Pretty soon he will be old enough to date." The parents are proud of their red-blooded American boy. When a little heterosexual boy starts noticing little girls, his mom and dad say to each other, "Isn't that sweet? Joey has a crush on Gretchen.
I understand too that if our society were educated and honest about sexual orientations, gay and lesbian kids would not have to go through the kind of hell that I did when I began to understand my own natural attractions. I now understand that those feelings I had for Paul were a natural and healthy part of the maturing process of a young gay boy. When he picked me up in his already-muscular arms and carried me to the horse, I was in heaven! Then, riding with him behind me, his arm reaching around to steady me on our ride through the fields behind my house, I experienced feelings that felt so natural and right to my fourth-grade mind. I will never forget the butterflies in my stomach when he took off his shirt and made a makeshift sling for me. Then you pick me up and put me on your horse and take me into town to the doctor's office." As you can see, I really had an active imagination. When you see that my arm is broken, you take your shirt off and make a sling for my arm. One day I said, "Paul, why don't we pretend that I am your partner back in the days of the wild, wild West? I get ambushed by a band of robbers, and you come along and find me. I loved playing cowboys with Paul, who was two years older and a hunk even in the sixth grade. That set me apart from the other boys in my neighborhood, until my uncle gave me two Shetland ponies.
And I was determined to stay close to God and learn as much about Jesus as I could. I did not want to play sports but instead liked to cook and loved singing show tunes. Growing up in the small Southern town of Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, I had a lot of things going against my being accepted by the "in" crowd around the neighborhood or at school.