Tag: Texas

Posted on

Eavesdropping, by Gillian

I say the days of
eavesdropping are over. Like so many other things, it is obsolete; extinct.
Voices yell intimacies into smartphones, while people’s every thought, word,
and deed, flood from Facebook and Twitter. We have entered an era more of anti-eavesdropping;
of trying not to hear the intimate details of everyone’s life; their
every opinion. Not long after the last Superbowl a friend and I met for lunch.
The business- men at the next table were so raucous in their analysis of the
game that we had to move to another table. Next to that one, two women talked
incessantly, almost as loud as those men, not to each other but into their
phones. Eavesdropping, if you can even use the term, has become obligatory.
As a kid, especially
being an only child, I loved to eavesdrop. I recall clearly one conversation on
a bus. The young couple in the seat in front of me had a very emotional, if
whispered, argument over whose fault it was that the girl was pregnant. I got
quite an education. The last time I rode a bus, which actually was to get to
Cheesman Park for the start of this year’s Pride Parade, a young guy yelled
abuse into his iPhone the entire trip. Apparently, his girlfriend was pregnant,
and, very apparently, he was displeased. He repeatedly called her a ‘fucking
stupid bitch’, occasionally switching to ‘stupid fucking bitch’, which seemed
to exhaust his vocabulary. I really didn’t want to hear it. I hurriedly shoved
in my earbuds and turned on my iPod. Definitely we are in the
anti-eavesdropping era.
I was first taught to
eavesdrop by my parents. They listened constantly to Mother Nature, who never
stops talking. Through them, I learned to relish birdsong, which of course is
eavesdropping. They aren’t singing to me – they sing to each other, or perhaps to
themselves simply for the glory of the welcome light of morning. Mum and Dad
taught me to listen to the whispers of the wind in the trees, or the howling of
it against the window panes, and to know what it meant for tomorrow’s weather.
From my aunt, and later from a wonderful teacher in high school, I learned to
listen to the whispers of the rocks. They also never stop talking, but oh so
quietly. If you can manage to hear them, they tell the amazing history of our
planet, and they tattle-tale on Mother Nature herself. They give away her age.
As far as our planet is concerned, at least, she is middle-aged; half way
between birth and her life-expectancy of nine billion years. The rocks tell us
that dinosaurs once roamed right here, where we sit this Monday afternoon. (Not
exactly here, on the second floor, but you get my drift!)
But there’s something up
with old Ma Nature. She’s not as quiet as she used to be. Her whispers became
louder. Over the more recent decades she has begun not only to talk out loud but
even to shout. She knows something. She wants us to know. But we don’t listen.
We are well into the
anti-eavesdropping era.
We really don’t want to
hear it.
We put on our headphones
and turn up the music.
Mother Nature is
desperate. We must hear her. She will be OK, as will the planet, at
least for another five billion or so years, but we must save ourselves.
She tosses tumultuous tornado swarms at us to wake us up, and hurls humongous
hurricanes to get our attention. We ignore her. In 2003 as many as 70,000
deaths in Europe were attributed to record heat. In June last year London hit
it’s highest temperature on record, at 103. TV shots showed train tracks
buckling in the heat. But this July as I tried to watch the tennis at
Wimbledon, (I say ‘tried’ because it was rained out day after day) London was
treated to the wettest month on record. Last year’s heat waves in India,
Pakistan, and parts of South America broke all records. Australia has had to
add new colors to weather maps to accommodate temperatures never experienced
before. Climate craziness.
2015 also brought heat
records to Alaska and parts of the American southwest. Meanwhile we recently
had record rainfall in China, and across this country from Texas to Washington
D.C.
And still we hear nothing.
Mother Nature might as
well be silent for all the attention we pay.
Flames roar from the
forests on every continent. Even as I write this, sitting on the patio, I smell
in the air the smoke from the Boulder County fire. Another fire blazes on
Hayden Pass, Colorado, which they do not expect to contain before October.
Mother nature absolutely
screams.
Still we do nothing.
A few years ago,
residents of several Polynesian nations banded together in a desperate attempt
to get the world to care about their islands, which were, and of course still
are, disappearing into the Pacific. In their traditional hand-hewn wooden
boats, they temporarily were able to block the mouth of the Australian harbor
from which a huge coal-ship was ready to leave. The coal was destined for the
huge hungry mouths of the Chinese coal-fired energy plants, whose energy goes
to fill the huge hungry mouths of the endless factories producing goods for the
endless huge hungry mouths  of the world’s
insatiable consumer appetites. Don’t blame Australia. Don’t blame China.
There’s plenty of guilt to go round. We are all guilty. I still drive my car,
and occasionally I fly on a plane which is exponentially worse for the
environment. Those south-sea islanders get it. It’s in your face down there;
quite literally. When that beautiful blue ocean which once lapped at your feet,
starts to slap you in the face, you get it.
Hopeful-sounding treaties
are signed every now and then, after endless wrangling, but always making
agreements for future goals, not demanding big decisive action now. It
all smacks, to me, of the alcoholic who intends to quit drinking once he’s
finished this last bottle of whisky. No! He has to quit now. Poor out
the rest. We are all addicts, hooked on our lifestyles and standards of living.
We need to quit now, not when we’ve smoked that last carton of
cigarettes. If we don’t start hearing Mother Nature’s cries right now,
it will be too late.
What if that man on the
bus was not shouting abuse at his girlfriend, but yelling to me; to all the
passengers? ‘Fire! Fire! The bus is on fire. Get out now. Fire! Fire!’
I ignore him. I do
nothing. All the people on the bus do nothing.
I don my noise-canceling
headphones, turn up the music and go into anti-eavesdropping mode, breathing in
the billowing smoke.
We would all say, that is
just insane, suicidal, behavior.
Wouldn’t we?
© July 2016 
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 been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years.
We have been married since 2013.
Posted on

The City I Left My Heart In, by Phillip Hoyle

I
don’t want to croon this, but “I left my heart in Albuquerque.” At least I feel
that way from time to time. The place was my home for several years, the scene
of important work and changes, and the romantic geographical focus of my
dreams.
In
1990 I left woeful central Missouri with its extreme weather, stressful job,
and joyless culture and headed west on the train to my destination in the high
mountain steppes of New Mexico. The train pulled in five hours late, but my
family was waiting and took me to our new home in the Northeast Heights at the
beautiful Mesa del Oso townhome community. The furniture was already in place set
up by my family who had arrived several days earlier. Folk from the church had
supplied food for the first few days. Their hospitality marked the beginning of
a rich relationship with a congregation and community.
The
church was fine, the first congregation I had ever loved as so many clergy
claim about their churches. Its buildings were Mission and Pueblo Revival styles,
its program diverse, its music-making an important focus, its involvement in
the larger community significant, and its theology and attitude more liberal
than any congregation with which I had worked. I liked the folk who at a
welcoming reception greeted me and my family with Southwestern fare and stood
around talking to us and each other with such intensity and animation as to
seem like the gathering was a cocktail party. These people liked one another. I
liked them, a gathering of professionals from diverse fields. I easily fit in
since, like most of them, I too came from the middle part of the country. Their
liberality seemed to spring from the fact that they had left the Midwest and
set roots far away from the small towns of their origins. They were affable,
tolerant, generous, and inventive. And I liked them and was pleased for years to
work with them in various capacities.
The
city had a different look when contrasted with Kansas, Texas, or Missouri where
I had lived. The look, arising largely from the preponderance of flat-roofed
adobe-style houses, appealed to me. This unusual city sat in the morning shadow
of the Sandia Mountains, sprawling from the edge of the alpine wilderness across
the flats of the Rio Grande River. One of America’s oldest cities, the place enjoyed
a rich history, the diversity of which was reflected in the names of city
streets, last names in the phone directory, and lots of Hispanic and Native
American people living there. My Indian fantasies were constantly fed by
western clothing, Native American jewelry, and tribal pottery. The Arts figure
large in Albuquerque, and I loved living in such an atmosphere. Working just a
couple of blocks from the University of New Mexico, I was surrounded with
creative and bright people in a multi-cultural atmosphere with overtones of
being progressive.
There
weren’t any little cable cars but a huge tram scaled the side of the tallest Sandia
peak. At the top, over 10,000 feet above sea level, I certainly felt halfway to
the stars. From there the city views impressed and the far stretch of mountains
and desert thrilled me. I especially loved the fact that even down below in the
town when one drove the major thoroughfares always there were mountains. To the
west one saw in the mid-ground five cinder cones of ancient volcanoes and in
the distance the snowcapped Mt. Taylor. Driving south one viewed desert
mountains that defined the flow of the Rio Grande. To the north lay high mesas
and distant peaks, including the Sangre de Christos and the northwestern end of
the Sandias. The eastern view featured the massive barrier of the Sandia and
Manzano Mountain ranges.
Old
Town always called to me, especially when I felt frustrated with work or just
plain lazy. I enjoyed walking its unusual streets, looking at its architectural
mix that included the 17th century San Felipe de Neri church, and
strolling through its shops full of curios and artwork, clothing and furniture.
I liked sitting on its plaza and patios sipping a Coke or coffee while watching
the crowds, hearing the variety of languages, and wondering what curiosities
brought people there. In some ways, going to Old Town was like leaving the
country.
My
five years in Albuquerque were rich with relationships. My children enjoyed the
place for several months before they went on their ways into adulthood. Eventually
one returned with his new family! More distant family members visited along
with friends from several states. We kept a very busy house almost like hosts
in a bed and breakfast. We made new friends there among co-workers,
congregational members, and neighbors. Among our closest were white, black,
brown, and red folk (if you will excuse this racial shorthand) who each brought
special gifts of culture and love into our home. We entertained rich and poor,
single and married, troubled and calm, funny and dour. We lived it up with an
array of writers, musicians, dancers, artists, actors, engineers, lawyers,
professors, athletes, teachers, doctors, clergy, plumbers, opera fans, office
managers, and food service providers. We ate a mixed cuisine and danced to a
variety of music. Albuquerque had a lot to offer and we took advantage of its
special blend of entertainments.
In
addition to these qualities and folk, I had my own personal adventures with
friendships, a couple of which became sexualized. They transformed me and
taught me more about myself than I had up to that time realized. They also put a
strain on my marriage. My activities and loves were not overlooked by my wife. We
both learned a lot about me in Albuquerque, and we both have abiding
friendships from there to add to our own continuing post-divorce friendship.
Eventually
we moved, my wife and I, to her family farm to help out with her folks. Then I
applied for another church job, my final one, in another state. I hated leaving
Albuquerque and strongly considered returning there after my marital
separation. Eventually though I realized while the city was wonderful and had
been in some ways the location of my great changes, I needed another even larger
place. So I followed my heart to Denver, Colorado, the place I plan to live out
my years and eventually leave my ashes. 
I don’t know if Albuquerque could ever again be my home, but some winter
days when my knees ache I think I might be more comfortable down there where
the winters are even milder than here.
© 5 January 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 
Posted on

All My Exes Live in Texas by Ricky

        After graduating college in May of 1978, I was commissioned a
Second Lieutenant in the US Air Force (Security Police) and stationed at
Malmstrom AFB, in Great Falls, Montana.  During
that summer, I attended Camp Bullis near San Antonio, Texas for training in
security police officer duties, policies, procedures, and combat field
skills.  The first four weeks were
devoted to classroom activities and physical fitness.  The next six weeks were taught under field
conditions to hone the skills we read about in the classroom.
        One of those skills was map reading and orienteering (not to
be confused with sexual orientationeering). 
The highlight of that portion of our training involved day and night
navigation using a map and compass to follow printed directions from one point
to another.  The first set of
instructions was given us at our starting point.  We had to follow that instruction to find the
next leg of our course and so forth for a total of ten legs.  The destination of each leg was a “soup can”
mounted on top of a 3-foot post.  There
were 75 such posts scattered around the 3 square miles of our training area so
it was vital that we used the map and compass accurately or we would not arrive
at the correct final destination.
        I had done this type of compass course in the Boy Scouts so I
was not intimidated by the task and found it to be rather fun.  We had to follow the course in teams of
three.  I don’t know what the others did,
but my team drew our course out on the map and marked the desired destination
with an “X” and then walked the route. 
As we completed each leg, we drew out the next leg and added another
“X”.  No one was shooting at us since
this was training and not combat, so we had an easy time following the course
as drawn on the map except for the oppressive heat.  Due to the rolling hills, gullies, and
scattered light and dense vegetation, we would take a compass sighting and send
two of us ahead a convenient number of yards to establish a straight line.
        The legs were of varying lengths with some as long as a mile
from one point to another.  A one-degree
error over a mile distance could cause one to miss the destination by several
yards.  The target posts with the “soup
cans” containing our next set of co-ordinates were not all easily seen.  Many were placed such that one could not see
it until you passed it and looked back. 
Several were deliberately placed inside thickets of scrub brush that had
grown several feet high.  And there was
the constant watchfulness for Texas sized spiders, scorpions, tarantulas, and
snakes all while counting our steps and detouring around thickets too wide to
push through.  As I said, the day light
course was easy, but the night course was a different matter.
        The night course was the same event obviously without the
benefit of sunlight and in our case, without moonlight either.  With only flashlights, it was difficult to
send two teammates ahead to establish a straight line for walking.  We still had to deal with the local
“critters” and also the smelly night prowling ones too.  After completing the first leg with all its
difficulties, I decided to cheat a little. 
Well, it wasn’t really cheating because we were doing a compass course
and orienteering after all, and in a combat situation, it’s the result that
counts not the method.  And besides, I
really did not want to be walking around Texas all night dodging spiders,
snakes, and skunks looking for some elusive “soup can” on a post.
        Therefore, I had my team switch to nighttime orienteering using
a method not taught in our classroom experience, but taught in my Boy Scout
troop night games—celestial navigation using the stars as a guide.  After we took our compass heading and placed
the “X” on the map, we picked out a star on the horizon that was in-line with
the desired course and just walked towards that star counting our steps.  Once we switched to that method, the course
went very fast indeed.  In fact, my team
was the first one done not only for the night course, but also for the daylight
course.
        I imagine that all my “Xs” on those maps are still somewhere
in Texas, most likely in a landfill somewhere on Camp Bullis or possibly their
ashes from an incinerator are blowing around Texas on the wind.
        My only other “exes” are in Texas for sure.  My ex-president, LBJ, is buried there and the
“ex-decider” is apparently on his ranch attempting to create excellent works of
art and beauty.
© 13 January 2014
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.
Posted on

All My Exes Live in Texas by Lewis

[Disclaimer:
I sincerely hope that I do not offend anyone by what I am about
to say.  If Texas is the state of your
birth, please forgive me.  I understand
that you had no choice in the matter and would naturally feel somewhat defensive.  I apologize in advance for my unbridled
antagonism toward your home state.  If
Texas is your adopted state, however, then we must simply agree to disagree.  Since you are gay and because Texan’s in
general are about as homophobic as you can get, I have no desire to add to your
mental anguish. I hope you can get some help.]
 It’s safe to assume, I
suppose, that by the term “ex” is meant “erstwhile”.  It would also likely be safe to assume that
the “erstwhile” refers to lovers. 
Since I have had only two lovers in my lifetime and one of them is dead
and the other lives in Michigan, there is very little I can say about this
subject directly.  However, I do have a
few things to say about the state of Texas in general.
If I ever have a lover who
says to me, “Let’s move to Texas”, the next words out of my mouth
will be, “So long, pardner. 
Remember to roll your pant legs up so they don’t get in the horse
shit”.  I hate Texas so much that,
whenever I think of the Alamo, I’m overcome not with pride but with
regret.  My most hated actor, John Wayne,
not only directed the movie, The Alamo,
but cast himself in the role of Col. Davy Crockett.  As fate would have it, I had been planning to
watch the movie the very evening the call came that my father had died of a
massive stroke.  That was not the cause
of my regret, however.  No, that was
because the wrong side lost.
My daddy had a brother–the
youngest of four–who moved his family to Austin.  He was a high muckety-muck with the state
school Board.  When I say
“high”, I mean tall–he was about 6 foot 4.  He was also the first of the four brothers to
die.  I’m not going to say that Texas
politics killed him but the Texan he married might have been implicated had
there been an investigation.  Not only
did she have a drawl that would have shamed the two Andy’s–Devine and
Griffith–into going back to acting school, she had a temper that had me hiding
beneath the dining room buffet in abject fear.
Oh, they sure do take their
football serious down there.  I once attended
a game between the Texas Longhorns and the Aggies.  It was the only time I saw a referee get
knocked out.  I think the crowd made more
noise over that than any of the scoring plays.
During the OPEC-induced
recession of 1984, I and several of my co-workers at Ford Motor in Dearborn,
MI, were laid off.  One of them moved to
Texas looking for work.  He stayed less
than a year due to culture shock.
And what’s the deal with
“The Lone Star State” as their motto? 
According to Wikipedia, “Texas
is nicknamed the Lone Star State to signify Texas as a former
independent republic and as a reminder of the state’s struggle for independence
from Mexico”.  Sounds like a lot of
“Texas hooey” to me.  I think
the motto is a way to remind the other 49 states how special Texas is and that
they just might secede at any time.
Secession is no idle threat,
coming as it did from Texas’ governor himself. 
I would humbly suggest that the U.S. cede Texas to Mexico in exchange
for Tijuana.  Not only would this overnight
raise the cultural and political intelligence of the United States as a whole
but also cure a good bit of our problems with border security.
As a boy, I was enamored of
the Lone Ranger.  As a man, I’ve learned
that the real Texas Rangers used to take Mexicans out into the desert and shoot
them, leaving their corpses to rot, just as I’ve seen John Wayne do in the
movie, Red River.
Well, I don’t want this to
turn into a rant.  If you’ve ever been to
Amarillo, you’ll understand why I think that the people of Texas have suffered
enough already.  I’m just biding my time
for the day when the brown-skinned immigrant voters outnumber the knuckle-heads
that control the politics down there today. 
Better the state turn purple than my face.
© 13 January 2014 

About
the Author  

I came to the beautiful state of
Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married
and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of
Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an
engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26
happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I
should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t
getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just
happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both
fortuitous and smooth.
 Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver,
my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in
October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility
is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there
to light the way.
Posted on

Cities of My Heart by Betsy

Denver is where my heart is. That’s because the love of my life lives here–with me. I love Denver and Colorado. I have been living quite happily here since 1970. This is where I came out. This is where I met the love of my life. I have many friends here both straight and LGBT. My three children grew up here and call Denver their heart home. There is much to be said about Denver but not here and not today. So…….

Since my three children have a place in my heart also, I suppose I can say at least part of my heart is in those cities where they reside.

Decatur, Georgia is a small city completely surrounded by the city of Atlanta. From my several visits there it appears that Decatur is young, relatively progressive, and gay friendly. This is where my oldest child, a daughter, lives. This daughter is a professor on the faculty at Emory University where she teaches in the Women and Gender Studies Department. Lynne has been in academics for about 20 years. In that time I have learned that her community of friends and associates is not usually representative of the area in which she resides. I learned from her partner Tamara that The Women Studies Department of Emory University is the oldest (and best) in the United States. Who would have guessed that this, one of the most conservative states and cities of the country is the original home of such a progressive subject as Women Studies. Suffice it to say that academic communities bear no resemblance to the states or regions where they are located.

Before moving to the Atlanta area around 2005 Lynne and Tamara lived in Houston, Texas–another conservative hot spot. I imagined a very difficult time for the couple when I heard in 1998 they were moving from New Haven to Houston. Never mind a lesbian couple living together in Texas, but an interracial lesbian couple. However, I was surprised to learn from my visits there that Houston is in fact a fairly cosmopolitan city–at least for Texas. Even though Lynne was teaching at Rice University, my view of Houston was not distorted by association only with the academic community. Tamara started out working as campaign manager for a city council candidate bent on ousting an incumbent. Lynne was of course somewhat involved in the campaign as well. The incumbent opponent was well entrenched, so the campaign would be hard fought. In the end the campaign was successful, Tamara’s candidate was elected to the city council, and Tamara became her Chief of Staff. Needless to say, the scenes and experiences we heard about during this time gave a very realistic, true vision of the city of Houston as opposed to the college professor’s perspective. We saw a liberal candidate oust a well entrenched conservative. But that was not the only surprise. During their stay in Houston, we saw many other unexpected changes. At the present time the mayor of Houston is a lesbian woman–a former acquaintance of Lynne and Tamara’s. I was pleasantly surprised that Houston was so good to my daughter and her partner.

My second oldest child, a daughter, lives in Baltimore. The nation’s economic problems have badly effected Baltimore–by appearances, much more so than Denver. However, Baltimore has always had a large population of struggling workers.

On one recent visit we found ourselves in the very worst neighborhood of the city. Gill and I were traveling in our camper van from Denver to the east coast with a planned stop in Baltimore to spend a few days there with my daughter Beth.

Beth works in the area of artificial intelligence. Currently she is working for NASA’s Atmospheric Science Data Center. She is a logician and applies her knowledge and expertise as such in her job developing ways to access past meteorological data.

In giving us directions to her home in Baltimore she did NOT apply her knowledge and expertise as a logician. Approaching her area of Baltimore, and carefully following the directions she had sent via e-mail, at a crucial point we made the turn to the left as instructed. Within two minutes we found ourselves in a very seedy neighborhood. Realizing surely something was wrong we pulled over to get out the cell phone. We needed to turn on lights as it was dark. Some unsavory looking characters gave us the once over and approached the van whereupon we locked all the doors and windows. No, we were not in the right neighborhood. We were supposed to turn right back there, not left, Beth admitted. In another five minutes we were in the correct neighborhood of Patterson Park. Not a swanky place, mind you. A very middle class, working person’s neighborhood in transition where we felt ever so much more comfortable and safe.

Beth now works from home and could live anywhere she wants, but chooses to stay in her neighborhood in Baltimore close to her D.C. contacts.

By the way, have you ever driven on the D.C. beltway? One of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

My youngest, a son, lives in Fairbanks, Alaska. Often I hear friends and acquaintances say, “Oh, yes, I’ve been to Alaska.” Almost inevitably it turns out they have been to Anchorage or the coastal area or perhaps Denali National Park. Fairbanks is not typically a tourist destination. I have only been to Fairbanks twice and those visits were in the summertime. It is not an easy place to get to even by plane.

My son John started his practice as a urologist in Fairbanks. Instant success as there are but four urologists in the entire state. Three of them practice in Anchorage.

The city of Fairbanks sits in the interior region of the state. Googling the list of rivers in Alaska did not help when trying to recall the name of the river that flows through the city. There are 9728 rivers in Alaska. Other methods of investigation including my failing memory yielded the name: The Chena River.

A drive from Fairbanks to the nearest city Anchorage is a day’s drive on a highway running mostly beside the rail route of The Alaska Railway. This rail system boasts punctuality and comfort. The dome-topped train offers incredible scenery on its route from Fairbanks to Anchorage with a stop at Denali National Park, home of Mt. McKinley, and fist-clenching run along the edge of the spectacular gorge carved by the Talkeetna River to mention only two of the numerous, magnificent, unforgettable, and interesting sights.

Further on about an hour out of Anchorage the train stops at Wassilla–Sara Palin’s home.

On my first visit to Fairbanks John rented an RV and off to Denali the five of us went–three adults and my two very young grandchildren. Our three day visit was memorable to say the least. Denali is a place of indescribable pristine beauty and awesome vastness.

Anyone wishing to travel east out of Fairbanks will be disappointed. If one travels in any direction other than south to Juneau, southwest to Anchorage, or north to Prudhoe Bay, one is liable to run out of highway. The roads simply stop. Beyond is wilderness. Of course the lumbering and mining operations abound in that state, but the place is so vast it appears to be endless and untouched. It is not hard to understand why half of the population are licensed pilots. Many people live in areas accessible only by plane. Many of these people live on islands off the coast.

Fairbanks is a growing city, currently at around 35,000 residents. Seemingly unaffected by the economic disasters taking place in the rest of the country, jobs are available. Students with a taste for adventure and perhaps the promise of a summer job are drawn to the University of Alaska’s Fairbanks campus.

I have not been to Alaska in the winter. When I checked the January 14 weather report, the expected high for the week was -32 with fog and mist resulting in a “feels like” temperature of -47. Does it really matter which it feels like: -47 or -32?

I do know that in the winter months many Alaskans–the more fortunate ones–fly to Hawaii where they spend a couple of weeks. A veritable exodus takes place in the dead of winter when those Alaskans who can afford it decide it is time for a good dose of sunlight and it’s mood-enhancing effects.

Here is a place where much attention is still given to the magic of the winter solstice. After December 21 it can only get better.

Atlanta, Baltimore, Fairbanks–wonderful places to visit. But I’m glad I live in Denver.


© 14 January 2012 




About the Author 


Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.