JAY.

doing a post earlier today prompted me to go back and review my blog posts.

it turns out that this week marks the anniversary of the death of someone who was also a tuesday night regular, jay, that is, peter jay mcclosky. jay was a pilot, but had a problem with alcohol so when i first met him, he was on the street and when he showed up for dinner, it was usually in the company of a small korean woman named uno who has a similar problem with alcohol. jay and ono were pretty devoted to one another. apparently uno was unaware that jay had died, so when jay failed to show up for dinner the next week, uno complained the whole time about how jay had betrayed her by abandoning her.

uno has taken jay's loss extremely hard. in the past year, uno has stopped by for dinner maybe 3 times. she's been extremely intoxicated every time. otherwise she's usually sitting near the rest rooms at the south end of the park in a continual state of inebriation. once in a while someone will come up and ask us to make a plate to take to her. i regret not taking the time to see how she is every week, but our group is now down to two volunteers, so i don't have the time to run down to see if uno is there.

leon's story gives me hope, while uno's story takes me the same distance, but in another direction entirely.

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we've had (to me anyway) unseasonably hot weather. it hit as high as 108 this past tuesday.

so i made gazpacho and also brought popsicles for them to eat while we set up the table.

as part of an experiment, for the past 10 days or so, i chose not to run the A/C and instead, made a habit of cleaning myself with a face towel every 60-90 minutes. even so, i was still pretty rank by the end of each day.

to me, this is part of what makes being homeless so difficult to escape. no matter how fastidious you try to be, you can't escape the consequences of not being able to wash regularly.

20 years ago, i joined a group of people who regularly traveled down to tijuana, we brought used clothes for the children, but more importantly, we brought tanks of water and provided baths. as much as food, there's a real need for something like that for the homeless here, especially in the summer.