Tag: The Party

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The Party, by Lewis

As I thought about the
topic for today, I realized that I have no particular “party experience” that
stands out as a highlight of my life.  As
an introvert and basically shy person, going to a party seemed unnatural.  Bill Cosby once described swimming as “staying
alive in the water”.  For me, party-going
was like keeping my own sense of self-worth from drowning in a sea of
pretense.  As I thought back on all the
“party scenes” from movies I have watched, it seems to me that the common theme
was related to disguise, deception, duplicity, and, yes, even death.  So, I came up with one brief declarative
sentence that seems best to sum up my feelings about parties–
Parties
are where authenticity goes to die.
© 7 Jan 2013 
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 had two
children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married
to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was
passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were
basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very
attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that
time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth.
Soon after, I
retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13
blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to
fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE
Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.
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The Party by Ricky

During my 13th or 14th year, while in 8th
or 9th grade, A female classmate invited me to her birthday
party.  Sadly, I do not remember her
name, but I do remember the highlight of the party.  There were no adults present as we began to
play spin-the-bottle.  Time passed
excruciatingly slow while I watched the bottle top consistently spin pass me
and settle on other boys in attendance – some two or three times.  We each got only one spin per turn and if the
bottle stopped on the same sex or between two people, your turn was over.
According to our rules, every boy/girl partner got three
minutes alone in a large storeroom.  I
guess everyone was supposed to know what to do in that room, which I thought,
was to “make out” but no one said anything at all to confirm that belief or to
explain what was or was not expected. 
Consequently, when the bottle finally stopped on me there was an awkward
moment in the storeroom as we negotiated what we would do.  It turns out the girl did not know what was
expected either.  We admitted that we
really did not want to “make out” so we just stood there talking until the time
was up.  I was not invited to another
party as an adolescent.
After I married, I returned to college to finish a degree in
Justice Administration.  While there, I
joined Air Force ROTC.  Since I already
had four years of enlisted experience, I only needed to do the last two years
of ROTC classes and obtain a degree to become an Air Force officer.  The timing, although unplanned on my part,
was perfect and both goals aligned precisely.
One day I read on the ROTC bulletin board that there was a
mandatory “social event” at Captain Williams’ home that night; casual
dress.  I told my wife and we both
attended.  I was somewhat bewildered upon
my arrival when I did not know any of the other ROTC cadets.  It turns out that there were two Captain
Williams; one Air Force and one Army. 
Since I did not know either of their first names I accidently crashed
the Army’s social.  Captain Williams was
very gracious and invited us to stay.  We
did.
As we partook from the bountiful refreshments, Deborah asked
me to get her some of the fruit punch.  I
shortly returned with two glasses and gave her one.  I found it to be a delicious blending of
various pieces of fruit, sherbet, and 7-Up. 
Deborah sipped her’s slowly while I “sipped” much faster and went to get
another.  A short while after I returned
with my second drink, Deborah had finished and asked me to get her
another.  Before I left, I asked her if
she liked it and she responded that she did. 
I retrieved another cup of the punch for her.
After she had drunk about half of the second cup, I asked
again if she really liked it.  Deborah
was no dummy so she immediately got suspicious and asked me why I was asking
her.  I said, “Just curious.”  She replied, “What’s in it?”  I told her that there was a variety of fruit
flavors but the predominant flavor was banana. 
Deborah has hated bananas even before she could talk.  She communicated her dislike by spraying
whatever her mother had mixed bananas into all over her mother, table, and
wall.  Her mom was consistent and so was
Deborah; her mother finally gave up.  At
the social, she put down her punch cup and did not drink from it again.
This past New Year’s Eve, I went alone to a party held in the
Constitution
building.  I paid my Greenbacks and entered.  All the big Whigs were there spouting the usual
Anti-Federalist
propaganda – sounding very Republican. 
The Tories
family arrived at the party wearing Bull Moose headdresses.  I thought they appeared rather Progressive
but everyone else said it made them look like has-beens; so the family members
promised to Reform
and wear something more Libertarian in the future.  The hostess tried her best to provide
nutritious refreshments which included Greens. 
Some Bostonians took offense and wanted to hold their own little party
in another room, but a Prohibition on violence effectively prevented
them from throwing out the Tea.  A few
Silver
haired guests wanted to ruin People’s games by starting an Anti-Monopoly
chant.  Shortly thereafter, a cadre of American
Socialists demanded Justice in entertainment and began to light up
the Marijuana.  The police responded when a Communist
and an American
Nazi engaged in fisticuffs.  I
tried to have an Objectivist attitude towards all the activities, but since I
value Peace and
Freedom and I am a Pacifist at heart, I left the party early along
with other Citizens.  All in all, it was a very Democratic
affair.
© 7 January 2013  
About the Author 
I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in
Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach.  Just
prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on
their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my
parents divorced.
When united with my mother and stepfather two years later
in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California,
graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force,
I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until
her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001
terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be
therapeutic.
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The Party by Will Stanton

The Party, Part 1 of 2

My 16th birthday.
No mention.
No gifts.
No guests.
No party.
No recognition.

No love.

The Party, Part 2

Later, a different time, a different place.
My partner arranged a party.
A celebration in our home.
A dozen friends attending.
Birthday cards, some affectionate, some humorous.
All dressed up, dinner for all at a French restaurant.

Camaraderie, friendship, and happiness.
A gift presented.

And the greatest gift of all, love.

© 1 January 2013

About the Author

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

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Hitting a Milestone by Nicholas

The first thing I wanted to do on reaching 60 years of age was look back. Look back on just how I turned out to be me. As I’m writing this, Quicksilver Messenger Service—does anybody remember that ‘60s rock group? —is singing “What are you going to do about me?” Good question. What am I going to do about me? A little self obsessed, maybe, but there’s no apologizing needed for that in this day and age.

In 2006, I turned 60 years of age. This was one of those milestone “zero” birthdays, like 30, 40, 50. Only this one seemed to hit me as more of a milestone than the others ever did. I wasn’t sure if it marked another mile but I sure felt the weight of the stone.

I like to say that I faced my 60th birthday instead of that I celebrated my 60th. There was a celebration, of course, one of the best parties I’ve ever had. It was put together by my sisters and Jamie and was quite a wing-ding, with catered food, champagne, a huge cake and lots of family and friends to share it with. In fact, I extended the celebration to all that year long, not just one day. It was not just another routine birthday passed with a day off work, a bike ride in the mountains, a special dinner with Jamie, a few cards and presents and then on to the next day. No, this one meant something.

This birthday was different and needed to be marked differently. This one presented challenges. It demanded to be paid attention to. Turning 60 was truly a cusp of something, a turning point. I am now closer to my departure from this planet than am I to my arrival upon it.

I felt that I’d crossed a threshold, stepped over a line, a boundary to somewhere though I was not sure where. If the past was a burden piling up behind me, the future seemed a foggy mystery and unknown territory. I was in a new country without a map and with loads of hopes and fears but not sure what direction to take.

Suddenly, I felt a sense of being old. Now I was one of the old people, a senior citizen. I was now entitled, if I summoned the nerve, to boot some young person out of those seats at the front of the bus reserved for old folks. I’ve never done that, of course. But I was old and everybody knew it. No more anonymity, I was marked with gray hair, sagging skin, a bit slower to take stairs, and a few more bottles of pills on the shelf. Now with this birthday and every birthday hence, my age was a matter of public policy. I was officially a statistic, a “boomer,” a term I despise. This birthday and the party to commemorate it left me with an uncomfortable self-consciousness.

And some confusion. One morning I was bicycling along the South Platte River, following the familiar path when suddenly the way was blocked and I was shuffled off onto a detour around a huge construction zone. I followed the detour hesitantly, not knowing exactly where I was and fearing that it was taking me too far out of the way. But the route was well marked so I continued to follow the signs. Eventually, I got back to the river path and I knew where I was.

That’s the way I was feeling on this birthday. I don’t know where this path is leading and this one is not marked at all. Am I on another detour or is this the main path? I’m trying to work my way to a point where I can see where I’ve been and so I can figure out where I’m going. At least that’s the aim.

I have this sense of the past, my past—which has grown rather bulky—and I do not want to let go of it. I can’t let go of it. I like my history and my memories. I like what I’ve done, embarrassments and failings as well as achievements and successes.

In my first 60s—the 1960s—the world was on fire with change and excitement. There was nothing I and my generation couldn’t do to make the world a better place. Justice was on the move and so was personal freedom. The personal became the political and politics became very personal and passionate. Passion is the word I attach to the ‘60s. The music was passionate. The war and the war against the war were passionate. The drive for civil rights was passionate. The freedom was passionate.

If I hearken after any remnant of that youthful decade it is that sense of passion. If there is any bit from that era that I’d like to restore to my later years, it is that passion. Turn nostalgia around and let it lead me into the future. Grow old and find your passion. Is that wisdom speaking? Have I stumbled onto wisdom somehow?

So, yes, it was quite a party, the party of a lifetime. It was the party that marked and celebrated way more than another year on the planet. I can’t forget that party because to do so would be to forget my life, its past, present and future.

© 17 October 2013

About the Author

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.









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The Party by Colin Dale

     

It is not enough to be busy.   So are the ants.
The question is: what are we busy about?   –Thoreau

      Today’s prompt is the party, not a party.  The party to me means a special party, a party to end all parties.  We’ve all been to many a parties.  But to satisfy today’s prompt–the party–I felt I had to go into the crawlspace of my memories to see if I could find some party I’d been to that was the Mother of All Parties.  Luckily, I didn’t have to spend too much time in the crawlspace.

      Not only did I find my personal Mother of All Parties without a lot of rummaging around but also I found, in remembering my one and only the party, the baseline from which I’ve taken the measure of the last three decades of my life.

      Go back with me for a moment to February 1980.  Jimmy Carter’s in the White House.  When not trying to figure out how to send this thing called a fax, we’re playing an addictive game called Pac Man.  In bookstores, it’s Sophie’s Choice.  On Broadway, it’s Evita.  In movie theaters, it’s Raging Bull.   But join me on the 10th floor of the Coachman over on Downing across from Queen Soopers.  It’s a little after 8 and I’m coming home, tired, from somewhere.  I walk into my apartment, the one I share with my partner Jim to find the place usually dark–not one light left on.  That’s unusual.  I know something’s wrong: there’s a kind of creepy aliveness in the dark–like stepping into a lightless grizzly den.  But then lights throughout the apartment go on.  I’m standing inside the front door looking at a place packed to the sidewalls with people, all looking at me and yelling, “Surprise!”

        It’s my 35th birthday and Jim has schemed the Mother of All surprise parties for me.  When I say the apartment is packed, I mean it is PACKED.  Jim and I work for one of Denver’s now-long-gone Capitol Hill theaters and here in our apartment is the acting company, directors, staff, costumers, carpenters, and crew.  Jim’s day-job is with a 17th Street bank; I know Jim’s co-workers and they’re here, too.  My day-job is with a medical supply house; Jim knows my co-workers and he’s invited them as well.  Add to the mix other assorted friends, spouses, partners, Coachman neighbors, and maybe–who knows–a half dozen off-shift Queen Soopers’ employees with nothing better to do. 

      The morning after my the party when Jim and I step out of the bedroom and out onto the battlefield to look over the wreckage, he tells me I had–not all at once, of course–eighty-one people stop by my birthday party.

      Eighty-one.

      Now let’s look in on an evening in February of this past year.  It’s my 67th birthday.   No surprise party.  I’m celebrating not at home but at a restaurant, and not with eighty-one people but with three.  And I’m feeling good.  Not because I’m drunk–I gave that up in ’98–but because I’d recently broken my arm and I’m floating nicely on an och-see-COH-dun cloud.  I know even without the narcotic I’d be feeling good, because I’m celebrating my birthday in the way I’ve come to enjoy celebrating birthdays lately–for that matter, all get-togethers: with a few good friends.

      Remember I said in looking in the crawlspace of my memories I’d found not only my one big the party but also how that one the party has remained a baseline from which I’ve taken the measure of the last three decades of my life.  You might guess that when I would look back over the years–at birthdays in particular–I would get a little upset to see the attendance shrink–from eighty-one in 1980 to three in 2012.  I did the math: that’s a loss of 2.4375 persons per year.  (I only had three friends at my last birthday party.  If the average holds, I should look forward to only a partial person–a .5625 person–this year.)

      It bothered me–once–this decline in attendance.  Worse yet, back when I was drinking, I stupidly interpreted the numbers as a decline in popularity–and that didn’t just bother me, it depressed me.  What I could possibly have done to scare away people, at the withering rate of 2.4375 persons per year?

      The truth is in 1980 I was the victim of what I now call my stupidly busy days.  Between my day-job selling bedpans and syringes, my night-job at the theater trying the best I could to be someone else, working in my off-hours to honor a grant I’d received to write a half dozen children’s plays, striving to be attentive to what was then a fairly new relationship with Jim, making sure I logged enough hours at the Foxhole and at this new place called Tracks, serving on the board of the alphabet-spare GLC, helping to put together a fundraising footrace for the then-fledging AIDS Project, and drinking way, way, way too much, my life at 35 was a runaway train.  I was living the illusion of multi-tasking before anyone had even coined that fanciful term.  I was having fun–but of course I was much, much, much younger.

      I was having fun, but I was also going crazy.  My stupidly busy days.  Days, as I look back on them now, with a mirage of significance but without much lasting substance.

      It’s now 2013 and I’m still busy, but looking in from the outside you’d never guess it.   I call these days my wisely busy days.   I’m out with two or three friends.  Or I’m home. Out or home, I’m happy.  My the party of 32 years ago, when I think about it, was not a slow descent into unpopularity, with unpopularity’s nasty side effect loneliness.  Instead, my the party of 32 years ago was the beginning of what I like to think was my ascent to maturity, with maturity’s priceless bonus feature solitude–elective solitude.  With maturity has come enough contentment sometimes to choose solitude and sometimes to be with friends.  In yesterday’s stupidly busy days I was exhausted and my senses were blunted.  In today’s wisely busy days I’m alert.  It’s much better now.

      And so there you have it: my the party.  Today’s prompt has given me a chance to take a break from making up silliness and to stick close to what good storytelling can and maybe should do and that’s to share a little bit of the private me.   Today’s prompt has given me a chance to tell you about my the party of long ago, an evening I continue to think of as the beginning of the best days of my life–my wisely busy days–and why, when yesterday afternoon I typed the first sentence–“Today’s prompt is the party; not a party”–I thought of my hero Thoreau and his saying:

It is not enough to be busy.   So are the ants.
The question is: what are we busy about?


© 7 January 2013

About the Author



Colin Dale couldn’t be happier to be involved again at the Center. Nearly three decades ago, Colin was both a volunteer and board member with the old Gay and Lesbian Community Center. Then and since he has been an actor and director in Colorado regional theatre. Old enough to report his many stage roles as “countless,” Colin lists among his favorite Sir Bonington in The Doctor’s Dilemma at Germinal Stage, George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Colonel Kincaid in The Oldest Living Graduate, both at RiverTree Theatre, Ralph Nickleby in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby with Compass Theatre, and most recently, Grandfather in Ragtime at the Arvada Center. For the past 17 years, Colin worked as an actor and administrator with Boulder’s Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Largely retired from acting, Colin has shifted his creative energies to writing–plays, travel, and memoir.

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The Party by Michael King

As a child my mother would make a two tiered angel food cake for my birthday. That was all I had ever known about birthday parties. Later when my children were growing up they got to have the dessert of their choice. It wasn’t until my oldest daughter’s eighteenth birthday that friends and guests were invited and fortunately by the time they arrived I had returned from the emergency room. As a finishing touch I had been blowing up balloons when one burst and sliced the front of my eye. It did heal and my vision was actually better afterwards.

Of course there are many kinds of parties and most that I went to was later in my life, however there had been a few while I was in the military. But the most memorable was a surprise birthday party on my 35th birthday.

I had never experienced a birthday with friends to celebrate it with. So I was totally surprised when people started showing up with gifts and cards. . We lived in Hawaii and had a nice house where we could entertain quite a few people, and did so occasionally. We had been somewhere and when we got home there was a long stemmed red rose and a birthday card from a friend of ours. Inside the card was a hundred dollar bill. I was practically in a state of shock, and had no idea what was to come. I just felt overwhelmed and laid on the bed clutching the rose and fell asleep.

When I woke up someone was at the door, then more and more. In all about 60 people arrived and never before having received a birthday present, I now received about 60. One of my daughters told me my face was going to crack from the big smile I had.

After that I valued birthday parties, entertaining and became quite the party giver. My realtor was so impressed when I gave a house colding party when I sold a condo, that they sold their large home with acreage, which was high maintenance and primarily for giving parties, and bought a townhouse. She figured that if I could give a nice party for 50 in a one bedroom condo, she could do it in a townhouse.

I used to love to entertain, have parties and numerous weddings at our house; however we had the space to do so. Now Merlyn and I seldom entertain more than one or two people, but we do go to events and parties fairly often.

About the Author

I go by the drag name, Queen Anne Tique. My real name is Michael King. I am a gay activist who finally came out of the closet at age 70. I live with my lover, Merlyn, in downtown Denver, Colorado. I was married twice, have 3 daughters, 5 grandchildren and a great grandson. Besides volunteering at the GLBT Center and doing the SAGE activities,” Telling your Story”,” Men’s Coffee” and the “Open Art Studio”. I am active in Prime Timers and Front Rangers. I now get to do many of the activities that I had hoped to do when I retired; traveling, writing, painting, doing sculpture, cooking and drag.

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The Party by Merlyn

I could talk about the Republicans or the Democrats but that’s too depressing.
I could talk about the crazy sex, drug and booze parties I liked to go to in the 70’s and 80’s but I won’t. 

In 1979 through 1980 I drove a truck from coast to coast for Curtis Trucking in Denver. Sometimes I would have to lay over waiting for a load back to Denver. Most of the time I was able to hook up with someone and have a good time.

It didn’t matter if I was in LA or New York all I had to do was get on the SB radio, key the mike and say “Breaker 19 I’m a trucker out of Denver and I’m parked at wherever until tomorrow”, then say something like  
A   “Does anyone know a good place to get something to eat around here?”
B   I’d let everyone know that I was a 35 year old trucker out of Denver and I like to Party.”
C   “I’m in a big truck with an oversize sleeper cab.”
D   I’d let everyone know that I was a 35 year old trucker out of Denver and I like to Party.

The people in small towns in Connecticut do know how to have fun.
One Saturday night I had 6 people stuffed in the truck, 2 women and 4 men, two bottles of booze and a little smoke. I did not have to get back to the truck until Monday morning so when the booze was gone I ended up at a party at someone’s house that went on nonstop for the next thirty hours.

One evening I was at a truck stop in Ontario, California. I was with about 4 or 5 other drivers swapping lies and drinking out of brown paper bags when we heard someone yelling, “He’s stealing my truck! He’s stealing my truck!”
The guy doing the yelling was running across the parking lot to the lot exit. (Was he going to try to stop the guy with his body?)

The stolen truck passes right in front of us and turns towards the exit.
The truck is heading for the parking lot exit and the road that goes to the freeway. When he gets there he is going to have to make a sharp turn across a 5 lane highway, somehow missing the cars going by on the highway.

The guy that was stealing the truck was already going too fast to make the turn without turning over.

 I’m about a block away from the exit. Thankfully the whole mess is moving away from me.
The owner of the truck has a gun and starts shooting at his own truck. The truck tries to run over him. We are looking at the flashes coming out of the gun. He is shooting towards us. Everyone hits the ground. 

The stolen truck makes it to the exit and somehow makes a left turn hitting a car; the car goes spinning out of the way, two cars run into the trailer.  
The truck keeps going and disappears up the freeway ramp.

The next morning I went in for breakfast and everyone was talking about what happened the night before.
The owner of the truck had shot a hole in the radiator and the truck stopped running a few miles down the freeway, the cops caught the thief. Four people in the cars were taken away to hospitals and no one knew how they were. No one was hit in the parking lot.

That was one of the most exciting parties I was ever at.

About the Author

I’m a retired gay man now living in Denver Colorado with my partner Michael. I grew up in the Detroit area. Through the various kinds of work I have done I have seen most of the United States. I have been involved in technical and mechanical areas my whole life, all kinds of motors and computer systems. I like travel, searching for the unusual and enjoying life each day.