Victoria Walters and Philip Paul Sacco - Today's Warriors
Jason - A Hero
by Ted L Glines
I met Jason in Anaheim, California, in the middle of the night, near Disneyland. Just another young homeless man wearing Salvation Army coats and carrying a medium-sized plastic bag about half full of aluminum cans.
I had been walking around the front of the hotel where I worked the night shift when I encountered him walking on the sidewalk. Something told me to say hello to this man. He seemed hesitant about talking but an invitation to come inside for coffee broke the ice, and we were soon inside one of the hotel back offices (the one with my coffee pot), and Jason's story came out.
Jason had recently been released from San Quentin prison. He had served five years. When he was released, he had the clothes on his back, one hundred dollars, a Greyhound bus ticket to Los Angeles, and the address of a Parole office in Orange County. Jason had no family, no friends, not even a job in Southern California. In Orange County, one hundred dollars might keep a roof over your head and food in your mouth for, maybe, three days -- five if you were lucky. To make matters worse, the Parole caseload was so overburdened that there was no immediate assistance available for Jason. He would have to fend for himself.
On the face of it, this looked like the "revolving door" in action. Any bookie would have bet that Jason would have to resort to theft or robbery just to survive, and that he would soon be on a white bus headed back to prison. As we drank coffee and talked that night, I sensed that Jason was made of stronger stuff.
Jason wanted to make it on his own. He had learned about a recycling center in Santa Ana, only a few blocks away, and he had seen that the Thrifty Nickel always carried an ad where the recycling center would pay one dollar per pound for aluminum cans. There are scads of dumpsters in the area surrounding Disneyland, and a tourist area produces a LOT of beverage cans, and night time is the right time for "dumpster diving." Jason was in business. "Did you know," he said, "you can get three times as many cans into a bag if you crush the cans!"
I never knew where Jason slept, but it was somewhere that the homeless people sleep, maybe in one of the shelters. I offered him the couch in my apartment but he turned it down; he wanted to meet this challenge and win with his own tools. All Jason wanted from me was friendly conversation, coffee, and some level of moral support. I was able to give him pointers on where he might find more likely dumpsters, and I did manage to get him to take some really large (55 gallon) plastic bags.
In the middle of the Anaheim night, Jason and I shared many weeks of conversations over coffee, and I watched his progress. Within a week after I met him, Jason had gotten himself a used bicycle and had figured out how to sling four huge bags (two behind the seat, and one from each side of the handlebars), and the bike increased his range of available dumpsters. Several weeks after that, I heard a racket and Jason came driving up in a battered old pickup truck which, he said, could carry fifteen or more of the big bags. He had paid cash for the old truck. I think it was only about four or five weeks later that Jason dropped by to tell me that he had gotten his own apartment and had found a job working days at a convenience store. He appeared so pleased with himself, and he wanted to thank me for all my help as he got himself on his feet.
What help? Just coffee and conversation in the Anaheim night. Somehow, I think he knew how proud I was of him. I moved from Anaheim to Reno, Nevada, and then out here to Texas. But I am not worried about Jason. Somewhere, Jason is pushing the envelope in his own heroic way - and a person like him will always win against all odds.
There is an obvious moral to this tale but, if you have read this little story, I think you already understand.
Police
by Ted L Glines
Turn on the siren - play me a song
on these neon streets - all night long.
Service turns deadly now and again,
seasoned cops will tell you when
robbers or drunks killed their partner or friend,
valor is often the killer of fools,
errors may happen - forgetting their tools.
Awesome power goes with the blue
noble knight in service to you
defending your rights and freedoms too.
Police are your friends in the scary night
running the bad guys out of your sight
offering safety from danger and fright,
they protect your home and safeguard your way
ever quietly guarding thru night and day,
cops have a duty - you may expect,
to always be there - to serve and protect.
Author's Notes: There are times when a cop goes to work, and a premonition makes him not want to respond to a 9-1-1 at your house. But he responds (please do not harm him). It may not look it, but this poem is highly experimental (for me). Obviously, it is rhyming verse. Not so obvious is the fact that the poem is written in acrostic form, with the first letters of the lines, read vertically, spelling out "To Serve And Protect." The acrostic designates the topic (law enforcement) , and the challenge was to create the police poem in rhyming verse, working within the letter restriction posed by the acrostic. I quickly found out that such restriction added a level of discipline to the writing. The working title was "Protect, " which I changed to "Police" in the final draft. A dear poet friend of mine (Zensidra) beat me to the punch by creating her own version of a rhyming verse poem based on the acrostic "Dead Man Walking, " and she did a beautiful job with it! This kind of give and take is the very heart of the workshop concept, and I find my own writing is pushed forward by working with other creative writers. In a way, Zensidra made the above poem happen, and my thanks go out to her.
Medieval Times
by Ted L Glines
another knight's royal multicolor play
donning disguises - for humor and pay
dinner theater - Queen's court of Faust
with breakaway lances - hail the joust
fickle diners yell for Green - then scream for Red
no one roots for Black - we'll have his bloody head
it's the Black and the Red - dueling with might
only one knight can win in this grisly fight
someone yells a curse - "Down with Bloody Black!"
but Black broke his lance and he's flat on his back
now Red and Green - it's a fight to the death
the crowd's on its feet - all holding their breath
the Red almost won it - he's knocked from his horse
and the Green takes the honors - the favorite of course
antagonisms staged - guests feast in delight
suburban anger - anarchy and fright
the Green gets a rose from the Queen's pretty hand
her winning knight - defending her land
the crowd goes crazy in standing ovation
Green bows and smiles - his obligation
an hour of fun - some social ires released
and the people go home with frustrations decreased
off with the costumes - to work we go
time to clean up for tomorrow knight's show
Author's Notes: Medieval Times is my all-time favorite dinner show, and their "serving wenches" seem so much better than normal waitresses (all part of the show) . When you've been there several times, you'll note the "regulars" - that boisterous bunch across the arena - are really the cheer leaders for the whole show.