Army    page 3
  Shelter life, such s it is quickly fell into a routine that starts with signing in for the evening at around 4 or 5 in the afternoon.  Some days it was pretty full so there was a worry about being turned away due to lack of space. A hot shower and shave and into cleaner socks and clothes, in a short while it would be suppertime.
    There was always someone who’d washed out his underwear and would hang it on the wire fence to dry. After dinner the TV up on the wall would be turned on. Sometimes videotape would be played. I plan to not see Casino again for a long time! A good movie I grant you but it was played way to often for me! Somewhere around 11 the TV was off for the night unless some game was on that everyone wanted to see. Me I’m not a sports fan so I didn’t care. It was never actually lights out; they left a few on so it wasn’t dark in there. It took me a bit to get used to the chill. Despite the blanket, or maybe because of it being a light open weave the coolness on the floor always got through. It paid to sleep in my socks with a flannel long sleeve shirt on! Sometimes I would just look out the open door or up out the windows along where the walls met the roof and watch the Moon sail by.
    There were troubles on a few occasions. Notably was the night when one young man came in and he looked like nothing but trouble to me from the looks he was giving everyone. Best just to stay away from him I thought. His behavior was so at odds from the way he had been the two nights before that I wondered if he was stoned on meth. After diner he started a fight with someone using one of the pool cues to club someone. Needless to say he was thrown out and told not to return and he decided to break a window in the door to the street. He got to spend the night in jail for that move! As a result though the next couple of days we all had our bags searched for weapons while signing in which slowed things up. Another couple of times they found bottles of alcohol stashed away after morning clean up and while they had a good idea of who actually violated their rules and told him he was banned for a month, they opened the gates later than usual by an hour as a punishment for the group. It took me back to grammar school and some nun being upset over god knew what (I didn’t) and the perpetrator not coming forward would punish the whole class. I hated that to no end resenting the nun more than whoever had done what. That was her problem, not mine!
    Friday nights a church group would come in and cook a dinner, which was a nice gesture except for being a captive audience for the same lecture every Friday. The pastor had only one sermon I guess! Captive audiences don’t listen I can tell you. Also later I found out the only two guys who would join him in “fellowship” were picking his pocket!
    Saturday morning like Sunday there was a group that would bring a box lunch for anyone who needed it – as long as their supplies lasted. They also would have some clothing and a flyer of available services that was up to date – a rarity in my experience. Unfortunately most of it was in other counties and require a car or more money for transportation than I had. They would come to a small park across from The Spaghetti Factory, a local restaurant just east of the main library in Riverside.
    They would have a group prayer first; I would stand on the side, as this is not my belief. They would mostly have sandwiches with a bag of chips and a soda. If you will excuse the pun, a real godsend to all of us, sometimes there would be a light turn out and we would get an extra bag. I usually found someone who could use this lunch. I found lots of people in need who had no idea where to turn.

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     I intend to extend this chapter later. I will tell about what it is like to be bashed by cops and other homeless guys, robbed by each a couple of times and about some of the good people and experiences I had. Not all of it was bad, some of it was wonderful, but little was easy. Life is like that. I will tell about people I helped and who helped me. Also about being with a young couple whose daughter died from a cancerous condition while in their arms. I don’t know if that makes it any easier to lose your only child. I will tell about having my ass saved from a beating from some skinheads by some guys from the gay bar down the street one night.
    Anyway my time at the men’s shelter ran out. I was faced with trying to go to another county and try to find space in a shelter, if there is one or an opening or sleeping in the parks or wherever I could get away with it. I didn’t know yet that that wasn’t up to me!

                                                                to next chapter, Welcome Home Joe!
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