In Praise of the Independents!!!

>>> HARD TO BELIEVE that I actually forgot to thank the owner and staff of Circa 1922 restaurant in Wilmington, NC for opening their doors on Thanksgiving Day to serve an enormous crowd of homeless people dinner -- and I mean QUALITY FOOD LIKE THEY SERVE THEIR PAYING CUSTOMERS!!!

Doors were open 9:30 AM - 2:00 PM, and nothing about the food or service was skimpy. The owner (whose name I'm not easily finding), was once homeless, and he's been doing this for years. He probably wouldn't want it mentioned.

Find Circa 1922 restaurant (as well as the several others he owns) here: http://www.circa1922.com/ .

I ended up eating with a man named Jeff, who recently arrived in town. Thirty-three years old, Jeff is tall, handsome, and well-groomed. He shows no signs of being homeless -- except that he carries his bed-roll everywhere. In a suit, you would think he was on the ladder to success.

I had met him outside earlier, and was fascinated by his theories of replacing NATO with PLATO (I forget what it stands for -- and at least one word was from a language only spoken by Jeff), and only allowing five countries per continent.

At dinner, we carried on a conversation for forty-five minutes about his theories. Having studied both Latin and German, I could tell his language was concocted from the same roots as English, but only parts of it were recognizable. I followed mostly blindly, amazed that the man could "sound" and look so normal, and CLEARLY have structure and logic (that only he understood) to his sentences and paragraphs. I simply nodded and gave "uh-huh"s to let him know I was doing my best to follow him. I noted that many of his connections were poetic.

Now, I suppose he would probably be called schizophrenic. He seemed to have no moodiness. He said years ago he had had sex with lots of people (I could tell many would want him), but now he finds others too mindless and unthinking to bother with too much. He's planning on moving on to a nearby small city soon.

I marvelled at how well he continued to remain independent -- wishing some of the locals who piss and moan about all their troubles could see what dealing with a REAL challenge of a mental state SUCCESSFULLY looked like.

A MOST impressive man. And NO he does NOT want or ask for anyone's help. He's quite healthy, travels town to town WHEN  and WHERE he chooses, and is happy to continue working to refine his theories. Perhaps some day he will find some break-through idea -- and the communications skills to be heard. New ideas are NOT brought into the world through parrot-brained people!!!

>>> To honor Jeff, I have decided NOT to piss and moan about anything today.

Now, all you people with cash in your pockets: GO OUT AND SPEND SOME MONEY WITH AN INDEPENDENT RETAILER TODAY!!!

Thank you.
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