PROTOCOL FOR STREETPUPPIES

  
It's the time of the year to remind all Street Puppies of the importance of maintaining some kind of civility in dealing with other people, civilians and Puppies alike.

Whether you are panhandling, bumming a smoke, stealing a beer, borrowing a charger, or trying to nail your best friend's ole' lady, there is a certain way to do things in order that you do not come up looking like an uncivilized Puppy.

Especially now, when demeanor is sooooo important because everybody has a spotlight on Street Puppies during the holiday season, when the wallets and the kitchen cupboards open wide in the name of holiday cheer.

First, the cigarette situation.

If you are going to bum a cigarette, for goodness sake, bum it from another Puppy, not a civilian.

Imagine being a civilian, just standing around minding your own business and some guy (you) rolls up on him, looking like you haven't slept in a year and a week worth of hair growth out your nostrils and you say, "Hey, you wouldn't have a cigarette on ya' would ya'?

What's he supposed to say?  If he's smart, he'll say, 'as a matter of fact I don't, and get that hair cut out of your nose.'

Now, the proper way to approach a civilian with a request for anything is to say, 'Sir, I realize you are busy and I don't mean to stand in your way while you're trying to cross the street, but I really have a craving for a cigarette, and if you smoke, I would be delighted if you would share just one with me.'

You can amend that to include anything, such as money, a bus pass, or a new pair of nose scissors.

Ok, but if you are bumming a smoke  or a quarter from another Street Puppy, you know the rules.

First, don't do it, but you will  if  you are an undisciplined, selfish, uncivilized Puppy  and you need to remember that he or she is just as bad off as you are and for Heaven's sake, you're panhandling from another Puppy.

Second, if you're going to borrow anything from another Puppy, give it back.

Quickly.

No, 'can I hold five dollars for you for a week,' then forget you know the guy.  No taking his phone charger for a half-hour then disappearing with it.  No borrowing a cell phone to call your sick mother and then running his minutes out.

And then there's the problem of outright theft.

Do you really think the person whose 'spot' you have been sharing lately does not know that you are the one who stole his whole four pack of Natural Ice two nights ago when you were relieving yourself behihd the tree?

And what about the food stamp thing when you took his card and sold it for beer money even before he knew it was gone?

Oh,  and then there's his ole' lady, and the time when he was in the slammer and you tried to convince her you are the better man for her?  (You know, the one who gets the big check every month)

Yeah, theft is a bummer anytime, but in Homeless Nation it is especially sneaky and mean, and if you persist in this way of thinking and acting you will never make it out of the Nation.

But that's ok, so long as the bummed cigarettes, the purloined beer and food stamp cards and chargers and cell phones hold out, and the women with the big checks you'll be just fine.

But, because it's the holiday season, maybe give all of that a rest for a bit and enjoy and treasure the fact that generous - and there are many - people are so willing to give to and love Puppies during this season, and all year around, and they regularly do and being honest about all of it is the best way to go.

And if you can't get with that philosophy, well, remember, there's always....Karma.

Happy Holidays to all the Street Puppies, and no, I don't have a cigarette for sale, I'm not going to let ya' hold five dollars for me,  ya' can't use my charger, and I know nothing is wrong with your mother so ya' can't use my phone either.

BUCKETLISTS FOR STREETPUPPIES

Remember the movie, Bucketlist with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman?

They are in a cancer ward and are both diagnosed with terminal cancer and given the same time to live so they decide to make a list of all of the things they want to accomplish before they kick the bucket, a rather quaint way to say 'die,' and probably having nothing to do with Mrs. O'Leary's cow.

The movie was awful, and I'll save you the time by telling you they do not die and find, after going around the world to accomplish their outrageous bucket lists, that the diagnosis for both of them was wrong and in fact they have all the time in the world so they go off to Maine and get married.  Yeah, it was awful.

But it got Streetpuppy to thinking, what if a Streetpuppy figured out exactly how much time he or she had to be in Homeless Nation?

Remember, it's a lousy place to be, but it has it's moments, and one should always remember to make the best use of the time you are anyplace lousy or not, so there are probably  things you would want to accomplish or even that you wish you could do, or would have done better in the time spent in Homeless Nation.

So Streetpuppy compiled a list of things -she knows when she will return to civilian life - a bucket list.

Learn to panhandle better.  The only time I ever did it, I made exactly four-dollars and 26 cents, a pair of black socks, a whole bunch of prepared food which I could not possibly eat and an admonition from one elderly lady not to drink ever again, and was forever the butt of panhandling jokes in my neighborhood.

Pay more attention to those Bible study classes one must  cheerfully endure before some of the feeds.  I could have learned something, the Bible is actually a great history book, and I always felt guilty that I looked at the sessions as an appetizer.

Socked the large woman at the Salvation Army who slugged me for nothing at all and knocked my coffee right out of my hand.  She was wrong to do it and I ended up cowering whenever I saw her around and I should have been braver than that.

Ditto for the woman who nailed me at another shelter and then chased me over the wall.  I should have stood my ground, even though she was thrice my size.

Learn to figure out where the sprinklers are before I go to sleep on somebody's lawn. 

Learn to keep my mouth shut when somebody cuts in front of me in a line..anywhere.  But, Noooooooo, always had to say something to the butthead who did it and some of them are very scary people.

Learn to clean fingernails in the dark. 

Learn to never give five dollars to anybody who says, "Can I hold five dollars for you 'til tomorrow?"

Ditto for a quarter or a cigarette.

Never, ever tell anybody about your past life, and if you have to, lie.  You never know what they will do with the information, and that includes some of the so called 'case managers'  in places called 'Homeless Recovery.'  (And I should have socked him, too, and I think I just might.)

Learn to Trust.  It's damm hard in Homeless Nation to trust anybody at all, especially new found friends be they Streetpuppies or civilians, especially if they say they want to help you. 

Learn to wash up in the Mcdonald's bathroom and put on the makeup in three minutes flat.

Go and thank Charlie for all of his kind words and encouragement and joy,he's one of a kind and the best 'street preacher' I've ever known.

Go and find the witch who stole my one-hundred dollar bottle of Chanel 19 during the first week I was homeless... it was one of the few things from the previous life I had with me.  She promised she would replace it, never has, and I want to look her in the eye and say, "Keep it, you obviously will never be able to make enough money on your own to buy anything at the rate you're going.'

Learn to wear shoes that are two sizes too large and grin and bear it.

Kind of pathetic, eh?

Just little things, but they stick out as either things I should have done, or want to do better, or didn't do and regret it.  And I'll probably think of a hundred more things,  but most likely I will have hung up my Streetpuppy ears before that happens.

And one more thing I need to put on my bucketlist to do in Homeless Nation.  Go to Sacred Heart, get on my knees and open my arms to God, and Jesus and The Virgin Mary and all of my guardian angels and thank them from deep in my heart for watching over me for all of those scary days and nights and weeks and months.

Ditto for all of the angels at United Methodist Church and St. James and St. Andrews and Metropolitan Ministries, and they know who they are.

And Streetpuppy and Civilian angels I have come to know, and  there were many of them, and they know who they are, too.

And they are all on the thank you part of the Streetpuppy Bucket List.

My next Bucket List will start out, "Return to Bangkok at least Once."

Ditto Rome.

Ok, on second thought, I'm going to put Bangkok  and Rome down further on my new Bucket List and start with "Ride a horse  bareback under a full moon at full gallop down a beach on the Eastern Shore of Ireland......Naked.

VERY IMPORTANT PUPPIES

Belive it or not, a lot of Street puppies come to Homeless Nation via a red carpet, and this designated stop is just another stop after the crazed late night club scene VIP room stop, the boogie till you puke sports bar stop, the divorce and lost everything stop, the court-ordered rehab stop,  the sprained my ankle on the corporate ladder stop, or the 'met the wrong guy/gal stop and the next thing you know everything I had belonged to him/her...including the cat.

And if you are this kind of Streetpuppy, you're in for a tough time.

Welcome to the land of cheap haircuts, cheaper shoes, bad hair dye jobs, worse dental work, Taco Bell, the dollar menu at McDonald's, and nothing left over to buy a $100 bottle of Clinique moisturizer, or a $20 kohl eye-liner.

You won't be getting manicures and pedicures anymore - and that goes for the ladies, too - thus you will have to get one of those swiss knife thingys and make do with slicing up your own toes and smacking on some cheap polish, and be careful, you can get an infection, and you don't have enough money to pay a doctor and the ER tends to put you way on the back end of the to do list behind the chronic liver problems and beatings.

As for bikini and eye-brow waxing.  Well, you can get one of those $5 kits with those little strips, but if you're not used to doing it yourself, it will hurt even more than when your favorite skin care expert attacks you with that hot wax.

Oh, yeah, skin care.  Those days are so  o v e r.  Exfoloiate the word 'exfoliate' from your vocabulary.

Forget about crisp white pressed shirts, you don't have an iron and they will get dirty and wrinkled in no time.

Ditto on the really expensive pair of really good shoes you would wear with a crisp white shirt and neat little black skirt.  Somebody will steal them and sell them for the $5 it will take to get a piece of rock to smoke.

We don't even want to hear about pearls.  And that goes for that beautiful birth stone ring you used to wear, too.  Only a fool would bring real jewelry into Homeless Nation, unless somebody taught you along the way how to really handle a box cutter.

You will be buying a lot of $4 'cheater' glasses for reading, and don't even think about those designer frames you had to leave behind, the ones that cost you $300, and not worth a penny of it.

We're hoping you didn't wear Burberry anything in that former life, thus the only designer names we will mention here which we know you will regret losing are Chanel, Calvin, Polo, Versace and of course,  J.Crew.

Are you depressed yet?

Hold on, we haven't even gotten to the several types of work out shoes, the designer work out clothes, the cashmere everything, the $60 T tops, yadda yadda yadda.

We hope that all of this is enough to make you, if you are one of those VIP Streetpuppies, realize a couple of very important things.

There are a lot of people standing around you who have never had any of these things, and never will, and they spend their days mourning, not the loss of their hairdresser, but the loss of a simple roof over a simple place for themselves and their very hungry children.

And you knew it all along.  Money isn't everything and certainly didn't make you happy, else you would not have ended up in this place.

And after wallowing in self-pity for awhile, you might be able to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back in the batting box.  Just follow the lead of all those other people around you who are struggling for a lot less than you are asking for, and go out and do it everyday. (Don't pay any attention to the dolts who like wallowing in their self-induced misery, they like it here, let 'em stay."

And another thing, before you drown yourself totally in misery thinking about what once was...this too shall pass.

SOCIAL CLIMBING DOWN

In Homeless Nation, it really does matter where you are from.  That is, which economic, ethnic, cultural and social strata you were associated with before you made your entry into what  at first appears to be the dark side of the moon. 

Whatever lifestyle, what ever your level of understanding of the nuances which separate people in the outside world, you need to learn to be flexible in Homeless Nation, because it's unlikely you will be associating with the same kind of people you associated with out there. Unless you were in a nut house.

But even in Homeless Nation there are cliques and pecking orders and yes, snobs.

The thing to do is to figure out which clique or rung on the pecking order or snobs you want to hang - or if you prefer, socialize - with.

This is important because you will definitely be associated, in the minds of the law,  and future possible employers and  with whichever clique or group you choose to be with, as being one of them.

First there are the old-timers. People who have been on the street for so long, they have forgotten about life on the other side.  Some of them even have some money coming in, but they prefer that  sleeping spot under a favorite bush in the park, and the once-a-month blow-out in a cheap motel with some other old-timers, and then the rest of the month eating at feeds and begging a few quarters here and there. 

Avoid them.

Then there are the chippers.  The people who blast in and out with nary a clue as to what they have gotten themselves into, primarily because they are very young and the thing that landed them in Homeless Nation was an ill-timed remark to a parent or a spouse. 

They like the illusion of the freedom of the streets compared to the  discipline, the rituals or obedience required to live in any reasonable domestic situation.  They leave soon, usually after a missed step into the dark side of homelessness  has left them with a black eye and a longing for their favorite dinner at home.

Avoid them.

And how about those shelter rats.  They are a hybrid of the old-timers and the criminal fringe and they slink from shelter to shelter, using up their allotted nights staying in what can only be described as the hotel from hell plus danger.  This situation can become too easy for you and instead of finding your way out of Homeless Nation, you will find youself on a hampster wheel of flophouses with fancy religious names.

Avoid them and the shelters.

The criminal fringe.  Most of their conversation revolves around how to secure the next four-pak, or rock, or blow or chieap liquor.  Most of them have tats.  Prison tats.  They are high on the police radar and for good reason as most of them are frequent fliers into the nearest jail, and have prison time to boot and are habitual offenders. They will give you the shirt off your own back, and your wallet with it, and cut you for both if they  have to.

Avoid them.  In fact, run from them.

The snobs.  Most of them have some kind of income.  And they hang together, too. 

But they go to movies and read and find time to do things which will prepare them for re-entry into the real world, like staying off the four-pak, rock, liquor cycle and showing respect for the dignity of others.

And they are usually actively looking for employment and are convinced they will find work even if it takes forever. 

They do not beg for money, or hustle for money, and they usually do not like to loan or give money. And they do not steal.

And when they attend feeds and other events meant to help them, they show respect and thnakfulness for the good people who go out of their way to give of themselves to lend a helping hand.

They are shunned by the criminal fringe, the shelter rats and the old-timers because they are viewed as, well as snobs.

Stick with them.

In all likelihood, you probably shared some similarities in the outside world.

Like, decency and honesty and integrity.  And a good work ethic.

Funny, even in Homeless Nation there is social ladder, up and down.

OCCUPUPPY

When a Street Puppy becomes weary of dodging the cops and traffic and needs a rest from the uncertaintities which accompany living on the street, and cannot take a well earned rest at a spa, a good idea would be to take a breather at a place one would least expect to find a Street Puppy mixing it up with others.

An activist group who are protesting something.  Maybe it's the scones at the Starbucks,  their college allowance got cut to a hundred bucks a day, or the lack of a union for left-handed daisy pickers, or maybe they just get bored with their lives and want to protest something.

Doesn't matter.  These people always have a camp.

And camps always have tents, and a communal kitchen, and a water hose that's good for showering the dirt off your feet....and tents.

Now, in order to fit in to these camps, one must learn to dress and speak the language of people who usually occupy the protest camp.

In other words, dress down.

Find a few real old tie-dye t-shirts, some floppy sandals, baggy shorts, and don't even think about underwear.

Then, maybe, depending upon what the protesters in the camp are protesting, you might want to think about a nose ring.  And one through the lip.  And for sure the ear.  We know, it hurts, but you can always remove it later, and it will signal to the others around the campfire that you are one of them and haven't come to tap their phone, or take their picture for the FBI.

You're going to have to speak their language, even if it takes a day to catch on.  "Dude," is good, and used frequently to address men and women, usually because in some protest camps, one cannot detect by dress or hair growth just which gender you are speaking to.  Also, "Bro."

Other than those two words, not much else is necessary as they usually begin and end every sententence.  But be sure you know the how to prounce capitalism, and the phrase 'police state'.  Those are the two most used words outside of Dude and Bro, and it should get you by.

And speaking of police state.  You will most likely be encountering police a lot during your stay at the camp.  They are suspicious of these people, sometimes for good reason.  Don't  use your cell phone a lot, the whole area is probably tapped, in an effort to determine if the residents are intending to take over the government.

Not to worry.  Most people in protest camps can't run their own camp, so it's unlikely any of them will be  running for public office.  Unless it would be for the office of  vice president of postage stamps.

Stay away from the power struggles.  There are many, and these people are terrific back-biters, and as Henry Kissinger is so fond of saying, "These kind of struggles are so vicious because the stakes are so small.

Don't overstay your welcome.  Two weeks to a month should do it.  In fact, that is about how long you can live on the food, it is invariably Vegan. 

Then, back to the street, to the spot, the sleeping bag, the feeds, and you will be better off for it if only because all that Vegan food you were eating resulted in a loss of twenty pounds, so, now you are going to be able to fit in to those real small Calvin Klein levis you find at the next thrift store.

Have fun, and remember to keep a sense of humor.

BROKEN WINDOWS

Streetpuppies roll in from so many strata of society -social, economic, ethnic, cultural, - it's hard to track the actual path into and out of their place in Homeless Nation.

There are no geneological or biological or DNA or genome hints as to the heriditary nature of the state of homelessness.

However, we have thought of one marker which can tell the whole story with one look.

Broken windows.

Every Streetpuppy has broken windows. 

Broken windows through what slipped that part of their life which led them onto the path right to the front door of Homeless Nation.

Whether the windows were broken by economic, social, cultural, financial, or mental troubles or disparities, they shattered and let  the  unfiltered, harsh light  of the reality of hard times into a life.

One of the problems with broken windows, is that they attract more broken windows, since, people will tend to break a window which already has one shattered pane....what's the harm of breaking the pane next to it? 

Especially people who are being paid to fix the broken windows, the thinking being, 'if this window gets fixed, I don't get paid to fix anymore windows.' 

Or, even better -or worse -spread some litter on the ground around  the broken windows so as to make a complete picture of utter carelessness and destruction which has led to the breakdown of an entire structure...or person. The thinking being, 'may as well, spread the responsibility, and the bucks paid for fixing this person, and it may take a long time to do it.'

Now, you can't really 'fix' a broken window.  Unless it's in a car, and that's a whole different story.

You can replace a broken window, but you cannot fix a broken window.

And you need to replace a broken window as soon as possible, in order to prevent the harsh light of those realities of hard times into a  life.

And to prevent the accumulation of litter and more broken windows which always follow the breaking of just one window.

And that means, that the work must start very early in life. 

All this to say, the majority of Streetpuppies are probably way past the age of being 'fixed.'

All of the social agencies, agencies, officials and politicians and do-gooders need to shift their efforts
to preventing broken windows, not fixing them.

And that's not going to happen.

Thus, every Streetpuppy has to look at his/her own broken windows, which have probably accumalated a lot of accompanying litter -such as broken bottles, smashed beer cans, crack pipes, and pill bottles -and replace those windows.

Replace those windows which resulted in a damaged soul reeling from the on set of all of the harsh realities of hard times, with faith and courage and hard work. 

What a task, you say.

And it certainly is.  And the sooner you get started, the better.

Start with all of the accompanying litter of the broken bottles, smashed beer cans, crack pipes and pill bottles.

It could be the beginning of the path out of Homeless Nation.

FOOD GROUPS FOR STREETPUPPIES

The USDA does not have diplomatic relations with Homeless Nation.

We mean to take that up with our own diplomatic relations office.  As soon as they get out of jail for trespassing on your porch.

In the meantime,  seeing as how we cannot communicate with the USDA, and bowing to increasing pressure from hospital ER's, free clinics, the local 7-11  owner who has far too much merchandise swiped from his counters by Streetpuppies, and people just tired of looking at their local panhandler who is usually emaciated, we have put our heads together to come up with dietary guidelines for Streetpuppies so that we can all eat better, feel better, look better, and stop swiping food from the local 7-11.

Now, at the top of the food group list, we are going to include all of the things one finds on the USDA pyramid (see above) and lump it into one group.

DUMPSTER DIVING.    Yes, you can find all of those pyramid foods in any dumpster. Especially behind restaurants, and in the alleys behind the houses of the middle and upper middle class.  However, you need to check the expiration dates.  If there is no such date on the food you find in that ratty old dumpster, just smell it.  If the aroma doesn't knock you on your butt, it's ok.  Also, watch out for anything that is green, and make sure that it is naturally green and not covered with mold. Mold is not a food group except for other molds.  Ditto for gray.

NASTY BOLOGNA SANDWICHES.  They are plentiful and easily recognizable as they all come in little brown paper bags given out at every feed and sometimes just randomly on the street from some well meaning citizen who is feeling guilty about something and goes into his kitchen to make something nice for the little homeless people.  Usually  they have little pieces of mystery cheese sticking out the sides.  Now, take that sandwich, stick it in your backpack, let it simmer a few days until the bologna curls up outside the bread. Yum.

TOBASCO SAUCE.  Take it along with you to every feed.  And slather it onto every dish you eat there.  It will enable you to swallow the stinkiest and runniest casserole there, and it is a natural germ killer so it is a great help in keeping you out of the ER with a savage case of food poisoning.  Also put it on the bologna sandwich...for the same reason.

POTATO  CHIPS AND FRITOS.  We lumped these two into one group because when your swiping them from the 7-11, you're usually moving so fast it is hard to distinguish between the two gaily colored packages.  Chips will hold you over until the next nasty bologna sandwich.  In fact, save some of them until you eat that next  nasty sandwich, and put them on top of the bologna and cheese and and tobasco. 

BEER.  Oh, come on now. Surely you have heard all of the rumors of people panhandling for beer.  They're true, and for good reason.  First, the beer takes the pressure of feeling lost and alone and hungry right away, and replaces those feelings with a warm buzz which spreads all through your body and makes you think you are king of the world, and what the hell about your phone being turned off, and losing your shoes last night, and having a a savage case of savage food poisoning,and all that, who cares...you have...BEER!

ASPIRIN.  You're gong to need it to take care of that headache you got from all that beer last night.

However, given your current diet, you will probably have developed an ulcer, and aspirin is a no no for an ulcer, so you're out of luck, unless you don't mind if your stomach is being eaten away.

On second thought, maybe that's a good idea.  No stomach.  No food groups required.  No problem.

Bon Appetit!

BLENDING IN

You wanted to stand out at your college graduation.  You wanted to be a visual marvel at your wedding.  Or mirage, whatever the case may be with your current marital situation after that marvelous appearance. 

And you needed to stand out when you were scurrying your way up the ladder of promotions at whatever job you got kicked out of before you landed here in Homeless Nation.

Two places you don't want to stand out in.  A police line-up and Homeless Nation.

 In a police line-up, you want to disappear, but  In Homeless Nation, you  not only do not want to stand out,  You want to blend in.

You'll blend well  enough in the Nation because while you are around a few hundred other people who are in the same neighborhood where it would be difficult to distinguish from sight, smell or feel one street puppy from the other. 

That is, unless, you have a street puppy who is actually lying down on the street, which is a common sight in many street puppy neighborhoods, commonly known as puppy hoods...or poopie hoods if there is a nearby bar or convenience which sells beers by the can.

Now, Street Puppy is going to help you to fix yourself up so that, in the event you want to venture out of the hood for a quick two-dollar cup of coffee, or a real hot dog, or an actual drink in a bar which serves booze by the glass, or just to see what it feels like to be out in the real world where people do not case every house they walk by to figure out if there is sleeping room in the back garden or under the porch.

First of all.  Lose the ski cap. 

It's a dead give-away especially if it is the middle of June and everybody around you is sweltering, and the minute a civilian sees a ski cap, they think...burglar, car-jacker, homeless creep who will pick my pocket.

Second.  Ditto the hoody.  Maybe we should have put that first because Street Puppy has actually seen grown women...and men...yelp and run the other way when they see anybody approaching them who is wearing a hoody. 

The bearer of the hoody could be two years old and in a stroller, or eighty and on a walker, doesn't matter, the public has been conditioned to equate a hoody with bad people, bad karma, bad mojo and usually a knock on the head to get your attention long enough to know the wearer of the hoody is serious about giving up that wallet of yours.

Third.  The back pack.  If you haven't learned by now that back packs scream for attention on the back of anybody other than a college student or an eagle scout, then you have no understanding at all of the wardrobe protocol as it relates to how much you can tote on your body without falling on your face.

And damm near every Street Puppy wears one of those things and they are usually dirty and stinky and falling apart.  Find a nice bush to stow it in and fill up your pockets with only the essentials for a few hours while you make your trek out of the Nation.

Make sure that you wear pants that actually fit, same with shoes, and even if you have to wash it in the sink at Walgreens make sure the shirt is clean.

Wash your hair and fingernails, and your face.  Vigorously.  A good scrub gives a rosy glow which will last long enough that people may think you have spent the afternoon sunning yourself at the top floor pool in your condo building.

Throw a sweater around a neck and let the arms dangle a bit, preferably a cashmere number from the heap at the church give away. 

That alone will give you enough of a preppy appearance, maybe even Euro-trash look so that you can safely meander around any neighborhood or even a mall where the price of a shirt in any store starts at 200 bucks.

The only accessory you should wear or carry is a belt.  Preferably to wear not to carry. 

What we are trying to say here is don't even think about toting a cane you use to help you along with that limp you developed after the third fall down running from the po po, or that fight at the feed.

Something about a cane makes people nervous, and maybe nervous enough for them to take a second look, just long enough to discern that you are indeed an interloper, and Gawd forbid...maybe one of those homeless freaks.

Last, but not least.  Trim the nose hairs.  People who live in homes have appliances to take care of those things.  You don't, and we don't want you to blow the whole picture here by continually reaching up your nostril to pick out one of those things.

These are simple things, but easy to do, and if you master the art of blending in well enough, who knows, one day you may even fool yourself so much into thinking that you are blending in to the real world that you will just walk right out and keep on going.

Leave the ski cap and the hoody behind.

ENTITLEMENTS R US

One thing good about being a Street Puppy is that, yes, at last, you are entitled.

And that means you are eligible to receive gifts, stipends, loans, free stuff, government money and all things which will come your way because you have no place to live, or shower, or watch TV.

In fact, you may say, from the time you hit the street with your backpack, "What's mine is mine,  and what's yours is mine."

Be careful about this gimme, buy me, take me stuff, you may end up, like so many Street Puppies do, getting so used to being on the receiving line of a lot of entitlements that you grow to be very comfortable with just sitting around and letting the world decide your fate for the price of a two-dollar used shirt, and some funky food and a whole lot of small bottles filled with shampoo or body lotion.

Or the pitiful sum that you would receive by selling your food stamps (which is actually a card) for half of the value in order to buy beer, potato chips, a pint of vodka, and/or one of those illegal substances from a Mr. Jit, which will keep you so stoned, that all you can do until you receive the next food stamp deposit is lurch from one free 'feed' to another, and visit all of those free giveaway clothing and hygiene items to replenish your own supply each time you fall asleep on a corner you are so polluted and somebody takes all of your 'stuff.'

It happens.  Frequently.

Then there's the big Kahuna of entitlement, the disability check.  The once a month bonus for whatever it is that ails you to the point that you cannot work.

Streetpuppy has seen many another Streetpuppy lie and con and cheat their way into subsidy heaven, and all for the huge profit of $700 or so bucks a month, give or take a quarter.

Now, that may seem like a lot of money, and to a frugal and fiscally conservative person it would be.  That amount, along with the food stamp money would be enough to enable you to live, if not comfortably, at least not hungry and/or cold and with proper protection against the outdoor weather even if you cannot afford a home.

Alas.  Many Streetpuppys who get that combo of disability check and food stamp money...and darn...don't you know it would all come on the same day in most cases, run off to the nearest motel for the instant gratification of spending one whole week in a crappy room crawling with bed bugs, and run the TV day and night, not hearing it all because they are so whacked out on the 18 packs of Nasty Ice beer and pints of vodka they drag into the room day after day from the convenience store next door which is the only store they can stagger to when the supply of booze runs out.

Usually a quantity of drugs is involved in this hiatus from the street, too so by the time a week has passed, you are not only exhausted from all that walking to the store for the 18 pack, you're still stoned and hung over. 

And broke.

So, it's back to the 'feeds.'  The free clothing giveaways.  The mooching cigarettes and quarters from everybody you know, and a whole lot of strangers who are so put off by your appearance ---you probably forgot to shave that whole week in the motel -- they only give you the quarter so you will take your smelly self away from them.

And back to, maybe stealing a few things along the way to keep that beer and vodka and cigarette and drug money rolling in until the next check and food stamps.

Things like other people's money and belongings.

One of the more frustrating things about Homeless Nation is the utter lack of respect many Streetpuppies show to their fellow puppies.

These particular Streetpuppies will smile into your face then rip off everything you have...usually when you are sleeping. 

Basically, they would give you the shirt off your own back.  And do, regularly.

You're not a mongrel.  You're a Streetpuppy.  Act like one. 

Take that next check and food stamp card and actually use it to buy decent clothing, save to rent a modest room somewhere, and buy something good to eat, like fresh fruit and vegetables.

Do this because you are not entitled to lie and cheat and steal in order to survive.

You are entitled to use the system in order to help you, not hold on to you forever.

Learn to be on the street, but not of the street.

NIGHT

You dread it.  You long for it. 

When it arrives, whether it falls softly, drifting along soon after the golden hour, or swiftly, wrapped in a sudden burst of wind and rain, you welcome it and give yourself up to it for the few short hours you can embrace the cover and the silence of the night.

With the night, comes sleep, however fitful.  And for any street puppy, the sleep is the healer, the balm, the respite from the day's cares and worries and wounds and aches both physical and psychic.

Now, the key word here is sleep.  And you need it.  You've been walking - sometimes running - about all the day, and you probably don't have enough nutrition to keep the nagging body working right, so sleep should fill that gap, that need to regenerate.

Where you are sleeping is not important, and if you're like most street puppies, your boudoir, or what passes for it will change regularly, if not frequently, as it should, especially if you are sleeping sans companion(s).

Keep your head about you, and remember to do that, change your sleeping spot regularly.  Vary your route  and travel hour to and fro, and do not tell anybody where you are located.  And that means even your best friend in Homeless Nation. 

Word gets around, and somebody out there -friend or foe - will get the idea in their head that night is the best time for them to replenish their own supplies, under cover of the darkness, and using the stealth they have acquired to take the  very shoes and socks from somebody's feet without making a sound, or even a motion. 

Shoes and socks and other things, including your life.

Which is why a street puppy's sleep is fitful.  You won't get a full night of it, unless you had too much tequila and pass out.  On the average, a street puppy's sleeping time comes in blocks of an hour or so of what can only be described as 'sleeping with one eye open.'  And both ears tuned to the slightest movement anywhere around you.

You will develop both of these  abilities quickly.  If you don't, you may just as well fall out under the brightest street light available and post a sign reading, "Hey!  I'm really stupid, take all of my stuff, then beat me up."

Take careful note of some things which will be a pain in the butt, and probably disrupt an entire night.

Sprinklers.  Ant hills.  Bull frogs that leap about on your face.  Ant hills.  Thorns embedded in otherwise benign looking bushes.  People who are way too friendly and would like to walk with you on your journey to the spot.

Pack a flashlight, preferably one of those nifty small thingys.  You'll need it to tell time, and to find that cigarette lighter you keep dropping onto the ground.

Don't advertise your presence.  No music, and don't even think about plugging earphones into your ears, you need to be able to hear anything -repeat that- anything that moves about around you.

Be respectful.  Wherever you are bedded is probably somebody's private property and if you're smart..and respectful, you will want to make it seem as though you weren't even there. Thus, no wrappers, napkins, pop top cans, or evidence of making potty.  Ahem.

And be an early riser.  The police usually drop by, if they're going to drop by just before dawn, because they want to catch you sleeping so that you can't say, "Officer, I'm just down here looking for my dad's wristwatch, he gave it to me just before he died."

Get used to rising before the sun, collecting your few belongings you have brought with you, which should be at the most, a very modest sleeping bag or a couple of light blankets, don't be a pit about it and making up a bed which would make Martha Stewart proud, you'll only be conspicuous and you won't be able to pick up and run real fast with all of that Martha stuff hanging around your ankles.

Eventually, you'll get the hang of it.  And soon you'll be able to survive with just a few hours of light snoozing and a few cat naps during the day. 

And don't mind the bull frogs, when they land on your face, they're just on their way to somewhere else.

Probably their own place to spend the night.

RE - ENTRY FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

It was the last time at the rodeo.

It is a fait accompli.

Ring the bell.  Close the book.  Extinguish the candle.

It's a wrap.  Strike the set.

Oh, the many ways can one describe the ending of an era, and  re-entry into a life interrupted.

How about likening the re-entry to the story of the Apollo 13 mission?

You remember the Tom Hanks version.  There they were, three astronauts in space, just minding their own business, which was a trip to the moon, in a vehicle that looked like an inverted pyramid with a riding mower thing trailing along behind.

And....and....BANG!  "Houston, we have a problem."

And then the hearts pounding part, and the breathless part, and the scrambling part and the throwing all the  things on the table and Gene, the mission control guy says, "This is what we got to get these guys back."

And the things they had were the entire contents of everybody's lunch bags.

Or something like that.

Anyway, there they were,  the three astronauts just minding their own business, and the guys at mission control cleaning their finger nails. All of a sudden things changed and everybody on the Earth knew their  business, and the guys at mission control were biting their fingernails, and  knowing there was no way back. 

And the guys on the spacecraft which somebody had thoughtfully named Apollo 13 for heaven's sake were all alone up there and they were running out of oxygen, and then they went to the dark side of the moon.

And for a while, nobody knew if they were still in the inverted pyramid thing, or stuck sitting on the riding mower, thing or splat, somewhere on that big ole' orb which looks an awful lot like a big moldy cheeseball.

Then, they emerged from the dark side of the moon, and then they flew back with the help of all those fingernail-less guys at mission control who had figured out, with the help of the contents of their lunch bags, how to get them to within a mile of New York City in time for that big confetti parade.

Exciting stuff if you were watching the movie. 

Pure hell if you were living it. 

And this, this Homeless Nation thing hasn't been any picnic either.

But , like Apollo 13, and that Lost in Space story, it has been an adventure, lived either minute by minute, or week by week, with that heart pounding, that fingernail biting, that sitting on the edge kind of adrenaline pump wondering if the things you have in your lunch bag will be enough to bring you back home

Or will that trip around the dark side of the moon -or into Homeless Nation - be the sling shot force that will send you spinning out of control into space for all eternity....or until the oxygen runs out.

Kind of a Zen thing. To be on the street, but not of the street.  

Chop wood.  Carry water as the Buddah said.

There are so many memories it is impossible to remember them.  (My turn to emulate Yogi Berra)

There are so many people it is hard to remember them.  Except for the great ones.  And I do.

There are so many secrets that will never be told about the dark side of the moon.

So many lessons, and revelations and and heart aches and laughs and wonderment and angst and grief and puzzlement all wrapped up in one  orb like big old moldy cheeseball thing.

So, let's keep this brief.  Before I get all teary eyed and my makeup drips down my nose.

Always remember, the past is not always  prolog.

And the number one lesson Streetpuppy will take away from Homeless Nation: 

There's no such thing as a free haircut.

                                                                        -30-

STRONG AT THE BROKEN PLACES

The world breaks everyone.
And afterward, some are strong
at the broken places.
              Earnest Hemingway, "For Whom The Bell Tolls"


Perhaps you believe that life in Homeless Nation does not make a change in the phyche of a Streetpuppy.

And if you believe that, then you have not lived here, and are only reading this because you are interested in how Streetpuppies really do live, or you downloaded the wrong column onto your Amazon kindle. or you googled 'puppy' because it is time to give your two year old  kid something to do that will build character.

Or you may believe that living in Homeless Nation , and navigating all of the perils and ill will and savagry and heartache here will build one's character.

Au contraire. Living in Homeless Nation will reveal  one's character. But nothing that happens to a Street Puppy in Homeless Nation will help to build their character. 

One's character is pretty much wired in by the time one has navigated the other heartaches and perils in life, like getting through the first broken romance, without chewing off your own eyebrows, or deciding what you really want to do with your life that your parents don't want you to do, and then doing it, come hell or high water, or wasting a lot of money on some foolish piece of automobile, then realizing you really don't care for the kind of women who are primarily interested in your car, and then doing something about it, like  selling the spicy money trap and buying a beater and saying,'to hell with it, it's just a car.'

Those life trials, and others like them build character, and by the time you've hit Homeless Nation, you are probably old enough to have had the rite of passage through just about every seemingly earth shaking event that stands in your way to Nirvana.

And how one handles the truly life shaking events which will occur in your time in Homeless Nation will not only reveal your character to yourself and to others, but will determine how you come out at the other end of the journey.

So, let's say you have built up some character in your life account.

You had a master plan and it seemed to be working before you got here, and now the whole world fell onto your head, and a lot of things in your life are broken.

You will be tempted to succumb to the most devious and harmful and spiteful ways to navigate through the Nation, they will, be the seemingly easiest and fastest way out of it. 

And you will observe that so many of the residents of Homeless Nation use those devious and harmful and spiteful ways to navigate through the Nation, and then you will notice that those ways don't seem to be getting them out of it.

So you don/t go that route.

You stick it out, and you are honest and you avoid the drug and alcohol trap and you don't steal even if your life seems to depend upon it.  And you don't hurt anybody for the sake of building your own ego. Or betray the few real friends you may make here.

But.

You have been damaged.  No doubt about it, the experience of Homeless Nation will bruise your very soul.

You have been broken, and eventually, the bone of life will grow over that wound and whatever part of you that broke under the sometimes unbearable pressures here, will stand up to future assaults in the same place.

No, you will never be the same person.

You will be the person who has learned that nothing in life is certain, including life itself.

And that knowledge alone will make each and every day after the experience in Homeless Nation priceless, and worth the price of the ticket you punched to get here.

And who ever told you that giving a two-year old a puppy would help to build his or her character???

DATING FOR STREETPUPPIES

This is not about hookups, friends with benefits, or the occasional one night of ecstacy behind a dumpster.

This is about straight out dating.  For Streetpuppies.

You may not remember much about dating, and what you do remember will depend upon your age, and the era you lived in when you first started to feel that ping in the area of your heart where the love lever is located, and started to look at some guy or gal, and think to yourself....hmmmmmm.

Or maybe you looked at some guy or gal and thought..."Hey, what a coooool  car, I want me some of that." Or, "Hey, what a coooooool set of pins on that babe, and you know, same thing.

In fact, what with the advent of singles bars, then dating services, then the internet, then internet dating services for people who were too busy with their blackberries and iPods to take care of the love lever thing, actual dating protocol has morphed into something unrecognizable to a guy with a coooooool car, or a babe with a coooooolll set of pins.

And if you're living in Homeless Nation, well dating has probably morphed into the hook up, and one night of ecstacy behind a dumpster thing.

But Street puppies need real companionship and affection, and they get pings in the heart, too.

And the whole ritual of dolling up just to spend a few hours with somebody you will probably sit across from at a table filled with food and tell lies to each other for a couple of hours, though abhorent on the face of it, is probably worth the time just to take your mind off  tomorrow's struggle with the food stamp agency.

Now, there are some barriers to actually dating, here in Homeless Nation.

First, we don't have singles bars, unless you count the corner outside the convenience store where they sell the nasty four-packs. 

And there is no dating service on the planet, i.e. Match.com or e-harmony, and the like who would let a Street Puppy past the first line on the application.,  or making that awful video you have to make so somebody can look at it and wonder if you are the one.

The internet dating services present another set of problems, first you have to have more access to a computer than the couple of hours a day you are usually granted at the public library, and you don't want to cut into your Japanese animation watching time.

Then, the internet is clogged with perverts, con men -and women - and Fabio and Angelina wannabes who will e-mail a photo to you which has been airbrushed with a staple gun and a whole bunch of lies about their jobs and incomes and even their names. 

Which brings us back to the actual dating scene where you sit down from each other across a table for a few hours, as a curtain raiser on a situation which could blossom into a wedding on the beach at Maui.

Now, the first thing, is choosing the person you really want to spend some time with, both before and after the table thing.

Not many Street puppies are actually presentable enough -what with all of the tattoos and rings through the nose and stuff - to actually set off a vibe which says, "Hey, let's us two go off together and talk and laugh and spend time together," instead of "Whooooaaaa.....let's boogie 'til we puke!"

But, hey, the people with the tats and rings and stuff need companionship, too, just not your companionship.

Now, in order to get a date,  you have to find somebody first, and if you look around the bus stop, or the park you hang in, you'll  probably find somebody as lonely and as loving and as lost as you are.

Now,  you  have to ask that person something, like...'Hey...you wanna go out sometime?"

That will do for now, because if you said "I was wondering if you would like to dine with me on Saturday Night?" they would probably flee.

Now, after the guy/gal says, "Hey, yeah, let's go out," this is where the going gets tough. And the tough get going.

Set a time. And a Day.  Nobody in Homeless Nation lives their life according to the Blackberry.

Ask what kind of food she/he likes, and hope it is not French.

Actually, hope it's something at a local feed, because you don't have the dough to go to the movies or a concert or dinner, and she/he probably understands that, unless they are a total gold digger and thought you were good for a Wendy's burger, a bus pass and a couple packs of little cigars.

Now, arrange for a pick up time.

That's right, pick her/him up at a designated site, preferably near the feed you have both decided will be a good idea, and within walking distance, because you don't even want to get into the transportation problem of providing two bus passes.

When you pick up your date, make sure you are showered or cat-bathed, clean clothes, and smell nice.

Make sure the pick up time is oh, about an hour before the feed starts.

Now, you have to make the decision, do you stop at the convenience store and get two cold beers and sit around under a tree someplace and drink and talk and get to know each other...or do you get in line as soon as possible at the feed so you won't end up having to fight off the inevitable bully who will cut the line.

Do the beer thing.  Maybe a few beers.  You will both probably need to relax a bit, because neither of you have done this in a long time instead of just hanging out.

Ok, dinner is over.  And it wasn't that bad, five or six casseroles and old bagels and fruit cups with peaches and syrup. 

Now, the inevitable awkward question on even a first date. Your place or mine?

Neither of you have a home.  Even more awkward.

You're going to have to drop her/him off at their spot, or part company  at the best neutral place, like the bus stop, or the park.

And then say, "I'll call you."

Perfect. 

You've just had your first real date in a long time.

Next week, you can have another date, and not necessarily with the same person, and on and on, and pretty soon, you will be looking forward to Saturday nights again, just like you did back in the day.

Saturday night, when you can spend time with another person who set off that ping in your heart.

Who knows, one of those Saturday nights may even wind up on the road ahead on a beach in Maui, with candlelight and the whole disaster.

SLINGER

Slinger is flush today.

He's got three quarters he just talked out of a passenger who was rushing across the bus terminal which serves as his home office.

He asked her for "57 cent."

That's Street puppy speak for "I'm going to ask you for an odd amount because you won't take the time to count it out, and you probably have quarters in hand anyway for change for the pop machine, and I won't ask for a whole dollar because that would sound like I'm extravagant with your money, which, when you see the smile on my baby face and my gentle voice, you will part with because it's hard to turn down somebody who says to you, "Please, ma'am', do ya have 57 cent for me to get something to eat, I'm real hungry."

With those three quarters he now has enough money to buy a pack of cigars both for his day's supply of smokes, and to sell for a quarter apiece, and that revenue, turned over several times as he acquires enough quarters to buy more cigars will feed the beast of his 3-pack a day habit he has had since he became homeless twelve years ago.

The rest of the quarters and dimes and nickels he will needle from bus passengers, neighborhood passers by and acquantances will be spent mostly on his crack head girlfriend who will sleep all day at their "spot" a couple of blocks away under a highway underpass, and then will rise mid-day and stumble down the short path to the bus station and demand her usual egg sandwich lunch, a soda, cigarettes and enough dough to buy a couple of vicodin to keep her nerves straight until she can score more rock tonight.

And at some later time in the day, which neither of them will know, she will make the excuse that she is going to the john, or to the corner for a paper, or across the street for a soda and then disappear, for hours, or days at a time, and spend all of  Slinger's money on her rock of crack.

All of the money for all of that will  have come from Slinger's day long entreaties for the loose and/or small change his 'customers' , these strangers,  give him as he snares them on their way through the bus terminal.

Slinger doesn't travel far during the day's trawling.  He doesn't fly a sign, or sell papers on the street.  He sticks to the area he knows best, the bus terminal, his "office,"  and the people who will give up their change.

People he can spot fifty yards off he knows he can hustle, sometimes just by the way they are staring at the ground, or straight ahead, or right at him. 

And he's no fool.  He knows he has to give something in return, so he has become a walking font of information regarding directions...so long as the information you want extends to a couple of square miles around the bus station.

That and the free newspaper he snaps up from boxes within the two square miles around the bus station, then piles next to him and hands them out to customers...many of who, for years, have thought the paper costs a quarter.

But, hes an honest man.  He wouldn't steal -except for the free papers - he's not an alcoholic, or a drug addict.  Once a year, on his birthday, he goes to a Karoke bar way up on Nebraska Avenue and sings songs in his beautiful and soft voice and drinks three beers.

And when his crack head girlfriend disappears for hours or days on end, he misses her, cries for her, and is always happy to see her return. 

You know this, because you can see the light in his eyes, and the tender smile that spreads across his face when he first sees her step off the bus upon her return.  No matter what shape she's in.

Slinger's life wasn't always this way.

He lived up North.  He had a family...parents, and siblings all part of a middle-class life he cherished and never thought would change.

He married.  A woman he loved so much he tried to commit suicide when she died suddenly on their 14th wedding anniversary of a disease neither of them even knew she had.

He loved her so much because she was a woman so worthy of love.  She was loved so much that the father of one of her students at a tony private school where she was a teacher, a father who was a famous movie star paid thousands and thousands of dollars for her funeral and a huge party afterward.

After the funeral, the party, and the suicide attempt, Slinger just simply closed the door to their home and walked away and never looked back.

He ended up in a deep Southern state, as far away as you can get away from Upstate New York. and survived on odd jobs and dishwashing gigs he could do even on days when he was terribly hung over or just plain blind drunk.

He ran out of odd jobs a long time ago, and settled for life at the bus terminal, where he knows everybody, and everybody knows him, and he gets all of their change and knows how to give them all directions to anyplace they need or want to go.

Anyplace that is, within a two mile radius of the seat he perches on at the bus stop.

Slinger has made a home in Homeless Nation, right there at the bus stop.  His bus stop.  Slinger's bus stop.

Slinger made a couple of attempts to leave his corner of Homeless Nation.

He scrabbled together enough money to buy a bus ticket to Texas to live with a woman he had met on the internet on a computer at the library.

He ended up walking most of  the way back from the little backwater Texas town  after two weeks with the woman in her little house in the middle of nowhere with her six dogs and five cats and a drinking problem and bottles and bottles of meds for the bi-polar affliction.

On the  1,600 mile way back,  to the bus stop, he slept where he dropped from exhaustion each night.  He woke up one morning in the middle of a bear habitat

The next time he walked all the way to another town a couple of  hundred miles away for the promise of a job that didn't work out.  On the walk back from that adventure, he lost his shirt and ended up with the worst sunburn he had ever had in his life.

He doesn't take trips anymore.

Time has no little  meaning to him now, except for one day at a time, and enough of that time to gather enough quarters to take care of the crack head girlfriend he loves with all his heart.

And, someday, he will die here, within a couple of square miles of a bus stop where he knows everybody and everybody knows him.

But for now, he will scramble around every morning and snatch the free papers, and hustle for the quarters from his customers and other strangers, and wait for his crack head girl friend to step off a bus so he can love her with all of his heart.....no matter what shape she is in.