The Homeless Man Who Swings For the Fence

In the spring and summer of 2005, I lived with Shouldice and Jimmy Gay in the old Glenmont Apartments. They since changed their name to the Fairways at Towson, supposedly it has a better ring to it, and it does to be quite honest, but I still consider it to be Glenmont. Anyways, during my time spent there, my diet was far from the healthiest. Granted, if some health freak were to analyze my diet today, he probably wouldn't be too impressed either, but that's besides the point. Come to think about it, my roommates weren't much better. Shouldice's diet consisted of the same thing my diet consisted of, Taco Bell and Cluck-U delivery and as for Jimmy Gay, well my main man went with the liquid diet. A 12 pack of Natty Boh and a few shots of Kentucky Bourbon were usually enough to keep ol' Jimmy at ease. Now, as a result of Taco Bell being an essential part of my diet, we spent a lot of timeat Taco Bell, and we noticed that there was a particular man who spent a lot of his time there also, well, at least in the parking lot. This man was well dressed and well spoken, and the first time I ever met him I developed a bit of sympathy for the guy. It was probably just past 2 A.M., and Shouldice and I were minding our own business, munching down on chalupas and quesadillas, when this man approached us. Keep in mind, that he was well dressed and well spoken. He introduced himself and told us that he coached football at Calvert Hall and his car broke down, I believe he even pointed to a car in the Salvo parking lot, and he needed to gather 26 bucks to take a cab ride home. He began to explain how he had just run out for a few errands and didn't even think to bring his ATM card, and his wife was home sick in Perry Hall. He assured the two of us that whatever money we lent him, once again dropping in the fact that he needed 26 dollars for a cab, would be refunded on Monday. Claiming there was a secretary named Ann who worked in the athletic department at Calvert Hall and he would give her an envelope with our name on it, and Monday morning we would be able to claim whatever money we had lent him. Typically, I am not one to hand out hard earned money to free loading strangers, but the two of us bought into the story and gave the man a few bucks. I think we each threw him a 5 and went on our way. I believe Shouldice may have been quite adamant about collecting the 5 dollars from Ann, the man can be a real penny pincher at times, but we soon found out that the chances of a refund were slim to none. The very next night, we once again got the urge for Taco Bell, and once again we were approached by a well spoken and well dressed stranger. He told the same story over again, word for word, except this time he pointed to a car in the Crackpot parking lot, and this time there was no pity in my heart. I did kinda get to wondering though, how many times, he has persuaded a kind and innocent stranger into "lending" him the whole 26 bucks, and also how many was the secretary at Calvert Hall approached by random strangers looking to pick up their money from the assistant football coach. I found the whole scenario to be rather amusing, especially considering the guy probably approached us another 3 or 4 times in that general vicinity, as for Shouldice, he drove off mumbling and cursing about Communists or something.

I picked up a few bucks yesterday evening driving out to Essex and I must say, Essex, really is a god awful place. I just don't know what they put in the water out there, because the people are just atrocious. I couldn't drive more than a quarter mile without passing a crew of people rocking mullets or wife beaters, and the lawns are even worse. There are above ground pools and lawn gnomes everywhere, and lawn gnomes are just flat out creepy. Push comes to shove though, I did manage to make money off picking up a working elliptical machine and may try and make some more money by selling the thing. It works well, the guy who owned it though, just never used it and got tired of the thing taking up space in his basement and that didn't really surprise me, he kinda resembled Cleveland from Family Guy, so I don't think exercise was at the top of his list when it comes to priorities. He couldn't of been any nicer though, I will give him that. So if by any chance you are looking for an elliptical machine, I'd be more than willing to unload it to a friend for a very affordable rate.

It's quite likely that I will be in attendance at the Orioles game tonight, and I hope those people who run the beer hut changed that god awful sign, but they probably didn't, and as a result I will probably curse a few times over it, and Andy will probably laugh, but that's alright, because the Stilling laugh is a legendary one. As for the Orioles, there going to send Bergie to the mound, and that is awesome, because Bergie has done a better job of resembling another former Oriole pitcher who donned the number 35 than he has done of resembling a rookie pitcher in the A.L. East.


I know I said the next blog I'd write would be about my main man Woody, but by the time I got a chance to sit down at the computer, I realized I wouldn't have quite enough time to post a decent entry, so instead I decided to shift the focus to homeless men and the town of Essex, places and people that truthfully deserve no real merit or recognition whatsoever.