Essay 27 - 2024. Ray the Homeless Guy. Happy Fourth of July to a Homeless Guy. By: Mr. George D. Patnoe. July 4, 2024.

Essay 27 - 2024. Ray the Homeless Guy.

Happy Fourth of July to a Homeless Guy.

By: Mr. George D. Patnoe.

July 4, 2024.


“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (New International Version. Matthew 25:40)

What is the meaning of Matthew 25-40?

This is why the majority of scholars past, and present have understood Jesus to be saying in Matthew 25:40 that real Christians are revealed as such by their benevolent care for fellow Christians in need. They are known as Christ's disciples by their love for one another. (Take off the web.)

I think that Jesus would also state that to be nice and caring for other people like the homeless if the situation is correct, who are not officially Christians but might become Christians if a real Christian is very nice to them.

When I first met the homeless guy named Ray, who I was going to help, I continued to hear those phrases over and over again, in the back of my mind, as a low, slight whisper. Maybe I was being tested somehow. If yes, I hope that I will pass the test.

You have seen those people; I know you have. Those homeless people who come in all shapes, sizes, who walk the streets, live on the streets, have sex on the streets, sleep on the streets, who live and die on the streets. Who eat, piss, and shit on the streets. They have nowhere to go, nowhere else to live.

And they all feel that nobody cares about them, and maybe they do not care about themselves either. It seems that way, doesn’t it. You probably know the saying, ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ Sometimes people including the homeless have to start their own process of helping themselves before someone else starts to help them.

But some of the homeless go to a homeless shelter when they have to, but a lot of them simply find a place to hide at night to close their eyes. Many of them simply want their freedom, but at what price? Some of them simply have mental or physical problems, or they cannot cope in the modern-day world.

I was told that the homeless in San Francisco have the option to either get a monthly check or get free housing, like a room and stuff. They take the monthly check because they can buy drugs. They don’t care about the weather in San Francisco because it is livable at least most of the year and if you know how to dress for the winter months, then even the winter months become livable too.

I have a brother named Ray who I once asked about ten years ago or more, why doesn't he get a place to live? He replied that he likes being free, probably meaning free of adult responsibilities like paying a monthly rent. He lived in a boat for a long while, among other places. I think he is proud of how many places he could live for free.

The reality is that rent and housing is so high in California that people with good paying jobs can hardly pay their own rent, so how is any homeless person supposed to pay a monthly rent?

Something is wrong with the economic system within the housing market in America and nobody is doing anything about it. Maybe in a capitalistic society where money, profits, and greed seem so normal, most people are not cut out to live in a ‘dog eat dog’ world or society.

Even though I have a BS degree in International Economics, Finance, and Business Development, I never saw or took a course on the economics plight and the economics of the homeless situation and condition in America.

I never saw a course, even if it was a long time ago, about the economics of the homelessness problem in America. Maybe nobody would care even if there is an economic homelessness course or two in America.

I never saw an economic course on the homelessness problem way back then because the homeless condition was not as bad as it is now. Possibly, it was not a condition at all back then or I just did not know about it or saw it in any way.

I read the Wall Street Journal every day from front to back every day for almost forty years, along with other newspapers, journals, and magazines. Not once do I ever remember seeing a newspaper article about the homeless situation in America, nor about the economic and social aspects of the homelessness situation.

Has the homeless situation been hidden all of those years, or has the economic situation in America gotten worse, so bad that there are a lot of people living on the streets? People who work two jobs, have kids, who are barely surviving, who want a better life than being a homeless family. They know that they will probably never get a better life in America.

I was once at a fast-food place. A guy was working under the hood of his car. I walked over to him to see if he needed help. He did, so I gave him a jump or a charge to his car battery.

He told me that he was a retired cop with a pension, and he was getting social security retirement payments too. Yet, he could not afford a room or an apartment in California. What a shame!

One night over ten years ago, I drove in the Market Street area in San Francisco, parked my car, then I walked to the downtown mall. There were people sitting, laying, and standing on the sidewalks. People were drugged up.

People were selling their bodies for sex with strangers to make a quick and easy dollar for their drugs. It was about eight pm, so the darkness hid the real condition of the sidewalk and the people who were living on those sidewalks. My mind was feeling the plight of these people, and I didn’t like it at all.

I walked about twenty feet into that mall where the lights lit up the conditions within the mall and around the entrance, I was thinking of my own home, so I turned around and left that mall probably for good.

Towns and cities change all of the time, but they should change for the good instead of the bad. Some of the homeless stared at me knowing I was not only a stranger, but a well-off person. None of them asked me for money or to sell their bodies to me for a buck.

I learned about it over twenty years ago and I know about it now. Everyone in America knows about it, but my guess is that most people haven’t seen it. Probably. How can anyone not know about the homeless condition or simply the fact there is a homeless condition at all in America. I think it was a hidden condition in America before it became an open condition.

Truly, I am beginning to think that America is going downhill, faster and faster each year, especially compared to other nations and countries around the globe. Honestly, I do not know the numbers and the stats to compare the numbers for the homeless in each nation and country around the globe. I am not even going to look them up.

My guess is that because of Biden's policies, the white house policies in letting the illegal homeless immigrants into America during the last three years, the homeless numbers have risen even higher in America’s cities and towns faster than America’s citizens could ever imagine, thinking like an economist or not.

I try to help the homeless once in a while by buying them some food of some sort, but not so much lately. I guess I just do not travel anymore to the bigger towns and cities anymore.

Last week, I was walking down the street located in a teeny tiny town, a town whose many people are living a simple-minded, backwards sort of life, slow and stupid.

Most people are happy to be stuck and living in a small town where I live now. It is called a retirement town or a sleepy town because there is almost nothing to do in it. People like to fish here because it is located on the edge of the Sacramento River.

The good thing about living on the edge of a very long and wide river is that we all know that the chances of a fire getting to us is just about zero. But we will breathe in the smoke that is in the air from the fires that happen all around us. You can feel the smoke on your skin too sometimes.

Homeless people find their way here too. But they never stay long. They look around only to discover and figure out that there are not too many freebies like garbage dumpsters with free food in them. So, they find a way out of town to find their food freebies in garbage dumpsters in other towns.

Anyway, there I was walking on a sidewalk with one of my parrots on my shoulder enjoying a breeze that was taking away the heat of the day, when I saw a middle aged male walking towards me. He didn’t look like a mental case, or a druggie, or a drinker, but somehow, we got to talking.

He told me that he had been taking care of his dying dad who had died about two months ago. I could relate to that since my dad last year. The sun was going down and I wanted to be home before it got really dark, so I reached into my back pocket, and I pulled out my wallet to give the guy some cash. I only had 12 US dollars in it, but I gave it to him to buy some food.

He looked surprised as I handed him the 12 dollars, maybe because he had not asked for money. I reached out my hand and I said, “I am George.” He replied, “I am ‘Ray.’ Hum, I thought to myself. For a second, I thought about my brother Ray who had been homeless for many years.

You see my dear readers; I have a brother named Ray who was homeless in the LA area of CA for a very long time. He chooses to be homeless or so he has stated to everyone in the family. Anyway, I walked away thinking that he could buy some food for himself with those 12 dollars. I did not think that I was ever going to see him again.

I continued my walk with my parrot on my shoulder, walking on a sidewalk next to a not so busy highway at the moment. In the near distance there are two American flags waving in the wind. ‘Isn’t America better than this?’ I thought to myself.

It is so close to the 4th of July and more and more people are becoming homeless in America. What is happening to this country, to the nation? We are better than this, or maybe not.

The sun was slowly lowering itself downward to let the darkness fill the air and the mind. During the day, there are colors everywhere. I notice the colors because I am a part time artist. An artist who uses colors must train their brains and minds to think in terms of color. Most people probably do not usually think and see in color except when buying a car or truck or when putting on clothes.

There is color everywhere whenever I go for a walk, even at night. At night there are all of the colorful lights switching back and forth from red to green and green to red. But during the day there are even more colors than simply red and green blinking lights.

If you are an astrophysicist, you think about how color can measure the distances, speed, and location of stars, galaxies, and all of that stuff up there in the night sky. Of course, it is there during the day too, but we all get a break from the cosmic universe until nighttime arrives to force our eyes and brain to look upward to distances and places so far away that it boggles the mind. Don’t think too hard about it because it might be impossible to imagine it with your brain.

There are all of those colorful cars whizzing up at speeds that seem to be getting faster and faster or I am becoming slower and slower. I think to myself that I would not want to get hit by one of those whizzing cars or trucks because the laws of physics states that either the car or truck would always win.

Of course, there is the blue sky. Everyone knows that. There is that yellow sun which is really white but because of the laws of physics it appears yellow to the human eye and brain. Ray was wearing some brown shorts and a shirt that needed washing. He was sporting a beard which he said the ladies liked. I don’t know if he was joking or if he was telling the truth.

The next day, I was walking on the same street/highway when he was riding a bicycle towards me. He was heading straight towards me, but I couldn’t tell if it was him or not until he got up close. As he gets closer, I yell out to him, did you buy some food yesterday with those twelve dollars?

He says, “No. I bought this bicycle from another homeless guy.”

I say, “I thought that you would be hungry.”

There was no response to that because we both knew that he was hungry. What I didn’t know was that he had a medical condition I learned later. The bike made it easier for him to travel instead of walking.

I see a lot of homeless people walking. Two days later on the same sidewalk, a female was walking towards me, the kind that would do anything for ten bucks for her drugs.

She used a really sexy voice that I could not help but admire even though she, too, was obviously homeless. She had the voice that stated without saying it, 'I know how to take care of you big boy, for the correct amount of money, that is!'

As she smiled at me with an African Grey parrot on my shoulder. Maybe she was smiling because of the parrot, not because of me, which was probably the case.

She simply continued to walk forward on the sidewalk as if she had some place to go. Maybe she did. I turned around to glance at her, just thinking about that voice of hers.

I wondered if he was stating the truth to me, or whether he had stolen it from another homeless guy. He told me that he was going two towns over from the town he was currently in. I stated to you that I am in luck because I am going that way tomorrow.

So, I told him that I would give him a ride as long as he was at my house before 7 am, which of course he was. After all, what homeless person is going to miss a free ride to a town 30 minutes away? I told him I needed to continue walking and he asked me if he could walk with me.

I said sure. I asked him if he would like to take a shower and get some free food from me. He kept up with my pace without an issue. Not bad for someone with a medical condition who hasn’t eaten in who knows how long.

Oh yea, he told me that a Mexican food cart owner gave him a rolled up something for free so he could eat something once a day. That homeless guy was in luck because he was going to get some more free food at my house. I don’t make it a habit to invite strangers or homeless people into my house. Heck, I don’t even trust the criminal neighbors who live around me.

I could tell that he wasn’t on drugs or that he was a druggie which surprised me because I think most homeless people are taking drugs or drinking too much of that funny drink. He talked like a man who had been around. Who knows, maybe we could have become friends in a different situation.

As we walked on the sidewalk, we talked about nothing I can remember while I looked at my watch to figure out how much time I had for the rest of the night because it was a work night for me, in a manner of speaking.

The night-time is a good time to write my essays, read a book, or simply escape the heat of the day, especially in California where it can be very hot during the daytime. It is supposed to be around 112 degrees on Wednesday.

We arrived at my house, I showed him the shower, and surprisingly, he had taken his shower in about four minutes.

I said to him, “Well, that was quick.”

He replied, “I don’t take long showers. Three minute is good enough.” I wondered if he was ex-military. He looked and talked like he could be. I didn’t ask him, but I wondered about it.

Ok, maybe he was just hungry for some food. I asked him what he would like, spaghetti or eggs or both. He stated he would like some eggs would be good since he had not eaten eggs in a long time.

I wondered how long it had been for him, but I did not question him about it. I did think to myself that I was really lucky to have eggs and food all year long. I felt more blessed about having as much food and any food I wanted along with a roof over my head.

So, I turned on the stove for the frying pan to let the burner heat up. I grabbed the four eggs from the fridge, broke them, stirred them up, and put a slab of butter onto the frying pan. After they were cooked, I did it again so my parrots could eat some eggs too. Giggle, giggle, giggle, chuckle.

I told him that my mother once said to me when I was a boy that eggs stick to your stomach. He stated that he had heard that seemingly fact too.

The four eggs were mixed up, the frying pan became hot, the eggs were poured into the frying pan, some salt and pepper were carefully sprinkled onto the eggs, and for the chef in me, I put some pre-packaged pre-cooked pre-spiced chicken on top of the eggs, the frying pan cover was put top of the frying pan. Easy-peasy.

Believe it or not, frying eggs that way is done by me for my parrots every so often. They enjoy eating food of all sorts. Besides parrot bird seeds, apples and grapes and various crackers, they love corn in a can and corn on the cob. They like eating noodles too. They also love pizza crust.

I noticed that he was observing me making him a good meal, like I was a master chef. Honestly, if I had a bigger kitchen, I would love to cook up food for myself and guests. Or maybe just for me and a female date. She would be so impressed with my cooking skills that she would offer to marry me right then and there. At least in her mind.

They say that a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I always thought it was how good she plays with you know what. Or maybe the way is through money. Or maybe it was a combination of stuff that makes a lady fall in love with a man and vice versa. Does anyone really know about love anyway?

While the four eggs were being cooked, I turned around and I asked him if he wanted a beer. Surprisingly, he stated that he didn’t want a beer. At first, he said no, but then he changed his mind for some reason. I grabbed a bottle of good beer, but later I gave him two cheaper Bud beers in the blue can. I don’t know why men drink Bud light beer. I don’t get it.

Those two beers have been in the fridge since 2022 when I was in a hospital for full blown shingles 7 days after I started my chemo-pill therapy for stage 4 Cll cancer. For six months I was a complete human zombie, going back and forth between dying and life. It is probably amazing what traveling back and forth between dying, death, and life will do to a person’s mind and soul.

I should have had a beer with him, but for some reason I decided against it because I still had the night ahead of me. Plus, I don’t like having beer sweat, especially in the summertime. I once asked my sister who has a few degrees and who is a nurse, “Do you know that there are different kinds of sweat?”

She said, “No.”

So, I explained to her that there is Pizza Hut sweat, sex sweat, chocolate sweat, there is beer sweat, there is the workout sweat, the clean watery kind of sweat, there is the car cleaning sweat, the working in the fields sweat, the oil change sweat. Etc. Each of which deserved a nice warm soapy shower afterwards or soon enough.

He ate the eggs, and he drank the beer really fast. I mean I would never eat food or drink a beer that fast unless I was homeless. So therefore, of course it would be normal for a homeless person who had not eaten at a good home cooked meal for some time. I continued to look at the clock and my watch because I had to keep track of time.

It is amazing how the human species has to be obsessed with time, even before there were clocks and watches. There is the time of the sun and moon. There is the time of the seasons. There is time for cooking either raw or well cooked. There is a time for sex and making human babies.

There is time for sex and making babies. I bet a pregnant person is always counting the days, as do prisoners who have a short period of time in jail or prison. Just counting down the day until the baby arrives or the prisoner leaves the four walls. A baby is like a prisoner in a way, trapped within another human being, until it gets the gift of life, or death depending on how you view those deeper levels of a multi-dimensional consciousness.

My parrots all knew what time it was just after Ray had finished eating and drinking. It was bedtime for them. I told him that it was bedtime for him to leave for the night. Before he left, I gave him two more blue can Bud light beers, a can of soup, a can opener, a package of chocolate cookies, two cans of sweet tea, and some other stuff. Then to top all that off, I put some oil on his bike’s chain.

Off he drove into the darkness of the night to sleep somewhere under the stars. Sleeping under the stars is fun for kids and grown-ups who love the outdoors too much which isn’t a bad thing whatsoever.

I guess if I had a woman who liked and enjoyed camping once a while I would camp in a tent again. Camping under the stars, in the woods, with an open fire, and all of that stuff, not only brings back memories, but seems to always lead to mystical experiences of some sort. You know, experiencing what the pre-modern day human beings had experienced to live.

With only about three hours' worth of sleep, I was up at 5:30 am with a cold diet Pepsi in my hand, coffee in the kitchen, and an energy drink in a thermos for later on in the day. The key is to slip, slip, slip, and to not drink caffeine all at once, which is what most people do I guess.

I saw him on my security cameras at 6 am, standing by my truck. It is here that I explain to my readers a question that pops into my mind every so often. ‘How long have people been drinking coffee?’

“Humans have been consuming caffeine in one way or another for more than 10,000 years, so it's difficult even to imagine our society without it.” (Taken off the web.)

“How long has caffeine been popular?

For coffee, we know that its use became more widespread in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and in Europe this occurred in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The use of tea became more common during the Ming Dynasty in China and during the eighteenth century in Britain.” (Taken off the web.)

When I was a young boy, I watched my parents make their morning coffee by way of a percolator coffee maker. It looks like percolator coffee makers are still sold online. I was amazed at how much work it took. It was a religious morning ritual for them. It is a morning ritual for billions of people all around the globe.

By being a morning ritual, an afternoon ritual, even a nighttime ritual, it has made billions of people addicted to coffee-caffeine. It has also made some business people very rich, along with the fact that untold numbers of people around the globe have a job and therefore an income because people all over the globe either want or need their coffee-caffeine fix.

Some people, probably like the homeless, don't drink coffee, but then again, the homeless don’t really need a coffee-caffeine fix because they are not working except to survive. Surviving to stay alive is a big job for some people. Many homeless people are walking around like zombies, mindless creatures who are simply lost or too lazy or simply do not care about living in the ways of the world.

I wondered how long it had been since Ray had a good morning cup of coffee with a chocolate donut. He probably thought to himself that he had hit the jackpot, a good dinner, a good breakfast, and a ride to another town. He might have been happy for the first time since his dad died. Maybe a couple of meals did his body and mind some good, relieving him of his dad’s death at least for a day or two.

“Why did people stop using coffee percolators? Percolators fell out of fashion in the 1970s with the invention of the automatic drip coffee maker. Drip brewers were faster, brewed better-tasting coffee, and were also much easier to clean.” (Taken off the web.)

While I was watching the top of the percolator bubble, I would always ask myself, (Now that I know the word physics.) the physics of it. Why were there bubbles rising to the top of the glass head or handle? What was the purpose of the design of it? Who discovered it? How did it work?

“How Does a Percolator Work?

Percolators have two chambers: a lower chamber for the water and an upper area with a basket to house the ground coffee beans. As the water heats, it's forced through a vertical tube that passes it over the coffee grounds before dripping back to the bottom of the pot.” (Taken off the web.)

And more importantly, why were they not giving me any coffee to drink?

Was drinking coffee only a grown-up experience? Was it illegal to allow children to drink coffee? Would it be any harder if I drank coffee every morning just like them?

I didn’t even bother to ask my parents if I could also drink some coffee for breakfast. I didn’t want to be rejected by them or get them mad at me, although I don’t think they would have been mad at me for asking to drink coffee with them each morning. Maybe they would have thought that it would have been too much of a grown-up thing to do. Maybe they would have yes, go ahead and drink, so I could go to school wired like a monkey on cocaine.

What is a morning ritual for the homeless? Wake up feeling dirty from bodily sweat, from the dirt on the ground, feeling hungry and thirsty, feeling lonely, helpless, moving all the time with nowhere to go. Having to go to the bathroom with no bathroom to go to. Wondering where they were going to walk and hide for the rest of the day, without being arrested by the police.

What is it with the police these days anyway. Are they really uneducated gay-homo cops whose brains and minds are as dumb and simple-minded as the druggies and criminals they arrest? How many cops are really criminals in disguise? They say that cops are only criminals with badges on, violent ex-high school football players who can not read, write, or do math.

I used a dual coffee maker to make coffee for me and Ray the homeless guy. I had a box of chocolate donuts so I decided to give him one, knowing that he would be surprised to get a good morning cup of coffee and a chocolate donut first thing in the morning.

The middle-aged guy across the street was staring out the window wondering what was going on that morning, just like other neighbors were staring too. They were probably on the phone already talking to other neighbors about a homeless guy sitting on my front porch chair drinking a good morning cup of coffee and eating a chocolate donut.

Inwardly, I was laughing at the picture they were viewing because they had no idea what was happening, especially when I walked through the door wearing a three-piece suit with a tie on. It must have been quite a picture for the neighborhood viewers who never mind their own business.

Of course, they don’t want anyone knowing anything about their business, but they want to know everyone else’s business, especially mine, like what book am I reading today. Do they ever ask themselves if I am reading a Bible or a book on the Bible? Or astrophysics, or politics, or economics or the history of the human species or the future of the human species.

No, they don’t ask themselves what I am reading because they are to stupid to think about those types of topics such as the Bible, metaphysics, astrophysics, politics, or economic theory, not to mention anything about the history and future of the human species.

But I bet a lot of them watch porn. I bet. I bet the police watch porn when they are on the job, when they have nothing to do. I bet they get so horny they start having sex with their fellow cops who are also dumb gay cops. Of course, not cops are dumb gay cops. But a lot of them are.

Nope. Their minds are so simple minded that they only want to know what color underwear I am wearing today. Instead, because most people are very simple-minded human beings just like those cavemen who were homeless too, and who roamed the Earth looking for something better, or for more food and water, people do not want to think, just like those dumb gay cops.

Instead, they are more like violent robotic machines, programmed to shoot a gun and run like the deer in the fields, dodging trees so they don’t smash their faces into the trees of the forest.

He was sitting on a chair on my front porch watching the sunrise, when I again saw the middle aged male neighbor across the street staring at us, the obvious homeless guy sitting in my chair, and me in my shorts. I know, just as you would want to know, what was a homeless guy sitting in my front yard chair at 6 am in the morning. But truthfully, it was none of his freaking business.

Yet, I know that he wanted to walk over to me and ask me what was going on, like why was I not only letting a homeless guy sit in my front yard chair, but why was I also giving him a good morning cup of coffee and a chocolate donut? But he did not dare do it, did he?

As I stared down at Ray, I wondered when was the last time he had a good morning hot cup of coffee with a chocolate donut. I bet that he was remembering the good old days when he had a good morning cup of coffee and a chocolate donut with his dad before he had died only two months previously.

I never had a good morning cup of coffee and a chocolate donut with my dad, probably because he did not like me too much, which is ok with me. There is something about me that makes me special and my parents knew it, but they never figured out what made me special. Those uneducated stupid dumb gays cops know I am special too, but they will never figure it out either.

I was really hoping that I was working some healing magic on his mind and body because he probably felt sad and lost after his dad died, not knowing what he was going to do next with his life, if he even lived long enough to think about it.

I didn’t ask him any personal questions at all during our short time together. I was thinking to myself that he was probably living in the moment, like a poor homeless traveling monk, although he wasn’t a monk as far as I could figure out.

Monks usually have a place to live, sleep, lay their head and body down for a good night's sleep. A monk probably has a few friends in the place they call home. Monks do not travel all over their country on a regular basis if at all.

A monk looks inwardly instead of outwardly. Most people don’t do that looking inward unless they have mental or physical problems they have to deal with, usually because they have gone over a mental or physical cliff with no other place to go.

Homeless people probably don’t have many, if any, friends at all because they know that they can not trust people, especially other homeless people.

I would bet that homeless people have given up on expecting anything from other human beings because other human beings probably look down on the homeless as if they were the scum of the earth, which of course isn’t true because some world leaders and politicians could be considered lower than the scum of the Earth and even lower than the homeless.

Some differences between the homeless and Putin for example, is that the homeless are not going to send their military troops into another nation or country to kill, murder, destroy, and wipe out whole towns, cities, and peoples. Putin does not care about the homeless people in his country I bet. Nope. Most people in America don’t care about the homeless either.

I bet that Putin, or his thugs would round up all of the homeless people who live either in his country or in America and he would send them off to war to kill, murder, destroy whole towns and cities before they die their deaths. Can you imagine making a real soldier out of a homeless person? First, they would all have to be detoxed. Then they would have to learn to listen, obey, not think, and the worst part, get up at 3 am or even 6 am for a jog or a run until breakfast time.

I have often wondered how some think about their lives before they die, like soldiers who go to war because they have decided it was their path in life, until they discover that killing and being killed is not having a really good time. One bullet to the head. Real quick. You are dead.

I have known more than a few soldiers who have killed other human beings. They have told me that their memories of killing another human being lingers with them like the memory of a good morning cup of coffee and a chocolate donut. The difference being of course is that a good morning cup of coffee and a chocolate donut isn’t red, like the red blood of the dying and the dead.

I knew that the guy across the street would be watching us when I left the house. I was laughing within my mind when I walked out of the house with a three piece suit on with a tie. I knew other busy bodies were also watching us too. I should have waved at them before I got in my truck.

Some people in small towns have way too much time on their hands, while they waste their lives away just like all of those homeless people who also waste their lives away. It is amazing how many people waste their human lives away by not doing anything important.

Here was a homeless guy with dirty shorts and shirt, an old backpack, entering my Ford 150 pickup truck, and there I was wearing a three-piece suit with a tie with a briefcase in my hand. I wasn’t worried about what the uneducated simple-minded neighbors were thinking about me and the homeless guy.

What do you think if I got pulled over by an uneducated, dumb ass gay cop who saw me with a three piece suit on with a tie and the homeless guy with sort of dirty shorts and shirt?

But it must have been a really funny sight to behold. I knew that within a few minutes people would probably be on their phones talking to each other about me wearing a three-piece suit wearing a tie helping a homeless guy getting into his truck for a ride far away into a different town. What was happening here, they were asking themselves?

Ray was only wearing a pair of dirty shorts and a shirt and a pair of sneakers, but at least he was clean. He told me that it had been three weeks since he last had a shower. So now, I was feeling blessed that I could take my two showers each day, even though I had to pay for them. It was still nice to be clean every day of the week.

As soon as he stated he had not had a shower in three weeks, I quickly imagined how I would feel if I had not showered in three weeks, especially in the summertime when the heat makes everyone sweat more than in the wintertime.

As my old buddy the Ford 150 pickup truck started moving its oil through its systems, I knew I could depend on it for a ride through the countryside to another town over or two from my home. Soon enough, there might be another town next to the teeny, tiny town I am currently living in now. I could drive my Ford 150 pickup truck all the way back to New City with no problems and back again to California.

Driving through the country highway with a cup of morning coffee is a nice way to enjoy the morning, as I am sure many of you will attest to. To the right of us there were cows and sheep. To the legt of us there were sheep and cows. And lots of windmills. It is a funny thing about those windmills that are spreading and popping up throughout the landscape.

When I was a boy, I saw pictures of windmills in countries such as Holland and the Netherlands.

“How many windmills did Holland have?

“The Netherlands Windmill – Ancient Engineering Technologies ...
Overview. The Dutch started building windmills as early as 1,200 AD. to use them to grind grains. In the 19th century, there were more than 9,000 windmills in the Netherlands. However, there are only around 1,200 still existing nowadays since fewer and fewer windmills are being used and maintained.” (Taken off the web.)

“Why is Holland known for windmills?

Discover the charm of Dutch windmills - Holland.com
Windmills were (and still are!) used to keep land dry that has been claimed from the sea. The degree to which windmills have shaped the landscape of the Netherlands as we know it now cannot be overstated. Without windmills, huge swathes of the country would be underwater.”
(Taken off the web.)

Whenever I saw and looked at those pictures, I was always amazed how the human brain even long ago could think up such marvels, build them, use them for a very long time, and to sit back and enjoy a beer while the windmills did some of the physical labor for the people.

After all, who wants to work if you don’t have to? I love working with my hand whenever I am doing artwork. I just ordered a new set of mechanical pencils to inspire me to start drawing again.

Now, there are high tech wind turbines helping the human species' life better and cheaper, or so the theory goes anyway. The point being is that long ago and even now, the human brain and mind has created machines so it can use the wind for usage in human life.

“A windmill and a wind turbine are different in structure and purpose, even though many people use the terms interchangeably. A windmill is a very old technology that uses the wind to either mill grains into flour, drive machines, or move water. A wind turbine converts wind energy into electricity by turning a turbine.” (Taken off the web.)

How cool is that my dear readers?

The homeless guy who was sitting next to me far over by the passenger door was looking out at the countryside on a full stomach, I guess. But he did not make a remark about it at all. Maybe he thought that there was real natural beauty before our eyes.

All the while that I was helping the homeless guy named Ray feel better about himself by giving him food, drink, a ride, and no advice whatsoever, I was thinking about my brother Ray who had been homeless before he got married to another gay guy who is probably also a pothead or druggie although I don’t know if either one of them smokes pot or takes drugs.

Now they live in a house that was probably bought by Ray’s partner. So now Ray, the brother, gets to sleep in a real bed, take daily showers, have fun in LA or wherever his house is at the moment. I guess that I will not be an uncle to that family, even though I am not a real uncle to my other brother and sisters' kids either.

It is sad how brothers and sisters end up hating each other for the stupidest of reasons, just because they all have different opinions on how they were raised by their parents.

I don’t know why, but I never asked the homeless Ray if he had any brothers or sisters, nor did he bring it up during any conversation which was not really an event during his time with me.

I didn’t really want to talk to him anyway, just like I try not talking to other people because I have come to the intelligent conclusion that most people are not only not like me at all, but when they do talk, they do not know what they are talking about either. It does not matter what the topic is. Most people do not have a logical brain working for many areas of their lives, especially their voting life.

Can you imagine how different the whole world would be if Biden had not been elected president of America? There probably would have been a war in Ukraine and the economy would have been better. But no, people vote illogically for the wrong reasons. I wonder if Ray the homeless guy voted and whom he would vote for. My guess is he would vote for Trump. He just looked like a Trump sort of guy.

Just the other day, I was walking my African Grey parrot by the Sacramento River when another homeless person, a middle-aged female walked up to me and she yelled out to me, “All you have to do is believe in Jesus.”

I looked at her while I was slowly backing away because I did not want to get into an argument or conversation with another uneducated Jesus believer who probably never read and studied the Bible, the Gospels, or any other topic I like to read about for the fun of it.

People were looking at me, so I had to respond with something. So I stated to her, “That is not the way it works.” She looked at me like she wanted to hear more, but I know that trap. It is the trap that she wants me to say something so she can try to preach to me about the Bible and Jesus, which is a really ignorant and stupid thing to do. She wanted to argue about Jesus. Yep.

As I was slowly walking backwards, my mind was picking up speed because unlike that homeless lady, I have actually studied the Bible in various ways and I am still studying the Bible in various ways such as a historical book, a metaphysical and spiritual book, and plainly for an enjoyable reading book. My dear readers should try it. Just read the Bible for the fun of it.

I read books and I listen to lectures by various scholars about the Bible just in case I have to give my own lecture on the real meaning of the Bible at some future date. How much money would that be worth? How much money would people pay me to reveal the deep spiritual secrets of the Bible? How much money? Of course, I would do it for free if anyone wanted to know them.

I also finished reading a book from the library because I did not want to spend money on buying it. I am glad that I borrowed it instead of buying it, because even though it seems like a big book, probably written for kids, it was very short, yet still interesting.

It is titled, “To Infinity and Beyond.” by: Neil Tyson and co-writer Lindsey Walker.

Just in case you are wondering, you should read it, just don’t buy it, even if you have kids, unless you want to because it is good for kids to have good books, not those very simple books like, “See Spot Run.”

The first time I saw that ‘See Spot Run.” book, I turned my head away from it and I was wondering if parents and America’s school system thought that every kid was stupid, slow, and could not grasp a cosmic concept like the, ‘Big Bang’ which pretty much says it all about how the universe was created from seemingly nothing, (not really) and which I don’t believe for one nano-second, even as a kid.

Back tracking a bit, the children’s book, ‘See Spot Run.’ is almost like the homeless lady stating to me, ‘All you have to do is believe in Jesus.’

I can’t stand it whenever an uneducated, simple-minded human states to me that all I have to do is believe in Jesus, like I am a slow, stupid, (forgive the word) religious retard, or in the case of the homeless lady, not even a slow religious retard. People make statements all of the time that have no meaning in them. The American voters will do the same thing in the 2024 American election.

These people might even read the Gospels once in a while, a phrase or sentence, but do they not actually study the Gospels in depth or read books by real scholars of the Bible or listen to lectures on the Bible by people who spend their whole lives in some cases pouring over that Bible book like it was the most important book on the planet? Could it be true? Only one book.

I did not think to give a Bible to homeless Ray. It never crossed my mind, but it crossed my mind just now. I wonder if he would have taken it.

That is like stating, ‘The whole cosmic universe was started with a Big Bang.’ Which might be true, and it might be a true statement, but it is much more complex and complicated than simply stating that the whole cosmic universe started with a Big Bang.

But from all of the scientific evidence so far, it has been proven that the cosmic universe started from some sort of Big Bang moment, even if there is more to that Big Bang moment than meets the eye within the biggest and most powerful telescopes.

I did give a book away to a very smart 14 year old boy who lives down the street. The title of that book is, ‘This Way to the Universe.’ A theoretical physicist’s journey to the edge of reality. by; Michael Dine. It is probably over his head at his age, but I bet his dad will be impressed by it. My dad was never impressed with my degree of intelligence. Too bad for him!

As we became closer to the inner workings of the town near the court buildings and the downtown area, we started to see more homeless people lingering on the sidewalks early in the morning. He noticed them too as he pointed a finger at them.

I said, ‘See, there are lots of homeless people who live in this town.”

He said, ‘There goes another one.’

I think he was happy he might have found a homeless community that he could hang out with for as long as he wanted. A homeless town with a Sheriff's Office in it.

He started riding in circles in front of my Ford 150 pickup truck. He seemed to be having fun, like it was the first time he had ever ridden a bike before, which might have been true from the looks of things. Maybe he was realizing that riding a bike was not only fun, but a good way to get around town. Easy-peasy.

I had given him two bottles of water, something that every human being on planet Earth needs, but of course, not every human being gets clean water every day to drink. It is good to be grateful for the simple things in life, like clean water.

As I grabbed my briefcase before I closed my Ford 150 pickup front door, I looked at this human being hoping that I had not only done enough to prove to him that not only are there still good human beings in this world, but there are also human beings who will not judge him for being homeless.

Sometimes, way before saying good-bye to Ray for the last time, knowing I would probably never see him again, I knew that somehow he would be ok, somehow.

Happy Fourth of July Ray, wherever you may be today.,

If this was supposed to be a test for me from ‘above,’ I hope I passed! But if it wasn’t a test, what difference would it make to me and Ray? Or even a guy named Jesus!