Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Homeless

I have noticed a definite increase in the numbers of people wandering the streets, strangers, so to speak. I recognize many of the homeless or semi-homeless people in the downtown neighborhood, who I classify as the regulars. I know which are going to hit me up for money and which are going to give me a wide berth when I am with the hellhounds.

A long-time wanderer on the streets is the limping lady with the perpetual bandage over the right side of her face with the two-wheeled wire shopping basket she pulls around behind her. She wears a ground-touching, long-sleeved, used-to-be-white dress with two cardigan sweaters, one dirty light green, the other black, over it. She usually wears a dark-colored cloche. Sometimes, she is accompanied by a man, usually a guy with high-standing, greasy hair, trailing behind her wire shopping cart, with his untied, scuffed, light-brown hiking boots, black, loose-fitting pants held up with an over-sized belt, a long leather piece hanging and swinging as he shuffles along, slightly bent over.

I haven't seen the old guy, the guy who looks like Papa Smurf.

All followers of the Smurfs know they are blue; and the old guy, the guy who looks like Papa Smurf, appears to have a blue face, perhaps from the dirt and grime. He pushes a shopping cart ahead of him, an American flag displayed on the front of the chrome basket and an orange triangular pennant on a floppy nylon pole, flying over his head, attached to the handle near his blue-ish left hand. He wears a weathered brown leather glove on his right hand. The front wheels wobble around when he pushes the cart. The cart is filled with stuff.

Most of the other homeless wander zombie-like on the streets, except for the interlopers, the new homeless, who have not been beaten down by time, and who carry their belongings behind them in rolling luggage. It's the 21st Century.

Posted by Bill at September 24, 2010 11:04 PM