Tag: Memoir

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Away from Home, by Lewis Thompson

I have shared here before my story about my first summer camp experience when I was about eleven years old and, after about four days of utter misery and homesickness, wrote a letter to my parents saying, “If you love me, you’ll come and get me.” Well, that experiment didn’t work out as I had hoped so I adapted and learned that being away from home wasn’t as bad as it first appeared.

After high school and two years of community college, I was actually eager to go away to university and leave my parents to fend for themselves. I suspect that they were as relieved as I was…or, at least, that was likely true for my mother. I remember that it was at about this time that my dad first started giving me a hug at home-comings and -goings.

After graduation, with engineering degree in hand, I began applying for work. I had only two interviews in my home state–one with Kansas Power and Light and the other with General Electric in Kansas City. My other interviews were with corporations in Ohio or Michigan. When I told my parents that I was accepting a job at Ford, I was pretty certain that Dad would be proud, as he had always been a “Ford Man”. But I also knew that he would be sorry to see me move so far away. I was his only child. (My mother had a son and daughter from an earlier marriage who lived in nearby Pratt, Kansas.)

My parents were both pleased when I married and became a father in my own right. They both liked my wife, Jan, and she them. When Jan and I married and bought our first house, I approached my parents about a loan for the down-payment. My mother nixed the idea. It wasn’t a lot of money, only $1200, with a promise to pay it off within a year. (The year was 1972. The mortgage was only $24,000. In those days, you could buy a lot of house in Detroit for that money.) We ended up borrowing the money from Jan’s parents, interest-free. I never quite forgave my mother for that slight.

My parents and I exchanged visits back-and-forth as often as we could and even took vacations to Colorado together with Jan’s parents. My mother, always reserved, seemed to look down her nose a bit at my in-laws, neither of whom was college-educated. Mom did not have a diploma, either, mostly due to the inability to pay for it as her parents thought that sending a daughter to college was a waste of good money. Perhaps that fact sheds some light on why she was so reluctant to help Jan and me out financially. (This thought just occurs to me as I write this. See what writing one’s memoirs can do to shed light into long-darkened corners!)

I have attended every high school reunion for the Hutch High Class of 1964 since graduation. On one such occasion, after both of my parents had died, I parked my car across the street from the house I had lived in until I was of kindergarten age. As I sat in the car alone, I was overcome by a wave of grief that left me sobbing uncontrollably–no particular memories, simply gut-wrenching emotion. It was as if a part of me were still there, trapped in that house, and could only be redeemed by getting away from home and never going back.

[P.S. Nothing in this story is intended to be, can be construed to be, or has even the slightest relation to anything “experimental”.]

© 3 August 2015

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 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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Getting Caught by Ricky

          From
June of 1956 to June 1958 I was living with my grandparents on their farm in
Isanti County, Minnesota.  I was eight
and nine years old at the time.  On
Saturdays, after the morning chores were completed, grandpa always drove us
into Cambridge, in their 1949 Kaiser Deluxe Sedan.
He and grandma would run their
individual errands as my uncle and I eventually ended up at the drug store to
spend our allowances.  My weekly
allowance of $1.00 allowed me to purchase a model airplane kit and a Cherry
Cola from the drug store’s “soda jerk.”
          In
the beginning, I could buy each weekend a model airplane and a comic book for
98-cents, including the tax.  The comic
book was only a dime.  As time passed,
the comic book price increased to 12-cents and I could not buy both for $1.00
so I began to buy more comic books and the Cherry Cola.  My grandma said I had to save the left over
money so I could still buy a model and drink or model and comic book, if I had
saved enough left over allowance.  I
really didn’t like that plan, but I did not have a choice between alternatives.
          Thus,
for two years I developed a strong attachment to reading and building my model
airplanes.  Now jump forward to when I
lived with my mother, stepfather, stepbrother, and my twin half-brother/sister
at South Lake Tahoe.  The year is
1960.  I am 12 and we live in our second rented home on Birch Street.
3745 Birch Street, So. Lake Tahoe, CA
          The
house is a two-story edifice of what I call a rather rustic design and
matching interior.  Our allowed part of
the upstairs is about one-third of the total area available.  Crammed into that small space were two cribs,
end-to-end, and a set of bunk beds.  Back
at the first rented house, I had the bottom bunk as my then fifteen year old
step-brother, Eugene (Gene for short), insisted on the top bunk.  In this second house, at seventeen Gene was
literally tired of climbing into bed and so claimed the bottom bunk.  The twelve-year old man that I was enjoyed climbing into my top bunk.
          The
roof sloped steeply but not quite as steep as an “A-frame” constructed
house.  This resulted in a shortage of
space near the upstairs walls that were actually the sloping roof.  Nonetheless, Gene and I made two small “cubby
holes” among the “rafters” for each of us to use as a study and personal area.  It was a tight fit for Gene, being bigger
than I am.  I was considerably smaller
but it was a tight fit for me also.
          Gene
and I got along well.  We never fought,
wrestled, or were loudly argumentative with each other.  I suspect that was mostly because he was so
much bigger and intimidated me by his size and status of being in high
school.  We each were very protective of
our study areas and did not like the other to enter or touch anything in our
areas.
          Our
parents did not bring home cookies very often, but when they did the package
contained about 40 or 50 of them.  Gene
and I learned early on that the cookies (or other treats) would disappear
quickly.  Therefore, to ensure we both
got an equal share, when the cookies arrived home, mother would watch us divide
them up between us.  She always held some
back.  Gene and I took our cookies and
“hid” them in our study areas so we could not steal each other’s treasure.
          One
day, being the immature man
that I was then, I ate my last stashed cookie but still craved more.  Since Gene was not home, I searched his study
area and found his cookie stash.  I
didn’t think he would miss one or two and that’s how many I ate of his.  I did it again a couple of days later and he
noticed.  The next time our stashes were
refilled, he raided mine and of course, I retaliated once too often.
          I
came home from school one day and found that Gene had broken a part off two of
my model airplanes.  I bought these same
model airplanes with my precious left over allowance money back on the farm in
Minnesota.  As such, they were important
to me.  I thought that breaking my
airplanes was going too far.  I mean I
didn’t break anything of his—I just ate his cookies.  I quickly escalated the “war.”
          I
loved model airplanes.  Gene loved his
paint-by-numbers kits.  I took four of
his small paint bottles and began to throw them out the upstairs window onto a
pile of chunks of broken concrete on the vacant lot next door.  My step-father was home but I believed him to
be inside doing something.  I was
wrong.  He came in from outside and
called to me asking if I was throwing anything out the window.  I lied and said I was not.
          He
went back outside and I watched from the window as he began looking around the
vacant lot but didn’t seem to find anything and left the area.  Apparently, he either remembered what it is
like to be 12 and questioned by his father, or somehow he knew I was lying and
was waiting for me to throw something again. 
In any case, I still had two little paint bottles to throw so I
did.  This time he called me down to him
and asked what I threw out the window.
          At
that statement, my guts and butt suddenly developed a serious case of major
“pucker factor.”  I did not lie
again.  I told him what I threw and when
he asked why, I explained that Gene broke my models.  I was afraid he would spank me or do
something similar but worse.  He
didn’t.  He only told me not to lie to
him again.  I never did and never needed
to either.  I do not remember if I told
him the whole truth though.  I am fairly
sure I did not tell him I started the “war” by eating Gene’s cookies.  If I had, things might have turned out
different for me.

© 4 February
2013


About the Author 



I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.

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The Strangest Person I Ever Met by Nicholas

One day she walked into my office and sort of collapsed down into a chair and said, with a mixture of patient weariness and eager anticipation, “I just can’t wait till I get my tits.”

Rebecca (not her real name) was a volunteer at the GLBT Community Center where I worked and she frequently tossed off quips about where she was in her transition.

“You’ll get them,” I assured her, “and they will be beautiful.” Like, what do I know about boobs, I thought.

I really didn’t think it very strange that Rebecca would announce to me such a private anatomical detail. We were always chatting about something at The Center. This was just real life the way real people lived it. No more “strange” than if she’d said, “I need to buy a new car.” Though a good deal more personal. But then one cannot transition in private so why be secretive about the process.

That was her attitude and I was always impressed by Rebecca’s ability to be open and light hearted about her life and its changes when so many others seemed to carry theirs around like a heavy stone on their backs. Rebecca seemed not only determined to make her life her way but to enjoy it along the way.

I didn’t find that so strange—actually, more admirable than strange. But it occurred to me that there are people in this world whose eyes would have bugged out at a statement that, to them, would have been as strange as if saying she was from Mars.

I don’t really know strange people. At least I don’t think so. I once knew a guy whom I would call strange, as in weird. I assume he’s long dead since he looked like a walking corpse when I knew him in San Francisco in 1969—where knowing strange people was a daily occurrence. Frank lived in the flat below me and his full time and sole occupation seemed to be smoking pot and doing probably any other drug he could find in the dark confines of his room. One day he emerged into the sunlight and showed the most sallow and droopy skin I’d ever seen on a body still alive. Now, that’s strange, I thought, and not very appealing. I stayed away and always have from “strange people.” Weirdoes just don’t interest me.

But then some people would say that my life is pretty strange and full of weirdoes—faggots, dykes, radicals, mystics, people of integrity and ethics, animal lovers, even. I know a woman who once took a squirrel she’d hit with her car to a vet to try to save it. Now, that’s strange. I’d never do that.

One of my best friends is beyond the beyond, as the Irish say. He’s intersex. Now, we’re totally outside the binary, as he puts it. Pronouns don’t even apply here though, since you have to check one box or the other, David has always identified as male. With intersex people we have not just men, women and those transitioning, but suddenly the biological permutations are near endless. He used to have tits but lost them when forced into more male-inducing hormone treatments as an adolescent. He tells me he misses his tits and the fine soft skin he once had. He’s taught me a lot.

So, no, I don’t like “strange.” But in a way I require some strangeness in my friends. Strangeness is, after all, a very subjective judgment. What some call strange, I call interesting, unique, human, being alive, maybe even fun. Life is strange enough all by itself. And if you’re not even a wee bit strange, you need to fix that. Take a flight on the astral plane, listen to those voices in your head, drop everything and go on a meditation retreat, paint your toe nails purple, sit down and read a book. You know, weird stuff.

To some people, I suppose, I might be the strangest person they’ve ever met.

© 22 July
2012

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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Thinking of the Kennedys on St. Patrick’s Day by Louis

     It must have been in
the late 1990’s, when I was working as a caseworker for the NYC Human Resources
Administration, I was sent to Headquarters at 330 Church Street in way downtown
New York, that is to say Manhattan. Back then I could easily see the Twin
Towers of the World Trade Center.  I had
a Citibank checking account, and there was an ATM about 2 blocks around the
corner from where I would go about 3 times a week to get lunch money. One
afternoon I went, and I noticed an extremely handsome Irish-looking fellow. It
took a few seconds, but I realized that the other young man was John F.
Kennedy, Jr. Like any “peasant,” JFK Jr. went to the ATM and did his routine to
withdraw what I presume was a small sum of money to get through his day.
     Occasionally, he was
accompanied by a tall pretty woman who dressed like a hippy. Back then all I
had to do was watch the news and I learned that she was Carolyn née Bessette
Kennedy. As the months passed, I saw both of them frequently. I learned why
they were using that particular ATM. It was located in SoHo which at that time
was undergoing gentrification, and John and Carolyn had purchased an expensive
condo in one of the tall apartment buildings nearby. The two of them were
actually my “neighbors” for the duration of my assignment downtown. I never got
up the nerve to say “hello” or “hi there,” but occasionally I would roll my
eyes at another person waiting to use the ATM to indicate there was someone
famous in front of us.
     Eventually, my assignment
ended, and I no longer got to ogle the handsome Kennedy couple. Then about a
year later I heard he and Carolyn had died in an airplane crash, actually, July
16, 1999, Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. The news of this
accident really saddened me.
     Some speak of the
“curse of the Kennedys.” It could be a curse, I guess, or is something going
on behind the scenes that the public is not aware of?
3/17/13

About the Author

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

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Scouting for Fun by Ricky

(Three tales filled
with truth, wisdom, courage, and humor.)
Click on the image to enlarge.

     Some adults have memories of their time in the Boy Scouts. Like always, there are those memories which remind us of good, bad, embarrassing, and funny incidents occurring during campouts and even the weekly troop meetings. The following are three of my favorite memories. All these events occurred from 1963-65, while I served as the Senior Patrol Leader of BSA Troop 456 of South Lake Tahoe, CA (Golden Empire Council) where I pretty much ran the troop under the guidance of the Scout Master, Bob Deyerberg. 

1.  One of my responsibilities as the Senior Patrol Leader was to ensure that the Patrol Leaders were properly training and testing their assigned scouts in the requirements for rank advancement. One night I was sitting-in on an oral test of a second class scout working towards his first class badge. The scout, Paul, was doing very well answering the questions correctly until he was asked to name ten edible wild plants. Paul named off nine very quickly and then (like many of us presented with the task of naming ten items on a list) he had a “brain lockup”. After much silence and some very minor harassment (I mean encouragement) by his patrol leader, Paul finally and confidently blurted out—“road apples”. After the rest of us finished laughing and explained to Paul exactly what a “road apple” was (horse droppings), he managed to name a correct one and passed that test.

2.  One summer campout, we were camping near the ruins of an ore crushing stamp mill along the Carson River in the desert near the eastern edge of Carson City, Nevada. During the second night, all scouts were gathering around the fire pit for our campfire activities. Bob, our Scout Master, was acting strange which is to say that he had a shopping bag with stuff in it but would not let us see what was inside; very mysterious and so unlike him. After we had held our fire starting ritual and finished our singing, it was time for stories. A few scouts told some simple ghost stories while others told funny ones in their turn.

     At last it was time for Bob to reveal the contents of the bag he was guarding. The contents were: an enameled bowl of a size used to water a pet dog; a short length of cotton clothesline; and stick long enough to span the diameter of the bowl; and a block of paraffin. While telling his story, Bob placed the paraffin in the bowl and set the bowl close to the campfire so as to melt the paraffin; then cut the clothesline into three ten-inch long pieces and tied the tops to the stick with the center piece in the middle with the others a short space on either side.

     This is the “Reader’s Digest” version of his story. In ancient times a large tribe of Indians lived in this area; on the desert of the Carson Valley. They hunted in the desert and also in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for game to feed and clothe the tribe. One year the desert game became scarce and the mountain game was virtually non-existent. Hunting parties returning from unsuccessful hunts reported seeing the tracks of some gigantic beast. They believed that this beast must be either killing the game or scaring the game away. The tribe brought the matter to the attention of the tribal chiefs.

     This tribe was lead by three chiefs of equal rank and authority. Each chief contributed his talent to the group of three and thus they led with confidence and the tribe prospered. The chiefs were named: Brave Eagle, Wise Eagle, and True Eagle. The three chiefs concluded that they were the only ones who could defeat this beast so they set out alone into the mountains to hunt it down. Several weeks passed before they found the beast sleeping. After locating the beast, the chiefs set up a relay as each of them in turn acted as bait for the beast running themselves nearly to death as they tired the beast. Finally, the last of the chiefs to run, Brave Eagle, led the beast onto a thinly frozen lake; the beast broke through the ice and drowned.

     The chiefs had been gone much longer than the tribal members had patience so after two weeks the tribe sent their fastest runner, Swift Eagle, to go find out how the hunt was going and if everything was alright. In spite of being fast, Swift Eagle could only but follow the trail signs left by the chiefs who were quite swift themselves. So, he could only slowly catch up to them. When he finally realized that the beast was chasing the chiefs, Swift Eagle tried to run even faster. At last he found the first of the three chiefs, Wise Eagle, on the verge of death. Swift Eagle began lamenting the impending loss of the chief saying what would the tribe do without his wisdom. The chief told him to cut some hair of the back of his head to burn at council fires so his wisdom would always be with them. So he cut the hair and the chief died.

     Swift Eagle came upon the other two chiefs in turn and those chiefs also had him cut off some of their hair before they also died. Swift Eagle returned to his tribe, told them of the chiefs’ fates and their command about what to do with their hair. The tribe obeyed and they once again prospered.

     By the end of the story it suddenly became clear to me what Bob was intending to do. He placed the stick with the pieces of clothesline across the bowl of the now melted paraffin and announced that we were all going to put some hair from the back of our heads into the bowl so we could burn it at every one of our “council fires” at the close of each troop meeting. As I was the oldest and the “leader” of the troop, Bob selected me to be cut first to set the example. (At the time, I was a sophomore in high school and really didn’t want to explain why I was missing hair on the back of my head to my peers, but I couldn’t “wimp” out.) Then one by one, every scout present had a fifty-cent coin size of hair cut by Bob from the back of their head. Bob went last and I got to do the honor. Bob was cut and cut and cut. I didn’t go overboard but his cut spot was larger than a fifty-cent piece.

3.  That same summer our troop was camping along the Carson River but about 25 to 35 miles east of Carson City. George was an 11-year old, fair skinned, short, skinny boy with “toothpick” arms and legs and was completely ill equipped for his first scout campout. George’s biggest problem was what some swindler sold to his parents as a sleeping bag. Desert nights can be very cold and George’s sleeping bag was not designed to be used in temperatures under 70° and George did not appear to have even an ounce of fat on his frame to help keep him warm.

     Ultimately, to keep George healthy and not to be so discouraged that he would quit, Bob swapped sleeping bags with George. As a result, Bob spent the night sleeping next to the campfire he had to keep refueling throughout the night until he moved into his car to escape an early morning cold breeze.

     George did not appear to be your run-of-the-mill boy. His interests seemed to center on bugs, little critters or creatures, and aquatic life forms. Even so, no one treated him disrespectfully or made fun of him behind his back; at least I never heard of any.

     The next morning after sleeping in his car and around the campfire, Bob was not in the best of moods (understatement). About mid-morning he had to keep telling some of the scouts to stay out of the water. One scout had discovered crayfish in the river and soon several scouts were trying to “harvest” a few for lunch. Some “fished” with strips of bacon, but some waded right in and came out wet into chilly air; hence the stay-out-of-the-water order. Nonetheless, about an hour later, Bob looked about and spied George up to his knees walking in the water wearing his socks and leather shoes. Bob told him to get out and when George complied Bob asked him, “Why were you walking in the river?” I suspect George was simply pursuing his interest in aquatic life, but his reply was, “Well, I’ve always liked water sports.”

I’m the boy wearing a hat.
At the time, none of us knew Jim Nabors was gay.
Boy Scout Memorial in Washington D.C. — Notice the naked adult male.
The BSA prevented me from becoming a delinquent.  I thought the program was to create good citizens, not to teach discrimination.

© 7 March
2011





About the Author


Ricky was born in 1948 in downtown Los Angeles.  Just prior to turning 8 years old, he was sent to live with his grand-parents 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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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.



Posted on

Communication by Gillian

My dad was a quiet, almost silent, man.

I never use the word taciturn in his case because that has a certain negative connotation and my father’s silence seemed one of peace and contentment.

He just felt little need of words.

In fact one of the dictionaries’ synonyms for taciturn is uncommunicative which my father most definitely was not, he simply communicated in other ways.

He never once told me he loved me, but I never once doubted it.

We had an ancient chopping block sawn from the trunk of a fallen oak tree.  My dad split logs on it as his father and grandfather had done. It was very hard wood but it had been slowly worn down to a shadow of its former self by three generations of abuse.

On one of my last trips back home he handed me a circular wooden chain, which, he actually did tell me in words, was carved from the old chopping block.

It is one of my most cherished possessions.

I cannot imagine how long it took him to carve this intricate creation from that tough old wood, and when I cleared up the shed after his death I found many rejects and practice bits and false starts tossed on the woodpile, and some complete chains which were not, apparently, just perfect.
For me it had to be perfect.
Communication comes in many forms.
This beautiful gift expresses Dad’s love for me in a way no words could ever do, and it lasts a whole lot longer.

Me with my dad in 1948

       

                                                              

About the Author

 

I was born and raised in England. After
graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered
Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965,
working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got
divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have
now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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The Fairies by Cecil

    Their home was sited in a burrow beside the South Platte River between 15th and 20th Streets. It was away from the river’s edge and across the sidewalk where so many of the Big People ran, walked, and bicycled. The trees. shrubbery, weeds, and grasses ensured that their door was invisible except to the most diligent searcher. Once in a great while a dog off his leash sniffed it out. Most often on those occasions , the impatient owner would call the dog away while Oberon and Puck would sit quietly and not knowing what the dog would do. If he were a digger, enthusiastic with his freedom from the leash and the confines of the small condo of his master, the animal might do some damage to the passage way. But they weren’t scared for their personal safety having planned their castle with two escape hatches opening at least ten feet away from the main entrance.

     The two had reveled in a golden day of Indian summer with the leaves like so many flambeaux. Early on, they had gathered driftwood, which had washed from who knew where in the high Rockies already covered with their first coating of snow. Crossing the sidewalk to avoid the Big People required careful planning, but years of training and experience had taught them how to avoid if not their enemies at least their adversaries. The sticks of future firewood were now stored away. A few more weeks of harvesting this crop of the river would have the wood room chuck full.

     After lunch, the two had flown over to Sixteenth Street to see the sights and doings of the Big People. Oberon had watched two men playing a good game of chess until Puck, not being a chess aficionado, pulled him away. Oberon at least once a week played chess with Old Casimir. Nobody knew how old he was. Probably didn’t know himself, but everybody knew that he was old. During their last visit the old man had told about the little steamboat that had steamed up and down the river on hot summer nights carrying some of the Big People. Usually somebody would bring a ukulele, a banjo, or a guitar -sometimes even all three. They’d sing songs like LORENA or SHINE ON HARVEST MOON not too well, but it was nice listening to them.

     Oberon and Puck had flitted down Sixteenth window-shopping. Naturally, Puck found a T-shirt he wanted.

     “I’m going to get Esmeralda to make me a shirt like that.”

     “How you going to pay for it?”

     “Oh, I’ll just baby sit Carlos; she’ll be glad to get rid of him for a day.”

     “Let me know ahead so I can escape. I’ll go fishing for minnows so we can have them for supper.”

     “I don’t understand why you don’t like children so. After all, you were once one yourself.”

     ‘’Yes, and I remember what a troll I was”

     “Oh! You were never so bad as Ivan under the Fifteenth Street bridge even before he became civilized. I could never have fallen in love with such a creature.”

     “Don’t try to pull your lovey dovey trick on me. I’m not going to stay around this house all day just to hear you going getchy getchy goo and Carlos shriek every time he wets his diaper which happens far too often.”

     “You’ll leave me to the mercies of Maria.”

     “What’s she got to do with anything?”

     “You know what a racist she is wanting to see that we fairies don’t all die off. Every time I have Carlos over, here she comes telling me that I should have a family of my own.”

     “Just tell her you don’t have the right machinery. With Esmeralda and Abendigo around we don’t have to worry about fairies of any variety dying out, How many kids has she produced?”

     “Lordy, I don’t know. Gave up trying to keep track after number six, the red head. Whenever she brings Carlos over, she let’s me know his name.”

     “What will you do if it’s raining outside?”

     “Haven’t done it in a long time. Go down to the Bale of Hay Saloon and hide up under the eaves. When a drunk comes out, I’ll make myself visible to him.”

     “You know we aren’t supposed to appear to the Big People!”

     “Doesn’t matter. What would you do if you saw a twelve inch fairy while drunk? True, it might scare you away from the bottle, but would you tell anybody about seeing him? Your friends would just say, “He’s finally got the DTs,” and the bar tenders would eighty-six you permanently.”

     “Why, Oberon, you sound like a one man temperance society!”

     “There’s nothing temperate about my trying to escape Carlos.”

     While Puck was cooking supper, Oberon sat in his lounge chair watching the television. Obviously, they couldn’t have a regular set down in their house. It was an Ipod that a Big Person had lost in Confluence Park. The weight was too heavy for them to fly it to their house, so they had lugged it across the South Platte, over Cherry Creek, and then down the sidewalk to their home. Vulcan, who knew most everything about the Big People’s goods, had shown them how to operate the thing. Now it was a part of their lives teaching them much about the Big People. True, the batteries died from time to time. Vulcan had taken Oberon to one of the Big Man’s storehouses and showed him how to get replacements. He had to fly out the door while it was being opened by a customer. Even though they had no money, fairies were not supposed to steal from the Big Men. Oberon paid by washing the upper windows of the storehouse.

     They had already known that the Big People came in different colors. Some dressed differently. Others lived where they couldn’t see the mountains; still others built their houses by really big rivers which had big waves that splashed continually against the bank. Some waves were really big, much taller than any of the Big People.

     After they had started watching the television, they had become almost adept enough to be considered bi-lingual. Every night after cleaning up the kitchen, they sat in their separate lounge chairs and focused upon the flickering figures upon the screen. The two had been following the Gay marriage debate amongst the Big People with a personal interest and an absolute confusion.

     Puck had declared, “I just don’t see what the fuss is all about. When we two joined, the He-She’s didn’t have a tizzie. They just ate, drank, and danced like us, the He-He’s and the She-Shes. Certainly Abendigo and Esmeralda with their ever increasing brood were not affected much less harmed.”

     Oberon joined in with, “I reckon that some Big Men always need something to bitch about. This is even better than most topics because it has nothing to do with them. If any changing has to be done, somebody else will have to do the changing.”

     “Say, I’m out of glitter for my wings and you didn’t remind me while we were downtown. You might think I’m dowdy without a full coat of glitter.”

     “To show you how I feel about your glitter let’s go to bed for a session of He-Heing.”

     They didn’t even put on their night shirts.

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. 

Posted on

My Deepest Passion by Ricky

Forward: I wrote this memory in response to the topic “My Deepest Passions” while I was visiting my brother at South Lake Tahoe in the summer of 2011. He was a terminal cancer patient. I emailed it to our story group leader who read it to the group.

          Prior
to these past weeks my deepest passions were reserved for politics and undoing
the damages done to America since the passage of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments.  At this point in my life,
having lived at South Lake Tahoe these past several weeks, my deepest passion
is for my youthful memories of my life at the lake.  Perhaps you can tell from the four postcards
you should be viewing today and over the next two weeks, if Phillip and Stephen
keep bringing them, as I asked them to share the photos with you all.

          This
morning around 8:30AM, I arrived at Emerald Bay and spent the next 2 hours
taking some photos (none as nice as the post card photos) and reliving my
memories from when I was 10-years old living at the bay and serving as the deckhand on my parent’s 38-foot cabin cruiser tour boat; the Skipalong.  I walked the very short trail to the top of
Eagle Falls (photo op) and then down the steep1-mile trail to Vikingsholm
(photo op) and an additional 3/10 mile trail to the bottom of the falls for
another photo op.  After all that, I
walked the same 1-mile trail back to the parking lot.  The uphill trek seemed like 3 miles instead
of the actual one mile.  I had to take
baby steps to make it in reasonable time and to keep my heart from pounding. 
          I
was surprised at how strong the feelings of regret, past happiness, and longing
that filled me.  Regret for not returning
and staying after my first enlistment in the military; past happiness over the
memories of a 10-year old; and longing for the intervening lost years of
residency.  I visited all the homes I
lived at while I did live at Lake Tahoe (all three of them).  The last one is vacant and amazingly the
entire side of the block my home was on is still exactly as it was when I
left.  It is like living in Central Park
in New York City as the house is the only one on the block and is all open in a few places and wooded in the
remaining).
          Memories
of elementary and high school; working at the county campground; my boy scout
troop activities and campouts; my original desire to be buried in the top of
the mountains to the south at Star Lake; and the time a few of us uninvited scouts went to Idaho
and “crashed” the Boy Scouts’ World Jamboree, are just a few of the memories
that resurfaced.
          The
result of all this is that I really don’t want to return to Lakewood, but I will when my business with my
brother is completed.
I wish you all a great life and lots of creativity in writing or telling your stories. – Ricky

My parent’s tour boat.
Vikingsholm, Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, CA
Eagle Falls, Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, CA

My first home at South Lake Tahoe on Lapham Street.
My second home at South Lake Tahoe on Birch Street.

My last home at South Lake Tahoe on Red Lake Road.

© 29 August 2011

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 his parents obtained a divorce (unknown to him).

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”.