Oddly I am much more compulsive about the blog while on my mission to shake down the big city than when I was home. It's as if this activity is some mental and spiritual lifeline when everything else is so tenuous and uncertain.
Drove to the west end of Denver - Arvada, had a terrific and much needed shower at their very friendly YMCA,parked at the "Park and Ride" lot (for free) and took the express bus downtown ($3.50 one way) to avoid downtown parking.
I looked for a Daz Bog coffee shop, but went into a Starbucks instead. I needed to connect and check email. Mistake. It was a bust. No free wireless. Packed with obnoxious loud people full of themselves. Very frustrating.
I was walking down the 16th Street Mall, and met a middle age woman, well groomed and pleasant, selling papers to "help the homeless" and when she accosted me, I said "I'm homeless!" and passed her by quickly. I really felt bad - I don't usually fall for street vendors like that, but I also don't lie carelessly and contemptuously. I'm not homeless, I'm just hapless. I have a wonderful home and family waiting for me back in Whitewater USA. Why did I brush her off?
So I went farther and this feeling kept coming back. I had left bad energy with the exchange, and so much now hinges on positive. So I started wondering whether to act on that feeling and repair it. At that minute I spotted a Daz Bog with free WiFi. Before going in, I went to a machine and took out some cash, walked back to the homeless paper lady, and gave her a donation, and apologized. Things will start to look up, I'm sure. And here I am - blogging from Daz Bog.
Oh - the woman's name is Lovie, and she isn't exactly homeless either. She's praying for us.
Everything went well enough after Lovie. I spent some time at the Denver Library - they also have free WiFi. My meeting with Denver SBA advisor Tom Moore went well. He agreed with the other commercial lenders I talked to that Denver and the Front Range are deeply affected by the fallout from the "collapse" and will have a very hard time finding money for risky startups. I sensed an unreasoning fear running through our regional financial nerve center. Nevertheless, he agreed to look at the plan and offer whatever advise he could. I have nothing but praise for the SBA SCORE advisors we have encountered - if you are starting a business by all means seek them out!
I also encountered more kindnesses - I accidentally boarded the wrong bus and the driver took me several miles to my intended destination.
From Hugh: Yep, I hitchhiked all over the country in my youth and, save for an infrequent skirmish with american underclass schizotypy, eventually ended up where I thought I should go. But I don't pick up hikers anymore, most generally because I, er, crave solitude.
ReplyDeleteAnymore with hitchhikers and streetpeople in general, moreover, you just can't tell --immediately-- how innocent they really are.
For instance, there's this mendicant fixture on a certain nearby intersection, a doleful old gal in a beat up motorized wheelchair with a complexion as grey as February. She's got her cardboard beggging sign and a tin cup and many a citizen will fling her some bills out the car window. What they don't realize is Betty Pearson runs a wild party house a few blocks away. Funds she collects are converted into wine and pizza for a Bacchanalian bash. Morally, of course, this isn't any different than financiers whooping it up on taxpayer bailout bucks. Still, one questions whether such alms are with the greatest wisdom dispensed.
A recent documentary film portrayed the struggles of a regular man leaving his regular job to become homeless for a year, and ends up making more money begging than lots of people with real jobs make in a year. Strange times.
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