Well folks, I made it to the stage for Rabbit Box at
the Foundry on Wednesday night! What a great experience that was after dreading
it for the month prior. I started by telling them that it was just another dose
of public humiliation... and I started off with a laugh I didn't know I was
going to get! It ended well too landing on exactly eight minutes with a CHEER
for an announcement I had made as to success after failure!
Much of life is made of hope and disappointment, but
it is also made up of fear and relief. Kinda like what happened with Irma when
Harvey had already caused the damage in Houston, Irma suddenly appeared with
two others Jose and Katia! For a minute there it seemed like we were doomed!
Katia hit Mexico and has dissipated to a tropical storm with 40 a mile winds
while Jose drifted back out to sea, but is not setting its sites on the same
Caribbean islands that have just suffered Irmas wrath. Buckle your seat belts
people! This is shaping up to be a very intense hurricane season!
Irma made her mark in Athens. A tree fell on what was
my bedroom! Fortunately, I wasn't there. See, I have been living in a cabin in
the woods since February of this year. The first thing I recognized when I took
occupancy was that the place was surrounded by trees. So, with this storm
brewing Tuesday night through Wednesday morning, I found some place else to
stay for fear that trees would be falling. Was I ever right??? Right on my bedroom
to be exact! I took it as a sign, it was time to move along. Plus, it's going
to take several weeks to remedy the situation. So, I've been staying with a
friend.
Coincidentally, right after I received a phone call
notifying me that the tree had fallen on my bedroom, I had to suspend disbelief
for a moment... When I did, a few moments later, and strangely coincidentally,
my phone rang again. Only this time, it was the Bigger Vision Winter Shelter
where I spent the last three years out of the cold. They wanted to talk to me
about some things and my situation.
I asked Andrew, the Director, if he knew my current situation and what had just happened. He said, "No. What's going on?" I said, "A tree just fell on my bedroom where I've been staying since February". Anyway, I asked when he would be there and we agreed to meet the next morning. When we did, we discussed several options. I had called him a couple of weeks ago looking for extra work as part of the staff this time. He presented me with three different options and I'm right now trying to decide what's going to work best! From fear, to relief, just like getting up there the other night and telling my story of the street life I've lived in Athens, Ga for much of the last decade.
So, when I had told my brief story of the fact that I had grown up pretty much in the country and had spent a lot of time in the woods, only that it was at the country club, and much of my time in the woods was spent looking for golf balls... to then find myself on the streets of Athens, GA, regardless of how, or why I got there... it drew a start contrast and left a question mark in their minds. See, I've been told more than once I don't look like a homeless person, and that's probably because I don't. I know this because to this day, I still have street people who ask me for money. After years of living in the same boat, eating at the same soup kitchen, there is one particular street person, a black woman in fact, who almost never fails to ask me for money. I've gotten to the point where I just act like I don't hear her, but I'm pretty sure she thinks all white people look alike!
She's a crack head anyway, as most people on the streets who ask for money are just trying to fund their fixes. My advice, knowing full well you cannot starve in this town from a lack of food unless you're just so damned lazy to walk a couple of blocks to the soup kitchen twice a day. Beyond that, the guys sitting there holding signs get so much food given to them, they don't have to walk! But, your kind provision just enables the "ugliness of Irma" to stain the streets of downtown Athens. When even hurricanes go away, beggars remain. Don't give to panhandlers, and that's coming from a street person! I just never asked anybody for a dime. Give it to a street performer instead, and if you want a cool bracelet from a bicycle spoke, give me a call!
Where one tree has fallen, another one grows! Thanks to places like Bigger Vision, and the Northeast Georgia food bank, the poor, and even the working poor are enabled to maintain a level of dignity without making it necessary to beg. The beggars on these streets represent the same level of BS that we get out of DC on a daily basis. They're just not wearing suits and ties. Certainly, BS is part of politics and even life. It is clear. It's just that we should seek to minimize it instead of maximizing it.
Even Bernie knows $15 an hour as the minimum wage will
only create a reaction in the market through automation, or higher prices and
it wouldn't make a difference. One study indicated people actually lost income
because of reduced hours. It's just something people like to hear and it gets
votes. The problem is apparent that prices have so far outpaced wages a person
can't make it on forty hours a week in an era where employers only want to give
you thirty hours a week. It requires two different jobs in order to begin to
make ends meet. We must aim higher as individuals before we demand the market
pay us what it won't at a minimum.
As a minimalist, I'm not complaining too much about having to work without being able to afford the lavish lifestyle of a Trump. But, because of this fact, we have resources that do enable people to survive without the act of begging.
Comments
Post a Comment