Hot Off the Press

You have to click on this picture to figure it out. This is a guy selling newspapers and panhandling. I stopped at this traffic light this morning at about 9:15 am and he was sitting in the same position as he was when I went by again at 3:00 pm. The only difference was that he had removed his shirt. This guy sits at this corner for 8 or 9 hours per day. I would say it is good it was cool today, but these guys are at their posts when it is 100 degrees F. About all that stops them is heavy rain. The newspaper company that distributes both the morning and afternoon dailies here in our fair city, uses homeless guys to sell copies in the median. Someone from the newspaper company brings them to their corner in the morning and picks them up after the afternoon rush hour traffic subsides. They are only able to do this outside the city limits, because the city outlawed the practice when a couple of these fellows were run over. I am not sure how I feel about this. On one hand it gives guys like this man the chance to make some money, way more than minimum wage. On the other, it allows them to stay stuck in their life of bad choices. I do know that when the city outlawed it, the homeless advocates were up in arms over the decision. More later, I have to go to bowling tonight. Well, I am back from bowling. Someone remarked to me today that I am a generally angry guy, plus sarcastic, to boot. I admit to regular sarcasam, its my style. I would like to leap to my own defense on the anger charge. I am not a generally angry person. What I am is a person with a need for things to go right and when they don't, I get angry. There is a difference between being an angry person and getting angry. For example, some people get momentarily angry at other people about something and then can just let it go. For instance, I routinely yell at other drivers. I am not mad at them, just their stupid driving. It is bluster, not anger. Once they are out of sight, they are out of mind, leaving me the happy-go-lucky scamp that you all have come to know. I have been known to yell and even curse while repairing something. That is frustration, not anger. Other people hold tight to their anger and the object of their wrath is screwed forever, or at least a long time. For example, someone might feel slighted by another and forever remember the slight, holding it close to their heart, turning it over and over in their mind, examining its every detail, reliving its bitterness, seething in the injustice. Slowly it begins to eat away at their soul, bit by bit, gaining strengh and taking bigger and bigger bites, until they are hollowed-out shells of humanity, sitting and staring vacantly into space and occasionally shouting, "Leave me alone!" Its not a pretty sight. The latter is the real definition of an angry person. The former is just a person who gets angry. That should clear things up. Anyway, that's my thinking. Serenely yours. Merle Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong and sometimes just full of it. Tag: Daily Life Personal Finance Humor