Over the Course of a Lifetime

By J. G. Woodward

This historical fiction novel gives a riveting account of what life was like before the LGBTQ community had the same right to marry as other citizens - with a twist! In this alternate reality tale, only 10% of the population is heterosexual, and the only difference in the course of history over the past 100 years is that the majority of the population is gay, instead of straight.

The love story is based in Southern California. Marcus is a 79-year old straight man whom against all odds, finds the woman of his dreams. They love, they strive, they succeed, and they spend their entire lifetimes together, despite the deck being stacked against them as the most overlooked minority in the country. This novel challenges the reader to peer into an alternate reality of what the world would be like if the only variable changed was that there was a different ruling majority class.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. G. Woodward
• Release date: Nov 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370647316

J. G. Woodward

J. G. Woodward, LPC, NCC-Retired, holds Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from Kent State University. She was a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor throughout her career. Ms. Woodward is the author of the fiction titles, Loose Marbles and Forest Epiphany, A Lone Hiker’s Tale. Her historical fiction novel is Over the Course of a Lifetime. Ms. Woodward’s nonfiction title is Cut the Fluff for Job Seekers – Just Tell Me What I Don’t Already Know, a job search reference book. All five of her poetry books have been republished in the omnibus, Love, Recovery & God’s Grace. She makes her home in Akron, Ohio.

Book preview

Over the Course of a Lifetime

by J. G. Woodward

Invincible Publishing

1738 Northampton Road #1507

Akron, Ohio 44313

T: [phone]

W: www.invinciblepublishing.com

E: [e-mail]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Copyright © 2008 by J. G. Woodward

Library of Congress Control Number: 2008941757

Acknowledgments

This book is a tribute to those who have gone before me, those who have walked the path of oppression while still holding their heads high; the invisible minority with an insatiable need to love and a devotion to be true to themselves, no matter what the cost. Special thanks to Bill W., Dr. Bob S., and H.P., for without them, there would be no verse.

_____

"In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men as well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'"

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

August 28, 1963

Washington, DC

CHAPTER ONE

September, 2008

The break of morning sunlight has just inched across Marie’s cheek. I love this time of year, the coda of summer and the emergence of fall. The sun bends in a different angle at this particular season and always, it amplifies the beauty of my wife who lies sleeping in our oversized bed. Marie is hard on herself about the toll the years have taken on her once unblemished face but to me, the crevices, which have deepened with time, show the allure of her wisdom and the gathering of a lifetime of lessons. It has been my honor to walk beside her on this path through life that started when we were teenagers.

I tease Marie about being older than I am and I probably should not, since it is a sore spot of hers. I am okay with my age of seventy-nine; I have lived a long life filled with love. Nevertheless, teasing Marie about just turning eighty has not been going over so well. She used to be as accepting of her aging as I am, but something about turning eighty has brought about a dissonance within Marie. I think she fails to see the exquisite beauty in the lines on her face. She always tells me that I am biased.

You just wait, Marcus, your time is coming. Just three more months and you can join the ranks of those of us in our eightieth decade, has been her response as of late.

I have always awakened first in our home, being a morning person as long as I can remember. However, Marie is a night owl, and we have fallen into a groove after all this time, respecting one another’s precious slumber. Marie has only caught me a couple of times over the decades, standing here in the doorway of our bedroom, coffee in hand, gazing lovingly at her as she sleeps. It is one of my morning rituals, and it always inspires gratitude for this incredible woman who has loved me for over half of a century. To me, she is as beautiful as she was at the senior dance in high school. If it is possible, I am more in love with this woman than I was the day that we moved in together.

I wonder if Marie ever watches me from the doorway while I am sleeping in the moonbeam that casts across our bedroom. Probably not, as I have always been the misty one of us two. Yet, I never question that I am the love of her life as well. Marie just has a different way of showing it than I do. I profess my love on an hourly basis, while she expresses her love more in her actions than in her words.

I need to end my morning adoration session and go into the living room to tidy up a bit before the nurse makes her rounds. Marie and I have movie night every Thursday, and we invariably end up with popcorn all over the floor, and the microwave popcorn bag lying on the kitchen countertop with salt granules all over the place. Marie gets irked with me if I do not pick up before the nurse comes in.

They’ll think we’re losing it and then they’ll force us onto the twenty-four hour floor! Marie exclaims regularly.

Marie and I are fortunate to be able to afford the retirement place that we live in. It is not the highest end senior living complex, but it is well above the lowest end of the spectrum. We have been here for nine years now, and we live in the least supervised area of the facility. Our quarters are more like a good size condominium than a unit at an assisted living facility. We were able to bring some of the furniture from our house and there is a small kitchen to use if Marie and I choose to cook a meal instead of going downstairs to the common area to eat. The staff only disturbs us once daily when the morning nurse comes to distribute our medications.

I suppose it is my fault, really, that we ended up needing a little assistance with our medications. Marie’s arthritis makes it hard for her to pick the pills out of the medicine bottles, and it became my responsibility years ago to set out each of our daily medications. I switched Marie’s and my medications one day by mistake and I damn near sent Marie into a diabetic coma from her missing her doses of insulin pills. I know that in reality, we were getting to the point of needing a little help anyway, especially with cooking, but I still feel guilty for committing the act that was to become the beginning of the end of our independent lifestyle. Marie and I were one of the youngest couples at the senior living facility when we moved in and the other residents were kind to us, but they viewed us as being a bit ornery. This is probably one of the only places in the world where Marie and I are viewed as being youngsters.

Marie and I have it good, really, because we are both up and around and not on walkers, canes, or in wheelchairs like most of the residents. We have a big screen television and a membership to a movie of the week mail order service. It is hard for me to believe that I was ever satisfied in my youth with hovering next to the radio, listening to the weekly Lone Ranger show. Now we have surround sound, high definition television, and a remote control with more buttons on it than I could possibly ever know what to do with.

Marie and I get three square meals a day in the cafeteria, and the cooks actually do a fine job. Better still, I do not have to do the dishes anymore. The staff cooks at least as well as Marie, but I have never told her that because I have never let on in all of these years that cooking was never her strong suit. She has a fondness for rosemary, and I have never had the heart to tell her that I cannot stand rosemary in my food. She was so sweet to cook for us her whole life; I just could not bring myself to complain, not in the littlest bit.

It is Friday night and we have our standing Bridge game with the neighbors across the hall. We always look forward to that, and it does not hurt that we always win, either. When Marie and I retired, we had lots of time on our hands and we joined a Bridge club that met every weekend. At first, they taught us the basics but after about a year, we became masters at the card game and we were unbeatable. Marie has always been a little competitive, and I do not think that the other members of the club minded us winning so much as they did Marie’s gloating. She is a bad loser but an even worse winner. I think that it is kind of cute.

Like clockwork, the daily knock on the door thumps against the hollow wood door.

Mr. Anderson, it’s Leona.

Ah, Leona! She is my favorite nurse. Sometimes she brings me donuts. I always scarf them down before Marie gets up since she cannot have them, with her diabetes and all.

Sometimes Marie will see a trail of powdered sugar on the countertop, and she will say, Hmmm. I wonder how that got there.

I think that she might know that I sneak donuts since she never says more about it than that. At least she does not think that I have a closet cocaine habit.

I open the front door and greet Leona. She hurries over to the kitchen counter and fills our little plastic boxes with the divided squares for our four times daily medications. Marie’s medication box is pink, and mine is blue, which I think is sort of sweet.

Leona queries, as she always does, …and how is your wife today Mr. Anderson?

Hearing Leona say this still takes me aback. It was only recently, on May 15, 2008, that the Supreme Court in The State of California overturned the ban on opposite sex marriages, and hearing a gay woman acknowledge that Marie is my lawfully wedded wife is still staggering for me. Living in the closet for most of our lives, Marie and I are still leery to believe that gay people are really accepting of our lifestyle. Yet, here is this homosexual woman, asking me every time that she sees me how my wife is. My, how the times have changed.

___

In 1679, a British man by the name of Leeuwenhoek was the first to actually see what is known today as sperm, by using a primitive magnifying glass. He even went so far as to submit his research paper on the topic to the King of England at the time. However, it was not until 1784 that the first artificial insemination actually succeeded in an experiment with a dog by a respected scientist named Spallanzani. Society’s preoccupation with what was, and what was not proper in those days, evolved into the notion that intercourse was a pastime for the uneducated and unsophisticated. It was with this motivation that England became the center for aggressive scientific research into artificial insemination techniques that could be used in human beings.

With royalty backing the quest, the goal of successful human artificial insemination was reached, and the need for intercourse between a male and a female to produce offspring was eradicated, resulting in the dominance of the homosexual culture that exists today. Once the clergy jumped on board, not only was intercourse no longer needed for humans to reproduce, but also it was deemed a mortal sin for a man and a woman to engage in any type of sexual relations.

The same ideology spread across Europe and all of the other countries of the world like wildfire. When the United States of America went to war with England, claiming this land as our own, the dogma of that era was claimed by our new country as well. Within twenty years of the inception of our great nation, heterosexuality was outlawed in the United States and England’s Puritan belief system spread along with America’s population from colony to colony, and from there, into the Wild West of our land.

Even though human beings have evolved in science and in social consciousness since the eighteenth century, religion is a tough thing to fight. It is so much easier to go with the flow, to not make waves, and to not upset the proverbial applecart. Because the homosexuals outnumbered the heterosexuals ten to one, it is gay culture and homosexual laws that rule our world of