Street Behavior

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The following is from Salon. What are some of your experiences involving street scenes?

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You see some weird ****, just today I saw.....
ACMcKinney - 11:10 pm Pacific Time - Apr 17, 2003 - #1268 of 1374
I was walking up a street near downtown, when someone approached me from the opposite direction. He was a very large, somewhat scruffy-looking white guy, talking aloud to himself in angry tones. I drifted to one side of the sidewalk and tried not to call attention to myself. Suddenly from behind, I heard an even angrier voice, also addressed to no one in particular. I looked back discreetly and saw an even larger black guy. Help! I felt caught in the middle. The white guy passed by me, and then the black guy, who was walking faster than I was, pulled up to me and passed me. Once he was ahead of me, he turned and lowered his voice, saying, "I always do that so they don't feel so alone."

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One that still cracks me up:

Coming out of South Station in Boston, there was a scruffy looking man holding a coffee cup and saying good morning to everyone walking by. Had some extra change so I threw it into the cup: Splash!

"Hey!" he said as I hustled by. Thought he was a panhandler and the coffee cup was his collection tin. Oh, well. He had a present when he was done.

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Good one, Beach Bum. It was very nice of you, even if it wasn't what the man expected.

BTW, welcome to a2k!!

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Thanks, Diane.

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Here's one that happened to my cousin:
Walking down the street, she was approached by a particularly angry homeless man who held out his hand, demanding a quarter. She reached into her pocket and it just so happened that she had two dimes and a nickle. She dropped it into his upturned palm and had taken about ten steps when she heard the racket of the coins hitting the ground in front of her. He had thrown the money back at her screaming "Bitch, I asked you for a quarter!"

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Being approached by prostitutes.

Actually, they were just normal women hitting on me, until I offered them some money, and got punched in the face.

Tell the misses' I said sorry, Beachbum.

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Eoe, good grief! I wonder if he was a former executive at Enron. Confused

That kind of arrogance seems typical.

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Slappy, you got exactly what you deserved!!!

Beach Bum, believe me, Slappy is a unique character who is really quite delightful. Rolling Eyes

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okay... time to pull out this story again. Slappy, you've seen it before, go back to your puppets.

Back when I was young and stupid (as opposed to now, older but still stupid) I had a job working in a downtown Boston parking garage, graveyard shift. Used to smoke a lot of dope.

One night I've got the munchies, about three AM. So I head down to the convinience store near the aquarium. As I walk in I'm almost bowled over by two transvestite prostitutes and their pimp. Whoa... that's some good stuff I was smoking. No, wait, they were real. Maintain composure... turn around, enter the store, and all of a sudden I'm hip deep in midgets!

There was a Little People convention at the Marriot... I guess they had the munchies too...

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Every time I go to New York City, I always see colorful street people, some of whom have mental problems, but seem to cope fairly well.

I remember reading of a woman who described waiting for a light, standing next to a street person who was talking into his hand as if on a cell phone. When he noticed her looking at him, he scowled and said, "Please, I'd like a little privacy!" She said that her normal sense of propriety took over and she quickly apologized and looked away, before it registered that the guy wasn't really talking on a cell phone.

I have seen this behavior on the streets and it occured to me these people must love their cell phones--just think, they can call anyone, anywhere, even outer space!

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There's a guy on Western Ave. in Chicago who's got a land-line phone in his shopping cart -- the old rotary type, even. He's usually shouting into it.

Sad, really.

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Way back, when the streets of Miami were safe any time of day or night, there was a guy used to hang around Edison Center on a bicycle. You know, one of those old heavy bikes, with a basket, squeeze horn, and streamers from the handgrips. Grown man, I mean. Anyway, he used to carry a cardboard box in the basket, maybe a shoebox; I don't remember. It had a hole in the top and every once in a while, you could see him reach inside and stroke something. I was close to him in the Royal Castle when he did this one time. Looked like a red rubber hot water bottle, but I can't be sure. I didn't want to get caught snooping.

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Hey, Seal Poet, long time no see. I guess you weren't seeing straight that night! Having to look up, then down--waaay too much for a toker.

Patiodog, sometimes it is painfully sad, but there are times when people seem to have a sense of humor regarding their insanity; it is as if, for them, it is a familiar world and they fit right in.

Roger, yeah, sometimes it's better to not appear too interested. Insane or not, we all need our privacy.

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Diane i need to place an overseas call, can i use your hand?

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This happened about three life-times ago, but it's worth sharing here on A2K. I was in my late teens, and a homeless guy asked me for some money. I told him I had none. He responded, "you know what we've done for you japs don't you?" c.i.

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Dys, any time with no cords attached!

C.i., that was just obnoxious. That guy sounds like nothing more than a deadbeat.

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Diane, Like I said, that was three life-times ago. He taught me that bigotry existed in this world, so it wasn't all that disappointing. We've been hearing about the "j" word all along, but nobody said it to me in person. Some people have more chutzpah than others. I just considered the source. In later life, I learned to appreciate people calling a spade a spade - but not where it concerns bigoted remarks. I like short-cuts. ** When I was stationed at Walker AFB in New Mexico in the late fifties, a sargent invited some of us to his home for a party. His wife kept calling me "little jap boy," and her husband kept telling her to stop. She didn't, and he slapped her. That was a shocker for me! Wink

c.i.

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Well c.i., some street people can be forgiven, but your sargent's wife had no excuse. The sargent doesn't sound like a real prize either.

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I was standing in the student ticket line for H'tel Baltimore in the West Village on a very cold winter night in 1973. Everyone was wrapped up in coats and ear muffs. I noticed a panhandler making his way down the line (which was very long). He was asking for handouts. Every so often someone would give the guy some money, and then the guy would start to yell. "What? Are you crazy? Don't you know what I'm gonna to do with this? I'm goin to buy a bottle. You a motha F--kin fool!" Because we were all wrapped up, most people didn't hear the previous tirade and so he had customers all up and down that line. I've never forgotten the scene. Of course, it didn't help matters that I wasn't so sober myself that night. Too many brownies, I guess.

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This afternoon, no wait, sometime in '68, I was heading into a Country Joe and the Fish concert at a place in Denver called Mammouth Gardens and it was across the street from a topless strip club called Syd Kings Crazy Horse Bar, and this group of peace officers explained very politely that "you people are ruining the neigborhood and running off all the customers of Syd King." and they only used those sticks of theirs to maintain order.

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