The temperature outside is 15.
Many years ago, like around 1976 or ‘77, I watched police pull the body of a homeless man from a dumpster downtown. He had climbed in the dumpster to escape the cold wind on a night like this and had covered himself with newspapers and flattened cardboard boxes. Hypothermia killed him while he slept. His eyes were closed, his hands folded across his chest. His face was calm and peaceful.
I don’t think of that often, but I remember it clearly.
At the time, those of us gathered around the dumpster pretty much shrugged it off: another ‘bumsicle’ found on skid row. Looking back on it with the benefit of thirty additional years of life experience, I view myself as being closer on the socio-economic ladder to that guy than to the millionaires who live in the exclusive neighborhoods. I’m grateful to have a warm place to live. I don’t think it’s all that far a fall from my state of grace to where he ended up.
1 comment:
Many of us in this economic downturn are very close to being on the streets. In Los Angeles there are 70,000 Homeless and that includes children. People have lost their homes, their jobs, their unemployment. In a Nation with the highest living standard on earth, we are not taking care of our people. Our Congress gives our country and our wealth away to others instead of focusing on its people. We must learn to create jobs to help those who want to take care of themselves and do not want to be homeless.
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