The Homeless in the Morning

Sweating it out for the date to change, and my prescription to become active, it is only luck that I did not drive the 30 miles last night after midnight to my 24 hour Rite Aid, as I would have found it closed. Yes, they changed the hours of the pharmacy from 24 hours to 10 AM to 6 PM but neglected to change the hours on the Internet.  “What's that you say? InterWhat? Dont blame us, we dont know what you talkin bout. We's simple country folk.“

So I get up at 6 AM after having been awake all night scratchin something fierce at the annual no-see-ums or whatever they are out here in Rancho Rincon del Diablo (the Devils Place) and go to my other local pharmacy but they don't open until 10 AM either.  

But all is not wasted.

I got to watch some of the homeless of my local community gather in the morning. There was the guy collecting recyclables at the Von's. There was the old guy with the bad limp who needs a haircut over by Rite Aid. There were three other guys (two with shopping carts, one with backpack) each independent of each other. Then there were the two guys with the skateboards and the coffee.... homeless? They looked it, but no shopping carts.

All of them well-behaved. All of them needing a bath and a clean set of clothes and a haircut.  No hassling people like me for spare change. No begging at all so far as I can tell.  About 50-50 white-black. None of them obviously Hispanic which is a little odd given the demographics of our community.

But all of them bad people.

Every last one.

Because in America, if you are poor, you are bad.  Thats all there is to it.  Or maybe if not bad, then lazy.  I suppose you could be both bad and lazy. Thats what I hear. Thats what they tell me. Dont want no social services, neither, to help those people because that might raise taxes.  It might encourage other homeless to come here.   And besides it would do no good because those people are bad.

They gather in the beautiful cool morning here in Escondido, CA.

Its going to be a very hot day.