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For four months in the mid seventies I lived in a tool shed and ate mostly what I could forage from the surrounding woods and fields.
When I was a kid my brother and I had to hike 10 miles to school each way. It was tough in the winter. A hungry pack of wolves would follow us, and we had to watch out for those wild Indians with their bows and arrows. At least, that’s what I tell my kids, who won’t drink any water but Evian. — visit my web site: http://home.earthlink.net/~royalwulff/ something bogus to avoid spam)
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I don’t suppose it depends upon the scales? — Mr.Gink "the saga continues" http://www.gink.com/rod_facts/bastardjul00.html
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When I was a kid my brother and I had to hike 10 miles to school each way. It was tough in the winter. A hungry pack of wolves would follow us, and we had to watch out for those wild Indians with their bows and arrows. At least, that’s what I tell my kids, who won’t drink any water but Evian.
City boy<g. Why when I was in school… — Charlie…
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At least, that’s what I tell my kids, who won’t drink any water but Evian.
Show ‘em Evian spelled backwards…and then make ‘em pay it themselves…<G. TC, R – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text — visit my web site: http://home.earthlink.net/~royalwulff/ something bogus to avoid spam)
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At least, that’s what I tell my kids, who won’t drink any water but Evian. Show ‘em Evian spelled backwards…and then make ‘em pay it themselves…<G.
Really. One time I filled an Evian bottle with tap water and put it back in the refrigerator. My wife and kids never noticed the difference, but man were they pissed. — visit my web site: http://home.earthlink.net/~royalwulff/ something bogus to avoid spam)
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So, how would one go about actually helping someone directly who is actually hungry or poor when one doesn’t know any such people?
Not sure whether you are really asking how to help them or how to find them. In either case I can only answer…..huh?
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So, how would one go about actually helping someone directly who is actually hungry or poor when one doesn’t know any such people? Not sure whether you are really asking how to help them or how to find them. In either case I can only answer…..huh?
Think of some of the things we’ve been talking about. Scam artists who pose as poor, out of luck people. Poor people who will not take charity. Basically I’m someone who’s decided not to give money to charitable organizations (through a third party). (I’ve done *work* for charitable organizations.) But, I’d happily buy a meal or give a gift to a poor family if I could find people who are actually poor and would accept something without finding me condascending. This has happened to me, but the more I think about it, not often enough. How do you find a person truly in need, and how would you actually approach them? Regards, Jeff
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When I was a kid my brother and I had to hike 10 miles to school each way.
You had schools??? We used to sleep in a shoe box, and had to get up a half hour before we went to bed. For breakfast we got a lump of cold poison. At least, that’s what I tell my kids, who won’t drink any water but Evian.
And you know what that spells backward…. :-) Regards, Jeff
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Think of some of the things we’ve been talking about. Scam artists who pose as poor, out of luck people.
Giving money to panhandlers is the equivalent of feeding the bears at Yellowstone Park. — visit my web site: http://home.earthlink.net/~royalwulff/ something bogus to avoid spam)
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If somebody only had a good drink, and in some poor way managed to forget his problems for a while ( not a solution I would generally recommend however), then it was worth the money. Perhaps it did him more good than a meal. Who knows?
Maybe so. But I would still gladly buy a poor person a meal but not give money to some guy who profits from the transaction. And I would rather buy someone a meal than give them the money. It just pisses me off when I get scammed. Just 2 weeks ago a guy in the parking lot of a supermarket told me his car broke down and he had to get his wife and daughter back home on the bus that night, so could he have enough money to pay for the 3 tickets. As I was pondering this, it finally dawned on me that this was the same guy I gave money to almost exactly a year before, with the exact same shpiel (shp?) So, how would one go about actually helping someone directly who is actually hungry or poor when one doesn’t know any such people? Regards, Jeff
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<good story snipped Nice story Mike. Hopefully you will post this one to your website. bc. — Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. -Benjamin Franklin
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"Mike Connor" In my youth, I was a member of one of those families who "simply had nothing." I was 5 and I remember this old guy, he must have been 10 or 11 who would come to our back door on a Saturday morning with a sackful of potatoes. He’d scavanged them from the ground under the conveyor belt at the processing plant. Some times I was in the back garden as he dropped them off, most times they just appeared. He took keen interest in what I was doing, whether building a house with twigs or staging a war with my toy soldiers. You, that kid with the potatoes and millions of other anonymous souls around the world are the ones that allowed many of us to grow up and escape that poverty. You live day by day and finally, with a little help, things start to improve, opportunities open up and you make the best of them. Those of us who’ve been there cannot truly express our thanks to you in the way it should be given, so we attempt to put something back into those neigborhoods of our youth. However, when the light shines on one of those giving souls, they are caught, as those fish you caught. You have now become a proxie for that "old guy" of my youth. I want to personnally thank you for your effort and caring. Thank you friend. Frank Reid
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Frank, I grew up in the 1930’s and my family didn’t have very much either. No matter how little you had you could always find someone who had less. One of my friends lived with his grandmother and I went with him every week to meet the welfare truck to help him carry anything he might be lucky enough to get. I remember one week he got a crate of oranges. I skinned my shins against the box as we carried to his home and I wondered how you could live on oranges for a week. Ernie
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – "Mike Connor" In my youth, I was a member of one of those families who "simply had nothing." I was 5 and I remember this old guy, he must have been 10 or 11 who would come to our back door on a Saturday morning with a sackful of potatoes. He’d scavanged them from the ground under the conveyor belt at the processing plant. Some times I was in the back garden as he dropped them off, most times they just appeared. He took keen interest in what I was doing, whether building a house with twigs or staging a war with my toy soldiers. You, that kid with the potatoes and millions of other anonymous souls around the world are the ones that allowed many of us to grow up and escape that poverty. You live day by day and finally, with a little help, things start to improve, opportunities open up and you make the best of them. Those of us who’ve been there cannot truly express our thanks to you in the way it should be given, so we attempt to put something back into those neigborhoods of our youth. However, when the light shines on one of those giving souls, they are caught, as those fish you caught. You have now become a proxie for that "old guy" of my youth. I want to personnally thank you for your effort and caring. Thank you friend. Frank Reid
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Surprisingly enough Ernie, you can live for a week or even considerably longer, on more or less nothing. Problems arise when this continues for long periods, and one is forced to eat stuff that one would not normally touch. I remember all too well the first time my mother brought home a "bucket of scraps" which was all we had in the house for several days. "Scraps" are the remains of fish, chips, batter etc soaked in lard, which are scraped out of the large frying pans used in fish and chip shops when they are cleaned. A bucket full cost a couple of pennies, and there was often a queue for this stuff. I only ever ate the stuff a couple of times, but I can taste it still, and even the smell makes me feel ill. I can not stomach even entering a fish and chip shop to this day, and I remember my wife being very surprised when we visited London once and she wanted to try fish and chips, and I simply could not stay in the queue which had formed at the counter, as I was in severe danger of throwing up. This sort of thing plays hell with peoples health as well. It may not have appeared so in my story, but I was indeed one of the lucky ones, I had the means and the drive to go and catch fish, "find" "wayward" sheep, and even go and dig up "wild" potatoes or vegetables, or collect fruit and stuff in summer, should this prove necessary. I also collected seacoal and wood, from the beaches, so we always had something to burn in winter, which was much more than many others had, and we never actually got anywhere even close to starving or freezing. Although some I knew got close to it. Many of the people I knew at that time were sunk so deeply in apathy as a result of their poverty, that they could not help themselves, and even under those conditions, some were far too proud to accept "charity". What little money they received from various sources, usually social security or similar, was often wasted in vain attempts at momentary escape from their respective plights, or even astoundingly enough, pathetic attempts at "keeping up the show". Drunkenness was common, and many a wife and child beating took place, when some men lucky enough to have them, came home from their jobs late on a Friday night, after having drunk most of their relatively meagre pay in the local pubs. They were often also poorly educated, reviled by other sections of the community, and generally treated like dirt. Poverty is a deadly disease, it saps ones energy, removes any perspective of improvement for many, releases large amounts of criminal energy, mostly driven by hopelessness, and the feeling that things can get no worse anyway, whatever one does, often induces a positive fear of authority, and inevitably results in an early grave, as it did for both my father and my mother, and many many others I knew at that time. It may also reveal facets of human nature that are not normally obvious, not all of which are negative. A little kindness may cost a man of means virtually nothing, but may go a very long way to helping somebody far less fortunate. The world would be a far better place if some were bound to wonder as you did, how one may live on oranges for a week, and then consider those who did not even have the oranges, and in many places still do not. One of the reasons I so loved angling and anglers, as I still do, was because I met more "gentlemen" of a kind, honest, and helpful nature while doing it, than I have ever met anywhere else, I can not remember any of them being otherwise really, although of course they were all different in their ways. Fortunately this is still the case as far as most are concerned, and is certainly the case here on ROFF. One of the reasons I enjoy it so much, and why it is worth defending. This may sound a little overboard to some, but I believe it is so, and I am not ashamed to say so. TL MC — "In order to know what is possible one must constantly attempt the impossible" http://www.mikeconnor.de
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Frank, I grew up in the 1930’s and my family didn’t have very much either. No matter how little you had you could always find someone who had less. One of my friends lived with his grandmother and I went with him every week to meet the welfare truck to help him carry anything he might be lucky enough to get. I remember one week he got a crate of oranges. I skinned my shins against the box as we carried to his home and I wondered how you could live on oranges for a week. Ernie
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Mike, I can understand why you would dislike fish and chips to this day. I had some at Ramsdens (sp?) in Northern England which were excellent. Ernie "Mike Connor" wrote <snip – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I remember all too well the first time my mother brought home a "bucket of scraps" which was all we had in the house for several days <snip TL MC
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – One of the reasons I so loved angling and anglers, as I still do, was because I met more "gentlemen" of a kind, honest, and helpful nature while doing it, than I have ever met anywhere else, I can not remember any of them being otherwise really, although of course they were all different in their ways. Fortunately this is still the case as far as most are concerned, and is certainly the case here on ROFF. One of the reasons I enjoy it so much, and why it is worth defending. This may sound a little overboard to some, but I believe it is so, and I am not ashamed to say so. TL MC – .
And, indeed, Mike, you honor us all by doing so. You certainly do not need my encouragement to continue your course, but you have it, nonetheless. Bravo! Tom — Tom Brown Wake Forest, NC
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Perhaps we are just perverse?
At the risk of having Ernie thump me on the head again I will repeat something I posted some time ago on ROFF. 
It has been my experience that to most in America being hungry means trying to remember the last time you missed a meal. In fact, being hungry means trying to remember the last time you HAD a good meal. Who’s perverse?
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An excellent analysis. One other point occurred to me. Referring to a particular group of society as "the poor", is one of the reasons why people find it easy to avoid any identification with those so afflicted, it is easy to forget that we are talking about people here, and the word itself is a stigma. As for many politicians, well I think it probably better to refrain from comment, waste of time anyway. Hardly seems worth the trouble criticising people who mainly appear to tell lies, and manipulate others for a living. If somebody only had a good drink, and in some poor way managed to forget his problems for a while ( not a solution I would generally recommend however), then it was worth the money. Perhaps it did him more good than a meal. Who knows? I have not been hungry for a very long time either, but curiously enough, just like you, I remember exactly what it was like. In fact I remember it far more clearly than any of the times I have been ripped off, (also uncountable I fear), or sat at sumptuous meals in equally sumptuous surroundings. Perhaps we are just perverse? TL MC — "In order to know what is possible one must constantly attempt the impossible" http://www.mikeconnor.de
money to someone to buy him a decent meal and see him lying drunk in the – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – gutter a couple of hours later. Don’t know how many times this has happened or how much it’s cost me but I STILL haven’t been hungry since 1975.
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Cold, the rattling noise was caused by my teeth chattering loudly, as I shivered uncontrollably yet again. Cheap anoraks and jeans are not really all that efficient at keeping one warm,
(snip) simply amazing. very, very few of us have ever been to that place. wayno
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Well, to paraphrase: Give a boy a fish and he feeds himself, teach him to fish, and he feeds a village… TC, R – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Secondly, if you want to know how much a fish is worth, wait until you and your family are hungry, and carry a sackfull on your back to feed them. This will doubtless colour any subsequent ideas you might have on the matter considerably. Tight lines ! Mike Connor
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Thanks for that little dose of reality – a good reminder is a neccesity these days. Peter
So would a speller checker on this newsreader!!! Peter
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When I read both your posts, I couldn’t help thinking of some of the politicians today who consider the poor to be cheats and slackers, not worthy of help.
I think part of the problem is that there *are* a few cheats and slackers, making it difficult to know which are which, even if the cheats are relatively few. This is especially a problem since the people of means to help the poor are usually don’t live in close enough proximity to be able to figure it out on their own on a day-to-day basis. I’ve personally been ripped off enough times that now I only volunteer my time and effort, never money. I wish it were different. Regards, Jeff
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When I read both your posts, I couldn’t help thinking of some of the politicians today who consider the poor to be cheats and slackers, not worthy of help. I think part of the problem is that there *are* a few cheats and slackers, making it difficult to know which are which, even if the cheats are relatively few. This is especially a problem since the people of means to help the poor are usually don’t live in close enough proximity to be able to figure it out on their own on a day-to-day basis. I’ve personally been ripped off enough times that now I only volunteer my time and effort, never money. I wish it were different.
Yes, there are cheats and slackers and no, it’s not part of the problem. There are cheats and slackers in congress, in corporate offices, in academia, in churches, and in every other segment of society. No one wants to dismantle any of these and no one thinks seriously about punishing them all for the sins of the few. I repeat, it’s not part of the problem….it’s a different problem. You are right about one thing; the people with the greatest means to help the poor generally do not live in close proximity. Even when they do though, it is generally not the people with the greatest means who do the most to help. Must be afraid of getting ripped off……might make them late for dinner. For four months in the mid seventies I lived in a tool shed and ate mostly what I could forage from the surrounding woods and fields. I lost over forty pounds in that time and spent most of my time doing virtually nothing for lack of energy or incentive. This is not a lament. Unlike many millions of people around the world (and even here in the richest country in the history of the world) I always had options. Eventually, I availed myself of an opportunity to get plugged back into the mainstream. I have never been truly hungry since 1975, but I remember. I’ve been ripped off lots of times since then….given money to someone to buy him a decent meal and see him lying drunk in the gutter a couple of hours later. Don’t know how many times this has happened or how much it’s cost me but I STILL haven’t been hungry since 1975.
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[reality snipped] When I read both your posts, I couldn’t help thinking of some of the politicians today who consider the poor to be cheats and slackers, not worthy of help. Our current premier once remarked that single welfare mothers spend their money on beer. One of his first acts was to substantially reduce both welfare payouts and eligibilty, putting many people onto the street. He’s now out to privatise co-op housing – putting more on the street. I can’t help thinking that a week of subsiting on a bucket of scraps would help his perspective immensely. Thanks for that little dose of reality – a good reminder is a neccesity these days. Peter
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Cold, the rattling noise was caused by my teeth chattering loudly, as I shivered uncontrollably yet again. Cheap anoraks and jeans are not really all that efficient at keeping one warm, pulling the collar up around my neck once more, I snuggled into the corner of the life-belt storage cupboard, and tried to think warm. Walking the six miles or so along the clifftops and climbing down to the pier had kept me warm enough, and I had not really noticed how cold it was, but I was noticing now alright! Climbing up the icy steel pier legs in the pre-dawn dark with my gear had even caused me to start sweating, and I was paying for that now too. Cold sweat is very cold indeed. Frosty clouds formed every time I exhaled, and the freezing spray from the stormy sea had soaked me fairly well through from the other side of my clothing as well. Nobody else was on the pier, quite unusual, as the tides were quite propitious, and the recent storms would almost certainly have brought some cod or whiting, and perhaps a few other fish closer in. Leaving my temporary shelter, I moved out into the full force of the wind and spray, and surveyed the scene, dark clouds, swirling angry seas, and a long procession of heavy breakers crashing against the pier, causing it to sway ominously under my feet. Occasional banks of freezing fog rolled rapidly landwards, driven by a capricious but powerful wind, with clear patches now and again, allowing one odd glimpses of the land, and the cliff head, often covering the pier slipway, obliterating it, and making it seem as if one was standing on a tower with no land connection. Although dawn had broken, the weather was such that this was by no means apparent, it was still fairly dark, and it took me half an age to get my "storm-lantern",which consisted of a candle in a milk bottle with holes drilled around the bottom, going, so that I had enough light to assemble my gear. This piece of equipment also did sterling service as a hand warmer. High tide was not for another two hours, but with freezing fingers occasionally warmed on the milk bottle, I painfully started to assemble my gear anyway. Seven feet of solid fibreglass rod, an ancient wooden "Scarborough" centrepin reel with a hundred yards of forty pound line, an eight ounce lead, and a trace on which was mounted a set of three of my latest "secret weapons". Most of the blokes I met on the pier and elsewhere invariably laughed when seeing this for the first time, some kindly souls even offering me bait and other stuff, which however I always declined. After a while, quite a few got to know me, as I literally haunted some venues when the fish were there, and was treated like a "regular", although even at that tender age I was considered eccentric, I was twelve at the time. Not everybody knew my name, and many referred to me as "that fly-tying lad", not unkindly, but in that certain way that suggested I had at least a couple of screws loose. Nobody actually tapped their foreheads, at least not in my presence, but I often got the feeling that they were about to. Fly-fishing at that time was something which the "gentry" did, and they did not do it in Winter in the North Sea. Standard procedure for serious sea anglers at the time was a multiplying reel, thirty to forty pound line, a minimum four ounce lead, and large baits, usually consisting of lugworm, ragworm, peeler crab, herring strips, mussels, or various combinations of these. One or two hook rigs were used, these were cast out, the rod was put in a stand, or leaned against the pier railings etc, and a bite was awaited. Some clipped small bells on their rod tips and went to sleep while awaiting such a serendipitous event, others wandered around talking to their mates, smoking and drinking tea, or other "fortifying" beverages, often requiring them to make mad dashes down the length of the pier when their bells rung, and their rods threatened to go over the side. More well to do anglers, had "radium" lights, which were filled with luminescent radioactive gas, cost a veritable fortune, and were screwed or clipped to the rod tip. Occasionally some unfortunate would bugger up a cast, or forget to remove his clip light from his rod before casting, and the light sailed off into the distance, often accompanied by a cracking sound as the terminal tackle followed it on its way to the watery depths, which in turn was accompanied by a steady stream of inventive and colourful profanity, often to the amusement and elucidation of all present, especially some of the younger lads, who presumably laboured for some considerable time under the misapprehension that "fucking" and similar equally unprintable epithets had something to do with radioactive tip-lights. Someone chucking a bell away was not nearly as enlightening for bystanders, and elicited rather less interest. Some inevitably became curious about my gear, especially if I had caught a bagfull on my "hairy fancies" as one gentleman once described my flies. My intention at that time when fishing, was invariably to catch a bagfull, and that in the cheapest and most efficient way possible. My family, and not a small number of my neighbours, depended on it for a decent dinner. Having had some success with flies in freshwater, I had turned my attentions to the North Sea, as the fish were usually bigger, and there were a lot more of them. Bait was difficult to acquire, and was far too expensive to buy, so I had resolved to try "fly-fishing" there as well. This particular set of "hairy fancies" were made up of 3/0 Mustad stainless steel "beak" hooks, wrapped with silver tinsel, and sporting "wings" of various coloured bucktail. My technique was quite simple, albeit somewhat strenuous. With a two or three step "run-up", a whirl very similar to that performed by a hammer thrower, and a mighty twisting overhead heave, usually instilling considerable fear and amazement in the hearts and minds of any innocent bystanders, especially those who used "normal" gear, even in those who had seen it before, putting an awe inspiring bend into the old solid glass rod, the heavy wooden centrepin was forced into revolving at a speed for which it was never designed, producing thereby the most amazing noises, faintly reminiscent of a defective differential gear, or a rusty dungeon door being swung at high speed. This despite regular applications of fat to the "bearing", the while being braked by the thumb of my right hand to prevent the otherwise inevitable and horrendous "birds nest", and the "flies" hurtled out, carried by the eight ounce lead, to land with an almighty splash, which could be heard even in the worst of storms and gales, as it was rarely more than about forty yards away when it struck the water. Which circumstance however had the pleasant side-effect of always assuring me plenty of room, even when the pier was crowded. My "flies" were then retrieved at various speeds and in various modes, until I caught a fish. This happy event occurred surprisingly often, much to the chagrin of those who had previously laughed, and who notwithstanding their veritable armouries of wonderful and often expensive equipment had still not caught anything. Fortunately nobody was frightened half to death on this occasion, as there was nobody there. Having assembled my gear, I essayed my first cast of the day. This cast was always of the utmost importance, and had to be executed with considerable care, in fact the first few casts had to be done in such a way, as otherwise a jam up was quite likely, and the loss of expensive terminal gear inevitable. A careful and relatively modest thirty yard cast was the order of the day. Having accomplished this, I took up the slack, and placing the line over my right index finger, the butt of my rod tucked under my elbow, and my left hand supporting it by holding the rim of the reel, I started a jigging retrieve. Thump! and thump! again, heaving back on the rod I struck, and proceeded to haul in a couple of lively fish, beautiful whiting well over a pound each. These were hauled straight up the thirty foot drop by winding in, despatched, unhooked, and the next cast was prepared. In all the now well over forty years I have been fishing, I have never had a session like I had that day, and I will never do so again, as nowadays I would cease to fish after getting a few good ones. The fish were there, a large shoal of hungry whiting and they were biting like crazy, I was hauling up two or three fish every cast, some really nice sized ones as well, but all were at least sizeable. Even in those days I was an optimist, and I had brought two large sacks with me and a polythene bag, which was actually designed to be used as a makeshift raincoat should the weather be really nasty. I filled both sacks and the bag, and continued to fish like a lunatic, the pile of fish on the pier behind me continued to grow apace, but still I carried on, as if in a trance. Several people had now come on to the pier which had opened in the meantime, and stood watching, some started fishing, but I was oblivious to everything, and continued almost mechanically hauling up fish after fish. . Some time after mid-day I came to my senses, and viewed the carnage all around me. I reeled in my gear and started gutting and filleting fish, several people asked if they might have a fish, and I told them to help themselves. For several hours I filleted fish like a madman, emptying the sacks and the bag again on to the boards, and filleting those too,and even after filleting everything, and throwing all the guts and even the heads away as well, something I would not usually have done, as they made excellent soup, I still had two large sacks full of solid fish fillets, which I could only just lift. It took me almost seven hours to get home, and was well after dark long before I got there. Carrying one sack a few hundred yards along the beach, dumping it, … read more »
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