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Edited on Sat Feb-09-08 11:30 PM by zalinda
I had a brother who was not yet 50 when he died. This guy was a charmer, he could sell you anything. He could look you straight in the eye and lie like a rug. He had talent besides his charm, he could take a car that was totaled and make it look brand new. But, he had problems, drugs and alcohol. He went through at least 3 marriages that we know of. We've lost track of how many kids he fathered, and I'm sure we never knew about all of them.
After he left his last wife, we lost track of him for a while. A few years before he died, he was in a bad car accident. He spent many months in the hospital, and of course, he dried out. Six months after he got out of the hospital, my sister ran into him panhandling on a city street. She asked how he was, and he told her about the accident, and how he is living on the street, sometimes staying with a friend. She wanted him to come back with her, (she and my father lived 50 miles away) and he told her no, he liked to drink and was he wasn't going back with her to a dry county (dry county, no booze sold). A year or so later they got word that he died. He died in his sleep of pneumonia, he refused go to the hospital because they would make him stop drinking.
This is a man who made a decision. Right or wrong, he decided that he liked what he had become. Maybe if he had lived longer, he would have come to his senses, but he didn't. He wasn't a sloppy, falling down drunk. He didn't even drink every day. He just liked the life of absolutely no responsibility. This was freedom to him. He was the guy with the sign at the freeway exit, reading homeless, please help.
The point is, some do it because that's who they are. Is it a mental disease, I don't know. They used to be called hobos or tramps, and we saw them as somehow nobel. Now, these same people are called homeless and we pity them. Maybe we should just call them what they are bums.
The truly homeless are proud people who ended up on the street not because they decided to do it, but because circumstances forced it on them. The last thing they would ever do is stand by the side of the road with a sign. I feel empathy for those who end up on the street or in shelters. I feel nothing for those bums who have made the decision to live the life they are living. It is a shame to put them all in the same category.
Does this sound harsh? Maybe yes. But, I've seen too many homeless people that can't get into shelters, because money is spent on the bums, trying to reform them. Yes, it's a shame that a guy dies alone in a building, and maybe he had a sickness, but when is enough, enough? How many times do you put this guy in jail, or in a shelter, or hospital or whatever, when he is going to go back out and live his life exactly how he wants to. I would much rather see that person fall by the wayside and help those who are really trying to put their lives back together.
Right now, in this reality, there is not enough money to save every one, so shouldn't we try to save the ones who are at least willing to meet us halfway?
zalinda
edited for spelling
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