ready to take a nap until it warms up a bit. slept unil 11am. picked up 3 banh mi at BMCC. ate one while surfing web at denny's. battery down to about 50%, plan to recharge at metro and then head over to Arcadia park.
ended up sleeping at the park until 6pm when my bladder roused me. Fortunately the bathrooms there don't close until 6:30, so I took a walk around the park. Surprised that a lot of people there weren't wearing masks. Checked my email using Denny's wifi across the street. With the outlets at the metro a few blocks away the park seems like a decent place to go as there's a certain amount of shade provided by the trees by the parking lot. However, I discovered what looked like three mosquito bites on my right arm. Only need to encounter one carrying something like the Nile virus. It may seem a bit paranoid, but one of my regulars at dinner succumbed to the Nile virus a few years ago, someone I rather liked named Francisco. He was a short (I assume) Mexican (though I suppose he could have been Central American. From what I'd managed to learn about him, he'd worked in restaurants all his life and we often talked about the business. He had a speech impediment that made him difficult to understand and I suspect that that had made it more challenging to find work when he'd lost his last job. But he was quite intelligent and used to attend a lot of free lectures at USC. If I was an employer who needed a personal assistant I would have hired him in a heartbeat. I was hoping to be able to offer him a job when I'd gotten sufficient funding that would allow me to hire workers. But he's gone.
There are a number of good people like that I've met like that during my time feeding the homeless. The first one to pass away whose passing I lamented probably was Jay. He was a former vet, a pilot in fact, who owned a small aviation company, but he had problems with alcohol that resulted in his losing his business. He died of a heart attack the summer after I'd been stabbed at the park. The week before, one of our volunteers had volunteered to talk about love languages with the people who stayed after dinner and I volunteered that I tended to communicate with physical contact. Afterwards, I was seated at the table talking with another vet named Murph who was living in a van parked a few blocks south of the park. The van had more parking tickets than you could imagine. Anyway, Murph had just asked me if I was worried about getting attacked again at the park, and Jay at that moment and unexpectedly came up behind me and embraced me in a bear hug (I'm guessing he'd heard what I said) in a show of affection. I told Murph that if I was worried about getting attacked again, that should have freaked me out. It occurs to me now Jay's show of affection and appreciation is one of the reasons I chose to continue the feed the homeless. That turned out to be the last time I saw Jay.
Jay was typically with a cheerful small Korean woman named Ono who always carried a pair of drumsticks (the musical kind). She also had a problem with alcohol. She took Jay's loss hard. At first Ono thought Jay had abandoned her. After Jay was gone, she could typically be found sitting outside the restrooms at the southern end of the park in a drunken stupor. We took meals to her for a while until she disappeared. We heard through the grapevine that she eventually succumbed to liver problems due to her drinking. She didn't speak much English, but I did learn that she had been raised in Japan. given what i know about how the japanese treat non japanese asians, i can't imagine that her life had been all that great. And now she's gone.
There are others who've come and gone over the years. Early on, we'd get visits from folks who managed to regain employment who'd stop by to let us know that they were back on their feet. That was nice.
Then there was Chris. He was a fellow believer who'd lost his job and ended up living outside and spent most of his time at the library. While he had issues with how we did our devotional times after dinner, he supported what we did and he persuaded a fellow church goer to join as a volunteer. He also liked to swing dance and occasionally showed up at some of the free dances sponsored by a local dance school. Unfortunately, he suffered a hernia, and during his surgery there were complications and he went into a coma and never woke up before passing away a few years ago.
Another couple used to come regularly accompanied by a black dog named Romeo. Alcohol seemed to be a factor as why they were on the street. Her kidneys failed and she went on dialysis. While they were able to get medical care, the powers that be assigned her location for dialysis that took about 3 hours to get there using public transportation. She eventually passed away as well. Her husband took it hard. He now shows up maybe a few times a year, without Romeo.
One of the people I worry about the most nowadays is a fellow I've referred to in other blogs posts as Wayne. He's very polite, and always appreciative and thankful when he shows up for dinner. He's one of the main reasons I seldom serve pork; he chooses not to eat pork and grateful just to have rice if I've made a dish that has pork in it. I assumed he was in his 40's or maybe 50's until when asked about where he was from, he mentioned that he's lived in Pasadena since the age of seven when he moved here in 1960. So he's 67 and already into what's normally considered retirement age. He's currently wearing a pair of pants that look like they measure about 44" x 36" while he's maybe 5'6" and 150 lbs. soaking wet. He also used to spend his days in the library and the quarantine has really had an impact on his outward appearance. He used to carry a number of grocery bags tied together until he suffered a hernia and was rendered incapable of carrying around much weight after surgery.
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