Codey

Blue!!! He did a no no.....go get him bro Glad you're here Jeff and I still think you should open your own shop and put the bitch out of business Codey ps; Don't mix up your 'i's and 'e's or Blue will smack your hand...of course if you enjoy that sort of thing feel free

I think I've confused some of you by what I mean as a role model.....I don't mean a hero. I have heros and their sexual orientation isn't important to me. What I mean by a role model is someone living openly and happily with his or her partner. I don't need to see two men or women living together behind a facade of 'best friends' or 'roommates'. I don't expect them to make a point of telling everyone that they're gay. It won't help to know your doctor is gay and in a stable relationship? You're right but it will help the confused kids in his neighborhood or the homophobic people that live around him, to see a stable and loving relationship. The Mailcrew works one kid or one school at a time. And it's working. Aaorn...whether you want to admit it or not you guys are good role models and doing it the same way I'm trying. Just living a normal life and going about your dailey business as best you can. You don't need to shout your orientation from a rooftop to make it clear. The only person I've ever just came right out and told I'm gay, except for the people who've asked, is Gramps. When Im talking to someone I've met, and they ask if I have a girlfriend I say no but I have a great boyfriend. Sometimes I'm called a dirty name and sometimes they'll just walk away. But enough times to make it worth it , they'll just tell me I don't look gay and that gives me the opening to talk to them about how the stereotypes of us they see aren't who the majority of us are. I've met some real buttheads this way but more important to me, I've met some good friends and hopefully have shed a better light on all gays. Times are changing and things are improving for us but we need more people putting a correct face on gays or it'll take another couple thousand years to win acceptance. I don't want my kids growing up in a world like that!! (Yes Champ and I intend to raise a family!!) Codey

Oh ye skeptics and scoffers!!! Ok, listen up and I?ll explain the uselessness of the letter ?y?. My dislike for the letter ?y? began early in my school career but grew to near hatred in the fourth grade. Apparently fourth grade teachers don?t like to be told that they are teaching crap. I was sent directly to my mothers classroom with a note. This is an unfortunate consequence of attending the same school your mother teaches at?(deliberately dangling bAiT to catch a wandering wild editor)?the other teachers seem to skip the middleman and go directly for the juggler vein. Sealed notes are a sure fire way to know you?re in serious trouble and they should be outlawed. How can you come up with a good excuse if you don?t know what?s been written in a note? Anyway, back to the ?y?. The ?y? is a wimpy letter that is only useful in chatroom talk, as in ?ne 1 wanna tell me y?? or ?y izat??. It doesn?t even have a sound of it own but is a parasite letter that attaches itself to a word and in most cases sucks the life out of ?i's and 'e's. One exception to this is the word 'anywhere'. In this case the terrorist 'y' is blocked from the 'e's by 'w'. We all know the best defense against a terrorist is dubu. Very few people realize that 'anywhere used to be spelled 'anewhere' but an unfortunate 'e' got caught on the wrong side of dubu and was sucked dry and replaced by the parasitic 'y' which then assumed the sound belonging to the late letter 'e'. 'Y's are particularly fond of 'e's and sometimes, even though they aren't ready to feed again, they will force their way into a word next to an 'e' as in 'keyboard'...formerly keboard and soon to be kyboard, as soon as that 'y' is ready to feed again. Although the 'y' is not as fond of 'i's, they too are at risk from this threat. For example, consider the tipewriter industry. The 'y' attached itself to the first part of the word and soon replaced the 'i'. The 'e' and 'i' in the second part of the word was protected (see above paragraph and the reference to dubu). Recognizing the threat and in an effort to stop the spread of the insidious 'y', Remington and Corona went out of business and IBM changed the name of it's writer to Selectric. Just days before Selectric became sylyctryc, IBM changed it's business direction and concentrated on computers. However, having already discovered keboards (now keyboards), it's only a matter of time before the 'y's discover computers and we will all be using computyrs. The economic impact of the constantly changing spellings as well as the productivity lost by both teachers and pupils having to teach and learn another letter of the alphabet, is incalculable. Just imagine the time saved if we didn't have to deal with the 'y'. Ok...there you have the basics. I would like to leave you with one last question though....What the heck's the deal with 'and sometimes y'? Code....Passive is soon to be a believer....notice how he spelled my name in his post? Codey

Now that I've convinced everyone of the validity of my theory on life, remind me to explain my theory on the letter 'y' and other useless and redundant words, letters and rules of grammer in the english language. Prose writers and editors beware!! :twisted: Codey

Ele, You are saying what I am. No it shouldn't be a big deal but until we can convince the straight world that, we need people living the truth and not hiding. It's the hiding that makes it a big deal. I never walk up to someone and tell them I'm gay...no one should consider their gayness or straightness to be the major factor in their lives. I have been out since i was 13 and don't hide it but don't back away from it either. But if asked I tell the truth. I don't "appear" or "act gay" and don't wear my orientatation on my sleeve but make no effort to hide it either. As for popeye being a straight role model I've always had a suspicion that he was a little to interested in Wimpys buns......hamburger of course Codey

"chckles"?...is that an editors word? :?:

Age and experience is not a valid argument. Age doesn?t always imply wisdom. Age, too often, only hardens beliefs and positions that have not worked in the past but are clung to because they were the only examples we had as youths. If we keep trying this it might work someday. Decisions based on past experience aren?t necessarily correct either. Bad experiences tend to breed bad decisions if we don?t correctly analyze and learn from those experiences. I don?t think Gabe?s original post was militant. It was a fair assessment of what we are shown. I am against violence but I don?t consider defensive militancy as violence. We are attacked, both verbally and physically, but the people we should be able to turn to for assistance turn their heads and say it?s our own fault because we refuse to live a lie. That we should hide in self imposed shame until the next generation comes along to fight for us. That?s really a great example. Gay youths are being forced to come out in greater numbers all the time and it?s not because of the examples set for us by the generations that preceded us. We have no such examples to show us that, yes, we can have a future to look forward to. That, in spite of the prejudice and bigotry, we do have a place in this world. We have no examples and so we have to be our own examples. We are examples to both the straight kids and the gay kids and we are making a difference. All the gay clubs in schools were not started by adults. The Mailcrew guys were 16 and 17 years old when they saw a need and filled it. Why hadn?t the adults seen that need already? Maybe they did but were too afraid to crawl out of their self imposed exiles and work for the common good. I hate to say it but I get the impression that our older generations are mostly trying to cover their own butts and everyone else be damned. We are tired of being lectured with out showing us alternatives. We are tired of being talked at instead of talked to. Our age doesn?t mean we?re wrong. We know first hand what lies in store for us during this fight, many of us from personal experience. I too see this as a war but we kids are forced into fighting two wars at once. We not only have to fight for our rights as gays with the straight world but we also have to fight the older generations of gays for the weapons we need to be able to successfully wage the main war. We need happy(?) gay examples living a mostly fulfilling and open life. We need people to point to and say ?see?.we?re not evil monsters lurking in the shadows to corrupt your children.? Unfortunately the examples we are able to point to are faceless and intangible. When asked to show them that we aren?t evil monsters we can only say that we can?t because they are lurking in the shadows out of fear. If I were living in a snake pit I would be a blur leaving it in my wake. Sure moving to a place where there was a better acceptance of me would be a major hassle. If having a chance to live an open and positive life and gaining and imparting a feeling of self worth isn?t worth a few months or longer of disruption, then is there anything to fight for at all? Drake?.I like the quote you use as a signature, but there are too many people willing to hide and not even try to light a candle?.not only that, but they are actively trying to blow out the candles we kids are trying to light. This brings a common saying to mind. ?With friends like these, who needs enemies?? Codey Ps; I?m sorry I don?t have the skill with words that you guys have. I know I have a hard time getting my points across. Maybe age and experience will come in handy so that I?ll be better able to express my self.

Hey....my theory still works :idea: 1) You work to much 2) You don't work to much 3) You don't have time to play 4) You have time to PAAAARRRTTT!!!!!TY :D :D :D Codey

Thought I'd slip miliniums by you....no wait, that is the way we spell it in Illinois.....no wait, I did it on purpose to test your editing skills hummmm...yea I like that one so that's my excuse :D Codey

Been thinking about my last post here. I think I have this life thing figured out. Codey's eithor/or theory of life; 1) You are happy 2) You aren't Happy 3) Someone loves you 4) No one loves you 5) You are in love 6) You aren't in love :: pats self on back:: codey

TV is an invention of adults to try to control our minds....They force kids to sit for hours in front of the set so the radiation will fry our brains. They don't want us to be able to think for ourselves or we'd discover they know no more than we do about life and love!!!

Bravo AJ....you are exactly the type person we teens need to see. I don't mean anyone should wear a sign around their neck that they are gay. I mean that we need to see normal everyday people going about their lives and that only a part of that life is their sexual orientation. I think part of the reason I can't seem to make my point is cultural. I dont know where you all grew up but the largest town I have ever lived in was 7000 people and there for only a few months. Other than that, I only have lived in a town of under 2000 or in a rural setting. In the town I lived my first twelve years, We would have seen the gay doctors etc because everyone knows everyone else. But as soon as they're able the gay people move off to one of the larger cities because they are afraid of what people in town would say to them. In the cities like where you live there are places gay teens can go but where I live there isn't so we look to the gays we do see....the ones that we see on TV or read about in the paper.....I don't want to be like them and I wont. Blue, I don't want you to think I'm comiing down on you because I'm not. I admire you for keeping sane after all you've been through. And I admire you for the fact that you're coming out at a pace that's comfortable and right for you. Your friends are right about everyones coming out is different. The way I came out could have been a disaster for another teen. I would never tell any kid to come out....we are to dependent on the adults in our lives and have so much more to risk than an adult thinking about coming out. Champ and I have been talking about this and we've come to the conclusion that by the time you reach a point where you can be independent, you've lived half, or maybe more, of your life in fear of being found out and having to hide who you really are. You've gotten friends that you don't want to lose. The fear and hiding have become second nature to you and it would be hard to make the change. Personally I think that if I had friends I had reason to doubt would accept the real me then I wouldn't consider them to be good friends. On the other hand, If I had friends I had no reason to doubt would accept me and I stayed hidden, then I wouldn't be a good friend to them. We all are looking for that certain someone we could love and be loved by. I think I've found mine but we both know w're to young to know for sure. Things have a way of changing at our age. How do you know you haven't met that someone but because you were both hidden and afraid of rejection, you just drifted away from eachother? Champ has told me that if he hadn't known I was gay he never would have told me the way he felt. Graeme...You've said in other posts that it was a mistake to get married. I disagree with that. You married for love and it's obvious the way you and Dewey talk about your wives and kids that you still love your wives. I don't think who you love is as important as how you love. I can identify with your wife and her feelings. Champ is mostly straight and I live with the fear, everyday, that he will meet a girl and fall in love with her. If he does, I hope I'm strong enough to let him go. Love isn't only about our feelings but is more about the desire to want what our partners need to be happy. One question Champ and I both have is how you and Dewey will handle the gay part of your lives as far as your kids are concerned. Will you tell them when they're old enough to understand or keep it a secret from them? Codey

Blue, What you went through brought tears to my eyes but I think you illustrated what we are trying to say better than we did. You said you had no gay role models to help you through the confusion. Our point exactly. This cycle has to be broken or my generation is doomed too. Not only do we youth need to see gay adults living a normal everyday life but adults also need to see gays are not the monsters that they?ve been taught. We aren?t stupid and to many times adults seem to forget that we have minds and can think on our own. We understand that celebrities and sports figures, gay or straight, aren?t role models?.they don?t lead the kind of lives most of us will. We need to see gay doctors, lawyers, mechanics, carpenters, teachers and business people. We need to see that being gay isn?t something to be ashamed of and that we have a future as gays. Example is still the best teacher. You and Graeme both mentioned gay service clubs when you were in college. Maybe you were lucky you didn?t walk in that door. Let me tell you about an experience Champ, his older brother and I had last August with a well known gay group. Gary (Champs brother) was going to start at a Southwestern university this last fall and had a chance to attend an event intended to introduce new students to the various activities available to them. He asked Champ and I if we?d like to go along as a birthday present to Champ. Gary was aware of our relationship and was fine with us. We were the only two openly gay people he knew. Our second day there, we were looking at the exhibits for the different groups and saw a sign for the gay group on a door. Gary stopped and said he thought he would be interested in joining the group to learn more about gays. There were five guys in the room and when we came in they came up and introduced themselves. Gary introduced himself and then us as his two little brothers and told them he had a couple of gay friends and he thought he was interested in joining. He told them that he wanted to learn more about the gay lifestyle and gays in general. One of them told him, ?Honey, we can teach you all you want to know about the gay lifestyle and more.? Then the guy laughed like he was joking. While Gary was talking to a couple of the guys, three of them surrounded Champ and I. They asked our ages and then started making really suggestive statements to us. I could feel my chair moving backwards and it stopped so I looked back and Champ had backed against a wall and had tears in his eyes. He said he wanted to leave and so I called over to Gary and told him we wanted to go. By the time we got outside, Champ was crying harder and was so upset that he actually threw up on the lawn. When we finally got back to the car, Gary told us we were his brothers and he loved us but if we turned into those people he would be through with us. I told him all gays weren?t like those guys?.that there were a lot of good people that were gay. He said, ?Oh yea??..where are they?? I couldn?t give him an answer. These freaks had taken a straight guy that would have gone to the wall for us and in five minutes had turned him into a guy who, at the best wasn?t interested in gay rights and at the worse was now slightly anti-gay. These are the type people giving us the need for good role models. We younger guys have no one to look to see how to live our lives?..unless you want us to model ourselves after people like those guys. These seem to be our options?..follow the role models that we see our join all of you in hiding.

After reading Gabes post in the closet forum and being encouraged and gathering nerve from his post, this is the original version of Doors and Masks Doors and Masks A poem by Codey We all have hopes and all have dreams, and bolstered by youthful zeal, we set forth to conquer the world but meet demons unfortunately real. Demons come in many shapes and forms but the demons most unkind, are the demons you allow to rule your lives, the demons who dwell in your mind. If you give up, grow faint of heart, you lose hope and what you desire will slowly dim and fade away like the light from a dying fire. When fear replaces hopes and dreams and moves into the fore, you seek a place of safety, you don your masks and shut the door. You wear these masks in public, to hide amongst the crowd, the who that you are, to always be hidden, veiled behind a shroud. The essence of your being, you keep boxed and safely stored, in neat little rows on hidden shelves, behind that shielding door. Those of my generation, in numbers still unknown, reap bitter crops, from the seeds, past generations have sown. In the normal confusion of youth, we wander through a maze, seeking the face of people like us, and answers to questions we raise. How will we find those answers, to what life holds in store, when the faces and the people we seek, are hidden behind that door? The loss of family or friends, may leave you feeling sad, but why should you mourn the loss of something you may have never had? If your lives are based on deceit and lies, there's something we would ask. Does their love and friendship belong to you or belong to the man in the mask? You'll never find the answer, to that question and many more, unless you finally strip off your masks and step bravely through that door.

3 days before my 12th birthday the worse thing that could happen to a kid happened to me. I lost my entire family, except for my grandfather. in a terrible accident. A few weeks after my 13th birithday, I had the worse thing that could happen to a teen happen to me. I realized I was gay. I was raised in a tolerant and accepting family but i was still scared. Not of telling my gramps but that everyone else would know. Where did this fear come from? From the way I heard my peers talking. Where did they learn it? From their parents and other adults. Their parents and other adults learned it the same way. None of these people knew any gays so they believed what they heard. But did they really not know any gays that could have disproved the lies? Of course they did. Everyone knows or has met gay people. It's almost impossible, statistically, to have not. They just didn't know they had. If we don't show people the real face of our kind how can we ever hope for acceptance? I did tell my gramps, the same day I figured out I was gay, and he gave me this advice. If you're gay then be the best gay man you can be. Never let others make you feel ashamed of who you are and never give them reason to be ashamed of you. I've tried my best to live up to those words. I'm completley out and have many great friends. With the exception of champ, they're all straight. I know there are other gay kids out there but they are scared because they don't have role models to give their feelings affirmative reinforcement. The only thing they know for sure now is that they have to hide and be less than what they are....that's the only example they see.

Garden of love a poem by Codey A meeting of minds,the melding of hearts, a blending of souls is how love starts. The loss of laughter, a lack of respect and a failure to make amends, leads to constant strife and broken hearts and is surely the way love ends. All's right with your life and all seems to mesh when hearts are warm and love is fresh. But discord arises when hearts grow cold, then comes resentment, if you let love grow old. The garden of love must always be tended for love that is withered might never be mended. So, at the end of the day if you're on your own, remember love's fragile and cant stand alone. You can look for excuses or just blame fate, but the sad truth is real love cant grow in a heart that you've planted with hate.

No it doesn't suck!! I liked it alot...I just hope that's not what you really see in the mirror....Codey

thanks Graeme....I plead guilty to the spelling errors and will remember to turn on the spell checker next time. :oops: As for the line " we don our masks and shut the door", it was meant to convey that we never really feel safe and once the mask is put on we tend to never take it off. Thats why in the last line we have to rip the mask off and not just remove it........Codey

This is a poem I just finished for an Eng/Lit assignment. I'm interested how the grades yo all would give it compared to the grade i recieve from my teacher. Doors and Masks A poem by Codey We all have hopes and all have dreams, and bolstered by youthful zeal, we set forth to conquer the world but meet demons unfortunately real. Demons come in many shapes and forms but the demons most unkind, are the demons we allow to rule our lives, the demons who dwell in our mind. If we give up, grow faint of heart, we lose hope and what we desire will slowly dim and fade away like the light from a dieing fire. When fear replaces hopes and dreams and moves into the fore, we seek a place of safety, we don our masks and shut the door. We wear these masks in public, to hide amongst the crowd, the who that we are, to always be hidden, veiled behind a shroud. The essence of our being, we keep boxed and safely stored, in neat little rows on hidden shelves, behind that shielding door. Those of this new generation, in numbers still unknown, reap bitter crops, from the seeds, past generations have sown. In the normal confusion of youth, they wander through a maze, seeking the face of people like them, and answers to questions they raise. How will they find those answers, to what life holds in store, when the faces and the people they seek, are hidden behind that door? The loss of family or friends, may leave us feeling sad, but why should we mourn the loss of something we may have never had? If our lives are based on deceit and lies, there's something we should ask. Does thier love and friendship belong to us or belong to the man in the mask? We'll never find the answer, to that question and many more, unless we finally strip off our masks and step bravely through that door.

Interesting that the limerick with dirty in it's title is getting more hits than Gabes and my other one...ummmmm...do you think we have a bunch of dirty minded members on this board?

I really enjoyed the poem!! I didn't think you were heavy handed on the sexual connotations at all....Might be an age gap thing. Perhaps Graeme should revisit the hidden pleasuires of his youth to refresh his memories ...all said in jest Graeme.

CIRCLES a poem by codey there comes a new warmth, and life reappears and gone from memory are yesterdays tears no more grey skies to darken the mood nature waves her arm and all is renewed the sun standing tall, displays its guilt as water starved plants begin to wilt in the mid-day heat, the animals swelter and retreat to the shade but find little shelter the days shorten as summer grows old the northwind is bringing the snow and the cold the leaves on the trees all wither and brown dislodged by the wind they carpet the ground dark clouds streak the sky,like a large mourning band and silence lays heavy across the land animals cower, hearts filled with dread the ground is frozen, all appears dead then comes a new warmth, and life reappears and gone from memory are yesterdays tears no more grey skies to darken the mood nature waves her arm and all is renewed

I showed a few friends the limerick poem I posted and they said limericks are supposed to be dirty so here goes my nearly best shot. There was a young fella from France He wanted to get in his friends pants said he with a grin as he slid his legs in when I get these on lets go have a dance :oops: :oops: sorry...that's as dirty as I get

This limerick thing sure looks like fun. But it's something that I've never done. If I wasn't so shy, I'd give it a try. But just the thought has my brain on the run. But being one to not shirk my duty. And certainly not wanting to seem snooty. I'll give it a shot, but it won't have much plot. And what plot there is will be fruity. "Welcome." says the stud with a grin. "This is my house, want to come in?" But if he's gay, and wanting to play. Be safe, don't play skin to skin. :D