The sidewalk outside our line of shops is fairly active. My photo studio-private- is on one end followed by antique dealers, interior design shoppe, the Redhead's Pilates joint, another garden and interior shop tax-write-off and a cleaners. Brady's coffee is around the next corner. We attract wanderers and beggars. A derelict day-walker took up position across the street to watch the Redhead a couple of years ago. (I knew the guy, from High school. We treated him like extra security, watching.) She had to wave off a pilgrim who stood in front of her plate glass and left a greasy face-plant while watching her class. I get door-knob rattlers and functionally illiterate folks, (PRIVATE), in my door. The redhead may instruct strangers to "ride on." I caution them that
"we deal in lead, friend."
Typical incident this week. The antique dealers next door gave ten bucks to a woman who had been walking back and forth. I think they had her sweep a little. Before it was over she was shaking doors and DEMANDING money from every shop.
You just can't help. Doing so endangers everyone on the block.
My favorite beggar was one who showed up at my doorstep last fall pointing at the side-yard. " I must have mowed that yard three, four times last year," he said. "Never did get paid."
Ride on.
4 comments:
Oh God. We get them too, downtown by all the charity organizations, and family assistance centers and benevolent centers and free supper Thursday night over here - 2 blocks away free supper Tuesday. Goodwill, the bus station. We get them. No matter how much someone is giving away it's never enough. I'm sure I've told you about the pre-Thanksgiving weekend free food giveaway, where people, for some reason unbeknownst to me, will take hams & turkeys out of their boxes & just toss the boxes on the sidewalk and street. (Kinda like the folks at Obama's inauguration - it's someone else's job to clean up after them.) Last year I found 2 sacks of groceries sitting on our back steps, obviously from First Baptist's weekly handout. I called the church, someone picked the bags up, and then a few hours later the guy who'd left them there showed up and was angry because I hadn't ignored "his" food. We also get these people through the front door. You cannot give them money or the time of day. They will mark your curb.
Marking the curb is an identifying mark for the next 30 gazillion hobo, homeless or whatever todays current crop of ne'er do wells are called. Each one who passes by sees the mark and knows that here lies a soft touch willing to feed one of their kind. It is never ending and, like feeding the bears at Yellowstone, not a good idea.
I want to be a kind person, but I am learning better. Down at the olde transmission shoppe, we have had four different homeless people who mysteriously "knew" to come to our back door and to ask for work. I'd start out paying them to do something we actually needed, but before it was over, each of them found ways to lie and cheat to get as much as they could for doing as little. The bad part? Though I know it is human nature to get as much as possible for as little, their actions have changed me a little. I think a little worse about people, today, than I did four years ago. And I liked me a little better, then....
Or maybe instead of being a hermit with your standoff-ish "private" sign you could offer brownies for sale. I'm just saying :)
All kidding aside Rob, I love reading your blog and Congrats on getting that cute Redhead to marry ya!
Regards,
Joe Mears
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