"Once a 'bum' always one"

Mankini · Jun 28, 2015

I lived in a Veterans Transitional Housing house in Eureka for awhile. There we had mostly (95%) dudes in their 50s and 60s. Why so many baby boomers? They're old, frail, sick, etc. Only about 5 of us were current generation veterans. But these old dudes were kind and good people for the most part. They shared their cigs, shared helpful hints, were friendly, and enjoyed the younger guys' energy. We got GA at the county and then went to kmart and bought bikes: I installed a clown horn on mine and of course the old guys harped about ''noise'' and ''young fuckers''...but they were also entertained by our bike tricks and expeditions up and down the Humboldt coast. This demographic is not a Lumpenproletariat to be despised: most often theyre just guys who are tired and don't have any social support network.

spectacular · Jun 28, 2015

Odin said:
It's amazing how even folks in the house-less subculture generalize a whole class of people.

It's easy to think your better than someone else... makes a person feel good about they're own situation eh? I'm young... I'm a go getter... I'm never gonna be like that. Hmmm very easy way to objectify and lower the humanity of others.

I hope in your travels you don't one day find your self sick, or facing a personal catastrophe that makes you "batshit insane, smelling like piss without the will to go anywhere."

negative adjectives like this in the community are not helpful in my opinion.

I have interacted with folks flying signs... those just looking for a beer and those in bad shape here. I don't find it at all helpful to further negative stereotypes.

Sure. many people are sick, dirty and hurt. These are humans not a subspecies you need to objectify in terms that paint them as pariahs.

Every time you feel like prejudging a person as a crazy dirty bum... remember when it comes back to you when someone better off than you looks at you in disgust as a filthy traveling vagrant.

Then you might see labels are not all that useful and harmful more often than not.

being a human being comes first.

A couple years back when there was an alleyway behind a gas station still... during the summer I used to run into Sunny. old man with cataracts in his eyes and snow white beard and hair. would share beers kickdown for food and listen to his stories. soft spoken man and polite... he was supposed to get help for his vision but don't know what happened to him.

he had a stout only slightly younger lady... rambled on often just like you would describe "crazy"... but this lady often looked out for sunny when his eyesight... specially at night made it difficult to get around.

these are the people you harm when you casually label them as only crazy dirty piss smelling..

I wonder what happened to sunny...
nice guy one of the only folks that i met in real life that rode trains and talked about seasonal work and sleeping in hay in barns.

I hope he is well.

QFT

Durp · Jun 30, 2015

I'm a fucking bum, not sure how proud. I have been housed up, and can easily house up anytime I want. My mind is too chaotic to allow me to live in something with a real fondation at this point. The longest I have ever stayed in one place my whole life was with a travel trailer, but that was only for a year and a half. Me and my lady have to reamin in motion. We are learning to sail and after we finish fixing up and master our 26ft boat we are going to upgrade to a 35-39ft sailboat to raise a spawn. Her idea not mine, its funny how woman truly have control over that decision. I was hoping to build a homestead but with TPP and all that I am almost petrified at raising kids state side. Our plan is to wait it out until SHTF and then slip out into international waters and file as political refugees, sort of what our families do. My family was hoping I would be the first in 3 generations to not be a refugee, but looks like the multinationals have other plans. Plus this is all a dream anyways, Im just trying to have fun and learn to be a more at peace individual until my consicousness is able to transend dimensions while existing in spacial harmony.

RovingAnarchist · Jun 30, 2015

Sip said:
You know what @Odin, you're right. Thank you for educating me in this matter. I feel like a douche. It's funny how we travelers can forget that our stationary equivalents are humans too.

For some reason, possibly because as people we rely so heavily on made-up junk to categorize people (race, gender, etc), it's easy to forget other humans are people.

You never know why someone opted to be a homebum. I don't use that term pejoratively- it's a valid choice. I'm friends with a local homebum who sticks around the city to help look after his sister's kids. He'd rather be travelling; he's enough of a stand-up guy that he won't prioritize that until his nephews are looked after. He won't house up because he doesn't believe in it, property being theft and all that. He's a perfectly sane man who prefers sleeping under the stars.

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"Once a 'bum' always one"

Mankini

I'm a d-bag and got banned.

spectacular

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Durp

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RovingAnarchist

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