Remembering the singer songwriter music era or how the music is still in me

Today I had a catharsis. I was watching American Masters on PBS and the program was about the Troubadour in L.A. and the many singer/songwriters that appeared between the late Sixties and mid Seventies. It featured artists like James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Elton John, Jackson Brown, Eagles (note: the group name is Eagles, not the Eagles), and extras like Cheech and Chong and Steve Martin. It was the music I loved as a young adult. Note I didn't say as a kid as by the time this music came out so had I and I was in my twenties which is where you really learn what life is about. The minute a song started off in mono and slowly was cross faded to the stereophonic records I immediately raised the volume to 11. You know, the place you go after you've gotten to ten and you need just that little bit more to take it over the top. “Where do you go? Eleven!”

I was transported back to a time to where I was protected by an educational system and allowed to find out who I really was. It was a time when “we” hated the bomb and everything for which our parents stood. How could we be the police of the world? Sticking our hands into a place where we didn't belong. Nixon was in the White House and it seemed that anything goes, both good and bad. The music of that time had moved from the Brill Building's factory manufactured groups and music and moved toward celebrating the writers who had become the artists as well. The British invasion was over at least as far as the music industry was concerned. It was a time before Coke and Horse and “everybody smokes pot” as the Beatles sang at the end of “I am the Walrus”.

In prep school, we had a dorm band who made the Youngblood's song “Get Together” a popular song almost two years before it was mainstreamed on FM radio. From '66 to '68 I devoured this new music with the help of several dorm mates who seemed to know a lot more about these artists that I. Blood Sweat and Tears, Cream, Country Joe and the Fish, The Blues Project: So many songs, so much music. With a loss of a room mate to graduation, I actually lost his stereo, I was forced (although not very hard) to purchase my own stereo system. I worked all summer for the Military Industrial Complex in the form of Stone and Webster Engineering to earn enough money to go to Stereo Lab and buy a H.H. Scott receiver, speakers and a Garrard turntable. I was set. Each week I added more albums to my collection. Moby Grape, The Beacon Street Union and most of the artist I heard on the now converted local radio stations FM signal to underground rock. The voice of the Mount Washington Valley, WMWV still plays this kind of music. There was no more AM rock, except for maybe Dick Summers and stations like WBCN in Boston, WHCN in Hartford, WNEW-FM in NYC and WMMR-FM in Philly were the power houses of new music. These were heady times but no where near what would happen to me when I went to college in western Mass at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Ah to be young and free at college again. By the spring of '69 I was ready for a big change. I was tired of pretending to be someone who I wasn't, so I came out just before the riots at Stonewall in NYC. Much to my surprise, my new friends at school accepted me as I was. I also discovered Pot at the same time. To quote David Crosby, “There was a time between the coming of birth control pills and the on-slot of AIDS, and during that time, if you were lucky enough to be out and single and running around, sex was really a lot of fun. Really, a lot, really!”

Although I had come out, I wasn't really very interested in what was the “gay” scene. There was a gay bar in Springfield, under the railroad tracks that was regularly raided and occasionally burned. This was not my idea of a place to go to meet people. There was a gay organization on campus which wasn't too bad but it was very clickie and I had already placed my eggs in the radio station basket so to speak. I again was left on my own to figure out what was next. My first beau was curious and although it took him some time to warm up to the idea of having sex, when the time was right, he sprang. I was totally amazed. Although I had fooled around for many years, I would not have called it having sex. This was the real thing and I jumped in with both feet. I guess I frightened him. After the deed was done, he had a difficult time figuring out what had just happened. I have said he jumped back into the closet but I don't think that that was correct. What I think happened was that he got a lot more that he had figured. I think he thought into the future and was totally frightened with the prospect of explanation to his friends and especially his family. I only hope that he has at least some fond memories if he has not shut out the memories completely. I still connect with him on an electronic level but I'm not sure we will see each other for what remains for me of this life.

I have been listening to the music from that era for most of my life and this afternoon is no exception. I've gone through Carol and CSN and Y too. About to move to JT and then Elton John. I have the early recording of these two and it should bring back even more memories.

This was a time when as Steve Martin puts it, “Everybody's pretty when your 20. To quote Carol King, “You got to get up every morning with a smile in your heart.” I must say that now I find that hard to do on a regular basis but I had a time when it happened every morning, back when I was young.

Is the Gay life over; or what's going on.

Here I am, another Friday evening and I'm not at a favorite watering hole, having martinis and Hor's d'overies (sic) and figuring out how to spend another evening alone.

For a while, in the early part of this century, Richard (my late business partner) and I ran a gay night at a large straight club where we entertained hundreds of men from all over New England. It worked well until someone started spiking the drinks with "Mickys" and we stopped it before anyone else got hurt. I think the thing that upset us the most was that the other clubs (there were three then) felt that somehow we were taking business away from them. We had created a rather extensive e-mail list of gays all over New England through our websites and got them to travel to Portland on a Friday evening. Our members came from Boston and Bangor and parts farther afield to enjoy our hospitality. We also provided stamping so that our guests could leave to visit the other clubs. This way all the clubs got bodies in their doors. It was just one of the many things Richard and I did to support the gay community of greater Portland, while trying to make a small profit along the way. Well, Richard is now gone and the community that we supported for many years has changed so totally. Since I moved back to Maine from NYC in 1988 I have watched our community grow and change to the sophisticated harmonious group it has become. Almost all my friends are partnered. The world finally sees us as just like everyone else.

The kids get it. As we, Portland's older gay population, makes way for the youth, the whole tableau of the gay lifestyle has changed as well. Young people have no problem understanding that being gay is not a lifestyle choice. As a young friend said, "we don't choose, we are chosen." With this, I wonder how much longer gay bars will exist. Young people go to bars with their friends. Just plain ol' bars They feel no need to seek out their own, they no longer feel the need to hide and live a double life. They can even marry their love partner's if they choose.

I wonder how long pride weeks will continue. I came out in 1969 around the time of the Stonewall incident. I found life much easier being out, although it pretty much eliminated the career of teaching that I had chosen in college. Living in a college town in the early 70's there were gay night at many clubs, I remember going out dancing with my boyfriend. When I left the college town of Amherst, I went to Boston where I trained at a young business called Tech HiFi. There was no problem with my being gay as I soon discovered there were many brothers working for the company as well. I later transferred to the Manhattan district. It was so easy to be out and gay in Manhattan and even with the AIDS epidemic I was respected by the company for whom I worked and I advanced. In NYC there were many gay clubs to go to, some really strange like the one that paid tribute to Star Trek with a portal to enter and many floors of spaceship to explore. When I visited Maine it was another story. Portland had a gay bar, Rolands, that had a back room with a red light to let the patrons know the Police had arrived to harass them and harass they did. I believe every gay club in Portland was burned until Blackstones. I remember being totally grossed out by the attitudes towards Gay in Maine. How times have changed!

Pride week used to be so important to our kind. I'm sure you remember teachers having to wear masks while marching in the Pride Parade so that they wouldn't loose their jobs. Although I marched with several of the gay groups (Unum's Gay focus group, The Maine Gay Men's Chorus, and several of the groups around Portland that offered meeting without alcohol) I think back to the need for these groups and how they no longer exist.

Richard and I launched a gay website and it's companion newspaper, “The Companion” around ten years ago. I remember writing in the first issue the fact that the gay community was gentrifying and we were looked at as a market yet untapped. This was the summer that Logo TV was launched and they spent a week in front of the pier in Portland broadcasting. This spring I saw a bridal news supplement for the Gay community. We have gained status as real people not a fringe group that hides in dark taverns drinking our lives away.

So now I come to the issue of Gay Pride week. It seems that only three people remain on the Pride committee and now the community is yelling fowl. Doesn't it really come down to a lack of interest on our part. I have watched Pride week fall apart over the past 8 years. Who can forget the pier dance moving to the CCCC because of rain and about 20 people showed up. The city stopped the leasing of the pier so no Pier Dance. The city asked Pride to move in order to not interfere with the Farmers Market. Yes all these things have happened but it not the fault of the city or for that matter the Pride Committee. it's the changes in the gay community itself.

Earlier, I mentioned about the kids getting it. I see them looking back at Gay Pride as a necessity (just as I do the Stonewall riots) but not something that needs to continue. It's like having a parade to celebrate red hair or tall people. As we become more and more integrated into society, the less we need to put ourselves in straight peoples faces and remind them that “we're here, we're queer, get over it!” They and we have gotten over it.

So long my Little Fannie Tinklebalm

It’s now a week since I received the news that my cousin, Little Fanny Tinklebalm, was diagnosed with cancer and was moving in with her daughter, Sandy. A lot can change in a brief week. I received a call from Ricky’s daughter, Heather, telling me that Barrie had passed. It was such a short time. It makes me wonder how sick she was, as she never mentioned anything regarding her personal health in our nearly monthly telephone visits.

I have spent this week in reflection trying to remember the many times that Barrie touched my life. When her mother, Betty (call me Liz) passed. The family had a service out west where many of the clan had moved. There was a small service at Valley Forge for us right coasters that was attended by her brother and sister and assorted relatives and friends. The service was very unsatisfactory, at best, although the site was indeed beautiful. After the service when I was driving my mother back from PA, we slipped the cassette that Barrie had sent to us in the car’s tape player. It was a tape of Betty’s Left Coast service. In it, Barrie talked about her mother mentioning how she called Rick and her, Ricky Ticky Tavie, and Little Fanny Tinklebalm. She related many stories about her parents but especially her mother. Betty was a known in Wayne, perhaps a celebrity. She could be seen regularly driving her green 1963 Chevrolet Impala convertible up and down Lancaster Pike, at Saint David’s Golf course, Martin’s Dam and of course speaking loudly while climbing the steps to the Library. My mother just sighed and said, “Finally, now this feels like the service I needed to hear for my sister.

One Easter back in the nineties, Ricky and Sherene were visiting us in Naples. Mother had some old 8mm films she wanted to show and one was left by Ricky’s father many years before. I set up the projector and screen in the living room and there on the silver screen was a movie of Barrie, getting out of her 65 Chevrolet Malibu convertible, bright metallic blue, in a form fitting matching blue dress. My god, what a stunner. She so reminded me of Marilyn Monroe. I, of course, had always remember Barrie as a high school athlete, stocky and strong, but not a beauty by any means. Now there she was, having remade herself in her mid-twenties, newly married and looking fine. Ricky took the movie back west with him and I have never seen it again. I only hope that he has shared it with all of you on the left coast.

Another time, I was visiting a friend over on Squam Lake in “Ashcan,” New Hampshire. My mother drove over from Naples with Barrie who was visiting. We toured the area bring back memories when Butch and Bree, our grandparents, had a cottage on Squam. We even stopped at the statue of the girl screwing the Swan (I’m not making this stuff up!) and had lunch at an inn across the street. On our way back to Naples, we were caught up in traffic just south of Conway and Barrie jumped out of the backseat and started jogging alongside the car as we moved slowly toward Conway. Ever the athlete, Barrie seems to be comfortable in almost any spot.

Mother was out west visiting Uncle Dick and Barrie in CA. Barrie was sleeping on the floor and Mother insisted that they go out and buy her a bed. Barrie was willing to sleep on the floor in the care of her Father. I suspect that she was the same with her immediate family, ever generous to them helping them along in life and never worrying about herself.

In recent years while I too have been battling the dreaded killer, cancer; Barrie has been a steady comfort to me. You could call her my private cheerleader (although she certainly never actually was one) and she always had positive things to say to me. We were planning a visit when she came east this June and I planned to visit her when I came west this coming winter. That was her, caring for others and never letting us care for her.

For a long time I used to espoused to the Lou Grant school of life. “Mary, your born, you live and then you die. That’s all there is, there’s nothing more.” Having contracted several diseases, one of them terminal, I have changed my philosophy toward life and death. I like to think that since we are made of star stuff, and quantum physics allows for us to all be connected to the entire multi-verse, we may actually have more to experience than this one life we supposedly have. I’m still not sure what will actually happens when I pass. Since Steve Jobs said, “Oh wow, oh wow!” as he passed, I now suspect there actually may be more. Will we meet each other? I don’t know. I suspect that the true life we will experience after death on this plane is much bigger than just us and our interactions in the small short time that we live.

Grief is something we all experience. I used to think of grief as this four step process that we go through. Counting the steps of Shock, Anger, Depression, and then Moving on. Having experienced the death of my Mother recently, I have learned different. After we pass, our relationships with those whom we love, becomes an internal one rather than an external one. I used to think that we went through these four steps and everything would be OK. As a people, we tend to think that this process is a short one if only we go through the steps. Our work awards us a couple of days in the death of a spouse of parent, no more. Since they have given us this time, we suppose that we should be able to move on. These steps have been created for those around us. How does it go? “It’s been at least three months, shouldn’t you be back to normal?”

Well, first, what the hell is normal? Second, the grieving process is for me, not you and it will take me as long as it takes and I will then find a new normal to replace the one where my loved one existed. So, my family, be good to yourselves. Take all the time you need. You will find in me a responsive ear to listen to you.

As my Mother so eloquently told me after her death, “Our dear cousin is no longer where she used to be. She is now wherever we are.”

The current matriarchal baton has been passed down the line and now resides with Debbie Gilman. 

Come with Me.

I was looking up a word in my Merriam-Webster Dictionary this morning and stumbled across this poem that I believe my Mother wrote. No date or title.

Come with me to spring...
the young willow is tender and transparent... 
dropping it's branches gently to the earth.
Shade is a pattern and lawns are green and moist rain is soft...
with uplifted face, a blessing is sprinkled.
Life is young and life is innocent, easily crushed and easily adored.


Come with me over the fields...
into the sun. Life is lazy and slow,
sitting in the quiet meadow, with the clouds overhead...
full and misty, sometimes billowing and white as chalk.
Birds swing wide in the watery blue, 
calling to their small one's in snug little nests along the fence posts.
The good smell of gay lying on the ground, dry and warm.


Come with me when night galls quickly and dawn brings a light frost on the pane...
leaves are brilliant and clashing, floating, swirling, swiftly to the ground.
Faint odor of burning leaves fill the air, bringing memories.
Autumn is sad with dying life, forgetful of the present,
jealous of the past and fearful of the future.


Come with me and see the snow as it has never been.
The wind sweeps white wisps of fine flakes into the  lowered face.
The breath is fast and clod and cheeks are warm and tingling.
Life is fleeting, flying, dying.
The sky lays over the earth and shuts out the deep blue of space.
It is quiet, very quiet.
Even the wind tiptoes across the drifts,
and is muffled in the downy blanket.

Come with me, come with me.

Occupy Now or How I Found My Mojo

I have been taxing my brain to express how I feel about the Occupy movement and how I can put my thoughts into words that are both meaningful and succinct.

The Occupy movement is the most exciting political action we have seen since the early 70' re: the war and the 60's re: the anti-segregation movement. People are taking to the streets to complain about how their situation, their lives, have been affected by corporate greed and the lack of representation by the people we have elected to state and federal office. It is really that simple. When we have our courts system declare that corporations are people and therefore have the rights of the individual we create an inequity that is just huge. How can we as individuals even begin to compete for the attention of our government when we can just be rolled over by large corporations who's budgets for political actions so out scope our own meager offerings? Let's face it, the 1% owns not only all the wealth, but our government as well.

So, how do we fight this? How do we let both the corporations and our elected officials know that this is unacceptable? We protest these inequalities by going to the streets with peaceful actions. We let the elected and their owners know that we don't approve. When we protested the war in Vietnam, we achieved our goals and got our conservative President to remove us from the conflict. Now granted, he had indeed shot himself in the foot by the dirty tricks he and his Whitehouse committed, but through our peaceful protesting we ended the war. The time has come again where we must let those in power know “we are mad as hell and we are not going to take it any longer.”

If you are like me an unable to actively protest due to physical restraints, you might do other things to help the movement. Yesterday, the Occupy Portland Maine movement asked us for warm long underwear. As we Mainer's know, the winter is much easier to survive with a pair of long underwear under the shirt and pants. They have ask for them to be dropped off at the park where they are staying. I intend to do so on Saturday when I am in town for a party. I also speak out by the means available to me. I know that most of you are already behind this action but every little bit helps. What is it that Wavy Gravy said, “how can you end wars and stuff if you cant yell out how you feel?” God, I sure am dating myself; as some of you look up Wavy on the internet.

As many of you are aware, the 1% are trying to crush this movement. They have resorted to again using lies through their media (supposed news) outlets. They say we are a bunch of hippies (who by the way are in their sixties and seventies now and no longer the “dirty” bunch of students) and crack pots. They say we don't have any demands, we are not organized, we are clueless. They are wrong! By keeping this thing simple, we have empowered ourselves.

What do we want? We want balance. We want to be able to live the American dream which has been slowly eroded since the mid 80's by the 1% through their removal of the checks and balances that history has told us are needed. We want regulation of the banking system so that they cannot bet against themselves and their shareholders creating this man-made recession. We must break up these banks so they are no longer too big to fail. We need to get big money out of our politics. Corporations are not citizens.

We all are Americans and we want the rights and privileges promised us by our fore fathers. As in the past, we must sometimes fight for those rights but not the way our oppressors might, not through violent action. Instead we need to protest passively. We need to respect others. We need to get our messages heard but not through war. Instead we must press these issues by letting our numbers be seen. We must let our opinions be hear but not through violent actions but instead by passive political actions.

We must keep moving forward!

New York on Sunday or It's a whole new world to me.

After arriving by Amtrak to Penn Station on a Sunday afternoon in April of '76, having rapidly packed the night before and following orders from the company for which I was an Area Manager, I stepped to the curb to hale a taxi.

I had left Boston, the first city I had worked in after leaving college and my second love. We had both graduated, and were now pursuing careers. With each move up our individual ladders, we moved further apart both figuratively and actually. I had decided to accept the move up to managing the NYC stores for the young consumer electronics company I had started at only a year and a half ago. Gary had worked in Public Television in the engineering department in Springfield Mass. and had just accepted a new position, designing the new broadcast facilities in Saudi Arabia. Talk about a physical distance; we were a half a world apart.

I had decided to take up residence at SRO hotel in mid-town Manhattan until I got myself settled and had explored the many neighborhoods that the city offered. The Henry Hudson Hotel to be specific. It was ironic that NYC's public television station had offices and studios in the same building. Why had Gary decided to take such a different path?

I had come out during the summer of '69 just after the Stonewall riots. Amherst had been a very safe place to come out. With 5 colleges in a 10 mile radius the intellectual level was high and liberal (no pun intended).I had met Gary the following fall when he was a freshman and I was a junior. My first real romance had been rather disastrous. I had met him the winter before I had come out and had a rather quick romance culminating in a hot weekend at a beach cottage on the South Shore of Boston in late spring. I knew something was very wrong that Sunday when we were driving back to school. He was very distant and quiet. I discovered the next day the he had totally freaked out with our romance. I mean, he was the aggressive one at the beginning of the weekend. I was in heaven. I had finally made love to another man and boy, I really liked the feeling. I had made so much sense to me but he, on the other hand, had leaped, and then jumped, back into the closet, slamming the door after him. Well, live and learn.

Gary and I had a slowly evolving romance that lasted for 5 years but the last year had been strained. In order to find a job with growth potential, I had had to look to the east, to Boston. Well, now I was in the Big Apple, the home of stonewall, the start of the gay movement.

That first week at work was incredible. We had two stores in Manhattan and one out on the Island (Long Island). I had to find and open two more stores in Manhattan and have them up and running before the Christmas selling season. I sure learned a lot those first few months but that is another story. I had the following Sunday off and decided I needed to see where I might want to live. Greenwich Village was the place to explore on the beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon.

I took the A train down to West Fourth. I got out and first wandered over to Washington Square. It was kind of like Boston. Lots of college kids hanging. Smoke in the air and music playing. After all, it was the mid seventies, the age of pot and tunes. What better business to be in than selling the equipment that played those tunes.

I decided that I needed to venture to the west so I went up West Fourth crossing over Sixth Ave to Sheridan Square. Now I was in the really gay area. It was amazing to see so many men in many variations and all of them gay. It was like the Village people although they had not reached the fame they would achieve in another year.

From there I worked my way up to Christopher Street and wandered toward the infamous docks. The magazine “Christopher Street” would soon be standard reading for me, but it's first magazine was a few months off. Beautiful Christopher Street, the home of e.e. Cummings, one of my favorite poets. This is the, or at least, was the Main Street of the Gay community. What a change from gay night at the Quonset Club in Amherst. (I can still hear that Polka band and remember dancing with Gary.)

As I strolled down Christopher Street on that beautiful Sunday, I remember seeing men walking hand in hand, arm in arm, out, proud and enjoying the day and each other. I heard a police whistle blow and turned around in time to step out of the way of the Sugar Plum Fairy as “she” roller skated down the street, throwing handfuls of glitter as he went. You know, when your my size (very large, 6'4” and 235 lbs) you don't tend to get hassled. So I wandered, smoking a joint and cruising the men until I got down to the docks. I had seen porn that was shot on the docks but I never realized that this was what happened all the time on the weekends. It wasn't staged, it was real. I had been to Provincetown and been at the “dick-dock” after the bars had closed, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw that afternoon. Singles, couples and small groups, madly at it, totally hot and passionate sex, as far as the eye could see in the bright of day. To say that this was an eye opener is a total understatement.

That afternoon, I knew I had flown over the rainbow. Me, a kid from the sticks of Maine, here in the center of the gay world. I just knew that it was going to be an interesting life here on the island of Manhattan. Unfortunately, I had no realization of how weird and horrible that world would become in just a few more years. Yes the party would end and rather tragically. But that story,my friends, is for another day. 

Is Summer a Time for Love; or Will I Ever Find my Someone?

Helen Keller wrote: "You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear."

I was listening to James Taylor yesterday afternoon, side two of “One Man Dog.” When it got to the song “Someone” I began to reflect. I'm going to be 63 this coming November and am still looking for love (in all the wrong places?) and wonder if I will ever find it again.

I have been in love thrice in my life, twice in my early twenties and once about 7 years ago. I know I am lucky for this as love does not strike often.

My first relationship, the first man I made love to, grew over a period of five months. We met at college, he was two years younger than I. Our relationship culminating one wild weekend in a small cottage on the south shore of Boston. Although I had dreamed of this happening, I never expected that it would. I will be the first one to tell you, I'm gay and attracted to men, but I had pursued only “straight” men and I had difficulty with being pursued. This first conquest was extremely passionate with a capital P. I was no virgin, as I had made love to a woman but that had not been very satisfactory. I had fooled around with guys while in High School but I certainly would not have called that love. And yet, here is was. The big L, offered to me on a silver platter. We cuddled the first night and had mad passionate sex the next. Unfortunately for me, he then leaped back into the closet and slammed the door. I spent the next few months trying to figure out what I had done wrong. It turned out that I hadn't. I had made no mistakes. I had taken a risk and it had failed. Chalk one up for him.

My second relationship lasted much longer. We dated for four years. We never lived together and as we grew older, we grew apart. Our careers seem to set the stage for the relationship. As we moved ahead with our jobs, we moved further apart, both figuratively and actually. Finally, I ended up in NYC and he ended up in Saudi Arabia. Could two people be any further apart? I cared for him very much but as I have grown older, I realize the difficulties I have with relationships. Whether it was domineering mother and an absent father, what ever its cause, I have suffered because of it. I believe that it's called detachment disorder with abandonment issues. I have always had difficulties with relationships.

I lived in NYC from the beginning of the AIDS crisis to the beginning of the “cure.” Yea, I know there isn't a cure but people that are infected are living much longer lives with the new meds and improvements are happening all the time. I found it very hard to meet people. Even when I did, I was very unsure of myself and frankly very frighten of becoming HIV positive or afraid to give of myself only to be abandoned again. If you became infected, you had a death sentence, and died in around 6 months. During this time, I was losing staff and friends at a horrifying rate. I grew older, became less satisfied with my life and realized that I desperately needed a change. I decided to return to my roots as it were. I moved back to Maine.

I launched my second career and opened my heart to the people around me. I have never been a fan of gay bars. I decided that if I was to meet my someone, I needed to act rather that be passive and wait for love to find me. I joined the Gay Men's Chorus of Portland, I attended Men's retreats, I helped to launch an alcohol free gay men's group that met weekly. With my business partner, we launched a Gay newspaper and created a gay night at a large local club. Much to my surprise, I did meet someone.

He was a beautiful man. He was tall and handsome, he had red hair, green eyes, full lips and he was HIV positive. He was also in a long term relationship with another man. We both realized that we might never be able to fulfill our love. He taught me about safe sex. He taught me how to face death. He was most gentle and kind and my love for him just grew. He had been in hospice with full blown AIDS before I had met him. He had then weighed around 120 lbs, while his normal weight was around 175. Protease inhibitors had been his salvation. We both knew that his time was limited and I was adamant that he needed to figure out his relationship with Keith before we could know where we stood.

I suspect that he had known the full extent of his health problems when he begged my forgiveness and told me he was moving to Las Vegas with Keith. He died less that a year later. I miss him so. He was a great friend, I loved him so and I always wonder how my life would have been with him. I know that he was sparing me the grief I would experience but I have experienced that grief none the less. I don't even have a picture of him.

So here I am. I too have a death sentence. I have cancer and I know that it is just a matter of time, just like Jon. I don't have much to offer other than the time I have left. I am not a rich man but I am happy. In fact, I have never been happier. To quote Krandall Kraus and Paul Borja, “Once you have experienced dying, the experience of living is changed unalterably and forever. The world and all that is in it take on a translucent quality. One sees 'through the world,' as it were, into the heart of things. The trivial falls away, essences come to the surface, nothing is merely what it appears to be... all takes on a kind of diaphanous quality.” This has happened to me. I now look at life through different eyes. My hope is that someone can join me in this last adventure. Although the end may still be some time away, I none the less see that end down the road. I only hope that I can see it with 'someone.'

Ode to Santa Fe:

As you enter the state of New Mexico on Interstate 40, you are atop a ridge thousands of feet above a huge valley that expands before you. This is a giant arroyo that spreads from north to south with a snow capped mountain range in the distance west. You have entered a land of enchantment, a land where magic abounds. A land where you can travel fast: The speed limit's seventy five but most cruise at ninety.

Arriving in Albuquerque, you branch onto Highway 25 and head north. The light from the sun is a different color from what we see in the eastern United States. It's less yellow and the shadows it casts are smaller. The sky is a cobalt blue, like the skies you get with a polarizing filter. The sky is occasional blocked by thin filmy clouds, or huge thunderheads that seem to go miles high in the bright sky.

You start the climb both up and north into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. If you want, you can get off onto the Turquoise Trail, which winds through the ghost town of Golden and into the tourist trap that is Madrid. Otherwise, you stay on the highway and the altitude climbs steadily to seven thousand feet above sea level.

Now you are speeding across the highest of deserts, no cactus or sandy desolation. The mountains have some green where the snow had melted and the lowlands are bearded with wind hearty, drought tolerant pinon trees, both ancient and ragged and low to the ground – Darwinian victors – and there is the occasional vertical statement of bare-branch aspens. Millions of trees, tipped with white. This mix of trees creates an illusion of distance and size if you are used to the trees we have in the east. Pinons look like large pine trees, hills look like mountains, juniper abound. It is an alien landscape to those of us that make the east coast our home.

You exit on to Cerrilos Road from I25 and continue through the southern part of Santa Fe, which seems not much different from any other small city, with shopping centers, and auto dealers and gas stations and the type of businesses that hug highways. You follow the signs north to City Center and the Plaza and you are suddenly in a different world. Narrow, winding streets, some of them cobbled, that force you to reduce your speed as you roll by one-story adobe and Spanish Colonial building plastered in sienna, peach, dun and gold; twenty nine different shades of mud. All of them accented with the ubiquitous turquoise trim. Trees line the streets in the old town. This is a city as old as Boston but from a different country and a different time. This area was inhabited by natives before any western European’s touched the shores in the east.

On the north side of the plaza, art galleries, sculpture and glass studios, gourmet cookware emporia, purveyors of fine foods, high fashion clothing and hand-hewn furniture, custom picture framers. Cafés and restaurants never tainted by corporate logos abound, promising everything from southwester to sushi. SUVs are the steed of choice, and sinuous, happy people in jeans and suede and boots that had never known the kiss of manure, crowd the sidewalks.

The central plaza, a square of tree shaded green, set up with a bandstand is surrounded by low-rise shops. You drive past a covered breesway, where a couple of dozen down-parkaed Indans sit behind blankets of silver jewelry in front of the Palace of the Governors. Across the square is a massive blocky structure of fieldstone that seems more European and American. More restaurants and galleries, a couple of luxury hotels and suddenly you are out of the center of town and back to the broad streets and shopping plazas.

Santa Fe is both ancient and modern. It is a place out of time.

Each night that I am there, I gaze out of my bedroom window, down onto the city. I live in the mountains to the south of the city where turquoise, gold and silver were mined. Vista del Oro, view of gold, a dirt road in the hills outside of Santa Fe. This is my winter home, a place I go to, to recharge my soul. Although I am a Mainer, who loves water and surrounds himself with it, my winters are in the dry, arid climate that is Santa Fe. The land of the coyote, the land of mystery, the land where magic is still alive.

Love, Live and how I got my pride.

Well, my friends, the month of June, Gay Pride Month, has been a busy one. Since I was diagnosed with cancer and my arthritis has made a re-appearance, I have not been able to do the volunteering like I used to. I recall cooking hamburgers for the Gay Pride Festival over ten years ago. I had sun stroke after the event but I really enjoyed the experience. My ex-business partner and I handled all the promotions for pride weekend one year. We also ran the free music program in Congress Square for a couple of summers. IN those days, I certainly had much more energy. Now, I get shagged if I mow the lawn and weed the garden on the same day. Although I don't really feel any older, I just can't do the same amount of stuff that I used to be able to do. I believe my mother used to say the the golden years are not for the faint of heart.

But, what I really wanted to talk about is how much the gay community has changed. When I came out in 1969, I would have just laughed at you if you were to tell me that there would be gay marriage now. I can imagine what NYC was like on the Friday of Gay Pride Weekend when the State voted to approve gay marriage. I'd have given anything to be in Sheridan Square on that night. It's not that I didn't dream of being married, I just never could have imagined that it really would happen. Having had attachment issues when I was young, oh hell, I still have them, I have difficulty forming lasting relationships. My first love jumped back into the closet right after coming out slamming the door as he went. Something about leading a horse to water but not getting them to drink. I later that year started dating a young man. We dated for 4 years but we never lived together and as our careers grew, we moved farther apart from each other. In the end, I lived in NYC and he lived in Saudi Arabia. I don't think we could have been farther apart.

For the next twenty years, I lived and worked in NYC. Coming from a small town in Maine, I was usually overwhelmed with gay bars in the city. After my great success in relationships I chided away from men. After The Disease announced itself, I was just scared to fall for anyone. I dated a few women during that time and although they thought they could convert me, I was hopelessly a big homo and would never not be one.

At the end of the eighties, I moved back to that small town in Maine. I became involved with the gay community in Portland. I organized weekly meeting (alcohol free) for gays to meet others but I still never met the man of my dreams. I understand that to have fallen in love, real love, twice in my life was doing pretty good. Unfortunately now I just don't expect to ever have that feeling again. I guess I am in morning. Both for the relationship I never had and the fact that I am now old and sick and probably will never again experience true love.

My business partner and I started a gay night on Fridays at a large club at the end of the nineties. The community could never have supported a club this large but to do a gay night weekly, was fine. We packed the place for about 4 months. At that point, the drinks mysteriously were spiked and after several incidents of people passing out in the club or on the street, we shut down the operation. We suspected that the other gay clubs just couldn't stand the fact that one night a week, “their” customers went to our club. We used the internet to advertise our club and maintained a e-mail list to notify our club members of up coming events. We brought people into Portland from as far away as Boston and Bangor. We brought new people to town to go to our club. And it wasn't as though we keep them the whole evening, People went from club to club just as they had in the past. It was a glorious summer but it came to a dramatic end. I can remember sitting in one of the corners of the cavernous club and reflecting on how the owners of Studio 64 felt. Of course we did it without the drugs. It's really too bad that the other owners could not see beyond their own noses.

Now with my health problems, I don't get out much anymore. I get into Portland about twice a month. There are no longer any weekly or monthly meeting. I just hate the gay bars, and frankly, I wonder if their usefulness hasn't expired. Young people don't seem to need the exclusive organizations we had when I was young. Young people seem to accept each other (at least after they become young adults) and no longer feel the need to go to a gay bar to be with their own kind. This does not bode well for the gay bar as an institution and I'm not sure that this is not a good thing. For that matter, it doesn't bode well for anything gay. Since our gay children are still being bullied and persecuted in the secondary education system, how are they ever to learn that they are beautiful the way they are and that we cherish them for who they are, not what they are. I saw today that California had created a bill that forces the education system there to teach about gays in history. In a way, I am for this, but to force teachers to teach about people in history and say oh, and by the way, they were gay, doesn't seem correct. Even though we as humans have grown by leaps and bounds, I'm not sure we gays will ever be accepted by those who don't understand why we are the way we are. So, there it is my friends. How do we tell our children that being gay is not an aberration, it is not something you should be ashamed of, but instead that you were born the way you are. No, my children, you don't learn to be gay and there is no hidden agenda on the conversion of our youth.

A young friend said to me once, “you know, Wes, I think everyone is born bi.“

Another told me that they though of sexuality as a pendulum that swings back and forth. Still another, that we all were flexible, and it depended on the time and place. So what I guess what I'm hearing is that everyone has some gay in them. I once counseled a young man who was coming out. He told me that he just hated effeminate men. I told him, you know, there is a little queen in all of us. Four years later, he was competing in a drag queen contest put on by his college. Go figure.

So here I am, sitting at my computer, enjoying the time I have left on this planet as best I can. Will I ever find love again. I don't know, but I do know that I would welcome it as I would an old friend showing up on my doorstep. I would welcome him in and open my heart.

The Discussion on What is Happy.

My cousin wrote me today asking for an explaination of what I meant when I said Discussion of What Is Happy. I was referring to a cartoon I saw in the New Yorker many, many years ago. The cartoon showed two guys walking past a bar and on the sandwich board outside the bar it read, Happy Hour at 5, followed by a discussion of What is Happy. Well, my friends, what is happy?

To be truthful, there are so many things that make me happy. Greeting each new day with a dog on each side of the bed. My morning coffee, freshly ground and brewed. Riding in my convertible with the top down on a cold fall day with the heated seats on high, the windows up and the heater on full. Swimming in Long Lake in the late afternoon with friends and cocktails. Seeing the Lightening Bugs in my garden on a warm summer's evening. The smell of the Pine Trees on a chilly winter afternoon. The snow blowing past my french doors while a fire is burning in the wood stove near by. The fact that it is still light after 9 pm in the early summer. I could go on for ever.

To quote Krandall Kraus and Nicky Borja, "Once you have experienced dying, the experience of living is changed unalterably and forever. Nothing looks, sounds, or feels the same again. the world and all that is in it take on a translucent quality. One sees 'through the world' as it were, into the heart of things. the trivial falls away, essences come to the surface; nothing is merely what it appears to be. Blustery men, provocative women, weeping children, even automobiles, trees, oceans, Forth of July parades - all take on a kind of diaphanous quality." 

After being diagnosed with a terminal illness, I am now discovering that so much makes me happy. I know it doesn't make sense but there you go, neither does life. Every afternoon at my house, a discussion of what is happy happens right after happy hour. Of course, happy hour is every hour.

In the springtime of my life:

It’s another early morning as I have awoken to pain and sleep is now elusive.

As someone I knew said, “It’s a funny old world.” When I received my diagnosis of Prostate Cancer five years ago, I assumed that I was about to die or at the least, I had a death sentence hanging over me. As of late, I have realized that this, like many things, was really a matter of prospective. It was indeed a death sentence if I looked at it that way. But that, was just me, projecting into the future. It didn’t have any connection with reality unless I made it so.

In my struggle to find happiness (isn’t that what we all are really looking for in life?) I had placed my own obstacles in the way. When I should have been listening, I was instead talking. In the dark time (for me, this is the winter months when the sun is low in the sky and the days are short) I let depression overtake me and wondered what I was really doing with my life. I certainly wasn’t living it. Instead, I was projecting my problems on other's lives and giving sage advice when I should have been listening to my own advice and not dishing it out. I used humor as a mask I wear, to be judgmental of others. I teased friends when I should have just been there to listen.  For that, I am truly sorry. I find that I regularly get into trouble when I open my mouth and try to fix others, when, I can’t even fix myself. To that end, I am trying to make amends by keeping my nose out of other peoples business and instead concentrating on my own.

Like all of us, I am constantly struggling with the future, something I really have little control over. I dwell on what may happen, instead of being in the present and working to control the things I can. I guess that’s why they call it work. Life doesn’t work itself, instead, I have to work it. This means I must be in the present and take control of my life as I live it, without allowing the possibilities of the future  to get in the way of my living my life as it is. In the now. 

Looking back on what I have just written, it looks like a lot of crap. I guess that it is, but it’s my crap. It’s my perceptions as I look out through my eye holes and ponder life as it is now. 

It is finally Spring. “April, come she will; when streams are ripe, and swelled with rain.” A time for renewal, for growth. I can only hope that I still have room and time to grow. I sometimes look at myself in the bathroom mirror and wonder who that old man is looking back at me. It’s interesting watching how we age. I really don’t feel different on the inside. I still think of myself as that young healthy man, just starting out on his carreer(s). As I told my councilor, inside I’m a dancer. I’m a spry, thin young man. Unfortunately, nothing could be farther from the truth. I’m not young, I’m not spry, and unfortunately I am no dancer. My body has gotten in the way of that internal image. If I must live in the present, and I must, I have to accept that I am the way I am and work with what I got. To find serenity, I must own my own business and not be sticking my nose into others. 

This spring, I will make my life, like my garden. I will try to fill it with beautiful things but work within my limits and realize those limits and be satisfied with them. I will be in the present. I will try to not be judgmental. I will try to mind my own business. All I ask of you, my friends, is that you tell me to mind my own business when I try to mind yours. 

Death, it's a funny thing.

I met with my oncologist yesterday and for the first time, he actually gave me some kind of time-line for my cancer. Until this point, he used that "there is no expiration date anywhere on your body" routine. We were talking about taking a drug holiday for the summer. As he had explained before, there are several types of Prostate Cancer and the hormone therapy that I am taking now only works on one kind of the cancer and then only for so long. By taking drug holidays, it seems to extend the effectiveness of the therapy and for the first time he actually said 15 years. So there you have it. I have another 15 or so years left to have all the fun I can squeeze in to that period of time.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am not complaining at all. If left to my own devices, I would have assumed that my time left was significantly less. Since I have adopted a new attitude toward life, this is great news.

A very funny thing happens when you learn that you are dying. Not a funny, ha, ha, thing but a ironic, peculiar funny thing. When you know you are going to die, you suddenly and finally begin to live. When you think time is short, you stop wasting time with people you don't like and you stop tolerating stupidity and whining. Instead of fear, one becomes comfortable with who we are. Instead of running away, we turn inward and try to resolve the conflicts that have hindered us in life. I can honestly say that I have never been this happy in my life. I now do what I want. I write daily. I pursue my art in photography, music and 3-D modeling with my model railroad. My time is my own and oh, how I enjoy it. My two life partners (my Jack Russel Terriers) and I travel when we want. We do what we want. In other words, life is a great treasure and I plan to enjoy it every day I am still here. As they say, “It's a great day when I awake above ground.”

So my friends, I go forward in life by living it one day at a time and enjoying that day to it's fullest.

A Grand Day Out or How can I help the children?

This past Saturday, I went into town (Portland) for a day of events. I don't usually drive distances anymore as the price of doing so is just so high. But, I decided that I needed to do this.

My first event aside from coffee and a bagel at DD was to attend the Rally after the Day of Silence. This was held in Monument Square. About 100 people were there even though the temps were not what we we were hopeful for. The speakers were interesting and the cause was very important. Essentially, the day of Silence was to support a stop to the bullying that goes on in our schools around the country. This is especially important for the young among us who are questioning their sexuality or have already decided that they are different and can't decide how to tell their friends. 

I'm sure that all of you, my friends, have stories of your struggle in High School. All of us do. It's just that in these days, the tools for the bullies are much stronger and more harmful and hurtful than they were in my day. (That is not to say that bullying wasn't hurtful even in the dark ages before computers and TV.) I was spared much as I got older as I became a giant among my peers and few felt the strength and verve to take me on.

I do remember the bad times, though. As a sophomore, I ended up in the hospital just before Christmas. My leg and ankle were broken in 5 places and I was in a cast until June. I though I would limp for life but skiing took care of that the following winter. In typical style, I didn't rat out the boys (all 5 of them) and get them expelled. Instead of this getting them to stop, it encouraged them all the more. Hindsight is so 20/20.

The age of the people at this event were from 3 to 80 something. There were people from the State Legislature there asking for support on their bills before the House re: bullying and legislation to further hinder transsexuals from use of the bathroom re: their gender identity and not their sex. Both seem such a waste of time given the need for "jobs, jobs, jobs" and solutions that move us forward and end the constant bickering of each side. I don't really mean waste as the bills unto themselves are important given the attack of the right on homosexuals. I mean it sidetracks attention from the important issues that need resolution. I was even more disappointed that Reps Morris and Bartlett were a no show for the meeting of No Labels that afternoon. More to come.

It was a pleasure to speak with friends who did show for this rally. I was especially impressed with the young people who showed up. There was a wide representation of the youth culture as well. My but that takes me back.

After a lovely lunch with friends, I went to the second event of my day, the meeting of No Labels at the UNE campus..

I have been interested in this "group" for a while now. The thing that really came to the front was that this organization didn't so much take sides but instead tried to move the conversations forward. Their slogan is, "Not Right, Not Left, Forward." I mean, when the group first announced their intentions, both Bill Rielly and Keith Oberman went out of their way to bad mouth them. A group that pisses off both sides of the political spectrum is of interest to me.

Being the suspicious type, I was interested in where their funding came from. It appears to be completely grass roots and does not involve the Koch Bros. To boil down the rhetoric, this organization is interested in having effect on the primary elections and want to move candidates forward who will work together for common bipartisan solutions rather that the two extremes (both Left and Right) pushing forward candidates who agree with their philosophy and are not able to work together. In other words, they want to put candidates who will work for a common good, America, rather that ones who posture and bicker and don't accomplish anything.

I have stated that one of my short coming is that I don't play well with others. This is a major problem with our federal government as well. This group, if able, will try to change this outcome. To me, this makes perfect sense. If you are interested in this, you can find them on FB or the web.

I purchased strawberries and the new Harry Potter movie on the way home. In all, a very nice day.

Now, where are my shovel and rake? The garden calls. And you, my friends, have heard it from me. Now go forth and prosper.

Here's to my health, or How I play "Beat the Reaper."

I have just gotten off the phone with my Oncologist. At this time, I appear to be in total remission! Not sure what that really means but as I hear it, my cancer is not detectible to the human eye. Unfortunately, Prostate Cancer never goes away. It just hides somewhere and when you least expect it, there it is. Because of this, I must continue to have therapy for my cancer with occasional holidays so that I don't build up a tolerance to the meds. To my way of thinking, this means that at present, I don't have the reaper leaning over my shoulder. For the past five years, I have expected that I would not see my 65 birthday and now it seems that I can expect to make it way past that.

My family as a whole are very long lived. Both my father and grandfather made it into their late eighties even though that were total boozers. My dad, lived on three packs of cigarettes, a half gallon of wine and a box of doughnuts a day for the last three years of his life. My grandfather dies of scleroses of the liver at 87. Since I am not a drinker, I figure that I may make it as long as my great grandfather did who lived to 94. This has now forced me to look at my life and what it is that I want from it.

As a retired person, I must live on what I have put away and social security. For the past few years, I have been spending my nest egg in a caviler fashion assuming that I only had a few years left. Now the tables has turned. OMG! Can you say austerity plan? I have been planning a trip out west, a sort of whirlwind tour of the left coast to see friends and relatives. I planned to drive out at the end of March but now I'm not sure I should. In order to do this, I need to have enough money to keep my house operating (heating, electricity, monthly charges like satellite, cable, music software service, etc. I then need to have enough to entertain my friends and relatives as I don't want to be, or for that matter even look like, I'm a sponge. I also need hotel rooms (that accept pets) for the trip out, around and back. The question becomes can I do this without dipping into the reserves that now have to last for a much longer period of time. So, I'm in a quandary. To go or not to go? I will have to sit down and actually plan this all out in the next few weeks. Friends and relatives who are expecting me in April and May, I will get back to you.

There is also another problem (not so much a problem as another quandary). What to do with myself. I had pretty much put myself on the shelf, so to speak, and had considered that relationships would be for someone else. What did I have to offer in a relationship but pain and suffering as I went down hill toward that long good night. I have never wanted a nurse or a purse. But now, now, I have time. How do I proceed? I just can't imagine going out to the bars. I don't drink and since I come from a long line of alcoholics, I am attracted to drunks. This will not work. Over the past 20 years, I have participated in just about every gay group that has come to be in Portland. I sang in the Gay Men's Chorus. I founded a monthly meeting group for socializing that didn't involve drinking. I participated in a pot luck supper group that met monthly. Yes, I met men at these organizations, but no one that “rang my bell.” I feel that I am just too old to do the jumping through hoops that is required in order to meet someone. I have even resorted to on-line mate matching organizations. To date, this has been an experiment in disaster. Chemistry.com keeps sending me matches from the New York City area or beyond. I'm not sure that these people really know what they are doing. I tried to be clear with my profile but the only person I actually heard from was someone who seemed to be the neediest person in the world. What's with that? The rest, just sit there and don't respond. You know, men can be such cowards.

So here I am, living with dogs (don't get me wrong, I love my pets and as companions they are tops. They don't talk back and love everything.) and I suspect that I will be alone for the rest of my life, which now looks like a long time. So... I guess I need to find things that are fun to do. To that end, I may take that whirlwind trip out west or better yet, take a trip to Tuscany. I will work on my train layout. I will learn to use the Pro Tools software I got last fall and make music. I will take my camera out at least once a week and shoot photos. And, I will continue to write. Who knows, maybe I will finally finish that screen play I started 20 years ago. I am turning over a new leaf. I will live each day as though it is my last with the promise of many more to come. And you, my friends, will be the first to hear about it.

New Year's Resolutions – My view from Stage Left:

My intention is to publish this blog at least once monthly to keep my friends aware of my health and activities and also to be able to give you a piece of my mind. My last boss referred to me as open and honest with an in-your-face tendency. Although she also said “he is right 97% of the time, so please, just do as he asks.”

My New Year Resolution is to survive the next year. I figure that if I'm booked, I can't die; much like George Burns. Even though our resolutions fail us most years, I believe we can change our lives; it remains fundamental. Here are the common and simple things to remember. Take small steps. We work some much easier when we break things down into small attainable goals rather than taking on the “project from hell” that is huge, complex and not really doable. Second, we must become more self-aware, and self-understanding. We need to be able to evaluate what is important and what isn't. Even though we usually fail at resolutions, we can change our lives. This really is no surprise, as we see messages of change all around us. Change is a product that is sold to us. We hear so much about reinventing ourselves and how to change our lives in 5 easy steps. We actually have the opportunity to really do this but it must be approached by really thinking about what it is that we really want and how to break down the steps you need to make getting there possible. Many of us are not only feeling overwhelmed, but are also now taking stock of their lives so far as to be thinking about what's next, especially at this time of year. Myself, I have come to the place of, yes, I really want things to be different this next year. So, what do I resolve to do this year?

First: I will welcome and search out love. I feel like the main character in Krandall Kraus' book, “Love's Last Chance.” I have really loved only three men in my lifetime and do still love them dearly, although two are married and living a different life from when we were together. Those relationships, for what they were, were all before the Eighties, the age of AIDS. Having lived in NYC during the beginning of the AIDS crisis, I found that I had shut the door on relationships from that point forward. My third love was a victim and result of the AIDS crisis and has now passed on. Although my current cancer treatment has left me a sexual castrato, I still wish for relationship and love. My caution needs to be places aside and I need to be more open for it to happen. Stay tuned.

Second: I will eat a healthy diet (not with the intention of weight loss, although that would be great) but to gain better health. I have been reading about diet and disease and have come to the conclusion that getting healthy takes more that mind over matter, it takes work. I also will walk everyday for at least 30 minutes. Wish me luck with this as I am not sure I can do this.

Third: I will try to keep my humor intact regardless of my situation. Laughter is healthy and all of us need to laugh more. Even though the world looks like it's going to “hell in a hand basket” we can find humor in almost everything. Even the Republican take over of the House of representatives has been rich with humor. It's like the morons put all these rakes, face up, just inside the door of the House and then proceeded to step on every one of them. I hope the ridiculousness of this bunch of baboons keep going. I haven't laughed at politics in a long time.

With the news of the weekend still fresh on my mind, I hope and pray for peace in our country. There has to be a stop to the baiting of the conservative right with statements like “reload” and “second Amendment solutions”. What are these people thinking. Since the conservative mind is a mind based in fear, doing things to insight these people is just asking for trouble. Of course the “half governor of Alaska is an idiot” attributed to Keith Oberman, and the other yahoos in the “tea party movement” are acting without thinking of the consequences. People, especially those based in fear are easily lead a stray and this must stop. It is up to the rest of us to create the solutions needed to move us forward. We need to engage our brains before we open our mouths (“speaking; without listening”*) and then speak from the heart as well as the mind.

I hope this January finds all of you in good spirits and ready for the New Year. I hope that it will be a good one. Til next time...

Wes Cannell

* “Sounds of Silence”, Simon and Garfunkel

Christmas '10 Message

It's that time of the year again when I place pen to paper (so to speak) to reflect on last year. As almost all of you know, I am still battling cancer and the battle goes forward. I am currently receiving treatment which makes me feel like shit but is a must be. I hope to be able to, again, take a drug holiday this coming summer.

I spent much of this past year re-decorating the inside of the house. When Mom and I purchased it, it was pretty sad looking on the inside and squeezing three houses of stuff into one small ranch was daunting. I have given or donated most of the stuff so the house is now manageable except for the basement storage room which still needs to be cleaned and put in order. Something for next year.

I spent several months with Anne in Santa Fe last winter (it snowed every other day there last winter unlike Maine where I had to plow the driveway only 5 times the whole winter) and I totally enjoyed myself. Got back to Maine late March. We had a real nice spring (for a change).

Summer was too short, but I actually went swimming 6 times. The weather was great! Not to hot, not to rainy. Got a new riding lawnmower so I could cut the grass instead of paying someone. Enjoyed my gardens very much.

Christine and Airin have moved back to Maine and are settled in Buxton, which is about 15 miles from here. It's great to have family near. Now if only Jennifer...

I didn't make the Fryeburg Fair this past fall because Cousin Debbie and Libby Beatty didn't come north and I just didn't feel like going alone. It's hard to walk all that distance and I'll be damned if I will ride instead of walk. We had a real long and warm fall and while winter is only a week away, the weather just changed to colder (normal temperatures instead of warm ones). I guess no more 50ºs til spring.

My travel plans for this winter are to wait til spring. I will be going out west at the end of March with a month planed at Anne's ranch then a week with cousins Barrie and daughter and family in CO, a week with Steve Carlson at his beach house in OR and a week with Cousin Ricky on Vashon Is. Should be back around the end of April, beginning of May.

I plan to add an outside room to the backyard this coming summer with an outdoor kitchen. Kind of like building a dock but it's in the back yard instead of the lake. It will start with new French Doors in the Great-room. Will also be adding 4 fruit trees for a small orchard (2 apples, Cortland and Delicious, a peach and a pear) and I will be making improvements to the gardens. I also hope to hire a friend to paint some of the inside rooms of the house, starting with the kitchen. Instead of spending a ton on remodeling the kitchen I figure some paint on the cabinets and walls along with a change in the counter and back splash and a floating floor system should do it and keep the costs down. Paint in bedroom, bathroom, library and hall should do it.

I am also planning to take a trip to Italy in the fall if my health will let me. I have always wanted to see Tuscany in the fall and maybe a side trip to Naples to see what a real sin-city is like.

Well, that's it for me. I hope all of you had a wonderful year and are looking forward to the future, what ever it brings. I wish you all happiness and health for now and into the future and may many of your wishes come true. “Keep moving forward...”

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!