A Day in the Life. A 24 hour timeline of a homeless man

This is another chapter in the new book I'm working on. This was hard to write. I'd appreciate comments and critique if you feel so inclined. Look for the book late winter / early spring 2017.

A day in the life.

     What is it actually like to be homeless? What is the daily routine of a person whose entire existence is at the mercy of the weather, the availability of shelter, and the hours of operation of a county recreation center? What does it feel like, not from a larger statistical, “Face of the homeless problem” level…but as a man? While others are posting funny “It’s Monday again” memes on Facebook, and lamenting the loss of another weekend, what is Monday like for a homeless man?

     There is a routine to it. There is a pattern to the survival mode I lived in for six years. It wasn’t a vacation from reality, or a break from labor. Homelessness is work. There are things you have to do each day, just to survive. Because that is the first rule of being homeless: “Survive.” You have to find that perfect hiding spot, and when you do, you have to guard it with your life. That’s key. You need to be safely hidden at night when you try to steal a few hours of sleep. If you can’t be both safe and hidden, at least be hidden. If they can’t see you, they can’t roust you for vagrancy.

     Hopefully, if you’re unseen, you’re also safe, but not necessarily. Just because the cops don’t see you, or the pastor, behind who’s church you hide your car each night, or the church members who happen to come back to the church late one night because they forgot something, just because none of them saw you, doesn’t mean someone else didn’t. Even the slightest sound is a cause for alarm. You just never know who else is out there like you are, in survival mode, looking for a place.

     The second rule is “Get out of this somehow.” Because few people really want to be here. True, there are those who prefer this life. Folks with mental issues that force them to the shadows and the outskirts of society. I’ve met them. I used to work with the homeless ministry at the church I attended, (They felt it lent some authenticity to have an actual homeless man working with the homeless men they shipped in one night a week during the coldest months) and I met the guys who preferred homelessness. They eschewed the shelters and the Mission. They avoided the places where the other homeless would gather. They seldom panhandled. Most were veterans suffering from PTSD or other mental issues, coupled with chemical dependencies, losing a daily battle with the bottle. They had a meager monthly income from the V.A. and that was how they survived.

     These men weren’t comfortable around others for long stretches of time. They stayed to themselves, carrying on conversations in their heads to keep themselves company. They were the loneliest of the lot. The others knew them by now and avoided them for the most part. They respected the fact that these men wanted to be alone and the code on the street is “Respect my space and respect my stuff.” You didn’t touch another man’s backpack and if he didn’t want to talk, you didn’t try to force him.

     There were always troublemakers who would violate these rules. I saw this as well. Guys who poked fun at the quiet ones. Guys who would rob another man of his last cigarette, his last dollar, or his last clean pair of socks. They would steal because they wanted it, and they would steal because they needed to feel superior. Even homeless people need to feel like they have some sort of power and control remaining. Sometimes stealing another guys stuff was the only way they could show it. Alpha males exist even in a homeless shelter or under a bridge.

Sometimes these guys would show their strength by ridiculing those with deeper problems. They’d find the weak spot in a man’s armor and pick at it nonstop until the man broke. Often this was violent in nature.  A homeless man with obvious mental illness being pushed to the brink by another homeless man is an explosive mix. You didn’t want to be near that when it happened.

     For the others, though, the goal was to get out of this situation somehow. That was always my goal. I wanted this nightmare to end, and end as quickly as possible. So in addition to the routine of survival, there was the daily effort to find work, and end this.

Find work.

     I have to admit that as I wrote those two words just now it brought tears to my eyes. Until 2008 I have never had to find work. Work always found me. I was always working. I have been industrious, diligent, and hardworking since I was a little boy. I have the natural work ethic that the grandsons of immigrants seem to always have. At eleven I started a lawn mowing business in my neighborhood, to go along with my newspaper route. (At a time in America when an eleven-year-old boy could go out at five a.m. and deliver papers and be perfectly safe.) At fifteen I started working in a fast-food restaurant.  

     I graduated from high school and went immediately to work full-time.

I’d never been out of work in my life. Even in college I worked thirty to forty hours a week. I’d been self-employed since 1986. I started a carpentry business and did that until 1998 when I started in the mortgage business. The mortgage business is straight commission and there is no room for the lazy. I had to go find every loan I closed. So hard work and diligence were not foreign to my nature. And yet here I was…jobless.

     My routine was tiring. It wore me down. It was hard. The day started at about 4:45 a.m. You have to get up long before the sun because darkness is your ally. You can’t be seen coming and going or you’ll lose the spot you worked so hard to find. You essentially spend your whole day trespassing, so when it’s time to try to sleep, you need to not worry about being discovered. So moving in and out requires darkness. This is hard in the summer months when the sun is up early and lingers until late in the night. When you’ve had four hours of fitful tossing and turning in the passenger seat of a car, you wake up tired and move toward total exhaustion by day’s end. Sometimes it was that exhaustion that made sleep even possible at all. I would collapse at night and the first two hours would be unbroken. But there was always a sound or a nightmare or, eventually, the discomfort of that folded-down car seat that woke me up. The rest of my short night would be spent in a series of naps until my cell-phone alarm woke me and it was time to move on. I rose early to avoid losing my hiding spot at the church, but it was something more than that.  There was so much shame involved. I just didn’t want anyone seeing me living in my car.

     A year later, a friend found out about my plight and offered me a spot to park on her little mini-farm in Franklin, just a few miles from the Church. Of course I took her up on it, but my habit remained. Even after I had a spot to park, and was welcome there, and was not at risk of being thrown out by the cops…I still rose before dawn. I was still embarrassed at sleeping in my car. I still didn’t want anyone to see me.

     Thankfully I had the luxury of a gym membership. Williamson County Parks and Rec has wonderful facilities. They have four main locations and for $225 for a year, it was a steal. Thankfully I had a paid membership when my world collapsed. After that, renewal was cheaper and somehow I managed to scrape together the $150 it took each January to stay active. So I had a place to shower. I used the necessity of my going there to work out each day, doubtless the most consistent I’d been my life. I walked about five miles each morning and then lifted weights, showered, and went out to face the day. I accomplished all this by about 7:45 a.m.

     The internet is crucial when you’re homeless and job-seeking. So I had to find free Wi-Fi connectivity. These days that’s easy. What’s not easy is finding restaurants where you can sit for hours and not spend any money while you used the free broadband.

It’s not their job to provide internet to the world and not get anything in return, and so I always felt guilty. My favorite spots were the Panera restaurants in Franklin. There were always other folks there working on their laptops or having meetings and so I didn’t feel out of place. I’d scrape together the two dollars it took to buy a large iced tea and then I’d rinse the cup out when I was finished and bring it back the next day for free refills without having to buy another one. It’s not the way the policy is designed, I know, but two dollars was a lot of money to me.

     Sometimes, just eating was an exercise in creativity. There were days when I would literally be down to no more than the change in my pocket or what I could scrape together from the ashtray in my car. I would catch a sale on Ramen noodles at the Kroger. The trick was to buy one “Cup-of-Noodles” and then use the rest of the money for Ramen noodle packages. That way I had a cup to re-use to make the Ramen. I would feel so horribly guilty taking my cup of noodles the Panera. I’d hide it in my backpack and get a cup of hot water from the coffee bar. After making the noodles at my booth, I’d arrange my laptop, and later when I’d started college classes, my school books, on the table in such a way that (I hoped) nobody could see what I was eating. It was humiliating. I felt like a thief. Looking back, nobody likely even noticed or cared, but I felt like every set of eyes in the store was watching me and knew what I was up to…and what I was.

     There were days when there simply was no money at all after buying gas. Days when the refills of iced tea had to get me through until the next day. Or the day after that. I learned the value of my Sam’s club membership then. When I was down to nothing, I would go to Sam’s and walk around hitting all the free sample displays. I had to take my time and not go to the same ones too frequently or the sales person might recognize me. Now I don’t know if they would ever have said “Hey…you’ve had enough!” but you just never know. I’d eat samples and walk around the store, looking at things I could never buy, remembering a better time when I’d be in this store every week, buying supplies for my office.

Back when I was a success. Back when I was someone. When I felt human.

     There was one more source of food I’d rely on when things were at their worst. It was probably the most embarrassing of all, simply because of the people around me. The Kroger around the corner from the Panera in Cool Springs that I frequented, always set out cookies and coffee for their customers. They set them by the deli department. Some days, when I had no money and didn’t have the gas to drive over to Sam’s, I’d go to the Kroger. I felt too embarrassed to just walk in and head for the cookies, so I would pretend to shop for a few minutes, sometimes, to keep up the appearance, I’d even pick up a few canned goods. I’d walk around like a shopper, then head over and grab a couple of cookies. I’d walk around for a while longer and do it again. When I had four or five in my pocket, I’d return my canned goods to their shelves and head back to Panera. I always felt terrible taking cookies from the Kroger, mostly because this particular store was in a rather affluent area and the customers were always well dressed and well-heeled. I felt like an intruder into their neighborhood. No one ever said anything to me. I am sure nobody ever noticed me taking the free cookies. But I noticed. To me it wasn’t crafty or smart. It was just survival and I was tired of just surviving.

     I guess they’re funny, these stories. And maybe they would be if I was 19 and this was my college life we were talking about. But we’re not. We’re talking about a forty-five-year-old man. Someone’s dad. Having to come up with ways to find food. Even now, three years beyond this situation, it breaks my heart. It hurts to write these words about myself. It hurts to see the image in my mind of me skulking away from the Kroger with a pocket full of sugar cookies, and calling that my dinner.

     Beside finding food, part of each day was the job search. I always did this part first, because I’d hoped that my resume would find its way into some early-rising employer’s email before anyone else’s did. Each day I would search the job websites. Each day I widened my search just a bit. At first I’d hoped to find something similar to what I had been doing. I knew the mortgage industry was all but dead in those days. But I had managed sales people and I had run an office and I was a very good teacher and trainer.

Each day I would send out my resume to eight or ten or twelve possible employers. Each day I would not hear anything back. I never stopped trying. I don’t remember many days going by without my sending out resumes. But no one replied. The economy was terrible then. Unemployment was high, and the outlook was pessimistic. The president, for all his talk of hope, offered nothing in the way of solutions. He ignored people like me.

     Days became months. Months, unbelievably, became years. Hope became a numb spot in my heart. A faded memory of a time when I had a career and when I walked upright like a man. Not the stoop-shouldered, vagabond I had become. Hiding in plain sight. Trying my best not to look homeless.

     After my morning routine of sending out resumes, I would write. Writing became my solace. My voice. My safe place. I had always loved to write, and in happier times, long before, I was an entertaining, humorous writer, making my high school teachers laugh with my wit. But I also enjoyed the crafting of a great sentence or the impact of a weighty story. Blogging had just begun to get noticed. I started a blog. I wrote about life. About being a dad. About my faith. I wrote about the world out here where I was living. But I didn’t write about being homeless. Not for a long time. I think it was because I was trying to not be homeless. I was trying not to be the voice of a demographic. I was trying to be more than a guy in an unfortunate situation who was journaling his plight. I didn’t want to just be a “homeless writer.”

     It wasn’t long before I felt like maybe I could have a career as a writer. If not full-time, then at least in conjunction with whatever else I was doing. I worried that if I only wrote about my homelessness, I would be pigeon-holed into only ever writing about homelessness…or other social issues, for the rest of my life. I didn’t want that.

     I would write in the mornings, perhaps as a means of relieving the pressure of sending out resumes and not getting a response. I’m sure it was -in part at least- a means of just saying the things I would say if I had someone, anyone, to talk to. I wrote a lot about my divorce and my fatherhood. I wrote sometimes revelatory things about myself. My search for my own father, and the subsequent disappointments. My search for work. The way I missed my home in the country. The way I was missing my daughter growing up. I wrote to give vent to the pain that built in my heart every day.

     After writing, if I had gas in my car, sometimes I would go to the little park nearby. I would walk. Walking became therapy for me much as writing had become. In fact, much of what I wrote about in those days was formulated on those early morning walks at the rec center, and often it was digested on the mid-morning walks at Pinkerton Park. I walked to think. I walked to escape from the thoughts I was thinking. I walked for hours sometimes, just hashing out my situation and trying to find the escape hatch. I walked sometimes, just to keep moving, because sitting still made it feel like this whole nightmare would catch me and consume me. I walked sometimes, just to stay away from the lot that was befalling me.

      It was lonely. More lonely than I have ever been in my life. I had conversations with no one else but myself. I can understand how that can drive a person to madness if it goes on long enough. No one counters your desperate thoughts. Nobody holds your sadness in check. You voice those things to only yourself and nobody says “Come on man…I’m here. You aren’t entirely alone.” I had friends I could call, but they all lived somewhere else. Or the ones close by had jobs and families and they didn’t have time for a homeless guy sitting on a bench in a city park in the middle of the morning. They cared, but they had no idea how really desperate I was and so there was no urgency. And I felt guilty even asking them so I never did. So I walked. Alone.

     Some days, there was rain and I would sit under the pavilions on the picnic tables. The rain would pour down hard enough that I was invisible under there. Had anyone come to the park, like the Franklin PD who rolled through every few hours, they would have never seen me for the sheets of rain that formed a curtain around the gazebo. Those were the days I could cry. I cried a lot but much of it stayed inside. But when it rained and I felt invisible, I could let it out. And I did.

     I would walk sometimes all day, alternating between sitting on a bench and walking the trail. When afternoon came and people who had been there earlier were going home to their families and their dinner table, I would cry again. Sometimes I couldn’t hide it under a pavilion roof. Sometimes I had to turn my head as a stranger walked past me on the trail. “He’s going home,” I would think to myself. “He’s done his walking and he’s going home to his wife and his family and his home.” I would think of this stranger sitting at a dinner table, having a conversation, laughing, smiling. I would think of him relaxing in his favorite chair, taking his dog out for a walk, climbing into bed. Then I would think of the car, and the pain in my back and the stiffness in my neck and the shame.

     Some days I would walk around downtown Franklin just to be near other people. Downtown Franklin is a beautiful little area dating back to the late 1700’s. Main Street bustles with shops and shoppers and café’s and artsy people walking around with seven-dollar latte’s and trendy clothes, talking mainly about the music industry. I walked among them with no latte, and no trendy clothes. I remember catching my reflection in a storefront window once. I was noticeably thinner. I was clean, my clothes were clean. I had shaved. Nothing about my appearance, save maybe the weight loss, betrayed my homelessness. But I saw it. I saw it in my eyes, me…looking back at me.

Hollow. Hopeless.

I know myself well enough to recognize all those tears I was holding back and the memories that were, even in that instant, flooding my mind. I saw what no one else could have seen that day. I saw who I used to be, overlaid with who I was now and it broke my heart. After that, I no longer looked into windows. I no longer could bear seeing my reflection. It just hurt too much.

     Some days I had some work. I found an odd job from a friend and I was busy trying to earn a few dollars. I built a chicken coop once for the woman who would eventually allow me to park on her property. I had never built a coop before and she showed me a picture and I set to work. When I was done, her mother said it was the nicest chicken coop she’d ever owned and she’d had them all her life. I was proud of that. In a world that was spiraling daily and tearing out my hull on the rocks of an economy that would not relent…I could build the nicest chicken coop this woman had ever seen. You take your happiness were you find it sometimes.

     Afternoons often approached with a sense of impending doom. No matter what kind of day I’d had, good or bad, in the back of my mind was that car and those weeds. It was there like a specter. It was there like the feeling in your gut when your dad pulls up in the driveway and you got an “F” on your report card and he was about to find out. It was there like going to the doctor and expecting a bad report. The car. The weeds. The hiding. The tossing and turning and exhaustion. The nervousness of racing into the hiding place and hoping that no one saw you one more night.

The shame.

     Afternoons were the great blank spot in my day. The great void. Summer made it worse because it was light until nine p.m. and I was tired by seven. Regardless of what time the sun set, I still had to be up before five to avoid being seen, so summer months just meant I slept less. A lot of time, if I had gas in my car, I would drive to my daughter’s school and pick her up. We’d go to McDonald’s for a Coke and to spend time together. Not too many months after this all began she discovered I was homeless. I had left my sleeping bag rolled up behind my seat and she saw it. I couldn’t lie to her any longer. It broke my heart.

     Finally, night was here and time to hide the car. This, for me, was as close to pulling up in a driveway as I could get. I waited, I circled the church, and when I had a break when no cars were coming, I made the mad dash for the back side of the building. There, lights off so no one would see me, I’d back my car into those high weeds until they sprung back up around me like a curtain. Then came the waiting. Then the sigh of relief when enough time passed that I realized no one saw me. Then came the routine of sleeping bags and warm clothes and trying to find some spot in the positioning of the seat that didn’t hurt too bad. Then…when I was settled in and still, there came the memories, and the tears. There was my sleeping companion…hopelessness

     And another day in my journey was over.

A Fed-Up Patriot Speaks... My response to the post-election riots

For EIGHT YEARS I had to endure being called a racist for even DISAGREEING with Obama. 

I was called a homophobe, even though I have an uncle and four cousins who are gay and who have never even remotely questioned my love and care for them.

I was called a religious extremist simply because I adhere to the Bible, don't believe in evolution, or global warming, and don't support same-sex marriage biblically. (Although I support it Constitutionally) 

I was called a misogynist because I am against abortion. When they said I was against women's rights, my response was "I am for the rights of little unborn women." To which they responded: "They are parasites, blobs, biological masses" anything but babies.

I was called a "tea bagger" (a vile sexual term) if I didn't vote Democrat or support liberal policy.

One of my dearest friends was referred to as an "Uncle Tom" by someone who has never met him, simply because he is a black conservative.

The Faith I would die for was laughed at by Obama and ridiculed as some dark-ages superstition as he campaigned in 2008 and 2012.

If I disagree it's hatred. I am a bigot. I am intolerant. I force people to live in fear.

It's been this way for over EIGHT YEARS now and never ONCE did I say "Obama is not my president!" Never once did I demand a new election, a violation of the Constitution or the destruction of others' property.

I never rioted while his policies held me captive in the back of that Yukon, night after night.

I never hated him even as I hated his policies. I never used racial epithets to describe him or tolerated those who might have.

If ANYONE had a reason to riot, whine, complain, be angry, attack others, accuse people of being hateful...it was me.

But I did not.

I loved my country. I fought in the battleground of ideas I held out hope, and when I got the chance I VOTED...knowing that my candidate might not win. I was afraid of Hillary. Scared to death, to be honest. Scared of an economy she'd ruin, a country she'd decimate, and maybe even afraid of being homeless again.

NEVER, EVER on the night of November 8 or the days leading up to it did I consider rioting, inflicting harm, or calling for a different result if Trump had lost.

I am glad we have Trump. I fully support him. And if you don't like the tone of the election or the months leading up to it...BLAME YOURSELF! You attacked every person who didn't agree with you one hundred percent and worse...you labeled them with the most atrocious, vicious, vile labels, until we were afraid to even speak our minds. The only option we had was the sledgehammer. Trump is YOUR fault, not mine. YOU did this. You and your demands that everyone not only agree with you 100% but that they APPROVE of you 100%. Nobody hates you. Nobody wants to harm you. People disagree with you. THAT'S LIFE! It doesn't make them evil, hate-filled, bigots, rednecks, racists, or whatever-phobes. It means they disagree. You made disagreeing a CRIME against humanity. Trump was our solution. Grow the heck UP! It ain't just about YOU. 

Engage a different viewpoint now and then and if you fail to convince that person using FACTS...don't relinquish them to the label machine. In the words of Dale Earnhardt Sr:

"You better tie some kerosene rags around your ankles so the ants don't crawl up your legs and eat your candy A__!"

That is all.

Homeless in Obama's America...new series. New book

Hi folks,
I'm writing a new book right now and I thought I would begin posting snippets of it here as I write.
The working title of this book is "A Dad Never Quits. How I Survived Being Homeless in Obama's America"
This is a sort of stream of consciousness section I wrote the other night. It moved me to tears. Please share if you feel like it, and please, send me your feedback.

When you’re homeless, you feel like you’re on the outside looking in. Like there is an invisible wall between yourself and “normal” folks. It feels like it’s a slow-moving nightmare and you can’t tell which part is the dream and which is reality. You want to wake up, but you’re already awake.

     It feels like you’re watching the normal folks with their normal life, a life that you used to have as well, and you start forgetting what all that felt like. What it was like to have a kitchen, and a stove, and a bed…and an address. You try to forget about your dogs and your cat and your garden. You overhear bits of conversations about mundane home ownership and you wish you could be doing those things that the normal people complain about. You wish you still had a lawn to cut. You wish you had a driveway to seal, or an electric bill to complain about. You’d give anything for a nosy neighbor.

     When you’re homeless, you don’t wake up on Monday mornings and have the Monday morning blues and make jokes with your coworkers about how “It’s Monday again…” Because when you’re homeless, every day feels like Monday. Every day greets you with the blues. Every day finds you one day further removed from humanity. One more day since your last meaningful conversation. One more day since you had clean sheets and a warm bed. One more day has passed since you had a cup of coffee in your kitchen, in your mug, from your coffee maker.

     When you’re homeless, you can’t run home for lunch, or grill out, or hang your laundry out to dry. You can’t take a warm shower at the end of a hard day’s work, because you don’t have a shower, and you can’t find any work. When you’re homeless, you can’t stay indoors on a cold, rainy November Saturday and get caught up on some reading and have a nice fire in the fireplace and make some soup and watch the cold rain as it falls. When you’re homeless, you try to stay dry and warm and out of sight if you can.

     When you’re homeless there are no pictures on your walls, because you have no walls. So you carry them in your wallet, and in your heart. They come alive at night, these pictures. They haunt you. Pictures of your little girl and the rope swing you had in the oak tree out back and how she laughed and wanted you to push her for hours. Pictures of how your beloved dog Bonnie would come over to you on the sofa and lay her chin on your leg and let out a soft little sigh and look at you plaintively until you scratched her head. Pictures of your daughter and the time you filled the Jacuzzi tub with Mr. Bubble and she was lost in the suds and laughing up a storm and having the most fun you’d ever seen. Pictures of when it was that you had a life.

     Other times, it’s like being on the inside looking out. You swear everyone knows. Everyone sees. You hide your bedroll in the trunk of your car but maybe they saw it when you were getting your school books. You circle the church where you hide your car at night to get a few hours of sleep. You circle it like a hawk, hunting for his prey, waiting until you don’t see any headlights coming in either direction and then you race in before someone sees you. Your heart races and pounds and you swear that this time, they saw your tail lights and they’ve called the cops. You hurry up and back into the overgrowth until you are hidden from view. They can’t see you but you swear they can. You wait, being as quiet as a mouse, barely breathing. Ten minutes go by. Then twenty. Sitting still like this means the fatigue starts to catch up to you but you fight it. After enough time passes, you let out your breath and realize that nobody saw you. You pulled it off one more time. You get changed into your sweatpants and sweatshirt and zipper into two sleeping bags and try not to let yourself admit how cold it really is. The cold has gotten into your bones by now and you never feel quite warm. Your body is warm enough with all the layers, but you’re still breathing frigid air and you wake up shivering.

     You feel like every pair of eyes in the world is dialed in on you when you’re homeless. Do they know? Surely they know. Everyone knows. You walk with your head down, and your eyes lowered. Because even if nobody else around you knows, you know. And that’s bad enough. You stop looking into store front windows because you can’t bear seeing your own reflection. You hide your shame when you see your daughter, because after all…you’re still her daddy. But you feel like a caged animal. Like the little people inside a snow-globe, never moving, never showing any reaction whenever some outside force shakes their world and stirs up the snow. Their smile painted on. Their faces plastic and emotionless. That’s you now. Feeling less and less because feeling anything at all only reminds you of who you used to be and who you are now.

     When you’re homeless, you don’t tuck your kids in at night. You lay there in your sleeping bags and cry because you miss them. On the coldest nights, the tears freeze to your cheeks and they cut you like diamonds when you wipe them away. You remember your little girl’s bedtime prayers and you swear you can still hear her voice as she says them… “God bless Bonnie and Cooper and our cat Jackie. God bless Daddy…”

God bless Daddy. God? God who? You question Him. Sometimes you curse at Him because it feels like He’s just left you here. Sometimes you cry out to Him for mercy and beg Him for hope. You pray to Him. You pray to him for your daughter. “Please, God,” you beg, “Please give me a place to live again. My daughter needs me and I need her.” Then you think about her life and the pain she feels. “Please God,” you continue, “Please protect her like I would if I was there right now.” And the tears resume, and the sobs, and the memories, and the questions, and the doubts.

     When you’re homeless, you don’t get your daughter once a week and every other weekend. You get McDonald’s for an hour every few days after school. You try hiding the truth from her, but she’s smart. She finds out and then you feel even worse because you know her, and now she is worrying herself sick about you every night. When you’re homeless, you are still someone’s father, but you sure don’t feel very fatherly.

     When you’re homeless, you think of the old days and the happy times and those memories are triggered by the strangest things. I was walking through the mall one hot summer afternoon, just trying to stay out of the heat. I walked past the “Build-a-Bear Workshop” store and I stopped outside and watched the little kids. There was a girl there who reminded me of my own daughter a few years before. She was finishing up her bear and doing the little routine where they tell the kids to jump up and down and turn around. I remembered all the trips we made together to this place. Back when I had a job and a home and she had a bedroom where she kept all these prized little stuffed friends. It felt like it was a million years ago. It felt like I was watching it all from some cloak of invisibility. The little girl clutched her new beloved friend as mine had done. I turned away in tears. I raced to the bathroom before the sobs embarrassed me in the mall. When you’re homeless, every little thing reminds you that you used to have a home, and your daughter used to spend weekends with you, and you used to be someone.

     When you’re homeless, you reach a point where you want to quit. In that moment, you’d better have a reason to keep fighting. You’d better have something or someone you love more than you love yourself because believe me, when you want to give up, when you want to craw inside a bottle and die or jump from a bridge, or just fall asleep in the dead of winter and let your body freeze…there had better be a face you see when you close your eyes that keeps you going. Because when you’re homeless, just you…isn’t nearly enough.

My response to "Liberty United..."

NOTE: I am a Liberty University alumnus. I am also an LU employee. My job does not involve contact with President Jerry Falwell Jr. in any way. In 2 1/2 years here I have spoken to President Falwell once, and that was concerning a personal matter. I did not discuss this with him before writing. I wrote this in my home, at 4 AM this morning, on my personal computer and not on the job at LU. I do not represent the school officially or unofficially. I do not (knowingly) represent any other employees, alumni, staff or faculty at Liberty. I am strictly writing this as ONE LU alumnus and as a man who has experienced the very very bad of the last eight years.

I wrote this in response to Dustin Wahl and Tyler Mcnally and their petition against Donald Trump. They began the petition and the subsequent media blitz using their status as a Liberty student as it's basis. They claims to speak for "most" LU students on campus. I do not believe their opinion is in the majority but that is not the point. I took umbrage to their comments. There is a place for dissent and debate and social media should not be the first forum you use, but the last. If you do so, you should not try for embarrassment as your goal. Going out of your way to attempt to embarrass someone with whom you disagree is not the way you comport yourself in the grown up world. 

I also write this as a man of 53 years. A man who has tasted the bitter disappointment of these last 8 years in huge gulps. I write this to counter their statements and, perhaps, to educate them, because I believe their youth and inexperience has rendered them idyllically blinded. These thoughts are mine alone and I discussed them with no one as I wrote. 

     Boys,

     I thought I’d write this letter to you. I don’t know if you’ll read it, you’re very busy with your new-found fifteen minutes of fame. Enjoy it, it’s fleeting.

But I had some things I wanted to say to you and this is probably the only forum I’ll have to do so. I would love to tell you that I applaud your taking a stand. I did in the beginning, not because I agreed with you at all, but because I admire conviction in anyone…until I see through it. Then I read that bloated manifesto of yours. I’ll give you some advice from a writer: learn not to be in love with the sound of your own words. When you think yourself amazing for a sentence you just wrote, you tend to start writing more of them and each one is less amazing than the last. You soon descend into pontification.

     You lost me with your snark. There are times for that. I’m from Philadelphia, believe me I know sarcasm and attitude better than anyone. But there are also times when your dissent must be delivered with respect. You went after your university’s president. You didn’t do it in a respectful fashion, you did it with attitude. You didn’t simply make a statement that you disagree with Jerry and you want it known that other LU students do as well. Your seemingly endless letter sounds, from the very beginning, like you know better than he and you want everyone else to know that. You sound like someone who thinks they speaks for the Christian world. You come off as someone who thinks they have the only opinion that matters. You’re too young to know about respect yet, but this might be your baptism.

     On a personal level, I want to tell you my view of this. Things you probably don’t know yet. You live on this beautiful campus and your education is paid for, either by your parents or scholarships and grants or a combination of all of those. You swipe a card to eat your meals, likely never considering what that food actually costs. You swipe your card again to get into your dorm where you have WiFi, Cable TV access, and the amenities of apartment life. You can work out, swim, walk the trails, do whatever it is college kids do and probably never consider what the real-world value of those things might be. I don’t know how much or how little your folks are helping you, but since I work here I do know that you wouldn’t be here if the bill wasn’t being paid somehow. I say God bless. Good for you. But this campus isn’t the real world. Let me tell you something about the real world.

     I am an alumnus of Liberty. I also work here. I was here when there were no student loans to speak of. I worked 40 hours a week at the Advance Auto Parts store when it was in Hill’s Plaza, just to pay my tuition. I got no help from home. None. I made it through one year like that and couldn’t afford to return. I finally graduated 28 years after I started. A lot happened in those years. A lot of things that shape my decision to vote for Trump, and to write this to you explaining why. I’ll give you some examples.

     In 2008, when the economy collapsed, I lost everything. I lost my job when my company pulled all it’s branches from Tennessee, where I lived. I lost my career, when that industry continued to crash until it practically ceased to exist. I was 45, had two years of college and ten years of success and achievement in an industry that was now gone. Ultimately, I lost my home because I had no job. I had no prospects. 
I also have a daughter. She was ten when this happened. She lived with her mom primarily (we divorced years before) and so at least she had a home. But her life was becoming a hell. Her mom’s husband was growing more violent by the day and he attacked my daughter with mental cruelty that was increasingly becoming physical. I could not find work and yet, because of my daughter’s situation, I could not leave Nashville to move someplace where I might get a job. I was the only barrier between her and the monster she had to live with. So I chose to stay. Choosing to stay meant sleeping in my car, hidden behind a church. I don’t know if you’ve ever slept in a car before, but I did it for almost 6 years.

I put out over 350 resumes. I did odd jobs. I washed windows. I built a chicken coop for someone once, just for food and gas. I showered in the county rec center and often times the only food I had was from the sample stations at Sam’s club or the grocery store. I wanted to quit a million times. Sometimes I wanted to die. But I had a daughter I loved, who loved me, and I had to keep going. I have no family who could help and to be honest…I didn’t want help. I wanted a job. I wanted to come back on my own.

     Three times during this nightmare of mine I was offered the chance to return to the mortgage industry. I never wanted to do that since it had bitten me so hard and taken so much. But as time went on I realized I needed to do something and since I had been very good at that before, I decided to do it again. Three times I was offered, and three times the hope that I had from a job offer was crushed by the policies of Barack Obama and the Democrats, and the Republicans who failed to stop them. Let me tell you about the first time.

     In August of 2013, I had an interview with a mortgage company in Brentwood, a suburb of Nashville. It was a Friday. The branch manager was actually excited to have me consider working for him. He knew my reputation in the business and actually said it was an honor for him to welcome me aboard. I left there that afternoon with hope for the first time in years. I had to fill out some paperwork online, and then we would start my certification process. Within a few weeks I would be active in the business again.

     I called my daughter to tell her the news. This was a mistake, in hindsight, but I had no idea what was to happen next. I wanted her to have hope too. That next Monday, I picked her up and we went to Franklin High School and walked through it. She had been attending a school near her mom’s house and was miserable. We talked about our plans. She was going to move in with me as soon as I got a place and she would go to Franklin High. I saw her smile for the first time in years. (By this time she was 15).

That Thursday, the second phase of Obamacare was enacted. The next day –one week from receiving the job offer- I got an email rescinding the offer. The reason: the cost of implementing Obamacare, coupled with the mandatory base salary they now had to pay (the mortgage industry had always been a 100% commission job) made it impossible for them to add any new employees. They withdrew the offer and wished me well. I had to tell my daughter that our plans were cancelled. I had to break her already fractured heart. I had to condemn her to remaining in that house for another year before I could finally get her out.

     I am fairly certain you have never suffered a loss like this. I am certain you have not felt the crushing weight of failure and loss and shame and embarrassment that enduring this sort of thing brings. If not for the failed policies of the current administration, I would have been back to work, my daughter living in a safer place, my life rebuilding sooner than it has. It’s not just my detest of Obama and the Democrats that demands I write this. Nor is it any need to defend my school or it’s president. Jerry is a smarter man than I am, and quite capable of defending himself should that be necessary. This is personal for me. I felt the pain. I am one of those stories you hear about on conservative talk radio and likely ignore. My daughter –who is on this campus right now, one of your fellow student- has lived this nightmare too.

     I am a Christian. My degree is in Biblical studies and this spring I hope to begin seminary here. I have weighed this scripturally. And I have called upon the wisdom of having actually experienced some of what has happened these last, nightmarish, 8 years. Something you simply do not have the benefit of doing. 
I wish Trump were less rough around the edges and more squeaky clean. But to be honest, smooth and squeaky clean is what helped create the policies that held me in my car for 6 years. Smooth and squeaky clean best describes all those Republicans who  fell in line behind Obama.  Six years, boys,. think about that. Think about six years of your life being lost to inescapable shame and embarrassment and hopelessness. I am certain you cannot understand that or grasp the impact. That’s why I wrote this today. Because you need to. You need to understand what has really happened out here in America. You need to understand why, at this moment in American history, we need a blunt instrument and not a scalpel. The time for a scalpel is later. Right now we need a sledgehammer. I worked construction for the better part of 20 years. I’ve used sledgehammers. They aren’t precise. They are heavy and loud and ugly and they make a mess. But when you have to demolish something to get it out of the way, there is nothing else that will do.

     This is why I am still voting for Trump. Because I have already lived a Clintonian nightmare. I have no desire to go back to sleep and have another one. I literally fear that will happen.  I am voting for him because I have experiences you know nothing about. Because I literally dread the thoughts of Hillary as president. And with good reason.

One day, when you have had life experiences and doubtless suffered losses of your own, you’ll understand this. Today, you simply do not. Perhaps after reading this, you will.

Why I will support Trump to the end...(How homelessness tells me who to vote for)

I want to say this because it's been on my mind all day.

I am supporting Trump this election. Trump was not my first choice -that would have been Cruz- but Trump is the nominee and as I've watched the race unfold, maybe the only one who had the ugly roughness that it takes to FINALLY confront the Clinton's. Hillary Clinton is as purely evil a human as exists in this world. That she would sell out this nation for money and then demand to be it's next president is proof enough. That she provided cover for her sexual predator husband and did so with ruthless, callous cruelty is further proof. Her soul is as dark as a soul can be.

Only a man who is gruff, unbending, slightly arrogant, and used to the viciousness of the boardroom and the construction site can have the thick skin needed to absorb the impact of the attacks she launches. Only a man who is used to mean people, used to being both unpopular and popular at once, used to having to be a bully because sometimes in the business world that's the only thing that works...only that man can stand up to her, look her in the face and say the things we all know to be true and wish we had the chance to say. That man happens to be Donald Trump. I wish it were different, but this isn't 1980 anymore.This isn't Reagan against Carter. Looking back I feel like Ted Cruz would never have fired off the "You'd be in jail" comment. He never would have invited four of Bill's many victims to sit there in plain sight. He would have tried to out- think her. The truth is, she isn't as smart as she lets on and out- thinking her isn't how you beat her. Because this society has fallen so far that most of them don't even CARE what she has done or the implications of her vile despicable self-servance. They hear in soundbites. They think in Tweets. Trump takes shots and gets the truth out there in ways that a kinder, more intellectual society would not tolerate, but the current society understands and gravitates toward. I wish this were not so, but it is.

Now the why...

I support Trump because from May 8, 2008 until May 17, 2014, with the exception of about 6 months when a friend let me stay in her house while she was away and it was for sale, I was homeless. I slept in my car and showered in the rec center. You all know this story so I won't return to it.

But I will try to tell you how it felt. Writing the new book has put me back in touch with some emotions from that time that I thought I had buried forever.

I don't know if you will ever know what it is like to drive around almost all night looking for a place to hide your car so you can just sleep for a few hours without the cops finding you. How tiring it is. How drained you feel the next day. How going without sleep will break you until you just sit in your car and cry. I did this. I know.

I don't know if you know what it is to wake up on cold mornings with frost inside your car because the overnight temps dropped into the teens and your breath froze to the windshield. Or how it feels to be so cold you can't stop shaking but you can't start your car and get heat because someone would find you. I have been there.

I can't explain the loneliness. The miserable, bitter, hard, isolating loneliness that crushes you and makes you angry and weary and afraid of people after a while. Those six years where the loneliest of my entire life. 

I don't know if you know what it feels like to have your young child call you begging you to come and get her out of the house and all you can do is pick her up for a few hours but you have to take her back to the abuse and violence of her mom's house, because you don't have a place for her. I do. I can't tell you how it made me weep.

I have awoken to ice on my face where my tears froze to my cheeks. I have wandered aimlessly around a Sam's club for hours just to stay in the A/C in blistering Nashville summers. 

And I have felt the shame and screaming failure of putting out literally hundreds of resumes and not getting any calls. Because I was in my forties, and unemployed and the economy just kept getting worse and worse. I can't express how it feels to have finally gotten a job offer and to feel hopeful and to literally cry for joy because your nightmare seemed to at last be over. Only to get that email a week later that rescinded the job offer because of the excessive costs of the newly implemented Obama care. I had that happen to me three times.

It took 6 years to find a job. I have no furniture. I have a mattress on the floor of my bedroom. I have a kitchen table that someone gave me that is so warped that your plate will slide off it. And yet I am so thankful. I struggle each week, even with the side jobs, to get ahead. But I have a job I really love and I work for and with some of the best people I have ever known. I survived it. I am on my feet. But honestly...I live every single day in fear. Every day I worry about the economy, this society, this wonderful country of mine. I fear not having enough savings or enough stockpiled food. I worry about returning to homelessness. Because I don't ever want to go there again. I don't know if I could handle it emotionally a second time around. I get a knot in my stomach whenever I think about how I have no savings yet, or play the "what-if" game. What if I get hurt? What if there is a layoff? 

Hillary Clinton will destroy this nation. There will be a smoldering ruin when she is done. Her policies have never worked anywhere in the world at any time and yet she wants to go back to them. I fear that a Hillary presidency will put me back in that car, homeless, broken. Trump has employed people. He has paid payroll. Whatever else he might be, he personally has amassed wealth and doesn't wish to lose it. The same can be said for Clinton but the difference is Trump did actual work for his, and Trump wants others to be rich too. Clinton wants to rule the poor. I can't go for that. Just put us back to work, just protect us from terrorism and an illegal invasion. We'll handle the rest. I live in dread of ever living that nightmare again. Hillary Clinton would guarantee that.

So I support Trump.

I Moved My Daughter Into Her Dorm Today... A single dad reflects on divorce and how fast kids grow up.

I moved my daughter into her dorm this weekend.

It feels like she went straight from the maternity room to her dorm room without pausing. Like there wasn't 18 years in there.

Being divorced only made it worse. Whatever time I might have had with her was reduced by about 75 percent.

I was there for the big things...Recitals, graduations, art shows, and talent shows. I've never missed a birthday or a holiday with her. I spoke to her every day that I wasn't with her.

But there were little things that were stolen from me. It wasn't me who took off her training wheels when the time came. It wasn't me who pulled her first loose tooth. I had to share her first day of school with the monster her mother married...and is now divorcing. I would call her and he would always make it a point to talk loudly in the background, just so I could hear him and he would let me know that my daughter was in HIS house. He would bait me and hope that I'd lose control and go after him. I have the habit of writing her a letter that I include in every birthday card. It usually recaps the years that have passed and talks about the future. The one I wrote her on her ninth birthday, Jeff (Holly's second husband) decided to "edit" and deface. I wanted to kill him. Somehow I managed not to.

Her mom played along. She liked the feeling of rubbing salt in my wounds.

But I stayed and I fought for whatever time I could get and squeezed in a little more by having lunch with her at school or picking her up and taking her to her mom’s just so I could have the time in the car.

Still...I missed about 75 percent of her bedtime prayers. I missed her singing in her room every night. I didn't catch nearly enough lightning bugs or bake nearly enough cookies or color nearly enough funny pictures. I wish I could be Santa just one more time and she would believe it...like when she was little.

The house I bought in Franklin TN had a Jacuzzi tub. I never used it but she liked it when she was little. One time I put a giant scoop of "Mr. Bubble" in it and she was literally lost in the suds. She had a blast. That's how it was for the first ten years. Once a week and every other weekend we had an adventure of some sort. We had fun and we laughed and we could forget that our little family was broken.

But I see her now and I see the adult version of what was a happy little girl. She trusts no one. She has a chip on her shoulder about men, because she saw how her mom's new husband treated her, and she didn't have a chance to see me treating someone well because I remained single. She has a love for Jesus but a distrust for church because she saw me be essentially abandoned while my life had exploded. Not until I found a different church did she see people caring, as a body of believers, and it jaded her. She knows how individuals helped and cared, but she loved church as much as I do and she felt the disappointment.

She feels like she skipped childhood after age 10. She feels like she was rushed into adulthood because her home life demanded it. I have to agree. Her mom's house wasn't a safe haven, and after 2008, I had no house at all.

She's in the dorm now. She has two roommates and a floor full of young women of varying ages and backgrounds. I am excited for her. I am praying daily that her room mates and RA's and her floor sisters are all exactly who God has picked out to help heal the wounds my little girl carries.

I shudder to think of what might invade that heart if she was in a state school right now. I'm thankful that, while Liberty is growing academically and physically at a tremendous rate, our president, Jerry Falwell has managed to keep our school Christ centered. I'm thankful God brought it about that I can work there and she can go there because the two are financially inseparable right now.

But this hole in me is huge and today it's palpable. 18 years is a blink even if you aren't divorced, or homeless, or both. It's a blink to healthy families where things go well.

For me it was even faster than that. She is my only immediate family. She is the chance I got to right the wrongs from my own childhood, and be a better parent than I had. She is my second chance at seeing dreams come true. She reminds me of my grandmother when she sings. She is loving, tender, gentle, fiery, stubborn, and very broken.

And today she lives in a dorm on Liberty Mountain. And I'm sitting here wondering how it happened so quickly, and wondering if I did it right enough. We talked this weekend about the past and the future. Where I succeeded and where I failed. She told me that no matter what...she always knew I loved her. Because I told her and because I showed her.

I hope and pray that is enough.

Colin Kaepernick...a line-by-line assessment of his ridiculous statement

Note:I have a dear dear friend who lost both legs at the hip in Vietnam. Before going to war, he had been a standout high school football player. He would probably love nothing more than to dance with his wife, run with his grandchildren...and stand for the National Anthem.

Colin Kaepernick came out with an insulting statement about how he refuses to stand for the National Anthem. I thought I'd dissect it line by line. Here goes.

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," 

When one says "A COUNTRY that oppresses black people and people of color" you are saying that this is an official action, sanctioned by the government. "The COUNTRY is oppressing you" means that it's the policy of the nation. Sorry Colonoscopy...that isn't true. In FACT, good people of ALL colors died to make sure those laws were changed so that this was NOT true. You know who fought those against changing those laws the hardest??? Democrats
When you say "The Country" you include ME and all other fellow Americans. Including the millions who bought your stupid jersey after you turned in one good year...and then fell into the abyss of sub-par play. You include the owner who gave you 90 MILLION dollars after one good season...have you offered to return any of that money? When you say "The Country" you include the NFL...the league in which you play, where the majority of players are black. How's THAT oppressive? And can you NEVER use the term "people of color" again??? I have a color too, jackass and mine is as important as yours.

Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game.

"To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way."

No...what's selfish is for you to ignore the men and women who died for that anthem so you could bilk the NFL in the safety of a football stadium, you thankless fraud! There are men who will NEVER, EVER be able to stand for that anthem again, because they stood when it mattered. Think about that the next time you jog off the field after going three-and-out again, on your two healthy legs.

"There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."

WHERE??? Where are the bodies

 in the street and the people getting away with murder? Michael Brown? BZZZZZ false narrative! Hands weren't up...he wasn't running away. He was charging an officer he had tried to kill.

Treyvon Martin? George Zimmerman is a jerk, but Treyvon tried to beat him to death and met his end.
Freddie Gray? Nobody tried harder to convict those cops than that race baiting prosecutor..and yet she went 0 for 6.
Philandro Castille? Turns out he reached for his gun
Alton Sterling? He reached for his gun too and he was a convicted pedophile and he'd already done time for possessing a firearm when prohibited!
Nobody is "dying in the streets" while cops notch their gunbelts, you miserable little turd. And maybe you just have a law enforcement problem after that whole "being in the hotel room while a girl got raped" thing. Was it your money or your skin color that got you off the hook with that? Or were you actually innocent...like those cops turned out to be.
You want to protest, fine. Protest in some way that doesn't disrespect the very anthem that makes your entire dream life possible. But at least have the decency to quote facts and not race-baiting blither.
Rant over...Chip can have him. I hope the 49ers go 0-16