Recent troubles our founder has experienced.
For reasons unclear to me my life has recently been the victim of the most cruel sets of circumstances. It has been as though I were playing the lead role in some situation comedy of errors for the entertainment and pleasure of those living in Heaven or the recipient of a cruel and unusual punishment at the hand of the enemy of God and man i.e. Satan. I have born the most grievous troubles and am quite undone by it all.
First, Let me tell you that I am a Busker. What is a Busker you ask. It is a very artsy-fartsy type of professional street performer. One where the emphasis is on the craft and not the collection of monies from the audience but on the presentation off a meaningful message. A modern day Professional street performer is measured on his or her ability to extract money from a crowd or your ability to get the crowd to throw money at them. A Busker on the other hand is involved in political commentary and attempting to effect social change in their audience and the world. He hopes for tips but that as the result of a heart felt tug on his audience because they realize what he is doing is noble, important, valuable and necessary to society. They do not give him a quarter or a dollar but at least a few dollars and recognize that supporting him and what he does is at one time both a support of the arts and a vote for political responsibility.
Long before there was such a thing as free speech, buskers and jesters were allowed to say and do things that might have gotten the head of any other person taken off. Nevertheless, these craftans were allowed, indeed were supposed to push the political envelope. In a word, wise monarchs would often allow this art form and send ambassadors to follow and observe them and the reactions of the peasants to their political statements made in jest, via comedic relief and through dramatic presentations. By monitoring the public reaction to these satirical or tongue in cheek presentations a wise monarch could adjust their rule to prevent unrest, fermenting dissatisfaction and the eventual revolt of their subjects. A successful monarch realized that his ability to enjoy lordship lay in the common acceptance of the state of the kingdom. It was a common way to keep a finger on the pulse of society.
Today very few Buskers or street performers have any intent to present a theatrical performance for political comment. Most street performers are glorified panhandlers. They present a grotesque loud graphic spectacle and work the crowd for money. A busker on the other hand is trying to use pathos or theater to draw their attention and hoping that out of respect for the performer they will give money. Unfortunately, the public does not respond today as they once did. For myself as a street performer or busker I am doubly cursed because I am a balloon artist and I do comedy directed at kids. When I am successful, the crowd watches the presentation and gives a tip because they recognize a talented performer who is unlikely to make enough from just the parents of the children he entertains and makes balloons for. It is difficult to play the character I play. A jolly happy go lucky person while realizing the harder I work to do my job the less appreciation I will get and the less likely I am to get even a dollar for the balloon I will eventually make for this child. I know that what I do is valuable and valued by the kids who enjoy the presentation. I also realize that for the most part the adults do not get it and do not feel impressed to give any thing.
On a given night in the right place, I could make a few hundred dollars by just pumping out balloons or I can make 80 or 90 dollars by entertaining the kids and making them laugh and then making them balloons. I mean really laugh. They laugh so hard their sides ache. They fall down from laughing. They have not experienced such comedy before in their lives. It is a very enjoyable and meaningful experience for the kids. For the parents they do not get it and they often do not appreciate what is happening. I know this because sometimes the parents come back the next evening and tell me. Our kids could not stop talking about you all day. They kept demanding we bring them back to see you again. Yesterday we thought you were off the wall but now we realize you are a talented performer.
In the distant past I had found spots in the country where I could work my craft for about five months and make between four and ten thousand dollars during that time. I worked my craft for about five months of the year. As a volunteer and as the founder of a small church I then tried to help the homeless. I went to the streets of New York and other Large American cities and tried to help homeless persons there. I mostly mingled amongst them presenting myself as one of them and ferreted out individuals I might have been able to help. My help consisted primarily of helping them network to resources that could help them. Sometime after I got to know someone and a rapport was established they would really let me know what was going on in their lives and then it became more clear how to help them.
I had gotten started working with the homeless when working for my Eagle Scout badge as a young man. I have stayed involved one way or another ever since. I had for about eight years helped with or through a large nationally know organization. I did what ever I was told to do and thought I was helping persons. However, about five or six years after having helped someone I had the experience of running to the persons we had helped or supposedly helped years ago. Here they were homeless again, out on the street. After I ran into several of these same repeaters, I took stock of what I was doing and myself. It cost me money and personal sacrifice to help these persons. If I was going to do that, I wanted whatever I did to count. I wanted those I helped to become permanently un-homeless. I did not want to have to help the same persons repeatedly. I took a close look at homelessness what caused it and how to end it or prevent it, moreover, at least how I as a little person, a nobody could use my efforts effectively so that I actually helped someone.
I did some research. I drew my own conclusions and since then I have been on a one-man mission to try and help a few homeless persons become permanently un-homeless. I go to the streets and act as though I am homeless. Try to find someone who will be responsive to what I have to offer and try to help him or her. First, I just try to help persons change their location and circumstances. For example, if they have stayed mostly on the lower west side of Manhattan and have remained homeless for a long time I might suggest that they hang out in another section of the city. A section where what is being done there for the homeless might be more effective in helping them get off of the streets than the efforts being done in the area where they have been staying. I often try to get them into drug or other residential programs. The Christian based ones such as teen challenge seem the most effective to me. Then on the other side I have helped about seven to ten homeless persons (over the past thirty years) to re-locate to other areas of the country where there are minimum wage jobs available and where the cost of housing is affordable. These are places where someone who only has the ability to get and maintain a minimum wage job, could if they managed their money correctly, even own their own home and be comfortable. If they do what is right they do not need to be homeless ever again. That is my ministry. That is what I do. I only live on four to six thousand dollars a year. The rest of what I make I use to help the homeless. I can show them how to save and manage their money so as not to become homeless. This is what I am good at and if they are receptive, I can help them. I have helped several persons in this way in the past and hope to or intend to help more this way in the future.
However, I myself have run into the most complicated and difficult set of circumstances during the past few years and I am beside myself because of it. Here, I shall try to share a little bit about them with you and I hope to evoke sympathy on your part and provoke you to help me. To help my ministry and to allow me to continue to do in the future what I have done, or tried to do in the past. I am a small unimportant person and therefore I cannot get much attention. Much could be done with a little money following the model I wish to create. It is a model which if successful should be able to get many homeless persons off the streets. However, my attempts to make it successful were frustrated by things that seem to stop me before I get off the ground. Can you help? Will you help? There is something meaningful and effective we could do together to help many homeless persons get off the street permanently. To do it I need your help, encouragement, and support. Will you give it to me?
In the past, I have worked through the summer and made most of my money during that time. One of the things I teach poor persons to do if they never want to become homeless is to save, save, save until they have at least one years of wages saved up in some sort of easily turned into liquid cash. Any one no matter how rich or how high their wages needs to learn this secret to not becoming homeless. If you start doing it young by the time you get married you can have this and it is a great way to give yourself an edge in life. You should always be prepared to keep yourself afloat for at least a year of unemployment. (It is a biblical principle too.) The hardest thing to do well with money is to give it away to others effectively. The second hardest thing is to invest it wisely. The third hardest thing is to save it. The fourth hardest thing is to earn money. The easiest thing to do with money is to get it without having earned it. You do this by creating streams of cash or wealth for yourself. One of the most popular methods is to own rental properties. However, few persons learn how to do this. Most persons earn their money. If you do this you will never earn enough money to get rich your environment will always try to take you hard earned money from you. If you allow yourself to be a manipulated consumer, you and your descendents will always be struggling to maintain what you consider your lifestyle.
The way to break out of that is to first when ever you get paid take between eleven and fifteen percent of what you make and put it into a savings account with the intention that you will never ever spend it. If you do this in about eight years, you will have about one year wages in savings. If you start as a teen and save fifty or more percent, you can have a year wages in savings in about three years. Do not make the mistake of believing that you will always have your same job for your whole life. It is unlikely and it seldom happens. Through history, most persons have had to change their careers at least once and often at least two or three times. This is especially true during the last two centuries. Progress often makes jobs obsolete. It also causes them to shift from one part of the world to another. When you lose a job and your life is changed, it is good to have one or two years of saving available to help you through to a new Job or career. The first thing any worker should do is pay himself for working and you do this by placing at least eleven percent of what you make into the bank and pretending as though you never made it.
This is your pay for working. You live on the rest of it. This makes you rich because the definition of a rich person is someone who has more money than they need. This makes you be more careful how you spend your money. It makes you less likely to make an impulse purchase for novel things you do not really need. This makes you look for bargains. The way to double your pay is to buy everything you buy at half price. Now, while that is impractical in all cases it is very possible in many cases and if you strive to do this, and you will if you put eleven percent of your pay into savings the first thing, you will end up with extra money at the end of your pay period. If you put half of that into permanent savings and the other half into savings for future wants you will end up a very wealthy family and a very financially happy person.
The places you buy things from bought them for less, wholesale. Therefore, you can get everything cheaper if you set your mind to it. In addition, wealth that you build up slowly and then increases exponentially is wealth that survives economic downturns and lasts for generations. If you teach these life principles and practices to your children, they and their offspring will be amongst the elite and the wealthy. If your great grand parents had chosen these practices, you would have been born into a wealthy family. The wealthy are wealthy not just because they have a lot of money but because someone, one of their ancestors, set forth goals and plans and created original wealth. Yes, some did it by an invention or other means but the most sure and long lasting wealth in the world was gained slowly and surely by following Biblical principles, which have stood the tests of time.
Buy everything at half price, save from eleven to fifteen percent of your wages when you get them are two of the principles I teach persons or we teach those we help for the Lord. Another thing we teach persons is how much they can afford for their housing expense. Do you know how much of your wages you can afford for your housing expense? According to the home economics division of the United States Government, it is no more than one week wages for one months housing expense. If you make a week and your rent is more than a month, you are bound to eventually become homeless. That is the clue to why we have so many homeless persons showing up in our society these days. There are many places in our country where rents are equal to two or three week wages or more than four weeks wages. No wonder I ran into persons who the agencies I was volunteering for had helped in the past and they were homeless again. They were set up to fail if that teaching of the United States home economics division of the cooperative extension is reliable. No matter how high your pay is this rule is steadfast because all of your financial habits are based on the level of your lifestyle. If you make ,000 a week and your rent is ,000 a month you are going to find it hard to make ends meet. If you make , a week and your rent or housing expense is a month you will find you have more money that you need to get by on. It is a hard and true fact the government has taught this based on life experiences for over eighty years now.
Violating this rule has made many persons homeless especially those at the lower ends of the wages spectrum. Moreover, it was because those we had helped were put into situations, which violated this rule, that they eventually become homeless again. I have been more effective in helping persons to get out of the homeless cycle by getting them to follow this dictum. If your rent or living expense is more than one week wages for one month expense then you need to do something to correct this. Either move to a less expensive place or find a roommate or a way to lower your rent or cover some of it by renting some of your space to others for storage.
I had an even more difficult personal experience because I was self-employed. As a self-employed person, I needed to keep more than a year wages in savings to survive. My income was dependent on my being allowed to work at various festivals and fairs. Many would allow me without charge because they considered me entertainment that they might otherwise need to hire and pay. I came free if they allowed me to collect tips. Some places I had to pay for a space. I have found however that for the most part I have not done so well at any place that would require me to pay to be there. I always did well at the places that allowed me free and I got my pay from tips. A few places were the opposite but the preceding two sentences are for the most part the rule. Some places paid me and allowed me to collect tips. Those places of course were the best. I must try to do more of that in the future.
However, I needed to keep quite a bit in savings especially because I would work for five months and then volunteer for about five months with the homeless. The point of my work with the homeless, especially in NYC was that I had less money than the homeless, yet I was not homeless. The main reason for this is that I had an apartment in or near NY that only cost me about a year to live in. It was a rare special deal but in NY, there are rent control laws and landlords are only able to raise rents a certain amount and we had been in those apartments for a long time. The apartment needed improvements however they were safe and livable and, by not having the repairs, I had an affordable place. In addition, I had a place in or near Harrisburg, Pa. My rent there was about a month. That was because I rented from a friend. I was early on able to find apartments for a month. That is what I did. I found someone in a residential program who I could be sure was free of drug, smoking and alcohol addiction, someone who was willing to follow my program. I rented an apartment for them, brought them to Harrisburg, helped them find a job. I literally went with them, helped them and encouraged them in the job search process. I drove them, got them hired, and then helped them for six months to a year. They had to submit to, or allow me to teach them how to handle their money. They had to not make impulse purchases (Which was hard to get them to do at first.) they had to look at money in a different way. I helped them by subsidizing their rent for a while. I also was a friend to them, helped them with things like depression or loneliness and if they would lose their job helped them immediately to get another one. This family like helped made the difference. When I was successful in about a year they becasme established on their feet, had quite a bit in savings and were ready to buy their own house. Houses were available then and could be gotten at very low prices. Following the right plan they could buy a house take in roommates, keep working, keep saving and eventually either sell that house and buy a nicer one in the area or relocate to where they had previously lived but with habits that would keep them from being homeless again. I do not believe in helping someone and then parading the fact that I helped them in front of others. It is demeaning to the person I helped. What I do is done in secret hoping that the Lord will reward me some day for it. We Christians are taught not to let the left hand know what the right hand is doing when we help the poor. I love Jesus with all of my being. He saved me when I was a young boy. I understand and appreciate his salvation, which he has given me. What I do I do in service to Him. It is my obligation. Praise Jesus for his kindness to me. I hope that through helping someone I also lead them to Christ. That is the best thing I can share with them. However, those who are homeless in America need some hope and some help.
The problem is I have had to do this on my own with little or no help from others. The only times I have had help was when persons who had known me for long and were dubious as to whether I actually ever helped someone or not saw a large one time gift come my way and then they jumped on board but they also took the reigns and led me down paths we should not have gone. They threw their weight around and then left me holding the bag. That happened about seven years ago. Because they are Christians who meant well I can do or say nothing about it. I must forgiver them which I do. They are holding some things against me, which they need to forgive me for but they have not. I pray they will. However, if they had followed my plan things would be very well now. They insisted on doing things that seemed right but were wrong and now I am stuck because of it. Oh Lord, please deliver me out of this quire like mess. Set my feet on your solid ground. Save me and rescue me and make them drop their mouths open as to how you help me and save me and by so doing show your Glory and be glorified. Praise be to Jesus and to The Father above. Thanks to the Holy Spirit who comforts me. Jesus there is somewhere a wealthy person who can help me with one check to right everything that is not right. Please either allow me to earn the money through my Busking to cover all these costs or bring me to know someone of wealth who can help me to fix all the mess that exists with the properties in Harrisburg. Let it be done now this summer I ask In the holy name of Jesus. Amen.
I usually work through the summer and make enough to live for the year and to support my small ministry. However, in the spring of 2001 I had decided to change my plans. There is a festival in NYC in the spring and fall called The Saint Genaro festival. I believe but am not certain, but I am convinced that if I could work with permission that festival on the inside so that I am either a stroller or have a center of the isle space, I could make at least $1,000 a day. That would mean I could make ,000 in one week and in two weeks one in the spring one in the fall make about ,000. This would be a great boost to my career. In order to get to work that festival I need to know someone who can get me in it. I knew that one of the Italian organizations that helped run that festival also worked with a Carnival all summer. Christians of a similar faith as mine operated the carnival and they allowed me to work it without cost. However I did not make much money at it in fact I had to lose the summer and take a lose in hopes that persons from the Italian organization would see me often enough to recognize the unusualness of my act and be open to allowing me to work The St. Genaro Festival that fall. In a few days I would make enough to cove my loses that summer. Therefore, I chose to follow that plan. And, when I was in NY I often worked at Liberty Park, which was across the street from the World Trade Center. I never made a lot of money there and I was not there every day but it was a main spot for me because I found the kind of persons there who would stop and see what I was doing. I also had been working that crowd for years trying to get some takers for the nutritional products I sell as a part of my business.
So, I worked the Carnival and lost money. I worked the Liberty Park and made a little money on nights the carnival was off. I was quite discouraged and going through a lot already. The Government had decided to take down the area my apartment was in and do urban renewal. I was going to lose my cheap apartment and I realized that the organization relocating me was going to fail to do their job properly and I would end up in hard times and possibly homeless. I can not tell you how many hundreds of homeless men I had dealt with in the past who were homeless because for years they had gotten by in less that the best apartments only to end up homeless when those apartments went under urban renewal. I was supposed to find an apartment for a certain rent amount. The agency doing the renewal project also oversaw an apartment complex. They tried to force me in to that complex where for persons al reasons I did not want to go. They had a rent for an apartment there that was far below the market rents for a similar apartment in that area. So, I was left trying to find an apartment that did not exist at the rate they had stuck me with. I was in a catch twenty-two and no one would help me. I was very frustrated. I had hoped the summer would pass; I would make that big money at the festival and be able to effect a better situation for myself.
Check back later more will be written.
I believe in Jesus as my personal Savior. So therefore, I do believe that these difficulties which I am encountering will be overcome by Jesus for me. They are neither caused by God nor a part of God’s will for me. They are the result of Satan’s anger that he has lost me as one of his followers and that in spite of his evil desires for me and in spite of whatever human weaknesses or faults I may have Jesus is still mine and I am still his. I do believe that either through the kindness of other Human Beings or through some divine intervention Jesus will use these circumstances for good and deliver me. Because Jesus is God things shall go well for me and I will feel blessed as well as being blessed. I am blessed even though at this time I cannot say I feel as though I am. Still I am blessed because I have Jesus and his promise to me of everlasting life because I believe in him that he is God and God’s messiah for humans. If you are troubled please believe in Jesus and he will help you. If you have not done so recently Go to church. If you have never Read the Bible in your life then please read the Bible. There are many versions in easy to understand in the English language. You can be certain that if there is a God and you end up dead and standing before him to be judged he will ask you why you have never read his bible. And you will be at a loss to tell him why. If there is no God and you do read the bible and believe it and follow its advice anyway even thought there is no God you will find that it teaches human beings a wonderful way to live. You would realize that if we all did what it teaches that we would live together in peace, harmony, and kindness. Those who had troubles as I am currently having would not feel forsaken because the rest of us would quickly and responsively come to their aid.
I was living in a very unusual situation in NY a few years ago where my rent was very low. It was low for NY standards. It was low for standards anywhere in the United States.
The government did an urban renewal project and I lost my apartment. The organization doing the Urban renewal short changed me and even though I received a considerable amount for being evicted from that apartment it did not come close to covering what I lost and it did not place me in like circumstances. The organization violated the law and the intent of their purpose. However they all got paid and it did not matter.
I became homeless twice during the process.
Believing I was making the best choices I looked to move to an area of the country where I thought I would be able to survive. And, continue with my life.
I am a professional Busker, a type of street performer who entertains in a theatrical way. He shares (Usually) a message imbued with political comment or satire. A Busker is usually very funny and makes persons laugh. I am a Busker who also makes balloon animals. I own a Cotton Candy Machine and a Popcorn Machine. I make a living renting these machines to persons and organizations that want to use them and by entertaining for private functions and in public places such as parks, sidewalks, and festivals and fairs.
I have a unique presentation. Children love it and laugh hard as they hardly ever laughed before. It is very clean family oriented humor. I ultimately make a balloon and get a dollar or two for the balloon and comedy.
I rent the machines with operators so that there are no problems and the machines can be best enjoyed by the group using them and can be returned safely.
In the past, I always made most of my money during the summer. When I was not making money I volunteered to help Homeless persons in and around New York City. There is a very large and very successful Festival in NYC in the spring and fall called St Genaro’s festival. It was very hard for me to get a space in that fair. I knew that in order to do well there I have to be sponsored by someone involved in the fair and be allowed to sit in the middle of the fairway rather than in a booth. I knew from professional experience that I could make between and a day in that festival far more than I usually make anywhere else. In order to become known by one of the Italian organizations that ran that festival I worked all summer in 2001 with a carnival that toured the boroughs of New York City. I was willing to lose money during the summer because I would get to know this Italian organization that sponsored the carnival and was part sponsor of St Genaro’s festival. If they saw what I did and how enjoyable it was for the fair goers, they might give me the space at St. Genaro’s and then I’d be able to work it every year and do very well financially.
I also had eight other festivals lined up for that fall and one way or another I would keep myself afloat. In order for me to be successful at what I do I need always us to be booked six months in advance and it is important to be booked about six months ahead to get into many of them. What I do is unique. I have never done well at a place where I had to rent a booth. I have always done well where I could sit in the middle or stroll. Moreover, when they charge me I usually do not do well. Whenever they either let me come without charging me and allow me to collect tips for the balloons or if the pay me a minimum fee while also allowing me to collect tips then I do well enough so my work pays. No matter how it works, I must keep about one and a half years income in the bank or else I end up in trouble. When you are self-employed, this is very important and it is something, those employed by others do not have to worry about.
Well anyway, I had great plans. However, just like everyone else, I was not prepared for the World Trade Center disaster. It happens that the one other place I worked most regularly in NY, when I was not working other places, was Liberty Square Park, which was at the base of the World Trade Center.
1. When the towers came down all the festivals were cancelled.
2. One of the few places I could make pocket money to keep myself afloat was no longer a place I could work. Even afterwards. When it would have been a very lucrative spot (because of the increase in tourists.) I was so overwhelmed by the sad memory of so many of the faces of persons and their families whom I had made laugh in the past who were now dead or the survivors of someone who died in that catastrophe I just could not work there.
This all happened in the middle of this terrible mistreatments of me by the organization relocating me under HUD. I ended up in a nightmare of dealings with government and supposed relief agencies, which marginalized me because I worked in the park and had little means to prove I was or had been effected but the disaster. If anyone lost income as a direct result of that terrorism, it was I. As it ended up, I qualified for Disaster Unemployment Insurance. It took until December for them to qualify me. Because I was destitute, I worked for two weeks for the Salvation Army in November ringing the Christmas season bell. They paid me. That meant the Unemployment Insurance, paid to me retroactively, instead of being for six months was for four weeks. If I had gotten it for the full six months, every thing would have been fine in my life. I would be back in business and would have survived this all without so much suffering of grief.
As it worked out, I ended up homeless. I had found an apartment but it was too much and I could not pay the rent. I had been looking on the Internet for a few years trying to find an inexpensive place to buy and to live. Over the years, my attention was drawn to the Ohio Valley area. God brought me there of that I am sure. He helped me find a place in Steubenville, Ohio, which I bought. It is a nice house in a nice neighborhood and it would meet my basic need if things had not gone so bad for me during the process. My work requires me to travel I need an inexpensive house with good neighbors who would look after my house when I am not there and who they and I would be kind and polite to each other when I am there. I found that but oh, did the devil have intentions to ruin me and oh. Has he come so close to succeeding. To make my move I bought a short school bus with the seats removed. It would cost me a trip in gas and I would need to make four trips. Afterwards I would either sell it or use it in my work.
However, each time I took a trip, troubles happened. On the first trip transmission went out, but God in his kindness caused me to find a complete stranger who helped me. He (a professional) rebuilt the transmission for the cost of the parts. It went out a second tome on the third trip and he rebuilt it again for the cost of the parts. I ran in to problems like getting three flat tires on one trip I fixed a flat and went three miles and the new tire went flat again. I could not get road hazard warrantees because it was a truck or a tow dolly the tires were on. Then I had other problems. What I had planned as a one-month venture took four months.
I finally had completed my trips in November. I spent Thanksgiving Day in my new House and a few weeks in the fall but an old friend of mine who had had a business in Yonkers NY for fifty one years was suddenly evicted by his Landlord. I had been trying to be a witness to this Jewish man for Jesus and offered to help him. He was moving to California. Moving his stuff there was going to cost a fortune. Put it in my school bus I offered. Save the three hundred dollars a month storage fees and I will drive it to my house in Ohio and you when you get settled can work something out to get it to California maybe I can even drive it there for you, if you pay the gas.
So I went back to NY helped him empty his warehouse put the stuff in my school bus and it was New Years so I said let me stay here for New Years in NY and then go to Ohio. I stayed. Then it snowed. I do not like to drive in snow. I avoid it. Many accidents happen in the snow. It is better for society and for every one if when it snows persons would take a break from driving. All of our insurance policies would be about half of what they are if we all refused to drive when it snowed and for about six days afterwards. So, I waited. Then it snowed repeatedly and I stayed and stayed and stayed. Then about February, there was a break. I was about to come to Ohio.
Something happened. Someone, I do not know who, set a fire in my school bus, which had been converted to a moving truck with all this man’s belongs in it. The fire was not so great. His things survived. However, the fire company came and smashed every window on the bus. Then they towed it away. I did not find out about if for a week. They wanted for the towing and storage. It cost me over a thousand dollars to replace the windshield and side windows. All the money I had in savings which was going to pay my taxes on my house the water and sewage and trash and the electric and gas and phone and get me through the first thee six months in my new home while I tried to get bookings for my work was gone. It cost me money to stay there. I could not afford a hotel or a room I had to survive on the streets homeless. I was trying to get enough money to drive back to Ohio. I ended up putting my friends stuff back in to storage (at his say so) and someone loaded my van with stuff they did not want that I hoped to sell at a flea market when I got back to Ohio and maybe re-cover some of my losses. I am overwhelmed with grief from this bad event after bad event happening to me.
Then I finally was going to come home to Ohio. I put my station wagon on my tow dolly and prepared to two it with the school bus and come to Ohio.
While I was in NY those three months, when I had left in December, I was only going for three days or a week at the most, the trip turned into an unexpected three months.; I do not like to waste time so I, during that time, while trying to get things straightened out there and get home did several other things in my spare time. I joined the Riverside Church something I have wanted to do for seven years now. I worked with and sought a homeless person I might be able to take with me to my home in Ohio, and help to get off the streets. I made friends with and tried to help two very fine young men from Korea who had come to NY to learn English, a common practice of many South Korean college students these days. I love to share history and information about NY with others and I like to help persons who find themselves in America, a strange land to them, and to encourage them to succeed with their endeavors. It is perhaps one of the reasons for which I exist.
So I agreed to indeed I offered that one or both of these young men accompany me to The Amish Part of Pennsylvania where I could show them around. I had lived in that area for a long time. I would help them tour and then they could come back on a Greyhound bus and I would go on to wards Ohio. It was a great idea and open of them cane along three weeks ago, the weekend of Palm Sunday. We left on Friday but had problems getting things packed in such a way as to accommodate the extra passenger in the school bus. Still we got off. My Korean companion was very forgiving and understanding and quite helpful. We traveled the night and slept a few hours in the van and then were going to go to Hershey, I wanted to take him through the free ride there where they show you how chocolate was made. I also just wanted to talk English to hi quite a but and let him experience casual English conversation. It was all well and good except that I missed and exit in a new section of Highway I am not familiar with and we ended up going at least thirty miles out of the way and ended up on the Pennsylvania turnpike. Just as we came off the Turnpike the rumble strips in the road and some foreign object cut the tire on the tow dolly and we had a flat on the dolly which had my caprice station wagon on it the wagon loaded with stuff as if it were a trailer. This of course frightened my friend who was already worried about not getting home in time for school Monday. Although it was only Saturday he was insistent that we make getting him home our top priority.
Fortunately we ended up in or near Ephrata Pa. It so happens that I have a long time Mennonite friend who lives there. He helped us. My Korean friend got to do no sightseeing whatsoever except for the views from the bus along the way. We did have an enjoyable time and did have a lot of conversation, which was one of the reasons for the trip. And remarkably the Capital Trailways Bus Company a part of the Greyhound national bus system had a bus stop at a Holiday Inn, just two miles from where we were stranded and I was able to get him on a bus at 5:00 pm that evening.
I had to drive the wagon off the dolly and take the dolly behind us driving the bus and we were able to get around a little. We got to the bus on time and it was a bittersweet event for the both of us. I helped him with the fare since he had not gotten to see any of the things we had taken the trip to see.
Then I had to deal with the following. I took the dolly to the place in Palmyra where I had bought the tires originally and I had to buy a new tire and then as soon as we put it on the master cylinder of my brakes started to leak. I went down the road to a place I knew and hoped would help me with that. Something was leaking but I knew not what. They at five-ish told me what it was I ran to a parts store and back and it was not the right part. Then they went home I went to a parts store and got what was supposedly the right part but it turned out to be slightly different so the holes did not line up they being master mechanics and very kind and godly persons used there creativity to make it fit nevertheless. We got it fixed, I backed out of the garage, and the tire I had bought new the day before was flat. In fact, it had gone flat about three miles down the road from where I had bought it. Because it is a tow dolly tire, there had been no road hazard warrantees available for it. I had to go back to that company and wait. They helped me but now I owe them money.
Then I headed back towards Ephrata that I was going to put the caprice wagon back onto the dolly and head for Ohio. I was going to spend a night in Ohio and head back to NY in my small Chevy spectrum a much cheaper on gas vehicle. I most always work on Easter Sunday at the Easter Parade doing what I do because it is usually a day I can make between three and four hundred dollars. And then possibly bring the other Korean friend or the both of them to PA and show them around. As it turned out I got a flat tire on the school bus as I was heading back to Ephrata on route 501 south in Pa. It was all too much that I could bear. However, the Lord showed His hand was still covering me and His loving kindness was towards me because, as it turned out, I was about 100 feet away from the front of a very small middle of the countryside auto dealership. There the owner was, as it seemed, semi-retired and he turned out to be very kind and considerate. As I met him, I spoke out asking - if he ever just helped someone who was over run with difficulties rather than charge usual dealer rates to help them.
He turned out to be a real Godsend. He had several trucks and vans he was going to junk and when the metal wheel part of the spare tire I was carrying turned out not to fit my bus by a fraction of an inch. He first tried to grind it down and make it fit. Then he capitulated that it probably was the wrong wheel. The school bus has size 16.5 tires which is an odd size not used much any more and hard to find. As the Lord worked it out, it turned out the old vehicles he was junking anyway had tires and rims that fit my vehicle and he helped me to get them on the school bus. Then in a great act of kindness he told me I owed him nothing. This was very good. I barely had the money left for the gas I would need to get home to Ohio. After this incident, I thought about what I was about to do. I decided I did not want to risk any further troubles and give the devil any more opportunities to try to leave me stranded. The decision was I would just leave the car there in Ephrata. I would drive my bus to Ohio and take the bus back to Ephrata. Then I would drive my wagon back to NY and work Easter Sunday. I hoped that I would make three or four hundred dollars and then drive the caprice back to Steubenville Ohio after Easter. It could work too.
However, I ran into the worst troubles yet. I am always conscience of saving money and watching every dollar. It is a part of what one must do if they are going to try to be a professional Busker. However, every thing was going to try to work against that my preferred way of doing things.
If I got on the bus before Thursday, I would get a few dollars cheaper fare because the bus fares go up on weekends and especially on Holiday periods. However, all was against me. The higher fare to Ephrata from Steubenville was . but if I went Wednesday and got there Thursday before the higher priced holiday period. With all that had gone wrong, I was holding my breath to see what Satan would have done to me to harm the house the Lord had gotten me in Ohio. As it turned out the toilet tank on the second floor had frozen and it cracked and broke and the toilet inlet was running water out onto the second floor for God only knows how long. It soaked the first floor ceiling in the area directly beneath the second floor bathroom, that ceiling had fallen and was on the floor beneath it. The water was running and the basement was knee deep in water. The ceiling of the dining room had come down and the house was badly damaged compared to how it was when I had bought it a few months before. My house was ruined. I had to rush downstairs wade through the water and turn the water off at the meter valve.
Oh, how it hurt. Oh, how stupid I had been not to turn off the water before I had left the house. As I remember it I had debated the idea. I had turned off most of the electricity but left the electricity to the furnace on so it would run. I left it on the lowest setting which was fifty degrees and I assumed it would be safe. I was only going for three days or so, or so I had thought. I had decided it would be good to leave the water on to see if the house would survive the weekend. Of course, I had forgotten all about that all the time I was in New York I felt confident that my water was off and everything was O.K. in my house in Ohio.
So, This was a catastrophe. My house was ruined. I had paid the bill to heat it and now who knows how much water had been used. What was I going to do? I spent the next day buying a pump but did not need it because the water went down by itself. I had to get new shoes because the pair I had just recently bought was water logged I had little in clean clothes to change into. I could not now take a bath as I had hoped I would be able to. Being homeless makes one have a horrendous odor. I sponge bathed as best I could. I could not afford heat. God knows I could not now afford anything. My money was mostly gone the funds I had planned to use to get me through until I could get back to work regularly was now all but spent. Now that I lost a day fooling with my personal deluge, I would have to pay to get to Ephrata.
It was so ironic. The bus from Steubenville to NYC was on the holiday. The bus fare to Harrisburg, which is closer that NY was , the fare to Ephrata was because of the fact that the Capital Trailways Co. was an independent company operating in the Harrisburg area. If it had been a part of the regular Greyhound Bus system, it would not have been so much. And then it occurred to me while I was buying the ticket maybe I could wait till I got to Harrisburg and then buy the ticket separately to Ephrata at the Harrisburg station that maybe I might save a few dollars. However, the clerk in Steubenville would not look it up for me and find out what the fare was from Harrisburg to Ephrata separately. Then I thought, what if I got to Harrisburg and the bus from Harrisburg to Ephrata turned out to be full. Would I get delayed? I had to be in NY by Saturday so I could rest a night and try to be on Fifth Avenue by 10 am for the Easter Parade.
As it turned out if I had waited, the ticket from Harrisburg to Ephrata would have been dollars and I would have saved seven dollars, which would have been a great thing for me. As it turned out when I got to NY, they predicted rain. That always lowers what I can make. It did drizzle but stopped during the parade time. The Easter Parade is not really a parade. Persons, anyone, wearing fancy bonnets walk up and down Fifth Avenue and show them off. They block off the traffic for about five hours and there is a gentle atmosphere. Persons such as myself, try to make merry in a family oriented manner and it is all very nice. It is one of the few days in NY when I as a Busker can do what I do best. When it is good weather, I’m paid very handsomely for the day. This time I only made a little over a hundred dollars so the whole trip was unprofitable given that I used up twenty dollars of balloons that day.
My Korean friends showed up towards the end of the Parade. They saw what it is exactly that I do. By the time they showed up, I realized I had not done so well for the day. I was disappointed. On the one hand, I really needed to try to pick up the loose ends of the day; but, on the other hand, I had been so downtrodden by so many discouraging events over the past few months that I was just glad to see them and to have some human fellowship. I hoped and trusted that God, some how would make a way where they was no way and either get me some other places to do this work or find me some new friends in Ohio or somewhere who would have compassion on me and help me make it through what ever was going to come upon me yet.
The following Friday the other of my Korean Friends came with me and we went to Pennsylvania. We lost an hour getting off and that made us lose three hours in our travels. If you don’t get off by two from Manhattan on a Friday you will be in traffic the whole way to Pennsylvania. We ended up in Ephrata. Pa. on Friday night about eight O’clock. The only thing I could think of to do was to show him Green Dragon, which is about a seventy-year-old very popular very famous farmers market flea market. Of course, it was almost closing until we got there. He did get to see some stands open. Operating one stand there, we met a person I knew through the Mennonite friend I spoke about earlier. My Korean friend saw Amish women and girls in their traditional dresses who were operating some of the stands there. I had started earlier to try and share with him as much as I understood about the differences and similarities between the Amish and the Mennonites. We also saw the tail end of the live animal auction. We had a good weekend. I got to show him Hershey the next day.
I insisted that he go with me through the ride, which shows you how they make chocolate several times, so that he could better understand the presentation. I would like him to have gone through it once or twice more than we did. However, he felt uncomfortable doing that. The ride is quick and tells you a lot. I don’t believe anyone really gets the sense of it one time though and I am sure that a person with English as a second language gets only a little out of it.
Why not after coming so far get it and get it good even if one has to be a nonconformist and ride it five times through. I have often brought others there and we have gone through it numerous times. As long as they are not busy, they (the folks at the Hershey company) don’t really mind.
We saw Gettysburg and the car almost gave us no trouble. In a kind act my friend Sunday morning helped me clean up the front of my car a little. We saw the Gettysburg battlefield and saw the movies there about that place. I was able to take some very good pictures of him and he was very happy. Unfortunately he disliked the way I got too much of the area below his feet in to some of the pictures and I was not quick enough to respond to that and he scolded me well one final time about it and he was right to do so. I was doing such a good job otherwise you would think I could have added his concern to the mix. Still, for the most part, I gave him nice pictures. He had been so polite all day and would ask me repeatedly if I would be so kind to take his picture an I played around with him a little and tried to get him to be a little less formal and polite. Of course I would take his picture that was the reason I had brought him to Pennsylvania so he could see the sights with a friend and have someone to take his picture. We had a good time. He was a kind gentle Christian man and it was a Joy to fellowship with him. He head to rough it too because we had to camp out in the car. Then I had gotten delayed. I started having problems with the car. We were late getting back to Ephrata. I had to really drive the speed limit, which is something I seldom do. We got to Ephrata three minutes after 5 which was three minutes too late but the Lord had been kind to us and the bus was delayed about twenty minutes. I was able to see him off successfully but then my car started up. I got a flat tire. I got it fixed. I drove to the Palmyra tire place and had them help me to make sure I had a good spare. Then the tire I had gotten the flat on went flat again. I went back to the Ephrata place and they replaced the tire again that cost me thirty dollars and again I dbareley had money to get home. There is a store in Ephrata very cheap.
