Tag: Life Stories

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Epiphany by Colin Dale

Epiphany, in my American Heritage College Dictionary, has three possible meanings.  I’m interested in only the third of the three.  The first, the Christian holiday tied to the arrival of the Wise Men in Bethlehem.  The second, any revelatory manifestation of God, much like the roadside conversion of St. Paul.  The third–my kind of epiphany–a comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization.   One and two are not for me.  I’ve never been visited by any wandering Wise Men.  Nor have I ever been knocked off my ass on the road to Damascus, or heading anywhere, for that matter.  No, my epiphany–or epiphanies, because we’ve all had many–have been of the mundane kind: no gods, no midday starbursts, no basso voices from aloft.  In fact, as I sorted through my epiphanies, the one I’ll tell you about involves only an ordinary park bench in an ordinary town park near an ordinary mountain stream on an ordinary–although absolutely beautiful–sunny day.

I chose this particular epiphany because it’s somewhat topical and reasonably recent.  I could have gone back to some of my earlier epiphanies, back to my gullible college days when I sought the meaning of life, over and over again, and found it, over and over again, back to the days of The Teachings of Don Juan and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, back to when I’d write “How true!” in the margins every time I’d find the meaning of life, over and over again–when, if “How true!” were underlined several times, with maybe three exclamation points, it meant I’d found the Mother of All Meanings of Life.  Instead I’m going to tell you about an epiphany that’s more workaday, more down-to-earth, one that many of us, possibly, will relate to.  Why relate to?  Well, besides a park bench and a mountain stream, it also involves a computer.

I should warn you before going any further what follows contains a fairly graphic depiction of the death of a computer, a MacBook laptop.  If you’ve a queasy stomach, you may want excuse yourself.  If you’ve chosen to stay–and trusting you’re all over 18–here goes . . .

Two years ago I was involved in a readers’ theater production of Twelfth Night.  We had rehearsed the play amply and performed it several times in Boulder, so when invited to do a short week’s worth of performances in Breckenridge we didn’t feel the need to do more than one rehearsal in the Breckenridge theater, plus the performances.  That meant lots of free time.  That amounted to a mountain “vacation:” a few hours’ work evenings, but our days completely free.  Cast and crew were offered group lodging, but me–a tenacious loner–I opted for a single room in a downtown hotel.  I had packed as per usual: socks, underwear, toothbrush and paste, too many books–and my Mac laptop.  Now, truth in storytelling requires I say that at this time I was your typical all-American computer user: I traveled knowing in advance I’d have Internet access, and, before checking the HBO lineup or looking for bedbugs, I’d confirm my Internet access.

I found the hotel’s guest network, signed on, and . . . and here’s where it gets graphic . . . my MacBook began to consume itself.  I knew it felt unusually hot only minutes after startup, like a lasagna dish just out of the microwave.  And then the screen–remember going to movies years ago, before film was digitized? how the cellulose, so-called “safety” stock would catch in the projector’s film gate and look like it had caught fire? instead of Cary Grant clinging to the roof’s edge, suddenly this almost pretty mosaic of cinnamon brown and honey yellow, the whole screen a wiggling mosaic of melting film?  Well, that was the MacBook screen.  I did what all quick-thinking Mac jockeys do in a situation like that: I rebooted.  Nothing.  Dead screen.  John Cleese would have said my MacBook was now an ex-computer, it had ceased to be, it was bereft of life, it had joined the choir invisible.

The groundwork was now laid for my epiphany.  My MacBook was dead.  And this was Day 1 of a full week away from home.  I’m sure I didn’t notice at first, but soon, stretched out on the hotel bed, my rapidly cooling laptop sitting useless on my lap, I noticed I was having a physical response.  Not just an emotional response: I’m cut off for a week!  Not just an intellectual response: How will I keep up with what’s going on?  But a physical response: My heartbeat quickened.  My breathing was staccato.  My stomach felt like its bottom trap had sprung open.  I knew it was nuts to have felt this way, but all I could think was, What am I going to do now?

Cue the town park.  Cue the mountain stream.  Enter the park bench.

I did what, had I a living MacBook, would have been unimaginable: I went for a walk.  Outside the hotel I found a serpentine path, the Breckenridge Riverwalk.   A mile or so’s stroll led me to the town park and an empty bench.  I sat there looking around, watching the river, watching the passersby.  I was having a good time.  If I’d been paying attention there might have been a basso voice, not from the sky, but from inside: Hey, Ray, isn’t this better?  Had it been a Bible moment, it might have been: Hey, Ray, why persecuteth thyself?

By now you all know where this is going, but what the heck.

My epiphany on the park bench did not change me overnight.  A week later, back in Denver, I bought a new MacBook.  And I did set out pretty quick to keep its use in proportion.  Nor did the park bench turn me into a Luddite, sneering at all technology.  Far from it.  My MacBook today–which is I the one I bought after Breckenridge–is first and foremost my typewriter.  Yes, it connects me to the Internet and is my link to email, but I use these features sparingly.  Email, for instance–I limit myself to one hour each morning.  As for web browsing, I try to restrict it to real research, and even then I gang my searches for what usually amounts to an hour’s browsing late in the day.  I did, for a time, subscribe to Freedom.com, the lockout service that blocks the Internet, email, the works, for the number of minutes you specify.  I’ve now weaned myself from Freedom.com.  Now when I’m typing, I just don’t look anywhere else.

I realize there’s a danger in this tale.  It makes me seem holier than thou.   I don’t mean it to sound that way, because that’s not how I feel.  I’m not a better person for my laptop epiphany.  I’m not even sure I’m a better person than the me before Breckenridge.  I think I am a happier person.  A more patient person.  A more relaxed person.   And I seem to get a lot more done than the old me ever did.  In a funny way, I feel more free.  I feel freer since Breckenridge to say yes to things as they come along.  I have more focus.  I’m a hell of a lot better at following through on things.  Best of all, I’ve learned the unbeatable joy of mono-tasking.

So, to wrap it up, we’ve all had many epiphanies.  Here an epiphany, there an epiphany.  This was a snapshot of one of mine.  It’s been fun to go back over this particular epiphany, to see again my MacBook liquefying before my eyes, to re-feel the What-do-I-do-now? panic, to remember the jittery walk to the Breckenridge park, to re-experience the uninstallation of anxiety and to celebrate the reinstallation of a peace of heart, mind, and spirit I’d forgotten was my birthright.

Metaphorically speaking, the Riverwalk was my road to Damascus.  And, metaphorically speaking, I certainly was knocked off my ass.

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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The Little Things in Life by Jon Krey

Little doesn’t necessary mean little as in small but much more. When a parent or grandparent gives you a hug. My first crush or rather crushes. My first car, second car, anything but my present car. It needs to give way to something more recent. Something within the past 20 years??

I remember TV shows as a kid. “I Love Lucy”. The Jack Benny Show, The Twilight shows, Dragnet, One Step Beyond. I remember the TV’s that came before these. My next door neighbor had the first in our neck of the woods. My whole family and theirs gathered around it waiting for the station to begin its broadcast day (of about 5 hours). It had a small 8” screen with an enclosure as large as a small fridge. When it began we could barely see much other than a guy with some ad and the local news. We sat there entranced by this quasi lucid picture with lines angling through it. My neighbor got up and continually adjusted the picture and the rabbit ears antenna. He finally gave up and we went home… My dad said TV would never amount to anything.

I remember Christmas in the late Forties. One Christmas at Dad’s parents in Hyattville, KS.  We’d come up from Tulsa for Christmas. It was snowing hard and my grandparents little house was empty on arrival. Mom said they probably went to church.  It was a small Methodist church just about 4 city blocks from the house. We drove there and Dad got out to go inside while I and my sister remained in the car. Oh, the beautiful Christmas music. The 8 person choir and congregation sang alongside of a church reed organ. The church windows bright with candlelight. So there we sat among the heavy snow drifts waiting. I felt so good with all this magical music, light and snow falling. I thought “so this is what Christmas is all about”.

Times go on though through other Christmas’s not so good but there were other “little things”. My first crushes. It seemed there was always one if not two in every grade up through graduation from High School. It was always love at first sight. No they never knew but I did. Such male beauty. I always thought I’d be with one of them one day. That never happened but I did find others though never quite the same.

Then there was Aunt Martha, a Pennsylvania Dutch woman who denied any German ancestry. That wasn’t the point though. She and her husband back then were for me and my sister a second mom and dad. They loved us so much. In 1949 she and her husband were to visit us in Tulsa. Again there was copious snow on Christmas Eve. Before their arrival the door bell rang. Mom answered and it was UPS or whomever back then, holding a big rectangle box which had MY name on it. She brought it inside but said I couldn’t open it yet. It seemed like eternity but Aunt Martha and Uncle Paul finally arrived. I tore the box open and found an electric train! OH MY GOD! Wonderful!! Mom and Dad couldn’t have afforded it but they weren’t poor. What a gift, what a time of memories.

So much over the years of little things have now past. My first bicycle, my first motorcycle, my first car. My first sexual connection.

Maybe some of the happiest memories of the past would also include two additional things. At Mom’s parent’s farmhouse at two in the morning hearing the night train chug out of downtown Ft. Scott. Watching it as its dim headlight moved slowly upward on the inclining grade. What a trip!

The other at Dad’s parents again. Early on one morning during a visit from Tulsa I awakened from the night on their old feather bed in their two room home. I heard their windup WESTCLOX alarm clock tick/tacking away while Grandma and Grandpa still slept soundly . I loved listening to it run. Just minutes later that morning, only one block away, came the slow chug, chug, chug of another train, this time a passenger one. It stopped very briefly to dislodge a couple of locals then headed on its way north.

Lastly, since I’m into this sort of thing, I inadvisably was plowing through my Grandma’s wallboard once and found Granddad’s ancient Elgin pocket watch. WOW! I HAD to WIND it and listen to it tick. But, Mom saw me and that was it! The watch was taken away and hidden. Shit!! I hadn’t even gotten to take the back off it yet! Still what a discovery, and equal to the time Granddad caught me play driving in his 1936 Dodge in the garage. That watch, not the car, represented so much  to me then as it still does today. I finally inherited it around 15 years ago, where it now holds a very special place in my watch collection but much to the chagrin and displeasure of my cousins who believed they should have been its heir.   

Yes, little things in life; little things do mean a lot. But until the day I finally fall over, my spring unwound, these are just a very few of the best of my memories. For in the great eternity within the universe it’s little things that do mean a lot.

About the Author

“I’m just a guy from Tulsa (God forbid). So overlook my shortcomings, they’re an illusion.”

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Place of Origin by Jon Krey

All of my family was born in
the U.S. except for one elderly female cousin to my mother. Aunt Berta. She was
born before WWI in Bavaria. My relatives and parents were of German and English
descent or Pennsylvania Dutch as they insist on calling it. This mixture could
occasionally cause all kinds of ruckus though generally they were kind folk of
humble origins having migrated here well over a century before. None were
wealthy save one uncle on my mother’s side who used his considerable talent and
influence to climb the ladder of success at Allis Chalmers all the way to
president!  He was accorded the rank of
family hero and the one and only person of means. Others were just ordinary folk
tending the land as they had for generations. They came down into Kansas from
Pennsylvania Dutch country sometime around the beginning of the 20th
century living in or around the small farming community of Fort Scott
Kansas.  My how that little town of
memories has changed. Gone are the cobble stone streets now covered with asphalt.
Gone are the sidewalks of the Great Depression. Gone are the great and small
Victorian homes that dotted the narrow streets in the 1940’s. It’s sad that so
much history is buried; too often forgotten now-a-days. None of the young
generation of Ft. Scott seem to care much though many landmarks have been
preserved thanks in great part to my Dad‘s siblings.

But to go on:
With the Great Depression
still breathing down everyone’s neck my parents left the “security” of Ft.
Scott in 1939 hoping Dad could find a more lucrative job in the great
metropolis of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He had no trouble leaving the farming community
behind. Mom bore me at St. John’s Hospital’s “Lying In”, in Tulsa in 1940, not
on the 4th of July but 3 days advanced; the whole world soon to be
toppling on the brink of WWII. 

Our home was a duplex on the
east side of town, across the tracks. Simply called EAST TULSA./ WHITTIER
SQUARE, in particular.   Certainly not
the best place in Tulsa. Some 5 years later my baby sister Barbara was born on
August 1945 on the same date, the 7th as I.  Before and during the war Dad’s job had
protected him ( and his small family) from the draft, staving off destitution .
Luck wasn’t with us, his job in Tulsa came to a screeching halt with the war’s
end leaving my family virtually out of a home. His brother found him work in
Ft. Scott and a subsequent move provided menial work for him as a machinist.
The company had held a government contract which expired suddenly, without
notice, at wars end. Dad was a proud man and refused to live with our relatives
there. He‘d maintained contact with fellow former employees in Tulsa.  New work opened for him in Tulsa with an up
and coming firm known then as Tulsa Winch which as of the mid 1980’s
evolved into the Sperry/Rand Corporation.  Though conditionally accepted, with the return
of GI’s in 1946/1947 it became months before he was gainfully employed. He was
able to find acceptable shelter for us with Aunt Berta in her dilapidated one
bedroom apartment above the Tulsa train station. Crowded was an understatement.
It was late fall, then a cruel winter. The only heat in the entire apartment
was a small gas fired stove on the floor. I remember being hypnotized by the
blue flame, orange glow of the radiant elements and “hush” of gas. Dad was
exhausted. Nothing during that time worked out for him. He had worked as a
house painter in the past as a young man but no work was available. Eventually,
having tried so desperately to support us he had something like a nervous
breakdown. Mom consoled him as best she could. He too often spent days with minimal
sleep, frequently crying. I remember continuous fighting between them. It
certainly didn’t help any of us and did nothing but scare me silly. I thought
Aunt Berta was going to call the police and haul Dad off to…where? It didn’t
help Barbara either though today she doesn’t remember it as I do. There was no
money for a doctor. No work, no medication, no alcohol, nothing! Not even money
for cigarettes. I heard years later there had been a family rumor of her
leaving him for one of his old single friends. Barbara was around 1 year old
then and definitely affected by the discord. 
As with many that age she would break into shrieking crying jags. It
might have been the arguing but Mom’s consistently bad temperament only
exacerbated the situation. I hid in the corners of our room, my heart pounded,
my own anxiety grew. 

In time, after around four
months he finally was back at work; his mood greatly improved.

Both sides of the family
were of Pennsylvania Dutch farming stock, a fact that many in my extended
family hated and never talked about. The ties with a German heritage weren‘t
something of pride then. I later learned that no one admitted any German
connection without being ostracized. Little was ever spoken of our European origins
but I did ultimately find out more. That’s another story.

These 4 wheeled vehicles are
forever changing  my place, my
“origin”! Years of family automobiles changed over time. We had a 1937
Plymouth for many years. Others had different sometimes bigger ones. All were
hugely interesting. Space-ships like cars; Buicks,Oldsmobiles, Fords, Hudsons,
Studebakers, Chevrolets, Packards. They’re all trasnport mechanisms.  Take you from one place in Space Time from
one party of ORIGIN TO another. Not many of my relatives had new
post war cars but those that did had things of pure beauty! I loved to pretend
driving them. One aunt on my Mom’s side actually let me “drive” hers with me
hanging onto the steering wheel. WOW what fun!  I WAS THERE, WHEREVER “THERE” IS. HEY LET’S
TAKE A TRIP. AN ORIGINAL TRIP.  THROUGH
SPACE TIME FROM AN ORIGINALLY, ORIGINAL PLACE.

Telephones with private
lines were unheard of in Ft. Scott or Tulsa and 
frequently used years-old wooden crank wall phones up in Ft. Scott to
summon the operator. I still remember the phone number of my favorite male cousin
I had a crush on (1558J). AM radio was all there was. FM was yet to be. Buicks
had radios that thundered with bass and I was hooked and still am.

We all had a large console
type radio with consistently bad tubes. It doesn’t matter where we lived or
live. Most of us had a dad who was the repairman and found new tubes at Rex-All
Drugs, Safeway, or in this day and age; 
RadioShack or Walmart (I doubt any of them still have vacuum tubes
though).. Among the many thingsJoplin. Joplin. Missouri was a Summer
Place of Origin and of discovery for me in my youth. Back then in 1953  I finally did get to leave Earth, at
least for 45 minutes.  Who knows, maybe
next time it’ll be to Mars, lol. After all when I was a school kid and into
space travel, my classmates called me MARS MAN!

Maybe my truest place of
origin is WITHIN MY OWN MIND. I’m something of a traveler though.
Always wanted to go from one PLACE OF ORIGIN to another PLACE OF ORIGIN
wondering how to get there from here. 
Wondering what’s just around that corner for me once there.

 Give me liberty or death but first give
me a flying saucer so I can find new places and globs in space from which to
originate. But first I have to get someone to loan me the money to by the
damned saucer  at which time I have no
idea where my origin will be.

So from Germany, England,
Ft. Scott, Kansas, Tulsa, Oklahoma and now Denver, Colorado; all is history but
history moves toward the present. So here I am and where I was and where from
here I will go next. No one origin but many. No one place to live but many.

About the Author

“I’m
just a guy from Tulsa (God forbid). So overlook my shortcomings, they’re an
illusion.”
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Learning to Dance (According to Mother Goose) by Nicholas

Girls and boys, come out to play,
The moon is shining as bright as day.

Leave your supper, and leave your sleep,
And come with your playfellows into the street.

Let me tell you a story. It’s a story about
princes and princesses and queens. There’s magic and elegant balls and fancy
costumes. Carriages take us to places of great imagination. And we dance all
night till dawn’s dim light.

Dancing, I mean disco dancing, was a part of
my liberation. Getting myself out onto the dance floor to shake and writhe was liberating.
I had spent plenty of time watching the sensuous moves of dancers wishing I
could just step out and let go and give in to the music. I think that disco
dancing in the 1980s was to gay men what going to church on Sunday was to black
women. Release me, oh, sweet Jesus, release me.

          Swaying, twisting, turning, stomping,
and waving arms to those simple rhythms and an overwhelming drumbeat at
deafening volume produced a sense of reverie. You could do anything and call it
dancing. You didn’t even need a partner. It just took some nerve to go out onto
a dance floor and shake your booty and other body parts.

          What got me dancing was hanging out
with Jack, Steven and Bill (whom we called Chester). We worked together at
Macy’s in San Francisco and we would go out after work. Friday saw us head to
Trinity Place, a downtown bar that featured cabaret shows. Then it was on to
get something to eat and then out dancing. These guys were light years ahead of
me. They didn’t just dance, they had moves, fancy ones, sometimes with fans or with
their stripped-off shirts. It was a performance to behold.

          On Halloween one year there was an
all-night extravaganza at the Galleria, a designers warehouse with a five-story
atrium. Entertainment was some disco diva headliner, the place was ablaze with
a continuous laser light show, and the best dance music in the world pulsed through
the night. We paid the high price for tickets, acquired the right wardrobe, and
did the right drugs so we could dance frenetically all night long.

          For Halloween everybody was in
costume. Jack loved the theatre and was adept at sewing so he
volunteered—insisted, actually—on making all our costumes. We decided on a
Renaissance courtier theme, with tights, puffy-sleeved velvet doublets, magnificent
capes and flouncy hats with feathers. Mine was midnight blue and grey with
ermine trim, of course. Our regal carriage—a grubby San Francisco taxi—took us
to the ball. There were no pumpkins and no mean sisters. It was all glamour,
like something out of a fairy tale.

          They’re all gone now and my dancing
days are over for sure. Chester was the first to go. I took him to see my
doctor because he didn’t have a doctor. But there wasn’t much to be done and he
died before they even named his illness. Steven went dancing into eternity next.
Jack hung on the longest, righteously angry that his life was being cut short.

          I don’t know what this has to do with
Mother Goose. There may be no rhymes here but I and my “playfellows” left our
supper and left our sleep and danced all night, seeking that release. This tale
of princes and magic and carriage rides into the night and back again with the
rising sun was one of those rare moments of wonder that stand out from
day-to-day life. Not all Mother Goose rhymes have happy endings—like “down will
come baby, cradle and all.” But though baby came to a hard landing, he enjoyed
his time swaying high in the tree top.

Rock-a-bye, baby,
   In the tree top:
When the wind blows,
   The cradle will rock;
When the bough breaks,
   The cradle will fall;
Down will come baby,
   Cradle and all.

About the Author

Nicholas
grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in
Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles,
gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.
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Locked Out by Ray S

     Being locked out has been a self imposed restriction of a latent life style.  Homosexuality was from the very earliest years of Sebastian’s life a guilty little deeply hidden reality there, but not to be openly acknowledged.  Except during a youthful stolen moment or encounter, not consciously planned but acted upon when the opportunity availed itself.

     The accepted norm governed by proper middle class morality was the life pattern to be aspired to, accepted and certainly not questioned or faulted.   Those values taught that there were deviations in behavioral patterns of varied societies, but not talked about in his.

     Time and education did expose Sebastian to the “facts of life” and its variants, but one didn’t talk about such things except in locker rooms or a discussion of “Lady Chatterlie’s Lover,” Oscar Wilde, and maybe the antics set down by Christopher Isherwood in advanced English Lit 101.

     Most of the time the problem or condition, if even recognized remained dormant.  The chosen and accepted heterosexual life style goal consumed all of his energies, except for those brief secret lapses when his guard was down and his libido up.

     Life’s formulas were tried on for size, some fitting better than others, some even seemingly pleasant and successful when gauged by the conventional norm.   Sometimes conformity appeared to have its rewards.  Especially when he needed acceptance.

     Sebastian was so guarded and so aware of needing to fit in.  More often than not unsure of himself and seasoned with a good spoonful of self hate.

     Finally the decision to marry his needy school sweetheart and begin the charade of marital bliss.  Sometimes often the initial stumbling attempts at sex it actually worked, but in retrospect it seemed like mutual masturbation.  Certainly no proper young lady would consider any deviation from the prescribed missionary script.  Any oral advances were unheard of if not forbidden.

     With such sketchy limited fornication Sebastian knew there was a reason or reasons why they both secretly knew they were unable to conceive.  The solution for the ultimate conformist:  adoption.

     Sometime when there was a 3 year old at home while Daddy was baby sitting and Mommy out of town, he recalls a friendly trick made an unannounced stop at the house.  While Junior was napping the friend and he drifted into an encounter that ended behind a closed bedroom door.

     Only to be interrupted by a wee voice on the other side of the door pleading,

“Don’t lock me out.”

Daddy responded as his ardor shrank with some subterfuge about needing privacy and would be out in a minute.  Quickly dressing and abandoning his naked friend to escape later, he exited and escorted little Junior to the kitchen for a cookie.   The door was still locked and the secret still locked out of his conventional and frustrated double life.
     To be continued…………..

About the Author



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Stories of Where I Came From by Michael King

Along with everything else
in my childhood, being from Kansas was not acceptable to me. As I saw the
world, I wasn’t where I belonged. From the very limited perspective I had at
the time, my environment had no class, no culture and certainly no elegance. I
didn’t even know how to speak the language correctly, or in my expectation,
properly. And that was the key concept in my mind, properly. I felt I should be
in a world where everything was proper, and I felt embarrassed to be living in
poverty and ignorance. And even though I later learned differently, my concept
of Kansas was just that, poverty and ignorance, a bunch of hicks trying to
exist on farms as sharecroppers. And where I was, that was true.

From my earliest memories, I
saw myself, or at least wanted to see myself, as self-assured, secure,
respected and very proper. Of course none of that was true and I was
embarrassed, ashamed and unhappy.

Later, when I learned to
speak without the poor grammar, mispronounced words and the middle Kansas
accent, I was also moving away from the poverty and hopelessness and the
embarrassment of my childhood. I now see that in rejecting my surroundings and
environment, I also rejected my family.

I now know that someone can
be from Kansas and not be a hick. I was so pleased that when I was 10 we moved
to New Mexico. All I’d ever known was living in a shack on a farm, where my
father was a sharecropper, a mile outside of Nashville, Kansas, population
about 110. Now we lived in a town, Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, population
about 10,000. It was exciting and very different. My vistas were expanding and
opportunities for becoming the me that I wanted to be, seemed possible, but I
also experienced much pain and unhappiness.

I discovered that we lived
in the wrong part of town, got laughed at because I still talked like a hick
and since I hadn’t been around people, I didn’t have the skills to make
friends.

Fortunately I did well in
school and learned to speak correctly. I excelled in classwork and participated
in plays, art contests and exhibits and won a scholarship to college.

I escaped the destitute and
hopeless existence of my early years and in college found the environment and
happiness I had for so long wanted.

Fortunately where one comes
from doesn’t mean they have to stay there. It isn’t the geography or even the
environment that is important. It is the consciousness. It took me too long to
realize that. But, I did, and have accomplished a great deal. I was an officer
in the air force, taught school, worked as an art therapist, a mold maker for
fine arts bronzes, did retail, both as owner and as an employee, and worked in
retirement communities. I have traveled to 44 countries and have seen many
environments much worse than mine. As I see it now, I created much of my own
unhappiness. I am now happier than I’ve ever been and have a life that is
wonderful, a lover that is fantastic and a family where there is love, respect
and kindness.
About the Author

I
go by the drag name, Queen Anne Tique. My real name is Michael King. I am a gay
activist who finally came out of the closet at age 70. I live with my lover,
Merlyn, in downtown Denver, Colorado. I was married twice, have 3 daughters, 4
grandchildren and a great grandson. Besides volunteering at the GLBT Center and
doing the SAGE activities,” Telling your Story”,” Men’s
Coffee” and the “Open Art Studio”. I am active in Prime Timers
and Front Rangers. I now get to do many of the activities that I had hoped to
do when I retired; traveling, writing, painting, doing sculpture, cooking and
drag.

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The Teacher by Merlyn

I was the second oldest of
eight kids, my youngest brother was the only one of us kids that graduated from
high school. I never liked school.  I
never had a favorite teacher there.

We lived in the country 15
miles outside of Detroit

When I was 11 years old I
got my first newspaper route. I had to walk 5 miles on dirt roads to deliver 60
papers.

The last stop on the route
was a gas station and I started hanging out there

I started helping out a
little and they started letting me drink all of the 5 cent cokes I wanted to.

When I was 12 years old every
night around 7 o’clock I would be sent across the street to a small store to
get sandwiches  after a while they
started  ordering one for me I stopped
going home for dinner and would stay there till 9 every night when we closed
up.

One of the men that worked
there I called BIG Mike. He was in his fifties and a little over weight. He was
one of the best auto mechanics I have ever known.

When he was working, I would
watch everything he did. He made sure I knew why the car brokeand how to fix
it.

He always made sure I knew
why something broke or wore out and how to make it last longer than the old
part.

The first tune up I ever did
was when I was 12 years old; it a 52 Chevy. While Mike sat in the office, he
would let me do the work then he would look it over to make sure I did
everything right. When he found something I did wrong he never got mad he would
just help me fix it.

He taught me how to drive
when I was 12 by just giving me the keys and told me to change the oil and
filter on the car he pointed to. Which meant told me to drive a car inside and
put it up in the air on the hoist, change the oil,  then park the car back outside all by myself. After
that I started driving all the time.

Not long after that He gave
me the keys to the pickup and sent me to pull a car in that would not start.  I knew the people and how to get there.  I hooked up the chain to the car.  I slowly started pulling him back to the
station, when I got to the corner that I always turned at when I delivered
papers riding a bike I turned and he went straight. The chain pulled the back
of the pickup around in a circle. We both got out and he said he always turned
on the next block. I was going slow and car bumpers were stronger back then so
there was no damage.

When we got back to the
station I was mad at the guy and told Mike what happened, he listened as I told
him the story, with that look on his face that said you are lucky there was no
damage. All he said was  “Did you
signal that you were going to turn?” and walked away.

Big Mike was always up to
something.

He loved women. He would
have me do the work while he sat at the desk and talked to the men and women
that came in for gas. Sometimes he would take one of women into the back room
and shut the door for a while and leave me in charge.

He would bet money on
anything at any time. There was a horse track a few miles from the station. A
lot of the people that worked at the track would come into the station. One day
a jockey from the track came in and told Mike to bet everything he could on a
horse. It was a sure bet. I was about 15 then and was getting paid  to work there. We cleaned out the till and
closed the station early and went to the track.  I gave him every penny of my next week’s pay to
bet o this sure thing. The olds were something like 10 to 1 to win.

The gates opened, my horse
came out like a rocket. By the first turn he was way out in front. I was
already spending the 10 weeks’ pay I was going to get when the unbelievable
happened. The horse was so drugged up it never turned. He went straight though
the fence.

I have never bet on a sure
thing since.

Big Mike was the teacher
that taught me the most about the things I loved and about life, at a point in my life when I had the most to learn.

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.

Posted on

The Gym by Donny Kaye

Gym class in 7th grade turned brutal. I attended one of Denver’s roughest junior high schools, which I’m sure was one of the considerations for the set for the filming of West Side Story. I say it was brutal in that it was, brutal!

The 7:00 a.m. class was huge. Mr. Brutal was our teacher of record. Having a last name that began with “S” meant that I was always number 78 or more, in the large gym classes that were basically intended to be a place to keep large numbers of the student body in a holding place so that other classes, such as math and social studies were smaller in numbers of students.

The class itself was more like a free-for-all than a class with objectives and standards. One morning, one of the smallest boys in the class was hoisted to the top of the two story ceiling on the climbing ropes. When his strength finally gave out from physical exhaustion and crying for help, he dropped to the floor breaking his arm and collar bone. The teachers supervising this “class” finally came to his rescue after one of the other students went to the office and asked for help.

Showers were mandatory. When you were handed a towel after showering the gym teacher recorded your gym number, which constituted that day’s grade for the class. I hated it! Eighty to a hundred pre-pubescent and pubescent boys along with the handful or two of older, rougher students (who were always more developed physically) made for the hour from hell. Towels were snapped at bare asses, size and development were always the source of taunting and the occasional erection that seemed to ‘come up’, so to speak, in a shower full of boys, became the focus of teasing and torment. Typically, lunch money was collected by the older, rougher boys in exchange for ‘protection’. Gaud help me on a day when I had to carry a cold lunch. Fried egg sandwiches and a Twinkie were not negotiable and only intensified the harassment. No wonder I missed forty-eight days of school that year!

The experience of gym class continued to be traumatic. By 10th grade, the only option for not taking gym was in exchange for ROTC class. The choice only created more conflict for me. By 12th grade, I finally had settled into a routine of participating in class as I needed, realizing that those days when we were turned loose to run Washington Park for our class period were the best. Running the park served to increase my speed as a runner so that I could get back to the showers before many of the others, shower and be with towel, dressing and “observing” by the time the majority of the guys were back from their run.

In college, classes like fencing, badminton and bowling didn’t require showering and seemed to be more user-friendly, at least as I was concerned. It really wasn’t until my early thirties that I began to realize how fulfilling the experience of a gym could be for a guy like me. Frequently I would fantasize about the gym, especially the showers and the possibility of meeting someone special. The fantasies always unfolded much like porn. You all have seen the story line; I’m headed to the steam room and someone catches my eye, asks to join me and—well you can imagine the rest of the story. Or another favorite is walking into the dressing area and there are two guys getting dressed, well sort of getting dressed! They seem to be having trouble with their undies or, oh my, the breathing is getting intense!!

At my age, one of the benefits of going to the gym, other than keeping my body somewhat in shape is that I now qualify for a “Silver Sneakers” pass. The gym is free, well sort of. It seems my health insurance company has realized the benefits of staying healthy through exercise. Yes, I still enjoy the lockers and the steam room can be intriguing. Depending on the time of day, there can be extremely gorgeous young guys working out. But who’s looking? Right! It causes me to wonder if they might be interested in my lunch money, just as the tormentors in my seventh grade gym class.

Even though my formation around the gym was not positive, I developed some life skills beyond survival, in gym. I enjoy riding my bicycle, running, and I walk most every day and have stayed reasonably fit and healthy.  

About the Author

Posted on

The Gym by Betsy

 

Throughout
my school years, kindergarten through high school, even in college, gym was my
favorite subject.  I loved gym.  I suppose I loved gym class because I always
caught on quickly, I was never behind or bored, I understood the subject matter
perfectly, I easily passed all the tests, I was always happy to be there in
class.  What teacher wouldn’t adore
me?  I loved gym, I really loved
gym.  And I loved my gym teachers
too.  I even started to pursue a career
as a gym teacher at the age of 40 something. 
I enrolled in graduate school.  I
was going to earn a masters degree in gym. 
I would become a master of gym!  I
actually did not finish this pursuit. 
Somehow as a subject of study and reflection, rather than an activity, I
found it un-stimulating and uninteresting. 
I barely got started when I thought better of it and went to work in the
human services field.

There
was a brief period of time during my high school days when gym–at least what I
considered REAL gym—real gym class was absent from my weekly schedule.  I was 15 years old in 1950.  Because of my father’s work my family had to
pack up and leave our home in Mountain Lakes

, New Jersey.  We had to move to a new town, a new state, a
new part of the country. 

“Oh
well.  There’s a high school there.  It can’t be that different from what I have
known,” I thought.  Little did I know. I
was too young and inexperienced even at the advanced age of 15 to realize that
I was in for a culture shock–big time.

I soon
found myself adjusting to life in small town Louisiana, the antithesis of
Mountain Lakes, New Jersey.  They didn’t
even speak the same language there.  I
spoke New Jersey, they spoke Deep South. 
Oh well, things would get better when school started.  There were all those classes to look forward
to and lots of sports, right?  This IS
high school, after all.  

Did I
say I was in for a change in culture?   I
soon learned that this

definitely
was a culture very different from what I had known, for a girl in particular. I
was soon to learn that girls do not do sports in this culture.  Girls do not sweat.  Girls do not exert themselves
physically.  Girls do not “overdo.” Girls
do not overdo especially when it’s the wrong time of the month.  In fact, when it’s the wrong time of the
month, girls are allowed to skip gym. 
Skip gym!  Oh no!  Please don’t make me skip gym!  I love gym. 
Gym keeps me going all day.  Gym
is the high point of the day for me. 
Except, in the new culture, it turned out, gym was not such a high point
because we didn’t do much really.  Gym
was, well, really, really puny.

 I
quickly learned that in many coeducational high schools in the the deep South
in 1950 girls’ participation in sports amounted to watching the boys.  First of all, I did not want to watch the
boys.  I was not interested in the boys
(although I pretended to be), and I was not interested in watching sports.  I wanted to be doing the sport.  But, alas, I lived in the land of southern
BELLEDOM.  I would have to adjust to a
rather passive existence when it came to athletics.

Youth
often facilitates an easier adjustment to new things, and I did adjust to the
southern culture.  I pretended to be
interested in the boys, and I did become involved in the athletic
events……as a CHEERLEADER.   In the
realm of the gym this was as close as a girl could get to being an athlete.

Yes, I
did adjust, but only superficially.  As
soon as high school was over, I returned to the east and attended a women’s
college where I could participate in most sports and not worry about working up
a sweat.  Oh yes, and sure enough, I fell
in love with my college gym teacher too. 
(Incidentally, I do believe I have never met a self-respecting lesbian
who had not fallen in love with at least one of her gym teachers.)

Now in
my dotage, retired and all, now that I am free to spend as much time in the gym
as I want….It’s amazing how easy it is to find a way to avoid the place.  Excuses abound when I’m feeling lazy or
aching.  But then, the next thing I know,
I’m missing that gym.  There goes that
voice in my head again. 

“Time to
go to the gym, Betsy!”

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.

Posted on

The Interview by Gillian

In 1965/66 IBM built their facility in Boulder, and in roughly twelve months hired 4,000 people.

Those were the days!

I could no more get a job with IBM these days than I could sprout wings and fly to Mars, but back then you basically just had to walk through the door.

I remember very little about what was probably the most important interview of my life, except that it was very short and it was followed up by a test.

Now I know that computer programming and complex math is leaping into your heads, but remember in 1965 IBM was hiring assembly personnel to do the kind of work that has long since been outsourced to far off countries. I think a few of us are old enough to recall when we actually did that work here?

Those were the days!

Anyway, this test was not exactly sophisticated.

I was given a pencil and a piece of paper covered in tiny circles perhaps a tenth of an inch in diameter. I was given three minutes to place a pencil dot inside as many circles as possible.

That was it.

Those were the days!

Apparently my eye-hand coordination was deemed sufficient, and I began my employment at $82.00 a week, more than I had ever earned or ever dreamed of. After all a first-class stamp cost five cents, a McDonald’s hamburger fifteen, a dozen eggs fifty cents and you could buy a  house for $15,000. 

Those were the days!

I spent thirty wonderful years with IBM, doing many different jobs, all of which I loved, and getting several promotions. 

I traveled extensively on business in this country and to several others, obtaining skills which enabled me to travel again to foreign countries in a volunteer capacity during retirement.

At IBM I met the man who was to be my husband, and an irretrievably straight woman with whom I fell madly in love. She is now with her third husband and I am happily, incredibly, with the wonderful Ms. Betsy, but Mo and I continue to love each other like sisters after fifty years.

I came out at IBM, hardly an adventure as IBM was one of the first corporations to include GLBTs in it’s non-discrimination directive, and to offer benefits to same-sex couples.

Of course I cannot hazard a guess as to where my life might have gone had I failed that interview and that challenging dot test, but it is hard for me to imagine a better life than the one I had, and a great deal of it involved IBM.

That your life should turn on pencil dots in tiny circles!

Those were the days!

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.