The Rubber Biskit Road Show Presents: "Give A Man A Fish"

The Rubber Biskit Road Show Presents: "Give A Man A Fish"

In this thought-provoking podcast episode, The GYPSY offers his insights and reflections on the homeless population in Topeka, Kansas, and across the United States. Recorded from his backyard on an early Spring day, The GYPSY shares candid observations on panhandlers and the scams they employ to avoid traditional employment.

Drawing from his own experiences, The GYPSY recounts a time in his life when his family faced poverty and the lengths he went to in order to provide food and shelter for his wife and daughter. His personal anecdotes shed light on the challenges and complexities of living in poverty and navigating the social systems designed to support those in need.

As the episode unfolds, The GYPSY offers his perspective on potential solutions to the issues of homelessness and panhandling. With a blend of empathy and pragmatism, he shares what he believes to be the most effective approach to addressing these societal challenges and providing support to those in need.

Listeners are invited to join The GYPSY in this thought-provoking exploration of homelessness, poverty, and the human experience. Through his candid storytelling and insightful commentary, he encourages listeners to consider the root causes of these issues and to explore compassionate and practical solutions for building a more equitable society.

PLEASE NOTE: This is a rebroadcast of a podcast episode from 04/18/2022. I stopped podcasting to help my wife through her battle with stage 4 breast cancer. My wife recovered and I am now ready to start podcasting once more. Over the next couple of months, I will repost my past podcasts and start new episodes in 2024.

“Like a Rubber Biskit, I have spent my life bouncing from here to there and back to here again.”  -The GYPSY-

Please Support Our Kickstarter Campaign To Bring  "Never Say Never: An Epic Journey - Volume Two" To Press. Click Here For Details

I'm The GYPSY and You're Not and This Is The Rubber Biskit Road Show Presented By Artist Alley Studio Featuring The Artisan, Handcrafted and Branded Creations of The GYPSY and Mad Hatter. Visit Us At www.ArtistAlleyStudio.com

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Transcript

Season1RBRSEpisode25 - Podcast.mp3

Transcript

Welcome to Episode 25 of the Rubber Biscuit Rd. show I am your host, the Gypsy. Well, if it sounds a little bit different today than what it usually does, it's because I am joining this beautiful spring day. Got up to almost 80° today and I am sitting on my back patio with my laptop. Just. Enjoying the clear blue sky, listening to the birds singing, I saw some Cardinals here. Male Cardinals while ago vying for the attention of one female cardinal birds in spring. Boy, I tell you what, they they feel the love thing and they definitely go after it. We put out in the winter time we put out seed for the birds and we put out suit for them and what have you and we discovered also that if we want to make sure that the birds get their seed and that they get their suit, that we have to put out corn cobs for the squirrels. So here we are. We're just helping Mother Nature out all over the place through the winter. Feeding them and feeding them and feeding them. But come springtime, we stopped doing that. It's like I don't know how to explain it the way I feel about it is if you keep giving the handout and you keep giving the handout. The birds aren't going to do anything for themselves, but if you give them a handout when they need it, which is in the dead of winter when they're hungry and starving, and then when they don't need it, make them go to work for what they get. They're worms or seed whatever, then they are going to be. Healthier, happier and more productive birds. Now I know that sounds like a kind of silly analogy, but think about man for a second. If we keep giving man handouts, if we give someone a handout constantly and we never make them go out there and work for their food for their living, for their life. Then they're never going to become more productive. They're never going to become stronger, they're never ever going to have the ambition to do anything except hold their hand out and have somebody put something into their. And I firmly believe that you help someone when they need help, but then when they don't really need that help anymore, then it's time for them to help themselves. I like the old adage God helps those that help themselves and I strongly believe in that. And I've lived by that almost my entire life. So I mean, that's just the way I am. You can agree with me or you can disagree, but I really think that people need to get out there and they need to help themselves and not count on someone to always, always help them out. You see these guys standing on the street corner. Good example. Guys, stand on the street corner holding up their signs. I'm short $20.00 for a room. I'm short $20.00 for a bus ticket. Well, what's funny about those two things I just said? They're both the same guy. He roams all over town. He has a sign. They'll either say I'm short $20.00 for a room. I'm short $20.00 for a bus ticket, and he holds a sign up in front of his face like you're not going to recognize that this is the same guy. That you saw over at 37th and Topeka Blvd. Yesterday, who's now standing down at 29th and Topeka Blvd. This guy, the guy I'm talking about, he's been around Topeka for, I don't know how long. I wish someone would buy him a bus ticket so he could move on, but the other day I pulled into a service station to get gas and my motorcycle, my Harley. And he was standing on the corner of Let's see. It was 29th. In Indiana, and he's holding up his sign and he's pointing it towards traffic and it's, I'm $20 short for a bus ticket sign. That was the IT was the bus ticket. And so he's holding up his sign, hoping that somebody is going to fall for it and give him $20. Well, as I'm pumping my gas, he turns around and points his sign towards me. Like, really dude, really. I'm standing here pumping gas. So you're just going to turn around and point your sign at. Me as if I'm going to go oh. Let me stop what I'm doing and come over there and hand you $20 that you really don't need. And the reason why I say this and I'm not being judgmental. But the mission buys this guy room down at the Relax Inn, or the travelers in whichever one he's staying at. But the mission pays for his room. He's probably on Social Security more than likely disability would be my guess. And he I don't know if he's a vet, but if he is a vet, he's probably getting some sort of check from Veterans Affairs. So here you have this guy that actually does have money coming in. He has a free room place to stay. He probably collects uh vision card and food stamp card. And here he is, just standing on the street corner, holding the sign up $20 short on the room, $20 short on the bus ticket. And I have to wonder to myself how many people fall for that and hand him $20. It's just it's it's a really sad situation and. Because. It's not sad for him. He's making out like a bandit. It's sad for the people that don't know him that haven't seen his game. And they're handing him their hard earned money money that they worked for. They're not standing on a corner with a sign. They're actually out there working to earn a dollar, but yet they're going, oh, this poor guy needs help. I'm going to hand him $20. OK, so let's look at that for a second. The guy gets his $20.00 right? And after he gets his $20, that means he has enough for his bus ticket, or that he has enough for his room. So why would you continue to stand on the corner and hold up your sign saying I need $20 if you have your $20, isn't it time to go home or isn't it time to run down to greyhound and catch that bus out of town? I hope you see the point I'm making here. The guy is playing the system. And he's feeding off the system and basically he's a liar, is what he is. He's standing on that street corner with that sign lying to people, and people are actually paying him to be a liar. Now I don't know.

Well.

Where your conscience lies on this but my conscience lies again, as I said at the top of this podcast, I believe in helping people. I strongly believe in helping people when they need the help, but when the point comes where they don't need that help any longer, then it's time for them to stand on their own 2 feet and do their own thing. That same street corner that I talked about, 20 or not 2930, seventh and Topeka Blvd. there's a Burger King on that street corner. And one of the funniest things to me in the world is when I come by there and I see this perfectly healthy man. Sitting there on the little wall by the Burger King, holding up a sign saying anything will help God bless and directly above his head on the Burger King marquee, it says now hiring apply within. I'm sorry dude, anything will help. You need help now. OK, get up off that wall. Walk into the Burger King and say, hey, I know I don't look the best in the world. Maybe I don't smell the best in the world right now. But I really could use a job. Can I fill out an application? Will you give me a chance? And you know what? People are desperate for help right now. They just might give him a. Chance, but no, no. No, no, no. He would have to work for a living. He would actually have to earn an honest dollar. It's easier to sit there underneath that sign that says now hiring and hold up your sign saying anything will help God bless than it is to actually. Clean yourself up and get a job. There have been times in my life. Where I had nothing. I was so dirt poor. I wondered how I was going to feed my family. I wondered how I was going to care for my family. I actually at one point in my life things were so bad. That I had to go knocking at church doors we didn't have. Organizations back during this time period, like there's harvesters here in Topeka and there's the Topeka rescue mission Topeka Rescue mission, wouldn't have helped me in in my situation because I had to take care of my family. But things like harvesters would have helped because I had no money to feed my family. So I found myself knocking on church doors asking if they could help me with some food. I wasn't asking for money. I needed food. Can you give me a food voucher? Do you have a food pantry? Help me. It was so bad at one point I had been in a motorcycle accident about a month out of the army. I had to cast on my left leg and I was on crutches. I stayed like that for over half a year. And it got so bad. At one point I really needed to get some food for my family, and I was also worried about the rent, you know, where the rent money was going to come from. And my daughter needed a coat, and I couldn't even afford to get my daughter a coat. It was really, really bad. So. My wife. She was at work. She was a nurses aide at a nursing home across town, and we barely had money for her to get back and forth, to work, to buy gas for this gas, gasoline, Chrysler, New Yorker we had. But she had to get back and forth to work. That was our only hope of being able to pay our utility bills or being able to pay our rent was her paycheck. I could have worked not with the cast on my leg, so I called a friend of mine and asked her to come over and sit with my daughter. One day early one morning. And on my crutches. I went two miles downtown through the snow. No, this isn't. I walked to school through the snow story. This is. This is for real. This happened. I didn't even have enough money to buy bus fare. And the bus stopped right outside our house. And it was only $0.50 for the bus. So you understand how desperate our situation was. So I hobbled on my crutches 2 miles through the snow downtown to go to the United Way to ask for help. I figured if anyone could help me, they could. And I got down there United Way and I went in there and I explained my situation to the lady that was in there. And she said, well, there's nothing that we can do for you. The best we can do for you is to give you a list of organizations. That may be able to give you some food or may be able to help free rent. And I said I knocked. I've knocked on church doors and she said, well, let me give you this list. This might help you. I said there's nothing you can do you. You can't. You can't give you a food voucher. I mean, I just a food voucher, maybe a clothing voucher, something. So that I can help my family so I can feed my daughter, feed my wife and get my daughter a coat. Something lady says. Now. Nothing I can do for you except give you this list. So I ended up hobbling all over downtown, knocking on church doors downtown and a couple of them gave me food voucher, the one that really, really helped me was the Salvation Army. And to this day I still support the Salvation Army because of this one particular day. I went in there. They not only gave me a coat for my daughter, exercise and everything, they gave me a brand new coat for my daughter, not a used one off the rack. This was. A new coat. But they also loaded up like. Three or four boxes full of food as coming people were in the family and I told them and they loaded a three or four boxes full of food and they asked me what my address was and I told them what it was and they said they couldn't get it over there today. But they asked if it was OK if they delivered it tomorrow and I said yes. Thank you. God bless you. And they said no problem. Well, I decided what I would do is do the right thing, which was to go ahead and thank them over United Fund. Oh, the Salvation Army. The lady at the Salvation Army handed me a dollar, which meant that I could catch a bus home. But I wanted first to go say thank you to the lady for giving me the list, you know, and point me towards the Salvation Army. I thought it was the right thing to do. So there was a bus stop right by the United Way. I went ahead and I hobbled back over there on my crutches. And as I get there, there is this woman coming down the stairs. And she's wearing a really nice fur coat. And there's a nice Cadillac Park right at the curb, almost brand new Cadillac, and this woman turns around and says to the lady that I talked to at United Fund later on. She goes. I want to thank you so much. Now I'll be able to pay my rent and I'll be able to go buy my children some food and I thank thank you so much. I mean, this will relieve us for about the next two months, and I appreciate it. And the lady and the fur coat got into the Cadillac and drove off. And I stood there looking at that Lady from the United Way. And she was looking back at me and you could see the embarrassment hit her face. Her face just went beat Red. And I said what? I didn't come to you wearing a fur coat. I wasn't driving a Cadillac. I don't understand. I said is my skin the wrong color? Did I not do up my hair nicely? Am I not wearing enough jewelry on me? Why couldn't you help me? But you help a lady that apparently really doesn't need help. And she goes well, you don't understand. I said. No, ma'am. I understand. Totally, totally and completely. And I turned around and I hobbled over to the bus stop and stood there in the cold waiting for the bus. Rode the bus home. Just fuming. I was so angry. And excuse me a second. Normally I wouldn't do that in the microphone, but that snuck up on me really. Quick. Anyway. The next day, the Salvation Army, true to their word, they. They came to the house. And they dropped off those boxes. Boxes of food SI could feed my family. They also gave me an address of a place in town. It was a oh, I can't even remember the name of, but basically they helped you pay your utility bills. And I was looking at about a $300.00 gas bill coming up. Yeah. Yes, that's right. Our gas bill to heat the House is going to be about $300.00 because we're living in a house with no insulation. You might as well been living there with the windows open all the time, and we had one big old fashioned heater in the center of the house. And our gas bill was ridiculous when we'd seen the $300.00 gas bill, we had decided to turn the heater way, way down and just wear coats when we were in the House. So they gave me a list of an organization there, and this was in Saint Joe, Missouri, by the way. Just catch up where it was at. They gave me a list of an organization there in Saint Joe that would help me pay that utility bill. Thank thank the Lord that I had that. But the thing of it was I was really scared. Really soured on helping United Way, after that I I had no desire to help them. I had no desire to help United Fund. Several years later, I found myself in a job where the director of this department prided himself, that everybody at the job. You know, contributed to United Way. And. Took a little bit out of each paycheck, you know, to contribute to United Way, he was proud of his little plaques on the wall that said 100% participation. And I refuse to contribute. And he's like, why are you not contribute? And I say because when I really needed. Help. They didn't help me. They helped someone that did not need help. And I do not support that organization and I never will support that organization. And he says, well, we expect 100% participation here. I said, well, I guess you're only going to get 99% participation because I will not donate to them. And I promptly got terminated. Oh, well, I didn't like working there anyway, so it didn't make a difference. But I kind of digress. A little bit. I want to go back. To my original point here. Which is. You should help people when they need help. And then once they don't need that help any more. Then let them stand on their own 2 feet. Let them be a better person. Let them have pride in the fact that they are helping themselves. Again, I'll say it again and I believe strongly in this. God helps those who help themselves. And if you can't help yourself, why would you expect God to help you? I mean, he loves us, and we're all his children, and he's our Heavenly Father. But he does expect us to not only do the right thing. But to also be the type of people. The type of. Humans, his children, that he expects us to be, and those type of children, those type of people are not deceptive. They're people that get out and they work hard. I mean, good example of this is in the Book of Vegas. I see I can't even talk today. Levette cuss our minister, Connor Krauss. He's been doing a series on the book of Leviticus. And today he wrapped it up, and he was talking about the Sabbath day and about resting. God laid it out. It is in his plan for us to work. It's in his plan. We're supposed to work. We're supposed to rest when he designates. We're supposed to rest. We're supposed to forgive our debts. We're supposed to forgive our debtors. We're supposed to kind of reboot every so often as he put it, you know, and I believe in that, you know, God wants God, really wants us to work. He wants us to work, and then he wants us for us. You work. Rest. If you are unable to work. If you are disabled, you have a physical or mental disability that keeps you from working. Then you need help. There is, you know, there is no reason for you not to receive help, but if you're perfectly healthy. The you should be working. You shouldn't be taking a hand out and I guess honestly. That's one of the problems I kind of have with institutions like Topeka Rescue mission. I believe their heart is in the right place, but unfortunately, unfortunately they hand out so much that. People keep just standing there with their hand out. And they're not really these people are not really making an effort to try to better themselves. They're just expecting places like Topeka rescue mission. There's other organizations like them across country just to care for them, constantly, constantly. And it it really saddens me. It really does. I strongly believe. That our homeless population here in the United States. That the homeless population would be a lot lower. If one. The people with mental disabilities that are homeless actually had a place to go, such as a a hospital or some sort of. Some sort of care facility. I'm not talking about locking them away in an institution. That's not what I'm saying. And so if anybody tries to jump on that and say that's why I'm saying you are so far off base, that's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is, is that if there are places for people with mental disabilities to go where they. Can live in a clean environment where they can get good food where they can get the type of healthcare that they need. They're not going to be living homeless on the street. Again, people with physical disabilities. Veterans have a place to go with. They just do it. But what if you're not a veteran and you have a physical disability? There needs to be a place for someone to go that has a physical disability where they can have a clean place to stay, where they can have food to eat. You following my train of thought here. You want to clean up the homeless population? That's the best place to start then. People that are physically able to work instead of just giving them a handout, train them in a job and find them work, get them working as they start working, and then they blow it. If they walk off the job or they get terminated because they're doing something just absolutely silly that they shouldn't be doing. Do they deserve further help? Past that point? No, because they had an opportunity and they threw it away. If they know that if they throw the opportunity away that there's not going to be anybody there to say, OK, here, oh, too bad. You're not working. Now. Here, take this. If they know that's not going to happen. Then they're going to continue to work. They're going to, they're going to put their nose to the grindstone. They're going to do what they have to do. If you're a person with a physical disability. There's jobs that you can be trained to do. You know, a physical disability. And I hate that term because I don't believe there is really anything such as a disability. OK, disability means you're unable to do anything. I believe that you have a physical limitation on what you can do. You may have a mental limitation on what you can do. But. Those are limitations. What can you do with in those limitations is what matters. So maybe you can't walk 20 miles because one leg is 3 inches shorter than the other leg, but are you able if you have the right type of shoe to? Maybe I don't know, stand behind the counter and take somebody's order. Or maybe work a cash register. You you see my point here you see where I'm going with this. People. Should be able to work and they should be able to get the type of help they need to work. The old adage is so true. If you buy a man a fish. He'll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime, and that's what we really need to start doing. You want to solve the homeless problem. Here in the United States, or even elsewhere, but we need to start here at home in the United States, if you want to solve the homeless problem. Start teaching the guy to fish. Don't just hand him the fish. Teach him to fish. And we. Remember. Remember, help those who need help when they need help, but once they're past the point of needing help. It's not your responsibility past that point to help them, because they need to help themselves. I believe that everybody has within them the capacity. To be a good person, I believe they have the capacity to work, to earn their living. I believe that they had the capacity. To contribute back something to society. But when you are sitting on a street corner holding up a sign that says $20 short for a bus ticket or $20 short for a hotel room. You're not contributing back to society. You're taking from society. You are taking from society, you're not giving. You're taking with no give. So. I know that's kind of kind of a lot to think about and I kind of rambled here because this is this is a subject that's very, very near and dear to my heart. I've worked hard my entire life during that period that I was telling you about when my family had nothing. I would do whatever job came along I whatever it was, I did it. I tagged hogs. Tagged hogs in the Saint Joseph Stockyards. For a whole $15 a day for doing 12 hours work. I want you to think about that. Do you know what? Tagging. Hogs involves oh, it's where you take a. Hog you put. Your. Knee into its rump. You grab it by the ear and you click A tag into its ear with a number on it so it can be auctioned off. Can you imagine what the hog pins are like? You smelled hog burns, I'm sure. If you haven't, you need to take a drive in the country sometime. Take a big whiff out there. Imagine that 100 fold inside a closed, hot, muggy interior. And you're you're walking through pigment lure and you're grabbing these dirty hogs that are covered in that manure and you're tagging them and you get covered in the manure. And you do this for 12 hours. For $15. Just so that you can make sure that your family has. Food on the table. I have sat in cold food warehouses sorting through damaged goods for a little grocer that was right down the street from me that sold damaged groceries. But sorting through damaged goods trying to find the good butter versus the bad butter, or the good Lord versus the bad Lord? Or is this can of Spaghettios 2 den it for them to sell in their little store? And I did that so that I could run a tab at that little store to feed my family. I have worked in hot furniture warehouses. For $24.00, a day for that same 12 hour day they did the hog barn, OK. So. $24.00. For 12 hours work. If you can't do the math, that's $2.00 an hour. I have worked in a car wash as and I I'm not kidding you here. I was the assistant foreman in this car wash. And I was making a whole dollar 35 an hour while the foreman himself was making $1.50 an hour. We were just raking in the Bucks there, and I worked in this car wash hot, sticky, nasty work. You know, you you're washing people's car hand washing these cars for them. And that was usually 12 hour day too. I don't want you to feel sorry for me because I did what I had to do to support my family. You know, I I did what I did to put, you know, food on the table and clothes on my daughter's back up. Even I did things to buy her Christmas at. Would just curl your hair. You don't even want to hear what I had to do to get my daughter Christmas one year. But I will tell you this. I would not go back and do it again. Ever. And I am surprised that. That I was able not to get in trouble. But I did what I had to do. Just to get my daughter her Christmas presents so that she would continue to believe in Santa Claus. I guess the point I'm trying to make here. Is that? Everybody. Everybody has the capacity. To get out there and contribute something back to do whatever they have to do to make sure. To make sure. That they meet their needs and that. And when I say do whatever they need to do to meet their needs. I'm not talking about standing on a corner holding up a sign begging. I'm talking about actually doing something. The only people that don't have that capacity are those that are severely mentally handicapped or those that are severely physically handicapped. But. Everybody, everybody without exception. Can do what needs to be done instead of just standing around with your hand out. If you're listening to this and you're one of those people that think that the world owes you a living and you're standing out there with your hand out, I want you to go take a look in the mirror and reevaluate your life and reevaluate yourself and realize that you're not giving back anything to society. That you're just a thief in the night, taking from society. I know this got pretty heavy today and I hope you stayed with me through the whole thing, but it's time for me to go now. Sun setting. It's getting a little chilly out here, so I'm going to head inside. Like I said, it sounds a little different today because I am on the laptop. But let me tell you this. I enjoy visiting with you. I will be back next week, but until that time this is me, your friendly neighborhood Gypsy saying May God bless and keep you and yours later, Gators. Bye. Bye now.