Tag: Life Stories

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Going Green by Betsy

     My Daddy was in the lumber manufacturing business. He cut down the trees, took them to the mill, and made boards out of them, then sold the boards to those who use them to make things that people buy; i.e, furniture manufacturers, construction companies, etc. He knew his trees. It was said of Charlie Mac that if he were blindfolded and transported and dropped anywhere in the U.S., he would know where he was by identifying the trees surrounding him.

     It must be in the blood. I love trees, too, although I can’t identify the different species like my dad could. But I do believe they are among my favorite plants. And amazing plants they are. Here are just a few reasons we all should appreciate trees.

     It is widely accepted that the aspen grove is the largest living organism on earth. A single grove of genetically connected trees can cover a mountainside.

     Trees are among the oldest living beings on the planet, too. The bristlecone pine often lives longer than 4000 years.

     Trees can be beautiful as well. We have all seen the vibrant colors produced in the fall by many of the deciduous trees as well as the blossoms in the spring. Trees have provided us with some of nature’s most spectacular shows of color ever seen anywhere. Driving through Utah and western Colorado recently I experienced a visual feast of mountainsides of yellows, reds, and oranges which took my breath away with their spectacular beauty.

     Trees provide us with a renewable resource whose value is beyond calculation. We love trees for all of these reasons, yes. The main value trees have for humankind, however, is their ability to absorb co2 and produce oxygen and to help keep the atmosphere clean.The Amazon rain forest produces more than 20% of the oxygen of the planet as it performs its service of recycling co2 into oxygen.*

     Consider, however, that just as we are beginning to appreciate these forests and their true value, we are losing them at an astonishing rate. There was a time when rain forests covered 14% of the earth’s land surface. Currently that coverage is down to 6%.*Every second another one and one half acres of rainforest is lost to agricultural development, logging enterprises, mining operations, and even tourism.*

     The greatest misfortune is that when the forests are clear cut, burned and bulldozed, the trees, other plants, and indigenous people are gone forever. The plants are no longer the renewable resource which were of much more monetary value than the farm, ranch, or whatever entity that replaces it. Medicinal plants, fruits, nuts, oils and other resources can be sustainably harvested for generations with a much greater economic return when the rain forest is preserved. Such operations provide employment for entire communities of indigenous inhabitants who then earn five to ten times more money than they can earn by chopping down the forest for timber and farming.*

     My dad who ran logging operations for his lumber mill also lamented the disappearance of the rain forests of the world and clear-cutting practices in this country. He knew better than most that the lumber could be harvested without destroying the entire forest. Proper forest management is common practice, yet shortsighted governments, greedy corporations, and unknowing individuals prefer to by-pass these practices for their own purposes–another example of entitled indifference, greed-driven shortsightedness, ignorance, total disregard or denial of the consequences for the future and the good of the whole.

     Perhaps a lesson could be taken from the aspen grove. While the trees within the grove are interconnected through their shared root system, each tree stands as an individual and at the same time is connected to the whole. The trees as individuals are allowed to thrive while connected to and dependent on the survival of the whole grove. At the same time each individual tree contributes to the whole while enjoying its own well being. Is it possible that humankind could do the same?

*http://www.rain-tree.com. Update January 29, 2013.

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.

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I Did It My Way by Phillip Hoyle

     The hit song from old Blue Eyes made a new impression on me the first time I heard it played at a gay bar. That night at the Bailey Street Where House the song caught my attention due to its stylistic contrast with several disco songs played, pieces by the Village People, Bee Gees, and Donna Sommers. In the context of a gay bar, the song seemed an anthem or hymn of those gathered. I duly noted its inclusion as one among many indications of community for the qualitative research project I was pursuing in a course “Community Contexts of Ministry.” In this way my theological education at Texas Christian University’s Brite Divinity School brought me closer to the gay world and to my eventual inclusion within that community. 

     I had chosen the gay bar setting from a suggestion list, noting at the time that one other person had indicated his intention to do the same, a guy I had recently met at a gathering sponsored by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Southwest. Four seminarians went that evening to observe and, of course, to drink a few beers. I got my hazel eyes full of interesting sights, signs of community as I interpreted them in my field observation report, and my ears full of other indicators that something fine and interesting was going on in this bar. I made several return trips that semester and learned things I wanted to know about gay life and, furthermore, came away with the impression that while my friend seemed defended against what the place represented, he also seemed comfortable and interested. I had no plan for his and my interests to converge at a personal level but was acutely aware of the attraction of gay community I observed there and my own comfort within the setting.

     That semester I also observed a community organizing project and reported it with the same fascination and detail as I did in my description of the gay bar. I didn’t feel like I had to cover myself. I already knew my interest in men, my feelings of sexual attraction to some men. I was fine with the feelings. My life was headed in a family and career direction that I was not going to forsake. But like a cat, I tend to be interested in what is going on around me. I’m curious and entertained by happenings in my peripheral vision, especially if they seem novel. Seeing lots of guys dancing together in a bar certainly was novel and having the luxury of a plausible excuse for watching the show let me feel its deep fascination. The date: fall 1978, before the AIDS crisis, a time of nearly unbridled passion that was easy to see revealed in that bar. I saw and liked it, but I saw more.

     I was watching the world in which my good gay friend Ted lived. He too, had a career in music and church but lived single. I knew he was sexually promiscuous. His attempts to marry had ended in disasters to both the intended relationships and his mental health. I filtered my observations through what I knew of his experience. I also had my own gay feelings in a couple of developing friendships, feelings I knew I wouldn’t pursue. Still I wanted to know these things for myself: the actuality of man-to-man love and sex; the possibility of men loving and living together; the acceptance of such persons in society; and the embracing of same-sex love within a religious community.

     At that point, some churches had declared homosexuals should be guaranteed equal civil rights related to the United States Constitution and to a general sense of morality. The arguments of the details were under scrutiny and becoming a dividing issue in most denominations and the larger community. I saw that churches were entering an era of anxiety when that question and others would be faced openly within congregations. Gays would expect inclusion in the local churches and would want leadership. Then there was the larger issue of relationships. Already marriage as an institution in America was showing severe weaknesses. Parental fears and warnings did little to prevent young couples in college from living together and having loads of sex without the convention and support of marriage. Free love had been a counter-cultural doctrine for over a decade. Eventually the issue of gay marriage would split the churches and become a problem for general society. 

     I felt I needed to know and understand. I had experienced sex with males. My closest adult male friend was gay. I was sitting in a gay bar enjoying myself. I was writing reports of my excursions. I was learning not to fear. I was hoping to learn to be an effective minister. I was evaluating myself at age thirty, in my tenth year of marriage to a loving woman. What would be ‘my way?’ I really wondered.

     By the end of the semester, I had seen a lot of city life and written a short book of field observations and reflections. I’d witnessed gay bar life. I’d sat in the county hospital emergency room late on Friday nights. I’d attended quite a few meetings of a community organizing effort. My professor returned the report congratulating me on my work, both observational and written. He also warned me about the problem of writing candidly and subjectively about my experiences. “One can lose control of a written document,” he warned. His sensitivity to my personal process led me eventually to destroy the manuscript, but I didn’t lose the impressions or self-realizations that arose from the experiences. I came away from the semester with a knowledge of gay bars, but also with the perception that gay folk had lives away from bars, that they often lived in fear of police, that they had great fun together, that they sometimes partied too much, that they helped out friends in crises, that they experienced life with the same grace and awkwardness as anyone else in society. I’d gained a glimpse of a life with traditions, institutions, and history; a community of importance and, for me, appeal.

     I had no idea I’d ever be meeting on a weekly basis with a group of gay storytellers in a gay community center, that I’d be going to happy hour every Friday night at local gay bars, that I’d regularly circulate with quite a few gay couples and their single friends, that I’d survive two gay lovers who died from AIDS-related causes, or that I’d live over nine years with the gay man I’m paired with now.

     But these days I tell my gay story and have to conclude, that even in embracing this new gay life: “I Did It My Way.” 

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.”

Read more at Phillip’s blog  artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Queer? Just How Queer? by Colin Dale

     This question is so obviously a scientific one, although it goes against my nature, it’s only fair I give it a scientific reply. I did a little checking, and I see there is a Queer Scale, or Queer Magnitude Scale, just like there’s the Richter Magnitude Scale for earthquakes and the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale for hurricanes. And just like with these other two scales, there are numbers indicating severity. For example, with the Richter Magnitude Scale you can have a 4.Oh to 4.9 earthquake, which, according to the Richter Scale, means a light earthquake, with noticeable shaking of indoor items, rattling noises, but no significant damage. With the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, you can have a Category 2 hurricane, which means winds of 96 to 110 mph, winds strong enough to lift mobile homes and snap the anchorages of small craft; extensive to near-total power outages are likely. Similarly, with the Queer Magnitude Scale, or QMS, you can have a 4.Oh to 4.9 queer, which means a light queer, with noticeable shaking of indoor items, rattling noises, but no significant damage. Or a Category 2 queer, strong enough to lift mobile homes and snap anchorages, but people living in brick homes or well-built high risers are probably okay.

     Now I’m going to take a look at my life–to see if I can answer this question: Just how queer am I? And for simplicity’s sake, so we don’t keep having to go back and forth, let’s just put the QMS (remember, that’s the Queer Magnitude Scale) up against the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, Categories 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5–5 being the meanest, toughest, most destructive.

     I started out like most of us, at puberty or maybe a little before, as a Category 1 queer. Now if I’d been a hurricane, that would have meant, as a queer just starting out, there would not have been much structural damage. Maybe a few shingles blown off, a few crushes on boys that made no sense, but that’s about it. According to the QMS, life, as a Category 1 queer, is almost always survivable.

     When I was a teen growing up in The Bronx, I got my first job: Christmas part-time in a suburban Macy’s; men’s dress shirts. There was this guy, my age–let’s call him Nicky B.–working the same evening shift. One night going home in a lightly falling snow, me to the elevated subway, Nicky B. to his home, which was within walking distance, Nicky B. grabbed my hand and led me into an apartment building and into a deserted stairwell where we had a little fun. That was my first time. And even though it was my first time, I liked it enough to know that I was now a Category 2 queer. If you recall, a QMS Category 2: small craft snap their anchorages. My anchorage had been snapped, all credit to Nicky B.

     I remained a QMS Cat 2 queer all through high school, all through my undergrad years, but then came Army and graduation to Category 3. Between the stairwell and the Army there had been a couple of Category 2.2’s and 2.6’s, but I can’t boast making it all the way to a Cat 3 until the Army. And Mark C. The setting is South Korea. Winter. Christmas Eve. (I’ve made it a practice to always upgrade my QMS at around Christmastime.) The officers’ club: a jumbo Quonset hut overlain with snow. Night: late enough so that all of us junior officers are morosely shitfaced . . .

     Before I bring Mark C. into the picture: according to the Saffir-Simpson Scale, a Category 3 hurricane is described as a “major hurricane,” capable of inflicting significant damage to a building “lacking a solid foundation,” to include the “peeling off of gable-end roofs” and the “penetration of inner curtainwalls.” Damage, according to Saffir-Simpson, can be “irreparable . . . “

     Enter: First Lieutenant Mark C., Alpha Battery commander, gruff, tough, recruiting-poster good-looking. He sits down next to Second Lieutenant Ray K., battalion adjutant (adjutant? that’s what they do with guys with English Lit. B.A.’s)–Second Lieutenant Ray K., self-conscious, mild, rapidly balding. A few whiskeys and First Lieutenant C. invites Second Lieutenant K. back to his hooch (hooch: Army lingo for quarters; quarters: regular people lingo for bedroom) to admire his new Samsung Acoustics Subwoofer Speaker System. We spend a quarter-hour tasting Wild Turkey and looking at the subwoofers; then turned–to my woozy surprise–to peeling off gable-end roofs and penetrating inner curtainwalls–definitely Category 3 stuff.

     I left the Army after Korea, Missouri, and Vietnam (Missouri being the most terrifying of the three). Toss in a couple of Category 3-point-this & that’s before I got to my QMS Category 4 level. Those point-this & that’s all happened after I’d moved to Colorado and was going to grad school: Western State in Gunnison, and, after that, D.U. . . .

     In fact, it was in the D.U. Theatre Department where I met Jake. No last initial needed. Jake was one-of-a-kind. The singular love of my life: five years younger, red-headed, perpetually cheerful, a fine actor and a frighteningly good cartoonist. You could say, when I met Jake, right then and there I applied for promotion to Category 4. Saffir-Simpson warns: “Category 4 hurricanes tend to produce more extensive curtainwall failures . . . ” (un-huh) ” . . . with some complete structural failures: some homes are leveled. There may be extensive beach erosion, with terrain flooded far inland. Total and long-lasting electrical and water losses are to be expected.” (un-huh) Jake and I were a couple for a long, long time. We were definitely QMS Category 4 queers. Had we the chance back then, we would have become Category 4 married queers. But we didn’t have that chance. We’d become QMS Cat 4’s about three decades too soon. But we had a good life together, Jake and I: Denver, New York, Denver again, San Diego, Seattle, and San Diego for a second time: a good, happy life.

     But, just like with hurricanes, the one-of-a-kind loves of a guy’s life–even Category 4 loves–sometimes move inland, their fierceness dissipate, their strong winds subside. Jake now does motion-capture animation with a film studio in Tel Aviv. He’s alone, living singly, and I’m genuinely sorry that’s true.

     I’ll stop here. I’ve never been a QMS Category 5 queer. I’m not sure what that would feel like. I know Saffir-Simpson says: “Category 5 hurricanes are the highest category of hurricanes. Complete building failures are a certainty, with some buildings totally blown away. Only a few types of structures are capable of surviving intact.” To be honest, I’m not sure I’d ever want to be a Category 5 queer. Katrina was a Category 5 hurricane. I’m afraid if ever I had a chance to be a Category 5 queer, I’d find myself, years–after my Mother of All Loves had moved inland–I’d find myself still waiting for some relief from the damage done to me, inside and out, still living among the debris of a Cat 5 relationship that was too wild, too strong, too indiscriminate.

     And probably still living in a F.E.M.A. trailer.

About the Author

Colin Dale couldn’t be happier to be involved again at the Center. Nearly three decades ago, Colin was both a volunteer and board member with the old Gay and Lesbian Community Center. Then and since he has been an actor and director in Colorado regional theatre. Old enough to report his many stage roles as “countless,” Colin lists among his favorite Sir Bonington in The Doctor’s Dilemma at Germinal Stage, George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Colonel Kincaid in The Oldest Living Graduate, both at RiverTree Theatre, Ralph Nickleby in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby with Compass Theatre, and most recently, Grandfather in Ragtime at the Arvada Center. For the past 17 years, Colin worked as an actor and administrator with Boulder’s Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Largely retired from acting, Colin has shifted his creative energies to writing–plays, travel, and memoir.

      

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Mistaken Identity by Lewis T

     For me, the term “mistaken identity” conjures up not so much images of gross embarrassment, endangerment, or fear as it does feelings of inadequacy and shame. I cannot disassociate the term from a long and deep-seated personal inadequacy of mine—my seeming inability to remember faces and names.

     I would go so far as to say that this tendency has morphed into an almost pathological neurosis for me. My persona is that of an introvert with extroverted tendencies and a desperately poor self-image. As a consequence, when meeting someone new, I tend to establish eye contact well enough but my mind is absorbed with thoughts of how well I am being perceived. Consequently, when their name is spoken, it goes in one ear and out the other—almost literally. I have heard about the many tricks that can be used to retain a person’s name but none of them have stuck with me. Perhaps there is a College of Life-Long Learning course that I could take, if only I don’t have to remember its name.

About the Author

I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth. Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.

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Tightrope Walking by Carlos

     The writer Arturo Islas once wrote, “Much of my terror can be traced to childhood, terrors about being Mexican and about Mexicans.” How well I understand this premise, for I too have always lived in bilateral worlds, arenas that often fail to foster a safe and empowering ambiance regardless of the direction in which I gravitate. Rather, like a marionette pulled first by the strings of one command, then by the contortions of another, I perform my awkward gyrations wearing a supercilious smile on my polychromed mask.

     I sit at my mother’s house in El Paso, a plateful of campechanas, laberintos, pan de huevo and a earthenware pitcher of warm champurado, our evening repast, as I endeavor to draw out the voices of her past, voices that will all too soon dissipate with the hot desert wind like a monsoon storm pelting its contents on a weathered, sun-bleached arroyo. In spite of her fragile health, she makes her way from the kitchen table at which she has been seated to the stove, constantly vigilant of her olla de frijoles and chilaquiles simmering on the back burner…not bad for the 94-year-old matriarch of my family! The ravages of time herald her toward the grave, but at least her mind
remains agile, quick to partake in a pilgrimage back to the chronicles of her past.

     Unbeknownst to her, these episodes take on an almost mythical context, resulting in my own awakening as she fleshes the past like a 45 rpm record speeding through time and space, hovering momentarily, and dying off in a drone of silent eternity. I sit opposite her, my mind formulating scenarios of lost worlds, discerning images I recognize only
via cracked, sepia photographs, hearing whispers of melodies like the calling of some primordial memory in the distant crannies of my mind. I sit, eyes riveted upon those of this survivor of life’s labyrinthian canyons, harvesting any and all treasures from the depths of her soul…vignettes of my past, oracles of my future. Off in the horizon, I begin to hear the whispers of the blind soothsayer lamenting the blustery storm descending upon me.

     The television perched on the nearby table, my mother’s companion and confidante, is perennially turned on, even now as we speak, perhaps an unspoken reminder that these images, unlike the canonized bones confined in silent graves, are immutable, forever authentically human. As my mother catalogues her life experiences, recounting moments of innocence, of sin, of stooping, mundane life, I occasionally glance at the screen, not in distracted discourtesy of my mother’s odysseys, but curious at the faces flitting in and out of the telenovelas, echoing some private torment. I make mental note of how the media acculturates and molds the Latino cosmology into the
nebulous American dream, too often purchased with one’s own soul as Mephistopheles offers the viewer eternal bliss for 30 pieces of silver. I smile at the antics of star-crossed lovers and ego-driven behemoths as they saunter through their travails in the predictable, tawdry novelas. I know that in these quixotic episodes of life won and lost, no shade of gray dares to besmirch the canvas of paint-by-the-numbers landscapes. Invariably, the innocuous but righteous and anguished victim, usually a character of Christian virtue and naive expectations, will overcome, through tenacity, faith, and maybe just a dose of divine intervention. On the other hand, the villain, more often than not the villainess, that catty bitch, that daughter of Eve, with over-plucked eyebrows and pallid skin pulled back tautly against her scalp, will earn her just retribution, and like Marlowe’s Barabas will be purged in boiling oil for insidiously betraying all godly virtue. I catch snippets of a telenovela, Cosas de la Vida Real, and increasingly am drawn to the transparent plot line, the desecration of my own Holy of Holies. I flit between two realities. My mother’s hand still guides me through a maelstrom of adventures, but like Pandora I am drawn to a necrotized sorcery of the television screen. All too soon, I am humbled, enraged at the obviously licentious and horrific portrayal of the life I know all too well, that of a gay Latino, and the tragic truth is that although I am haunted by a retelling of antiquarian lies, I hope for a parting of the veil and the manifestation of ethereal light. Alas, the portrayal of gay pedophiles and their immoral denials of all that is sacrosanct indoctrinates the masses to lies perpetrated by fear and convenience. As I vacillate between giving ear to my mother’s liturgy while simultaneously taking notice of the lewd permutations foisted on the screen in the name of moral turpitude, I obviously betray the controlled seething raging within me, for my mother glancing over at the screen, silences her voice momentarily, perhaps in silent shame, perhaps conflicted between her own concept of reality and my own. Quite possibly, she instinctually comprehends and even embraces my anger, my pain, provided, of course, all windows facing the neighbors are screened off. Perhaps she grasps the notion that I thrive in many discordant dimensions, most of which remain shadowy and discombobulated. However, since we have never approached the unbroachable, I don’t really know and since the Square-toed One is relentless hobbling in her direction, I know I shall never truly know. And thus, the story telling continues amidst stories that remain imprisoned.

     There are so many silent poems I wish I could have shared with this woman, poems that are but gossamer flickers of refracted light streaming from a distant galaxy. I want to share my suicidal torments at being branded a joto in high school, in spite of the fact that in my innocence, I didn’t even know what a joto was. I want to whisper my
shame when I allowed myself to be just momentarily but still inappropriately touched for the first time by a cook at a greasy spoon where I worked as a dishwasher when I was sixteen … a memory that seared my blood but nevertheless sweetened my cornucopia of sensory delight and longings. I want to ask my mother whether my uncle, my tocayo, a man who sometimes threatened to castrate me as a child for being too sensitive, might in fact have been battling with his own reproaches. I want to recount lifetimes spent in front of the sacristy entreating the Nazarene, likewise rejected and crucified, to intercede on my behalf, miraculously purging my sinful inclinations to be held, touched, loved by one of my own. Regretfully my prayers filter like incense to the nave of an existentialistic eternity, His mournful eyes only conveying an I-too-am-as-helpless-as-you gaze down upon me. I want to know whether she would ever cast me upon stony, unfallowed ground for daring to bring a blue-eyed devil into her home, once mine too, and introducing him as my beloved, my champion, my solace and hope. However, my voice is silenced by the pragmatic practicalities vaulted within our respective lives. After all, we are separated by layers of cosmic convolutions labeled life experiences, she being enthroned in her Latina, Catholic, patriarchal world; me nurtured in the arms of my hidden truth, my secret love, my unbridled passions.

     Instead I swallow some of my bile engorging itself within my mouth, and I regain my footing on the fraying tightrope, a tightrope that like a Mobius strip has no beginning and no end. Only in time will I come to realize that my mother and I are carved of the same rootstock, having both been nourished by the same nebula that continues to cultivate our spirits. She knows and she accepts in spite of telenovelas’ maudlin attempts at indoctrination. Thus, in silent gratitude, I kneel before the goddess of my idolatry, placing at her feet perfumed honey, molten mercury and sea salt nestled upon a cinnabar bowl, for though He closed His eyes in despair, her eyes were steadfastly directed toward constellations unseen, giving me the confidence to stave off my own martyrdom. I no longer pay heed to the monitor’s nepotism, immersing myself unequivocally in the banquet of my mother’s own voice. And at that milestone moment, the terror of my childhood metamorphoses into cogent jism of stalwart life, and I feel that He who once asked that the cup be removed from His hands imbibes with me in conjoined, unashamed empathy.

About the Author

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.” In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter. I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic. Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming.

Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth. My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun. I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time. My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands. I believe in Spirit,and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty. I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.

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Game, Set, Match by Betsy

     I started out in the sport of tennis later in life. I discovered that it took very little time away from my three young children to play a couple of sets, not a great deal of expensive equipment, and there were plenty of courts around town, the closest to my home here in Denver being at the time in City Park. This, as well as the fact that I loved it. I started out taking lessons at City Park courts from an old man named Mr. Harper. He could hardly move, but he knew the right concepts and how to teach them. I grew to respect his teaching greatly.

     Through the 1970s and into the 1990s I played many tournaments and leagues as well as for no particular reason at all. I think I still have a few dust-covered trophies in a cabinet somewhere to remind me of the competitions.

     The greatest benefit of playing tennis has been the many friends I made. When I retired in 1998 I decided to get serious about my game and joined the Denver Tennis Club. This is a club for tennis lovers–no swimming, no indoor facilities except locker rooms and sign-in desk and directors’ offices and a place to sit and relax. There is no bar at this club, just a coke machine. The focus is on the 12 outdoor courts located in the heart of Denver where it has been since 1928.

     Many wonderful things have happened due to my passion for playing tennis. Perhaps the best of these was my participation in the 1990 and 1994 Gay Games. The best tennis experience for me was in Gay Games III in 1990. Many athletes in just about every sport along with various GLBT choruses descended on the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, that summer of 1990. Much preparation and practice went into sending about 300 LGBT athletes from Colorado to this Gay Games and Cultural Festival III.

     Our infant tennis team was not well organized and had not had much chance to practice together. But a friend I had know for a number of years, a former H.S. tennis coach, had asked me if I wanted to go to the games and play doubles with her. Of course, I jumped at the invitation. Mind you, one does not have to qualify. You just get your name on the roster and go.

     Team Colorado–all 300 of us–were quite impressive when we finally all stood together in our uniform sweat suits at the ceremonial start of the event–a parade of the 7,300 participants representing 39 countries and 27 sports. The US–which had hosted the first and second quadrennial event, Gay Games I and II, had by far the largest contingent. But many came from Australia and Germany which were soon to become home of future Gay Games events. Canada, of course had a huge interest this being the first games on their side of the border.

     The Province, a conservative Vancouver newspaper, writes on its editorial page:

     “Almost a year ago, we called these gay games ‘silly.’ What’s next? we asked. Bisexual games? Asexual games? What, we queried, does sexual orientation have to do with the high jump? Since then, we’ve been educated. We’ve learned that these games are intended to build bridges, strengthen community and bolster self-esteem. Members of groups that bear the brunt of society’s ignorance and fear need to make special efforts to support each other. And sometimes they need to stand up and be counted. “It is not for us to question — so long as others are not being hurt — how the homosexual community chooses to celebrate itself and to educate us, any more than it is our place to question how native Indians or blacks or women choose to define and redefine themselves.” “What of the AIDS spectre? AIDS as a sexual issue is no more relevant to these games than it is to a convention of heterosexual mountaineers or carpet layers. These games are, above all, about having fun. It isn’t often we get to have fun and, at the same time, learn about tolerance, compassion and understanding. B.C. residents should go out to some of the events of the 1990 Gay Games and Cultural Festival.”*

     Vancouver is a wonderful city and we had a ball. Another comment that sticks in my mind was from another article in The Province. An event called Seafest was going on in the city at the same time as the games. The newspaper described Seafest as a drunken brawl with loud, rowdy, trash dropping people from all over the world attending. It goes into some length describing the unruly behavior of the Seafest participants. The article continues.

     “The GAY GAMES also brought in Zillions of men and women who spent lorryloads of money and indeed cluttered up the sidewalks, but who picked up their garbage, laughed a lot, said ‘excuse me’ and ‘good evening’ and ‘thank you’ a whole ton and, if they got drunk and disorderly, at least had the good taste not to do it under my bedroom window. In fact, the only disconcerting noise in the West End during the games was created by the yahoos who cruised the streets in their big egos and macho little trucks while shouting obscenities at anyone they deemed to be gay.”*

     Gay Games III was in every way a memorable experience for me personally. Gill was there with me cheering me on. Most of our time however was spent sight-seeing and enjoying watching the sports events. It was all quite new to me–all these gay people together. The men competing on the croquet lawn with their exotic hats and chiffon gowns flowing in the breeze as they wielded their mallets– that image will be with me forever.

     I managed to win a silver medal in the tennis competition. All the tennis awards were presented by a gay man whose name I forget. I do remember that he was an openly gay member of Canada’s parliament. Of course he was out. This was Canada.

     Four years later I would participate in Gay Games IV in New York. I was able to share this experience with my daughter Lynne who lived not far from NY City in New Haven, Connecticut. This is when my lesbian daughter came out to me. When I told her I was coming to New York to play tennis in the Gay Games she replied Oh good!! We’ll go together. I’m going to participate in the games too, Mom. I’m playing on the Connecticut women’s soccer team.” Yes, that was her coming out statement to me! We did enjoy that time together and watched each other in our respective competitions and cheered each other on.

     The New York event drew 12,500 participants from 40 countries. It was definitely a proud and memorable moment for me when I found myself marching with my daughter in a parade of 12,000 LGBT athletes through Yankee stadium to the cheers of tens of thousands of supporters and spectators.

     I do like the sound of that word “athlete.” It is important to note that the event was never intended to be focused on athletic ability alone, however. In the words of Olympic track star Tom Waddell whose inspiration gave birth to the games in the 1980s, “The Gay Games are not separatist, they are not exclusive, they are not oriented to victory, and they are not for commercial gain. They are, however, intended to bring a global community together in friendship, to experience participation, to elevate consciousness and self-esteem and to achieve a form of cultural and intellectual synergy…..We are involved in the process of altering opinions whose foundations lie in ignorance. “

     I have not attended another Gay Games since 1994. But the event continues in various parts of the world and has forever etched it’s name in the annals of sporting events.

     I am still playing tennis 20 years after the NY Gay Games–no tournaments, just an old ladies’ league called super seniors and with friends two or three times per week at the Denver Tennis Club. I suppose the day will come when I can no longer hit that ever-so-satisfying backhand down the line winner, but I’m not planning on that happening any time soon. As far as I’m concerned I will keep getting better until I can’t hear those three little words anymore–game,set, match!

Cockburn, Lyn. “Some Games can be a real education.” Pacific Press Limited, The Province, Sunday, August 12,1990.

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Snowstorm by Phillip Hoyle

     “We sure used to get a lot more snow than we do now,” is a sentiment I’ve heard many times, but I am cautious of the claim which seems akin to the old timer’s story of how many miles he had to walk through the snow to get to school. The main way to know about weather—how it was—is to study weather records. Still, to tell a story about the weather is to reveal more than the weather. It exposes a person’s feelings, a yearning for an experience of old, a desire to touch again some past season of delight or dread.

     My story celebrates my favorite stage of childhood development—that cusp of so many changes often called pre-pubescence. What I like most about the phase is the way the child is open to dream, ready to believe, full of play, and living in the now—at least that’s how I experienced it that winter of 1959, the winter of the big snow. We used to have snows in my childhood and celebrated them with snow angels, snow balls, snow forts, and snow men. But that winter the big storm brought new big snow adventures.

      Our gang, with our hideout in the rafters of my folks’ garage, hung out together at every opportunity. Gang travel had originally taken us to each other’s houses, then to the high school football field one block down the alley, then to the public swimming pool one mile away, and eventually to the hills and valleys several miles west of town.

     The summer before the storm, we hiked or rode our bicycles out west to a farm where we were allowed to play in the pastures. My best friend Keith took us to where a small spring flowed from the hillside. There we refilled our canteens. Downstream we would set up camp, build a small fire, cook whatever food we’d brought from home, and generally enjoy one another. That fall, we brought along our bows and arrows and hunted cottontails. We pursued those elusive hoppers for hours, stalking, chasing, shooting, running, screaming, and never once making a kill. We laughed raucously, imagining ourselves hunters, adventurers, and we slept deeply upon returning home at night.

     Then the snow came. It wasn’t a dusting; it wasn’t a snow that covered your shoes; it was a real snow, you know, like those we used to get in the old days, one that brought the town to a halt, a two-foot snow with wind, drifts, more snow. But Saturday dawned sunny. We gathered with sleds and plans and trudged west, out to the hills to make the best of it.

     The big snow came in the best year of my life, the one in which I lost track of time, the one I celebrated friendship along with country adventures. I was in the sixth grade, the year before I started sacking and carrying groceries at the store. Keith and I, probably Dinky and Dick too, went sledding in the deep snow. We had Boy Scout training and felt older-elementary-male confidence. We hiked west of town to a hillside where we could sled down to a ravine of woods where we could then get out of the wind. We spent all day for three Saturdays in a row out there having our winter adventures. Each week our Imaginations soared, our plans got bolder. New snow fell each week and although we nearly froze hiking through snow often over our knees, we laughed our way like fools or kings or warriors. In the woods we built a fire, and when we had warmed ourselves and dried our clothes, gave ourselves to snow play like never before.

     After two Saturdays out, Keith remembered seeing some old skis in his dad’s workshop. They were simple things, not long, but short skis with only a single leather strap across the midpoint, a place to insert the shoes. They must have been used on the farm when chores had to be completed but the snow was too deep for easy walking to the barn, at least that was our Kansas winter fantasy. The skis certainly were not meant for downhill skiing, but we were boys with great imaginations and enough snow to make a ramp.

     We reasoned if we let the old German sled with steel covered wooden runners glide down the hill on its own, it would show us the best route for skiing. So we climbed the hill, and turned the sled loose, trusting in good luck and gravity. Following the sled, we tramped the area between the runner marks for our ski run. We had no poles but along the ravine found sticks to serve. With them we hurried back up the hill to try out the skis. We were pleased with our few successes and gleefully took turns trying until one of the brittle leather straps broke. Our disappointment led to more ideas. Keith thought we should go down the track on our sleds. When we discovered most of the sleds sat too low to make any speed, he brought the old German one to the top and sat on it, aimed downhill and went hurtling down our well packed run. Having forgotten his sixth grade science lessons on gravity, he’d made no plans for how to stop the sled. This was no drivable sled with flexible runners, no way to guide or stop it except by dragging a leg behind. But Keith wasn’t lying down. He was sitting tall and speeding down the hill towards the woods. He stopped when the front of the sled hit a sapping and broke the metal brace. He stopped when his crotch met the rough bark. He stopped when the tree knocked the wind of him and threw him to the ground. We ran to his rescue, dragged him over to the fire to warm up. He finally got his breath and described his feeling of elation on his brief trip from the top. We shared our snacks with Keith, our athletic hero, my best friend. Then, like good Scouts, we put out the fire and dragged home our sleds and packs. We trudged through the snow, laughing, making big plans for the next big snow.

     A year lapsed before it came. By then, I was helping customers get their groceries to their cars. I never returned to the slopes, but fortunately I did get to sled as an adult, then being pulled by ropes behind an International Harvester Scout up Highway 90 in western Colorado and sailing free back down the steep slope of the road’s switch backs. That ride took me back to my childhood and extended my thrill from a ride of a few feet to one of nearly a mile. Such a thrill. Such a fine reminder of the big Kansas snows and our small sixth grade adventures.

     I’m still amazed when the snow piles up. I have such fond memories, but now I also think about driving in blizzards and inconveniences such as the loss of work. My enthusiasm is dampened by adult concerns. Still, I say, “We used to get a lot more snow years ago,” and let my memory slide down the hills of yearning. I smile. I love my friends. I love my life. I love the snow.

Denver, 2011

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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Memoir: A Pile of Leaves by Cecil Bethea

     With the end of September comes the annual event of the falling of the leaves and the concomitant chore of raking them up and getting rid of them one way or another.  Back home we used to heap them up into piles and then set them afire.  The burning leaves produced an aroma, not a smell, that was a delight to the senses but pleasured us only once a year and is not forgotten decades later.  Since then I’ve often wondered whether a forest fire amongst deciduous trees produces so sweet a smell.  Anyhow I still have a Pavlovian reaction to burning leaves of memories from the distant past in Alabama.

     Friday I decided to start the series of rakings necessary to rid the yard of leaves.  Can’t burn them now without being inundated with police and vile thoughts of the neighbors.  Steven, who lives next door, operates a compost heap and is delighted with garbage cans of leaves.
  
     For some reason or another, I felt Puritanical and tackled the trash collected along the fence.  Pulling the leaves and other trash into a pile, I marched at a slow step down the fence.  Then it dawned that the pile had the shape of a recently dug grave.  By a quirk of mental contortions, I realized that it was also the 150th anniversary of my grandfather’s birthday.  This meant that Saturday, October 1st, would be the 77th anniversary of my brother’s.
     
     I decided to sit down and have a cigarette.  All sorts of thoughts from a country churchyard spun through my head.  Moreover I now frequently ponder matters mortal.  These two men were and still are important to me.  Papa was born in 1860 remarkably two days after the census was taken.  His entire life was spent in Meadeville, Mississippi, thirty miles east of Natchez.  The population has always been less than 500 depending upon what had happened during the previous decade.  He vituprertivly denounced Lincoln and all his works.  Years later, I could understand his thinking.  Being born when he was, Papa could not remember what life was before the War.  No doubt his elders looked back at those times as a golden era.  We know this wasn’t so because by 1860 the nation was just recovering from the Panic of 1857.  
     
     No matter, he was old enough to remember when the Yankees came.  He had learned that the blue bellies were booger men who liked to steal bad little boys.  Then suddenly one day the whole front yard was filled with blue bellies.  Like any small boy, he went screaming to his mother.  The commanding officer picked him up and tried to calm him.  The result was that they discovered that Papa’s Christian name DeMont was the same as the officer’s sir name.  Papa was convinced that the Yankees did not burn the house because of this happy accident.  Maybe.  Even the Yankees did not have the time to burn every house they ran across.  

     Papa inadvertently taught me about aging.  Dying at ninety-seven, he was the oldest citizen of Franklin County.  The men who were mere elders gave him a birthday party organized primarily by Mr. John Rounds every year.  He told me that those men hadn’t been his friends. His comment was, “Why, I danced at the wedding of John Rounds’ folks.”  A body’s friends go, then his contemporaries, and finally only memories remain.

     My brother was born in 1933 and was named for our grandfather, but nobody called him Wentworth except Mother.  Those W’s and R were too much for me to cope with, so I called him Wimpy.  Then our sister, Duane, came along nine years later and called him Bibi, which became a name limited to the family.  To everybody else, he was Wimpy.  

     The three of us looked nothing alike.  My hair was dark brown back in those days, Bibi was early on tow headed which later became a dark blonde,  Duane was a red head.

     Bibi was six feet at fourteen and ended up at 6’2″.  His two sons grew to 6’6″ and 6’7″.  Duane’s boy is somewhere over six feet.  I just got none of the height genes in the family.
     
     Bibi deserves to be remembered by the world at large for one statement he made,  We were discussing intellectuals, what they were, their qualities, their purpose in society, et alia,  At the end of the conversation, he summarized by saying, “Intellectuals are just like Christians; many are called but few are chosen.”

     Later in his life during one week-end, one of his boys was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and the other was admitted to med school.  This would be a feather in any parent’s cap–actually two feathers.  Bibi was more modest; he asked the question “What did I do right?”  He realized that he was in as much a quandary as those parents who ask, “What did I do wrong?”  To me these questions show how iffy parenthood is.  
     
     Another more egocentric reason for my remembering him so fondly took place in Venice.  He was sitting at a table in an outdoor café in the Piazza watching the people, taking in the sights, and generally enjoying his place in the sun,  While studying the facade of St.  Mark’s, he noticed and remembered the four horses.  They were part of the loot the Venetians brought home from Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade.  I believe they were had been removed from Rome by one of the early emperors.  Anyhow Bibi said he remembered my telling him the history of the horses when he was a little boy. .  From all the verbiage that I have spewed during my years on this earth, he is the only person to say that he had remembered some of my words years later.  I did say that my reasons were egocentric.

     Papa is buried in Meadeville cemetery amongst his friends and family.  Bibi’s ashes are scattered somewhere in the Smoky Mountains.

     Life goes on at least of some sort or another.  I picked up the rake and continued my chores. 

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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Mayan Pottery by Ricky

     From the time I was 10-years old through my 18th birthday, every December around Christmas time, I journeyed from South Lake Tahoe to Los Angeles via the Greyhound bus line. Each year the bus either went to Sacramento where I had to change to a different bus, or through Carson City, where I had a four or five hour layover before riding another bus to Los Angeles.

     Carson City had no lavish bus depot. It consisted of a small “office” with a small storage area for packages and unclaimed baggage. The bus driver had a key to the baggage area where he put my luggage but the office would not open until just before the scheduled arrival time for the north/south buses; in my case a four or five hour wait. I was ten when I took that first trip alone to Los Angeles via Carson City. I arrived at the still closed bus depot at 7:30 AM and had to wait until 12:30 PM to catch my bus.

     So I did what any 10-year old boy would do to stay warm and not be bored; I went street walking to find something to do. I was not hungry yet and I never ran across an open cafe. Carson City’s casinos were open but unavailable to me. Around 8:00, I arrived at an old building that resembled my schoolhouse from Minnesota. I stopped to read the sign, which informed me that the building was not an old school, but was the Nevada State Museum, formerly the U.S. Mint at Carson City.

     The museum was open and admission was free with donations accepted. Being on a very limited budget with enough funds for two snack meals to get me to my dad, I did not donate but entered anyway. I spent the next several hours in the museum wandering around and viewing all the exhibits that interested me.

     The first exhibit I saw was on the left side of the hall after entering. In a small room was a display of all the formal silverware presented to the navy’s battleship Nevada as a gift from the State of Nevada. Also on display were the ship’s bell and other items. All those items were returned or given to the state after the ship was selected to be the target ship for the hydrogen bomb test at the Bikini Atoll.

     Another item in the room was an old stamp or press machine, which actually placed the coin’s designs onto silver or gold coin “blanks.” In one side of the room was an old walk-in vault. The vault contained a permanent display of a private collection of gold and silver coins minted at the Carson City mint.

     I continued to wander through the museum for the next few hours reading all the posted display information and in general enjoying myself. I learned a lot about things not taught in school at the fifth grade level. The museum had an extensive display of Native American baskets and pottery, but no Mayan pottery or baskets. Eventually, I left through the basement exit mock up of a silver mine and caught my bus to Los Angeles. From then on, every time I ended up in Carson City to change buses, I spent my waiting time in the museum. I have been a “museumphile” ever since.

     As time passed and I visited other museums, I saw many examples of ancient pottery; ancient in this case meaning older than 500 years. The first ancient artifacts that discretely held my attention were not pottery, but wood, and came from Africa. It was a representative display of the various depictions of fertility gods, totems, or icons. These typically had either large breasts or over-sized and erect male genitals; a few actually had both.

     I have always been attracted to “images” that show or represent male genitals perhaps due to my adolescent fixation on all things sexual. I began to wonder how a museum could display such “naughty” things. It was many years before I understood the concept of understanding other cultures through anthropology. In other words, these cultures did not view these artifacts as being “naughty.”

     Many of the museums I visited had these types of displays and I was attracted to them all. When I finally arrived in Denver and visited the Denver Art Museum, I saw my first pieces of Mayan pottery (or at least pottery from Central and South America during the existence {and in the trading area} of the Mayan culture). Pieces on display came in various sizes, some small enough to fit on one’s palm and other pieces large enough to carry one or two gallons of liquid. Naturally, there were sizes in between the smallest and the largest artifacts.

Denver Art Museum — 4th Floor

     The ones of particular interest to me are the pieces with male genitalia. One of the larger items is a seated male in the act of masturbation. It is displayed in such a manner that anyone can see what the “man” is doing. It is prominently displayed on the bottom shelf of the display area, where any child can easily view it. On a higher shelf to the viewer’s right, is what appears to be an engraved penis perhaps used as a pre-Colombian sex toy or maybe venerated as a power symbol as did the ancient Romans and Greeks. This object is also within easy viewing of the young.

Denver Art Museum — 4th Floor
     Is it not strange that our “enlightened” culture can define a pottery man masturbating or an “engraved” penis as art, but proclaims a photograph of a real man masturbating or of a real erect penis as pornography?
© 16 December 2012

About the Author

Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, CA

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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Goofy Tales by Colin Dale

It’s probably true for each one of
us, we sit down a few days before Storytellers, or the day before, or the
morning of, look at the topic and think, What the hell can I say about this
one?  I’ve said just about every other
Monday about how I had to scrounge for inspiration.  Somehow, though, sometimes with only an hour
to spare–and sometimes thanks to the dictionary, a memory, or
Google–something would suggest itself. 
Looking at today’s topic, Goofy Tales, right up to this past Saturday
morning I was thinking maybe I would just skip today, or take a pass and just
be a listener.  But then on Saturday…
I went to the first meeting of a writers’ workshop I’d
enrolled in.  The instructor had warned
us by email the previous week, in addition to the usual first-day
stuff–introducing ourselves, talking about our individual goals, and laying
out a plan for the coming four weeks–we’d do a half hour or so of free writing.  The topic would be revealed to us on the
spot.  So last Saturday morning, we met
at the appointed hour, did the go-round of introductions–seven women and
me–stumbled through defining short literary nonfiction, when the instructor
said, Okay, it’s time for some free writing. 
The topic is guilty pleasures.
“I want you to begin,” she said, “by thinking of one of your
guilty pleasures, and remembering one particular time when you were really
enjoying it.  I’m going to interrupt you
several times to redirect your thinking, but I want you to start by telling
us–in the present tense, create a scene, use dialogue if you like–what it
feels like, this guilty pleasure, to be really, really enjoying it.  And then, without warning, you’re
interrupted.  What do you do?”
Each of us pulled back into our own private worlds–the
seven women and me–and began scribbling.
Three, four minutes of head-scratching and panicky
scribbling and the instructor said, “The interruption is over.  You’re free to go back to enjoying your
guilty pleasure.  What do you do
now?”
A few more minutes of wild writing and the instructor
said, “Now think back to one time–an earlier time–when you were caught
in the act of your guilty pleasure-absolutely
caught.  Again, create a scene, but now
using the past tense, tell us what that was like.  What did you say to the person who caught you
in the act?”
Heads down, scribble, scribble, and we were done.  The reason I’ve mentioned already that the
workshop was made up of seven women–the instructor was also a woman–and me,
is because of what these other students had come up with for their guilty
pleasures, and what I’d written.  We
started around the table clockwise, reading aloud our free writing.  Denise–and here I’m using phony
names–Denise, a bank manager from Louisville, confessed her addiction to dark
chocolate.  Tessa, a Montesori teacher
from Golden, opened up about her secret love for reality TV.  Joyce, who introduced herself as “only a
housewife,” revealed her passion for celebrity gossip magazines.  The youngest workshopper, Karen, a sophomore
at Metro, said something about not being able to pass up Starbucks lattes.  Then they all turned to look at me.  The instructor said, “Well, Colin, what
have you written?”
I thought: dark chocolate, reality TV, celebrity
gossip, Starbucks lattes.  I looked down
at what I had written, with no time to change anything, looked up at all the
women–who all now looked like my mother, even Karen–and began:
“I have it in my hand
when they come in.  Surprised like that,
there’s no way I can put it away quickly. 
I do the best I can, though, and press it into my lap…

Back to the workshop. 
There were a few uneasy coughs around the table, and I could hear
folding chairs squeak–but I knew there was no turning back, so I read on…

“Luckily there is a copy
of Westword next to me, which I quickly slide over, making of it a sort of
paper apron.  ‘You didn’t knock.  You scared me,’ I say, joking.

“‘Yeah, boo,’ Gerry, the
jock asshole says, screwing up his nose. 
‘You got the paper upside down. 
Whatcha hiding?'”

“Tony, the assistant
asshole, who hangs back by the door, says, ‘We’re gonna go workout.   Wanna come?’

“‘Let’s see what you got
there,’ the jock asshole says, and grabs for the Westword.

“‘Nothing,’ I say,
letting the paper get taken, knowing in the split-second I had had I have moved
it deep down and out of sight.  ‘See?’

“‘Yeah, well, thought you
were hiding some good shit.’

“‘Let’s go,’ says the
assistant asshole, and they disappear as abruptly as they appeared.
Back when I’d been doing the free writing, this was
when the instructor broke in: “The interruption is over.  What do you do now”?  Now, reading what I’d written, I looked up at
the women, each one with an expression of Oh, no, am I the only one who thinks
she knows what Ray is telling us? 
Confident my salvation is just ahead, I go back to what I’d written and
read on…
“From where I’m sitting
I’m able to lean forward and reach the door without standing.   Turning the twist-latch I feel a return of
reasonable privacy.  I reach down between
my legs, around the curve of my inner thigh, lift it into the light of day and
hold it with both hands: The Oxford Book
of English Verse.  My breathing
quickens as I open to Coleridge–back to The Ancient Mariner:

                 Like one that on a lonesome road
                 Doth walk in fear
and dread,
                  And having once
turned round walks on,
                  And turns no more
his head;
                  Because he knows,
a frightful fiend
                  Doth close behind
him tread.

“My guilty pleasure (I wrote) in this freshman land of asshole jocks is 19th-century romantic poetry. My 1942 Oxford goes with me everywhere.”

I got that far Saturday in my free writing about guilty
pleasures and I thought, Good Lord, this is silly.  And then, driving home Saturday from the
workshop, I also thought, You know, the story I just free wrote and then had to
read aloud–it wasn’t just silly.  It was
goofy!  But back again to
Saturday…  
Back to when we were free writing.  The instructor interrupted for the last time
and asked us to recall an earlier time when we had been caught–in no uncertain
terms–in the act of our guilty pleasures, I wrote:
“My father, who had no
interest in literature, and who was outspoken especially in his contempt for
poetry–fag lit, as far as he was
concerned–threw open my bedroom door, making the big posters taped over my
bed–my unframed Virginia Woolf and Walt Whitman portraits rattle like paper
flags.  And there I was, spread-eagled on
my bed, the Oxford in my hand,
savoring again my Ancient Mariner. 
Caught dead to rights in the act.

“‘Damn it, son,’ my
father said, a look of deep disgust on his face, ‘I’ve told you what that
shit will do to you.’

“‘But, Dad…

“‘Give it to me,’ he
said, thrusting his hand toward the Oxford. 

“‘No, Dad!” I
yelped, recoiling against the headboard. 
‘Please!’

“‘Stop with that shit
now, son.  Hand it over.’

“‘No, please, Dad,
no.  Please let me read my
Coleridge.  Please.  I promise, Dad, I really do, I promise I’ll
stop before I go blind.”
Here endeth the free writing.
And here endeth today’s goofy tale.

About the Author


Colin Dale couldn’t be happier to be involved again at the Center. Nearly three decades ago, Colin was both a volunteer and board member with the old Gay and Lesbian Community Center. Then and since he has been an actor and director in Colorado regional theatre. Old enough to report his many stage roles as “countless,” Colin lists among his favorite Sir Bonington in The Doctor’s Dilemma at Germinal Stage, George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Colonel Kincaid in The Oldest Living Graduate, both at RiverTree Theatre, Ralph Nickleby in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby with Compass Theatre, and most recently, Grandfather in Ragtime at the Arvada Center. For the past 17 years, Colin worked as an actor and administrator with Boulder’s Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Largely retired from acting, Colin has shifted his creative energies to writing–plays, travel, and memoir.