ColumbusGuy

I think some places had rudimentary cable by 1977 when I graduated high school...but sure as heck not rural Ohio. We had to wait until early 80s, and only because the satellite receiver was put in on my street in the country, so they had to give it to us to get the town's contract too. In those days you could be totally anonymous on the phone since there were no answering machines or caller ID or mobile phones at all. I had two such calls, one went very well as I was home alone, the other not so good because I picked the phone up in my parent's room since it was closest...total mood killer!

I sorta forgot about these because they became the first chapters of JM. That story Mikey was writing is one I actually did long-hand with a drawing in colored pencil of the boys fondling each other's chests at a table. My mom found it in one of my books and I lied--told her I had no idea how it got there. How naive to think a mom wouldn't recognize one of her kids' writing!

Is worry the partner of love, or just a casual acquaintance? It seems you seldom find one without the other, one testing and the other affirming the bonds that entangle us as couples. Show me a person who doesn't worry about the status of their emotional bonds, and I'll show you some one who isn't fully invested in the journey. I have to let the story unfold because quite often I don't know where a chapter will go until it's gotten there...I do know that when I try to force something to fit, it doesn't work, and I guess that comes with knowing the characters I've found in the story. I can't say 'created' because some of them are very much based on real people...one bespectacled guy in particular. Hey, you've made this work more than once with your own love of the boys, Uncle Gary!

Y'know, there are some clues in the Character list from the link on the front page...a synopsis could be quite lengthy...and who's averse to reading parts again? When you were catching up, I began looking at the chapters you were doing, and wound up reading the whole thing from the beginning. The wait won't be as long from now on, I seem to be in touch with my writing self again, as long as my friends don't post too many chapters to distract me. :)

Hmm, it occurs to me that there are two places for a rendezvous at the moment--tent or loft. How much privacy do these guys need? At least the loft supplies that with the 'walls' of bales and radio. Sadly, comics don't usually work for me anymore because the background washes out the text and a good part of drawings...but the info at the bottom gave me ideas. Care to describe it in an email? I remember some discussion of sexuality before my surgeries, and am not surprised that it continued--poor Denmark and Norway! Is Sweden still hanging out with the other boy--crap, I can't remember his name!

I think hearing from Bill/Kevin could happen...since they saw the movies, I don't think they went Friday--maybe Saturday when the new ones start? We know Kevin has occasional access to wheels, but what controls that? He's been seen at the drive-in with the VW once for sure, but not at school....

Thanks glennish! Originally I had no idea where this would go; I had started with Cal and Benny, but had that final scene with Jay and Gulli in my head and no clue how to get them connected. I figured some of the guys might want to see how the 'date' went, but hadn't planned it out. Likewise, I didn't want to do a straight shot to the final scene as part of Jays...so I scrolled back to the top to think, and just figured we hadn't heard from Greg either. It all just poured out then. The rest of the day...not a clue!

Love it--way back when we first met Jay's family, Mikey commented on the connection between Swift's hero and the Pinto.

POV: Benny, Jay, Greg “I wonder how the guys’ celebration went last night?” Benny asked as he brushed the blond hair back off his lover’s forehead. They were cuddled together in his attic room, letting the sun track its way across the bed as they lingered on Saturday morning. “I hope they did better than poor Finn and Lee….” Calvin punched Ben’s arm affectionately. “Don’t be a dick—you were almost as nervous as they were when we first met. You might have tried playing t

I'm not entirely sure, but do we know if either AJ or Novy are gay? What a coincidence if they fell for each other too. 😺

So it looks like Kyle, with all his faults, is the only member of his family that has any conscience or shred of decency? I really think Jason's actions need to be reported, even the reasons for his attack, as that is clear sexual abuse of a minor that he's confessed to. Letting this slide is just going to insure another confrontation, probably with his other jock friends added into the bargain when it could have been prevented and the bastard put in jail too. Still, were would fiction be without a few twists and turns? More please, my friend!

I really like the idea of Luke and this guy bonding through their photos...it shows us the subtle power that images have on our emotions, and how it takes our own interpretation to get them right. Since my photography class in 10th Grade, I loved taking pictures and developing film and prints--of course, this was using black & white film in the mid-70s, and color was a lot more expensive to do for amateurs like me. Eventually I got a digital camera online and did pictures with it for a couple years before my eye surgeries. I remember one project in the class was to do a slide-show, so I drew and colored the images for the slides myself, and it was an illustrated version of Donovan's 'Atlantis' song. Another fun bit was taking a picture of my German Shepherd in my driveway, and the teacher asked why there was a picture of a wolf outside my house! That dog was my earliest memory at age 3, and she was put to sleep the summer after I graduated high school due to severe arthritis that almost prevented her from walking. Broke my heart as she heard all my secrets growing up and never told anyone. I think phones having cameras has cheapened the impact images have in our lives--any idiot can snap a pic of his dick to send to friends, or take one of his lunch, and think it's cool...where's the artistry in that? Or the sense of having saved a moment out of your life?

Hey, the guys are in a committed relationship and are responsible about the pace they set--so far. Age 21, that's iffy since that's above the age of consent I think. Being from a small town and limited in travel opportunities, I did all the major things with a few people, especially Kevin who I had more than ten years with, but if we're keeping score, there are still some '-ing words' I haven't done at 60. My relationships were satisfying for both of us, if not exotic, and that's all that was important. There's a reason why vanilla is such a popular flavor of ice cream!

Let's hope Adam's 'thank you' letter to his biological mom is the last we hear from her! He has a much more genuine family now than ever before, and I would like to see him call them 'mom' and 'dad' at some point in future...I'm sure he will anyway when he and Troy marry. I've never encountered a fore-skin in my social life, and so the idea of one is alien and sort of 'icky' to do what Troy did...but that's just me and my past experience. When I grew up, circumcision was the norm and since I didn't take gym class with its' showers, I never saw one back then...if indeed there were any in my small school. In rural Ohio then most kids were born in hospitals, so the operation was routine. I think now you may have to request it, but I don't know--just what I read in stories, and we know how fanciful some of those can be.

What if you wrote something small as a test of another program like OpenOffice, LibreOffice or googledocs or even the dreaded Word ones? I those appear okay to my Twilight Zone settings, then it could be assumed it's your Gryphon asserting his independence...

I would just love to see these boys in Damsko!! Santa vs. the Kobolds... I don't know why, but all over the web, with the same settings, the horizontal scrollbar doesn't show up because things fit right, but on this page, and that of the Valentine story, it's there and indicates that a third or more of the page is missing...so no buttons to give reactions, and the text falls off the edge unless I use the button at the top of the page to make it 1/2 width, but that still leaves the buttons off-screen. Is it something that Blue Gryphon does without you actively choosing it? It's been nearly ten years since I wrote my own html code, and I leave those things to my word processing programs now.

Why couldn't this have come out six months ago when I was freezing? :) I yearn for the forest which is part of my heritage--those dark brooding primeval German expanses...metro parks just don't cut it, at least not those here in Columbus. Only one is close to a real forest, but it's a thirty minute car ride away!

From what I remember reading here ages ago, they said never play around with text size in your posted text as it will throw off the software...could that be it? I have used Word 2003, 2013, OPenOffice and Google docs at various times since I started here, and have never had any problems, now it's strictly Word 2013 and saved as docx. which I copy and paste. I know Nifty advises that you use filtered web pages if you use html on their site to get rid of Office specific tags. That's the extent of my tech speak. :) I don't know why, but it's not all your stuff that does this to site pages for me, just some of them, like the last three posts. I've not altered my browser or pc since before this started, so I don't think it's my system or settings.

I just don't know how you manage to do this every single time we see Charlie and Kippy! Never a dull moment, and never the same thing twice...at first I thought we'd see Difris in this one, but it was so much more intriguing. Just fabulous space adventure like in the Golden Age books we both love!

Glad this finally made it to GA! Though it's all over the browser window again. It's like word wrap is off or something. Love conquers all, and it was great seeing Nicholaas and Kirka again!

No system is foolproof...and you remember that the GA didn't really get very vocal until the 'thals were created...in their eyes, that would have been reason enough. Oh, Geron...flattery will get you everywhere! I chose the shorter route to a temporary end for this one otherwise it could have grossly exceeded prompt length. I know that's not a sin, but I'm trying to keep some sort of discipline in this story--without spanking of course. Jay and Miles are perfectly safe for you--it was the mid 70s, Viet-Nam was over and good vibrations from the hippies could still be found...and life on a farm is so relaxing....

I don't know why, but most of them don't do that for me...and some will suggest emojis, but not always when I start typing. :X If I type and they don't show up, they will if someone quotes me...the one I just typed doesn't show as an image. Let me check the list where you said.... Okay, I never scrolled down to the end where they call them emoticons...I gave up trying to figure them out once it got to symbols. Tusind tak, min kaereste ven! @Ivor Slipper- where? That's ripping,, that is!

We know that our species did breed in the past, there's no doubt of that, and I've tried to work in proper science from the start without overwhelming the public... There could be some answers in the next chapter. I wish emojis would work from typing them directly since I can't find the one that was the ':X'....can anyone tell me if it has a name in the list, or what row it's in and how many from the left? So far, Jakob and Ernst are the only ones who've seen Hartmann's file...what Two-Sapphire will make of it is anyone's guess. He's bucked the Triad once already, but it was a far easier topic....

Man, I hate cliff-hangers! When did I pick up that bad habit? 😯

A hint? Me, give those out? Here goes, a one-word one: Yes...you figure out if it answers any of those questions or one in particular. We've got lots of thunder just now, but I don't think our heat has broken. I put in my window air conditioner yesterday, so at least I can get a little escape while writing and reading. Next up, Jay & Miles, who we last saw all sweaty in their tent....