Cold wind blows as we stand in line at 4:40. A young lady breaks out her guitar and play some music for us. Some start singing along. At then end of the parking lot is the road,  and the civilians as I call them. Totally,  unawares of the warmth here.  Little napoleon as I call him to myself is outside smoking a cigarette talking to those in line. A marked departure from last seasons thugs. Naturally,  making me wonder his conversation with in ear shot but, thats a part of my past that, kicks in as a natural defense mechanism. From 62 to 1975, I grew up in Persia. As my father would always say that living there was more democratic than living in the United States. Then he would explain his point. See in Iran,  someone gets a parking ticket or minor offense everyone knows that it’s time to haggle with the officer to give him a bribe. Everyone knows it, everyone begrudgingly excepts it as a cost of doing business. Conversely,  here in the United States if one even attempts to pay off a trooper one lands in jail for that same offense. The price or cost of doing business is much higher than in Iran. One points to the Oj Simpson tries in the 1980’s with a cost of 2 million, or more recently, the Gray family, owners of Purdue Parma, paid 4.5 billion dollars, for oxi conton related cost to a class action of states.

Methadone (primarily fentanyl). Opioid-involved overdose deaths rose from 21,088 in 2010 to 47,600 in 2017 and remained steady in 2018 with 46,802 deaths. This was followed by a significant increase in 2019 to 49,860 overdose.

Above is what I found on the subject from the national center’s for drug abuse. It dose not include the ones who escaped death. Getting back to the point the Gray family paid 4.5 billion dollars and walked away from jail sentences. Now, really it brings home what a democracy is. The cost of doing business here is much much  higher, and reserved for the elite.
Makes one wonder about democracies in geStates.

Last night the evening started presently enough, however,  the temperature drop to 27°, and the closer and closer we got to the magic hour of 7 pm the more agitated everyone got. The pushing started and a fight almost broke out. This annoyed little napoleon,  and the security people since they actually had to come outside from the ultra soft Charmin , warm indoors to deal with it. It’s not as if they did not have hints of this beforehand, and those who tried to give a heads up, where just the homeless and invisible people that where discounted. Now, we the untouchables, as the people from the Indian sub continent describe us, talk  amongst ourselves with the concensus of ” I told you so, or we all saw it coming why didn’t they? ”  The line moved and behaved well next night under threatof banishment. Personally, it will be a fleeting thing until the next time.

    In all fairness to little napoleon,  he has an exceptionally difficult task on his hands. Much like Bonaparte at the battle of waterloo, everything hinges on being able to manage multiple skirmishes at one time. 120 to 150 of them every night. Despite sleep deprivation and everyone plucking his ever lasting nerves he and his team do a much much better job than last seasons jokers. One of the secrets to the caretaker staff and himself is that they all seem to have had there share of homelessness and growing pains. He, himself, being a young man has his own journey to go on, which time will temper his youthful style.
The homeless will be here for a long long time because of the system and the silent majorty’s to play ostriche hid and go seek. You know stick thier heads in the sand pretend everything is OK,  whilst,  every different part of the system sodomizes them.

    Sitting, at the Panera, at VCU, a young man approached me and asked me questions. The frist one was a little confusing for my self until he expanded it.
He compared and contrasted the new York shelters and the one here. The frist, thing he wanted to know was “is that it?”. Explaining that in NYC, the shelters give people a shared rooms and are able to leave thier belongings there. He was doing uber eats up there. In Manhattan,  a car is a handicap, where here it’s a necessity to work. Moreover,  he pointed out some other things they do up there that are done pice meal here and for us would be like winning a lottery jackpot. Sadly,  I also had to explain that this still in many ways, is Jim Crow, South and that the majorty of people in the shelter are African American. He, instability understand what I ment. For, a young man in his 20’s should never know what that is, but this is Richmond Virginia and things change ever so slowly.
   One of the signs of change was signaled for me as I stood at my spot. At frist, I was baffled by State troopers,  escorting a truck, that was halling rocks. As the week progressed those rocks where covered with spray paint. That’s when it became clear that those rocks where the remaining parts of the Robert E. Lee statue. Now all they them have to do is to change the name of the road from monument Avenue to No-monument Avenue, and balance with be accepted agin.