Winter in Philadelphia for a homeless veteran
I found this picture on google. But this week I spent all of Tues.and Wednesday, and part of Thursday getting some medical tests done. Tuesday I was waiting for a bus in Center City Philadelphia, and directly in front of me was a man sleeping with his stomach against the metal of the steam vent on the sidewalk. I know from working with a lot of homeless people over the years that this can be very bad…..but it was about 25 degrees out …with a killer wind blowing..hey what are you gonna do. … I left the guy alone until he was kicked by a pedestrian and woke up…he asked me if I had a dollar…well I’m not in the best financial shape these days …,I had two dollars and a few cents….I needed that for the bus..after thinking about it I looked across the street and seeing a fast food place I said .”How bout I get us something to eat ? With my $2.48 I managed to get us a double cheeseburger and a tiny “side salad” ..he took the burger and I ate the salad..I found out he was 42, my sons age a veteran and had fought in the first “Gulf war”..he did not seem “crazy” or anything ..his family had put him out because he had really horrible nightmares and could not sleep at night …waking up screaming all the time..since I no longer had money for my bus we talked for a while. He said he was well aware of the dangers of sleeping on the steam grate and told me a story of someone being “cooked” on one during the last winter….this guy was white, the son of two school teachers and grew up in Montgomery County Pennsylvania.. But this is America..land of opportunity …so this can happen to anyone ..should it…please feel free to comment…I wanna know.
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