This was awesome. Here are some more stories in the same style.
Homeless person or professor?
It can be hard to tell in Cambridge, Massachusetts. That’s partly because some professors—mostly the MIT ones—can look very disheveled. But partly it’s because some homeless people can be surprisingly intellectual, e.g. it’s not uncommon to find homeless people crouched in the shade reading a book.
My favorite example is a homeless man in Harvard Square. His name in my head is “Black Santa” because he’s a old man with a full belly and white beard, and he’s always surrounded by trash-bag-sacks not of toys, but of his possessions. He’s always in the same spot, a stretch of Harvard Square that lots of homeless people hang out in. But while the other, mostly young, homeless in the area typically spend their time begging or zonked out, I only ever see Black Santa writing in a small notebook.
What’s he writing all the time? As best I can tell from peeping over his shoulder as I pass by, he’s writing poetry. Sometimes I spot him reciting it out loud before he goes back to scribbling.
Some day I hope to muster the courage to strike up a conversation out of the blue with him and learn more.
Remember that time I broke all my limbs at once...?
Most of my chats with homeless people happened when I had a fractured leg and was moving around in crutches. I think for the local homeless people—many of whom have disabilities, and essentially all of whom have friends with disabilities—the crutches made me seem more familiar. Or maybe it was just that I was spending more time sitting at bus stops with nothing to do but talk.
The most interesting, and the saddest, conversation I had was with a man who recognized my knee brace: “oh yeah I had one of those once too. Two of them actually.”
“Did you break your leg twice? I’m sorry.”
“Well, two of them at the same time I mean—both my legs were broken. Both my arms too. I got hit by a car and it broke both my arms and legs.”
“Oh god, that’s horrible.”
“Yeah the medical bill was rough, no way I could pay it. I heard an ad on the radio for one of those lawyers that sues people for stuff like this. So I hired them and sued the person who hit me.”
“Did you win?”
“Yeah, but the person who hit me didn’t have any money, so I didn’t actually get anything out of it...”
If something like this had happened to me, I think it would be the most traumatic event of my life, one that hurt to remember. On the other hand, the man telling the story told it casually, as if he kept remembering more things he did over the weekend that he wanted to chat about.
Would you like some cheese?
There’s a kindly alcoholic that I sometimes see at the bus stop outside my apartment. He often smiles at me and says hello when I go by.
The first time I saw him, he was sitting there with a huge plastic-wrapped wedge of Jarlsberg cheese. With a giddy grin, he held it out to me in offering. I do like Jarlsberg, but declined.
An hour later I left my apartment and the man was gone. In his place was the unwrapped wedge of cheese on the ground with a single bite taken out of it.
Your homeless person or professor story made me think of my uncle. He lives in his car, by choice.
He has a computer science degree and worked for a lot of top technology companies in the 80s and 90s. Eventually his disdain for the employee lifestyle inspired him to try his hand at the entrepreneurial route. Turns out he’s neither a good employee, nor a good entrepreneur. After a couple bad start-ups, he went broke.
On two separate occasions during my childhood he stayed with my family in our home (with the precondition that he maintains employment somewhere). It lasted...for a while. But he grew bored. He prefers to live in his car and read books in the library than work “for the man”.
I see him once a year on Thanksgiving now. Last year we talked about particle physics and blackholes.
This was awesome. Here are some more stories in the same style.
Homeless person or professor?
It can be hard to tell in Cambridge, Massachusetts. That’s partly because some professors—mostly the MIT ones—can look very disheveled. But partly it’s because some homeless people can be surprisingly intellectual, e.g. it’s not uncommon to find homeless people crouched in the shade reading a book.
My favorite example is a homeless man in Harvard Square. His name in my head is “Black Santa” because he’s a old man with a full belly and white beard, and he’s always surrounded by trash-bag-sacks not of toys, but of his possessions. He’s always in the same spot, a stretch of Harvard Square that lots of homeless people hang out in. But while the other, mostly young, homeless in the area typically spend their time begging or zonked out, I only ever see Black Santa writing in a small notebook.
What’s he writing all the time? As best I can tell from peeping over his shoulder as I pass by, he’s writing poetry. Sometimes I spot him reciting it out loud before he goes back to scribbling.
Some day I hope to muster the courage to strike up a conversation out of the blue with him and learn more.
Remember that time I broke all my limbs at once...?
Most of my chats with homeless people happened when I had a fractured leg and was moving around in crutches. I think for the local homeless people—many of whom have disabilities, and essentially all of whom have friends with disabilities—the crutches made me seem more familiar. Or maybe it was just that I was spending more time sitting at bus stops with nothing to do but talk.
The most interesting, and the saddest, conversation I had was with a man who recognized my knee brace: “oh yeah I had one of those once too. Two of them actually.”
“Did you break your leg twice? I’m sorry.”
“Well, two of them at the same time I mean—both my legs were broken. Both my arms too. I got hit by a car and it broke both my arms and legs.”
“Oh god, that’s horrible.”
“Yeah the medical bill was rough, no way I could pay it. I heard an ad on the radio for one of those lawyers that sues people for stuff like this. So I hired them and sued the person who hit me.”
“Did you win?”
“Yeah, but the person who hit me didn’t have any money, so I didn’t actually get anything out of it...”
If something like this had happened to me, I think it would be the most traumatic event of my life, one that hurt to remember. On the other hand, the man telling the story told it casually, as if he kept remembering more things he did over the weekend that he wanted to chat about.
Would you like some cheese?
There’s a kindly alcoholic that I sometimes see at the bus stop outside my apartment. He often smiles at me and says hello when I go by.
The first time I saw him, he was sitting there with a huge plastic-wrapped wedge of Jarlsberg cheese. With a giddy grin, he held it out to me in offering. I do like Jarlsberg, but declined.
An hour later I left my apartment and the man was gone. In his place was the unwrapped wedge of cheese on the ground with a single bite taken out of it.
I should have accepted the cheese!
Quiz.
Your homeless person or professor story made me think of my uncle. He lives in his car, by choice.
He has a computer science degree and worked for a lot of top technology companies in the 80s and 90s. Eventually his disdain for the employee lifestyle inspired him to try his hand at the entrepreneurial route. Turns out he’s neither a good employee, nor a good entrepreneur. After a couple bad start-ups, he went broke.
On two separate occasions during my childhood he stayed with my family in our home (with the precondition that he maintains employment somewhere). It lasted...for a while. But he grew bored. He prefers to live in his car and read books in the library than work “for the man”.
I see him once a year on Thanksgiving now. Last year we talked about particle physics and blackholes.
By ‘work “for the man”’ do you mean collect whatever welfare he can get or that he works as an informant in some way?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man