As some of you may heard me ramble.....I am currently renovating a duplex in the not so nicest part of cow-town. The majority of folks in the area appear to have little if any contribution to society, and on two separate days a prostitute was shot in the leg and then a pit bull was shot dead. Yes someone shot and killed a defenseless dog that was fenced inside a small city backyard. I agree these are all lower forms of expression and I do my best to stay shielded from the bad-mojo and it mostly seems to work. Even when I stroll the half block to Parsons Market for the occasional overpriced pack of smokes or the stale, burnt, mid-morning cup-o-joe I am bothered none and treated with indifference by most.
Though now I will speak of my favorite member of the Parsons Ave community. I know him only as hunched over old man. Hunched over old man appears to live somewheres along E.Morril and every day, sometimes twice a day, I see hunched over old man walking down the street with tan overcoat, smile on his face, and if you are close enough to the old guy you just may hear him singing or whistling. What a great old guy.
One day last week hunched over old man was walking and singing as I was rooting through my truck box for one ghetto reno tool or another and he stopped next to me and without raising his head though showing a smile through his same everyday red baseball cap he politely asked me to spare a quarter. I kindly obliged as I felt the life that had led him to this likely was deserving of thousands if not millions of quarters. So from my console I reached in and pulled out one single solitary quarter. He thanked me with a smile and stated that he was a little short for todays sandwich and off he went. He walks very slowly mind you, he is severely hunched over and likely has no schedule to keep anyhow so off he went hunched over, singing and whistling.
My surmise tells me that hunched over old man has likely lived along South Parsons for many a decade and well before the blight set in and that despite such he will continue to stay. I am sure he has wonderful stories to tell of the neighborhood and of his long life but I dont ask. I just look at the old guy and smile. Even the hood rats make room for hunched over old man to walk by, something they have never done for me, although they will offer the customary head nod it is a right of passage I spose. Maybe when the corner loitering hood rats step out of my path instead of I having to step off the sidewalk and onto the street I have earned a full ghetto pass. For now they only seem to tolerate me, knowing I am doing a good deed but when the work is done I am off to my own quiet little corner of Columbus. A corner of Columbus where the old men of the world have there lunch bought to them, a Corner of Columbus where dogs are not shot and hookers are likely only found on-line.
God Bless the hunched over old man in the ghetto
