What Is He Hungry For?

August 11, 2016 by

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Gregory.  He lives between the Starbucks and the barbeque place near the corner of Mission Beach Boulevard and Mission Bay Drive; catty corner from the roller coaster, in San Diego.  You see him a lot, along the boardwalk.

One of the first things Gregory speaks about when you begin a conversation with him is the time several years ago that a group of rich kids beat him up.  He needed emergency surgery and stayed in the hospital for over a week.  He shows you his scars and tells you the details.  They took his thirteen dollars.

I think it’s just as my ob/gyn told me after my first long and painful natural childbirth experience.  Many weeks later I mentioned that I still couldn’t read, because I couldn’t concentrate.  His response was that he thinks as humans we need to relive significantly upsetting experiences over and over, and talk about them over and over, until we have rehashed them enough to be comfortable with them in our heads.

Gregory and I are a little bit of buds.  I am always happy that he remembers me.  Our last encounter was amusing.  From another man I know, Greg, who has been hanging around my neighborhood in Phoenix for the past five years, I realize that people living on the streets get hungry for homemade food.  But I’m not much of a cook – not my thing.  So when I last saw Gregory I asked him what he was hungry for?  He thought for a minute and decided that a tuna fish sandwich sounded awfully good, and anything other than water to drink.  He was tired of water.  I said okay, I would be back.

I decided instead of buying him a “chick food” tuna sandwich with tarragon, dill, and the like, from a cafe near me, that a plain old homemade tuna sandwich from a deli market about a mile and a half away was probably much more what he was thinking.

At this point I recruited my husband, who was out on a bike, to go get him a sandwich and a bottle of my favorite Apricot nectar (Looza’s), because he might have a shot at getting there more quickly; quickly enough to be able to still find Gregory.

Well, as these things often go, my husband rode around for quite awhile before locating him.  When he finally did, Gregory was sitting on the boardwalk by Hamel’s talking to a woman who was standing over him.  John waited awhile for a break in their conversation, straddling his bike, kind of standing over, but to the side of them, with the plastic to-go bags hanging on the handlebar of his bike.  When the conversation finally paused, John looked at Gregory and asked, “Did you order a tuna sandwich?”

Gregory thought during a long pause, and after a puzzled look which turned into a faint grin, said “Yes”.

John handed him his lunch and pedaled off.

We still wonder what the woman thought, and we still giggle.  It was fun and it was funny.  Gregory is cool.
You might check out this song, Tuna Fish Sandwich, by Tim Hawkins. (I’ll make a Spotify fan out of you yet.)

We think these guys are as much a part of this community as we are.  If you would like to combat a few of the locals, including a woman named Racheal Allen and a man named Mike Spangler, who are trying to run off the homeless folks so that they can have a prettier looking beach, you might check out their Facebook page, cleanuppb.

Here is an article about the issue in the local paper, the Beach and Bay Press.

 

Photo of  Gregory, with his permission, by the author.

Filed Under: Chuckle, Homeless Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The Progressive Journey of Motherhood

June 11, 2016 by

 

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So when my first child was born,  as soon as we left the hospital full of helpful nurses and all-knowing doctors, about twenty-four hours after giving birth, I was overwhelmed with a sensation that many of us mothers likely experience.  This newborn, exciting, hoped for, anxiously awaited, prayed for, delightful little baby person was now fully my responsibility.  Many in my life, including his father, were around to “help”, but the bottom line still overwhelmingly sunk in that this miniature human being was 100% dependent upon me.

He couldn’t move from where he was placed, eat, crawl, walk, play, get out of the house in case of a fire, or ask for what he needed – nothing, absolutely nothing, without me.  Okay, I adapted.  Life moved forward and like the frog who doesn’t hop out of the pot of gradually heating water because he gets used to it, along came another baby, and more responsibility, and work, and so forth.

Before I knew it, they were moving out to pursue higher education ventures, leaving me crying in their wake.  The same house that felt wonderful when we bought it before they were born, now felt vacuous, and unbelievably lonely.  But in between, and I have added it up, my ultra conservative estimate is that I said, “Did you brush your teeth?” approximately 24,090 times.  No joke.  I’ve done the math.  It’s a conservative estimate.

The journey from being 100% responsible for my little creations, to biting my tongue and not stating the obvious because I will insult their intelligence, is something that nobody really prepared me for.  Twenty-eight and twenty-five years later, I try to think before I open my mouth so that I don’t say something that is eye-rolling worthy, even if they are polite enough to do it in their minds instead of on their faces.  The more I dilute my conversation with blah, blah, of course, type of statements, the less they will pay attention to what I am saying all of the time.

But try it.  Try to change so drastically.  It was my job to educate them!  For years!  About EVERYTHING!  “What this?”  “It’s a light switch.  Look over there, it will make that light turn on.”  “What that?”  “It’s a can opener, it will open this can of food so we can eat it.  Watch me turn the handle and see the blade cut through the thick metal.”

Try it when you have taken your role to heart.  How come nobody ever pointed out how much I needed to change?  It blows me away that all of us parents, maybe mothers particularly, travel this journey, and that no one mentions it.

I guess I changed gradually along with them, but probably not gracefully.  I could’ve been more graceful had I been more aware.  Like when they were finally old enough to leave in the car by themselves, but still kids.   I used to get out and lock the doors, turn to them and say, “Don’t let anyone steal you.”  My joke.  I thought it was good tongue-in-cheek, but maybe just a little bit making a point to be aware of their surroundings, and put up a stink in case something bad began to happen.  Until the day they drove, got out of the car, turned to me and said, “Don’t let anybody steal you.”  I thought, “Oh my gosh, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”  Ridiculous.  It still makes me laugh.

And this week my tongue is bleeding.  But I did it.  I passed another test.  I did not ask my twenty-eight year old if he was in the precarious position of needing to leave his twenty-five thousand dollars of SnapOn tools in his three thousand dollar SnapOn toolbox overnight in the back of his pickup truck as he was finalizing his cross country move.

I’m so glad I didn’t, because he did.  And it’s all good.  All good.  Yay me.

Filed Under: Chuckle, Parenting Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,