Bums, Heros, and Drunks

BUMS: It's a shame that the good guys out there without homes or families are so very much out numbered by the bad guys out there without homes or families. For instance: My friend Gordon once saw a bum sitting in the corner booth of Leroy's with a cup of coffee and plastic sacks filled with dirty clothes. He was counting out change to pay his coffee and it didn't look like he had enough. So, Gordon decided to buy the man a meal and ordered him a pancake breakfast with all the breakfast trimmings. He didn't tell the man he was going to do this, he just did it. When the waitress brought the food to him and explained that a customer paid for his meal the man said, "I'm not really partial to pancakes, could I swap it for a steak?"

HEROS: As all things you are doing pass behind you, the good things you do in your life stay with you and with others always, whether you realize it or not. Eddie, the poem you posted was very nice. Because I live a long ways away from you, even when you're state-side, it's hard for me to register the difference from where you were to where you are. This should not be something I struggle with but it is. You're a hero in my book and I should be a little ashamed of rattling on about silly financial problems when you have much larger things YOU could be complaining about, but do not.

DRUNKS: ZZ and I were invited out for a few beers tonight and we accepted. Tess is a middle aged woman that ZZ works with at VI and she was having a little party with her neighbor Paul and some others. Paul has just come back from the deep sea, fresh off a three month fishing adventure and wanted to buy everyone in the world some drinks. By the time we got there around 4 a.m. everyone was pretty well trashed. I can't remember very many of the funny things that were said (it's kinda like remembering dreams after they've faded when you try to remember what a drunk person has laughed about), but we had a very good time and my jaw still hurts from laughter. One thing I do remember, Paul has a parakeet and he told us a little story about the adventure the little green bird had before we showed up. "I haddn't seen him in three months so when Will brought him over I took him out of his cage. He flew right off my finger straight into the wall, fell on my boot, walked around a little, dazed, got up and flew straight into the toilet! I think he was trying to commit suicide!" One very strange moment came when Dave, Tess' neanderthal boyfriend, and I were talking about ZZ's birthday next Tuesday. I was talking about plans but I couldn't really think of anything super fun to do on our extremely limited budget. Dave said, all serious-like, "There are no ideas here." An interesting side note to to the evening, the house were in, a four-plex, were once WWII baracks for nurses. Also, Tess took an old lamp out of the basement and gave it to ZZ and I for her birthday. It's a 5 foot tall lamp and the base is all cork-board. I've never seen anything like it before and Tess, the drunkest of all of them, said, "You can have anything you want out of there! It's all free. Some woman died. If, if if if if I can find a KEY! I'll take you down to the attic and you can see it."

Peace and Love,
Mungo