Homeless In America
While I was out walking the dog this morning I came upon some homeless people. I guess in the 1930’s you would have called these people hoboes. I remember my grandmother talking about them. They would come up to the door asking to do any kind of work, just for a little food. Just decent people who are down on their luck.
At other times people like this would have been called vagrants or even bums. Maybe in these politically correct times they are supposed to be called “dwelling challenged individuals.”
Maybe these guys are drug addicts, or alcoholics, or military veterans who are all screwed up emotionally and mentally. In any city in America homeless people can be seen.
Frankly it makes me feel a little uncomfortable to see homeless people. I guess that I am a little concerned that they may be sort of crazy and might be a little dangerous or make a scene. And probably down deep I worry a little thinking that but for the good luck I have had in life, that could be me.
In the almost twenty years that I lived in Europe I never once saw a homeless person. I saw plenty of poverty, lots of tenements, and slums galore. But not one person who 
was so far down that they actually had to live on the streets.
If these people had the chance they would be sleeping in a place with a little more security from teenage punks and racists. Maybe a roof over their heads. And if they could, I have no doubt that they would prefer to have running water, a flush toilet, central heating, a refrigerator, and a stove or maybe a microwave oven.
Sleeping on the streets of El Paso, Texas is not like backpacking in the Swiss Alps or the Gila Wilderness. I have backpacked to both places. Camping out like this in an unbelievably beautiful place for a few nights is great. It is wonderful to sleep under the stars out in the wilderness. But eventually you sure get a strong urge for a shower, a real bed, and a washing machine.
In the other parts of the world America is known as a very hard land where most people are just out to get rich. A place where the average person no longer cares about people who are less well off than they are.
How sad that America has fallen so far.
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