Tag: Phillip Hoyle

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The Accident by Phillip Hoyle

There isn’t just one accident in my story—the story of my life. I’ve already told about tearing a ligament in my foot from my rushing down too many stairs and then falling one evening when going to retrieve a choir folder from my car. I’ve already told about my accidentally plunging over a waterfall in the Black River of New Mexico and the dislocation of my knee in that unfortunate adventure. I’ve already told of other accidents that occurred when I was pushing myself beyond my body’s strength or was involved in some kind of sport for which I was ill prepared. I’ve told about my father’s and mother’s terrifying automobile accident that killed him and left her bedfast for years. Perhaps I failed to write about falling on my head from the hideout in the top of the garage and landing on the concrete. That accident could probably account for any number of oddities in my mental functioning. No wonder I’ve overlooked it.

I wonder what risk assessment experts would make of my accidental life? What would they write up due to my lack of physical coordination, my number of nicks, cuts and bruises? What would they say of my tendency to stub my toes and even fall headlong to the ground when walking through the neighborhood? What scores would they assess over my dislocated knees, my extreme nearsightedness, my advanced astigmatism, my increasing hearing loss. Now a number of the conditions I’ve listed are due to my advanced age, but surely they would note that most of them have been with me throughout my life: my stumbling bumbling awkwardness, my tendency to fall. They may accuse me in this story of exaggerating my disabilities as if I want the government to give me coverage I could never qualify for on the open insurance market, but that is not so. I simply am prone to walk a teetering edge even where there’s no edge and seem to be losing my balance on the flattest of walkways.

I have other risky stories. I’m sure I’ve told you in so many ways about that accident of birth that could be described as being born with a homosexual proclivity. I’ve never regretted that accident or whatever it was. Certainly it would be judged better than being a natural born criminal. So if in this proclivity I am an accident waiting to happen, could it be that risk assessment researchers would say the same thing of my proclivity to feel too deeply in my friendships with other boys in my childhood? And more about similar feelings with men in my adulthood? In these stories their objections are not that I’d so much hurt my body with scrapes and broken bones, but that I’d become unacceptable, unable to get or keep a job, unable to fit in with the majority of the nation’s population. “It’s too risky,” they’d declare. “We won’t cover you.”

My, oh my. God forbid that I might stumble and fall into the open arms of a man who would love me. What an accident to hope for.

© December 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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Veteran of Wars Foreign and Domestic by Phillip Hoyle

A Meditation on Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder

I first met my Vet buddy at a bar during Friday night Happy Hour. Friends that my partner Jim and I meet there had met the Vet a few weeks before. I found my emotions drawing me to this rather dark-skinned Mexican-American man. He was fine looking, shorter than I, with spiky black hair, excellent vocabulary, effective humor, and sparkling dark eyes—all things I tend to find attractive. The talk that evening was superficial, but I did discover he was about my age. Over the course of several months, I learned more. He was reared in a startlingly rough place, had an abusive father, served the US in the jungles of Viet Nam, married after the war, fathered several children, received a college education, divorced over his homosexuality, and had lived several places around Colorado. I was thoroughly enjoying a new friendship with an unusual and intelligent Veteran.

I watched the Happy Hour group in relationship to this intriguing man. He was in and out of the group, sometimes not showing up when he said he would be there. His unpredictability irked some others in the group, placing him on the outer edge socially. I noted his alcohol consumption and its effect. Gray Goose and Mojitos seemed his preference. “No wine,” he’d say. “You don’t give wine to an Indian.” He introduced several other folk to our group: a younger man of great beauty, a middle-age lesbian who seemed quite bright, a male prostitute, and other occasional passers-by. Then there were family members: a sister, her husband, a son, a nephew, a niece and her husband.

When he was absent, I yearned. My mind and feelings and eventually my body reached out for this man. My partner was jealous, angry.

I heard my mojito drinker say:
“I’m not going to his apartment with you two…” He was cautious.
“My granddaughter is so beautiful…” He felt family pride.
“Come to my birthday party…” He extended hospitality.
“Can we meet for coffee? …” He greeted me with openness.
And one night when he was so drunk as to be falling off the barstool, “want you…” desire.

As much as I liked him, I thought, “No way.” Well-defended me, I wanted more of this man but was aware such a relationship would demand treatment with kid gloves in order not to be a disaster for my partnership, the group, and this Vet’s life. I did nothing regretful; my partner and I weathered the feelings.

Still my Vet and I shared a feeling of accord. So we occasionally continued to meet for coffee. We talked, joked, sipped our coffee, and in general developed warm personal feelings without the aid of alcohol. There were phone calls, mostly voice messages, and some email contacts. Ours was a low-intensity courtship of like minds, of disparate life experiences, and of mutual attraction.

In this man I observed traits of:
“An educated culture”
“A pursuit of Aztec identity”
“Alcoholism”

“Disintegration” and
“Pain”

From him, I eventually heard diagnostic words his medics used:
“Depression”
“PTSD issues”
“Disability”
“A change of meds”

I ached with sympathy. Realizing I was privy to information the rest of the Happy Hour guys didn’t know, I carefully and indirectly doled out illness information to keep my Veteran of Wars within the circle.

War. In my years of church work, I had observed how war often defines the spirituality of men who went to war young and became men by becoming soldiers. With my Vet, I saw how war can wreck the physical and psychological health of folk and often does. I saw how its effects bring conflict into families and into one’s broader social relationships. I saw how its traumas amplify the already existing distress of an individual’s life. I realized one can be reared in the war zone of a family and then go to war for one’s nation. My vet suffered the effects of PTSD from wars both domestic and foreign.

We met the other day, my Vet and I, for coffee and conversation. Still something smolders in our relationship, but neither of us moves to fan the flames. We sipped our coffee, talked, laughed, listened, and smiled—no, beamed—at one another. We bear small gifts of concern and love. I hugged this beautiful warrior in parting. I hope the rest of his life will somehow honor the conditions at war within him, helping bring him security, balm, hope, and healing. I’ll continue to offer my friendship and love. What else? “Qué sera, sera.”

© Denver, 2010 



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.com

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The Memory of Words Past: Parts of Speech by Phillip Hoyle

This little
story could be of interest only to writers or to students of aging. Here’s how
it goes.
So at age
sixty-four I have just finished writing a novel, a book of over 50,000 words. I
have been pondering the future of the manuscript and in so doing decided to ask
several people to read it to see if it makes sense, holds together, bores, or entertains.
While waiting for their responses, I’m trying to plan creative ways to reread
it in an attempt to make sure I will not send a possible agent or publisher a
work that seems unpromising. A tactic I learned from my daughter-in-law Heather
is to mark all “to be” words, changing them into something active unless they
present no alternative. My own idea is to check the use of all, uh, what’s the
word? Uh, that kind of word I have sometimes had trouble with. This is awful.
Not only do I have trouble selecting the right one of these words; I cannot
even think of the name for the type of word. Am I losing my mind? That’s not
beyond possibility given my age.
I recall
after doing so well in freshman written composition 101 and sophomore and
junior ancient Greek, I went for years without naming parts of speech or grammatical
stuff even though I was writing on a regular basis. When I entered graduate
school I was surprised that I didn’t have facility with that vocabulary
anymore. When I heard my professors talking about word use, metaphor,
participles, and the like, I realized I’d have to review things I learned in
junior high. And now again, after years of writing daily, I cannot think of
some simple grammatical concept I studied in Latin, Spanish, Greek, French, and
English!
Perhaps I
can discover my lost word if I begin writing about words. So I have noun and
verb, subject and predicate. I know objects, direct and indirect. There are past
and present participles which are verbal adjectives and gerunds which are
verbal nouns. Of course I know conjunctions: how could I ever forget PBS’s
“Conjunction junction, what’s your function?” But I have forgotten the elusive
word that started all this. What is the term for words such as over, under,
above, through, and behind? What is the word sometimes connected with places,
actions, characters, things, and so forth. I want it to begin with the letter c
or p but don’t remember. I do recall how the selection of the correct word has sometimes
seemed a challenge. I can misuse them, thus my impulse to have Heather check them
in my manuscript, but I can’t ask her to since I don’t recall the word. It
would be embarrassing since she teaches writing. I have to get it. Through,
beyond, beside and so forth are examples, but I cannot recall the grammatical
name.
I had a
problem with them in Greek; back then I believe it was because I couldn’t
recall the right Greek word that in English often serves as a prefix, for
example “meta.” Did it mean through or after? See, it still confuses me. I‘ll
work at this and will probably go upstairs to read Strunk and White’s Elements
of Style. Surely that old standby will instruct me. Pronouns, personal pronouns,
articles, modifier, adjective, adverb…. Still the word I’m searching for
doesn’t arise from the grammatical murk of my befuddled brain, but I’ll keep at
my memory quest.
The words
describe the relative position of things. There it is, finally: position; preposition.
I never thought of this, but the word describes its function. It’s the word at
the beginning of a phrase (of course, a prepositional phrase) that tells the
relative position of the expression it modifies. I was pretty sure I could
recall this word, my attempt stimulating the bank of grammatical words and giving
synapses time to connect. I like that. Somehow the recollection of this word
seems hopeful, as in: I still know what I know; I still have a functioning
brain.
A question
of an old person: Could loops in the aging sensory and memory system be analogous
with (is it ‘to’ or ‘with’?) the proliferation of capillaries in the aging
circulatory system? It’s a thought, but I recall I was only twenty-seven years
old when I first realized I couldn’t recall such grammatical terms. That really
surprised me for I had been out of undergraduate school only four years and
worked among college educated middle and upper-middle class folk. In four
years, I neither heard nor made in conversation even one reference to grammar!
This phenomenon of forgetting terms reminds me of my current need to say the
name of a muscle at least once a week or I’ll be unable to find the word when I
am trying to explain something to a client. Now that list of terms I
memorized in my fifties. Should I find that consoling? But lists of words I memorized
in junior high or even earlier and have used for decades? Why should they
disappear? Oh well, I’m just happy they are still available, even if my search
for them takes me into memories and the like. Someday (soon?) I’ll start
forgetting what I’m searching my mind for but hopefully will enjoy tours of my
past as I follow loop after loop through my tiring brain. I hope I find my past
as entertaining to me as I hope my novel will be to others.
© 23 November 2012
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.com
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Long Ago, Far Away by Phillip Hoyle

Many years ago (at least fifty) and far away in the galaxy (at places like Kansas, Texas, Missouri, New Mexico, and Oklahoma) I lived a rational life. Reason guided my decisions, took precedence over desires or fears, led me in ways that served cultural, educational, career, and personal ideals. I followed this rational trajectory, not uncritically, but still in a somewhat ordinary fashion. I lived a good life yet one that signaled caution whenever feelings were on the rise—either mine or those of others around me. Were I to look for a metaphor, I’d certainly have to entertain the notion that I lived a rather Dr. Spockian life, if you know what I mean.

It wasn’t that I failed to experience emotion; I had plenty of feelings. After all, I was reared the only boy with four sisters. As a child I sometimes became so frustrated and angry that I stomped through the house slamming doors and throwing myself on the bed where I either screamed or cried. But before too long I gave up such childish ways and assumed a rational exterior. Then if I were still angry or felt frustrated, I’d go out to the garage and talk to Tippy my beagle. She was a great counselor with unlimited acceptance and constant warmth in my presence. She’d lick away my wounds and allow me to go on with my rational life. So, I grew up pulling in my emotions, always ruled by good manners. When I observed others throwing fits or getting too emotional, I’d evaluate their effectiveness and eventually distance myself.

As a working adult I served as a study of self-control in order to facilitate a group’s process. My work was effective! I watched how someone’s emotions would cloud issues impeding a program’s movement towards some goal, and then, setting aside my own emotional needs, would offer rational and workable solutions. I got along well.

Eventually I was done with all that. My memories of childhood served as my mentors in this change—not just my fits of pique, but my involvement in many childhood activities of play, dance, unstoppable laughter, and running around with my friends. My observations of artists further encouraged me to change. For instance, in a collage workshop, the teacher asked me about what I was doing. I described the “why” of my design. “But I can’t read your piece,” she observed. I wasn’t quite sure what she meant, but her comment pushed me right where I need pushing! I turned to the piece and angrily added the two essential figures that were missing, an older man adoring a younger man. When she came by my table about an hour later, she said, “Now that I can really read.” I was thrilled. I had something to say in my art! Furthermore, this terminal experience opened me to a new level of communication with my wife.

As healthy as that may sound, I realized that my artistic and personal self-indulgences would have the effect of focusing my life away from the groups that had so enriched my first fifty years. Away from my old life focused on church and family I moved to Denver and hoped thereby to learn how trust my feelings and let them lead me into helpful decisions.

I need to clarify. My half-century of life had not gone by without emotional outlets. I was a musician; such an artistic and emotion-filled pursuit allowed me to tolerate all the self-control demanded by the rest of my work. From about age thirty, I also lived with an increasing focus on visual arts and on writing. Finally I sensed I had things to express in both. So essentially at age fifty-one I replaced the loss of music making and self-discipline with wild dancing at Charlie’s of Denver, the Denver Wrangler, TRAX, and Denver BASIX. I employed recorded music of many varieties as a background in my new massage practice. I created collage after collage, painting after painting, works that helped move me along a road of emotional expression. Still, I am in touch with that Dr. Spock part of myself, that careful monitor of feelings and their possible misdirection.

But a few weeks ago, just after recording a Colorado Public Broadcast radio interview of an older and a younger gay man, the journalist/producer asked us if there were revelations in the taping we’d not want to hear in the eventual show. The twenty three-year-old guy said, “No, I’m always careful with what I say.” Then I, the sixty-six-year-old man, said, “Not at all. I’ve spent the past fifteen years learning to say what I am feeling. Use anything you want.”

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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My Favorite Transportation by Phillip Hoyle

The temps climbed, the sun burned through car windows, the air conditioning in my Ford Fiesta made a noble effort to mitigate the early August blaze. We were making our way home from western Colorado, planning one more stop to see my folks in north-central Kansas, thus my choice of a route north of I-70. My wife and kids hated prolonging the return home, but I wanted to see a different road and so followed one of the trails Dad drove years before on treks to and from the Rocky Mountains. Myrna and our two kids wanted no part of the slowdown; they were ready to get back to Missouri and initiate their fall schedules. I was reluctant to return even one hour before it was necessary thinking I should recover from my vacation on work time. As a result, the side trip to Beecher Island amounted to dragging my family off to see an old landmark I’d read about when a teen. I knew its approximate location, so when I spotted the modest sign, I turned north to see what was there.

The gravel road seemed long due to that phenomenon of traveling an unfamiliar road: the way there seems longer than the return since the constant searching for signs slows one’s progress. Sometimes the dust caught up with us, engulfing the car like fog, making my impatient family sure we were wasting time. Finally a sign called for a left turn. We dropped into a shallow valley, and I saw Beecher Island for real, yet a reality that was more than a century from its original state when a troop of US Cavalry ran their horses there hoping to find shelter from bullets of a group of hostile Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors.

Dust and wind had already tired out Myrna, Mike, and Desma; I was thankful that my family humored my odd interest. I wanted to see the stream, the island, the surroundings so I could envision the true state of the story I’d read several times. I’d saved the magazine I’d purchased way back then. I’d read the account in a number of books. I’d already been there many times in my imagination.

Getting out of the car I saw that the island was just a sand bar in a nearly flat landscape. I saw the US military memorial of the historical event: names of soldiers who were killed there listed on a plaque attached to a pile of rocks held together with mortar. Old Glory topped a flagpole waving in the prevailing south-westerly Colorado summer wind. I read the plaque wondering how many other folk had taken the time to visit there that summer. From the looks of the place, I imagined few. I stifled an impulse to knock on the door of the house across the road to find out since I didn’t want to push my luck with my wife and kids.

No ruins remained there for us to see, just an unkempt and weedy park. In my imagination I removed the cluster of trees and restored the buffalo grass. I dug shallow trenches in which the soldiers hid, restored clumps of yucca, soap brush, and sage behind which warriors crouched as they kept the solders pinned. I saw the famous Cheyenne chief Roman Nose with his magical anti-bullet medicine taking the fatal shot like Achilles succumbing to the Trojan missile. I saw a hero die and the end of an era pass.

This Military memorial recalls losses that were part of a larger campaign of US conquest, a grabbing of lands, all seemingly justified even when often in direct conflict with the laws of the land. It’s an ugly story, an old human story. But this memorial is not only a history written by the victors. It’s also a place of grief that represents the traditions, victories, and losses of differing peoples. The winners of the war erected the memorial. The losers were forgotten as if winners didn’t require losers, as if the resolution of that war didn’t need to recognize the people pushed away into permanent poverty and a continuing threat of annihilation. In the skirmish at Beecher Island the Cavalry unit was besieged, eventually the Cheyenne and Arapahoe warriors scattered, repelled by the superior fire power of the newly-issued Spencer repeating rifles of the troops. One account claimed the remains of the chief were found laid out in a deserted tepee several miles from the island. I looked around for such a place even though I knew it would not have been in sight of the island.

Customs differ. I thought about the presence of the White interpretation and was not surprised by the absence of a list of native warriors who died in that conflict. The park had been built but not maintained with much care. Still the bronze plaque held witness to US Cavalry deaths. A few bushes grew near the memorial apparently planted to decorate the place. Beyond the island, on the far sides of the stream grew native cottonwoods and willows that clustered around the water. They seemed to me native mourners of the American Indians who died there, a reminder to the tourist that stories about victories and losses were kept alive in accounts still told in tribal gatherings.

Then I departed in my old car with my now eager-to-get-out-of-there wife and children who patiently had indulged my need. The trip was hardly more than an assertion of a car owner, a traveler, a reader, an Indian enthusiast, a tourist! No one else was really there. Already the trip seemed a lost dream. I realized the trips I’d taken there by reading were actually more satisfying to me, but my run in with the reality of the place served to correct my imagination. Now here I am writing about an emotional moment of my young adult life. Daily now I’m pushed back into literary travel due to my decision no longer to own a car. At least, I travel less by auto and more by imagination these days, and I’m pretty sure memory with imagination offers more. It’s become my favorite mode of transportation.

Denver, 2011

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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Mirror Image by Phillip Hoyle

I want to see myself as I really am and present that in my stories, memoirs, and fictions. 

(My reaction to a line in Stendhal’s The Red and the Black)

A distortion is always present when I assess myself. It’s easiest to see when I gaze in the mirror where the part in my hair on the left appears to be on the right. For the truth of me, I might as well be looking at my image in a carnival mirror. Then the distortion would be maximized. My head might look huge, my legs extra long, and my middle skinny, or in the mirror next to it my head might look like a pin, my torso nearly missing, my legs fat as watermelons, my feet tiny as a baby’s. What’s the truth in these images? Only something to be made fun of. I suppose as a male I could keep moving from mirror to mirror in the side show until I find the one that would maximize my hips and their appendage, turning me into the world’s most hung man. But of course I would not be deluded into believing what I saw there. I’d easily recognize the truth and falsehood of that image. So, what’s the truth in the mirror? It seems an important question. 

I know the question was important in my childhood and teen years for in the bathroom mirror I gauged my growing and maturing. Like a critic I evaluated my changes, comparing them occasionally with the photos from school that provided rather accurate annual points of comparison. I looked for changes but usually noticed the pimples or how skinny I seemed or how my muscles had little shape except for those that defined my legs. I looked closely and proudly at my few new hairs and wondered how furry I might become. I turned this way and that searching for new profiles of my fast-changing body. I watched and thought and wondered at the new feelings, the complications of relationships, and the essence of me. 
I recall the day in my mid-twenties when I looked at myself in the mirror all dressed ready to go to work. That day I realized that I dressed so much like my father as to be scary. That day I also reaffirmed my dedication never to let fat gather beneath my beltline, and I meant it. But in my mid-fifties, I realized I had lost my dedication to that goal or had lost my ability to keep it. I was just too much like my dad. I wonder if the emerging imago of a cicada ever looks back at its drying shell there on the bark of the elm tree it has climbed. 
I still look in the mirror these many years later. I think I could forego the experience if it weren’t for my need to shave. Sometimes I don’t especially like what I see: smaller muscle size, sagging skin, and the like. But often as a teenager I didn’t like what I saw. Perhaps in this way I haven’t changed. I still observe myself, my development. I still study my life and the way I look in it and the way I look at it. 
So I wonder. If the image in a mirror can be so misleading, how inaccurate is any other assessment? Am I prone to believe what others tell me, others who may have something to gain in fooling me? Am I too much like the king in his new clothes, unready for the truth-telling of the uninitiated child who loudly said that the king had no clothes? It’s really not difficult to become so self-deluded. After all even the physical mirror image is inaccurate. As a result I wonder, beyond looks, whose image do I most reflect?
I am somewhat like my father in that I have been crazy about music and deeply dedicated to the church. Eventually I dressed similarly to him—neat but not manipulated by fads or being fancy. Like him I developed a great tolerance of people and openness to them. I too have a heart for the disadvantaged and grew to be at least modestly visually artistic. Like him I seem over-ready to volunteer, even when I know better.
I am somewhat like my mother in that I became a creative planner of educational process, see humor easily, and love to laugh. We both displayed an odd sense of logic and a great tolerance for difference. Like her I too came to think in terms of others’ needs before my own and displayed a high sense of self-confidence.
Seeing young teenaged me in a cowboy hat, one man said I looked just like one of my grandfathers, the one who wore a Stetson. I wondered if his observation was true or simply the impact of seeing me in the hat! Perhaps the assessor had recognized a facial expression he had appreciated in my grandfather. Who knows? I wasn’t an actor and so hadn’t looked at my mood-related expressions. Still I was pleased to be identified with my then-deceased grandpa who had let me ride with him on the tractor, made me gifts, and took me fishing and hunting. I was pleased to be developing somewhat in his image! 
For the past thirteen years I have been working on my image, not to improve it, not to believe it, not to change it, but rather to describe it through memoir and fiction. I’ve run through many notebooks and thrown away many expended ballpoint pens in that task and am still at a loss to grasp so many of my truths. I realize that my perspective is distorted. To find the truth of my life seems impossible. Still I tell my stories hoping that at least someone will be entertained, someone else may gain insight into his or her own experience, yet another may be encouraged to keep living with hope. Memory after distorted memory, story after inaccurate story, experience after not-yet-understood experience I write, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Slowly I am gaining shreds of insight, but I’m most pleased that my stories entertain me! Perhaps they will cause my grand kids to laugh or to wonder or to look lovingly at their own lives.

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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How Did I Get Here by Phillip Hoyle

I never wanted to be a truck driver, but that’s how I got
to Denver. I rented the moving van in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was ending my
conventional life characterized by many years with work and family. I packed up
what was left of my belongings and set out on an adventure, one that continues
to this day.
Denver, the destination and site of my adventure, was the
large city of my childhood. Yearly trips usually brought our family to Loveland
and Estes Park, and sometimes Dad would take us through Denver where he almost
always got lost. The diagonal streets made navigating too tricky. (I sometimes
have the same problem when I’m downtown.) 
Here in Denver I saw my first dinosaur bones, my first skyscrapers, my
first art museum, and the then-new Cinerama movies. I was impressed. The town
seemed pretty clean, full of possibilities, and a place where unusual people
could gather and thrive. I had made quick visits to Kansas City, Missouri, and
Wichita, Kansas, but neither place made a lasting good impression or affected me
where it mattered: issues of art, archaeology, education, and scenery. I liked
Denver.
I had other visits to my favorite big city: an overnight
stay on my honeymoon, annual commutes from Kansas and Missouri to western
Colorado, and, in my forties, short sorties from Montrose into the city where I
stayed with a friend I had met in seminary. Then I often went to the Denver Art
Museum and the Denver Public Library. Both impressed me greatly. I even chose
my two favorite neighborhoods in which I might live should I ever move here.
I spent a short time in Tulsa. There my life really changed.
Things kind of caught up with me resulting in the ends of my marriage and of my
long career. I quit. I thought about where to go, what to do. I decided to move
to a western city and considered Denver, San Diego, and Seattle. My Denver
friend suggested I get out of Tulsa before I got in trouble; I could crash at
his place. His offer solved a few things for me, but mainly promised a place to
live while I found a job. Besides, I knew Denver had adequate public
transportation. So I packed up what things I had after my separation from my
wife and hit the road.
Now driving a truck was a new experience for me,
especially across four states. I knew I’d need a rather large van but didn’t
want one so large I’d be scared on the road. So I started giving away my
belongings—most of my library, music, records, cassette tapes, and even some
CDs. I culled my files and finally threw away almost all of them. I filled
several boxes with books for my kids and grandkids. I rented a big yellow truck,
packed it with what was left, and drove it to Missouri where I unpacked most of
the furniture at my daughter’s apartment.
Matthew, my six-year-old grandson, accompanied me on the
trip. We stopped near Booneville, Missouri, for gas and snacks. Before we
reached Kansas City my young companion was fast asleep. I gassed up at a 7-11
in Topeka, the city where my long-time friend-lover lived. Being so late, I
didn’t call him as I had promised I would always do in the letter I sent at the
end of our affair. I hated breaking this promise, but I had to keep going on
down the roads I’d begun traveling. We stopped at a rest area west of
Salina—the end of the Flint Hills where I was born and the beginning of the
high plains. It seemed a point of demarcation for me. There I realized I was
driving a little truck, so it then
seemed, parked alongside several huge rigs. The contrast helped me realize the
challenges I faced were not as large as I had been thinking. My grandson
awakened briefly. Then we slept several hours before cleaning up as well as one
can in such a place. The day dawned bright and beautiful. We drove west
stopping at high noon in Goodland where we picnicked at a city park. My
grandson ran through sprinklers of icy cold water on that hot summer afternoon
while I sat and then lay on a picnic table under a shelter. I watched his
cavorting, yelled out my encouragement, and enjoyed his display of enthusiasm. I
thought I’d need to be like that kid in Denver, in my new life, playful and in
the moment. At Burlington, Colorado, we stopped at the outdoors museum, a
reconstruction of old buildings. We went to the saloon and ordered root beers.
A young dancehall girl thought my grandson was so cute; he was embarrassed and
wouldn’t answer her questions or even look at her. I wondered what I could
learn from that, perhaps to be true to myself but not without confidence. We
drove a few miles beyond to another roadside park. I had to sleep so got a pad
out of the back of the van and rested on another picnic table. Finally we pulled
into Denver—worn out (I’d slept little in three days) but elated.
Someone questioned whether making so many changes so
radically and in so little time constituted a mental breakdown. I realize my
decisions happened a little late to be a classic mid-life crisis but as an
analytical tidbit, midlife works for me. The themes had been present my whole
life long: my homosexual proclivity, my being a rather parent-pleasing middle
child, my personal understanding of religious realities, my commitment to music
and other arts, my abilities and inabilities to communicate my feelings, and my
sense of individuality (some would call selfishness). Anyway, I had to change,
so I morphed into a person now true to some themes I had kept out of the center
of my life. How I actually got to Denver from Tulsa seemed a symbol of a much
greater change: my yearning for simplicity that resulted in throwing away many
things, those accoutrements of modern life—steady job, salary, husband/wife relationship,
and much more. These thoughts had swirled around my head while I drove west to
my new home.

I unloaded some things into my friend’s apartment. I
loaded the rest into and on top of my son’s van. I was left with clothes, art
supplies, six boxes of books (I’d ridded myself of fifty-four boxes), and one
piece of furniture. I had seriously lightened my load. Finally I returned the
truck to the rental company. And now I’m telling my story like a truck driver,
at times excitedly, milking its entertainment value, but still including its
essential truths. That’s how I got to Denver to begin a new chapter of my life.

© 25 November 2011  


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.com
Posted on

Military Me by Phillip Hoyle

I didn’t serve in the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force,
Coast Guard or Reserves. I dropped out of Boy Scouts after moving up several
classes and earning lots of badges. Although I liked singing in the choir at
Boy’s State I pretty much detested its political plotting, campaigning, and
especially marching. I wasn’t military material; not competitive, obedient, or
strong enough. Still I had a strong military background; I grew up in a
military town, Junction City, a railroad town next to Fort Riley in central
Kansas. I grew up next to where General George Armstrong Custer with his
Seventh Cavalry planned military campaigns against aboriginal folk. I grew up
next to military games of the Seventh Cavalry Armored Division that in my time
featured jeeps, tanks, big guns, infantry, and nighttime flares. I grew up
knowing my great grandfather had worked at three Kansas forts when he first emigrated
here from Germany and that two of my uncles had served in the military. I grew
up in schools peopled with the children of Army officers, GIs, and civil
service employees. I sat in classes with kids who had lived the past three
years in Germany. I attended school with girls who grew up in Europe and spoke
heavily accented English. Daily I heard the chop, chop, chop of overhead
passing helicopters from the base airport. When we drove through the Fort I saw
barracks, parade grounds, war memorials, historic officers’ houses, weapons, and
armories. I saw the PX and the Commissary. 
I went to church with folk from the Fort. I carried out groceries to
cars owned by soldiers. I watched my neighbor polish his boots to the most
unbelievable shine. I got to know his Japanese wife. I shopped in Army surplus
stores, daily walked past GI bars, and on payday night saw lines of enlisted young
men waiting to enter whore houses on East Ninth Street. I saw silk jackets with
wild-looking dragons on their backs brought home from Asian assignments. I heard
stories, saw military parades, and watched as convoys passed by on Interstate 70.
I played Army with my neighborhood buddies using either plastic soldiers or our
own play guns. I viewed endless military newsreels while awaiting my turn at
the Saturday morning gun club in the basement of the Municipal Auditorium where
local police took their target practice, in the same building that housed the
USO. Army was everywhere, even in my imagination, but I couldn’t feature
actually entering the service in any of its forms. I wasn’t a good match.
Dad told me of a worship service when America was on the
brink of war, probably at the onset of the Korean conflict. The preacher that
Sunday had waxed eloquently about the terrible enemy that was threatening our
values and safety. After Dad had turned off the organ, stowed his music scores,
and said goodbye to the choir, he stopped to shake the preacher’s hand.  He asked, “Why is it that preachers preach
peace until the nation is on the brink of war and then preach war?” He said the
preacher got really red in the face, but he didn’t tell me the man’s response
to him, or if he did I have no memory of it. I was fascinated with Dad’s
ability to support and confront, a natural counseling approach he had never
studied. He did so out of a sense of conscience, a tribute I suppose to his
father’s being reared Quaker. His people were thoughtful and honest. Coming out
of high school in the early thirties, he was unable to attend college, but he
was an avid reader, a theologically curious church lay leader, and very bright.
I don’t recall Dad leading me away from military service, but I do remember his
interest that I become a preacher. Perhaps he wanted me to preach peace.
In a Christian Ethics course in Seminary I developed a
great interest in how decisions are really made, at least that’s how I
expressed it. I opined over and over in the class the function of emotions in
moral judgment and action. I criticized our texts that said little about their
roles. I studied extensively in nineteenth and twentieth century philosophical,
theological, and psychological theory of the passions to find out all I could.
The teacher of the course liked to quantify our responses to ethical problems.
“On a scale of one to ten,” he’d say, “where do you place yourself…?” We were
supposed to choose a number. War was one issue. I refused to quantify my
response but, knowing myself, explained that if I were faced with an enemy I
would probably defend myself and my family. Having lived around the military
all my childhood, even without being interested in becoming a soldier, I
realized I’d probably want to defend my loved ones and country in some way. I might
declare myself a pacifist theoretically, but if the enemy was crossing the
border with guns aimed at me, I’d come to the defense. I was pretty sure that my
response would be visceral. Visions of helicopters and jeeps, guns and GI’s
still played out their power in me even fifteen years after I’d moved away from
the Fort. I guess that’s just old military me.
On the other hand I pretty much believe in the sanctity
of all life. Also I can pretty much be a wimp. Maybe I’d argue with myself as
the enemy approached and have no chance to use a gun I don’t know how to shoot,
be run over by an enemy who is stronger than I, or otherwise fight without any
chance of winning. And if I lasted very long, I’d surely wonder “winning what?”
Now that is really old me even though I can still hear the big guns blasting
off in the distance of my childhood. Guess I’d better stick with philosophy.
© 23 Nov 2011  

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.com
Posted on

Feeling Different by Phillip Hoyle


As a young adult in seminary discussions I realized that sometimes students and professors alike didn’t know what I was going on about. A professor would listen to my ideas and respond, “Very interesting, Mr. Hoyle.” I took it he had no clear understanding of my perspective. That was okay, something I had encountered most of my life. I was talking about one of these seminary “interesting” instances with my mentor Katherine Williams. “They must think I’m strange,” I concluded.

“You are strange, Phillip,” she replied without hesitation.
Strange was not new to me. Although I didn’t feel particularly unaccepted or unacceptable as a teenager, I was aware that my sexual yearnings were unusual enough that they could get me into a lot of trouble or at least make my life a problem to other folk. Besides that, I was mildly nerdy but found my niche in music. If any musician fits in, I fit in easily enough singing in church, school and community. I was a reluctant leader in a couple of school organizations. I felt different; I was different: for instance, I didn’t know any other kids my age who organized music groups; I didn’t know very many guys who studied as attentively as I did although I admit I didn’t over-do it; I was physically rather uncoordinated, but not so much as to be made into a fool; I had good humor; I was independent and happy to be so. My feeling different didn’t make me feel particularly bad since I was easily entertained, easy going, and tolerant of groups and different kinds of people. By that time in my life I was reconciled to the fact that I was quite different and that the difference was acceptable to me if not to anyone else.

In college, I felt attracted to three guys: Todd, Dirk, and Chad. Todd and Chad seemed straight. I assumed Dirk was but now wonder if he was bisexual. He seemed somehow attracted to me as if he knew I was do-able. We never went beyond touching disguised as wrestling. Straight Chad was rather needy, and I fell for him. He was the first person I ever lost sleep over. But I was on an earnest straight road toward marriage. After seven years of marriage, I had a one-night stand with a gay friend. Our friendship continued. After nine years of marriage, I fell in love with a man and forged a friendship that after five years added a sexual element. The sex was sporadic, yet the love and interest remained constant.

While living in Albuquerque, a mid-life crisis led me into two homosexual affairs. I conducted these contacts with less care than before as I explored an increasingly gay world. The feelings had changed; my feelings.

Around that time a gay friend said to me, “No one can grow up gay in America without developing some neurosis.” His assertion would mean all gays need psychiatric help. I objected to the notion but then recalled hearing a lecture by a psychiatrist who reckoned ninety per cent of his patients didn’t really need his help. He judged they needed trusted friends to talk with. He laughed at himself saying he was a highly paid substitute friend. The neurosis, if that is the accurate term, subsides when one is accepted in love.

My Albuquerque affairs seemed that to me: the friendships that could sustain me and my sanity. They also were sexual. The first one would never be more than sex play, play I found exciting and that helped me understand so much about my own needs. It afforded the sexual contrast, the complement I desired. The second affair had an emotionally complicated excitement the first did not proffer yet it was sexually boring: the techniques my partner initiated were always the same. I realized sex in my marriage had measures of all these experiences, but the feelings of the homosex offered an amazing contrast. I discovered needs and joys that thrilled me when with these two men. (No, there was never a three-way. Oh well.)


Much of my life I have felt different. I continue to feel different. I’m sure it’s not just because I am gay or that I was always homosexual. It’s the whole package of my life, my different and strange life. I love it. I love myself. I love life.


© Denver, 2011

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
Posted on

Drinking by Phillip Hoyle

Socially speaking—like at most Friday night happy hours—

  • the first beer numbs my lips,
  • the second beer elevates my vocal volume and brings on laughter, 
  • the third beer helps me become very friendly.

Which leaves me wondering about my friend Little T who years ago was so freaked out when, in such a friendly moment, I slid my bar stool in behind his and affectionately put my hand on his shoulder. Within minutes he left the bar all upset. I followed him out to see if he was okay. He claimed to be okay but wouldn’t afterwards answer or return my phone calls. A mutual friend intervened and paved the way for Little T and me to begin talking again. She encouraged him not to turn down a friendship with me and warned me not to call him for a couple of weeks. When Little T and I later talked about the event he said he assumed I was sex addicted like so many other gay men he knew, whereas he was a love and romance guy. I had thought at the time I was playing a love and romance move so to speak. But in the ensuing months of our relationship by getting to know him much better I found out much more.

Little T was addicted to drugs, an assortment of marijuana, mushrooms, and probably more. He had long before given up using LSD, but a couple of years after that reconciliation between us he started using crystal meth with his boyfriend. By then Little T and I had developed a wonderful, supportive friendship sharing our loves of music, literature, and wide-ranging conversation.

Then he disappeared. Finally, several years later he told a friend to give me his phone number. I waited a number of weeks—or was it months?—and finally contacted him to discover he was living out of state. Eventually he moved back to Denver. Of course, I remained understanding in the light of his challenges. I loved the man, still do, appreciate our friendship, and look forward to it continuing many years. I accept his addictive personality. I applaud his quitting the drugs. I want the best for him.

Still when we are together I can get confused. Sometimes Little T encourages me to drink more, even a third beer. I wonder silently, “Don’t you recall the night I so freaked you out? Surely you don’t mean for that to happen again.” I tell myself either he has a bad memory or I am just not going to “go there.” I guess I just don’t know. I do recall another friend, Big T, saying to me, “Oh Phillip, you just aren’t paying attention.” Now I pay attention but cannot for the life of me figure out what behaviors are meaningful enough to respond to. This drinking stuff always seems to leave me uncertain. Perhaps I should just stick to the Coca Cola I was weaned on although they don’t even make that kind anymore. © 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