Wednesday, January 5, 2011

The Man with the Golden Voice

A 52 year old man originally from Brooklyn, New York was videotaped in Columbus, Ohio. The video was put online and it went Viral. Today, the man with the Golden voice who has been homeless for 10 years was given a job. Though I had already seen this (I think at yahoo.com with the news there), this when I saw him get a job and because I was watching it alone with my family out for the evening made a tear come to my eye. It took me back to 1989 when my grants and loans for UC in California didn't come through in September on time and I had to live with my family in a van in below freezing weather camped out for a couple of months until we could afford to rent a house again and move our furniture and stuff out of storage. My middle daughter was only about 15 months old living in the freezing temperatures at night so cold that wash water pan froze solid every night while we slept in our window van.

Though it is now at least 21 or more years later I haven't forgotten that time when I wasn't sure how we would make it through to the other side for a few months. Though life has been very good to me and even though I almost died for 8 months in 1998 and 1999, financially life never has been better for me than now. But I still remember how bad it can get when just one thing goes wrong in life for a single person or in my case for my whole family in 1998 and 9 and of just how hard it is to fix things and go on and try to go on living when just one thing goes wrong. So, when you see people struggling just know, "There but for the Grace of God go us all."

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