Finally some time at my "office" desk after a grueling morning in the downtown Dayton day shelter for the homeless public library. I thought one of our especially colorful characters was going to "go off" earlier and I had my hand poised to hit the panic button. Fortunately, he left the building.
I have always thought that it was very kind of the local librarians to allow the local homeless to doze quietly in an alcove seat keeping warm and dry etc.
This past summer my dad , who had been working on his car, ran into some kind "dead end" so he popped up to the library to take a look at one of the car manuals they keep there. He was sitting at a little corner desk when one of the librarians came over to him and whispered, " I have an extra sandwich, would you care for it?"
"Uh, no thank you", my puzzled father answered.
He took down the info he wanted and went home where he told my mother the story about the "weird sandwich offer" and
she said, "Have you looked in the mirror?"
Well Dad, being long retired, hadn't shaved in a couple of days, he was wearing his oldest cut off jeans with the tears in them and an old work shirt with the pocket torn off, all his regular "mechanic's outfit" so it was well and permantnetly stained from years of wearing it whenever a dirty job was to be done..
The kind librarian must have thought there was a "new" homeless guy in town.
The inicident made Dad finally heed Mom's advice about paying attention at his appearance when he goes out, and it also made Dad send Mom to the library whenever he needed something!
