A hobo in the family
My sister is the coolest person I know.

When I was still in high school, my sister decided to drop everything and hobo around the northeast for a year. With nothing but her boyfriend, a backpack and the clothes she could carry, she hitchhiked and train-hopped and slept in doorways and street corners and dumpster-dived and spanged for food and learned the absolute terror of knowing that your very existence depends on the kindness of complete strangers. She saw the entire spectrum of human charity, from the hippies in Boston who taught her how to weave hemp jewelry so she could sell them in their festival booth to the thousands of people who saw her, hungry, tired and dirty and spit on her, insulted her and even assaulted her for asking for a means to survive.

She returned a year after she'd left, 20 pounds lighter, a great deal more tan and with a lifetime of experience leaving her with both an optimistic and incredibly jaded view of humanity.

Now when I'm accosted on the street by the fiftieth beggar that day, instead of putting my hand in my pockets to still the jingling of change or pretending I didn't hear, I give a quarter or a cigarette or a bit of whatever I'm eating, because that hobo is someone's sister or brother, someone's son or daughter, and that bit I give which means so little to me could mean everything to them.

[EDIT - having read through a few more of the previous pages, I'd like to clarify that this isn't an attempt to guilt people into giving hobos money or feel bad about making fun of them - this is just my personal perspective. Also, hobos who keep asking after you've already told them you have no change (no, really, stop asking) annoy the crap out of me.]
(TheManWhoWas SlightlyKnackered, Mon 6 Jul 2009, 21:43, Reply)