He looked healthy enough. He was sitting on a public bench five feet from the City Weekly offices at 248 S. Main Street and chatting with a man in a wheelchair beside him. He held a hand-lettered sign that read: “HOMELESS.” ANY SMALL CHANGE WILL DO.
When I got upstairs to the newsroom, CW copy editor Brandon Burt pointed out how the guy had a little punctuation issue. “I’m not sure if he’s homeless or not,” Brandon said. “If you put quote marks around ‘homeless’ does it mean you’re not sure?”
Hmmm. These days, there are so many homeless folks — with or without quotation marks — on Main Street, it’s hard to know. We have about a half-dozen regulars right at home on the stretch between 200 South and 300 South. When the midday sun gets too brutal, they cross Main Street to the expansive tree shade at Gallivan Plaza.
A lot of street kids come to this end of Main, too. They migrated south from the entrance to the old Crossroads Plaza, which a wrecking ball flattened months ago to make way for City Creek Plaza. Last week, a skinny blond boy with bad acne played a violin — and quite well — below my office window for 70 minutes. I gave him a 5-spot.
But the guy who lacked proper punctuation was new to me. As for his sign, it’s possible the guy simply felt like being ironic.
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on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 1:50 pm and is filed under All, Community, One World, Work and Play.
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He looked healthy enough. He was sitting on a public bench five feet from the City Weekly offices at 248 S. Main Street and chatting with a man in a wheelchair beside him. He held a hand-lettered sign that read: “HOMELESS.” ANY SMALL CHANGE WILL DO.
When I got upstairs to the newsroom, CW copy editor Brandon Burt pointed out how the guy had a little punctuation issue. “I’m not sure if he’s homeless or not,” Brandon said. “If you put quote marks around ‘homeless’ does it mean you’re not sure?”
Hmmm. These days, there are so many homeless folks — with or without quotation marks — on Main Street, it’s hard to know. We have about a half-dozen regulars right at home on the stretch between 200 South and 300 South. When the midday sun gets too brutal, they cross Main Street to the expansive tree shade at Gallivan Plaza.
A lot of street kids come to this end of Main, too. They migrated south from the entrance to the old Crossroads Plaza, which a wrecking ball flattened months ago to make way for City Creek Plaza. Last week, a skinny blond boy with bad acne played a violin — and quite well — below my office window for 70 minutes. I gave him a 5-spot.
But the guy who lacked proper punctuation was new to me. As for his sign, it’s possible the guy simply felt like being ironic.
This entry was posted
on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 1:50 pm and is filed under All, Community, One World, Work and Play.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 16th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
That was very kind, proffering a gratuity for the street violinist. Last summer I gave 10 euros to a panhandler in Vienna and he thanked me in three languages. Made my day.
Being homeless in Zion must be gruesome. The weather,social ostracism…just bleak. The creme de la creme of these unfortunates come to Santa Cruz and Capitola. Beautiful beaches, great climate and a tolerant populace. The panhandlers are well educated too…50% have at least some college and a significant minority sport advanced degrees.
I muchly admired Chip Ward`s article on this subject last winter.
July 16th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Strangely enough, I was going to send you a note about an older man (I think he was a homeless person, does that mean I should use quotes?) in front of your City Weekly offices that my sons and I saw when changing TRAX lines two weeks ago. He was EXTREMELY friendly to everyone. LOUDLY. And he had no shirt on. I had the feeling he’d had a bit too much 3.2 beer. However, I could do nothing but feel sorry for him…I think I’m lostinutah…how does he feel?
I just wondered if this was a frequent happening. Apparently so.
Loved Chip Ward’s article too. It made me very sad and appreciative of librarians.