Tag: Life Stories

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Hospitality by Merlyn

When I think about all of the places I have been the one that made me feel the most welcome was Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee. My girlfriend in 1983 and I were on the first of many long trips together. I sold radio cab #32 in Portland, Oregon, paid the rent three months in advance, and hit the road. We were heading east through Tennessee when we heard that we could take a tour though the Jack Daniels distillery. We were driving a ford van set up for camping and we were parking at Kroger stores to sleep. We got into Lynchburg just before it got dark. When we drove past Jack Daniels there was a big camper parked in the parking lot, so we decided to sleep there.

We were still sleeping when someone woke us up by tapping on the window. When I looked out he told us they that had fresh coffee and to come inside.

We got dressed and went into a building with a big lunch room where a guy met us and told us to help ourselves to coffee and donuts. He gave use a handful of postcards to fill out and told us they would stamp and mail them for us. He said the tour would start about 9:30 and would take about two and a half hours.

At 9:30 there were around thirty people waiting. They split us up into groups of five people and told us the guides worked at the plant and took turns showing people around. Our guide sounded like just like Jerry Reed and it was fun to hear him talk. The first thing he did was take a photo of the five of us. It was waiting at the post office when we got home.

Some interesting facts about the distillery and Jack Daniels:

Lynchburg, Tennessee is in a dry county. You cannot buy Jack Daniels there.

There were ducks on the banks of a small stream that were falling down and walking into each other. They would get into the old grain and were all walking around drunk.

We got to go inside a small cabin that Jack Daniels had used for his office. He had a big safe that was hard to get open, one day Jack lost his temper and kicked it so hard he broke is big toe. It got infected and the infection killed him.

They filter the whiskey with charcoal that they make at the plant. Since used charcoal that’s been soaked in alcohol is a fire hazard, a single match will set it on fire, someone came up with the idea of selling it under the name Match Light Charcoal.

After the tour he invited us to a free meal at Miss Mary Bobo’s Boarding House & Restaurant at 1PM. Mary was in her mid eighties and would make a dinner for everyone even if the Boarding house wasn’t full and we were lucky enough to be invited to one of the best southern meals I have ever had.

We stopped at the only store in town on the way to lunch and were going to come back after lunch and buy some t-shirts but they were already closed when we finished. We did not spend a dime all day.

Most of Jack Daniels whiskey comes out of Chicago today. Lynchburg is still operating and making the most expensive Whiskey the same old way they always did. They have over 250,000 visitors a year.

We had a real taste of southern hospitality that day.

July 29, 2013

About the Author

I’m a retired gay man now living in Denver Colorado with my partner Michael. I grew up in the Detroit area. Through the various kinds of work I have done I have seen most of the United States. I have been involved in technical and mechanical areas my whole life, all kinds of motors and computer systems. I like travel, searching for the unusual and enjoying life each day.

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From Brooklyn to College Point, New York by Louis

Long ago, far away

I guess long ago and far away could mean recounting the adventures of Alexander the Great (gay general) in ancient Persia. But since I am getting to become an antique myself, I thought I would reminisce about the years 1949-1950. The first president I remember was Harry Truman. Who was the first U. S. President you remember? I was living with my mother and father, my maternal grandmother and my paternal grandfather and four brothers in an apartment on Baimbridge Street in East New York, Brooklyn. Today Baimbridge Street is located in Bedford-Stuyvesant, which is not one of New York City’s better neighborhoods.

My younger brother Charles Francis was born in 1949. So I helped my mother and grandmother take care of him. Unfortunately he has since died – too much hard liquor. I remember a lot of soldiers who had returned five years previously from Europe after World War II recounting their experiences and showing us their helmets and rifles some of which even had bayonets although I remember Obama saying the use of bayonets was discontinued after World War I.

My grandfather used to take me on the electric trolley train and we would ride to Coney Island which back then was in its heyday. I was six years old and was awe-struck by the plethora of sparks showering down from the overhead electric wires that provided the energy for the trolleys to travel.

In 1950, we moved to our own house in College Point, Queens, NY. It had brown shingles, a big screened-in front porch with a sofa. Of course, it was still an urban setting, but to me, with the big yard in back and plenty of room as compared with the apartment in Brooklyn, it was like moving to the country. Back then College Point was a lower middle class town with lots of vacant lots and two well-maintained parks. A walk across town would bring you to a large expanse of untouched swamps. I and a bunch of other children loved to seek out the frogs, pheasant, and the rabbits. Unfortunately, all that is now gone. Nowadays College Point is run-down, dirty and overcrowded. So I am trying to relocate to Colorado.

On a hot summer’s day, a neighbor took us to the CYO swimming pool in neighboring Whitestone. I guess I lingered a little longer than I should have in the boys’ locker room.

In other words, when things are perfect, and one is happy, why do things have to change, go downhill?

Sept. 10, 2013

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

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Cooking by Gillian

I have blamed my lack of enthusiasm for cooking on being a lesbian, and my mother, in varying percentages. However I know many lesbians who love to cook, so decided it came down to my mother. She cooked as necessary for my dad and me, but it was always apparent that it was more of a chore than a pleasure; my attitude exactly to cooking for my family, although I managed to keep four teenage stepchildren from complaining too much. I’m not sure whether that’s a testament to my unexciting but perfectly palatable meals, however, or to their forbearance.

It was only later in life when, perhaps, you look back on things with at least slightly less distortion, I realized that for most of the years that I lived at home, Britain was under severe food rationing. In a world where many things, including practically anything imported, were simply unavailable, and what was available severely rationed, no wonder she lacked a certain enthusiasm. Doubtless some women reveled in the challenge of creating gourmet wonders from dried egg substitute (though we did get one real egg per week) and substituting ground potato for just about anything and frying sausages that were 90% bread crumbs. My mother was not among them.

I still have one of her cookbooks from that time and some of the recipes are astounding:

Carrot Fudge: well the thought’s enough to gag you. But, hey, the recipe was simple and easy; grate and cook as many carrots as you can spare, flavor with anything available; juice squeezed from fruit in season, artificial vanilla, left-over tea. Add gelatin, cook a few minutes, spoon into a flat dish. Leave to set then cut into cubes.
Yummm

Or there was SpaMghetti, which called for spaghetti, four eggs from reconstituted egg substitute, one half can of SPAM (God Bless America,) ¼ cup grated cheese (or grated potato if not available), onions and parsley, pepper and salt, as available. While spaghetti is boiling cook other ingredients in margarine if available or lard if available or water if nothing else is available.

Now you just try working up a fervor for that!

And, looking back, my poor mother did try so hard.

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of a very early birthday. I think I was three or possibly four. Mum produced, with a grand flourish, a birthday cake. Surpri-ise! Well I doubt my brain actually had a grasp of any such concept. Rationing allowed us very little in the way of cake at all, and I’m not sure if I had ever even seen a real pre-war style frosted cake, let alone tasted one. Only many years later did I have the remotest concept of the hording of ingredients and the trading of coupons this production must have cost.

It smelled delicious. I remember that.

And I was not the only one who thought so.

The dog sprang from the fireside mat, gained the table in one quick lunge, knocked the cake on the floor, and inhaled it. Apparently she, being considerably older than I, did recognize such pre-war visions of taste-treat sensation.

My mother was inconsolable. She wept. She roughly shoved the dog outside – about as close to animal cruelty as Mum would ever get. My dad shook his head and clicked his tongue and said, “Never mind,” – about as close to verbosity as he would ever get.

I remember feeling very confused at all this drama and then I sat down on the floor beside the remains of the shattered cake and scooped up finger loads into my mouth. It was delicious. Who could fault the dog?

I started to giggle. My mother, who always had a good sense of humor, soon joined in.

Dad, looking much relieved, winked solemnly at me and sat beside me on the floor, jabbing big hairy fingers into flattened frosting.

As he had anticipated, my mother responded with a disgusted, “Oh Edward! Get up!” but we both knew that secretly she was delighted with our response and our evident delight at her cake, even if it was not served quite as she intended.

She even relented and let the dog back in eventually, to clean up the dregs my dad and I had left on the kitchen linoleum.

There were still years of rationing to follow, but I don’t recall Mum ever going for the Big Cake Event again, and she certainly did not once rationing ended and cakes were readily available in the local bakery. So, whether or not it originated with rationing, who knows? (Though Brits of my generation and up do so love to blame the Germans.)

All I know for sure is, I’m with her. A woman’s place is no longer in the kitchen, and I would rather spend my time writing my silly short stories.

And as it’s almost Thanksgiving I shall close with a relevant quote from Erma Bombeck?

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times takes twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.

Lakewood, 2012

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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Falling into Unrequited Love by Cecil Bethea

Away back about sixty years ago I was in love with Hugh Stanley. He certainly wasn’t handsome; no way could he have been a porn star even had there been any porn available. But he was what I wanted in my vague, amorphous hankerings. Such were complicated by the firm knowledge that homosexual activity was condemned by my peers, my family, and my state. Remember back in those days, there were no Gays just homosexuals, queers, and cock-suckers. The result was no overture was ever made, so I at least was never rejected.
Hugh was a brain. He made practically all “A’s” at least enough to be selected to become a member of the School of Chemistry equivalent of Arts and Sciences’ Phi Beta Kappa but without the age or memorability. Unlike most scientific types, he liked to read literary novels before going to sleep. I remember in particular WAR AND PEACE, VANITY FAIR, and I, CLAUDIUS. It must [have] taken months to read the first two in thirty minute bouts. In I, CLAUDIUS, there is mention of the Spintrians, a group of Gay Romans. He referred to a similar group on the campus by that name in disparaging tones, but such remarks did not end my hunger.

He received a handsome fellowship from the Department of Defense. To this day, I remember the title of his thesis: The Synthesis and Thermal Decomposition of Symmetrical Bi-Methyl Hydrazine. The sponsorship came about because hydrazine was an early rocket propellant. I worked in the library of the School of Chemistry; actually my pay was in the form of a scholarship from the school. This method of payment didn’t bother me as long as the money came. True, you will have trouble finding someone with a scholarship in chemistry who knows less about the subject.

Meanwhile in all my turbulence, I was taking a course in Shakespeare. The test on MACBETH had a question like, “Discuss the motivation of MacBeth.” In the storm and stress of my soul, I decided that his love for Lady MacBeth drove him to all of his deeds most foul. I cited lines from the play to buttress my view. Written upon my test by the professor, Hudson Strode, were words something like this: “While some scholars accept this view, most believe that it was ambition. Also, Mr. Bethea, the character’s name is Lady MacBeth and not Mrs. MacBeth.” Every reference to the woman was at least consistently Mrs. MacBeth. It does loose something in transition.

This tale ends decades later. A letter from Hugo arrived. He had found my name on the internet. Wanting to be sure that I was the right Cecil Bethea, he recounted our friendship in school so that I could identify him, a totally unnecessary exercise. I replied with a lengthy letter. I said that I was Gay and a bit about my thirty-five years with Carl. After all I couldn’t hide him in a closet like a bastard child.

Hugo’s letter arrived sometime in August. We’d already decided to go to Alabama that October. Not only is the heat less, but Carl had never seen the fall leaves down South. Carl readily agreed to a change of route to go by Gulf Shores, down south of Mobile. So I proposed to Hugo and Laura, his wife, that we would like to take them to dinner at a place recommended by AAA. Also I stated that we’d be sleeping at a certain motel suggested by the same. 

The next week Carl and I, for some disremember reason, went to the Home Depot away out on North Washington with a Wal-Mart across the street. As I parked the truck, the battery died. We did our shopping and called AAA. The man said the battery was dead, dead, dead. Carl then took out the battery; he carried enough tools to make most any repair short of removing the engine. With the battery in a shopping cart, I went over to purchase one at Wal-Mart. Why this unexpected purchase at $67 should irk me more than any other I don’t remember, but it did irritate intensely. Walking in August across two parking lots on a hill, I remembered “Into every life a little rain must fall,” and other equally puerile philosophic mottoes. By the time I had reached the truck, I had reconciled myself to the notion that unexpected purchases or setbacks are part of human life.

When we reached home, there was a letter from Hugo. I fixed myself some coffee and then sat under the tree in the front yard to read it. The first sentence was disheartening. Something like: “Your visit won’t work for me,” “his being too much of a Victorian,” “I’d never displayed any such symptoms at school,” and other such statements. After reading the letter, Carl said, “Well, we can go home by Memphis.”

My problems with the battery and the resulting homilies set me up for the worse that was to come. Two, decades earlier I had learned that not everybody would love me.

Hugo’s letter was our last communication. After Katrina, I wanted to know how he had survived but refrained. There is a limit to how many lost causes one can pursue.

© 1 August 2011

About the Author

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

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

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

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

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

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Singing by Will Stanton

Singing can be a lot of fun, whether alone, with a few friends, or maybe even in a huge choir like Norman’s Nabertackle Choir. Of course, that all depends upon whether the people sound like crows or nightingales. Psychologists, as well as simple music-lovers, have learned that music also can be a very healthful activity, sharing with friends, relieving stress, and even building new brain cells.

When I was very young, I heard a lot of classical music and folk music. My first exposure to live singing was when I was three and in nursery school. We had a visit by the legendary Woody Guthrie. He had created a series of children’s songs that he called “Songs to Grow On.” Even now, I remember some of them, such as his “Jig Jig Jig Jig Jig Along Home,” and the line, “The momma rat took off her hat, shook the house with the old tomcat; the alligator beat his tail on a drum. Jig along, jig along, jig along home.” While Woody sang and played his guitar, we all joined in on the refrain. And, there was the song about taking a bath with the line, “Oh Daddy, oh Daddy, come smell of me now. Don’t I smell nice and clean-o.” Each line substituted another person to “come smell of me now.” Not exactly a Handel oratorio, but it was great at age three.

My elementary school had a music teacher, as had many grade schools of the time. (I know that, since then, many schools have eliminated art and music as supposedly “non-essential” programs.) In my case, the teacher was Miss Morley, a rather matronly woman in her sixties whose hair-rinse turned her hair blue. I know that she was well intentioned, but her understanding of youngsters was not particularly developed.

At the beginning of each class, role-call was taken through her singing out each name, and each student would answer by singing “I’m here.” This practice continued when we also had student-teachers. Most student-teachers, as well as grade-school teachers, were women; however, we once did receive a male student-teacher. He, also, was obliged to call out the role through singing. Now, I have to explain that, for some reason unknown to me or my parents, I already had begun to develop a lower voice by fourth grade. As a consequence, I proudly responded to the man by singing “I’m here” in the same register as the man. For some peculiar reason, Miss Morley thought my response was rude. She punished me by having me sit in the corner, facing the wall. So much for masculinity.

By the time we moved to the public junior high, many of us already had begun to take interest in other students in a more personal manner. As a consequence, I noticed that the most handsome boy by far in the whole school was Walter. I tried to keep my admiring glances to a minimum, but I’m sure that they did not go unnoticed. What I did not realize was that Walter apparently had made similar glances toward me. In retrospect, I wished that we had clarified our mutual attraction more privately than Walter chose. Here we were in seventh-grade choir, sitting on metal folding chairs, when Walter suddenly threw himself across my lap. Walter lying in my lap was just fine with me but not in a class where both teacher and other students could observe and possibly embarrass us. I let Walter slide off my lap onto the floor. Afterwards, I felt like a fisherman in a contest who has caught the championship fish but deliberately let the prize escape. Ah, life’s missed opportunities!

Some of us remember a time when singing together around camp fires, either in Boy Scouts or summer camps, was a common form of entertainment. Not all of those songs were “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” either. Some were cowboy songs, Civil War songs, and British or Appalachian ballads. Undoubtedly, my interest in genuine folk music grew out of my early exposure to recordings by Burl Ives, Susan Reed, Tex Ritter, John Jacob Niles, and Richard Dyer-Bennett. I’ll always remember a live performance by the legendary Pete Seeger. As he sang and played his banjo, he would tap his left toe, then his right; and as his enthusiasm grew, he tapped both feet together.

I recall once when camping in New England with my family, a group formed spontaneously around an evening camp fire and sang songs to the accompaniment of a guitar. One of the group was a young fellow by the name of Jay Rockefeller. I heard recently that Jay will be retiring from Congress. How time has passed. I suppose that, now days, youngsters are too sophisticated and too modern to care about doing such things.

During that summer, my family stayed in Waterville, Maine. Nearby was the New England Music camp. Naturally, I joined the choir. Very early on, my ears detected a most astonishing voice, a tenor worthy of a professional choir or even an opera company. That remarkable voice belonged to young but very large fellow who came to be known by the campers as “Paul Bunyan” because of his size. His voice was strong, focused, and quite beautiful. He also surprised me; for, when the tenors’ part had a rest, he would start singing the soprano line. His soprano was so good that it did not sound like falsetto. I had to guess that Paul just had a unusually wide range.

Well, Paul’s voice did not go unnoticed among the camp staff. One evening, he was asked to stand on the shore by the lake and sing “The Lord’s Prayer.” While he was singing, we all noticed that the lighted boats on the lake all stopped. Not until Paul’s powerful notes finally ended did the boats start up and resume their travel. The last that I heard of Paul was that the music staff took Paul to the Metropolitan Opera for an interview. He was rejected, however, when everyone discovered to their surprise that Paul could not read a single note of music. All that time, he had been singing only “by ear.”

When I was sixteen, I won a modest scholarship to the prestigious Interlochen Music Camp in Michigan. Among the many activities there were various choirs. One of my greatest pleasures, next to being in the same cabin with Hank, was being in the high-school choir. I made a point of always being on time for the start of practice and never was late except for the one time that Hank sat next to me on a bunk and held me so tightly that I just could not escape…or maybe I just did not want to escape. His caresses were too inviting. Later, when I returned to the doldrums of my unloving home, I fantasized that, maybe I should have run away with Hank at the end of summer camp. I don’t know how we would have survived, but the idea still was attractive.
Being in the high school choir entitled me to also join the combined festival choir. That huge choir of teens and adults was so large and impressive that we were able to perform choral works for eight parts rather than a mere four. The sound, for me, was so wonderful that it gave me an adrenaline rush, a tingling that was almost as exciting as Hank’s caresses.

During my teens, I continued my interest in singing by collecting traditional folk ballads and occasionally singing them for myself. I entered a few contests and won some prizes; however, I never again had the pleasure of participating in a choir. In my late teens and into my early-twenties, I collected folk ballads into a notebook, but I found very few people who had an interest in such music.

Unfortunately, the only person I found who enjoyed singing with me was my friend Dee. Sometimes while we walked together, I would strike up a song, and she would join in. Until then, I always thought that the term “monotone” simply was a term, not actually a precise description of how some people sing. Dee, however, dispelled that misconception. She sang everything literally on one note. She did sing, however, with great enthusiasm, although I would have preferred a melody to go with it.

At least, Dee’s monotone was not so disturbing as the voice of a more recent acquaintance. He is totally tone-deaf; but in addition, his voice sounds like a crow with laryngitis. He informed me that a church-choir director once told him that he is “not a true monotone because his voice wavers so much,” which I thought was terribly funny.

When I went to England, I imagined that I would learn more wonderful ballads. After all, I was going to the home of the English-minstrel tradition. Of course, I was naïve, for no one I met had any interest or knowledge of such music. They all were into pop.

The closest I came to encountering folk music was on just one occasion when I first arrived in Southampton. My parents and I sat in a small restaurant for a late lunch and to make our travel plans for the day. There were no other patrons at the time. While my parents were busy in discussion, I looked about the restaurant. I noticed a bartender nearby polishing glasses. Apparently, he noticed me, too, and liked what he saw; for he softly sang a verse of a sea-chantey that I was able to hear but, fortunately, my parents did not hear. To this day, there is no way I could forget what he sang. His lines were, “Oh Robin Roy, the cabin boy, was a dirty little nipper. He stuffed his ahss with broken glahss and circumcised the skipper.” Obviously, that was not choral music, and it was just as well; for can you imagine the huge festival choir, in front of all the adoring parents, belting out, “Oh, Robin Roy…?!”

© 19 February 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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History by Ricky

Writers and commentators often quote Edmund Burke’s famous line, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”  I was a teenager when I heard that phrase for the first time. Since then I have occasionally had flashes of insight (or maybe they were epiphanies) linking some aspects of world history to more recent events in a nearly unbroken chain of repeating history because the lessons were not learned. Unfortunately, my insights are linking the past to present trends, which I find distressing.

This past week was exceptionally depressing for me. Historically, it was this week exactly 11 years ago in 2001 that my wife entered the hospital the day after 9-11 and passed away on the following Saturday, 15 September.

Yesterday it was Saturday the 15th. So I finally recognized why I was feeling “down” and that helped a bit. I learned that lesson from history – death happens; nonetheless, I was living through it again.

Yesterday, I read an article in the October 2012 issue of Vanity Fair by Michael Lewis titled “Obama’s Way.” It was a very interesting article and gave some historical background on world changing events from the perspective of how President Obama lives and makes decisions and how he keeps from becoming mentally ill from the stress of making decisions. It would be worth everyone’s time to read it.

Yesterday, I also watched a history channel special presentation. It was a two part series about the Rise of the Third Reich and the second part was the Fall of the Third Reich. It was shown using “home movies” taken by several German citizens, which showed German society following WWI and the conditions, which led to the rise of the Nazi Party from the perspective of the average German. Letters from and movies taken by German soldiers told another view of the war.

I understand many of the causes of WWI and those factors that lead up to WWII, but it still appears that those in power and those who agitate for or initiate violence, still have not learned from history that the death and destruction that follow greatly exceed the instigator’s estimates. Even William Shakespeare seemed to understand the concept that “war is hell.” Of course his version was more poetic, “Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war.”  (Or was that the Klingons who said that?  It makes no difference to reality.)

I suppose it should not be so strange to understand why humans keep failing to learn from history. My humble (but probably accurate) opinion is that over the course of human existence, from the earliest days of recorded history unto now, every generation believes that it knows more and knows better than their progenitors. Therefore, forgets that people are still people and human nature is still the same throughout all time and places. “We are superior to the ancients in wisdom, knowledge, and technology.” “We are superior to our previous generations.” “Our society is superior to other societies.” “Where others have failed we will succeed.” Therefore, every rising generation ends up making the same mistakes all over again with weapons increasingly more destructive and the death toll keeps rising.

I am reminded of Bobby Rydell’s A World Without Love, one verse of which is, “Birds sing out of tune, and rain clouds hide the moon, I’m Ok, here I stay with my loneliness, I don’t care what they say I won’t stay in a world without love.”

The sad thing is, I do not know how to change it and make it better; no one does and so it just keeps going on and on in one eternal round; like a nightmare play where every act has different actors, sets, backdrops, and costumes, but the action and dialogue remain consistently the same, scene to scene and from one act to another; yet the audience does not wake up so the nightmare can end.

Wake up you people! I am tired of crying myself to sleep over all this hatred and violence!

© 16 September 2012

About the Author

Ricky was born in 1948 in downtown Los Angeles. He lived first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach both suburbs of LA. Just days prior to turning 8 years old, he was sent to live with his grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years while (unknown to him) his parents obtained a divorce.

When reunited with his mother and new stepfather, he lived one summer at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, he moved to Denver, Colorado where he lived with his wife of 27 years and their four children. His wife passed away from complications of breast cancer four days after 9-11.

He came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. He says, “I find writing these memories to be very therapeutic.”

Ricky’s story blog is “TheTahoeBoy.blogspot.com”

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Coming Out Spiritually by Merlyn

I have never come out spiritually, I look inside of myself, It’s the only place I have ever found the spiritual answers that are so important.

I was born into a family that faithfully attended The United Brotherhood Church in Beach Park, Michigan. Everything we did was a sin so we had to be saved over and over again with tent revival meetings, church camps and temperance meetings.

On Sunday mornings we would all show up at the church, stand up with a Jesus loves me look on our faces and sing the songs, drink the blood and eat the body of Christ, leave the church and start sinning again.

I realized there wasn’t any point in living in fear of going to hell and feeling guilty all the time.

When I was around 10 years old I stopped believing in organized religion, the Bible, God and Jesus. I refused to go to church after I turned eleven. I don’t think I have been in a church more than 20 times on a Sunday morning in the last 58 years.

One of the best things about being a nonbeliever is I don’t have to try to fit any new beliefs in with my old beliefs. I have had a completely open mind whenever I have studied any of the great spiritual teachings that millions of people believe in. I have never found any of them that I can believe in.

I know a lot of people that will never be able to find peace and understanding because they have so many hang-ups brought on because of their religious convictions.

The only time I ever think about religion is when I’m around other people that bring the subject up.

© 1
July 2013

About the Author

I’m a retired gay man now living in Denver Colorado with my partner Michael. I grew up in the Detroit area. Through the various kinds of work I have done I have seen most of the United States. I have been involved in technical and mechanical areas my whole life, all kinds of motors and computer systems. I like travel, searching for the unusual and enjoying life each day.

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Eerie by Ricky

The eerie thing is that I’m fairly certain that someone besides me in our group will write about or comment on the Erie Canal or Erie, Pennsylvania so I’m not going to do that even though my first thought was to muddy-the-waters doing so. No, today I’m going to try and stick to the topic.

For me, “eerie” has several synonyms that come to mind and trigger memories; and are in more common usage. Weird, spooky, creepy, scary, and the phrases gives-me-the-chills or gives-me-the-willies or it-gave-me-goosebumps are some of these.

When I was just a young Tenderfoot scout, the sounds of the forest at night, when all of us boys were still and quiet, were spooky and scary. The ghost stories told during the evening campfire didn’t help calm my mind for sleeping. The quiet hooting of owls; the creaking of the trees; the rustling of leaves and pine needles as the light breeze disturbed their rest; the chirping of crickets and croaking of frogs when suddenly stopped; and the howling of coyotes all combined to make the unfamiliar sounds of the nighttime forest a bit spooky and scary. No way was I going to leave my tent for a 3AM trip to the nearest tree urinal under those conditions. Somehow I just knew the crickets and frogs went silent due to some larger than me predator of the forest being nearby.

Then there were the times when I was alone in the daytime forest armed with a .22 rifle hunting squirrels or birds and the woods would go silent. But I knew I was the large predator so I was only frustrated until I learned to stop moving and sit still until the noises came back. The spooky and occasionally scary times were when in the daylight I was unarmed and the forest went silent. I would again sit still until sound returned but was unnerved for awhile because I was sure the forest creatures could tell I was no threat being unarmed so I did not know why they went silent. I imagined mountain lions, tigers, and bears (Oh my!) to be nearby. I finally became educated enough to remember that tigers were only in zoos or India so that left me with imaginary mountain lions and bears to worry about. Once I learned that lions and bears were relatively rare in the Tahoe Basin, I stopped worrying so much about them. After arriving in Colorado and reading about the people killed by mountain lions near Boulder and elsewhere, and the bears along the Bear Creek Greenbelt, those fears have resurfaced somewhat. And, now even within the city limits of South Lake Tahoe, bears regularly raid the residential garbage cans as the city refuses to keep bears out of the city.

Perhaps the eeriest experience I ever had was between me and my fiance. At the time, I was living in Marana, Arizona and she was living in Salt Lake City. I was watching a TV talk show where an author was “plugging” his newest book titled, Open Marriage. I thought it might be interesting to read and discuss its concepts before we married so, I wrote her a letter and mailed it that day. The next day in the mail, I received a package from her. When I opened it, the package contained the book Open Marriage. She had sent me the book before I had even heard of it and before she had received my letter.

Ever since that day, until the day she passed away, we were constantly being connected by some type of a psychic “link” at unexpected times; for example, one of us would call the other just as the recipient was reaching for the phone to initiate the call or writing and receiving letters that crossed-in-the-mail answering questions that the other person had asked in the letter we had not read yet. (Now that is eerie.)

The most wonderful and life effecting eerie experience I had was when I was reading the Book of Mormon, and asked in my mind, “Could this possibly be true?” Instantly I had the most intense “spiritual” experience of my 20-year old life as I was filled with pure love and the warm feelings of being loved completely and also filled with the knowledge that the book was true.

Sometimes weird, eerie, and spooky things are not scary, but uplifting.

© 13 March 2012



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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Ever Neverland by Phillip

I live on an island at times, one I visit when I need space, need to be away from responsibility, or need to exercise my imagination. I’ve gone there many times, flying away from my peers, my family, my school, and my work. I have been aware of such flight since childhood.

Was I a flighty kid?
Was I lost in dreams?
Was I?
Am I now?

I know my dreams have been important, especially the daydreams that tend to take me away into adventures I could not in any other way experience. But once I entered a dream that endured and became real.

I had a dream of love, a dream of love shared with a man. A dream of love discovered. I shared and cultivated a relationship with another man who also needed and desired the same. A dream of love that transforms to the depths and heights and that still occurs daily, feels grounded, and fulfills common needs. I entered this Neverland holding hands with a man.

There was no map. Oh, if you compared the plats, you might think you were in Denver, but that’s not really where this story occurred. No pirates lived there. Perhaps some Indians did and some lost boys! I loved the place. I’m pretty sure there was buried treasure; I’m sure I found it. The cast of characters: only two mattered then, Rafael and I.

Awaiting the arrival of the No. 10 bus I met a younger man named Rafael. I didn’t ask for his last name as I proffered Phil from my end of the pleasant conversation. (I wonder now if I had, would he have said Martinez or Pan?) We boarded the bus; that’s when we began to fly. We talked together as we rode about a mile, then he—this cute, warm, smiling man—got off to make a transfer that would take him to work. The contact seemed to me so much more than a bus ride. It was more like freedom of movement, even flying as we talked and laughed and studied one another. The experience happened again the next week—same place, same bus, but more information, more smiles, more laughter, more looking into one another’s faces, and less awareness of others who didn’t even seem to be present. A third experience seemed to establish a yearning for more, much more, but my Rafael Pan didn’t visit the nursery of my infatuation. I started searching for him—walking the streets near the bus stop alert to every biped in pants, wondering where this young man could be. Finally I met him again. We talked. I touched him, I touched him again. I gave him my phone number and an invitation to get together. Then two months (they could have been years) of no contact convinced me I needed this man in my life. I wanted his friendship, his presence, his charm, and his love. I would survive without him but kept alert to the possibility of seeing him again in some unexpected place. There and then I wouldn’t be as casual in my conversation. My friends were amused. One thought I was giving the situation over to the universe. I had a different thought. Finally Rafael phoned leaving a message. That next day and for many days to follow we flew together.

We met by happenstance the morning we waited to board a bus. A few months later we connected with a passion that was so total as to make us two the only occupants of my Neverland. Rafael Pan and I played house, played lovers, played sex, played decorator, played god. We came together in our fantasy island with an intensity neither of us had ever experienced.

Rafael was living alone when I met him and not doing very well. He was always late, always short of cash, always in crisis. His crisis was much larger than he could imagine. He was dying from hepatitis C, a disease that had reached full term (over fifteen years) and that was having a devastating effect on his liver, spleen, and brain. Already it had ruined his life. Already it had robbed him of much of his cognitive function. What I met was a dying man out of control, a beautiful, sweet man with a funny voice and endearing misuses of English who seemed to like me, a younger man who was lively, conversational, warm, loving, needy, sweet, open, vulnerable, and who became an obsession for me.

I lived there in Neverland with a double life. So did my Pan. We both worked daily but found great relief when we got home at night. Rafael greeted me with open arms then as if we had never before met but had known each other for millennia. Some of my friends got to meet my charmer, eat his cooking, and enjoy his warmth. For awhile life seemed good.

Although life in Neverland thrilled me, it wasn’t perfect. Its ATM was flat broke. There were money problems, clinic appointments, and a court appearance for a problem that only slowly revealed its true parameters. The clock inside Rafael’s bad-health crocodile kept ticking away towards its pursuit of dominance. But Pan transformed it with his own enfolding heart. In the extremity of his life I watched as he reached out with strength and love to a nurse, to his parents, and to me, his lover.

I worked through it all knowing I needed to keep a passable bridge between my worlds, knowing someday I would have to leave this fantasy place. I spent a huge amount of time helping his family cope with his homosexuality and eminent death. Finally I lost Pan who flew away from our love nest on the summit of the Hill. Unable to fly, I trudged home along the streets of Denver, the city to which I had moved in order to rebuild my life. Of course, I was sad, sad, sad as I reentered the life I had never really left. The going there now seemed difficult, the letting go painful. Where did my Pan go? Of course I don’t know, but he left me with a fantastic treasure of love I keep warmly nurtured in the innermost sanctuary of my heart. Our brief life together changed me, and I am determined to keep alive the treasure I discovered forever in Neverland.

Denver, 2012

© 23 November 2012

About the Author


Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Don’t Touch Me There by Merlyn

I did not like to be touched anywhere by anyone when I was a child. Touching each other was something we did not do in the house I grew up in. It always made me feel real uncomfortable. When a teacher or someone would stand in back of me and even rest their hand on my shoulder, I would want to run away.

People can touch each other in a lot of different ways. Experimenting with other preteen boys it was okay to look and touch each other physically, but I would not even think about sharing any affection with them by holding hands or hugging each other. My emotions would not allow that kind of touching. It would be against everything I was taught up to that point in my life.

When I became a teenager I learned what it was like to share affection and touch each other with one of my girlfriends. From then on I could not get enough. Most of the time there weren’t any limits where we touched. It felt good and we never really cared if someone saw what we were doing.

I was 64 years old the first time I allowed myself to have a emotional connection with a man. I will never forget what it felt like to wake up and realize that I had allowed myself to be relaxed enough to fall asleep in his arms.

Most women welcome a non-sexual hug, and I enjoy giving them one.

With men, I sometimes still have a hard time being natural and relaxed when it comes to non-sexual physical contact.

At this point in my life about the only time that I don’t enjoy having someone touch me is when I can smell and feel their perfume, or when I’m near the #15 bus.

© 22 April 2013

About
the Author

I’m a retired gay man now living in Denver Colorado with my partner Michael. I grew up in the Detroit area. Through the various kinds of work I have done I have seen most of the United States. I have been involved in technical and mechanical areas my whole life, all kinds of motors and computer systems. I like travel, searching for the unusual and enjoying life each day.