Tag: Memorial

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Leaving, by Will Stanton / A Memorial

[This is the last posting submitted by Will Stanton.  He passed into history and memories on 1 January 2017.  He is missed. — Editor] 

Leaving

He was diagnosed with
lung cancer in 1991.  We knew the
inevitable end; we just did not know when. 
Each passing day, each passing year, was, in its own way, leaving.  We both understood that.  Some acquaintances told me, “Why don’t you
leave him?”  I would not, not that
way.  I stayed.
I did not cry as a
child.  My mother told me that, and we
both pondered my difference from other children.  Of course, I felt emotion, but nothing seemed
to drive me to tears.  That changed later.  A special someone came into my life who truly
mattered – – – and then left.  It was the
leaving that changed me.  As the famous
19th-century, authoress George Eliot stated,  “Only in the agony of parting do we look into
the depths of love.”
I always have been
sensitive to others, perhaps unusually empathetic and caring.  That increased significantly after his
leaving, both with people whom I knew, and also even fictional characters in
movies.  If, in viewing well presented
stories,  I become particularly attached
to characters who have deep bonds with each other, I apparently identify with
them, at least subconsciously; for, if they part from each other, either in
having to leave or, perhaps, in dying, emotion wells up within me.  Such deep emotion comes suddenly and
unbidden.  When a good person dies,
leaving the loved-ones behind, the emotion catches within my gut.  When loving, deeply bonded people part ways,
never to see each other again, that, too, deeply moves me.  Again, quoting George Eliot: “In every
parting, there is an image of death.”
I admit it: I never have
come fully to terms with reality, with mortality.  And, I’m not like so many who choose to hold
deep-seated beliefs that this world is merely a stepping-stone to a so-called
“better world,” beliefs based upon common indoctrination and, perhaps, upon
fear and hope,  Oh, I don’t mind so much
the afflictions and death of inhuman humans, those whose cruelty and dire deeds
harm others.  But, it is the good people,
the loving people, people who have contributed so much to the betterment of
humankind, whose leaving distresses me. 
I would be so much more content if they (dare I say, “we”?) did not have
to leave.
I understand and feel the
passionate, poetic lines of Dylan Thomas:
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

So, with these thoughts
of mine being presented close to All Souls Day (or in German, “Allerseelen”),
with the cold days of December soon upon us, I prefer my thoughts to dwell,
instead, upon our happier memories of May, our younger days, as expressed in
the final lines of Hermann von Gilm poem, “Allerseelen”, “— Spend on my heart again those lovely
hours, like once in May.”
© 23 July 2016 
About the Author 
I
have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories.  I also realize that, although my own life has
not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy
experiences and, at times, unusual ones.  Since I joined this Story Time group, I have
derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my
stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.
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True Colors – Take a Walk in the Grove, by Nicholas

          I want to tell a story today that involves one of our own,
a member of this group. It’s about a group of people who showed their true
colors in their loyalty to one friend and created a unique space for our entire
community. Along the South Platte River on the edge of downtown Denver, is an
area of Commons Park designated as a spot to remember those who have died of
HIV/AIDS and their caregivers. It’s called The Grove and it is one of only two
AIDS memorial gardens in this country—the other is in San Francisco. Our own
Randy Wren was part of that group that labored for seven years to make it
happen.
          The Grove started with one man’s vision. Doug McNeil knew
of the memorial grove in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and asked, literally
as his dying wish, why can’t Denver create such a spot. Doug died of AIDS in
1993, a time when the LGBT community was focused more on the battle to undo the
infamous Amendment 2 than on the AIDS epidemic. Amendment 2, passed by Colorado
voters in 1992, prohibited any government or government agency in this state
from enacting any provisions to ban discrimination against lesbian and gay
people. (There’s an excellent exhibition on that history outside this door in
The Center’s lobby.) And it was a time of still rampant AIDS phobia.
          A small group of Doug’s friends vowed to carry out his dream
for The Grove. They weren’t the usual gaggle of community activists and
politicos. They included socialites, arts community supporters, an attorney,
and an Episcopal priest. Most were not gay. They organized a non-profit group
called The Grove Project, got 501c3 IRS status so they could collect funds, and
began the long process of taking on the bureaucracy of the city’s Parks
Department.
          The Parks Department never openly rejected the idea but
negotiations dragged on for years. At first, the area in front of the
performing arts complex on Speer Blvd was proposed. The city objected that
theatre and concert goers wouldn’t want to be reminded of the awfulness of AIDS
on their nights out on the town. Another location in a park in southeast Denver
was suggested but that would have left the memorial far from the Capitol Hill
neighborhood that was most affected by AIDS.
          At some point, the riverfront came into the discussion. At
that time, the area was just beginning to be developed. There was a quiet,
somewhat out of the way spot in a new park—Commons Park—that the city was
planning. That fit the criteria of being visible, centrally located and quiet
enough to promote the atmosphere desired.
          The Grove was envisioned to be a natural area for
contemplation. It was landscaped very simply with trees, natural grasses and
shrubs, and some rocks. A simple inscription reads: “Dedicated to the
remembrance of those who have lost their lives to AIDS and to their loving
caregivers who helped them live out those lives with dignity.”
          The Grove was dedicated in a simple ceremony in August
2000. Doug McNeil’s loyal and persistent friends accomplished his dream after
seven years of work.
          Now, The Grove sits largely ignored and sort of neglected
in a recessed corner of Commons Park, near 15th Street and Little
Raven Street. It is surrounded by high priced condos and apartments but it is
still a quiet and attractive area.
          Recently, a movement got underway to renew the spot, clean
it up, refresh the landscaping and, most importantly, make the community aware
that this historical and spiritual resource exists. In recalling all the
individuals who battled, and continue to battle AIDS, we remember how our community
grew from that experience. We remember those we’ve lost. We remember when being
gay changed from just giving the most fabulous parties to a truly mature
community of caregivers and advocates. We remember our past and that we have a
history. A history that is the root of our present and future.
          I encourage everyone to seek out The Grove and spend a few
quiet moments there remembering. And maybe you can help in its renewal. You too
can show your true colors.
© 2016 

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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Memorial to a Friend by Phillip Hoyle

I worked up enough courage to send my manuscript of nine short stories to Winston Weathers, a professor of creative writing retired from Tulsa University. He already had read a couple of the stories and had offered the suggestion that I might write a collection stories about my character Miss Shinti. He thought they could be illustrated with ink drawings. Now I wanted to hear his response to the whole collection I’d worked on for over two years. I looked forward to more advice from this man who graciously encouraged my writing efforts.

I met Mr. Weathers back in 1997, introduced by Roy Griggs, the Senior Minister of the church where I directed the music and fine arts programs. Griggs wanted me to meet him because of my writing, and besides Weathers and his partner of forty years and I and my wife of nearly thirty years lived in the same building. The introduction was a spur-of-the-moment occasion, the two of us stopping by Weather’s condo just minutes after Griggs had phoned him. I met the professor who was also a William Blake scholar and a published poet and had taught generations of writers beginning in the 1960s. The conversation was friendly and revealed an older man, short in stature, with grey hair, horn rim glasses, a full beard, and genteel ways. He greeted me with humor and warmth.

A couple of weeks later Winston invited Myrna and me to come down the two floors to their condo for afternoon tea. We did so and enjoyed his hospitality and conversation, and received as a present his book on Angels that he told us had been reprinted several times and had been translated into several languages. A few months later my wife and I separated; a few weeks after that I received another invitation to tea. This time I met his partner Joseph Nichols, a retired IBM engineer, and glimpsed a fine relationship that had grown rich with age. The men told of their current project of taking a photograph of the sunrise each day for a year. I saw the tripod on their east-facing balcony on the fourteenth floor. They showed me their recently acquired computer and TV service that allowed them to change back and forth from one to the other without even getting out of their easy chairs. I thought about the advantages of partnering with a computer expert. For Winston old-age convenience wasn’t the only advantage. His partner had published the poet’s many chapbooks. I came away from this afternoon tea with one of those chapbooks in hand.

Then there was another invitation for afternoon wine. This time I came home with a volume of short stories and a story about the book. In 1970 Weathers’ collection of short stories, The Lonesome Game, was reviewed in the Literary Supplement of the Sunday New York Times, an honor that is still considered one of the most important things that can happen to a writer. The story about the book was that not one person on the faculty at Tulsa University even mentioned their colleague’s good fortune, not even a comment from the Dean. Winston was sure the lack recognition stemmed from homoerotic references in the book. I read the eleven stories. The homosexuality was so delicately presented that no one in the 1990s would even raise an eyebrow.

Some weeks later I returned to the apartment downstairs. This time Winston congratulated me on my article about a friend who died with AIDS, a short piece that had been published in the church newsletter. A few weeks later I moved to Denver.

Winston and I corresponded. A couple of years later I sent him a manuscript. He responded encouragingly, saying it was publishable as is, suggesting a publishing house, bemoaning that he no longer knew the editors there (a problem of retiring and growing old I assumed), and warning me not to spend the profits before the checks arrived because most deserving manuscripts never get published. Getting published comes from a stroke of luck in timing, he told me, and explained how the process works. He also said he’d be pleased to write a piece for the cover if the book did reach publication. I felt honored and followed his advice sending the manuscript to agent after agent. I spent none of the anticipated income. None ever arrived.

We wrote more, he telling me about illnesses, new projects, and art displays seen at local galleries and museums. I told him of my work, writing, and new experiences. He was the one who told me to turn one of my memoirs into a short story. It had reminded him so much of the kind of stories the New Yorker used to publish. I again followed his advice and turned my focus toward short stories. Eventually I sent him the nine-story manuscript Miss Shinti’s Debut, humorous stories of a miniature poodle who loved to dance.

About a month later the package was returned by his sister with the sad information that her brother had died. The package included a copy of an article written about him. Although I felt sad at his death, I was even more distressed that the obituary didn’t mention his survival by Joseph, his partner for nearly fifty years. I realized how fortunate I felt not to be living in Tulsa. Apparently Winston knew exactly what he had written in his book of stories The Lonesome Game.

In the following months I thought a lot about this man who had so encouraged me and I reread the letters he had sent. In one of his last notes he told of a textbook he had written, An Alternate Style: Options in Composition (1980, Boynton/Cook Publishers), that after nearly thirty years of being published was going out of print. I thought: I want that book, so I inquired at a used bookstore in my neighborhood. Online they found the book and another one. The one I wanted was going for $165; I bought the other one for about $15. (Now the former book new is $568.) Still I searched shelves at second hand stores and the catalogues of libraries. Even though I couldn’t find the book, I Googled his name and found plenty of references to it. I learned that Winston Weathers had introduced what became known as “Grammar Two” and came to appreciate much more about his notable influence on writing and on the teaching of writing. From my searches I gathered ideas for my own literary experiments.

I wonder how I would have responded to him and his advice had I known that he was much more than the nice man downstairs who engaged me in conversation, served me tea and cookies, encouraged me to write, and gave me literary presents. I could have dropped his name in my query letters had I also known he for years had been a literary agent. But would I have redoubled my effort to be a better writer? I worked at that anyway, but surely I would have asked him more questions. I hope he never thought I was uninterested. I continue my life and my writing life always mindful of and deeply influenced by this fine man and neighbor. Far beyond the composition of these few lines about meeting and barely coming to know Winston Weathers, I want all my writing somehow to honor him.

Denver, 2013

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

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Dresden by Will Stanton

The fire-bombing and destruction of Dresden happened close to seventy years ago, in another era, another country, with other people. In raising the subject, many people might respond by saying, “Why should we remember? Why should we care? That was a long time ago and has nothing to do with me or today.”

George Santayana is credited with saying, “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” And, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

By nature, I am a very empathetic person. Hate and violence perpetrated against others, present or past, disturbs me greatly. Also, I have a great appreciation for the good works of humanity; and when they wantonly are destroyed, that, too, concerns me.

Before World War II, Dresden, the capital of German state of Saxony, was known as “The Florence of the Elba” because of its extraordinary beauty. Elaborate Baroque stone architecture was expressed in its churches and cathedrals, its opera house and symphony hall, its university and museums, the choirboys school, its grand manor houses, and in its middle-class homes and shops. This peaceful city was built for living, not for war and destruction. There were no military facilities or industries in Dresden. For that reason, Dresden remained untouched until almost the very end of the war…almost.

In a statement by J.M. Spraight, Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry, he stated the following: “Charles Portal of the British Air Staff advocated that entire German cities and towns should be bombed. He claimed that this would quickly bring about the collapse of civilian morale in Germany. Air Marshall Arthur Harris agreed, and when he became head of R.A.F. Bomber Command in February 1942, he introduced a policy of area bombing where entire cities and towns were targeted. We began to bomb objectives on the German mainland before the Germans began to bomb objectives on the British mainland… Because we were doubtful about the psychological effect of…the truth that it was we who started the strategic bombing offensive, we have shrunk from giving our great decision of May 11th, 1940, the publicity it deserves.”

Ironically, an in-depth study after the war indicated that, had the Allies concentrated strictly upon military-related targets, the war could have been ended several months earlier, saved thousands of lives, and avoided the devastation of civilians’ towns and cities. Despite these facts, Harris was convinced that bombing civilian populations was the best way to win the war.

The bombing tactic developed by the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Corps was the creation of fire-storms. This was achieved by dropping incendiary bombs, filled with highly combustible chemicals such as magnesium, phosphorus or petroleum jelly (napalm), in clusters over a specific target. After the area caught fire, the air above the bombed area, became extremely hot and rose rapidly. Cold air then rushed in at ground level from the outside, and people were sucked into the fire. The Allies first tested this concept over the city of Hamburg. The resulting fire-storm created tornadoes of fire. Even the civilians who jumped into the river burned. Harris considered the test to have been a success.

By February, 1945, the war was almost over. The Allies were closing in from the west and the Russians from the east upon what remained of Germany. So far, the non-military city of Dresden was untouched.

It was at this point that Winston Churchill, the British Air Marshall (who became known as “Bomber Harris),” and his staff, decided that the Allies should make, shall we say, “a statement” by demonstrating their power to obliterate an entire, previously untouched city. It has been said that this decision so near to the end of the war was based partially upon revenge for bombing the British munitions-producing city of Coventry. Perhaps more importantly, it was to choose a previously undamaged city to demonstrate to Stalin and the Soviet armed forces, who rapidly were moving west across Germany, that the western contingent of the Allies was very powerful and could obliterate an entire city. The Soviet Union, therefore, would see the West’s determination to finish off Germany and also that the Russians should think twice about occupying lands too far to the west.

David Pedlow, in a letter to The Guardian (14th February, 2004), wrote about a rather revealing scenario supporting the fact that the bombing of Dresden was no militarily strategic objective. He stated, “My father was one of the…R.A.F. meteorological officers (who) finally sealed Dresden’s fate…The Dresden briefing was only one of many that he routinely attended, and even before the crews left the ground, he was troubled because of one notable omission from the routine.

Normally, crews were given a strategic aiming point – anything from a major factory in the middle of nowhere to a small but significant railway junction within a built-up area. The smaller the aiming point and the heavier the concentration of housing around it, the greater would be the civilian casualties; but given that the strike was at a strategic aiming point, those casualties could be justified. Only at the Dresden briefing, my father told me, were the crews given no strategic aiming point. They were simply told that anywhere within the built-up area of the city would serve.

He felt that Dresden and its civilian population had been the prime target of the raid and that its destruction and their deaths served no strategic purpose, even in the widest terms, that this was a significant departure from accepting civilian deaths as a regrettable but inevitable consequence of the bomber war, and that he had been complicit in what was, at best, a very dubious operation.”

The British Royal Air Force, with the assistance of the United States Army Air Corps, chose to bomb the historic Dresden in six raids over three days and nights [13th, 14th, and 15th] during February, 1945. The four British raids over Dresden, followed by two American raids, consisted of 3,600 bombers and other planes, 650,000 incendiaries, plus over 6,000 tons of explosives. The high explosives and incendiaries resulted in a raging firestorm that sucked all the oxygen out of the city, suffocating the citizens hiding in basements. Those above ground were incinerated or crushed by falling buildings. The bombing completely destroyed seventeen square miles of the historic city and damaged many additional square miles surrounding the city center.

At first, apologists for the bombing claimed that the obliteration of Dresden was a “navigation error” – – over a three-day period. Later, some claimed that the bombing was necessary to take out military targets, although the only minor, war-related facilities were far from the city. Those facilities remained untouched by the bombing and are intact to this day. They also claimed that “only 50,000 civilians” were killed in the bombing and resulting firestorm; however, this figure ignores the fact that 300,000 refugees recently had fled to Dresden for safety, knowing that the city was a non-military location and that the war was almost over. More accurate estimates range far higher with additional tens of thousand of souls lost in the devastation. This included eleven of the church choirboys and their school.
Dozens of photographs were taken of the aftermath of the firebombing, many of them, such as mountains of dead being burned in the streets, too horrifying and gruesome to view without being emotionally shaken. The most poignant, haunting picture that I’ve seen is the charred remains of a nine-year-old, blond boy clinging to his dead mother.

Ironically, there were American prisoners of war in outlying areas of Dresden at that time. Fortunately, some of them survived the bombardment by taking refuge in the basements of homes. My family had a friend who had been an American POW and survived the bombing in that manner. He mentioned that, by the end of the war, Germany had lost so many adult soldiers that mere boys had been assigned to guard them. Also held with him and the other soldiers was Kurt Vonnegut who, as a now-famous author, wrote about his Dresden experience in his 1969 book “Slaughterhouse Five.”

American soldiers were recruited to carry the dead to the burning grounds. Many were found seated in basements and shelters, dead from carbon monoxide and lack of oxygen. Many others were burned beyond recognition. Kurt Vonnegut later reported, “American prisoners, at first, were ordered to move thousands of bodies to pyres for burning (of which there are photographs); however, there were so many bodies that they were provided flame-throwers to burn the bodies just where they lay, turning them into ash and, therefore, no longer identifiable as human remains. Thousands of the dead likely were refugees and not listed on resident rolls, making almost impossible estimation of the final tally.”

Otto Sailer-Jackson was a keeper at Dresden Zoo on February 13th, 1945. He recalled being at the zoo when the bombing occurred. “The elephants gave spine-chilling screams. The baby cow elephant was lying in the narrow barrier-moat on her back, her legs up in the sky. She had suffered severe stomach injuries and could not move. A…cow-elephant had been flung clear across the barrier-moat and the fence by some terrific blast-wave, and stood there trembling. I had no choice but to leave these animals to their fate…We did what we had to do, but it broke my heart.”

The famous stone-domed cathedral Frauenkirche stood for just one day after the bombing; however, the heat from the fire-bombing was so great that it turned the stone porous. The cathedral collapsed the following day.

Because Dresden had no food and little shelter, our friend and the other Americans were marched north, out of the ruins of Dresden. Years later, our friend returned to Dresden and found the very same house in which a German lady had protected him. He knocked upon the door. An elderly lady answered, looked at him, and then broke into a broad smile. She remembered him.

In addition to the destruction of the city itself, great works of art and other prized creations made by human hands were destroyed. Also, sitting on a railroad siding was a whole train-load of valuable artwork that had been brought there for safe-keeping. The “Florence of the Elba” was no more.

After the war, Churchill began to back off from previous statements about the supposed necessity of bombing Dresden, whereas Harris continued to defend the decision. Suspicion concerning that decision grew even among the British public. Partially for that reason, Harris moved to South Africa and lived there from 1946 through 1953. No special medal was offered to the crews who flew the Dresden missions. Whereas a statue of the war-time supreme commander of the R.A.F. was erected soon after the war, no such statue of Harris was considered until several decades later.

Despite protests from Germany as well as some in Britain, the “Bomber Harris Trust” (an R.A.F. veterans’ organisation formed to defend the good name of their commander) erected a statue of him outside the R.A.F. Church of St. Clement Danes, London, in 1992. It was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, who looked surprised when she was jeered by protesters, one of whom shouted, “Harris was a war criminal.” The line on the statue reads, “The Nation owes them all an immense debt.” The statue had to be kept under 24-hour guard for a period of months because it was often vandalised by protesters. Apparently, some people do remember, and they do care.

© 21 December, 2013

About
the Author 


I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

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Fondly Remembering Bernice by Donaciano Martinez

In a recent email message addressed as “Hello Manuelita” (my alias in Colorado’s underground gay subculture in the late 1950s and 1960s), I was notified that my friend Bernice passed away on January 13 from complications of high blood pressure following one or more strokes that caused extreme brain pressure for which doctors tried to relieve through surgery.

When I first met Bernice (alias in the gay underground subculture) in Colorado Springs in the 1960s, he was a teenager who had dropped out of high school and was studying to get his cosmetologist license from a beauty school that was located in the same block as the Chicano bar where my mother always worked ever since I was a little boy. Because the bar and beauty school were in the same block in downtown Colorado Springs, my mother and Bernice became acquainted long before I met Bernice. Upon talking to me in Spanish about him, my mother always referred to him as “Juanito” (little John) for his real name John.

After Bernice and I finally met, we immediately knew through our gay radar that both of us were gay. An effeminate gay man, Bernice had a great sense of humor and was fun to be around. Oh, my goodness, he could carry on during our many all-night social gatherings. The famous and outrageous drag queen Divine couldn’t hold a candle to the wit that Bernice had upon carrying on and on – everything from “Ooh La La” to “muchas meat” to refer to well-endowed men with whom he did the nasty. Shortly after I introduced him to several gay men in the underground subculture, he and my longtime friend Lolita (alias for Ricardo) became lovers. Because Bernice was estranged from his family and needed a place to stay, he stayed at my mother’s place for a while before moving in to a bigger house owned by Opal and her gay son Jerry.

My Chicano gay friends and I referred to him as “La Bernice” whenever we socialized. After getting his cosmetologist license, he got jobs in that profession at various beauty shops around town. My longtime Chicano gay friend Lorena (alias for Lorenzo), Bernice and I had a “night job” working for about one year as performers at a straight bar (of all places) that was patronized predominantly by straight military men from Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. Because drag was against the law in those days in the 1960s, we had to be extremely careful to conceal our male identities on stage and off stage. I was the choreographer of the many dance routines that Bernice, Lorena and I performed on stage at that straight bar located in the city’s extra-conservative district known as Ivywild adjacent to the super-wealthy district of Broadmoor. Yeah, I know, it was quite daring for us to do something outrageous right in the belly of the beast.

Because our performances at the aforementioned straight bar were risky enough, I was downright aghast when Bernice informed me that he was hired to perform as part of a chorus line of real-women dancers at the Purple Cow Bar (PCB) that was located at the entrance to the military base at Fort Carson. In addition to his day job as a “hair fairy” (gay parlance for cosmetologist), he worked his night job at PCB for over a year. Because he was so convincing as his female persona, his male identity never once was uncovered throughout the entire time he worked at that super-straight PCB.

Bernice is the one who introduced me to the military police officer with whom I had a very clandestine three-year-long relationship while I was a radical activist in several movements for social change. Because that was the era in which the U.S. military had a strict anti-gay policy, my partner’s position as a police officer required him to take special precautions while living with a radical activist who opposed the military draft and the U.S. war in Vietnam. We were keenly aware that any slip-up about our gay relationship would have resulted in my partner getting a dishonorable discharge and facing time in the stockade (military parlance for jail).

When Bernice moved away from Colorado Springs to the San Francisco Bay Area and later relocated to a peaceful rural area on the island of Maui in Hawaii, he always made an effort to keep in touch with me. He was a loyal friend to me and others who knew him down through the years. In addition to letters and cards several times a year, he also sent me wall calendars that were handmade by him. One year, he sent me a handmade colorful trinket that still hangs on the wall in my bedroom.

“If it wasn’t for John Henson, I don’t know what I would do,” wrote Bernice in letters to me about several health challenges he had the last few years of his life. Bernice always told me how he deeply appreciated the many efforts that John Henson (formerly of Colorado Springs in the 1960s, he has been a California resident for many years) made to fly to Maui in order to assist Bernice during periods of poor health. Their longtime friendship spanned six decades.

“After all he has been through, it is surprising that blood pressure was his downfall,” wrote John Henson in his “Hello Manuelita” email letter to let me know about the death of our beloved Bernice. “He will be missed,” added Henson upon expressing a sentiment that captures my own.

© 29 January 2014   


About the Author



Since 1964 Donaciano Martinez has been an activist in peace
and social justice movements in Colorado. His family was part of a big
migration of Mexican Americans from northern New Mexico to Colorado Springs in
the 1940s. He lived in Colorado Springs until 1975 and then moved to Denver,
where he still resides. He was among 20 people arrested and jailed in Colorado
Springs during a 1972 protest in support of the United Farm Workers union that
was co-founded by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. For his many years of
activism, Martinez received the 1998 Equality Award, 1999 Founders Award, 2000
Paul Hunter Award, 2001 Community Activist Award, 2005 Movement Veterans Award,
2006 Champion of Health Award, 2008 Cesar Chavez Award, 2013 Lifetime
Achievement Award, and the 2013 Pendleton Award. La Gente Unida, a nonprofit co-founded by Martinez, received the
2002 Civil Rights Award. The year 2014 marks the 50-year anniversary of his
volunteer work in numerous nonprofit situations.

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Memorials by Gillian

In the UK there is an expression, the Fortunate Fifty, referring to only fifty villages in the country, which did not lose even one man to the horrors of the First World War. Every other village has a war memorial, portraying a long list of those from the village killed in World War One, with a sad addendum below of those killed in World War Two. The second list is, thankfully, usually much shorter than the first.

The First World War was one of the deadliest in the history of mankind, with estimates of total deaths ranging from ten to fifteen million. In small villages it was so devastating because at that time all the men from the village served together, and frequently died together, so in many cases a village’s husbands, sons, brothers, sweethearts and neighbors all died on the same day, leaving the village essentially bereft of an entire generation of young men.

I was walking past one of these ubiquitous memorials one day, in some village in the north of England, I don’t even remember where I was or why.

Tudhoe Village War Memorial, United Kingdom
Photo by Peter Robinson used with permission.

I glanced at the tall granite pillar with the usual almost unbelievably long list of names, and an old farmer shuffled up to me. The tip of his gnarled old stick bumped down the names engraved in the stone.
“Aye, but we showed the buggers!”

He stabbed his cane at the more recent list below,
“And then we showed the buggers again!”
He stomped off with evident satisfaction.

My mind turned to those old, grainy, jerky, black and white films taken in the trenches.
Did that young man, so fresh from his father’s farm, now lying in agony over the barbed wire of no-man’s-land, gasp with his dying breath,

“Aye, but we showed the buggers!”

I doubt it.
Nor, I imagine, was it the last thought of the pilot of that Spitfire, plummeting to the ground in flames; he too injured to bail out.

In the nineteen-fifties I was on a train crossing northern France. We passed rows of identical white crosses. For miles and miles, they flowed up the hillsides and into the valleys. I had never seen such a sight. Nor have I since, come to that; just some of the countless dead of the First War. A French couple in the seat across from me waved their hands and jabbered animatedly. My French wasn’t good enough to get it all but I got the gist; a French version of,
“Aye, but we showed the buggers!”

When I spent some time at a volunteer job in St. Petersburg a few years ago, my young interpreter took me to the Siege of Leningrad Piskariovskoye Memorial Cemetery. Half a million of the estimated 650,000 people who died during the 900-day blockade, are buried here. From 1941 to 1944 the population, cut off from supplies and constantly bombarded by planes and ground guns, starved to death.

There are heartbreaking photographs from that time, and stories which my escort, visibly puffed up with patriotic pride, translated for me. Of course she had not even been born then, neither come to that had her parents, but that fervor burned from her eyes.
“Mother Russia will never give in!”

I pictured the starving mother, huddling in the corner of the cellar in the bitter cold of a Russian winter, cuddling her starving children. Did she feel that? She, and the other 650,000, were given no choice.
Katya was waving a dramatic arm and saying something in emphatic Russian.
Clearly some approximation of, “Aye, but we showed the buggers!”

It never fails to sadden me, this surge of patriotism that seems to overtake so many people, of any generation and gender, when contemplating memorials. How will we ever see an end to the need for memorials for the war dead, when, instead of shedding sufficient tears to make Niagara look like a trickle, we continue our attitude, in any language, of,
“Aye, but we showed the buggers!”

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.