Soup Kitchen Spenglers

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business. - Thoreau

I eat most of my meals at the soup kitchen across the street from the shelter transitional rooming house where I currently live.  There's a plethora of fallen reasons why we're all there, none of them very pretty or palatable.  I'm always taken back by the people I meet there.  Most of the folks are very bitter about what has befallen them in life - stymied and stupified.  As you can imagine, it manifests in different ways - misplaced anger, bitterness, booze, drugs, fighting, odd behaviors, temper tantrums, stealing, etc.  We engage in some very deep discussions in a futile attempt to solve the world's problems.  There is, of course, no shortage of armchair philosophers.

One guy is an atheist and says that churches are corrupt and just want your money so that they can live extravagant lifestyles.  He can relate a conspiracy theory on nearly everything under the sun.  Most of the volunteers that feed us are church groups.  They're feeding us (him) and he's bashing them.  Mind you, this is the same guy who drinks nips in the park and smokes weed but then comes in on free haircut day.

Another guy (incidentally, also an atheist) , in his early eighties, owns his own home and just bought a $35,000, speedy, turbo-charged car that he claims will go 0-60 MPH in just a few seconds.  He's always complaining about traffic gridlock and how he's afraid to drive around the city because the immigrants are terrible drivers.  I asked him where he's going to drive the new car to test it's performance and he says that he's afraid to take it out and instead keeps driving his old, beat-up jalopy.  He listens religiously to NPR public radio which constantly Trump-bashes.  He says that America shouldn't build a wall.  I asked him if he had a fence around his property and he reluctantly answered, "Yes".  When I probed further, he said that it's, "Not the same thing."

A third guy, well into his seventies, has been living in the shelter for three years with his wife and adult son.  He and his wife both get Social Security checks and now his son gets one too.  He eats at the soup kitchen so that he has more money with which to gamble and pay prostitutes.  His wife and son take cabs and eat out at restaurants because they won't stand in line to eat the "garbage" at the soup kitchen.  He's a compulsive gambling addict and claims that he can't find a place to live.  When I questioned him as to why he wasn't moving out of the shelter he said that he wasn't going to, "Just take anything.  I'm not living in a s**t-hole," he said, "I want granite counter-tops and stainless steel appliances."  He and his wife split the $300/month storage fee for their belongings.  He's got a $150/month line of credit (a cuff as he calls it) at the corner convenience store for scratch tickets, Keno, lottery, etc.  He goes to doctors claiming to be suffering with back pain.  If he can get the doctor to write a prescription, he has the prescription filled and sells the pills.  I see him practically running to cross the street with his cane so that he can gamble at the corner store.  I told him that his belongings in storage were living better than he was in the shelter.  He just shook his head and continues doing the same thing.

I leave it to God to separate the wheat from the chaff as I'm victim of my own living gaffe.  Welcome to the world of soup kitchen Spenglers.  We've all got a story to tell and something to sell like street vendors, complete with sex offenders and matching suspenders ...

Author's Note

“There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.” - Thoreau

Reviews

[Neville]

I thoroughly enjoyed the read.. having myself held a weekly clinic at a local soup kitchen for more years than I care to remember, this took me back there for a little reminisce ... just remember folks, try not to judge... nobody sets out in life with the aim of being homeless, or addicted to anything.... N

[Pete]

indeed. life has a way of happening ... :)

[Neville]

it does and always will :)