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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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The season pretty much has ended and a lot of the homeless faces have gone back to wherever they come from.
It sounds ridiculous, but there are a lot of seasonally homeless people that choose to make Nelson their summer home - you seem them year after year, then they disappear for the winter, only to show up again in the spring.
Gabe is a year rounder. He finds a corner and begs change from the passers by. Competition for corners and entry ways to sit in is pretty fierce, but he's been doing it long enough that he has some measure of seniority.
He's sitting in front of the Chinese grocery on Baker and requests that I buy him a Monster Energy Drink. Because he's homeless and broke. Once in a while I oblige, although I'm not certain that I'm doing him any good or why the hell he can't get off his ass and do some work. I've heard him arguing with others this same point, he's pretty happy being homeless, living on the street, doesn't want to work, doesn't like working, being told what to do, he's the "victim" of people's poor opinion of him, knowing him as they do to be a colossal layabout.
Nonetheless today I buy him his energy drink, although why you need an "energy" drink to sit about on your ass all day is beyond me. The shopkeeper chastises me, acknowledges the good intentions but he's not welcome in her shop, he's a shoplifter, she dissuades me from buying him further stuff, I'm not doing him or her any favours, I should just save my money.
She's right, enough has been posted about Gabe online, Facebook, etc, that really I'm subsidizing the worst aspects of homelessness, even a tramp will work for food, Gabe, he just wants to sit around, get high, and really that's it. There are the homeless that struggle with addiction, trauma, abuse, etc. Gabe just wants to sit around and get high. He's been doing it for 10 years, more even, and it's a tough habit to break.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 267
I'm on 4, waiting for the elevator. And I can hear her swearing and cussing up a storm, she's pissed off, somebody's catching hell and the elevator's rising and she's getting louder and louder, then the door opens and she's alone...
She sees me, looks down, ashamed, scuttles past...
***
I'm pretty much out of groceries, there's nothing in the fridge I can find to eat. And it's a few days to payday. I grab a rock and head over to the neighbours, rattling it in the pot, I'm going to make Stone Soup and I'm hoping maybe she has some things I can add to it, only she isn't home and the broth, well, it's pretty much water and I'm pretty sure this is not how the story's supposed to go...
***
She comes over to raid the fridge, lets herself in, ignores me in the chair while she helps herself to blueberries and ice cream, grabs a Pellegrino, goes back to the fridge for more berries and ice cream, she can't help herself...
***
Making dinner, pasta, I've been paid and the stone's gone back into the stone pile. Run into neighbour, dinner's a Ground Elk bolognese, invite her over. After dinner she sits, she's obliged, she feels she needs to keep me company, manners and all can't eat and run only she doesn’t; she sits and gambles on her phone, then breaks to rifle the bookshelf, grabs a stack to “borrow”; she begins reading Pablo Neruda’s “100 Love Sonnets”; her face is a mirror to her internal emotions, she's smiling, lips pursing, tight, then the edges lift, then she's sad, disturbed, she's furrowing her brow; she’s filled with all manner of twitches and tics.
I scroll my phone a bit, then excuse myself to go for a cigarette and she gets the hint, checks herself out…
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
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Whom I came across in a book recently read: "Myth and Reality" -
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlegon_of_Tralles
And again: https://artandpopularculture.com/Phlegon_of_Tralles
And the Text of His Book of Marvels: ehttps://topostext.org/work/540
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
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I run into ****, the Mother-in-laws brother (from the old restaurant) on the street. He's been off the heroin now for years, gets his methadone prescription from the pharmacy. Briefly stop to chat and catch up but he's in no condition, he allows me to take a picture:
Apparently he's found a new hobby. It's none of my business, but I'm not thinking it's any better than the old hobby...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 205
A long 5 minute video apology from the girl that went missing from Shambala. She was found a week or so later, living feral in the woods near Nelway (the border), a classic example of somebody who took too much and never got home...
The video, not obligatory but welcome I'm sure, it took some courage even though clearly she - while "home" and safe - has not yet recovered her peace of mind.
It reminds me of the less fortunate guy that went missing from Shambala a few years ago, last spotted running through yards in Salmo, somewhere now picked clean in the woods.
A reminder to not lose your crew until you get to the relative safety of your home, although where home is will vary with your state of mind.
At the old restaurant, the "Cock 'n' Suck" we'd get these people for weeks after Shambala, parked in a decrepit broken down car in our lot or on the Ferry Landing, just working things out, coming in for food they couldn't pay for, trying to get something done if only they could sustain the thought of what...