The Saga of the Homeless Oak Ridge Boy (Part VI)
We had some severe thunderstorms hit us last night and this morning, and with the saturation from the previous two day's rain, the streets flooded quickly.
Needless to say, I was a little worried about the homeless man that usually throws trash at me when I come out to go to work in the morning. You remember him; the one who looks like The Oak Ridge Boy with the long beard.
He and his homeless buddies and wino friends usually shack up at an abandoned building down the street when the weather's bad, but guess what. They tore down the abandoned building last week. They leveled it, and left nothing but an empty lot.
I'm not really sure who the "they" is in this case. Usually when I use an ambiguous "they" it refers to an unseen authority on some specific subject, as in "Well, that's what they say". And we all know that the "they" in those cases is actually an acronym --- it stands for The Hearsay Experts and Yahoos. I'm assuming the "they" that tore down the homeless Oak Ridge Boy's and his friend's shelter is the property owner or perhaps the city of Houston. I'll report further as details trickle in.
At any rate, I was expecting to see my trash hurling friend hunkered safely under the eaves of my apartment building to avoid the torrential rainfall, but alas, he was nowhere in sight. One of his friends, however, was out and about, and was in a dire situation.
I've mentioned this particular friend of the homeless Oak Ridge Boy before. He seem's an industrious fellow who wheels two shopping carts around the neighborhood each of which contains a very eclectic collection of items. I'm sure he doesn't make very good time getting anywhere with the two carts, but I've seen him miles away from my neighborhood, pushing one cart ahead and pulling the other aft, so apparently he travels far and wide for his treasure.
Well, the shopping cart guy was trying to cross at the intersection, but it had rained so much, he was caught in a fairly strong current of water rushing to one of the few inundated gutters on the street. The water was really moving, and the rain wasn't letting up. In fact, he was clutching tightly to only one shopping cart --- the other had presumably been washed away by the rushing water.
Without thinking, I darted into the floodwater, and together we pulled his remaining cart out of the current and up onto higher ground.
Out of breath and looking at the soggy items shoved into the cart in no special order that I could discern, I had a brilliant idea. I could ask the shopping cart guy if the trash hurler had ever been in The Oak Ridge Boys!
If you follow my blog entries, you know that it's been a mystery I've wanted to solve for a long time. And I had just saved the man's life --- well, I had help save his blankets, someone's pair of tennis shoes, a yellow and red knit cap, and plastic bottles that might have been full of water, might have been full of his urine, but you get the idea. I had helped him. Certainly, out of gratitude, he would tell me what he knew about the trash man, right?
So I asked him, "Hey, is your friend with the long, gray beard the same guy who sings with The Oak Ridge Boys?"
The man looked at me with red-threaded eyes, the rain dripping off his matted afro in beads. He then looked at the items in his cart, and reached in to offer me one of the plastic water/pee bottles. And when he held it out to me, he was shaking his head, and he said through a curl of unkempt black and gray whiskers:
"Merzy Jezuz. Da Lorb is pleased for you. You's done good in da eyes of da Lorb."
Well that was very kind of him to say, and the offered gift was touching, though for some reason I didn't feel comfortable taking it. Unfortunately, I sensed I had hit another dead end in this ongoing saga. So I politely declined the water bottle, went back inside to change my clothes, and then went to work.
As you might expect, I'm a little disappointed I didn't get any information about the homeless man that throws trash at me, but I feel good that at least today I did good in da eyes of da Lorb.
Needless to say, I was a little worried about the homeless man that usually throws trash at me when I come out to go to work in the morning. You remember him; the one who looks like The Oak Ridge Boy with the long beard.
He and his homeless buddies and wino friends usually shack up at an abandoned building down the street when the weather's bad, but guess what. They tore down the abandoned building last week. They leveled it, and left nothing but an empty lot.
I'm not really sure who the "they" is in this case. Usually when I use an ambiguous "they" it refers to an unseen authority on some specific subject, as in "Well, that's what they say". And we all know that the "they" in those cases is actually an acronym --- it stands for The Hearsay Experts and Yahoos. I'm assuming the "they" that tore down the homeless Oak Ridge Boy's and his friend's shelter is the property owner or perhaps the city of Houston. I'll report further as details trickle in.
At any rate, I was expecting to see my trash hurling friend hunkered safely under the eaves of my apartment building to avoid the torrential rainfall, but alas, he was nowhere in sight. One of his friends, however, was out and about, and was in a dire situation.
I've mentioned this particular friend of the homeless Oak Ridge Boy before. He seem's an industrious fellow who wheels two shopping carts around the neighborhood each of which contains a very eclectic collection of items. I'm sure he doesn't make very good time getting anywhere with the two carts, but I've seen him miles away from my neighborhood, pushing one cart ahead and pulling the other aft, so apparently he travels far and wide for his treasure.
Well, the shopping cart guy was trying to cross at the intersection, but it had rained so much, he was caught in a fairly strong current of water rushing to one of the few inundated gutters on the street. The water was really moving, and the rain wasn't letting up. In fact, he was clutching tightly to only one shopping cart --- the other had presumably been washed away by the rushing water.
Without thinking, I darted into the floodwater, and together we pulled his remaining cart out of the current and up onto higher ground.
Out of breath and looking at the soggy items shoved into the cart in no special order that I could discern, I had a brilliant idea. I could ask the shopping cart guy if the trash hurler had ever been in The Oak Ridge Boys!
If you follow my blog entries, you know that it's been a mystery I've wanted to solve for a long time. And I had just saved the man's life --- well, I had help save his blankets, someone's pair of tennis shoes, a yellow and red knit cap, and plastic bottles that might have been full of water, might have been full of his urine, but you get the idea. I had helped him. Certainly, out of gratitude, he would tell me what he knew about the trash man, right?
So I asked him, "Hey, is your friend with the long, gray beard the same guy who sings with The Oak Ridge Boys?"
The man looked at me with red-threaded eyes, the rain dripping off his matted afro in beads. He then looked at the items in his cart, and reached in to offer me one of the plastic water/pee bottles. And when he held it out to me, he was shaking his head, and he said through a curl of unkempt black and gray whiskers:
"Merzy Jezuz. Da Lorb is pleased for you. You's done good in da eyes of da Lorb."
Well that was very kind of him to say, and the offered gift was touching, though for some reason I didn't feel comfortable taking it. Unfortunately, I sensed I had hit another dead end in this ongoing saga. So I politely declined the water bottle, went back inside to change my clothes, and then went to work.
As you might expect, I'm a little disappointed I didn't get any information about the homeless man that throws trash at me, but I feel good that at least today I did good in da eyes of da Lorb.
posted by Sam Ogden at
2:10 PM
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