BY KAREN SAMPLES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON -- One end of a frayed and faded leash is looped around Wendell Cody's leg. The other is attached to a dog named Chance.
They are a pair, these two, and people keep stopping by to pay their respects.
"You all right, Cody?" asks Jeff Strange. "Is that a menthol, or you want a regular one?"
"Hey Cody," says Dave McCarthy. "You want a cup of coffee? I'll go get you one."
Mr. Cody doesn't ask for all this. He just sits contentedly on the ground, dog and slightly smooshed peanut-butter sandwich by his side.
The occasion is a rally for the homeless organized by Welcome House, the Covington shelter. Among the assembled are about 20 people, including Mr. Cody, Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Strange, who live on the streets, as well as a handful who used to be homeless.
Also present: the usual assortment of nuns, fresh-faced church youth and staff people.
As the Thursday night wears on, some of the homeless men join in a boisterous card game with the teen-agers, who have brought their sleeping bags. They will be spending all night on the wet ground of Goebel Park to show their solidarity with these strangers.
Theresa Goforth, 17, is playing spoons and sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Robert Barnstable, a 47-year-old Vietnam veteran.
Turns out he's pretty good at cards. He's also hilarious, says Theresa, a member of the youth group at St. William's Church in Grant County.
"I never thought they'd be so comfortable, knowing that we knew they were homeless," Theresa says.
That's the best part about this evening.
Homelessness sands away the pretense from a person. Being without possessions, the men and women of Northern Kentucky's streets tend to carry around something else: a rough code of civility and honor.
Not everyone follows it all the time, of course. They are far from angels. But if nothing else, street people are generally honest about their shortcomings, and this is a quality that cannot be understood from a distance. Experiencing it up close is the great gift of Welcome House's annual rally.
When I arrive around 7 p.m., the sky is barely spitting rain, and I shiver. A man named Jim takes off his denim jacket and offers it to me.
"It don't stink, honey. It's clean," he says.
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ART AUCTION
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To benefit its programs for the homeless, Welcome House will sponsor an art auction at The Syndicate in Newport on Nov. 15. Guests can preview artwork at 4 p.m., with bidding to begin at 5 p.m. Hors d'oeuvres and champagne will be part of the evening, as well as entertainment by jazz vocalist Patsy Meyer.
Also, the shelter is selling Christmas cards designed by children to help other children. For more information, call Andra at Welcome House, 431-8717.
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Mr. Cody, 47, had a stroke three years ago. Now he walks with a cane, and his speech is slurred. When new acquaintances give him puzzled looks, another homeless person jumps in to interpret.
Around some railroad tracks in Covington, Mr. Cody once found a woman's scattered possessions: driver's license, ID cards, makeup, papers. Clearly, her purse had been stolen and the contents dumped as trash.
He carefully gathered it all up, found the woman's address and waited for her to get home. Overjoyed, she told a reporter about his kindness, and the resulting story was titled "the unexpected good guy."
Mr. Cody's friends like to call him that now. Sometimes he even pulls out a copy of the story.
Kathy Kaelin, coordinator of development for Welcome House, says the homeless tend not to interrupt each other during conversation, as we middle-class people do.
At one point during Thursday's rally, she approaches a group of men and automatically apologizes. One of them says, "You're not interrupting. You're joining."
Another fact: More than anything, the homeless need clean socks. Their feet are often sore and blistered.
There are many reasons for sadness here. But tonight, nobody looks particularly unhappy.
Only Mr. Cody is momentarily overwhelmed.
"My friends," he says, when I ask why he's crying. "I worry about them."
Karen Samples is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. Her column appears on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. She can be reached at 578-5584 or email
her at ksamples@enquirer.com
SAMPLES ARCHIVE