Life changes
The Year After I had the Stroke
I had the best time
It was a good time to have a stroke. My uncle Richard was getting sicker, and he needed help. I recovered enough to care for him. I owed him that much and more.
I had real freedom for the first time
I was in my fifties, and I had never lived on my own. After uncle Richard died, I had no one to go to for advice or help. For the first time in my life, I had to make decisions without input from the family. Family with more life experiences and common sense.
When I recovered enough to go back to work, I didn’t have a job to go back to. A friend and former co-worker found me a job with another guard company.
Too little, too late
By this time, I was behind on all my bills, including the rent. The Landlord wouldn’t work with me. The late fees added up, and soon I was too far behind.
That morning I was lying on the couch in the trailer watching tv. I had to work that night, so I was about to go to bed when the process server knocked on the door.
I had twenty-four hours to be out of the trailer.
Maybe if I hadn’t screwed around and planned ahead
I went through some changes when my uncle Richard died, The big change for me was I decided to have a social life. I had no idea how to get out and find a date, so I started doing the personal ads.
The blonde was a lot of fun
I was having a great time. I called “ The blonde,” and told her what happened, she said I could stay at her place on the sofa.
I packed what I could onto the back of my pickup and left everything else in the trailer.
I had a place to stay for a month until the blond decided to go back to her husband in New York. I went to South Carolina to my brother’s place, that didn’t work out, so I drove to Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Relatives had invited me to stay in their basement.
I found a job, but the bank kept taking my money, I couldn’t pay the agreed-upon rent. The night before Halloween 2014, I was leaving for work when I was told to get out and not come back.
I had no money, I had a dollar bill in my wallet and nothing in my checking account. I went to work and came home the next morning and packed an overnight bag and went to see if I could get help.
Driving around an unfamiliar city with no sleep and no money
After spending the day and into the evening at Social Services, only to get a map to area shelters. I set out to find a shelter in an unfamiliar city, with almost no gas in my truck and one dollar in my wallet.
I finally found the shelter around midnight, I walked in as a guy was walking out, leaving me the last bed. I had been awake for over twenty-four hours.
Day-old cold pizza never tasted so good
I hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours, so I salivated over the cold pizza on the table by the security guard. He felt sorry for me and gave me the pizza, It was the best-tasting pizza ever.
I took the pizza back to the sleeping area. I shared it with a kid in his teens or early twenties in the bunk next to mine, then I lied down and got about four hours of sleep.
That is how I ended up homeless in Minneapolis.
Final thought:
Take nothing for granted, it could all be gone in a minute.