Winter in Philadelphia for a homeless veteran

I found this picture on google. But this week I spent all of Tues.and Wednesday, and part of Thursday getting some medical tests done. Tuesday I was waiting for a bus in Center City Philadelphia, and directly in front of me was a man sleeping with his stomach against the metal of the steam vent on the sidewalk. I know from working with a lot of homeless people over the years that this can be very bad…..but it was about 25 degrees out …with a killer wind blowing..hey what are you gonna do. … I left the guy alone until he was kicked by a pedestrian and woke up…he asked me if I had a dollar…well I’m not in the best financial shape these days …,I had two dollars and a few cents….I needed that for the bus..after thinking about it I looked across the street and seeing a fast food place I said .”How bout I get us something to eat ? With my $2.48 I managed to get us a double cheeseburger and a tiny “side salad” ..he took the burger and I ate the salad..I found out he was 42, my sons age a veteran and had fought in the first “Gulf war”..he did not seem “crazy” or anything ..his family had put him out because he had really horrible nightmares and could not sleep at night …waking up screaming all the time..since I no longer had money for my bus we talked for a while. He said he was well aware of the dangers of sleeping on the steam grate and told me a story of someone being “cooked” on one during the last winter….this guy was white, the son of two school teachers and grew up in Montgomery County Pennsylvania.. But this is America..land of opportunity …so this can happen to anyone ..should it…please feel free to comment…I wanna know.homeless

Election Day Nov. 4th 2014

I don’t know what to say about today that has not already been said. Voting is not only your right but a hard won privilege. In March of 1965 I stood on a bridge with future congressman John Lewis along with over a hundred other people preparing to march from Selma Alabama, in the cause of getting a voting rights act that we hoped would stand the test of time. If you have ever seen footage of what happened that day you know that we were people of all ages, and colors I was a teen. We were charged by troopers on horseback, policeman with shotguns and clubs and driven back..the day became known as “Bloody Sunday”.. many of the people who have been voted into office at this time have conspired to take much of what we fought for away. Many of you have told me on facebook that voting means nothing, many of you have said that the parties are all the same and it makes no difference who we vote for or even if we show up… well, if you pay attention to what has happened with our Supreme Court lately you should be able to see that it makes a big difference who is voting in Congress.. and what if anything they stand for, the people who win today will be setting policy that will effect you your children and your grandchildren. Regardless of how you feel about voting , not showing up today will be letting them down..and if you still don’t believe in voting shut the hell up and let the rest of us take care of businessVote 5