JTMWorld is my little spot on the internet.. where things happen... fun things, serious things, sometimes silly things.. but things DO happen...

So dive in and enjoy....

We bring you free stuff but we also bring you original writings, ideas, thoughts, galleries... AND a dating system for those who are interested in real relationships.

We do not allow any sex ads.

This is primarily a gay male website but the site is open to anyone who is gay-friendly and who respects the differences of others.

Well.. before I retired in 1999 I decided I wanted to do something in retirement that would let me work on my own and from wherever I happened to be. That option turned out to be developing and managing websites.

That's what I do now for a hobby and for a few clients... from wherever I travel... and it is great because it keeps me busy, off the streets and somewhat still mentally agile

Most of the websites are either free or very low cost... almost all are strictly G-Rated although I am toying with the idea of creating an adult site or two..

CHAPTER ONE

THE INCIDENT



".....FOR we will hear what we want to hear, see what we want to see, shaking in anguish through every fearful moment, and when it is over it will be as if it never was, while we waste lifetimes asking why."

And that, "said Al Martin, lowering his voice, " is all there really is to Doris Lessing's Golden Notebook . . . all there really is to this seminar on nothingness . . . Are there any questions?"

There we were, second year students at Huron College, trying to understand how we had made it through our freshman year and even more perplexed that we were now in our second year beginning to realize that we knew less than we knew when we entered the university in the first place. It was late Fall, Mother Nature was reluctant to give way to Winter, and we were pleased. But there was an undercurrent . . . the start of the end of student involvement . . . the beginning of the terrible late 60's period of student apathy . . . whether it was drugs or the catastrophic end of the civil rights movement, the disasters at Kent State . . . it was all too early to know. But, the moods were changing even then. In our second year we had made our alliances with other students, were starting to figure out who we were and where we fit in the overall scheme of things. Some of us had our future wives picked out already . . . some of us were trying to figure out if a wife was even in the cards. Some of us had lost our innocence as we watched family and friends die. Some of us wondered why Father Barton, the Anglican Minister who taught many of the ecclesiastical courses could be seen driving around London, Ontario, at two in the morning in his all-white Mercedes. Some of us wondered who Al Martin was . . . we had not gotten to know him . . . he was an enigma and seemed to prefer to remain so. Female hearts were broken in our first year as the uninitiated females pined away waiting for him to invite them to a dance, a movie, a walk along the banks of the Thames, a coffee, anything to indicate he even knew they existed. And then there were those of us who just concentrated on our work and our futures and couldn't have cared less about anyone who appeared too self-centered to let others in.

But Al's charisma outshone his enigmatic state and he seemed to be the subject of private conversations throughout Huron College. He worked for the dining room, collecting meal tickets and supervising the part-time student staff that provided the manpower for the cashier function. He would sit up there on the entrance dais, occasionally looking out over the refectory, and even though we knew he never looked at anyone directly his eyes seemed to look right through us. On one occasion a female student actually stood up and announced to the others at the table, "I can't stand having that guy stare into my soul. Who does he think he is? Moses?!"

Al never understood any of this. He was oblivious to external imagery, seeming to be fully enclosed in thought virtually all of the time. From his poetry to his prose, his thoughts were on the human mind, the heart, the development of a soul. There was very little time left for him to worry about what he saw physically. Yet it haunted him always. He sensed, however briefly, that he was not a popular youth. He didn't know why, though, and this was one thing he avoided. While we thought he was staring into our souls at the refectory table, he was actually looking out at the student body and wondering why he felt so out of place. He was also busy keeping an eye on the back door to make sure food wasn't being removed by the more industrious students.

The silence in the classroom was complete, shattered only by the dark brown, piercing eyes of Al's which alternated between begging us to ask a question and challenging us to dare. Suddenly, there was a banging on the classroom door. It was Mrs. Minnivy, the seventy-two-year-old House Mother, roaming the halls again with her carpenter's hammer, supposedly checking to see if anything needed repair. She opened the door slowly, looked around, and said, as usual, "Hmm, everything looks all right in here. " Low, respectful chuckles emanated throughout the room. Al stopped staring, relaxed his posture, smiled his wry smile, showing a perfect set of teeth, and said, "Silence . . . interrupted by the wisdom of years . . . A perfect way to end this seminar."

Then, thank God. The bell rang. Al handed his report to Sister Catherine and left the room. The rest of us filed out slowly, looking at each other . . . still silent . . . and then the voices started. "Didn't know he could talk, let alone deliver a half-intelligent seminar," someone said. "Intelligent? I don't know, was it? He muddled my mind. I couldn't stop staring at him. I kept getting the feeling he was talking to some level beyond my conscious reason," someone else said. We ultimately agreed that this strange student, who never spoke much, except with his eyes; who maintained a position of aloneness; who seemed to be a solid mass of strength, had dug deep within our psyche and had startled, shaken, or scared the living hell out of us all . . . But at no time did we ever let him know.

Mike Carleton. Al's only known friend, captain of the football team, was walking along the residence lawn, having ignored the aftershock of the lecture, when he heard a window smash. Books were flying out the window, and the sound of voices echoed throughout the quad. "That bloody queer! Get him out of this residence!" he heard. He looked up, realizing instantly that the trouble was in Al's room on the third floor - the Frosh floor. As he ran up the stairs, he cursed under his breath. He had told Al not to hide away on the Frosh floor. Al should have moved down a floor in his second year with the rest of the Sophomores. He just wasn't the kind of person who could carry it off; too many incongruities about him that only his elders or his equals could take the time to understand or at least accept. Mike threw open the stairwell door and ran down the hall to Al's room.

There, in the room, was Al, soaking wet, wearing only a towel, every muscle in his classic Greek body tense and shaking as he tried to control his anger, hurt and frustration. His eyes belied his controlled exterior, showing a wild man inside. His disembodied gaze seemed to search out some place to vent his frustration. Clutching a torn portrait of his mother and a piece of the statue of DAVID, who he resembled, he moved toward the window, quietly, letting a tear roll down his face. Slowly he began to calm down.

His belongings were demolished. Red paint had been splashed on all his clothes. His pictures had been torn off the walls and smashed, the residence furniture turned upside down, his books thrown out e window and his stereo and record collection totally destroyed.

"What the hell has happened?", I asked, astonished...........

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