Dear SKMB community,
I have been struggling with what to say to you, I think I’d sort-of convinced myself over the years that these last days would never come. How very selfish of me, I keep thinking of the Happy Prince and the little bird in the children’s story… ‘Swallow… Swallow, little Swallow, will you not stay with me just one more night?” We all know how that ended.
“Opopanax” This is what brought me to the SKMB back in 2004. I was reading the Dark Tower Series for the first time and I came upon that word and said out-loud to myself, “Stephen, now you’re just making shiit up!”
I was basically computer illiterate, we were on dial-up and somehow the planets aligned and I made it through the fog (my complete lack of internet knowledge) to find this long thread of Stephen King discussion.
Being fully unaware of message board protocol, I of course thought that I would immediately be able to just ask Stephen “What the hey, man?”
Enter Marsha… we don’t really do that round here.
In the early days of the MB I met many people, some of who(m) are still here. Others I wish dearly still were… we had ourselves so many very good times. (One of the earliest memories I have is when Deej asked me if a) we had McDonalds in New Zealand and b) if I lived in a mud hut.)
There is so much I can’t say about who I was back then and what I was coming from, but I can tell you that through a journey of being given opportunities to be useful and productive and to be part of a wonderful team and to be shown that someone had faith and trust in me, it allowed me to trust and to have faith in others.
Through Beta Testing and Moderating, I’ve learned that the world is actually a pretty good place to be… and I have felt loved.
Marsha, (Moderator) thank you—I can never properly explain to you what you’ve done for me.
Jordan, at first you scared the crap out of me. (I’m pretty sure I went running to Marsha when you first tried to help me sign in to the very first threaded MB, “There is a strange man emailing me!” “Oh yeah, he’s okay, that’s our webmaster.” I didn’t even know what one of those was!)
I remember saying to him that I didn’t think I’d be any good at testing a new site because of my lack of computer and site knowledge, he said “that’s okay, we want to be able to test the site against all levels of ability.” I knew which end of the spectrum he was aiming at with me!
Jordan you’ve taught me so much and I am ever grateful for those teachings and for your friendship too.
I would like to thank my fellow moderator friends, Dana Jean and Tery. We spent many years doing what we loved to do after-hours. It was sometimes really tough, but because we had each other and Marsha backing us up... it made it all worthwhile. Bonds have been forged during those times that will never be broken. I cannot express enough gratitude for what I have gained through working with you.
The MB has kept moving on with time, so much time and so seemingly quickly. (sigh) I’ve learned new skills here which have crossed over into my offline life, I got a job off-site and so couldn’t be here quite so much anymore, but I have made so many strong friendships that I cherish and hope to stay connected with.
One last thing, it’s probably not going to work, but it’s worth a crack.
Stephen… many years ago on each and every birthday you celebrated here on the MB, I would write you a poem, or sing you a song or some other endearing (lol) little birthday treat, and at the end I would always tell you that I loved you… but not in that way.
So, (you see where I’m going here?) I thought, just maybe… you’ve been offended for goodness sake, all these years and I’ve just been hurting your feelings! So when Marsha decided to retire, you thought… ‘Well, fk it… Flakes doesn’t love me in that way, why would I bother to keep the MB open?!’
[big theatrical sigh]
You see, I’m older now. Back then, I was really young (lol) and well, it would have seemed ridiculous.
Okay, here goes.
“Stephen Edwin King, if you agree to leave this message board open after June 30th (that’s next Tuesday, in case you have your face in a new book) then I, FlakeNoir of New Zealand, will promise to love you…. In that way.
Did it work?
Brilliant (((FlakeNoir )))
Aww - c'mon - you know most here are very literate (there are a few dummies) - me included! 
(yikes) 
