Have you ever had a real conversation with a homeless person?

don't talk to myself much. i think though.

 

I used to live in Tampa with my old best friend in her dorm room at University of Tampa. It was right by the Hillsborough river and is well known for having a lot of bums chill out there and happened to be our smoking spot. One time we were smoking and I was playing guitar and an older black homeless man walks up to us and asked if he could hit the blunt, we are not greedy people at all and it was really small so we said "here you can have the rest" He then asked to play my guitar. When this man played guitar I almost cried, he fucking started busting out playing some Buddy Guy, B.B King, some Jimi Hendrix, I was completely blown away! So for the next few months we started hanging out with him. His name was John and he said him and his wife became homeless in 1997 when their house was foreclosed on, neither one of them had any family at all to help them. A year prior to meeting John he said his wife had died in the homeless shelter they were staying in and to this day he can't stay there because of all of the memories. In January after Christmas break that year I went back down to the river to see my friend and he wasn't there, he never came back.

 

i usually dont try to talk to the homeless people because all of the convos end up with them asking me for money, which i never, ever give to them. so many times they are just like "hey man why are you ignoring me i just wanted to talk to you" and it was like yeah right, you wanted to talk to me about giving you money. and they always want to give me a handshake, but fuck that, i dont want to touch your dirty fucking hand that you probably wipe your ass with and never washed

 

Wow! You're friendly!
No wonder the world is such a happy place to live without an ounce of sorrow, poverty or death!

Fair enough they're always asking for money, but ever thought of buying them some bread?
And as for shaking hands.. the amount of shit you touch yourself in a city without even knowing will probably be even dirtier than shaking a bums hand.

I'd rather shake a homeless persons hand than yours just from that post.

 

So basically if a derelict, a bum, a transient wiped his hands on his ass before shaking your hand you wouldn't have a problem with it

Hotwater

 

I just saw you post in another thread about the OWS movement being better understood by someone who has suffered from earning a degree that isn't worth shit.

I assume you are one of those people,and although I don't wish to be as hateful as you, I can't help but hope that you don't have family or friends to help you out. A lot of homeless people had that same problem; they couldn't find a job (maybe because their degree was worthless too) and they just didn't have family or friends to help them when they were struggling.

Usually people with attitudes like yours are ignorant, punk ass kids who feel entitled because it doesn't matter that their degree doesn't mean shit or that they can't find a job; mommy and daddy will help them.

Without people to help you, a degree that can't help you find a job could help you find your way to the streets one day too. i hope you remember that next time you look down on a homeless person.

I also hope you stop viewing them as one dimensional. They are people with a story behind their situation.

 

Back when I was working EMS (Emergency Medical Services), mid-70s to the late 80s, we ran on the old winos all the time. There were actually few homeless back then in Amarillo. I used to love talking to those guys. They were almost always honest when asked about how much they had had to drink, if they had done any drugs, etc. Plus they were usually pretty smart and easy to talk to. One guy actually had a MBA from Harvard (confirmed at the shelter he lived in) and just from talking to him, you could tell this was true.

What puzzled me was why people became homeless winos? They were different than alcoholics who usually have someplace to live and are able to function, to some degree, in society. The old winos just seem to have had something different about them that caused them to drop out of society. Had another guy that was a retired Colonel from the army.

Again, just dropped out of society.

But I feel like that myself sometimes.

 

I tend to throw pennies there way