stood for: people who love and want to live with others of the same sex. They talked until she knew they understood the meaning of homosexual, gay, lesbian, and other related words. They discussed descriptive and pejorative uses of the terms. Then she said she wanted them to think for three hours, not to discuss but simply think, about people they knew that are homosexual. When she dismissed the children to go back to their play, she called her sister-in-law. “Heather,” she informed, “we’re talking about homosexuality over here. I thought you’d want to know before the kids got together again.” The families lived several blocks apart. The kids were in and out of each other’s homes. And Grandpa Phillip was coming to town in a few weeks.

When she got the kids together again, she asked them and made a list. They talked about what they knew including several homosexual people who were related to their family as friends and acquaintances. None of them suggested Grandpa Phillip. But some of the grandchildren had met Phil’s friend Tony and his male partner. They had walked his dog Shinti and had attended two gay parades with their grandpa. They had seen him greet gays and lesbians near his home. Two of them had met a transgender friend of his who bought them a cookie at a coffee shop. And since then the children and grandchildren have met Grandpa Phillip’s current partner Jim. They’ve met his mother Ruth. Most of them have stayed overnight in our home and have eaten Ruth’s homemade cookies. They have read my stories about Miss Shinti and her gay owner. They know something about their grandpa, information that will change for them as they mature. They also know they are deeply loved, even by their HomoFaggot grandpa.

Denver, 2011

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

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Do I Have Your Number…. ?? by Gillian

Do I have your number? No, I do not mean your phone number! I use the phrase in the way we say, or just think to ourselves, ‘Oh yes, I’ve got your number!’ meaning ‘Oh yes, I know what you are after, I know what is going on here, I know what you think and what you want; I know what you are about. I know who you are.

So, in that sense, do I have your number? Do all or any of you have mine? We have shared many of our most heartfelt emotions, thoughts, and ideas, over the last two or three years. We have held nothing back. We have laughed and cried together. We have hidden nothing from each other.

Still, I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. It makes me wonder if really deeply knowing someone, completely understanding them, is actually possible. Surely very few, if any, family members truly know each other, even those who consider themselves to be very close. After twenty-six years together, and with considerable help and spiritual guidance from such people as Eckhart Tolle, do Betsy and I really really know each other? Of course not. We still struggle to understand each other every single day, with mixed results.

But how can I even dream of a deep and flawless understanding of any other person when I still don’t know my own self? I try. I look deeply inside myself and try to interpret correctly what I find there, but I don’t always get it right. After all these years, I can still surprise, perhaps even shock, myself.

Some time ago our group’s topic for the week was Marriage. Some of you remember that my piece had the recurring theme: “marriage doesn’t freakin’ work!” I questioned why we, the GLBT community, are so determined to jump onto this faltering band-wagon.

Last week came the staggering announcement that the IRS now recognizes same-sex marriages. Perhaps Betsy and I should consider marriage, after all. But only, I firmly lectured my inner self, for purely fiscal reasons. After all, I insisted, we had no emotional need for any such thing. We are as committed to each other and our relationship as any two people could ever be, and we don’t need any official sanction to help us along.

So why on earth did I find myself, close to tears, asking Betsy if she would consider marrying me? In fact, I became so obsessed with the idea that I kept on asking. I guess I couldn’t quite believe the answer. Finally the poor beleaguered woman laughed,

“You’ve asked me three times and I’ve told you ‘yes’ three times. OK?”

Not the most romantic response, but I’ve finally got it; the answer is YES!

I am completely taken by surprise to find myself so thrilled at this that I feel almost sick with excitement, something we do not experience too frequently once we leave the uninhibited emotions of childhood behind us. Suddenly this is all about love and nothing about money; much more peering inside myself to be done!

No, I don’t have your number. I don’t even have my own!

September 2013

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 now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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Sorry, I’m Allergic by Will Stanton

In my hometown, the head of the draft board, Mr. D—-, owned an auto-parts store. He knew auto-parts. Other than that, he was profoundly ignorant, prejudiced, delusional, and full of hate. I guess that there is a plague of such people in every generation; we have witnessed far too many of them over the last several years. Unfortunately as I said, he was in charge of the draft board, and he had every intention of using it to perpetuate his political agenda.

To begin with, he had fallen “hook, line, and sinker” for the now-documented lies about Vietnam. He was convinced that those godless, Vietcong Commies were close to invading our hometown, and we had to bomb them back to the stone-age to prevent it. Secondly, he thoroughly believed that anyone who was educated, highly informed, and had good critical thinking skills was obviously un-American and a Commie-sympathizer. That meant every college student and every son of a faculty member was un-American. That included me.

So, Mr. D. concocted a whole series of tricks trying to circumnavigate the draft regulations and the laws of the land to pull every student out of college, believing that education is of no real value, and sending them as soldiers to Vietnam, where they could do God’s work. If executing his plan required blatant lying, violating the law, or making false statements to the FBI and setting them out to arrest students, as one done to my brother, that was OK with him.

My brother had to enlist the aid of a U.S. Senator to counteract such nefarious abuse.

Like so many others, I was called in to face Mr. D. for a series of delightful sessions where, for example, he would state that my student deferment had been canceled because (quote) “I had failed to fill-out and mail-back a required statement,” all the time waving the delivered statement right in front of my face. Oh yes, he was a good Christian man; lying and illegal actions were OK when doing God’s work.

Our friend and neighbor Dr. K——, who was the head of a university department, had two sons who continuously had been harassed and finally declared “1-A.” The same happened to Professor W—‘s family, whom we knew. They were well informed about the true situation in Vietnam and were steadfastly against the war policies of the administration. Seeing no alternative, they finally advised their sons to go to Canada. After all, we already had lost several sons who were acquaintances of mine, and that was a small community.

So, I finally was deprived of my student deferment and ordered to be taken to the state capital for my induction physical. There was a whole bus-load of us from my hometown.

Traveling eighty-five miles by bus took a while, so I had plenty of opportunity to chat with some of the other guys. The fellow next to me sported a well trimmed beard, which suited his geology major very well. He enjoyed explaining the geology of the area as we moved along, a tutorial which I thoroughly enjoyed. Others expressed their anxieties about the draft.

Once we arrived at the center, we quickly were required to fill out forms. I recall that one question demanded to know if the individual was homosexual. I wondered how many had the courage to mark it “Yes,” whether actually straight or gay, simply to become ineligible for the draft. We then had to strip down and start through a long line of examiners.

I do not know if all potential inductees experienced the same treatment as we did, but I was rather surprised how uncivil and belligerent each and every examiner was there. I wondered if the reason was that each examiner considered himself to be a true American patriot, but the inductees were “reluctant laggards, not worthy of being seen as true Americans.”

I brought along my medical file with me, for I knew from having read draft regulations that my life-long allergy condition was so severe that I would not qualify for service. As far back as age five, our family had to cut short a Canadian camping trip because I could not breath from reacting to all the tree-pollen. By age ten, my year-around allergies were so severe that I was taken to see a specialist. The doctor was surprised to find out that I am allergic to just about everything in nature that I find attractive, trees, flowers, grass, but also weeds such as ragweed and goldenrod. I try to do the best I can, short of living in a bubble.

My allergic reactions were not just sneezing and having itchy eyes. My throat could close up, and I could break out in hives if I just touched dandelions. I was given a series of immunization shots, but they failed to diminish the symptoms. In college, the doctor tried even cortisone shots, ignoring the cumulative, toxic side-effects. That was not much help either.

Before the physical, I reviewed my file. Then I decided to take an eye-catching piece of colored paper and type a synopsis of my allergy history. I included that in the file.

So, going through the examination line from person to person and hearing the examiners’ snarling orders, I was not surprised that each and every one of us passed with flying colors despite whatever afflictions each of us had. It looked as though no one would be exempted from the privilege of going to Vietnam.

Then I came to the last examiner who reviewed my file. He casually glanced at each page in an obviously dismissive manner. But then, the colored paper caught his eye. He read through the medical synopsis, then glared at me and said, “You know the regulations too well.” I responded, “I’m familiar with the regulations.” He repeated, “Too well!” Then with one angry motion, he grabbed a rubber stamp, slammed it down on my form, and shoved it back into my hands I looked at it. It said “1-Y, that is, to be called-up only in the case of national emergency.” I was the only one from that bus-load not drafted.

I had much to think about on the long bus-ride home. Once I arrived home, I was eager to contact my friends Ned and Derrith to tell them the news. We had talked quite a bit about this situation before I went to Columbus. When I finally met up with them, they were very pleased to hear that I still would be around, that I would not be going into the army and being shipped off to Vietnam.

Then Derrith informed me, “We knew that you would have a hard time with all of the examiners. That’s why we decided to concentrate on just the last man.” I asked what she meant.

She answered, “Ned and I did a little ceremony and concentrated on the last man, telling him that he had to let you go.” 

I was puzzled. I thought that it was my colored page that saved me. Was Ned and Derrith’s little ceremony just a coincidence?” 

I still wonder.

November 7, 2013

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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My Revelation/Theatre by Ray S

You may believe that a revelation is some sort of epiphany, miracle, a Bible book with all of its fortunes and predictions. It is just a word until you attach yours or someone else’s content to it; and that includes the scripture.

Well for me, my revelations are the ones that manifest themselves in my weary subconscious at the most inopportune moments. Those times when my body is overcome with fatigue or some physical disorder—that is always the curtain call for all the detritus that’s been hidden away like the curtain that’s drawn back to reveal the Wizard—or in this case all of the thoughts or memories that you have ignored because of varying degrees of guilt, regret, a smattering of self-loathing for good measure, and general lack of good will for anyone concerned.

Each thought negative or it may be just pops up in your mind’s “letter box” under “unfinished business” or just WHY?

None of this procedure does little to set one’s mind at ease; it just seems to amplify the matters.

In the morning waking hours there is an overpowering desire to fight waking up to another dreary routine. This is followed by a reaction to the above that restates how fortunate you are that you have woken. A lot of good that does when you’d just as soon pull the covers up and over your head.

You lie down on your back with your hands crossed over your chest and wonder if you could will yourself out of the present anguish du jour. That would be such an easy solution, leave all of your worries and stuff for them to deal with—but what if this solution wasn’t as easy “you know” die with a smile on your face? The best detriment to suicide thoughts then takes center stage asking how are you going to do it and knowing your record of bad successes that it won’t work and you’ll really be “expletive” (F word).

Somewhere the wee small voice is heard reminding you of what the hell are you so down about? Think of the starving, fighting, dying, and terminally ill out there, and you have the gall to sit on your pity pot. Well, get over it; you’re still breathing, well cared for, etc., etc.

Okay. Okay. I guess you’re right, but why do I still feel this way?

The voice behind the curtain reminds you that you’re a pretty ungrateful SOB, but after all rebuttals it possibly seems that all my subconscious revelations have taken their bows, returned to the green room, waiting for their next “on stage” time; and I can finally get out of bed, put my feet on the cold floor, stand in front of the toilet, and get on with the day.

February 24, 2014

About the Author

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Visits to the Doctors by Phillip Hoyle

I started going again to the doctors in my late twenties when my life seemed to complicate and I had started feeling stresses of work that caused pain and left me seeking relief.

Oh, I’d been to doctors before. Surely it was a doctor who delivered me from my mother’s womb, a doctor who filled my teeth, a doctor who gave me a physical in preparation for going to scout camp, a doctor who removed my plantar warts, a doctor who checked my dislocated knee, and a doctor who examined my throat and found I had both strep infection and the kissing disease, mononucleosis. These were specialists and my visits all related to crises or organizational demands. I’d go to their sterile offices, talk to them in their white lab coats, open my mouth, drop my pants, and otherwise skirt their world of science and be properly impressed. I needed their expertise I suppose but wasn’t really all that interested in what they had to say or prescribe.

I have a close friend now and who has a different relationship with doctors, whom he visits on numerous occasions for any variety of illnesses—real and imagined. My friend sees at least one or more doctors weekly and often tells me what his cardiologist or his dermatologist or his back doctor or his general practitioner or his internalist or his surgeon or some other specialist has said about his illnesses. It seems to me that beyond his own education in business and bookkeeping he has pursued a medical education in the hallowed halls of hospitals and clinics, a constant search for remedies, medicines, and knowledge to improve his day-to-day well being and treat his several conditions.

I don’t report this kind of phenomenon in my friends and acquaintances without revealing my own preoccupation with specialists for I, too, have sought knowledge from the doctors. I too have been enamored of their offerings, specialties, and diagnoses, but rather than radiologists I have visited musicologists, rather than endocrinologists I have sat at the feet of philologists, rather than chiropractologists I have preferred historiologists.

My manic phase of learning from doctors began in my late teens, reached a huge crescendo in my early thirties, and then quickly diminished (frankly a great relief to my wife at the time). My obsession slackened when I realized I had been in school for twenty-two of my thirty-three years. For more than a decade I had visited the offices, lecture halls, theaters, labs, and libraries of learning about theology, musicology, and biblioraphgy. I read dictionaries, scholarly studies, philosophies, essays, novels, short stories, periodicals, codices, and manuscripts in my pursuit of a wide variety of intellectual topics. My doctor’s names included Van Buren, Lee, Childs, Duke, and Beckelheimer, scholars who led me into the literatures of their specialties. I couldn’t read enough, hear enough, or absorb enough for years.

Finally I had had enough and nearly quite seeing them—doctors of all kinds. My decision to curtail my extravagance wasn’t because I was cured of my need to learn and know. I simply was tired of the institutions that offered the doctors’ advice—the schools with their curriculum plans, requirements, and tests. So I decided to self-medicate my need, to read on my own, to attend only seminars and workshops of interest, and eventually I gave up most of those things in order to begin writing my own essays and my own stories, a change that seems to have become my ultimate self-treatment. Forgive me if I have sinned, but for my penance just promise me not to take away my tablets, pens, or word processor.

Mea culpa.

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

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Point of View by Will Stanton

When many people think of the so-called “gay lifestyle,” they very often have a stereotypical picture of gays frequently hanging out for hours in gay bars, drinking, and picking up tricks, one-night stands just for sex and without much regard for getting to know the person any better. At least, that may be the more visible aspect of some gays’ lives, but I know that this is not true with many others. Some have dinners and parties in their homes rather than going to bars. I found this to be especially true in cities that were less tolerant, such as Cincinnati at the times I visited there. That community was in some ways rather southern and conservative, and they did not tolerate gays very well. Many other gays spend more time in activities such as going to movies, plays, or concerts. Some engage in active pursuits such as sports or hiking in the mountains, just like many other people. Still, the bar scene seems to be one image that often comes first to some people’s minds.

The idea of going to bars as a major means of having fun never has been my point of view. My tastes always have been very different. I occasionally can enjoy an alcoholic drink just for the taste, but I don’t need more than one to enjoy that taste. I never have needed to get an alcoholic buzz, either. Plus, I did not care to lose more brain cells than I already was losing from the toxins in our water, food, and air.

And speaking of toxic air, that went for heavy cigarette smoke, too, the usual atmosphere of bars when I was young. The few times that I ventured into bars at the request of friends, my lungs felt as though I had sand in them by next morning.

I never went to bars looking for anonymous sex in basements. I also never cared to dress up either in drag or butch-drag. My point of view is that genuineness is preferable to affectation.

I also have a very different point of view when it comes to choosing music to listen to. I never cared for ear-splitting pounding drums and screaming. I know that many people seem to enjoy loud noise, but I now feel vindicated by all the medical studies that document the physical and mental harm from exposure to atavistic drivel foisted upon us by rock-noisicians. I realize that more civilized music is regarded by many to be boring, and they would complain if that were played in bars.

Still, when I was young and first met some gay people, I was persuaded to go to a few bars just for the camaraderie. A few of the places were relatively civilized. The only gay bar in my hometown had been made out of a small garage some distance from the downtown. It was run by a couple of older, friendly guys who tried to keep the prices of all the drinks, hard or soft, very low. They never made much money, and eventually the bar had to close.

The most comfortable bar that I remember was one that two friends of mine and I found as we traveled through Allentown, Pennsylvania. The bar was unusual because it had been a small branch-library and was situated in a pleasant, residential area rather than, as happens so often, in a less desirable location. It had ample parking in a large lot where cars were safe. The building was in the shape of an “H” with the entrance facing the middle reference desk, which had been turned into the bar. To the right in one end of the “H” was a large dance floor with dancing music. At the opposite end of the building was a large, quiet lounge with comfortable chairs and couches where friends could talk with each other without having to shout.

And finally, the spookiest experience that I had at a bar was when my friend Jim drove me many miles to a bar in a town in central Ohio. It was located in an older, urban area, and originally had been built for some other kind of business. There was a small entrance room, which was not lit very brightly, then a hall that led past restrooms and storage, and then finally a long area in back where the barroom was located.

The time was around twelve-thirty that night when Jim and I decided to leave. As we started to pass through the empty, front room, a lone figure approached out of the shadows. We saw that he appeared to be much too young to have been permitted into the bar, and he had not ventured farther back into the barroom. He appeared to be about fifteen. He spoke to Jim, but in a tone of voice that actually surprised us because it sounded angry and bitter. He said, “I’m chicken!” He seemed to glare at us with that announcement. Jim and I looked at each other somewhat confused by the intensity of his voice. I noted that he was good-looking, but I also was startled by the apparent fury and bitterness in his eyes. He seemed to be a very stressed and unhappy person. The intensity of his look stunned me.

Jim got over his initial surprise and said, “What?” The boy repeated his angry statement, “I’m chicken!” And then he added, looking only at Jim, “I have a hotel room nearby.” Jim, who always was the far more adventuresome person than I, turned and looked at me, seeming to communicate that he was attracted to this good-looking kid, would like to go with him, but at the same time, realized I that I would have no transportation. So, Jim, perhaps regretfully, declined the offer and said that we had a long way to drive and needed to leave now. As we left, I still was amazed and mystified by that very strange encounter.

It was some years later that I saw that face again, those intense eyes. I saw that face in newspaper photographs and on the TV. The image was immediately recognizable. Ever since then, I never could forget what a bizarre encounter Jim and I had had with this person and how close Jim possibly came to learning more about this strange kid than Jim would have wished to learn, even though what the kid became noted for began three years later. I clearly remembered the pained expression on that face, the intense bitterness in those eyes. And when I learned his name, I never have forgotten that either…Jeffrey Dahmer. Now there was someone with a very different point of view.

© 13 October 2013

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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My Most Vulnerable Moments by Ricky

Vulnerability affects every person at several points in their lives. The moment a person is conceived, they are vulnerable to the actions and reactions of the mother’s body and her choices (to abort or not, what food to ingest, drink alcohol or not, take illegal drugs or not, level of activity; the quality of the environment the mother lives in, and etc.). As vulnerable a person is while in utero, the growing fetus is protected by the mother’s body. It is after a successful birth that the extended period of greatest vulnerability begins as a baby is totally helpless and dependent upon others to sustain its life; and so it was for me as well.

All children grow and as they do, vulnerability changes in both degree of risk and impact of the consequences. People learn as they grow and a child must process and internalize a massive amount of information as their senses provide the input. Most children are very successful in this endeavor but some get sidetracked along the way. I got derailed somewhat because I did not learn the consequences of “disobedience” quickly enough and received many corrective applications of father’s hand or belt to my bottom. Therefore, I was constantly afraid of him because I never connected the discipline to my actions. Naturally, I was also mentally vulnerable as I learned that my mother was a “snitch” by telling all of my misdeeds to him so he could apply the corrective can of “whup ass” to my butt. In other words, I could not trust her and I feared my father. I tried to please both of them but never quite understood that I must follow their instruction and not my own desires. [What two through five-year old child ever does?]

While living on my grandparent’s farm, I was not as mentally vulnerable as when living with my parents, but my vulnerability to physical harm skyrocketed but not from my grandparents. There were many ways to become seriously injured or even to die on the farm. Falling off the tractor while riding with my grandfather and being run over, or falling into the maws of the bailer, discus, harrow, or plow are but a few ways. Other ways included being kicked by a cow, falling out of the hayloft, or having hay bales fall on me.

Mental vulnerability on the farm consisted mostly of feeling abandoned by my parents and not receiving the kind of outward signs of love from my grandparents like those my own parents would give (hugs, kisses, and other such signs of affection). Those feelings followed me back to California when I finally was able to rejoin my “new” family (mother had remarried and I now had an older step-brother and twin half-brother and sister). I became the proverbial “middle child” and spent nearly nine years without much of a social life due to babysitting requirements. Thus, I acquired personality “issues” that have followed and negatively influenced me throughout the rest of my life to date.

My sexual activities made me extremely vulnerable. When I finally quit lying to myself and admitted to myself (what others already “new”) that I am gay, I became the most vulnerable. I managed to retain the psychological maturity and mentality of when I was twelve years old even though I grew up physically. Due to my suppressed sexual orientation, when I “came out” to myself and other men, my age, I wanted to experience gay sex in quantity. Thus, I am currently vulnerable to the advances of men I would not normally want to have as sex partners and with whom I have not established some type of personal or social or friendship relationship. I’m also especially vulnerable (as a 12 year old) to “fall in love with” someone who is simply using me to gratify himself and ultimately wounding me emotionally. (All gay men are vulnerable to this, so I am no different than anyone else on this issue.)

I know I am at risk but I try to be careful. That’s one of the minor reasons I come to The Center to deal with my issues. Therefore, my most vulnerable period in my life is currently right now.

© 24 November 2010

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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Some Ramblng Explorations by Ray S

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Author

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The Essence of GLBTQ by Phillip Hoyle

For me, the essence of being GLBTQ(Aetc.) is first a recognition of being other, by which I mean being a person whose sexuality leaves him or her on the outside: a sinner, pervert, mentally ill, or more generally put, queer. Second, it means a dedication to some kind of community building within that outsider existence, by which I mean recognizing oneself as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning, etc., and sometimes connecting as a couple or friend with others that attract you and who feel somehow attracted to you. Third, it means dedication to improving the lot of such outsiders through coalitions of community-building (as in GLBTetc) through communication, valuing, participation in GLBTetc groups, and sometimes activism related to political process. But I don’t here want simply to write an essay on philosophy. Let me tell you some stories.

I was attending a professional meeting in a Denver hotel in 1977 studying Jungian psychology as it relates to religious education. While alone in my room one afternoon, Jung’s Shadow concept about which I had been writing and thinking took the form of a vision hovering over me, and I realized the shadow experience was in fact my homosexuality.

A year later I was in seminary. My encounters with gay persons and my experience of falling in love with a man caused me to realize that my homosexual shadow was more than the flipside of my sexual self. I was walking down a street with the man when I found myself singing love songs to him. This experience helped me realize my homosexual desire was situated at the core of my sexuality. I then “knew” and came to prize my bi-sexual experience in a new and more essential way. I kept singing!

I studied sexuality; I experienced my bisexuality; I loved myself. My homosexual desire and experiences provided me joy and pain—the joy of feeling one night in a hotel that my heart was going to beat itself right out of my rib cage as I was making love to my male companion, the pain of realizing that same lover was never going to express his love for me in the ways I was willing to express mine to him. Still for years I nurtured that relationship—my smallest gay community—all the while knowing that its existence, should it become outwardly known, could spell the end of my marriage and of my career as a minister because my desire and experience occurred outside the cultural norms of religion (I was a sinner, probably the worst kind), failed to be monogamous (against the law), and beyond the psychological, medical, and psychotherapeutic norms (a pervert or mentally ill to many health professionals).

Eventually I did reveal these things—my alternate needs and complementary community. I paid a high price and entered a gay-male world that opened the way for me to enter into an LGBTQAetc. essential experience. I had know, loved, and supported lesbians. I had known and loved gay men. I had known and loved my own bisexual self. I had not known transgender persons, but in my fledgling practice as a massage therapist I was ushered into such a relationship. My transgender client intrigued me with her story. I saw her generosity and worked hard to adjust my own assumptions. I appreciate to this day her tolerance of my bungling attempts to adjust my language. Too often with her I felt like when I was a seminarian dealing with images of God. My miscommunication then was to address God as Father in the opening prayer of a feminist organizing effort—one I supported and promoted. My thirty years of prayer language resisted. Luckily I giggled aloud at my misstep. But with my transgender client, I did not giggle but realized that her good nature helped me understand that in order to be an LGBTQ, I’d have to concentrate and accept others and myself like never before in my whole life because old images and old language always want to interrupt the flow of love and acceptance. For me, the essence of GLBTQ is plain hard work. That’s what I know about such things.
Thanks for listening! What I most appreciate about being in this storytelling group is that weekly I get to practice GLBTQ essential experience. Here we can giggle together as we learn.

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