I love the work I do and particularly the work I’ve been
doing this week but it’s definitely kicking my ample caboose. I’m preparing materials
for teaching next week and managing a startup project that I’m not sure I
totally understand and, and, and…
My evenings are alternately taken up with the quest for
health and the quest for a reasonably clean house and orderly yard. Spending
time with mine frau occupies a lot of quality time and of course, there’s
sitting around. QUALITY sitting around, doncha know.
The park across from my office has of late become populated
by denizens. Bums, as it were. Mostly fairly young, certainly young enough to be
working gainfully at something. They take up a lot of the park and in the
morning you literally have to step over them to get off the bus.
Between their obvious commerce in illicit drugs and having
to walk around evidence of their public and copious bladder emptying
activities, they are not what one might call a positive presence. And this
particular group makes clear while asking for the proverbial spare change that
the line between begging and strong arm robbery is defined only by the near
presence of the police. I don’t like that they’re there. And I could do a whole
rant about it except that I find myself feeling a bit sorry for them.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t like them and I DO judge them. They
got themselves where they are. They could be working a couple of the crap jobs
I worked at the less exalted junctures of my journey to where I am now.
The thing is, I can’t help reflecting that at least once
each evening - most likely as they lay down on the concrete swaddled in gospel
mission blankets - that street life is
not deluxe and it’s going to get worse before morning.
I wish they were hardworking and dependable and productive
and honest. I wish they were willing to do the things I've done to get along in the world. But I also wish they were warm and dry.
Sadly, I have two nieces, one 44 and one 20, both of whom have decided that living in the park, begging, hiding at night and occasionally being a punching bag for some other person who would also prefer meth and pot and handouts to any other type of living situation.
ReplyDeleteWe invited one of them to live with us and it was a nightmare.
Granted, there are homeless people who are struggling to make it but there is a large portion who choose it and it pisses me off that the park I pay my city taxes to maintain has to pick up after people to lazy to walk to the public restrooms and too drugged up to know they smell like, well, you know!
Frankly, I think "Park People" is too nice!
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong. Feeling sorry for them occasionally is NOT the same as saying I'd ever give them a dime. They're creeps who've chosen to live as denizens. And they would likely not feel a moment's compassion for me if the tables were turned.
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of folks who are destitute through no fault of their own. This ain't them.