Growing up in a tiny town in the middle of the mountains does come with certain advantages. Among them a backyard full of potential adventure.
Kittredge is a small town with a population around seven hundred that lies almost thirty miles west of Denver in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. With it’s two stoplights and quiet town folk, if you yawned at the wrong moment you would miss the whole town. It contained at one time or another a laundry mat, a couple non-descript nameless bars, a couple thrift stores, an indoor miniature golf course, a four star restaurant named The Tivoli Deer, the Husky general store and gas station, the Hickory Dickory Dock bbq restaurant, and a two block long main street.
For two boys of a curious age, wilderness is always the first step into true adventure. Our first house in the mountains we called The Duplex. It was situated at the top of a short but very steep dirt driveway. Below the driveway was the hairpin turn of the road that led to main street, forming two valleys in which the kids of the neighborhood played. To the right was the ten foot jump into the valley in front of the Riggs place, with a little pond and grass and everything.
To the left was the thicket. Looking back, I would say it was probably about a hundred feet across at it’s thickest, coming to a point both at the beginning where the dam was, and at the other end where it went under the road and formed the Riggs pond. In this thicket the stream flowed slowly and the pines grew high and strong. And more than a few yielded hidden treasures placed at the top by a boy playing hide and seek.
When you went all the way through the thicket you came out onto a road that only had one ending. And it was never a pleasant ending. The owner of the property at the end of the road was known to pull over and yell at kids on his road. His family had money, and while we didn’t really understand all that stuff then, we were clearly from the wrong side of the creek for him.
But if you got through the thicket and got across the road without being seen, that was where the journey began for Fort King. Up the mountain about three hundred feet we came to what later became known as Fort One. A small rock formation that had a large jutting finger became instantly recognizable among the rest of the boulders strewn about the mountain, and for its sole vantage point overlooking the Husky general store.
A chain link fence ran the length of the rich man’s property and the only point where you could see that fence was above the empty lot next to the general store. A lot that in the summertime hosted the town carnival and artist booths, sat most of the year storing rocks and lumber or just plain empty, like someone took a scoop out of the hillside and put a fence on as frosting.
We would hold tight to the fence as we tried to swing around the corner of it and get to the free mountain beyond. Once, during this precarious move, one of our friends lost his grip on the fence and tumbled down the sheer side of the mountain landing in a pile of dirt in the empty lot next to the Husky. He got up, holding his arm, wiped his tears and said he was going home.
Not long after crossing the fence we came to a new vantage point, one high enough that we could look down at our sprawling mountain town. This became Fort Two, and the only way to know if you had reached it was to look down and see where you could see. These trips took the better part of the dog days of summer. Our parents worked full time jobs and we would get home after them having spent the entire morning and afternoon wandering the mountains.
Fort Three was the first rock formation on the top of the mountain. It was a sprawling site of rubble and trees and boulders and narrow places to hide and kings and knights and good and evil. This was where we spent most of those summer days. High atop a mountain at seventy six hundred feet, with views of not only our town, but the next town up the mountain from us, Evergreen, we played long into twilight hours when good boys should be home.
When my parents announced that we had finally purchased our very own home across town, my brother and I took it as a sign to visit the Forts one more time. That last time up the mountain we left in the morning around 10:00am and got to the top of Fort Three around one in the afternoon. This time though, Josh wanted to keep going, and see what was beyond Fort Three. Besides he reasoned, when would we be up on this particular mountain again?
Fort Four was about another hour along the top of the mountain. And to this day I couldn’t tell you what was so special about it. In fact the only thing I do remember about it was that from Fort Four we could see the combination of houses that had always enraptured and puzzled Josh and I… Deep down a long and winding pass called Kerr Gultch, nestled next door to each other as if in defiance of their sheer differences were The Glass Castle, and the Ice Cream Shack.
One a towering beautiful two story blond wood house with walls all made of glass and opulent white light emanating from within, the other a small one room log cabin with a small window on the front and what seemed like permanent frost on the chimney roof, and a big bright wooden sign hanging at the door: “ICE CREAM”. Attached to this very unusual home, was the stunning revelation that at one time, in the not so distant past, our own father, Chuck, had lived in this shack.
The move happened sometime in August, because we had barely settled in before we started getting ready for school to start again. Josh and I had settled into our (briefly) shared room as the last weekend before school started rolled around. Feeling nostalgic for the adventures we had left on the other end of town, Josh decided that Saturday would be the perfect day for the last adventure of summer.
That morning, Josh and I put out packs together, made sandwiches and filled our thermoses, as we set out to find the legendary Fort King. The front of our new house looked out onto South End road, and our back door looked up a mountain. We walked out the back door and took the long slow trek up the mountain. When we could finally see the beginning of sunlight signaling the top of the mountain we ran the rest of the way up and found ourselves standing on a dirt road. To the left stood a magnificent winter home of dark wood and floor to ceiling windows, and hanging above the front door was a sign that read simply Kittredge.
Because of the lack of any life, it was decided that this, was the home of the man who founded our town. And a subsequent tale of a lion hiding under the porch was invented to keep us away from the house. We turned the other way on the road and walked further on. Around the bend we came to some more houses that didn’t so much as look abandoned as much as they felt abandoned. We spent the better part of two hours looking around the houses, the unfinished out buildings, the boulders and the rocky structures.
When I heard Josh start screaming I jumped about a foot in the air. I started running toward the sound of his voice, not sure where he was, and even more scared that I couldn’t see him. I very narrowly avoided walking right over the edge of a cliff. I was running and not watching where I was going and just before I would have made that fatal step I looked down and saw a hand.
The sharp intake of breath stopped my forward momentum. As I looked from the hand holding the edge of the cliff to what lay beyond the cliff, my eyes plummeted about five hundred feet to the banks of the Bear Creek river below, and Josh barely hanging on to the edge. I very quickly sat down. I scooted my way closer to the edge while keeping as low to the ground as possible. I reached the hand and grabbed hold and started to pull.
Josh was pleading me to help him, to pull him back up. I was so scared I had all but forgotten to breathe. I grabbed Josh’s other hand and start backing up and trying to pull him up. Laying full on my stomach in the dirt, Josh snickered at me. I look up at him through my too long hair and he pulls his hands away from me. I gasp, thinking he is going to fall right to his death with nothing to hold on to. He points at me a laughs, and then while still dangling over the edge of the cliff, he stands up.
Because of the supreme wit in older brothering that he had inflicted on me by standing on that ledge and making me think that he was about to fall, Josh decided that this fort with it’s abandoned wealth, mystery, shelter, caves and other cool things should here for be known as Fort King.
Many times we played there, in stories of cowboys and criminals, superheroes and kings. At the top of the mountain above South End Road in the tiny mountain town of Kittredge overlooking the town, the neighboring Evergreen, the Rocky Mountains and somewhere in the west, barely visible on a clear day, the continental divide, lays a small outcropping of rock known as Fort King, it can be found high above the mansion on the hill and directly above the ninety degree turn of the Bear Creek River. Hiding somewhere in the caves and hidden places of that fort you will still find two boys playing.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
To Wake From Sleeping
To Wake From Sleeping
Some things seem forever beyond my reach
Happiness and love, those things you can't teach
I've struggled for years to fight my way in
To get warmth, the heat, the passion within
A few short breaths were breathed into my soul
And made me forget that dark empty hole
A moment unlike any I've ever known
A second in which the secret was shown
Though brief and fleeting and gone all too soon
My heart awoke in its slumbering cocoon
A world revealed that I thought had been dead
I should never have believed the lies I said
What things did I say to make my heart numb
The lives passed up for not knowing the sum
I could have been happy a long time ago
Had I quit lying about what I don't know
Time now to awake from this world I've made
Rip up the tracks that my numbness has laid
The world is filled with things wondrous and new
Now that I've woken I've so much to do.
-Shane Joseph Kroll
Some things seem forever beyond my reach
Happiness and love, those things you can't teach
I've struggled for years to fight my way in
To get warmth, the heat, the passion within
A few short breaths were breathed into my soul
And made me forget that dark empty hole
A moment unlike any I've ever known
A second in which the secret was shown
Though brief and fleeting and gone all too soon
My heart awoke in its slumbering cocoon
A world revealed that I thought had been dead
I should never have believed the lies I said
What things did I say to make my heart numb
The lives passed up for not knowing the sum
I could have been happy a long time ago
Had I quit lying about what I don't know
Time now to awake from this world I've made
Rip up the tracks that my numbness has laid
The world is filled with things wondrous and new
Now that I've woken I've so much to do.
-Shane Joseph Kroll
Flora Social
Another new piece of art I made over thanksgiving weekend. I call it Flora Social.
It would appear that I can make art out of any old thing that I happen to have a lot of... This is made completely out of business cards that I have been given (including the cutout parts). I'll admit, I'm not that great an artist when we're talking about making a picture with paint. But I seem to have a knack with creating abstract sculptural art.
What do you think?
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
My American Hero
In January of this year the street I live on traveled back in time thirty years as I watched from my window.
As the storefronts reverted back to the businesses that had closed their doors long ago, I found the streets lined with pristine cars from the 60's and 70's, and passers by wearing long hair, beards and clothes that went out of style somewhere around the same time the King finally left the building.
Just a few doors up the street from me, my friend Vlad's house was the center of a new universe: A Hollywood movie set. Vlad, you see, lives in the apartment once occupied by the owner of the camera store below. A man few outside of the LGBT community had ever heard of. The man named Harvey Milk.
Milk was one of the first openly gay men ever elected to a political office. Not only was he an engaging conversationalist and savvy politician, he also became a symbol for the community across the nation. His presence during what was one of the ugliest political campaigns against gay rights in the nations history gave hope to a community desperate for a leader.
That hope was lost to us in November of 1978. Only eight months after taking office Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated in their offices of city hall by fellow Supervisor Dan White. White was put on trial for the double homicide and thanks to what can only be described as one of the grossest miscarriages of justice in our history, he was given only six years in prison. If you ever wondered where the phrase "twinkie defense" came from, it was White's lawyers who concocted it to explain why White wasn't responsible, the sugar in the twinkies he ate made him do it.
When the all white heterosexual jury came back with their verdict and sentencing, the city went a little mad. The retaliation came swift from a community who was done being pulled out of bars in cuffs for being gay, done being treated as diseased lost souls and criminals, done being blackmailed and threatened and beaten because of their love. That night came to be know as the "White Night Riots".
Moscone and Milk were memorialized in city landmarks, The Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, busts in city hall, and until a clearly non-supportive Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill, there was almost a day of remembrance. But for me, I felt like I was watching it happen all over again, only this time Harvey looked quite a bit like Sean Penn.
Director Gus Van Sant and Sean Penn came to the Castro district to honor one of the only true leaders the LGBT community has ever known, and sitting in the famed 1400 seat Castro theater this Monday night at the premiere of their movie MILK, I have to admit, they did a damn fine job.
Telling this story from the view point of Milk himself, and utilizing several of his most famous speeches, Van Sant has created an honest and moving look into a man few people (even in the gay community today) ever really knew. A man driven to better the corner of the world he occupied even as he foretold of his own assassination by saying: "If a bullet should enter my brain, let it destroy every closet door." Sean Penn is not in this movie. The man you see on the screen IS Harvey Milk. Flawed, inspired, silly, passionate and most importantly human.
This is the story of an American Hero. A man who stood up for what he believed was right and gave his life so that we could have the freedom to be. Coming on the heels of California's anti-gay Proposition 8, it is impossible to grasp the fact that we were more able to defeat discrimination thirty years ago than we are today.
It is just as difficult to watch someone step up and face down the hate spewing "Moral Majority" in 1978 by using logic and reason. It makes it all the more obvious what type of leader Milk was and how his eloquence had the power to unite our community like no one before or since. And it leaves us with the knowledge of how sorely he is missed and how desperately he is still needed.
This is not a "gay" movie. This is not a civil rights movie. This is not a political movie. It is simply the story of one Americans pursuit of happiness. Watch it and be inspired. If your really interested in the this story I highly recommend renting the 1984 Oscar winning documentary "The Life and Times of Harvey Milk".
Lastly, remember, change takes time. Until then, "You gotta give 'em hope".
As the storefronts reverted back to the businesses that had closed their doors long ago, I found the streets lined with pristine cars from the 60's and 70's, and passers by wearing long hair, beards and clothes that went out of style somewhere around the same time the King finally left the building.
Just a few doors up the street from me, my friend Vlad's house was the center of a new universe: A Hollywood movie set. Vlad, you see, lives in the apartment once occupied by the owner of the camera store below. A man few outside of the LGBT community had ever heard of. The man named Harvey Milk.
Milk was one of the first openly gay men ever elected to a political office. Not only was he an engaging conversationalist and savvy politician, he also became a symbol for the community across the nation. His presence during what was one of the ugliest political campaigns against gay rights in the nations history gave hope to a community desperate for a leader.
That hope was lost to us in November of 1978. Only eight months after taking office Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated in their offices of city hall by fellow Supervisor Dan White. White was put on trial for the double homicide and thanks to what can only be described as one of the grossest miscarriages of justice in our history, he was given only six years in prison. If you ever wondered where the phrase "twinkie defense" came from, it was White's lawyers who concocted it to explain why White wasn't responsible, the sugar in the twinkies he ate made him do it.
When the all white heterosexual jury came back with their verdict and sentencing, the city went a little mad. The retaliation came swift from a community who was done being pulled out of bars in cuffs for being gay, done being treated as diseased lost souls and criminals, done being blackmailed and threatened and beaten because of their love. That night came to be know as the "White Night Riots".
Moscone and Milk were memorialized in city landmarks, The Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, busts in city hall, and until a clearly non-supportive Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill, there was almost a day of remembrance. But for me, I felt like I was watching it happen all over again, only this time Harvey looked quite a bit like Sean Penn.
Director Gus Van Sant and Sean Penn came to the Castro district to honor one of the only true leaders the LGBT community has ever known, and sitting in the famed 1400 seat Castro theater this Monday night at the premiere of their movie MILK, I have to admit, they did a damn fine job.
Telling this story from the view point of Milk himself, and utilizing several of his most famous speeches, Van Sant has created an honest and moving look into a man few people (even in the gay community today) ever really knew. A man driven to better the corner of the world he occupied even as he foretold of his own assassination by saying: "If a bullet should enter my brain, let it destroy every closet door." Sean Penn is not in this movie. The man you see on the screen IS Harvey Milk. Flawed, inspired, silly, passionate and most importantly human.
This is the story of an American Hero. A man who stood up for what he believed was right and gave his life so that we could have the freedom to be. Coming on the heels of California's anti-gay Proposition 8, it is impossible to grasp the fact that we were more able to defeat discrimination thirty years ago than we are today.
It is just as difficult to watch someone step up and face down the hate spewing "Moral Majority" in 1978 by using logic and reason. It makes it all the more obvious what type of leader Milk was and how his eloquence had the power to unite our community like no one before or since. And it leaves us with the knowledge of how sorely he is missed and how desperately he is still needed.
This is not a "gay" movie. This is not a civil rights movie. This is not a political movie. It is simply the story of one Americans pursuit of happiness. Watch it and be inspired. If your really interested in the this story I highly recommend renting the 1984 Oscar winning documentary "The Life and Times of Harvey Milk".
Lastly, remember, change takes time. Until then, "You gotta give 'em hope".
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
A question of love
- Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control are not natural.
- Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people cannot get legally married because the world needs more children.
- Obviously gay parents will raise gay children because straight parents only raise straight children.
- Straight marriage will be less meaningful, since Britney Spears's 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.
- Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and it hasn't changed at all: women are property, Blacks can't marry Whites, and divorce is illegal.
- Gay marriage should be decided by the people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of minorities.
- Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are always imposed on the entire country. That's why we only have one religion in America.
- Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people makes you tall.
- Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage license.
- Children can never succeed without both male and female role models at home. That's why single parents are forbidden to raise children.
- Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven't adapted to cars or longer lifespans.
- Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a "separate but equal" institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages will for gays & lesbians.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Hilarity Ensued: A night on the town
I want to be able to remember my happiness and youth, long after I have grown past the point of easy recollection. In that vein, I have decided to write down my memories of childhood while they are still relatively recent. This will be part of an ongoing series called "Hilarity Ensued". While many of my childhood memories have a touch of the absurd, and quite a few of them are sublimely hilarious, some are very difficult, and some still elicit that thin line of emotion in the bottom of my eye.
My brother and I were pretty fearless in our youth. We did all kinds of crazy things that would have gotten us into serious trouble, turning poor mom's hair white, had we ever been caught. Sometimes when I look back on our youth, I am utterly amazed that we made it through alive and unharmed.
One of the only sleepovers I can recall from those years was at our friend Joey's house. Joey was mom's best friends son, and one of our only friends. Why we were spending the night and what we did prior to bedtime has left my mind over the years. But as is so often the case with adventurous little boys, the real adventure didn't start until long after we were supposed to be in bed.
It was around eleven thirty when Joey suggested it. We had been laying in bed joking and laughing at farts, when out of nowhere Joey says "You guys wanna go out?" Josh and I, looked from him to each other, and though my eyes said no, Josh's burned with the bright light of oncoming adventure. I knew better than to voice opposition when Josh had so clearly decided already. All I asked was that we not get caught and that we not split up.
Josh and I lived in the heart of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in the tiny town of Kitteridge, population 700. Joey and his mom, Marge, lived in Denver, or rather in one of the many suburbs on the outskirts of the city. This was our first night sleeping in the city since we were six and seven, and since we were much older (a whopping ten and eleven), we agreed to explore the city streets after midnight.
Marge was still in the living room watching TV when we made up our mind, so while we waited for her to check on us one last time before going to bed. We got dressed and filled our pockets with things that only a child could explain while quietly preparing a plan. Joey suggested a route that would have taken us past a liquor store so we could get some candy. Josh, ever practical and possibly the most diabolical among us, nixed the idea, simply because who wouldn't question three little boys in a store alone after midnight?
Sometime after midnight Joey made the signal and we all laid down and feigned sleep. Through the narrowed slits of my eyes I watched as Marge opened the door, glanced around at all three of us, and then closed the door. I followed her with my ears as she shuffled down the hallway to her bedroom. When her door closed, Joey sat up and said we could leave in about 20 minutes (it took her about 15 to do her evening routine and then fall asleep, the other 5 minutes was just in case).
The three of us, all dressed in the darkest colors we had thought to bring with us, slunk past her bedroom door on the way to the front door. As soon as the door had been shut behind us, we all ran right out into the middle of the street. Joey led the way into the night as we explored the familiar streets at a time of day we had never seen. I stayed close between Joey and Josh so I wouldn't get lost in the night.
We wandered the streets for about an hour without anything eventful or exciting taking place. We had wandered over to a big church that lay at the center of an adjacent neighborhood, and there we sat to rest and decide what to do next. We were obliviously obvious sitting on the main stairwell leading up into the sanctuary, and I wasn't really paying attention to the conversation until they started arguing. When I tuned back in, I realized they were debating a car that was parallel parked halfway up the street that faced the front entrance of the church.
Josh said it looked like a cop car, while Joey held firm that it was just a car with a ski rack. I was about to chime in with my opinion when both of them froze mid-sentence. Someone had come out of the house and gotten into the drivers seat of the car in question. It was dark and impossible to tell if the man was in a uniform or normal clothes. The debate still hung on the air waiting for resolution, when the answer flooded the stairwell on which we were all perched.
The headlights went on and we were all blinded. "Ski rack" said Joey as he shielded his eyes. Then more lights seemed to come on as the side light and revolving red and white light illuminated us. "COPS!" yelled Josh. For one brief moment the three of us were stuck on the stairs. Then the car started to move and the flood light focused directly on us.
"RUN!" screamed Josh, and we did.
Joey was up and around the right side of the church before the word finished leaving Josh's lips, thinking maybe that they couldn't follow all of us, and that I was going to stick with Josh, he said as he ran "meet me at the back door". Josh and I booked around the left side of the building. The cop car decided to follow us.
Somehow I had pulled ahead of Josh in the race to not get caught. And though I heard him yell at me to not stop until I got to Joey's back door, I didn't hear him behind me. When I chanced a glance back over my shoulder I was already a block away from him. I saw him dive down into a stairwell on the side of the church just moments before the cops side light would have found him. I covered my mouth in terror and stopped running.
I was sure that he was caught. I saw where he hid from a block away and I knew the cops had to have seen him too. The cop car slowed to a crawl as the light scoured the side of the building, I guess you couldn't really see the stairs from the car. I slowly sneaked out from my hiding place and slowly wedged myself between two cars. I don't know where the nerve came from, but somehow I found myself standing in the middle of the road. As soon as I knew the cops had seen me and turned their attention away from Josh, I turned and ran.
To avoid immediate capture I ran around the first corner and then ran as fast as I could to get around the next corner. I was just getting to the second corner when the cop car turned onto the street behind me. They saw me and sped up a little bit. But I was too far ahead of them and I had a plan of my own. I turned the second corner and ran into the side yard of the first house on the right. I ran into the back yard, and poised myself just below their waist high chain link fence. I watched as the cops drove by and turned right to follow me. As soon as they turned and moved past their view of the side yard, I hopped over the fence and started running back to where I had been separated from Josh.
A night on the town
My brother and I were pretty fearless in our youth. We did all kinds of crazy things that would have gotten us into serious trouble, turning poor mom's hair white, had we ever been caught. Sometimes when I look back on our youth, I am utterly amazed that we made it through alive and unharmed.
One of the only sleepovers I can recall from those years was at our friend Joey's house. Joey was mom's best friends son, and one of our only friends. Why we were spending the night and what we did prior to bedtime has left my mind over the years. But as is so often the case with adventurous little boys, the real adventure didn't start until long after we were supposed to be in bed.
It was around eleven thirty when Joey suggested it. We had been laying in bed joking and laughing at farts, when out of nowhere Joey says "You guys wanna go out?" Josh and I, looked from him to each other, and though my eyes said no, Josh's burned with the bright light of oncoming adventure. I knew better than to voice opposition when Josh had so clearly decided already. All I asked was that we not get caught and that we not split up.
Josh and I lived in the heart of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in the tiny town of Kitteridge, population 700. Joey and his mom, Marge, lived in Denver, or rather in one of the many suburbs on the outskirts of the city. This was our first night sleeping in the city since we were six and seven, and since we were much older (a whopping ten and eleven), we agreed to explore the city streets after midnight.
Marge was still in the living room watching TV when we made up our mind, so while we waited for her to check on us one last time before going to bed. We got dressed and filled our pockets with things that only a child could explain while quietly preparing a plan. Joey suggested a route that would have taken us past a liquor store so we could get some candy. Josh, ever practical and possibly the most diabolical among us, nixed the idea, simply because who wouldn't question three little boys in a store alone after midnight?
Sometime after midnight Joey made the signal and we all laid down and feigned sleep. Through the narrowed slits of my eyes I watched as Marge opened the door, glanced around at all three of us, and then closed the door. I followed her with my ears as she shuffled down the hallway to her bedroom. When her door closed, Joey sat up and said we could leave in about 20 minutes (it took her about 15 to do her evening routine and then fall asleep, the other 5 minutes was just in case).
The three of us, all dressed in the darkest colors we had thought to bring with us, slunk past her bedroom door on the way to the front door. As soon as the door had been shut behind us, we all ran right out into the middle of the street. Joey led the way into the night as we explored the familiar streets at a time of day we had never seen. I stayed close between Joey and Josh so I wouldn't get lost in the night.
We wandered the streets for about an hour without anything eventful or exciting taking place. We had wandered over to a big church that lay at the center of an adjacent neighborhood, and there we sat to rest and decide what to do next. We were obliviously obvious sitting on the main stairwell leading up into the sanctuary, and I wasn't really paying attention to the conversation until they started arguing. When I tuned back in, I realized they were debating a car that was parallel parked halfway up the street that faced the front entrance of the church.
Josh said it looked like a cop car, while Joey held firm that it was just a car with a ski rack. I was about to chime in with my opinion when both of them froze mid-sentence. Someone had come out of the house and gotten into the drivers seat of the car in question. It was dark and impossible to tell if the man was in a uniform or normal clothes. The debate still hung on the air waiting for resolution, when the answer flooded the stairwell on which we were all perched.
The headlights went on and we were all blinded. "Ski rack" said Joey as he shielded his eyes. Then more lights seemed to come on as the side light and revolving red and white light illuminated us. "COPS!" yelled Josh. For one brief moment the three of us were stuck on the stairs. Then the car started to move and the flood light focused directly on us.
"RUN!" screamed Josh, and we did.
Joey was up and around the right side of the church before the word finished leaving Josh's lips, thinking maybe that they couldn't follow all of us, and that I was going to stick with Josh, he said as he ran "meet me at the back door". Josh and I booked around the left side of the building. The cop car decided to follow us.
Somehow I had pulled ahead of Josh in the race to not get caught. And though I heard him yell at me to not stop until I got to Joey's back door, I didn't hear him behind me. When I chanced a glance back over my shoulder I was already a block away from him. I saw him dive down into a stairwell on the side of the church just moments before the cops side light would have found him. I covered my mouth in terror and stopped running.
I was sure that he was caught. I saw where he hid from a block away and I knew the cops had to have seen him too. The cop car slowed to a crawl as the light scoured the side of the building, I guess you couldn't really see the stairs from the car. I slowly sneaked out from my hiding place and slowly wedged myself between two cars. I don't know where the nerve came from, but somehow I found myself standing in the middle of the road. As soon as I knew the cops had seen me and turned their attention away from Josh, I turned and ran.
To avoid immediate capture I ran around the first corner and then ran as fast as I could to get around the next corner. I was just getting to the second corner when the cop car turned onto the street behind me. They saw me and sped up a little bit. But I was too far ahead of them and I had a plan of my own. I turned the second corner and ran into the side yard of the first house on the right. I ran into the back yard, and poised myself just below their waist high chain link fence. I watched as the cops drove by and turned right to follow me. As soon as they turned and moved past their view of the side yard, I hopped over the fence and started running back to where I had been separated from Josh.
Only problem, he wasn't there anymore.
I sat near the spot I had last seen him, crouching in the stairwell in case the cops made a second run. They did, and I hid exactly where he had hid the first time. The cop car stopped in the same spot it had earlier, and the side light was aimed exactly three feet above me in the stairwell. Again, luck held out and they didn't get out of their car to explore. I was not foolish enough to think that I would avoid a third brush, so when they were out of sight again, I moved covertly in the direction that I though Joey lived.
Remember, I was 10. And though I had been to that neighborhood before, it was completely foreign to me that night. I wandered, looking for the familiar. Starting to get really scared and worried that I wouldn't be able to find the house again, I began to cry a bit. Just as the tears began to flow, someone ran into the street two block ahead of me.
Josh.
My tears immediately dried up as I ran to catch up with him. He, the consummate badass, casually strolled in my direction. Routinely checking for cars over his shoulder. We met in the middle of the street, and he looked at me and asked if I was ok, and how I had gotten away. As I was telling him how scared I was, and how the police had almost gotten me twice, we heard leaves rustling off to the right. Looking at the hedge that lined someones back yard we both were startled and relieved to see Joey emerge from the leaves.
We had all had just about enough adventure for one night and started heading back to the house. Since we had all been separated from each other, we took this moment to tell each other what we had just been through. Joey had run around the Church in the other direction and took a shortcut home through some back yards. There he had waited for us for what turned out to be the better part of an hour. When he finally got worried enough he took the same route back to the church, emerging magically out of the hedge of someones back yard.
All I remember about what Josh did was that he separated from me on purpose. Not because he wanted to ditch me, but for the exact same reason I stepped out in the road for the cop car to see me. To distract attention from the other brother. He had gone back to Joey's house to check, but when he saw I wasn't there, he circled the neighborhood, eventually returning to the church where I was looking for him.
We snuck back into the house as softly as we had left it, Joey pausing to listen to his mom snoring through the door. We were safe, and unsuspected. Though Josh and I had many more nights out on the town while the parents slept, this was the first of only two times that Joey joined us. The second... is another story...
We had all had just about enough adventure for one night and started heading back to the house. Since we had all been separated from each other, we took this moment to tell each other what we had just been through. Joey had run around the Church in the other direction and took a shortcut home through some back yards. There he had waited for us for what turned out to be the better part of an hour. When he finally got worried enough he took the same route back to the church, emerging magically out of the hedge of someones back yard.
All I remember about what Josh did was that he separated from me on purpose. Not because he wanted to ditch me, but for the exact same reason I stepped out in the road for the cop car to see me. To distract attention from the other brother. He had gone back to Joey's house to check, but when he saw I wasn't there, he circled the neighborhood, eventually returning to the church where I was looking for him.
We snuck back into the house as softly as we had left it, Joey pausing to listen to his mom snoring through the door. We were safe, and unsuspected. Though Josh and I had many more nights out on the town while the parents slept, this was the first of only two times that Joey joined us. The second... is another story...
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Childhood without...
I feel sorry for the generations that have grown up in the last couple decades. In an age of instant gratification and thirty-minute everything, some things have been irreparably lost. The movement towards political correctness and standardization has led these new generations of kids into creativity-free lives of mediocrity.
My generation survived being born to mothers who smoked, drank, did drugs, took aspirin, and ate whatever they wanted while they were pregnant. And though we "know" these things are BAD, somehow entire generations born under these conditions have not only lived to tell the tale, but quite a few of them have prospered very well.
We were put to sleep on our bellies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup on a warm day was always a special treat, today it's against the law.
When I was a child, parents took the more active part in parenting. All those things I just mentioned we knew to be careful because our parents explained things. They knew to be more careful and observant because they payed attention and read books on childcare other than the bible. We have now begun raising generations of kids who honestly believe that someone else can be to blame for everything. And created for them with our laws, rules and litigiousness a world where no one has to think for themselves, and kids grow up believing what they are told.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and eggs, and drank Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because, WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day and we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes! After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We learned by trial and error, not by being told. We learned how to use reason and logic to solve problems all by ourselves. In school we learned how to think, not just how to memorize. We were taught philosophy and music, thereby developing self discipline, curiosity and logic. We were taught that religion was to feed our soul and books were to feed our brain.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms... We had friends that we played with, we had family activities that didn't involve the TV. We had to use a fast dying medium of imagination to entertain ourselves. It was not a chore or a punishment to sit and read a book. We had parents who taught us about the things they liked and encouraged us to create our own likes from nothing.
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our tenth birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them! Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment, and learn how to get better with practice. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
These previous generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past fifty years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
The generations raised in the last twenty years have had too many things handed to them. They have lost music and philosophy as necessary thought disciplines. Replaced by school sports and religion. We have actually started teaching our children that people, including school teachers, are hell-bound liars for not teaching the same things that the parents faith teaches; instead of simply explaining the difference between faith and science. Parents today have taught their children to fight at the top of their lungs (in the name of god) against things like equality, acceptance and tolerance for all, while completely ignoring the bigger responsibility of teaching responsibility, respect, common decency, manners and dignity. Those are not subjects taught in school, and it is clear with the attitudes of the younger generations that they are not taught at home much anymore either.
Because of the way these children today are raised by their parents ignorance and irresponsibility, we now have the most violent, disrespectful and mediocre generation of young adults this country has ever seen. And they are dying by the thousands every year because we don't stop them and correct them out of fear of being sued or assaulted. I weep for the future, and pray I don't live long enough to see this generation come to any position of power.
My generation survived being born to mothers who smoked, drank, did drugs, took aspirin, and ate whatever they wanted while they were pregnant. And though we "know" these things are BAD, somehow entire generations born under these conditions have not only lived to tell the tale, but quite a few of them have prospered very well.
We were put to sleep on our bellies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup on a warm day was always a special treat, today it's against the law.
When I was a child, parents took the more active part in parenting. All those things I just mentioned we knew to be careful because our parents explained things. They knew to be more careful and observant because they payed attention and read books on childcare other than the bible. We have now begun raising generations of kids who honestly believe that someone else can be to blame for everything. And created for them with our laws, rules and litigiousness a world where no one has to think for themselves, and kids grow up believing what they are told.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and eggs, and drank Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because, WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day and we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes! After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We learned by trial and error, not by being told. We learned how to use reason and logic to solve problems all by ourselves. In school we learned how to think, not just how to memorize. We were taught philosophy and music, thereby developing self discipline, curiosity and logic. We were taught that religion was to feed our soul and books were to feed our brain.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms... We had friends that we played with, we had family activities that didn't involve the TV. We had to use a fast dying medium of imagination to entertain ourselves. It was not a chore or a punishment to sit and read a book. We had parents who taught us about the things they liked and encouraged us to create our own likes from nothing.
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our tenth birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them! Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment, and learn how to get better with practice. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
These previous generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past fifty years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
The generations raised in the last twenty years have had too many things handed to them. They have lost music and philosophy as necessary thought disciplines. Replaced by school sports and religion. We have actually started teaching our children that people, including school teachers, are hell-bound liars for not teaching the same things that the parents faith teaches; instead of simply explaining the difference between faith and science. Parents today have taught their children to fight at the top of their lungs (in the name of god) against things like equality, acceptance and tolerance for all, while completely ignoring the bigger responsibility of teaching responsibility, respect, common decency, manners and dignity. Those are not subjects taught in school, and it is clear with the attitudes of the younger generations that they are not taught at home much anymore either.
Because of the way these children today are raised by their parents ignorance and irresponsibility, we now have the most violent, disrespectful and mediocre generation of young adults this country has ever seen. And they are dying by the thousands every year because we don't stop them and correct them out of fear of being sued or assaulted. I weep for the future, and pray I don't live long enough to see this generation come to any position of power.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Creatures of Memory and Habit, part 1
The first fundamental question is this:
Why would world governments and organized religions (that are allegedly based on love, compassion and acceptance) spend their time, money, and resources restricting the list of people who can and should adopt the worlds discarded children? While limiting the people who can adopt to a group of people that seldom do, and requiring a rigid judeo-christian family structure for all applicants. It's common knowledge that family's with children of their own rarely adopt more.
It's like we are saying to the people who want to care for children: "If you want to adopt children in this country, you must have a family structure exactly like the diagram here shows." We are telling them to convert to our nuclear christian religion or no child, as if it was a priveledge in the first place. With the sum of money that has been spent fighting about this petty argument of who is fit and who is not, we could have completely overhauled the entire foster care and adoption system. Sparing the current and future generations the pleasure of growing up in prison.
But this is not the real question.
How can we have entire generations of children to whom the foster care system and it's revolving door of faces act as mom and dad? Instead of focusing on who can't take care of these abandoned and given away children, why do we not instead ask; Who is having all these children and then throwing them away? Why do we regulate who cant have children and not who can? Why are there no legal or financial responsibilities placed on people who undertake the creation of life? Is creating them and leaving them somehow more socially acceptable than trying to take care of them and give them a stable home?
Why do these governments and religions not say "everyone must be responsible for giving these abandoned children stability and love." If you can raise a child and give it a stable home and provide all the basics like food, clothes, education, oppertunity and spirituality, than you should. Because it is better than being raised by a business.
Must we remain forever unmoveable in our individual faith and the minute details, yet so blind to it's greater meaning? Family IS important, all families. The Family of Humanity. Progress is recognizing that life has become bigger than a set of rules in a book. And evolution produces situations that the book never even concieved of. The governments have adapted, changing with the progression of society. Religion has stopped providing any new value. All that religion offeres is a two thousand year old structure that recognized nothing of the growth of the human race. How can any religion produce anything meaning full when all it's time is focused on the begining events? Will there be no middle, no growth? There was a time when religion was a new thing, and the people who wrote the great religious books decided what tales to include for the maximum future value. There has been no forward thinking since then.
That conundrum has brought us to where we are now. Religion is now focusing of what is present and how we have evolved and how it was not talked about two thousand years ago, and therefore must be bad. Thereby skewing the faithfull into a fight of not what is just and good, but who is right and who is wrong.
Life is not about punishing others for being different from you. This is the cause of division in the country right now. Everyone is focused on religion and it's hold on the political structue.
What the religious leaders need to remember is that this country is free for all. Not just free for the faithfull. And though they may feel right in their faith about something, it does not make it right for all. This country and it's rights are for all that dwell upon it's lands. Faith is there to give us guidance for a peacefull life and to lead us to a place of serenity. It is not to be used as a weapon against those that do not believe. It would benefit the religions of the world to remember their cause. Sticking to their rigid unwavering structure weakens their longeveity, causes unrest, and eventually provides no growth of the soul in terms of present day reality. Their primary responsibilty is to mind and care for the human soul and give us spiritual guidance. The laws of man (as has been so often misused by members of both religions and politicians) should have nothing to do with the tending to the soul and spirit of a person, and so too, those who tend to the souls of mankind should not be allowed to write the laws.
Can we take the lessons of the book. Can we put into practice the parts that would bring about peace and not just pay them lip service by preaching about them. Society has skewed into a negative reality. The focus has become the different, the bad and the wicked. The miracles, the great works go unnoticed in this our age of misdirection and spin.
It is time now, for a great new dawn in America. Let us stop from the petty fights, and turn our attention to the bigger pictures. Humanity is suffering everywhere. We have the knowledge and the where with all to fix these problems for good. We could erradicate hunger and famine. The human race has come to that point... Where we can come close to truly curing some of the longest problems mankind has ever faced. Let us stop with the in-fighting. Let us now, finally, get to work on the good and the just.
Why would world governments and organized religions (that are allegedly based on love, compassion and acceptance) spend their time, money, and resources restricting the list of people who can and should adopt the worlds discarded children? While limiting the people who can adopt to a group of people that seldom do, and requiring a rigid judeo-christian family structure for all applicants. It's common knowledge that family's with children of their own rarely adopt more.
It's like we are saying to the people who want to care for children: "If you want to adopt children in this country, you must have a family structure exactly like the diagram here shows." We are telling them to convert to our nuclear christian religion or no child, as if it was a priveledge in the first place. With the sum of money that has been spent fighting about this petty argument of who is fit and who is not, we could have completely overhauled the entire foster care and adoption system. Sparing the current and future generations the pleasure of growing up in prison.
But this is not the real question.
How can we have entire generations of children to whom the foster care system and it's revolving door of faces act as mom and dad? Instead of focusing on who can't take care of these abandoned and given away children, why do we not instead ask; Who is having all these children and then throwing them away? Why do we regulate who cant have children and not who can? Why are there no legal or financial responsibilities placed on people who undertake the creation of life? Is creating them and leaving them somehow more socially acceptable than trying to take care of them and give them a stable home?
Why do these governments and religions not say "everyone must be responsible for giving these abandoned children stability and love." If you can raise a child and give it a stable home and provide all the basics like food, clothes, education, oppertunity and spirituality, than you should. Because it is better than being raised by a business.
Must we remain forever unmoveable in our individual faith and the minute details, yet so blind to it's greater meaning? Family IS important, all families. The Family of Humanity. Progress is recognizing that life has become bigger than a set of rules in a book. And evolution produces situations that the book never even concieved of. The governments have adapted, changing with the progression of society. Religion has stopped providing any new value. All that religion offeres is a two thousand year old structure that recognized nothing of the growth of the human race. How can any religion produce anything meaning full when all it's time is focused on the begining events? Will there be no middle, no growth? There was a time when religion was a new thing, and the people who wrote the great religious books decided what tales to include for the maximum future value. There has been no forward thinking since then.
That conundrum has brought us to where we are now. Religion is now focusing of what is present and how we have evolved and how it was not talked about two thousand years ago, and therefore must be bad. Thereby skewing the faithfull into a fight of not what is just and good, but who is right and who is wrong.
Life is not about punishing others for being different from you. This is the cause of division in the country right now. Everyone is focused on religion and it's hold on the political structue.
What the religious leaders need to remember is that this country is free for all. Not just free for the faithfull. And though they may feel right in their faith about something, it does not make it right for all. This country and it's rights are for all that dwell upon it's lands. Faith is there to give us guidance for a peacefull life and to lead us to a place of serenity. It is not to be used as a weapon against those that do not believe. It would benefit the religions of the world to remember their cause. Sticking to their rigid unwavering structure weakens their longeveity, causes unrest, and eventually provides no growth of the soul in terms of present day reality. Their primary responsibilty is to mind and care for the human soul and give us spiritual guidance. The laws of man (as has been so often misused by members of both religions and politicians) should have nothing to do with the tending to the soul and spirit of a person, and so too, those who tend to the souls of mankind should not be allowed to write the laws.
Can we take the lessons of the book. Can we put into practice the parts that would bring about peace and not just pay them lip service by preaching about them. Society has skewed into a negative reality. The focus has become the different, the bad and the wicked. The miracles, the great works go unnoticed in this our age of misdirection and spin.
It is time now, for a great new dawn in America. Let us stop from the petty fights, and turn our attention to the bigger pictures. Humanity is suffering everywhere. We have the knowledge and the where with all to fix these problems for good. We could erradicate hunger and famine. The human race has come to that point... Where we can come close to truly curing some of the longest problems mankind has ever faced. Let us stop with the in-fighting. Let us now, finally, get to work on the good and the just.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
among the destitute
My fellow blogger and dear friend CHADFOX recently wrote a post about one of the local homeless that meander the streets of the city named Freddy. It is a sad testament to our struggling humanity that we can exist with so much in the midst of those with so little.
I know these people. Once upon a time, I was these people.
When I was nineteen I was a troubled non-directional wanderer. I didnt want to leave home, I didnt want a job. I wanted to sit home, eat, watch tv and go out with my friends. Not even something so interesting as playing video games. If I did leave the house it was to go to bars or cruising down at the gay beach at night... many nights, if I came home at all, it would be after both my parents had left for work.
My parents tolerated my laziness and patying for as long as any hippy parents could, which I'm sure to say is quite a bit longer than most parents. Several times they threatened to throw me out and let me sink or swim on my own. Any time they did this I would disappear to one of my friends homes, just so my parents would know what they were missing when I was gone.
I would come home days later and the subject would drop... for about a week or so. So imagine my parents going through this same cycle every week for the better part of a year, all the while footing my bill. The year of buildup led to a knock down drag out with my dad and brother. After going out of his way to come and pick me up somewhere, I said something really ugly to my dad when we turned onto our street, and in a moment of stunned disbelief and anger he reached across the seat and slapped me right across the face. And quite deservedly so.
We pulled into the driveway and I bolted from the van, ran into the house and grabbed the portable phone. Pushing my brother out of my way I bolted down the hallway to my room screaming and crying. My dad walked calmly into the house and to my door. He told me to give him the phone and the responding stream of explatives issed from my mouth would have prompted the same O shaped breathless shock on the most hardened of criminals.
I have always had really great legs. And whenever I am complimented on them, I say thank you, its from years of keeping my brother and father out of my room. Really, it was just that one day. I wedged my back against that door and held it shut with my legs as my dad boomed away on the other side. My brother thinking himself clever, came around the house and started climing in my window. He came over to me and tried to take the phone from me (it and the phone call to the police was all but forgotten in the melee). I always refer to this as the moment that my brother realized that he was no longer my bigger brother.
I grabbed him by the throat and while my legs kept my dad from bursting in with a wedge, I held him against the wall until all he could do was call out to dad that I was choking him as he started to black out. All those years of brotherly brawls in which I was the loser boiled up in me and as he started to slip away I yelled at him "YEAH, PAYBACKS A BITCH, ISNT IT"
I dont know what broke that moment apart. What I remember next is barreling out into the hallway after dad and knocking the glasses off his face. We then fought on the ground like dogs rolling over each other and punching at the ribs. We slammed into the front right leg of mom's grand piano, and the ensuing creak of splintering wood tore us apart in an instant and we were both up and holding the bottom of the piano so it wouldnt fall.
That night, as my parents sat in the living room trying to figure out what to do with me, I packed a bag, took what was important to me, and climed out my window and ran away.
My friend Bob from church let me stay with him those first couple nights, but when he kept insisting that I go home and mend things, I decided to move on. A friend of a friend had moved in with his girlfriend, but had paid the last three months on his empty apartment, so he let me move in there. There was no electricity, and no furniture, and I lived by candlelight and canned food for three months.
When the lease was finally up I ended up couch surfing with random friends and strangers until I had over stayed my welcome or as in one case, I was just too terrified to stay. I slept in train stations, on beaches, in backyards, in drughouses, in hotels and in bathhouses. I snuck into the mall twice in the dead on night... And yes, on one or two occasions I even went home with people just so I could be inside and maybe get a shower.
I know what it is to be that low. To have your life so precariously balanced that one thing going the wrong way can change everything. I was lucky. The balance fell the other way for me. My parents let me come home. I went to vocational school, and when I got out and still couldnt find a job, I wouldnt allow myself to fall that hard again. So, I found a job where they couldnt fire me.
When people ask me about my military experience, I usually say two things. First: I wouldnt do it again, but I also wouldnt undo it. Second: I got out of it exactly what I went in looking for, dicipline and organization.
For the last year and a half I spent my work week with these people. Talking to them, feeding them and listening to their stories. A lot of the people that ate at the soup kitchen were just one or two things going wrong away from being like the rest of us. How many times the phrase "if that had just worked out for me..." has brushed past my ears. I know these people are human. I know that even though I cant afford to give them money and I no longer feed them, they are still human and as the animal is want to do, they still crave the attention.
With that I will leave you with my best "homeless guy" memory. A couple years ago, the castro burned. No, not all of it, hell, not even most of it... A guy driving down Castro and crossing Market street started having a heart attack. His vehicle careened across the road and ran straight into a line of motorcycles before colliding with the first car in a line of parked cars next to the castro theatre. The owner of that first car had just gotten in and turned on his car when he was hit. And suddenly there was another car on top of him, and both cars burst into flames. Sparking a chain reaction of explosions as each parked car's gas tank lit up all the way down the block.
Across the street in front of Daddy's there was a Sister Of Perpetual Indulgence and one of the local homeless guys. If you've ever been here, you've seen him. He is tall and lanky and has a tuft of dirty blond hair and usually stands at the castro theatre parking lot entrance tossing off witty bon mots to passers by. These two were the first into action. They bolted across the street, and as the crowds began to fill the sidewalks, you could see them, the drag nun and the crazy homeless guy pulling the drivers from the burning wreckage.
All I'm saying is this, next time you walk past a person like that, just remember, you should at least extend to them the common courtesy of human interaction.
I know these people. Once upon a time, I was these people.
When I was nineteen I was a troubled non-directional wanderer. I didnt want to leave home, I didnt want a job. I wanted to sit home, eat, watch tv and go out with my friends. Not even something so interesting as playing video games. If I did leave the house it was to go to bars or cruising down at the gay beach at night... many nights, if I came home at all, it would be after both my parents had left for work.
My parents tolerated my laziness and patying for as long as any hippy parents could, which I'm sure to say is quite a bit longer than most parents. Several times they threatened to throw me out and let me sink or swim on my own. Any time they did this I would disappear to one of my friends homes, just so my parents would know what they were missing when I was gone.
I would come home days later and the subject would drop... for about a week or so. So imagine my parents going through this same cycle every week for the better part of a year, all the while footing my bill. The year of buildup led to a knock down drag out with my dad and brother. After going out of his way to come and pick me up somewhere, I said something really ugly to my dad when we turned onto our street, and in a moment of stunned disbelief and anger he reached across the seat and slapped me right across the face. And quite deservedly so.
We pulled into the driveway and I bolted from the van, ran into the house and grabbed the portable phone. Pushing my brother out of my way I bolted down the hallway to my room screaming and crying. My dad walked calmly into the house and to my door. He told me to give him the phone and the responding stream of explatives issed from my mouth would have prompted the same O shaped breathless shock on the most hardened of criminals.
I have always had really great legs. And whenever I am complimented on them, I say thank you, its from years of keeping my brother and father out of my room. Really, it was just that one day. I wedged my back against that door and held it shut with my legs as my dad boomed away on the other side. My brother thinking himself clever, came around the house and started climing in my window. He came over to me and tried to take the phone from me (it and the phone call to the police was all but forgotten in the melee). I always refer to this as the moment that my brother realized that he was no longer my bigger brother.
I grabbed him by the throat and while my legs kept my dad from bursting in with a wedge, I held him against the wall until all he could do was call out to dad that I was choking him as he started to black out. All those years of brotherly brawls in which I was the loser boiled up in me and as he started to slip away I yelled at him "YEAH, PAYBACKS A BITCH, ISNT IT"
I dont know what broke that moment apart. What I remember next is barreling out into the hallway after dad and knocking the glasses off his face. We then fought on the ground like dogs rolling over each other and punching at the ribs. We slammed into the front right leg of mom's grand piano, and the ensuing creak of splintering wood tore us apart in an instant and we were both up and holding the bottom of the piano so it wouldnt fall.
That night, as my parents sat in the living room trying to figure out what to do with me, I packed a bag, took what was important to me, and climed out my window and ran away.
My friend Bob from church let me stay with him those first couple nights, but when he kept insisting that I go home and mend things, I decided to move on. A friend of a friend had moved in with his girlfriend, but had paid the last three months on his empty apartment, so he let me move in there. There was no electricity, and no furniture, and I lived by candlelight and canned food for three months.
When the lease was finally up I ended up couch surfing with random friends and strangers until I had over stayed my welcome or as in one case, I was just too terrified to stay. I slept in train stations, on beaches, in backyards, in drughouses, in hotels and in bathhouses. I snuck into the mall twice in the dead on night... And yes, on one or two occasions I even went home with people just so I could be inside and maybe get a shower.
I know what it is to be that low. To have your life so precariously balanced that one thing going the wrong way can change everything. I was lucky. The balance fell the other way for me. My parents let me come home. I went to vocational school, and when I got out and still couldnt find a job, I wouldnt allow myself to fall that hard again. So, I found a job where they couldnt fire me.
When people ask me about my military experience, I usually say two things. First: I wouldnt do it again, but I also wouldnt undo it. Second: I got out of it exactly what I went in looking for, dicipline and organization.
For the last year and a half I spent my work week with these people. Talking to them, feeding them and listening to their stories. A lot of the people that ate at the soup kitchen were just one or two things going wrong away from being like the rest of us. How many times the phrase "if that had just worked out for me..." has brushed past my ears. I know these people are human. I know that even though I cant afford to give them money and I no longer feed them, they are still human and as the animal is want to do, they still crave the attention.
With that I will leave you with my best "homeless guy" memory. A couple years ago, the castro burned. No, not all of it, hell, not even most of it... A guy driving down Castro and crossing Market street started having a heart attack. His vehicle careened across the road and ran straight into a line of motorcycles before colliding with the first car in a line of parked cars next to the castro theatre. The owner of that first car had just gotten in and turned on his car when he was hit. And suddenly there was another car on top of him, and both cars burst into flames. Sparking a chain reaction of explosions as each parked car's gas tank lit up all the way down the block.
Across the street in front of Daddy's there was a Sister Of Perpetual Indulgence and one of the local homeless guys. If you've ever been here, you've seen him. He is tall and lanky and has a tuft of dirty blond hair and usually stands at the castro theatre parking lot entrance tossing off witty bon mots to passers by. These two were the first into action. They bolted across the street, and as the crowds began to fill the sidewalks, you could see them, the drag nun and the crazy homeless guy pulling the drivers from the burning wreckage.
All I'm saying is this, next time you walk past a person like that, just remember, you should at least extend to them the common courtesy of human interaction.
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