Vented frustrations and needed information.

Spam and spammers:
 Lately, I have been getting a lot of junk-type email, and comments on my blog. I know, I set myself up for it. Having a blog-site opens doors for many spammers. I do what I can to eliminate Spam. I have all comments forwarded to my email account, so I can see what has been placed in the back pages. When I find them, and I have the time, I delete them. But, some get through anyway, so hopefully you can just ignore them.

The spammers have a bunch of “pat” comments that will readily fit any blog. They will say something like, “Very thoughtful post, thank-you!” then they sign it something like, “Ralph’s Tea Cup Shop”, which is a link to an online tea cup sales site. Most people don’t bother to click the link, but there are other people that just have to click that darn link, like the people that can’t stand to ignore a phone call. If the phone rings, they have to answer. When somebody clicks that link a computer records that a successful forward came from “Ernie’s Place”. That read-out encourages the spammers to put more ads in my blog. So, don’t click on obvious spam, unless you just can’t resist.

Joining face-book was a big, big mistake for me. Yes, I enjoy getting back in touch with some of my long lost friends, but I get emails from people like “Lady Madonna” who wants to be my “friend.” Lady encloses a very provocative photo of herself. She doesn’t look like anybody that I know, and she probably wouldn’t like to know me either unless I paid her well to know me…. Oh!, That’s it… She’s in some kind of business….

Then I get notes from face-book that all my friends have some game going with farm animals and I should join them in the fun. I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound like more fun than I’m all ready having. My friends must have pretty boring lives. Sometimes I wish that I could just go back to not being a face-bookie.

Post office closing:
All this brings me up to the post office. The post office claims that they are losing big-time money, because everybody started using email. That’s probably true. I never send letters to my friends, but I do email them because it works so well. So, maybe it’s just a sign of the times, and we need to get over it.

I know that it is not true of everybody, but my life would be better-off if the post office would disappear from the face of the earth. They send me more junk-mail than you can ever believe. All of the junk is cleverly disguised as “IMPORTANT MAIL” or “check enclosed”, or something else that you know full well is nothing but advertising B.S. But, some of us have to open it anyway, and be mad that we were so stupid, and that we were duped again.

At least when I open a letter, I know that it isn’t that dang tricky Nigerian that emailed me and almost talked me into sending him money to ship me his poor dead fathers gold, the gold that the government won’t let him keep unless he shares it with me. I had the shipping money in an envelope, ready to send, then I found another person in the post office had gotten the same email from Mr. Tricky. I was so mad that he was trying to share his money with everybody that I figured out that he didn’t have enough money to share with me. So, I didn’t send him the shipping money. What a dummy he was, to tell EVERYBODY… Duhhh.

The dratted homeless:
But of course, I have to start out a post like this with a few disclaimers. I probably have more experience with the homeless than most of you, after all they live on my business doorstep. Now, I’m not without compassion, I’ve also probably helped more of the homeless than most of you, so I don’t owe anybody an apology. I call them “homeless” because that is a term that everybody understands. Recently, I’ve heard some very nice names that seem to sooth peoples sensibilities. “Houseless”, “Pre-employed”, and other confusing labels. The one I like best was “alter-sheltered” Whatever anyone calls them, it will eventually become derogatory, so we might as well stick with “homeless” because it sounds better than “bum”.
Lately, I saw a very indignant post about how it would be if I were put on the street, The poster called herself “Den Mom”, which bothers me right off. It seems to me that if you have something to say, you should sign it, especially if you are suggesting that you can solve the homeless problem. You remove half of your credentials with most people when you don’t sign something.

Anyway, Den Moms advice is as follows:
“I think we should do a study. Why don’t we pick 5 people from all walks of “SHELTER”, and place them on the streets of So.hum. with no money, We will give you a very nice sleeping bag, and a back pack if you really want one (which is a sign you are homeless).No contact with any of your love ones, u are on your own and at the mercy of your community. We will keep a journal on how each day went and how easy it was to do the basic human rights, sleep, eat, and we already know we have no public bathroom, so write about how it went for you when your body wants to function. Write about how you feel alone and how you are looked at and judged by the way you look. how many times you were told to move on by our local sheriff. How hungry you got? How you survived….how it feels to live every emotion in front of your community. I think we would learn so much about this topic and what So.hum is lacking. Just skip the thought of a shower, not going to happen. I know this experience will be life changing, and some of us on here need our thoughts about this topic adjusted…
Any takers?”

I did take the liberty of correcting a few typos above, but I assure you, I never changed anything besides changing a few forgotten spaces and the like.

Den Mom's suggestion looses some of it's brilliance when you stop to figure that most of us live our lives in panic, and work very hard NOT to become that person on the street… But, thank you for the clean sleeping bag, and the back pack, I will need them. The thought of no shower wouldn’t be possible for me. I wouldn’t get dirty in the first place, but if I do get dirty, I will swim in the river and scrub myself with sand before I stay dirty. The same goes for my clothes.
I don’t know of one single homeless person that doesn’t know about welfare or homeless shelters, I would access both of those sources right off. I would not starve, I would follow all of their rules about no drugs or alcohol. Any money that I got would go to making myself clean and presentable. I would shave, and be clean, and stay sober, and seek work. Most homeless understand that people don’t like filth. Filth spreads disease and illness, so it is human instinct to drive away pestilence. Folks don’t want to bring any disease home to their families.
By far, the most of the people out there work hard to be part of society and help each other. The people on the streets choose that life, or they let the drugs they use choose for them. Most people were warned to stay away from drugs, so it isn’t like they didn’t make the choice themselves. But as Dave Kirby says:

“Having worked some 30 years in G,ville I have come to the conclusion that there is no set “type” of street person . I don’t think anything is gained by supporting or condemning them as a group. You have a diverse group here. Many are impaired. And some of these folks are heart breaking. They are not getting away with anything, they are barely holding on. Separating the truly needy from the Jr. dead heads and various scammers is difficult at best. I don’t have any easy answers other than to try and treat each other as individuals.

I see people who genuinely want to get homelessness behind them, they generally do so. Oh… the other thing that I would do is, get the heck away from Garberville. The only opportunity here is to become more deeply ingrained in becoming a loser. Garberville is the worst enabling town that I’ve ever seem. Just watch any homeless group on the sidewalk and you will see people give them all sorts of marijuana, cash and other goodies that make their live better in Garberville. What people are doing is helping them stay in their drug addled hand-out dependant life style.

The Dirtiest Man In The World
Oh, I'm Dirty Dan, the world's dirtiest man,
I never have taken a shower.
I can't see my shirt--it's so covered with dirt,
And my ears have enough to grow flowers.

But the water is either a little too hot,
Or else it's a little too cold.
I'm musty and dusty and patchy and scratchy
And mangy and covered with mold.
But the water is always a little too hot,
Or else it's a little too cold.

I live in a pen with five hogs and a hen
And three squizzly lizards who creep in
My bed, and they itch as I squirm, and I twitch
In the cruddy old sheets that I sleep in.

In you looked down my throat with a flashlight, you'd note
That my insides are coated with rust.
I creak when I walk and I squeak when I talk,
And each time I sneeze I blow dust.

The thought of a towel and soap makes me howl,
And when people have something to tell me
They don't come and tell it--they stand back and yell it.
I think they're afraid they might smell me.

The bedbugs that leap on me sing me to sleep,
And the garbage flies buzz me awake.
They're the best friends I've found and I fear they might drown
So I never go too near a lake.

Each evening at nine I sit down to dine
With the termites who live in my chair,
And I joke with the bats and have intimate chats
With the cooties who crawl in my hair.

I'd brighten my life if I just found a wife,
But I fear that will never be
Until I can find a girl, gentle and kind,
With a beautiful face and a sensitive mind,
Who sparkles and twinkles and glistens and shines--

And who's almost as dirty as me.
-Shel Silverstein