Tag: SAGE of the Rockies

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Finding Your Voice, by Phillip Hoyle

I started out a soprano. Then on Sunday nights at church I decided to harmonize as an alto and learned to read the line and sing the part. When my voice cracked too many times in Glee Club, I became a tenor. I stayed with that for many years. Since I was a choir director, I learned to sing all the parts, SAT and B. In the choirs we worked hard to increase everyone’s tone and range using techniques I learned from one of my voice teachers. If a section was weak on a Sunday morning, I could bolster them with my own screaming. It may have horrified some people. Who knows? 

Finding my voice as a writer was another story, one that didn’t depend on timbre or range. In fact the discussion of that concept goes on. I developed a terse style for use in academic writing. I had to warm it up it for the church newsletter and did so with a little bit of success. When I accepted contracts for writing curriculum resources I got more at home with addressing volunteer teachers. The reading level for them was eighth or ninth grade. Writing for students of different ages was more fun and challenging. That work served as my introduction to creative writing. I experimented but still don’t know that I actually developed a voice. 
When I started writing for myself, I tried for something consistent and my efforts seemed to help. But I believe I didn’t really find my voice until I had written a couple of years of weekly stories for this Telling Your Story group. Meeting that weekly goal and encouraging others to do the same, telling stories to almost the same people each week, and having an appreciative audience and being a part of this group did something for my sense of voice. I like the entertainment part of that work that reminds me so much of talking with a group of children on Sundays during many years of church work. Sometimes I made up the stories on the spot and encouraged the children to help me tell them. That got me started. Many years later I feel like I have a rather consistent voice and am happy to share my many stories with you. Mostly they are accurate to the extent of my ability to recall, but you know how that goes with the years stacking up, hearing reducing, and eyesight dimming. I appreciate that the story telling group allows me to speak whatever my voice is, found or not.
Thanks for listening, or on the blog, thanks for reading. 
© 23 October 2017

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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Assumptions, by Phillip Hoyle

The professor said to her students, “I don’t so much care about what you conclude as I do about what you assume.” She went on to explain that two people cannot actually discuss any issue until they discover what assumptions they share. If they do not have enough assumptions in common, they actually have nothing to talk about. For her, assumptions were at the heart of any matter.

Early in my church-related career I learned a process called Strategic Planning. It began with defining your goal. That would be the picture of what you hope to accomplish. The second step was to write out your assumptions about the project. Such assumptions might have to do with your own ideas that lay behind the goal and objectives, those of others who might be involved in the project, the available resources, and so forth. In group planning this look into assumptions might be brainstormed. That part would give the group a look at whether there was any hope for the goal to be pursued to its end. Sometimes the assumptions are not in accord enough to keep the group together. I used that process regularly in my work, and as a result amassed quite a number of files describing the assumptions that I held or assumed participants might hold. Those files went to the trash bin outside the church building when after thirty years I left that work.

My most recent use of this process me occurred a number of years ago when I was recruited to lead “Telling Your Story” at the GLBT Center of Colorado. I had been in the group for a few months and thought I had better clarify my own assumptions about my participation, what I had observed about other participants, what I had picked up from the originating leader, about how the setting would affect the group, about the meeting time, about the Center’s interest in the project, about the elder aspects. I wanted the program that I had found to be significant to keep working well for me and for others, and I wanted to clarify for the SAGE program director what to expect from me. I asked the director to review my assumptions about Participants, the relationship of the group to the Center, and the process of storytelling.

One past SAGE director suggested one important assumption, saying it was better to come to a group on Monday afternoon than to stay alone in one’s apartment drinking. I suppose that would come under the category Assumptions about Participants.

Not long after that assumption was shared, another one surfaced from a “Telling Your Story” participant. He assumed that we would want to publish our stories. I’m still chewing on that idea and doing a lot of work.

There was another assumption, one I thought better and truer. When I told my artist friend Sue that we weren’t an activist group, she said, “Phillip, anytime you get a group of Senior Citizens to tell the stories of their lives; that’s activism.” Her perspective came from working several years in a Senior’s living and care center. I suspect we haven’t yet covered all the assumptions possible. Perhaps these last few assumptions are more points of view related to what we have accomplished together as a group.

© 27 March 2017

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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Choices, by Ray S

  
Never had
to make a choice or decision because my mother always did that for me. That’s
what mothers do.
The US
government decided I was draftable like all the other boys my age in 1943.
Faced with making a choice as to what branch of the service would want me, it
resulted in a trip to the US Army Air Corps office and enlisting in their air
cadet program. It seemed the best choice of all evils and besides I didn’t think
I’d fit nicely into a tight white sailor suit.
Footnote
here: Can you imagine me flying an airplane? I couldn’t even drive a car then.
The Air Corps was making all of our choices now having replaced Mama. As good fortune
would have it, the cadet program was oversubscribed, so the powers that be (or
were) scattered all of this wet behind the ears pubescent material to the
winds. The talented ones went to aircraft mechanics school.  The rest of the class members, having
finished basic training in the wilds of Gulfport, were shipped off to a
military police contingent where they were assigned to 11 pm to 7 am guard
duty. Here we could reflect on our recently basic training that had taught all
of the little boys how to be good little soldiers, drink beer, smoke
cigarettes, strip down and reassemble a carbine, report on parade grounds at 6
am dressed only in your issue raincoat for “short arm” VD inspection (and he
wouldn’t show us his), learn the intricacies of KP duty, and checking the
scenery in the barracks shower.
Eventually
through discovery, familiarity, or unknowing choices, the appearance of latent
libidos or the right time and the right place, this boy found out what people meant
by the pejoratives “queer” and “fairy.” However there was a conscious effort
called ‘in denial’ to not own those words openly for some thirty to forty years
hence.
Dating and
girls:
It was a
blind date that never ended until she delivered an ultimatum. The morning of
the wedding the butterflies kept saying, “Do you really want this?” But, the
die was cast, no choice, just make the best of it — for fifty-five years. And there
were many good times and some not so good.
Is chance a
choice or is choice a chance? A sunny day in June, crowds gathered at Civic
Center Plaza, and I chose to hang out on the perimeter of all the action
observing what PRIDE was all about.
Another
CHOICE, after all of this time it was becoming easier—attending a SAGE of the
Rockies conference. Meeting and learning to know there was a place for me in
this beautiful tribe; and I belonged. Knowing I could reach out and love freely
and openly. Finding I finally could come out of a closet I had lived in all of
these years. I realize now that I might be the only person that didn’t know or
suspect I was and am queer—in the most positive sense. My closet like many
others suffered from structural transparency.
Now I am
faced with another CHOICE. Trying to determine is this ‘indiscriminate love’ or
‘unconditional love’ that I feel for all of you; and is there really that much
of a difference?
© 11 July 2016 
About the Author 
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Where Do We Go from Here? by Ricky

In the beginning was The Center. Within The Center lived The SAGE. The SAGE was troubled for there were many senior citizens who wanted to speak out and share their wisdom with anyone who would listen, but their efforts to speak were thwarted due to sheer randomness of contacts and little opportunity to share their wisdom. So there was much listlessness, lack of purpose, and frustration in the senior community. The SAGE was not happy with the situation, but knew not what to do. One day, Jackie Foglio, a young female college student, came to visit The SAGE and presented a plan to help the senior community organize to share their wisdom. The SAGE recognized value in the proposal and sanctioned the formation of a group-program to get the senior community to share their wisdom and history with others – and so it began.

It started in another place and later continued in a small room near this room six years ago. The first seniors to gather were very few in number and all male. In fact, there were more words in the room than people doing the speaking. The spoken words described personal memories of each senior’s life related to a topic used to trigger the memories of each senior.

At first, spoken words were all that was necessary but all such group efforts evolve with time. Eventually one person after another chose to prepare their spoken words in advance, writing them down on paper to ensure clarity and to maintain focus on the memory inspired by the topic.

After a relatively short time, women began to join the group. What a positive impact that had!

As time progressed, the quality of the writing improved for most seniors attending the group. It was also decided that the group was neither to become a “writers group”, teaching seniors how to write better, nor to be critical of another’s writing. Once again evolution happens and now many words are straying from personal life memories and occasionally delving into topics which have nothing to do with one’s own life.

In 2011 I joined the small group of seniors in the small room near this one. I discovered that writing my story was to be preferred as I am prone to either ramble or forget parts. I also found that either telling or writing my memories to be very therapeutic, especially since I’ve been in the “coming out” process since October 2010. I believe some others in this group are experiencing the same.

Soon after joining, I began agitating for an idea that had previously been discussed but nothing had come of it – publishing our stories. I suggested a small paperback book for The Center to use as a “thank you” gift to financial donors. A lack of funding cancelled out that option. Eventually, The SAGE and The Center, decided to host our stories on their website and our group’s blog began.

As the size of our group grew, so did the number of submitted stories to the point that every author would have at least one story each month. Sadly, as some seniors have left the group and other seniors joined, the volume of submitted stories to the blog has greatly diminished. There are a few legitimate reasons for this that I will not list here, but the net result is that the blog now represents basically five group members. This is not sustainable in the long term as we do not have all the wisdom and experience that this group of seniors collectively has.

Group dynamics and evolution are still operating. Since the beginning, our group has added a strong social component to the story telling purpose. So I ask, “Where do we go from here?” or perhaps I should ask, “Where are we heading? Where should we go from here? Do we want to keep the blog? Will you all support the blog by submitting stories?” In my opinion, the answers to these questions will determine not only the future of the blog but also of the group itself. Please give it some thought.

© 11 January 2016

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