Intro To This Blog

  People say write what you  know about, so I figured why not talk about some of the things I have learned from the years I have traveled the US homeless. This is not about raising awareness, making you feel bad, or some other lofty purpose, plenty of other folks do that. Just tales of what works and does not work for me.

  Some things you may not know about homeless is there are several different classes even among homeless folk, the guy sleeping on the sidewalk is not the same as the one sleeping in a shelter or out in the woods and most try not to associate with the others. I sleep in the woods, so let me explain from a point of view that took me only a few weeks to learn. When I see a dude sleeping on the sidewalk, that tells me he stopped caring about himself and others a while back. Does not care about getting arrested or personal safety. Guys that live in a shelter tend to be real game players and will lie, cheat or steal to get what they want. The ones living in the woods are usually loners. As disclosed earlier, I am a woods guy and most comfortable around them whenever we meet. And we do meet, at soup kitchens, food pantries, libraries and during really bad weather, shelters.

 As a rule, I do not do shelters, they are crowded and noisy, gestapo like to get in to, then wild west once you are in with little or no patrolling going on. If you don't have a disease or bedbugs before you go in, you might want to get checked after you leave.  All the shelters want is a name on a line to get their funding continued.  I went to a shelter three times and was always glad when I left.

 Out in the woods is where it is at for me, in my nylon mansion (tent for the obtuse), in it I have seen some great and sometimes terrifying things, otters and foxes slinking by, mule deer that almost ran me over, thieving raccoons and possums, ice storms, tornadoes, bright moons and shooting stars. This lifestyle has enabled me to have experienced living in 45 states and get a real feeling of the US.

  In the future I plan to present articles that focus on the how to side of things, this being my first article, I rambled, I know, but it sort of took a life of it's own, so I let it. Comments are welcome, but be reasonable with the language.