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Chasing the Band

For as long as I can recall, my brother wanted to be in a band. He didn’t have any particular musical talent and his singing voice was harsh & scratchy.  Any nearby surface became his drum set where he would slap his hands on the countertop, the television or the dash of your car. His constant singing and drumming annoyed the hell out of my sisters and I, and we would endlessly beg him to stop.

In his early twenties he managed to hook up with some local bands, playing the tambourine or shaking some maracas in the background. He soon took up the harmonica, which added a whole other god awful layer of sound to the house. When he was home, we tended to go into our bedrooms and close the doors. He bounced around with a few of these local bands for awhile and then decided he wanted something bigger.

It was the seventies, the era of Arena Rock. Big name bands criss crossed the country selling out huge venues and my brother decided he wanted in. We lived in a town halfway between Dallas & Fort Worth and bands booked into the big arenas, able to sell out two shows back to back without having to change hotels or get back on the tour bus. My brother would either bum a ride or hitchhike to the arena the day of the show, Reunion Arena in Dallas or the Tarrant County Convention Center. There he would wait in the parking lot for the roadies to arrive. He would hang back for a while, out of sight, and then when they started moving heavy equipment, he would appear and offer to help. The crews were almost always understaffed, with half the roadies sleeping off last night’s partying, so they would gladly take him up on his offer.

He knew how to hook up the equipment, set up the sound board and check the lighting. He was often invited to hang out and was usually paid in booze and weed. He didn’t care, he just loved being a part of the scene.  Over time, he worked with and sometimes played with, the likes of Bad Company, Thin Lizzy, Kansas, Aerosmith, Tom Petty and more. When he would tell us about it at home , my sisters and I would be like “Yeah, right…you played with the Allman Brothers”  thinking that he was full of shit, but the lanyards carrying backstage passes gave some credit to his stories.

Once, when I was in high school, I came home to find a group of guys in my house playing pool in our den. Long hair, beards, tight tee shirts, motorcycle boots. My mother was in the kitchen making sandwiches for them. When my brother came into the kitchen I asked  “What bunch of loser roadies did you bring home for Mother to feed ?”  He replied “ Those losers are the members of Lynrd Skynrd”.  I stuck my head over the stove and looked through the pass through window to take a closer look. Holy Shit ! That was Lynrd Skynrd in my den ! I ran as fast as I could to my bedroom where I started dialing everyone I knew.

At some point, my brother injured his back while moving the equipment and had to have surgery. With time his harmonica playing improved greatly, and he alternated between the arena gigs and a local cover band that played pretty consistently around town. The surgery did not cure his back issues, and over the years he had thirteen fully invasive back surgeries plus a couple of weird treatments in Mexico and Canada. Pain ruled his life and pain pills and alcohol took over. He was honest with his doctors, and his medical charts listed a litany of cigarettes, weed, cocaine, pills and copious amounts of alcohol.

He died in a nursing home at the age of 67, his body having succumbed to the abuse and dementia cruelly taking away his ability to function. I was the one who looked after him in recent years, taking him to doctors appointments, fighting with Social Security over his disability payments and rushing him to the emergency room every time he had run out of pain meds because he had taken too many before the prescriptions ran out.  His condition rapidly declined in 2020, and because of the pandemic I was not allowed into the nursing home for months. When it was clear he was not going to live much longer, they allowed me in to visit one last time. I picked up one of the many harmonicas he had on his dresser and blew softly into it for awhile. His head turned towards me just a bit and I wondered if he appreciated the sound or was pissed that I was touching his harp. Unable to hold a memorial service due to the pandemic, time passed on without any kind of ceremony.

Last week I was in a store when I heard a Blues Traveler song on the sound system. Teras came streaming down my face without warning.

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Covid Confusion

It began with a vague sense of confusion. You heard something on the news, then someone mentioned what they had heard. You pushed it aside, a virus out of China, perhaps the avian flu returning once again.

You heard stories about people hoarding toilet paper. What ??? Toilet paper?  Then you stopped by Sam’s Club one afternoon and witnessed crowds of shoppers filling up their carts like it was the Friday before Super Bowl Sunday. The meat cases were stripped bare. No rotisserie chickens, no paper products. What the hell was going on ?

The news marched on, getting more intense every day. Facebook  posts exploded with jokes about toilet paper and working from home. Cases rose in the US, and reality began to set in. Restaurants and bars closed, then movie theaters. Eerie  video played on the news of empty streets in Manhattan.  What was that Stephen King novel from back in the 70’s ? The Stand ? Zoom calls and distance learning became the new normal and even television shows started programming from home.

The wave of television ads began. “We are here for you in this difficult time”  “We know now more than ever that our customers are our top priority”  “ Can’t pay for your medications ? AstraZeneca can help”   “ We are offering this special deal during these challenging times”  Ummm…. No , that “Special Deal “ of being able to finance a car with no money down and payments up to 96 months was there last year. What you are doing is capitalizing on fear.

I have, since the pandemic began done some things that I would be embarrassed to admit pre Covid. I tend to forget what day it is. I eat  leftover pizza for breakfast, consume an entire jumbo box of Mike & Ikes along with a bag of potato chips while watching Law & Order SVU. Once, during a Zoom call, I reached into my desk drawer for a lip balm and ended up coating my lips with a glue stick. I made the conscious decision to run up to the Dollar General wearing my pajama pants, four layers of assorted tank tops, tee shirts and cardigan, with a lovely pair of muddy garden boots. I also reached for a sponge when I was washing my face, and mistakenly rubbed a Mr. Clean Power Eraser all over my face. My face burned for hours, but I have to tell you, it was the best $2 dermabrasion treatment you can buy.

Last, I made a Bath & Body Works run to stock up on hand sanitizer, soap and candles. For weeks, I used a new fragrance  of hand soap called “Champagne Toast”. It was just yesterday that I thought to myself : Oh….THAT kind of toast….a celebration”  I had being imaging a brunch item & wondered if it came topped with powdered sugar.

My mind is fried. The simplest things often take more focus than I have to give. The battle to keep up a positive attitude is real. Now we move into the phase where reports of domestic violence are increasing dramatically, and kids who are food insecure because they used to rely on the free breakfast and lunch at their schools. Don’t get me started on the poor teachers and what hell they are going through.

I hope, as everyone does, that this will end soon. But How ?  When it does, will I recognize it ?  Normality feels light years away.

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Consequences

Growing up in a large Irish Catholic family, you knew certain things to be true. # 1 You would be going to Mass on Sunday. This was not up for debate, or a vote or subject to your current position on the Catholic church. You were going. # 2 If you were a female, you would enter the church with your head covered. You would also wear a dress, or a skirt, because even in the seventies, women wore dresses and hats or mantillas. There might have  more progressive churches in town, but St. John the Apostle was not one  of those churches.

Once, while I was at work, the subject of being raised catholic came up, and a woman about my age joined in the conversation. “Oh yes !” she chimed in, “I remember that if you didn’t have your hat, your mother would have to pin a handkerchief to your head or she would pull out one of those little plastic pouches that had a mantilla in it & pin that on your head.”  I was incredulous.  A handkerchief ? PIN it to your head ? What the ….?   If we arrived on the steps of the church with no hat, the best we could expect was a wadded up Kleenex that my mother dug out of the corner of her purse. There were no pins, and you were not allowed to hold it to your head with your hand, you had to walk very slowly and hope it would not fly off as you made your way to the pew. The Kleenex most likely was dotted with wine, red lipstick,  and  the juice of a rare steak consumed the night before, when my parents had date night. Sunday, Bloody Sunday.

I was about eight years old when I decided I could fix this problem. My parents were out on Saturday night, the youngest of us at home, under the care of our oldest brother, who made us fried egg sandwiches for dinner and later would make us popcorn. We could watch whatever we wanted on TV, for as long as we wanted. It was fabulous.  I decided to go door to door to my sister’s rooms and collect their hats for the next days Mass. I then put them all in the back of the station wagon. The next day as we pulled into the parking lot, I passed out all the hats, and we were good to go. 

My mother, crossing the parking lot and already digging around in her purse, looked up in surprise at all of our covered heads.  I knew at that moment that I had the power to control the consequences.

Natural

I have a meeting tomorrow that will literally, and I do not use the word lightly, define which direction my life will take.

Am I nervous? Hell yes. Am I prepared? Oh, hell to the yes. I am prepared to go to battle. In preparation for this meeting, I have been listening to the Imagine Dragons song “Natural”, a fist pumping power song that I can envision kick boxing to.

I have also been reflecting on what I have accomplished and or survived in my life. Below are just some of the things on that list.

At age thirteen, after my father died, I cared for my younger sister because our mother was too drunk to do so. Cooking, doing laundry, packing lunches and driving the family station wagon to Safeway were just part of the routine.

Walked into a dark trailer where my sister was fighting with her husband. She was high, he was drunk. She had a knife, he had a gun. I successfully got my sister and her two kids out of there without incident. I was 19.

Travelled to San Salvador, at that time, the third most dangerous city in the world, to consult with a factory owner on behalf of a Non Profit Group called BPeace. I was 55.

Travelled the world in my 40’s and 50’s working for a major retailer. Toured factories and negotiated multi million dollar deals with factory owners. Never once lost my luggage, because I was able to get through a two week trip with what could fit in my 21 ” carry on.

Was laid off from that job at age 56 and landed a new job within 4 months. Probably the longest 4 months of my life.

Survived a car crash at age 16 that put my face through the windshield.

Am I ready for tomorrow ? You’re damn straight I am.

Reboot

Back in early February, I vowed to begin writing everyday. I did no such thing. My excuse at the time was that the day after I committed to a daily writing routine, I had to travel out of town for ten days. My travel was to attend a training class ( 9 days) for a new franchise business I will be involved in. I fully intended to write while I was on this trip. I took my laptop with the idea that each evening I would post to my site.

The training class was held in Amarillo, Texas, a seven hour drive from my home. I had booked a cozy Air BnB so that I had a refrigerator, coffee maker, washer & dryer. As I neared Amarillo, about an hour out, I stopped at a gas station for a cup of coffee. I mixed up a cup, snapped the lid on snugly, and headed out to my car. A gust of wind came up, blowing the lid right off my coffee and sending it 40 feet across the parking lot. I had hot coffee all over my hand and arm and just stood there in disbelief. I know I had secured that lid. Tumbleweeds blew everywhere as I got my first smell of West Texas.

I had been through Amarillo before, never stopping, and knowing that you needed to close the vents and turn off the AC at least 20 minutes out. The stench of the feed lots is inescapable. Now I was going to be in this hell hole for over a week. The night I arrived I was tired and crabby and put off writing for the following day.

The next day I learned that we would have homework every night, tests every day and basically be made to feel like morons and idiots throughout the class. Every evening I went back to the Air BnB, pissed off and worked on my homework. I stopped at a Walgreens and bought note cards to use for memorizing facts, along with a couple bottles of wine. I had to pass the class, I couldn’t take this lightly. I had paid for the training, my travel expenses and all of us that were there were told if we did not pass we would have to come back in a month and re take the course, thus delaying our business opening. The mood was sour, the instructor a Grade A A~Hole with breath that matched the air outside. The smell of death, manure and misery.

Good news ~ I passed the class. I couldn’t get out of that god forsaken town fast enough and turned my 7 hour trip into one that only lasted 5 and a half hours. Should I have assumed my writing the next day ? Yes. Did I ?No. But I am going to retry again now. Stick with me.

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Clutter Shuffling

When my daughter was home for Christmas last year, she called me out for “Clutter Shuffling” By this, she pointed out, she meant my tendency to hold on to things that clearly did not need to be kept. My habit of cleaning out glass jars and storing them in the garage, removing the wax from glass candle holders and storing them in drawers, holding on to things that could be repurposed, stitched up, repaired.

She had a good point. I tend to feel that throwing something away that is “perfectly good” is wasteful, and I have a hard time doing it. But I also know that clutter and crap can clog up your mind as much as your home. It creates a negative energy and can be emotionally draining.

So, this year, in 2023 I am making a conscience effort to toss things and not put them somewhere to be “used later”. I have been taking pictures and sending them to my daughter, who encourages my efforts and replies with silly GIFs about hoarders. Hey, I am not a hoarder, am I? “Borderline Hoarder” my daughter replies….telling me I am 12 coffee cans away from being on TV with dumpsters in my front yard.

Candle holders, jars, binders from my kid’s middle school years, the rusty turtle watering can pictured above, that I honestly planned to put bondo on it & repaint.

It feels good. I Am going to make every effort to not only stop the shuffle, but dig into some cabinets & exile more.

Time to get after it

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Every published author will tell you that if you want to pursue writing, you need to write every day. Every day. It is an intimidating prospect, not only for the sheer task of it, but just about anyone who writes has fears that what they write will not be good, that others will judge or not get it. You are putting yourself out there.

So, I am going to give it a go. For the (very) few who subscribe to my blog and receive alerts when I publish a piece you will be hearing more from me. I need feedback. Good, Bad, you found a piece boring….I need some outside voices to keep me sharp.

2023 ~ Let’s see.

A Tale of Two Forts

My son was about eight years old when he asked his father if he would build him a tree house. Our house sits on an acre and a half, the back part of which is dense woods leading down to a creek.

My problem with the plan was that any tree that could support a tree house had the structure that would hold it way too high off the ground for my comfort. I could picture my son tumbling out of the treehouse, breaking his neck, shattering his spine or dying instantly on impact. My husband drew up plans for a fort on stilts eight feet off the ground, and after demonstrating to me exactly how high that would be, I agreed.

The two began buying materials, making trips to Home Depot after school. They set posts into the ground, two feet deep at my insistence, and poured concrete into holes, allowing them for set for a couple of days. After school and on weekends, the two would be out in the woods, hammering, sawing and installing a set of pull up attic stairs that my husband found on Craigslist. Flooring was installed, walls put up, windows cut into the sides. When it came time to install the roof, corrugated tin, they needed some help, so they hired a couple of Mexicans to help finish the job.

Now before you get all judgey on me, we live in Texas, and that’s what you do. You hire Mexicans. Most towns will have a place where day laborer’s gather, hoping to pick up work in construction, landscaping, whatever. If you need some work done, trash hauled off or trenches dug you explained to the workers what the work was, how many people were needed and they willingly jumped into your car or truck, eager to make some money. It was a bonus if they spoke English, but not a requirement as you could easily demonstrate what was to be done.

My daughter, showing no interest in the fort, spent her afternoons watching Nickleodeon, keeping up with the antics of Jimmy Neutron, SpongeBob SquarePants, and shows that involved kids living entirely without parental supervision in posh hotels or apartment buildings that had slides between floors.

I was proud of my son’s perseverance. He stuck with it, day after day, never complaining or getting bored. In addition to the construction, there was a story about a squirrel that would come to watch the progress every day, nibbling on acorns and chattering his squirrel comments. I think they named him Sam.

The fort finally finished, my daughter got off the couch and ventured into the woods to inspect “Their ” new fort. Nope. My son declared it a girl free zone, and not only her friends were not allowed, but she was also not allowed in it. This set off a tirade of yelling, whining and declaring boys to be the worst. Of course, she turned to her Daddy and requested a fort of her own.

My husband agreed, but only under the same circumstances that the first fort was built under. She had to participate every step of the way. A site was selected, a lower height decided upon, with a set of simple stairs to walk up. My husband set the posts, the two started to construct the floor, and my daughter began to find excuses to go inside. She had to use the bathroom, she needed a snack, she had to call a friend about an upcoming play date. She could always be found back on the couch watching TV. My husband, who normally would just finish the fort himself, as he was a pushover for his baby girl, stood firm. Either she participated or the fort did not get built. She shrugged it off, and there it sits years later, a stairway and a half finished platform.

These two structures are symbols of the differences in my two children. Born just fifteen months apart, with the same parents, the same life lessons, each remarkably different in their approach to life. My son would study for tests and spend days working on school projects, while my daughter would whip out a paper ten pages long the night before it was due. She didn’t have to give it a lot of effort, and she made good grades, so the idea of putting in unnecessary work made no sense to her. It continued that way through high school in both academics and sports, my son getting up at six a.m. to work out before school to improve his skills in sports, and my daughter sleeping in until the last possible moment, dragging herself to the car where daddy would have breakfast ready & waiting for her.

My son graduated with honors from the University of Oklahoma in the expected timeframe of four years. He now holds a well-paying job at an oil and gas company, and lives on his own enjoying a comfortable lifestyle. My daughter, in her sixth year of college has yet to figure out what it is she is going to do with her degree in Environmental studies. When she is not at school, she is snowboarding, white water river rafting, camping and hiking across Colorado and Utah. She loves her life and is the envy of all of her friends back home, but she seems to always be low on cash and in need of daddy to call the mechanic in her town to come take a look at her car.

Both are remarkable human beings with sweet dispositions, great senses of humor and are incredibly close. I just wonder how they came out so different. I think the answer may lie in astrology, where their personalities and behaviors seem to lie in the stars and was predestined before they even arrived.

Have a Day !

Before we moved to Melissa, Texas we lived in North Dallas. There was a shop we frequented, I can’t remember if it was the dry cleaners or a donut shop, but we stopped there quite often.

The woman who checked us out was Asian, and she would complete our sale with a big smile and say “HAVE A DAY!” The kids thought that was a standard greeting, and on weekends, when Doyle had to go to the store, they would give him hugs and send him off with greetings of “Have a day Daddy ! Have a Day!” We still say it to this day. You can only imagine my delight when I came across these QC reject sandwich bags on a Dollar Tree shelf ! I can hear the meeting in the factory……”You printed HOW many of these ? Crap, these are going to the Dollar Tree l”

A current mantra is ” Don’t look back, don’t look forward, be in the now. Breathe” In today’s crazy, mixed up, divided world, I find looking back to be the one of the few things that allows me to breathe. Have A Day !

Seven Stages of Sleep

I am an excellent sleeper. By excellent, I mean I can sleep anywhere, anytime. Given a crowded space on vacation, I will happily take the couch or the floor. It doesn’t matter. The joke in our family is that if our house is hit by a tornado ( A likely event here in North Texas) and the roof is ripped off, I will be found amongst the branches of the trees, still sound asleep. My in laws stopped asking how I slept the night before, and fellow business travelers would sigh with jealousy when I noted that I slept just fine. No jet lag for me, thank you. I slept 12 hours on the plane and another 10 after we landed.

About every 6 or 8 months I will reboot by sleeping 24 hours or more. It is my bodies response to fatigue and stress. I slept over 30 hours once and my husband kept sending the kids in every 4 hours to check to see if I was still breathing.

When people ask me questions like “Don’t you have to get up and pee?” or “How could you have NOT heard that storm last night?” I simply respond “I was asleep. How would I know I have to pee or hear anything if I was asleep?” This baffles most people and they ask how I do it. I have grown to recognize the pattern and it breaks down into 7 stages.

Stage#1 – Snuggle up — be it in a bed or wherever, curl up with some blankets and a pillow if you have it and begin to breathe deeply. Tucking your nose under the covers helps to feel your breathing and creates a nesting effect. After a few minutes , I can feel “the fall” that slightly drifting sensation that is pulling me away towards slumber. This is Stage #2. At this point, I may be awakened if someone makes an effort to do so, but it has to be right there in the room, calling my name or shaking me. The sounds from other rooms do not disturb me. Stage#3 is Sleep paralysis ~ I am aware of sounds and movement around me, but I am unable to respond to them. People may come and go around me, talk about me, or even talk directly to me, but I can not respond. My eyes are closed, my body incapable of movement. Stage#4 is Deep sleep. I have intense dreams almost every night, and read a lot about dream interpretation. The analysis usually fits what I am experiencing in life, stress about work or life events are usually expressed in dreams about running late, not having packed properly for a trip, or the inability to find that one missing shoe. When life is going exceptionally well, and the future looks promising, I often dream about being able to fly. I simply get a running start and I am able to soar. In my dreams, people ask me how I do this and I explain just as I do in waking life about sleep, that it is very simple. They should try it . Just fly !

Stage #5 is a return to sleep paralysis. Again, I am aware but unable to move. Someone could shout “FIRE! GET OUT NOW!” and I could no more move than if I was shackled to the bed.

Stage# 6 is a slow re entry into the world. Drifting upward, becoming aware, drifting back to sleep, then slowly emerging. I can shift, I can open my eyes. I can look out the window and guess the time of day— Approximately. If I’ve slept past 10:00 am, it could be 10 or it could be 2 in the afternoon. I do not sense if I have slept for 8 hours or 13.

Stage #7 is the return to wakefulness. Usually at this point I have two cats nudging me with their noses and paws, hooking their claws into the blankets edge, attempting to pull it away from my face. I can roll out of bed, stumble to the bathroom and begin my day.

Except this time. This time there are no cats. I hear a soft whisping sound….Is it water ? Or air? It reminds me of the air brakes on the roller coasters at Six Flags. But softer, gentler, almost soothing. Beyond that , I hear a soft beeping sound. Is that my alarm ? Did I change the alarm sound ? I thought I had set it to flute music. A bright light hits my eyes and I look up to see a woman in a green mask and paper hair covering. She looks into my eyes, an intense flashlight in her hand, piercing my eyes. A voice comes from across the room “How do you want to code her?”

Looking Back

It is an unusually warm day for February. I am outside, on my back porch, pulling the dead plants out of pots and generally tidying up. I look out to the yard, where our dog Buddy is standing. Buddy is a 13 year old black lab mix who is definitely showing his age lately.

As he stands in the yard, his front legs lean forward, and his nose is pointed up as if a scent has caught his attention. He looks out to the lower part of the yard and the woods and I can’t help but wonder what he is thinking. Does he have memories of being a younger dog ? Running in the woods and splashing in the creek with his sidekick Pumpkin? Does he recall their romps with the dog next door ? Running out from their crates to the dog run to bark back at the coyotes ?

As he stands there shifted slightly forward, it makes me think of a movie scene. The kind that opens with an old man walking down the street in a neighborhood gone bad. The sounds of sirens and shouting fill the air, gangsters lean against graffiti covered walls. As the camera pans the scene, the black and white screen transforms into color, and we are taken back in time, when the streets were tidy and everyone wore hats.

I wonder if Buddy is having his own movie style flashback, to a time when he could almost catch a squirrel. Then I hear it. From down in the creek, coming our way. It is the sounds of children’s voices. Oh! How I have missed hearing kids in the creek! Our neighborhood had a lot of kids when ours were growing up, but just as our children moved on, so did theirs, and there were far fewer kids. Now we are seeing more young families moving in, and we are delighted to see the bikes, skateboards and golf carts cruising our streets. Their voices ring out “Hey wait up !” “Why don’t you All Hurry up ?” “Ya’ll seriously left us back there at the turn!” I walk down into the woods and climb into the treehouse, standing a bit back from the window so they don’t see me. There are 7 of them, I think. All boys, with names like Ryan, Evan and Cole. Each of them wearing hoodies or sweatshirts in black, red and white, school colors in our little town.

They climb the bank of the creek, jabbering back and forth, calling each other pussies as often as the chance allows. Once they got to the top, they crawled over a fence to get into the pasture above. Firmly on flat ground, they all began to run, picking up sticks along the way to hurl at each other or start a sword fight. One would chase the other, wielding long branches and making every attempt to poke someone’s eyes out. Based on what I could hear, it seems Evan and Ryan are the biggest pussies of all time.

Once they were out of sight, I returned to my work on the porch, and heard them coming back about 30 minutes later. They retraced their steps, descending into the creek bed, and then emerged in the neighbors yard next door. As the group made it’s way across the yard, the last boy in the pack jumped onto the neighbors trampoline and spent a minute or so practicing flips. Oblivious to home security cameras or anyone watching, I was in awe of that adolescent ability to simply BE. To be in the moment, not worrying about six other things or constantly making lists in your head.

I look back on my childhood when I spent hours and days immersed in make believe and unaware of all that went on round me. Looking at the row of boots on the back porch, I think back to why we moved here. It was an intended and carefully thought out strategy to allow our children to experience what we did growing up. The freedom to ride your bike in the streets without worry. Access to the woods, creek, pastures and fields in which to wander and explore. Exposure to nature in all it’s glory. The last time my two grown children were home together, I looked out the kitchen window to see them walking down to the fort in the woods. Looking back, I think we did okay.

Cowboy Pete

He goes by the name Cowboy Pete. He tells me this as I ask if I might sit down. “Free country” he replies without looking up. It is 2020 and so I sit down about 8 feet away on the concrete. I have seen him for a few weeks now, leaning up against the brick wall between Michaels and Best Buy. He doesn’t panhandle, there is no upturned hat, no sign of him interacting with shoppers who pass by.

He lifts his cowboy hat & tips it toward me, saying in a thick Texas twang “It’s because of the hat. Folks out here just started calling me Cowboy Pete” I ask him how he came to be here, asked if he was living on the street. “Well, it’s about as good a place as any, I’d say. Interesting people watching”

I ask if he has a place to stay, if he needs anything, and he starts talking. He tells me his drinking got out of control, and that’s when the wife threw him out. Sometimes he sleeps in the woods behind the shopping center. There had been a camp of sorts up behind the Tractor Supply, but the police were called and the police “Runned em all off “. He says police like PO _ LEESE. He says he don’t bother nobody and the police know it. Sometimes they stop by and ask how he’s doing, and he reminds them that he ain’t never ask nobody for nothin….but sometimes people drop money near him and say “God Bless”.

He goes on to tell me he tried to go back with his wife. She was staying in a house up in Princeton, but she had her kids there and another man and it got to be so bad with all the yelling and fighting, that he just took off. Sometimes his wife will come by and pick him up, take hime to get seomething to eat or drop him off somewhere else. At this point I offer him the small shopping bag. In it are snacks, packs of tuna salad and crackers, a fruit cup, some peanut butter crackers and a couple of bottles of water. I’ve also included a plastic baggie full of bandaids, aspirin, immodium, and a washcloth. Somewhere I read a long time ago that diarrhea is common amongst the homeless, who might dig through the trash for food.

He pulls the bag towards him and looks inside. “Awww…you didn’t have to do that !” he says, as if I were a coworker offering him a cupcake on his birthday.

I carry “Homeless bags” in my car all the time. Each contains the same as I gave to Pete, and I add a set of pads and tampons if the person I meet is female. In the summer, I add cooling cloths…the kind you wet & wrap around your neck. In the winter , I add those little packets of handwarners and a scarf I crocheted.

The scary thing is we live in a very affluent community. In years past, you would see homeless people in downtown Dallas, but never this far north. Now I am beginning to see them under the highway overpass, next to the Kroger, and walking down busy streets with shopping carts. I came across a young couple huddled in sleeping bags last week outside Academy Sports. I fear that it will get worse, so much worse, as people are evicted when goverment assistance shuts down, and landlords stop receiving the rent.

Since I’ve met Pete, I bring him a bag whenever I see him. His wife got him a cheap cell phone, but he lost the charger, so I got him a new one at the dollar store. I made him a pillow to sit on or put behind his back, and once again, he reacted by saying ” Well , now you didn’t have to go and do that !”

I can’t help them all, but I can do my part, and I smile as I get back into my car, while Pete puts the pillow beneath him and then gives me a thumbs up and a big wave.