Thought For the Day, November 17, 1999

Subject: Thought For the Day, November 17, 1999
From: Allan C.
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 09:11 AM

Since Peter T. has headed south, I thought I would take a stab at this for today.

In one place I lived, there was a shabbily dressed man whom I always saw with his fingers in his ears. I was never able to figure out why he did it. So I invented a story by which I made sense of him. This was one of the first stories I have invented for myself about people I often see but have never met.

There was a woman I used to see on the beach in Rio de Janeiro. She was blond and beautiful. She wore a leopard-skin patterned bikini and arrived at the beach at the same time every day. She would plant her umbrella in the sand, lay out her towel and then spend a few hours just reading a book as she lay there. I was fourteen. It was like the opening scenes of the movie, "Summer of '42". Years later, when "The Girl from Ipanema" was released, I decided that it just HAD to be about her. Yes, the name of the beach was "Ipanema". The story line of the song was my story.

Then there was a guy in West Virginia that everyone knew as "Bang-bang Thompson". Nobody knew exactly where he lived. But at least once a week he would appear in town and would be carrying a cardboard box upon which he would drum (or as a friend of mine used to call it: "thubber") - thus the name, "Bang-bang". He would go to various businesses in town and the shopkeepers would usually slip things into his box: a pair of socks, a banana, a comic book and other small items. Nobody knew much about him. So I made up a little story about him for myself so that I could make sense of him.

"There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy." - Mark Twain

Subject: RE: Thought For the Day, November 17, 1999
From: Vixen
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 09:35 AM

Very Nice, Allan--

This tftd matches what I'm working on right now, what I'm calling a discovery lifeline, or a timeline of my life, and one of my family heading back into past generations. I'm "writing the story" that "makes sense" of the people I've been, the places I've seen. I suspect the "sense" of the "story" will change over time...it has already several times, I know.

There are street people here for whom I have made up stories. They appear as characters in my fiction, though not as street people!

V

Subject: RE: Thought For the Day, November 17, 1999
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 10:16 AM

Interesting, Allan. Thank you for sharing. When we lived in Northampton the feds or someone had just ordered all of the mentally ill people released from the state hospital. A lot of them used ot hang out on the streets there. One had a special coner by a bank. We called him Radio Man becaseu he always had a little transistor radio up against his ear. He would smile, walk back and forth, wave and yell hello at all of the cars. In the summertime, he took off his shirt and got a good tan. I ehard after we moved, that when he died, the corner was filled with flowers in remembrance. He'd really become a beloved fixture of the town.

Subject: RE: Thought For the Day, November 17, 1999
From: sophocleese
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 11:06 AM

By the Hamilton Farmer's Market is section of building with wonderful resounding acoustics. Most Saturdays we could hear a man who seemed to have been born with Down's syndrome walking back and forth singing to his echoes. He always looked content and cheerful as he sang, some people would smile at his enjoyment and others would grimace at the unorthodox music he made. We've moved away from there but I do wonder how he is doing.

Subject: RE: Thought For the Day, November 17, 1999
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 03:50 PM

Thanks Allan, I enjoyed your stories.

Reminds me of a shabby looking fellow I would see below my balcony every morning at the crack of dawn walking around, both arms weighted down with old grocery bags full of stuff. I called him the bag man. Couldn't quite figure him out. He seemed to wander about aimlessly placing pieces of bread around the trees, on the side walk and in some gardens. Then he would wander about aimlessly for an hour and then collect the bread and stuff it back in his bags. I watched this more months, and thought it quite odd.
One day I called out to him, "What are you doing down there?" He looked up at me, smiled and proceeded to give me an hour long lecture on squirrel behavior. He was a professor at the University of Toronto studing Squirrel migration patterns.
Want to know anything about squirrels? Ask me.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Thought For the Day, November 17, 1999
From: Jeri
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 04:43 PM

In the small town where I grew up, we had a town drunk. We all called him Homer, but that wasn't his real name. I remember asking my parents about him, because the other kids made fun of him when he walked past the bus stop quoting Shakespeare and Poe. My parents said he was once well respected and but lost it after his wife died. He did odd jobs for money, sometimes at our house. He was a hard worker, and never drank when he was doing a job. He scared me once when he knocked at the door when I was the only one home and preparing to leave for school. All he wanted was a cup of coffee with a couple of raw eggs in it, which he got. I think I was frightened mostly because I couldn't understand the way he acted. He always treated people with kindness and other than himself, he wouldn't have hurt a fly.

He eventually went into a nursing home. Around the same time, the head of the English Department in our school became disabled with degenerative arthritis. He was extremely depressed and shut himself off from the world. Homer used to "escape" from the nursing home and go visit him - he was the only person outside of his family who's presence the teacher would tolerate.

Subject: RE: Thought For the Day, November 17, 1999
From: flattop
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 06:01 PM

When I worked at Ryerson, a fellow who worked in the mailroom said to me one day, 'You know that Glenn Gould fellow... I used to beat him up on the way to school.'