A Public Nuisance

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Relaxed a bit last night by watching an old HBO two-part series called Empire Falls...

...it had a good pace with a good cast and I was kind of struck by the Paul Newman character who was a guy who drove everybody nuts as an old needy man in a small town.

He actually got busted for being a public nuisance after he "got tired of being a private nuisance."

That's pretty funny actually.

I almost want to get hauled in for being a public nuisance.

I imagined the scene:

They couldn't really grab him on any real charge so the two cops who were apprehending him thought:

"Ah hell, he's being a damn nuisance. Let's bring him in."

And through the years I've known some guys, especially because I was born and raised in a small town, who could've been considered a nuisance.

Some of those guys who wandered the streets as we grew were considered to be just colorful guys who maybe had a big problem with the drink they were drowning their troubles in.

I won't mention any names...

...but those guys wandered around and the town kinda' took care of them...

...getting them a beer at the local bar. Maybe giving them a ride here and there. I don't remember them being considered as evil or trouble or mean. I remember them as human beings who were perhaps just a nuisance.

There are a lot of people wandering the streets all over the city and I see them from time-to-time.

I don't know their names anymore, but I still imagine that they are sort of like those old guys we'd watch wander around our small town.

There is a portion of the population now who can't look at the men behind their troubles.

We don't have time anymore for the men behind the worn-out clothes, the mental problems, the drinking problems.

We'd rather just be done with them.

Yet, as I watched Paul Newman pull off being a character in that town I thought of all the wandering old characters in our town...

And I was glad that I never just saw them as a public nuisance.


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