A Christmas miracle for six homeless men in Keene, New Hampshire.

A Christmas Miracle for Six Homeless Men in Keene, New Hampshire

Here’s a story by Rake Morgan about six homeless men in Keene, New Hampshire, who have found some unexpected friends.

‘Tis the season when corporations use charitable donations as an excuse for self-serving front page “grip n’ grins” in the local newspaper. Around Christmas my newspaper is bursting with photos of business owners handing over checks to local charities. If giving is its own reward, why is the public forced to pat these do-gooders on the back, page after page after page?

As for the rest of us — this writer included — Christmas is the season when we cleanse ourselves of our guilt for all we haven’t done to help the needy during the rest of the year. A few bucks dropped in a Salavation Army kettle usually does it for me.

Then there are the true miracle workers. People who aren’t looking for a pat on the back, a clean conscience, or good PR in the local press.

Such a person is Tim Robertson, a resident of Keene, New Hampshire, who is letting six homeless men live in a make-shift shack on his property.

About two months ago, the six men — mostly unemployed construction workers — built a shelter to provide protection from the harsh New Hampshire winter.  The 20-by-20 structure is made of plywood and insulated, and has hand-crank windows. It is wrapped in a black plastic.

According to the Union Leader –

The building’s front door leads into a sort of mudroom, with another door into the main living area. There the men have set up six mattresses, discarded but still good, from a nearby mattress store. They have two wood stoves, a grill which doubles as a hot plate, a television, a DVD player, even a cat named Dylan. The roof is made of tin, and the structure is tied to trees and held up from the inside with large tree limbs and wood.

Town bureaucrats called Robertson about the shelter.

“I’ve never told them they could live there and I’ve never told them they couldn’t,” he said. “I knew they were there, but I basically just ignored it.” Robertson said he did not tell the city to have the men removed and really has no problem with the men being there.

Eventually the town sent someone out to inspect the shack. The main issue is that it was built without a permit. The residents have since fixed most of the other violations.

One of the residents, Todd Maliska, 48, said that most of the furnishings have been donated.  The residents have even made arrangements for trash removal. They bag it up and give it to a man who disposes of it for them. They also have cleaned up some of the abandoned camp sites left in the area by homeless who lived there before.

The town of Keene has not yet decided what to do. For a tightwad place like New Hampshire, the reaction from local residents has been surprisingly generous. Some commented to the Union Leader that the town should leave the men alone.

One writer said: “The last time I checked, this was the United States of America. Home of the free and the brave. As long as the land owner doesn’t mind these men living there (which he stated he does not) then let them be. Let’s stop this rediculous nonsense about code violations. These men have nowhere else to go.”

“The city can do whatever they want,” said one of the homeless residents.  “Unless the man who owns the land wants to get us out, we’re not leaving.”

When the time comes, my dog wants to spend the afterlife with me.

It is a sad, difficult issue to think about, at least for me and my dog, Chance. The likelihood of my physical demise gets closer and closer. With another just ahead of me and my physical condition deteriorating, I need to think about “final wishes.”

The priority for me is Chance, who has been through so much with me and who counts on me for everything. Chance, too, is getting up there in years, although I think he is as smart and handsome as ever, the possibilities of adoption for an older dog, a “mutt” no less, is remote. More to the point, as much as Chance is the center of so much of my thinking, he turns to me for everything. I joke that I am just the “food guy,” but in truth when he is scared or worried or just wants company he comes to me. Even when other people are around, I am the one he counts on to protect and love him.

Chance is also the one that I turn to for love and kindness. He sleeps with me and sometimes when my demons are too frightening and the pills will not let me rest, I hold onto his paw and stroke his face until I fall asleep.

I also know that no one will care for me if I get seriously ill and take care of Chance, too. They will separate us — me in a hospital or SNF and Chance in a shelter waiting to die alone. I won’t let that happen.

As odd as this sounds Chance and I had this discussion one night, and in a clear voice he told me that if I died he would not want to be left behind. He wants to go with me. He does not want to have his life put in the hands of strangers who will not understand him, who might not revere his soul and heart as I do. He wants us to go quietly into that good night together.

Now I feel it is my duty, when the moment comes — and it could weeks, months, even longer — to have a plan for both of us. I want to die looking into his eyes and for him to see me looking at him with all the love and adoration that one creature can have for another.

I will figure it out. Of all the things I have fucked up in life, this will not be one of them.

– Frank

PS I am not allowing comments to this post. I know the killers and the hunters and the meat eaters are out there ready to slaughter with their hate another kind animal with more soul and heart than they will ever have. I also don’t want to hear from the do-gooders — the people who want to pretend we will all live forever and that none of this is necessary. They are living in a fantasy world. I am living in a real world with a real creature that I love and will care for until my very end.

Hunter kills himself, deer survives.

From my friend, Rake Morgan, comes this comment this morning –

No one likes to see animals of any kind — including humans — needlessly die. However, when men — why is it always men? –  go out into the woods with guns, hide in trees, and use other means to create an unfair advantage over trusting animals that are then killed, I am not going to lament the death of such a person.

According to today’s Union Leader, a New Hampshire hunter shot and killed himself while he was acting out his childish hunting fantasy. I am sorry for his family. On the other hand, I rejoice that another deer — supposedly being “managed” with these government-sanctioned slaughters — escaped to see another day.

On the same day, according to the newspaper report, another hunter in a separate incident shot himself in the hand.

Given the number of hunting accidents each year, I wonder if most hunters are both cruel and stupid. Or perhaps the two character flaws always go together?

Going “cold turkey” on Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving has always been one my favorite holidays. Here in New Hampshire we are usually just on the delicate cusp between fall and winter. The leaves are down, the skies are still clear and bright blue, but the ground is frozen and wincing from the cold reality of a fast-approaching winter.

One of my personal traditions this time of year is listening to Dvorak’s New World Symphony. When I was still a teenager my uncle gave me a recording of this classic — George Szell conducting the Cleveland Orchestra. I listened to it over and over; the early American folk songs as envisioned by Dvorak were embedded in my young consciousness. They have never left. His music inspired vivid images of the first settlers in this area — a land that was still wild, pristine, romantic in its breathtaking beauty and possibilities.

Every now and then, living close to the woods and hills of northern New England, I can feel those images of Dvorak coming to life around me. This is especially true around Thanksgiving, the quintessential holiday of the New World. Thanksgiving makes me think of the wild turkeys that emerge from the woods in late fall. I love watching them waddle down my yard, like boot camp soldiers trying to learn how to march, all left feet and proud nevertheless. Their captain, usually the oldest male, keeps guard against “the enemy.” For turkeys, that means something human. Most times, at least around here, they escape into the woods, fat, happy, and unharmed.

Read about wild turkeys here.

The turkeys we find frozen in our local supermarkets are obviously not so lucky. As a vegetarian I realize that I have a less-than-typical perspective about eating meat and our tradition of gobbling up bird flesh on a day that commemorates our freedom in a new land. On the other hand, most people that I know who eat meat have no idea how their food landed on their plates. We humans have a bizarre “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to discussing our methods of raising and slaughtering animals. Most people would just rather not hear about it.

If PETA is controversial, it is because it knows that sometimes “in-your-face” methods are often needed just to break through our consciousness and make us aware of what we do, needlessly, to feed ourselves. How do you get the attention of people wearing ear muffs over their psyches?

So, in an attempt to break through to the hearty souls who are still reading this, here is some unnerving information about how that Butterball turkey became the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving meal.

PETA reports:

Butterball workers were documented punching and stomping on live turkeys, slamming them against walls, and worse during an undercover investigation at a Butterball slaughterhouse in Ozark, Arkansas.

One Butterball employee stomped on a bird’s head until her skull exploded, another swung a turkey against a metal handrail so hard that her spine popped out, and another was seen inserting his finger into a turkey’s cloaca (vagina).

Need more evidence? Watch this video from PETA.

Almost 400 years after the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower, perhaps we have advanced in our attitudes about the planet we share with other species.

There are alternatives to eating meat.

Be thankful but don’t be cruel.

Go to the PETA web site and learn more.