I was on my regular Sunday route, driving around looking for our homeless friends. As I drove by a local church - a humongously overly dressed church – I noticed a few ‘overly dressed’ folks standing on the corner. In all my winter travels, I only see two kinds of people dressed in up-teen layers of mismatched garments; ice fishermen and the homeless.

Yeah, the sun was shining this afternoon, but it was still dangerously cold. If you stood in the sun and out of the wind, you could feel the peculiar warmth of the sun on your cheeks; a deceiving heat, when exposed flesh was actually freezing, not warming up. Our friends on the corner were dressed, so, warm-looking.

I parked my van at the curb near the base of statue Father ‘Something-or-Other’. I park at the base of the statue, so when I’m told I can’t park there anymore, I’ll kneel and point up and say I’m just waiting for the blessing of the statue that sheds tears of blood. Hey, it could happen! And it would happen, if that saintly block of stone ever got a live glimpse of our homeless friends – our friends that began piling out of the basement of the church before I could shut off my van.

I keep telling our friends that I don’t like to stop at the church steps to feed them. I don’t like attracting attention because I get too many questions about what I’m doing, and it’s too hard to explain unconditional love to some people. I sternly remind our friends that I stop only two blocks away near a bridge where many of them spend the night. I vow that I’ll not be stopping at the church steps again anytime in the near future! (Then, I’ll stop there later in the week because I won’t just drive by when I see someone in need.)

As our friends stood in line for sandwiches and pop, I noticed Robin among the group. Robin staggered when he approached the van. He grabbed at others as he cut to the front of the line. He blurted out a drunken slur of apologies and excuses, for God only knows what? I reached out and grabbed at his arm as he leaned into me.

Robin’s blistered hand was swollen and stiff; his skin was hard and cracked, like a frozen old boot. I rubbed his hand in mine and asked if he had any gloves.

“I’ve gone and lost ‘em!” he said with a nervous laugh.

I gave Robin my last pair of cotton jersey gloves. If you don’t know ‘cotton jersey gloves’, then you must pay more than a buck a pair for your gloves. Jersey gloves are the easiest and cheapest gloves to buy, and I go through every pair of jersey gloves I can get. (Our homeless friends keep loosing their gloves!)

Some people don’t think we should pass out gloves to the homeless “if they’re just going to loose them anyway!” Some people think we should wait for a gloveless man to sober up, to become more responsible – part of a program? - before we give him a pair of gloves. Some people would drive right by a gloveless homeless man and let him freeze his hands rather than give him a pair of one dollar gloves. (Serves him right, eh?)

We could give a friend like Robin a pair of gloves everyday for a year, and every day, Robin could loose his gloves and it would still only cost $365.00 a year. Plus, with gloves, Robin might never freeze his hands like Tony Macaroni did. Tony Macaroni froze his fingers off one winter, and loosing his fingers killed him. Tony became so despondent when he couldn’t roll himself a cigarette that his life just didn’t seem worth living anymore. He told everybody he wanted to die one afternoon, and the next morning, he just didn’t wake up.

TonyMac '99

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So, it’s dark now. And it’s so cold. But, I’m home, and I’m warm.

And I’m thinking about my homeless friends who have to crawl into a frozen bedroll to go to sleep tonight.

I wonder how long it takes to warm up and fall asleep in a heap of frozen rags. I’ll bet it doesn’t take as long if you’re drunk enough to pass out and don't care if you ever do wake up again, because you really don’t have anything to wake up for, and nobody to wake up to.

Update on Willie …

Today, I went down to the vacant alley and found the abandoned trailer where I had left Willie and our propane stove. I scouted around the freshly fallen snow and didn’t see any tracks leading in or out of the trailer. The stove and the propane tank were still there: the paint on the stove, burnt to a crisp; the tank, empty. But no WeeWillie.

When I saw Willie last, I helped him get a new pair of winter boots. I don’t know why he wanted new boots, he can’t hardly walk anyway.

I have no idea what’s happened to Willie. Maybe he’s not homeless anymore!

Kelly