Thanks For All The Beer

Last issue (North American Newsbriefs, July 10) we read about beerforthehomeless.com. Those are the people in Chattanooga, TN, who are collecting donations to pass out beer for the homeless.

We love this idea. We (I mean I myself of course) have been saying for years that homeless people have as much right to decide for themselves whether they should imbibe alcoholic beverages as homeful people do.

What we really delight in is this information from the FAQ page at beerforthehomeless.com: "… the fact is that less than half of the homeless we visit accept our beer." Bearing in mind that they are only talking about Chattanooga, nevertheless someone has finally succeeded in finding a way to substantiate our long stated observation that most homeless people aren't alcoholics, they're just people who don't have a proper place to live at the moment.

And what a straightforward method of proof it is. "Let's pass the stuff out and see who takes it!" To think that researchers have probably wasted tens of thousands of dollars for years trying to figure this one out with pencils and surveys.

The website also gives me hope by reminding me that there are decent generous people out there who really get it. It makes me want to acknowledge all the great generous folks I have encountered and benefited from over the years.

Yours truly (like most homeless people!) has never panhandled. Partly this is because I always found things to sell when I was broke. For example, there was the day I sold the naming rights to parts of my body. I started the day out with nothing. I charged one dollar for the naming rights to each body part. My first customer was this rag's founder Timothy Harris who paid a dollar to name my liver "Intrepid." Altogether I earned twelve dollars doing that.

But I have also found that if you just go about your life and do nothing unusual money can be pushed into your hands even AGAINST YOUR WILL!

For example, early one morning I was pacing back and forth in between St. James Cathedral and the Rectory. I was pacing because I was early for an appointment and had nowhere else to go, being too broke to go to a café or anywhere else. I wasn't panhandling, I didn't have my hand out, but along came this tall guy in a suit smoking a cigar and wouldn't you know it? He walks right up to my face, whips out a twenty and stuffs it into my shirt pocket, saying, "A friend told me to put this in the poor box, but I'd rather give it to someone who looks like they know what to do with it."

Another time I was in Belltown and on the street, so I visited the Denny Regrade Park at Third and Bell to relax a while. Right after I sat down in the park, two strangers sat down next to me and struck up a friendly conversation. They were openly passing a beer back and forth and generously offered me some.

I know what you're all thinking. You're thinking that, OK, maybe most homeless people aren't alcoholics, but Dr. Wes has a liver named Intrepid and for sure he's a lush and there's no way he would turn down free malt liquor in the park.

But there IS a way! For one thing, I hate the taste of malt liquor. I prefer lager, thank you. For another, I can't enjoy drinking any alcoholic beverages openly in a park with police looking over my shoulder. I told my new friends that they were at risk of being busted. Sure enough, only a minute later two security officers pedaled up and poured out the bottle. So the guys decided to leave the park and I tagged along so we could continue talking.

We were not twenty feet out of the park when an older guy with a torn T-shirt saw us and said, "You guys look like you could use some beer. Here, take this ten and get yourselves a couple of pitchers."

Yes, there is hope for humanity!