The Falls Church Homeless Shelter Run

Yesterday I participated in the 2d annual Falls Church Homeless Shelter Bike Ride, a charity bikeathon that kicked off on the W&OD Bike Trail not even 500 feet from my house.  Perhaps you're supposed to bring a bicycle to a bike ride but I don't have one and the charity event supported a good cause, the local homeless shelter.

I tried to borrow a bike from a running buddy who was going to participate with me but he got sick at the last minute so I showed up to register a half hour before the participants were scheduled to take off down the trail, paid my $10 entry donation and mingled with the crowd.  I chatted furlough stuff with a neighbor who edits the local Internet paper and talked running with a runner who asked me about my fancy running jacket, high-end swag from the most notorious race in the area, the Annapolis 10-Miler, which is run every August.

That race is known for its 4 Hs (it's hot, hilly, humid & hellacious) but is equally renowned for its presenting to every finisher each year a distinctive and useful item of running such as a fleece jacket in 2006, the year I finished in 1:19:05, or the fancy waterproof windbreaker with hood I was wearing from 2008, which I purchased in a thrift store for $6.95, representing probably a $50 value in a running store.  The woman I was speaking with had participated a couple of years ago and said she barely finished; the thought of missing out on the cool race giveaway if she DNFed was the only thing that kept her going on her second trip over the high bridge in the last mile, she said.

Shortly after the bicyclists took off on the charity event I took off running down the trail a ways and back again, a 5K run in about a half an hour during which most returning bicyclists called out politely as they passed me except for one woman who silently overtook me at speed and barely missed clipping me.  Returning to the post-ride festivities, I partook in the festivities for awhile, which included violin-playing by school girls and some sort of a raffle, and then returned home highly satisfied with my lengthy engagement with such a worthy local activity.

The Century Mark

Last month I reached my lifetime goal of donating 100 units of blood during my lifetime, ironically enough on the tenth annual World Blood Donation Day (who knew?).  This is me happy that I'm submitting my tracked and scarred arms for a needle draw for the last time.

That's twelve and a half gallons of the red stuff.  I thought I could donate 101 times and then be able to say I donated over 100 times, or 104 times and say I donated 13 gallons, but 100 is a nice enough goal so I'm done.

I've been fortunate to be healthy enough to donate, so I should have made my blood available if it helped the greater good.  I'm a Democrat through and through and still look to the collective good and not the inner selfishness (needle pricks sting or even sometimes hurt so why do it for no personal gain?).

My blood is good blood, O+, able to be used for anyone except O- persons, their blood is the universal donar blood.  A friend of mine has the best blood joke, her blood is A+ and she likes to say, "I like to donate blood because when they test me, I always get an A+."

Gloria

Most mornings I get off at the same subway stop on my way to work and go past the homeless shelter the last seven blocks to my office.  If I go one stop further, it's a shorter walk but I always stop in the same breakfast bar on the further walk and get coffee and a cup of cut-up fruit.

This route takes me past Gloria, a homeless woman who stands on a corner across from the shelter and greets passerbys with a wish that Jesus will bless them.  To most of us, homeless people are anonymous and we ignore them as there are far too many for us to help them as individuals.

I stopped one day and asked her her name, and told her mine.  Now when I see her I say hello using her name, and she calls out a greeting to me using my name.

Once a week I give her a dollar when I pass.  I told this routine to a friend once, who mockingly said she hoped Gloria didn't spend such largess all in one place.  That response to my effort to interject a little humanity really pissed me off.

Trevor's OK

On this day before Memorial Day, the priest of my congregation mentioned in her sermon that we should consider the homeless around us as many of them are veterans who have come home to difficult circumstances, whether it is because of PTS Disorder or suffering from Agent Orange exposure or being wrongly discharged from the Army due to a mental illness designation after suffering from Traumatic Brain Disorder due to a close-by powerful IED explosion. You see them everywhere in our warlike society if you look, often on street corners begging for dollars.

At church today I gave thanks for the successful passage out of six hours of spinal surgery on Monday by a former running buddy of mine, the strength I found to deal with two hours of successful stomach surgery on Wednesday, the sacrifices of my father and three uncles who all answered the call in WW2, the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan last fall of a former running acquaintance and the sacrifices of all those nameless service members who keep us safe. I thought of Trevor, about whom I have posted before, on his traffic corner wearing his sign, "Combat Veteran, Always Faithful."

I parked nearby and walked up upon him after church, noting that he was watching me closely as I approached. He knows me and calls me "Lawyer."

After giving him five dollar coins, I spent about twenty minutes with him on his street corner as he spoke animatedly. He is a powerful man who has a habit of emphasizing his points by flicking out backhand taps to your body.

I was gratified to listen to him explain that he has reduced his prescribed narcotic pain medication intake from his service-related disability from over a hundred a month to about thirty. "You know I also take mood medication," he added, which apparently in conjunction with his powerful pain medication gives him unpredictable emotional swings.

Keeping my hands discretely in front of my four-day old surgery incision in position to ward off any inadvertent taps to my stomach, I discussed his health, rehabilitation and future with him. Rolling Thunder is in town per usual this Memorial Day weekend, and he apparently took his buddies from the 82d Airborne Division out on the town last night.

Then he tired of chatting with me and chased me away by saying he had to "make some money" from passing motorists on his street corner before the day was done. In fact, beyond my five dollars, he had collected only a single dollar in all the time I was speaking with him.

We shook hands repeatedly as I took my leave from him. I wish him continued wellness, this representative of America's huge and faceless homeless population.

The Laughing Man

I just finished reading The Laughing Man by J.D. Salinger for about the seventh time in my life. It's in Nine Stories.

Many short stories come close to it in impact but none can claim primacy. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce is compelling, with its alternate, mind-bending ending. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is excellent, an uncomfortable depiction of you and me. The Lady, or the Tiger by Frank Stockton is tantalizing, with its portrayal of power colliding with an irreconcilable conflict.

The Laughing Man can be read over and over with no diminishment of its heart-wrenching effect. Chief, Mary Hudson and the boy Comanches, all of them are headily won over in their playground on the upper East side by the burgeoning love between a man and a woman.

When that love is extinguished, for whatever timeless reason, a heart-wrenching, indeed numbing, feeling of the loss of love oppresses the reader. Where does Chief go from here, and why did he let her go?

It’s a beautifully written story. The story is told from the vantage point of a nine-year old member of the Comanche Club, a group of schoolboys who are picked up after school every day by Chief, a New York University Law School Student, in his dilapidated school bus.

Chief takes care of the boys til dinnertime, by splitting the larger club into the Braves and the Warriors. He fills their time with baseball or football games in Central Park or, if it’s raining, trips through the New York City museums.

How would these kids otherwise ever roam those halls? During down times, and as a reward, he swings around in his broken-down driver's chair and tells them, in hair-raising installments, The Laughing Man story.

Chief is a wicked story-teller, and his account of the escapades of the Laughing Man traces a parallel tale about love through the short story. His face horribly disfigured in a childhood incident, the Laughing Man wanders through the heartless wilderness communing with exotic wild creatures, the beasts being the only ones who can bear to look upon him as he truly is.

Laughing Man foils the evil plots of bandits and villains and promotes goodness throughout the land. Chief is from Staten Island; do you know that's where I grew up?

"Once [Chief] started narrating, our interest never flagged. ‘The Laughing Man’ was just the right story for a Comanche. It may even have had classic dimensions. It was a story that tended to sprawl all over the place, and yet it remained essentially portable. You could always take it home with you and reflect on it while sitting, say, in the outgoing water in the bathtub."

When you were a kid, did you ever watch the water whirl out of the bathtub as the hot water got tepid? Did you ever buy those 25c turtles at the dime store; I'll bet they resided in your bathroom before they expired.

When the Chief’s love interest shows up, the beautiful and ebullient Wesley graduate Mary Hudson, the young captain of the Warriors’ team is shocked at the transformation that occurs in the normally self-assured and naturally graceful club director.

"The Chief was very nervous. He didn’t just fail to contribute any talk of his own; he could hardly listen to any of hers. The gearshift knob came off in his hand [as he drove the bus with amateur-like lurches], I remember."

When the captain gets smitten by Mary because she smiles at him as he tries to keep her off his team, he acts as any boy would to hide his embarrassment. "For poise, I picked up a stone and threw it at a tree."

Mary turns out to be a naturally gifted ball player and quickly earns a permanent spot in the Warriors outfield. The boys view her as a sort of auxiliary club member whenever she comes on their outings, and her presence, indeed her participation, is accepted and not resented by the boys (after all, she is a girl).

But Indian summer gives way to winter and cold winds blow in. The boys notice Mary’s absence, as well as the effect it has on Chief.

The captain of the Warriors spots her watching their baseball game from a bench a hundred yards away, and points her out to Chief. He goes to talk to her.

Mary walks back with him, but it is the end. "They didn’t talk as they walked, or look at each other."

Have you ever been there? Man or woman, oh yeah.

Mary declines the captain’s entreaties for her to take the field and sits on a bench, lighting a cigarette and crossing her legs instead. The young boy tries to alleviate the tension by buffoonery.

"I tossed my first-baseman’s mitt up in the air and tried to have it land on my head, but it fell in a mud puddle. I wiped it off on my trousers and asked Mary Hudson if she wanted to come up to my house for dinner sometime. I told her the Chief came up a lot. ‘Leave me alone,’ she said. 'Just leave me alone.'"

This is a dagger in your heart, right?

The boy captain "had no idea what was going on between the Chief and Mary Hudson, but nonetheless, I couldn’t have been more certain that Mary Hudson had permanently dropped out of the Comanche lineup." Shortly thereafter she ran off, crying.

"The Chief didn’t go after her. He just stood watching her disappear."

A man. Then, as was his custom after games, he directed the boys into the bus to hear another installment of The Laughing Man.

Within five minutes, he had irrevocably killed off the Laughing Man. The youngest Comanche burst into tears, and no one told him to shut up.

The captain’s knees were shaking as the bus took him home. There, his teeth chattering uncontrollably, he was told to go straight to bed.

I read this story to my 12-year old charges in my cabin when I was 16. They were economically depressed kids from Harlem attending the Lawrenceville Preparatory School Camp in the summer of 1968 in New Jersey, thanks to dedicated donations from the school's collection at the non-denominational mandatory Sunday chapel.

I love this heartbreaking love story. It’s a masterpiece.

Trevor's doin' okay

I've spoken before about Trevor, my man in my hometown, the homeless guy who hangs out on a busy street corner and accepts donations from passing motorists. He doesn't solicit money, that would be panhandling and illegal, he merely takes what is offered to him.

His spot isn't far from the W&OD Trail where I often run, so I stop and speak with him occasionally when I'm out for a jog. He calls me "Lawyer."

He knows my car and we wave at each other whenever I drive by, which is often enough. Usually I give him two dollar coins when I see him.

All homeless people have a story, and often it is an interesting one, if not always fully coherent or believable. Trevor is doing well, and here is a recent picture of him.

Life in the District

Sometimes I'll exit the subway on my way to work and, as today, walk to work past the Central Union Mission, a homeless shelter. This morning I was leaving my morning coffee shop (not a Starbucks-type shop for sure) when I noticed an elderly African-American with a cane leaning over on the sidewalk.

I watched him closely as I passed by because I thought he might be sick. No, he was bent over emptying the contents from a small glass container of whiskey into an opened bottle of an energy drink that he'd placed on the sidewalk.

I felt so bad for this defeated man, and our system. A moment later I heard the breaking of glass and I saw that the homeless man had surreptitiously broken the whiskey flask under the iron grating of a small sidewalk sapling that will someday grow into a mature shade tree along that street.

By then I imagine this human being, whatever his lonely story, will be gone thanks to this great society's lack of an encompassing social safety net. Perhaps we'll all be departed by then as well, not having taken care of each other or our environment along the way.

Back on the trail again.

Yesterday I started the week out with a 5K run on the W&OD Trail in 28:51. I wore my "boot" brace and my brand new orthotics and it seemed to go well, although my sore ankle never bothers me when I run, only afterwards. Although both my ankle and my legs are sore now, I plan to run twice more this week, short distances slowly, and see how it goes.

It was good to be out running on the trail again, although after a mere 7 minutes, still far short of a mile, I was sucking wind. Still, that was better than last week when I thought I was going to die on a run after only 5 minutes.

The trail is clear now. Here's what it looked like a month ago, the last time I was on it.

How snowy has it been this winter? Here's one of the four snow piles I created around the head of my driveway from snow shoveling last month.

A mile and a half down the trail I saw Trevor at his usual spot on the corner and went over to talk with him. It gave me a welcome break midway through my run.

I've spoken about Trevor before. He is homeless and our priest commanded us one Sunday to go out and speak with a homeless person and let him or her influence our life in some little way. I settled on Trevor.

Trevor was suspicious of me at first but now he calls out a greeting whenever I approach, as he knows me, and my car, by sight now. He actually knows a lot of motorists who drive by his corner. He claims he loved my Christmas card, which I delivered to him personally with an address of Trevor, I-66 at Route 29, Falls Church VA.

Trevor is a veteran who was with the 82nd Airborne with an MOS of tank inspector. He saw combat in Afghanistan, if I have heard him correctly. We talk military stuff. Yesterday we talked about the HBO Special Miniseries which started last night, The Pacific War. He was going to watch it at the shelter and I told him it would feature horrific fighting in 1944 on Peleliu, and that that was where my Dad fought.

Pickings were slim for him today as no one stopped to give him any money while I was there, except for one lady. For a dollar, she could have gotten a lot of people hurt. Some people have no sense.

Trevor is obviously hobbled, as he uses a cane. This lady was driving by on the far side of the raised median on the highway (Lee Highway) that cuts across the terminus of the exit ramp from I-66 which is where Trevor stands. She stopped in traffic, backed up, and called out to him to cross four lanes of exit-ramp traffic and two more highway lanes to accept a handout from her.

Trevor muttered, "This is a first, stopping way over there. She's going to get me killed."

Instead I warily jogged through the traffic (there's a light there, which helps) to fetch her offering for Trevor, a single dollar bill. Much as it was appreciated by him, there was great potential for lethality present in her gesture. Some people just don't think.

My good deed done, I jogged home. On the return I marked a mile on the trail in 9:20, which left me breathless. Yikes! I've got a lot of work to do.

No Bloody Good

I tried to give blood this morning. I'm on a quest to give 100 units in my lifetime, and I'm currently at 80. But my odyssey has slowed down recently because I get turned away sometimes now, deferred, as they politely say.

Not because I've done anything fun with my life like live in Europe or visit Africa or have wild sex or get body piercings. No, it's just because of my mundane elevated blood pressure.

Today my temperature was good, the blood droplet from my finger sank in the solution indicating I have good iron, but my upper BP reading was 190. Too high. They told me to relax (yeah, right), waited ten minutes and sure enough the upper reading was down. But now the lower reading was too high, having risen to above 110. They told me I could have another reading in 10 minutes but by rule, I had to leave the office first and come back. I just left.

I'm on medication for hypertension, which I attribute wholly to my exposure to Western divorce litigation, but I must have lost a bottle of pills because earlier this month, I was suddenly down to one or two pills. I went to Kaiser for a refill but I was turned away (deferred?) because I was too early--meaning I couldn't refill my 90-day supply because the pills I had already received should have lasted through January. The earliest I could receive a refill was on January 18th. I told the Kaiser pharmacist I'd lost those pills, apparently. She shrugged, offered me two pills (which would come out of the next order), and told me to come back on the 18th or else make an appointment with my doctor. It was the rule.

I asked her if she thought I was selling blood pressure pills on the black market. She just stared at me. Next time I guess I'll claim they were stolen, but they'll probably require a police report before issuing a refill. Of blood pressure pills. There's a lot of demand for those babies, you know.

All these "rules" are leaving me feeling so helpless and disgusted that I treated myself to a meal at McDonalds. I had two double cheeseburgers off of their dollar menu. That ought to help my b/p.

The street beggar

Ever since I started glacially moving forward in my personal life about a year ago from the total loss several years earlier of all of my children through PAS, thanks to the concept I started finally figuring out of forgiveness, I have been going to church once a month. Whenever I attend, I sit there stonily but I get all weepy inside thinking about all the departed ones in my life, the relationships I don't have, and the people I know who I wish could be better, for their own sakes.

Today's sermon was on pain and suffering. Pain is obligatory, the priest intoned, suffering is optional. He challenged us as Christians who supposedly look to ameliorate suffering in the world to go out and lay our hand upon someone we don't know who is in pain, and find out about their suffering. "But it starts with one simple action. Touch," he said.

After church I drove to the busy intersection where I always see an African-American beggar wearing a sign saying, "Combat Veteran. Always Faithful." Whenever I drive by, I always give him a dollar coin, but I don't know him. When the light is green and traffic is pressing behind me, I pitch the dollar coin so it rolls to the curb near him as I drive past. He always waves and shouts out, "Thank you!"

Today I stood on his street corner for half an hour and spoke with him. His name is Trevor and he's no beggar. Our conversation started easily enough, I told him my name, asked him what his was, and shook his hand. Touch. This is his story.

Younger than I imagined from my "drivebys," he is a combat veteran, having been deployed twice to Iraq with his parachute division. I didn't press on his story too much, but he was injured in a night jump, in combat, and has had three operations on his right leg since. The first was terribly botched by Army surgeons and left him permanently disabled.

His leg is stiff and unbending. He hobbles around on his little corner with the aid of a four-footed steel cane. He receives 20% disability currently (a little over $400 per month) from the Army, and his lawyer is "95%" sure he will win his appeal and within the next six months receive 70% disability. Retroactively. Trevor looked me in the eye and said, "That's going to be around $57,000 in arrears. You won't see me here come next winter."

Trevor says combat situations taught him to hold no rancor. "The most country redneck, and the most inner-city guy who hates whites, they all become fast friends in combat. They get past our addiction to racial prejudice in a hurry and learn the ways of the world, how to get along together. That's the way it is when you see combat together."

That's the way Trevor talked. He's 36 hour shy of his undergraduate degree in psychology, having taken classes in the Army from the University of Maryland while in Europe.

He was young and fit looking, except for his neglected (broken) teeth and bum leg. "I ran 10 miles every other day, no matter what. Rain, snow, high-up in Colorado, low-down in Massachusetts, didn't matter. I ran every two days. Ten miles. I did five marathons, Boston twice, Marine Corps twice, Baltimore. That's what I miss the most, being active every single day."

He held up his cane and said, "I'm going to get off of this. I am. I go to therapy every week at GW [George Washington University], and I'm off a walker now and down to this."

He is also on mood medication and pain pills, all prescribed in massive doses by the VA. "That's how they justify themselves," he said, "by the amount of pills they prescribe, and the number of canes they give out. I came in with a shattered leg, and they sent me to see a shrink before anything else. There's nothing wrong with my mind, but I couldn't receive treatment until I saw a psychologist first. That's the way the Army is now."

I asked him where he stayed each night. "At Courthouse Metro [in Arlington, sleeping outside]."

I asked him if the Arlington cops bothered him there. "At night? No. They bother me here, during the day," he said, tapping the little square of sidewalk with his cane. Apparently he's been given three loitering summonses, each of which has been tossed out by the same judge.

"My lawyer says I can stand here, wearing my sign. I'm not asking for money. I'm just here, on the public sidewalk. But people slow down and give me money, or stop at the red light and talk to me, and don't get away quick enough when the light turns green, and people behind them use their cells to call the cops on me. But nothing they say or do affects me. I'm poor and happy. I could steal at CVS, or rob folks, instead of standing here all day waiting for money, but that's not the way I am. I've been in combat and seen the way things are. None of this on this corner matters. I'm just doing this til my appeal comes through."

While I stood there, a man four lanes over shouted out, "Where's the expressway?" Upon being told the proper directions by Trevor, he dangerously drove across all four lanes of traffic in front of the other waiting cars so he wouldn't miss his turn. "See, they'll blame that on me. Maybe someone back there with a cell phone . . . ," he said, pointing with his cane at the traffic backup.

Another man drove by with an open window, his fist clutching a fiver. He seemed embarrassed and was staring straight ahead as he turned the corner while extending the money towards us, almost driving up on the sidewalk. The exchange was not made, and the bill fluttered away in the breeze. "I lose a lot of money that way," Trevor sighed. "I can't chase down dollar bills that are moving." I retrieved it for him. Around the corner there was a single lying on the sidewalk which I brought back too. "See?" Trevor said.

Another man drove up to the red light and hailed Trevor. "I brought this for you," he said, and handed over a box-set hand grooming kit. While the motorist waited for the light to turn, Trevor opened the gift with real or feigned delight and shouted, "Thanks! This is great!" He showed me his dirty fingernails. "I can't take care of my hands properly, living out here. This will come in handy. Nautica," he said, reading the brand, "they make clothes. Is this a good kit?" I looked at the fingernail clippers, the file, and other implements and allowed that it looked pretty good. It was brand new. Re-gifting from Father's Day? I wondered.

Another man stopped at the red light, handed over some singles, and asked Trevor how his appeal was faring. He seemed chagrined to hear that the "window" for the decision to come down was 180 days. He lingered as the light turned green, expressing his remorse, and this provoked a long and hearty blast of horn from behind him. After the benefactor drove away, Trevor said, "See, that's my fault, they say. I'm just standing here though."

Trevor on his corner, only temporarily, I hope. Now I know his name. There are many other "corner dwellers" on the streets in our nation's capital. I try to give them each a dollar coin whenever I pass by them. Undoubtedly they all have stories, which maybe involve suffering.