PELLIUS, Gotta go back a few years here again (sorry about that) , but not too many years ago (I believe you were in Cal at that time when you first met KEITH) ... there was a small influx of street people, bums, homeless, tramps, etc. who showed up in Hawaii and took residence along the streets of Waikiki (mainly Kohio Ave,).
This 'influx' was soon followed by an article in the Honolulu Advertiser which 'revealed' that this 'influx' was due to a Northern California judge's decision to send these 'characters' to a region in which they could survive without freezing to death during the mainland's cold winter season.
So within a year or so this judge was the cause of a real problem among the local citizenry which some of the locals made attempts to rectify.
In one such case this 'rectification' consisted of taking the one bum who took residence on a bus stop bench in the vicinity of the Food Pantry Waikiki grocery store and laying his two legs on the curb and jumping on those two legs until his shin-bones broke with a large 'crack'.
I was not present to hear that crack but others were.
For the next few months that bus stop bench was vacant of bums, but soon enough that bum who had his two legs (shin-bones) broken showed up once again sitting on that bench along with a pair of crutches and ..... when he was in a standing position it was noticeabe that whomever 'fixed' those broken bones ... was not a medical professional ... as they were not as straight as a typical shin bone tends to be.
I doubt that he is still a Waikki resident, but he was a well known and dispised sort of persistant bum .... so you and others may know of whom I speak.
Before I sign off ... here's another interesting (?) Waikiki bum story....
But this bum was a successful bum.
He stood on Kuhio outside of the ABC store behind the International Market Place and showed up at 8AM and left at 5PM each and every day except on Sundays.
The interesting thing here is that his wife or girl-friend delivered him and picked him up in a very expevsive SUV and it was said that he collected over $200 each and every day he worked that location.
But his story made the news the day he showed up to get to work and he discovered that a competing bum had taken his place outside that ABC store ... and a fight ensued ... and the cops came ... and we all read about it in the next day's news which made that very same spot very popuar for those bums who persisted and eventually took his place.
One last statement ... KEITH was very generous when it came to the assistance of street people and as I probably mentioned earlier ... he became a casual friend of a bum who resided near the Ala Moana bridge that crosses over the Ala Wa.
And that was the bum who who passed away and the Honolulu Advertiser wrote the article about this bum's past and very successful life in one of the major Fortune 500's businesses.
Keith once mentioned why this bum went from major success to absolute 'bum-dom' but I have long forgotten that part of the story, but KEITH did say that he was one of happiest bums whom he had ever met.
Sorry to regress but I though that the above was somewhat appropriate to post here.
Attached photo is the Waikiki location where Keith's formerly rich but then destitute but extremely happy bum used to 'reside'.
Cool story, brah. Now let me take you on a trip down memory road.
Remember in Waikiki there was a building called a Sanitorium? Those were originally developed to quarantine people back in the day with infectious diseases. Due to vaccines the majority of these maladies no longer would reach epidemic proportions and there was no need to quarantine large populations. These facilities evolved into Lunatic Asylums, later called Mental Institutions. Hawaii preferred to still call them "Sanitorium" as they considered it the least offensive term
What happened to these? Several factors. Many were horribly run and were hell holes. Many of the methods used were later considered good intentioned but cruel. Remember JFK's sister, Rosemary, had a lobotomy at 23. Mental institutions for the general public was a non-issue. It just wasn't a part or concern in their life. All that changed when the 1975 movie, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" hit the screens. Public sentiment changed dramatically. In a landmark case in 1975 the ACLU filed a case on behalf of Kenneth Donaldson, who had been involuntarily confined in a Florida State Hospital for 15 years. He was not dangerous and had received no medical treatment.
"In a landmark decision for mental health law in 1975, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that states cannot confine a non-dangerous individual against their will who can survive on his own" The ACLU was right in this individual case. He has family that was willing to care for him. But this opened the door for the ACLU to pretty much let everybody out that didn't want to be there. Nobody, even mentally ill people, want to be confined. And how do you define dangerous unless they actually commit an act of violence?
And this is the major reason why we have what we have now. Part of the charity I work for, focusing on homeless with type 2 diabetes, is to convince them to go to a shelter or facility that will provide them with a room over their head, meals, and medical treatment. It's not easy. It's hard to reason with crazy people.
Mental Institutions were no Club Med. Some were horrible. But not all. But they provided a roof over their heads, meals, and medical treatment. This is a classic case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Instead of closing down all Mental Institutions they should have reformed the institutions themselves. Just like they started to do with all facilities that serve the public like restaurants, hotels, hospital, libraries, gyms, workplaces... literally, everything now has to pass inspection and meet standards.
These people should not be on the streets. They degrade the quality of life and present a danger to decent, hard working, tax paying people. It is these people who pay for the bus stop shelters, the park benches, sidewalks, the shade of the trees... all which they can't use because of some reeking, stench-filled ogre has taken up residence there.
Most are there because of the poor decisions they made in life. Decisions that I find hard to believe they didn't know the consequence of. Is there anybody; man, woman, or child that does not know that drug and alcohol abuse, committing crimes are not a good thing? That things are going to go bad for you? But they did it anyway.
