On The Train Today...

I was riding the red line and minding my own business when one of "those" people came on board. You know the kind…you could smell him before he actually stepped foot off the platform, shoes tied together with rags, at least four layers of crusty clothes, unshaven, unkempt... one of those people who your heart breaks for even though you don't really want to sit next to him on a train. Anyway, he sits down, digs through his many overstuffed bags and pull out his reading material for his commute. I immediately recognized the smallish bright yellow paperback with the black print and could not believe this person had pulled out a not too used Samuel French script. He began to read and a great big smile crossed his face and I could tell he was really enjoying it. I tried, as casually as I could to see what script it was and could not help but grin as I read the title to myself. THERE'S A GIRL IN MY SOUP!!
He saw me looking and caught my eye and smiled at me and went right back to his reading.

It really struck me how theatre really transcends the classes and is a universal bond that we share with people we might not have any other contact with if it were not for the arts.

I don't know, I just thought I would share this with y'all.

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I really would have if I had had one to give him.

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I like that story a lot, Sueleen. I sometimes wonder what "those people" were like before their lives spun out of control, and occasionally it occurs to me that there but for the grace of god...

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And of course, people in much less desperate straits can't afford to see theater, either.

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Did you assume he meant for free?

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Then somebody would have posted tomorrow, "There was the saddest, guiltiest looking Jewish woman begging for a ticket at Ave Q last night. Is this a new way to get free tickets?"

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That was a beautiful story Sueleen. Wow!

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You obviously know nothing about gay couples.

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yeah! I got the private showing.....! It was called MATCH THIS!

Updated On: 4/6/04 at 12:13 AM

I don't always believe 100% that someone who looks like that is actually in a poor state.
My Mom once told me this story that a Professor from one of her classes had told her. It was for a Phsycology class, and one of his students was doing a project. He followed around a homeless man without letting him know it (lol yeah, it's totally stalking). He followed him all day, watched him beg for money and whatnot. At the end of the day the "Homeless man" went home to his mansion!

I don't get people who don't take baths/showers? I mean, not necessarily homeless people, but some people in general. Some guy sat near me on the train the other day and My God did he smell! I often take out a hand cream or something to put on my hands just to try and block the horrible odor coming from the unclean.
lol Does anyone remember in the movie "Big Business" when Bette Midler gets on the subway and the lady next to her smells so bad that Bette takes out a bottle of perfume and sprays it all around her and intentionally sprays the woman. LOL I love that!

*Side note: I'm sitting in the computer lab at school right now because my next class does not start for another hour. What's with people ending sentences in prepositions? It drives me crazy. "Hey. Where you at?" is NOT a Sentence people! grrrr, damn ghetto phrasing. I cannot tell you how many times a day I hear "Where you at?" when I am in school. Perhaps it explains why I skip class so often. lol It hurts my brain to hear these things.

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Dang it Papa! I wrote all this out and you beat me to posting, I feel like Christina Crawford swimming with Joan:

TB, I honestly don't believe that story the psych professor told, though knowing plenty of psych professors, I do believe he told it! It's just too convenient that the one "disheveled, panhandling individual" he happened to pick lived in a mansion. Because perhaps a booze-addled and distressed homeless man might not notice that he's being followed around, but a rich guy pulling off a day-long charade sure would.

There will always be people trying to rip off the good will of others, but the vast majority of people living on the streets are dually diagnosed people with severe mental health issues and substance abuse problems. At some point in the '80s, who was president then, oh, I don't remember, mental health services were all but eliminated and people had nowhere left to go.

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Updated On: 4/6/04 at 09:58 AM

"[e]ven if that story is not true (and honestly, [i] never necessarily believed it)"

so why would you cite it as a defense for your disdain of people who find themselves in circumstances which relegate them to the class of "unclean?" then once the blatent untruth is pointed out you simply run from the statement, "i never necesarily believed it." are all of your beliefs so strongly held? ironically this actually gives me hope for you since you have shown yourself to be someone who can quickly abandon a position once the basic stupidity of that position has been pointed out. keep at it, kiddo, and maybe someday you too can have a career in politics.

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Updated On: 4/6/04 at 10:17 AM

I worked for many years in the mental health field and have heard that story more than once. It seems every psych professor uses that or a similar story at one time or another.

The fact is, most of these people do have a substance abuse problem accomapnied by mental illness, mental retardation or post traumatic stress syndrome. There are also those who worked most of their lives or didn't work and were married to a spouse who died. They find themselves unable to afford to live on social security. they can't afford the high rents of a large city and end up on the street. As a result, they often develop a secondary menatl illness or substance abuse problem.

As Iflit said "there but for the grace of God..." Many of us here who are working, in school, stay at home parents with one wage earner, etc and are not wealthy are just one minor event from ending up in taht situation.

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