USED TIRE WORLD

• Inspiration comes in many forms.  God blessed me with inspiration one day as I was on my way to work.. Sitting at a stop light early one morning I just happened to glance over to my right and saw this "Used Tire World" sign.  And like a bullet to my head, I began to smile and in a nano second I thought , "Ain't that the truth!"  "Used Tire world ".....wow...... That was exactly how I felt for so long, like a old used tire....because physically, mentally, and spiritually I was so empty.  ....Sort of Flat...it was actually a spiritual moment, for God was getting my attention, God was inspiring me.  I was being kept in spirit of the moment.  I can remember through the years and pick out moments of clarity, but I always attributed those with either too much coffee, or one of the many substances I might have be using at the time....lol...
•  For some, addiction is no laughing matter, and making light of it upsets them, well.....I am not one of those....I have cried all the tears I can, and Lord knows I've produced enough misery for not only myself ,but to those who knew and loved me.  That is why I am smiling like a idiot at the benign sign with the huge red letters.."USED TIRE WORLD."   Inspiration has me smiling and it was at this same moment I wondered where did that thought come from?.. To be inspired is to be in spirit.  It started me asking myself, where is the source of that type of thinking?....How does it arrive?..Why does it arrive?  But most of all, What do I do with it?...
• It has taken me many years, good and bad situations to see the "truth" about the first question.  In the past, "I" would always take credit...."I" was the center of the universe, and "I" was in control....(let me say right now, this attitude, kind of didn't work out)....  At this stage in my life I am probably only in control of my bladder, and that is also starting to go...lol.... 
• God provides my inspiration.  It is that simple. Every good answer, every good option, everything that is good and every good choice I make is me, moving toward God......"USED TIRE WORLD"...all this came to me from these three small words. 
• If inspiration can come to me from a sign, I can only imagine the wonderful possibilities and the endless joy that a life with God first will bring me.....I think is is time to change the tires on my "spiritual ride."   God bless.....     TRAMPDOWN LOG..28 MAY,2012

The Table

    I sat back in my chair and looked at the three men who sat around the table.  I can remember when we were just little boys, and our only real worries in life was if our school homework was done, or if we would win our next baseball game.  Now here we were 40 years later, grown men.  Even though I haven't seen them in so long, my love and affection for them has grown.  It took this gathering for me to realize that.  I am overwhelmed with emotion as I listen and look at them, but I keep it to myself.
     The friends, and bonds we make between the ages of 10-15 years of age are special.  And sadly never to be seen or felt again.  I remember how that thought would make me sad, even melancholy.....Now hearing their voices, seeing their faces, but most of all hearing them laugh.  I never realized it a the time, but our childhood friends supply us with many wonderful things.  Companionship, support, a sense of belonging and most of all, our sense of identity, and who we are.  It's a big part of who we eventually come to be in life.
      When age hits me,as it will do with us all, and decides to steal my memories, I hope and pray these are the ones that will remain with me until the last of my life.  The smiling faces of my friends.  I do not want this time to end.  I want this day to go on forever.....Mike

The Book Bag Man; Trampdown log

    He lives under a bridge like a troll, The Book Bag man.  Everywhere he goes, he [as you guessed it],carries a bag with books in it.  He is constantly reading.  I pass him at least 2-3 times a day. Doesn't speak much.  Don't blame him, sometimes it is so much more peaceful when you can rely on no one for conversation.  It is a gift to be able to be alone with ones self and be comfortable.  You do not necessarily have to be "anti-social", but just being alone is a okay spot...reading can produce that.  Reading and writing, it teaches me a new window of love that I never understood existed.
    To be intimate with not only one's self, but with the characters I create and the "real life" characters that I come in contact with every day.  Being kind, I guess.  Kinder to myself and to others...I/we have so much true power as we live.  So small at first, but comes the day we 'wake-up" a little faster than normal and our eyes have changed.  How many times have we been in a place very familiar to us, and that one time we just seem to notice something good about it. It feels good. Like a puzzle being put together. It just all seems to fit into place....."yeah, it Fits". Try to remember the last time you watched a sunset and that feeling it can pull out of you.  The feeling of "it all fits"....
      That was my first reaction to The Book Bag man...he "fit".  He fit under his bridge, he fit sitting where he does and surrounded by his bags,  it all simply fit.  I speak with him sometimes, but all I can ever get out of him is "yes, yes, yes".  While he nods his head, and for all I know he could be looking at me saying "yes", and in his mind he has me visioned standing there wearing a bunny outfit with a banana shoved up my ass!..Who knows what others are really thinking?..Maybe to him, picturing me like that , it also fits!..lol..Have a good day.......Ale!!    how are you Tinette?

Faces in The Crowd..[trampdown-log]

     All the faces , in all the crowds.  As the years pass, and time moves us forward.  Where have they all gone?  This last year, out here on the road, so many have come and gone like rain on a summer afternoon.  Some I remember with a smile, and then there are those that I remember with a distant stare. Faces are filled with stories and life.  Some of us wear our life and others live one.   I have been on both sides of that story.  For in someones story, I have also became just another face in the crowd.  The last year and a half living on the streets of Orlando has been in the very least, a real struggle with my inner self and the struggles of others.   It never bothered me to meet new faces, it was just when the faces began to talk and speak.  That's when [after the road had worn me down], that I would breath a heavy sigh, and my mind would drift away.
     I can never understand why so many people find it necessary to fill quiet space with needless conversation?..It's like...They always have to explain every situation or moment with a reason.....It does not!!....There are so many times I do not even know how to reply or if I even should.  A ll of us are our own individual story.  No doubt about it.  That is a fact.  But not every story needs to be told, and if it is....Please, just tell it once!!.. [thank God for mans ability to daydream].  When I see crowds of people.  I see stories.  Faces are a very good indication of the stories that reside within us.  Now, the quality of the story pretty much depends on the teller of the story.  If the face is uncreative, then the story will more than likely be a flat, boring, repetitive string of events...I'm guilty of it.  Who is not?  A good sign of a boring story is when the listener starts picking their nose or drops their pants and relives some bodily fluid...lol....
     That is a really good sign the the listener is not enjoying your story.  [actually had that happen].  Some "yarns", are like watching a very bad movie or sit-com.  You know it's bad when you actually become embarrassed for the actors.  Ever watch one of those?...If not, just watch some of Steven Segal movies...wow, I think they come with directions on his movies, so you understand why  a Ice pick is attached to the CD set, so you can at anytime start stabbing yourself in the eyes and get it over quick...[sorry Segal fans]....Just watch mainstream TV for a while.  It is full of uncreative garbage and "just another face in the crowd shows.  One will disappear and another will be right behind it.
     QUOTE: What is now new, was once old,  just made visible.....THOREAU...[paraphrased].......
    Remember when we were all teenagers and all the cool things we discovered.  Actually thinking we deserved some kind of patent on a situation or phrase we thought that we invented..Youth is a wonderful, funny road.  Being young is sort of like being another "face in the crowd".  One of the millions, in the millions of crowds.  I must of drove my parents crazy with my needless chatter, explaining everything that they already knew.  Under normal circumstances I would have more patience with others, but this last 19 months of being homeless there is nothing normal about this area of life....Not one day is normal, not one!...My life, your life, our lives, for we are just "faces in the crowd".
    So, the next time you are in a crowd, take the time to scan the faces of our fellow humans.  I might be in there some where, I'll be easy to see, I'll be picking my nose!!!   lol   have a great day..

NO SECRETS...trampdown log]

            I was standing on the edge of a highway last Saturday.  It was a typical Florida hot afternoon.  One of the many endless days I have chalked up in my wanderers logbook.  Cars coming from both directions.  Passing so close that the breeze from their momentum was a welcomed relief from the heat.  I think most people,  would prefer a fan or air-conditioner, but there is no room on my back, so I,ve learned to take my blessings where and when I can get them.....One would zip pass in one direction, while the other would speed past in the other direction....Destination's ..unknown.  Can you relate?
      Most of my adult life has been like this here highway.  Whatever I chose, I simply did.  Never caring about direction or even at times the consequence's  of the direction.  If my conscience did push upward, I would simply push it away.  That's the rules I accepted when I chose a life without faith.  Because It was always about me, what I wanted, and what I needed.  I offer no excuses, or blame to anyone, or on anyone.  I know now that is why I have stood on far too many highways with the sun in my face, or the cold seeping through, smoking cigarettes.....waiting....just waiting for the wind to encourage me on.
      There were times it was the wind, there were times it was hunger and addiction[which kind of go together], and of course there was the few times it was love.  Now there are also many types of love.  The love of a women, and the need to be touched.  I've never really minded being lonely, but it is when we feel "unloved".  That's the killer....We've all felt that sting.... The love of being free has always been strong in a wayward man.  One of the most difficult tasks of a wandering man is loving a women and loving his freedom.  It's hard, if not totally impossible.  How does one love someone, when they know that in the morning that this person could be gone?...
      There have been songs written, and sung, books and movies, and poets who have touched us all with their romantic portrayals of  a wayward  life, But reading and  watching can provide no justice to a 'open highway", more than actually living it.   Many times there is nothing romantic about it.  For how does one teach a person hunger.  How do you explain that?  Along with loneliness, and being unsure of one's self?
     All this came to me as I lite up a cigarette on a Saturday afternoon, on the edge of a highway.
S.B.E.

TOWARD THE SUN.......

TOWARD THE SUN


I FOUND YOU IN MY DREAMS LAST NIGHT
SWIMMING IN MY HEART,
WITH YOUR BEAUTIFUL,GENTLE LIGHT

YOU CAME TO ME IN THE NIGHT SO YOUNG
DANCING IN MY SOUL,
WITH THE SONG YOU SUNG

NAKED AND ALONE
WE MOVED TOWARD THE SUN

HAND IN HAND
WE SLOWLY BECAME ONE

OUR LOVE WAS FOUND
WITH PATIENCE AND FAITH

AS WE WALK GODS PATH
WE WILL ALWAYS BE SAFE

SO THE MORNING COMES
AND THE  DREAM WILL FADE

BUT OUR LOVE REMAINS,
 IN THE DREAM WE MADE.......

S.B.E.

The Three Homeless Michael's...lake eola

     There we were.  A Saturday night and three Michael's sitting on a park bench.  Kind of surreal.  When I thought about it.  It made me laugh,(chuckled).  Very much a Kodak moment.  The problem is, some of the people whom I "run" with here, well... do not always get my humor.  So it's one of those hidden chuckles. But I didn't hide it well.   When they looked at me, I just pretended that I had to cough...God forbid that anyone show a softer side to others.  Gotta keep up that "macho" image.  Here we are, sitting on a park bench, homeless, broke, hungry, and dirty, but we still, well,some, not all of us, still want to portray some type of "tough guy" image..
     I always sit back and enjoy the show.  Some days it is provided by us "tramps", or sometimes the "earth people".   So, there we were, "The three Homeless Michael's".....What a goofy thought!!!!

Same life; wrong shoes

       Same life, and the Wrong damn shoes........again!

Ever have those days?  Trying to avoid all the mirrors in the house.  No sleep, no down time, no patience, and no sex!!  All that pent up anger.  "a slice of pizza with some resentment, please."  Something that will sit high in the stomach getting riper by the second...Time for some antacid.....[joke].."The Arabic version of ALKA-SELTZER is basically the same product, Just sold under a different name.  It's called."Al-qaeda-Seltzer".  Dissolved correctly, once they hit the stomach they just simply explode."..

SAME OLD LIFE;...remember that moment of clarity, when you looked at your life at one point in living and thought....shit!,these were the cards I was dealt?... "I know , I'll use trickery to achieve satisfaction"....only joking.....take it easy..... This is when we get to prove our genius as a person.
       Hardships are like a classroom, and shoes that don't fit.  When your in them, no one seems to be paying attention anyway!!...So, I just take a step back and realize, "yeah, I'm just as goofy as the guy next to me"..so. I slow down and enjoy the High....Check out the photo of one of our supposedly 'links in the chain'..., do ya think this poor guy ain't wishing he was handed some different shoes on the wheel of fortune?....I can remember when I took that photo, I was standing just underneath him and for some reason he would not look at me.  Probably wished he could get his hands around my damn neck if he could, he was just completely indifferent to me....that bastard!...mmmm...
     So, it was right about now when I was delivered a afternoon[ Ah-Ha moment.]  I started looking around the zoo, and damn if there was not alot of other things in the wrong shoes.  And I was not  just looking at the animals in the cages! It was us bi-peds that interested me.  At least we [humans] have the power to make changes and choices, but these Poor guys.  All hemmed up like that and your instinct is telling you that this is all wrong.
      You don't have to be in a cage to have the wrong shoes.  For a very long time I have been locked up in my own cage,and because of MY CHOICES, I picked the wrong shoes.  Being homeless, you have the freedom to be very mobile and there comes with that the illusion of a "romantic freedom".  You know, like they show on TV,and in movies....It is a shame that so many actually believe that if " I saw it on TV, well it must be true!"...Hate to bust another's bubble, but it is not like that at all, it is lonely, it is hard, and it feels like the title of this blog, like I have on the wrong shoes.
     So when I wake up in the morning, and get dressed, I pick my best dirty clothes, and my foot attire has changed.  I think that I'm going to start wearing my sandals, it's time for me to unlock this cage, after all, the key has always been with me, I just never took the time to find it.....