Conversations

A little while ago, a psychologist pointed out that it was beneficial to have conversations with strangers. I do not remember the reasons given, though they might include the freedom to speak freely to someone you are unlikely to meet again. My ears pricked up when I heard this, as I have been talking with strangers for some time, and indeed find it beneficial.

Opportunities 

So many opportunities, in queues, at airports, on trains and planes! In fact anywhere I find myself in the company of others. I hope I can sense when a person does not wish to talk, and do not continue. Those who know me would probably agree with my self-assessment that I would talk under wet cement; but I know that when I shut up and listen, there is much of value, hopefully for both of us

In particular, when I started to notice more people begging in the streets, I made sure that I had a few gold coins in my pocket and decided that I would never just throw the money into their tin and scurry off, but stay and talk with them.

Almost always, at some stage, I ask them how they came to be in the situation they are in. I tell them they are free to tell me to pull my head in or mind my own business; but everyone I have asked has been willing to tell their story, and an amazing one it has been in many cases.

Experiences 

I was in Melbourne one wintry morning waiting for a tram, and was approached by a youngish man who was barefoot. He asked me for some money, so a gave him five dollars. He responded by saying ‘How about fifty?’. ‘You’ll be lucky,’ I responded, and he laughed and was not at all put out. He told me that he was schizoid and on medication; and that he had an arrangement where his father would pay for a pair of shoes from a particular shop, where he was headed when it opened. My tram arrived and we parted cheerily.

In Sydney I met a young man in his twenties who told me that his Polish parents, (I assume with US citizenship), had  taken him when he was ten years old to live in the States. When he turned 18, as he was an Australian citizen, he was deported to Australia, despite having left here as a child. How cruel was this? (Before Trump, too!) I asked him could his parents help, but he said no, as they were violent alcoholics.

The most poignant story

The most poignant story was from a gaunt troubled looking man who was seated in a small square in Springwood’s main street. He had a large dog with him. He told me it was a rescue dog, and his getting it was the reason he had been evicted from his rental accommodation. I went off to change a $50 note so I could give him more than a gold coin or two, and when I returned, has partner/companion had joined him. She looked even thinner than him and had few if any teeth.

I am guessing that the accommodation they had occupied was found for him when he was released from prison, as this is what he told me about his life. His father had been a violent nasty bully, giving him frequent beatings and putting him down. He was finally old enough to challenge his father in the only way he knew how: he hit him. His father just laughed at him, put his fists up and said ‘Is that the best you can do?’, so he hit him again. This time, his father fell, hit his head, and died.

And even now, after (I am guessing) a prison term for manslaughter, he said, ‘I am not sorry it happened and that he is dead’. I was glad that was able to give the couple  at least a small amount to help them through the day.

The surprise in such events 

It continues to amaze me that people who have had such desperate lives compared to my comfortable middle class life, are friendly, and often optimistic that their lives will improve. Some of them even say ‘God bless you’ as I go.

These are just a small snapshot of the stories I have heard over the years from beggars, usually sad, but often filled with hope for better things to come. I just hope that the optimism was not ill-founded.

One last story, and not about a beggar this time, occurred when Elizabeth and I visited the old site of the Cowra Prisoner of War site. There was an interesting plaque there telling the story of the Cowra breakout, and of the four Australian soldiers who were killed by the Japanese. At the entrance to the site, I struck up a conversation with a married couple probably ten years or so younger then me. The man told me that his wife had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimers, so they were travelling around the district where she grew up while she could still remember and appreciate it. She told me they were at the Cowra site because her uncle had been one of the four Australians killed, but that she knew nothing about him. She was thrilled when I told her that his story was there, as well as a photograph of him, so off they went to see it.

Of course, I have heard many much happier stories, found connections and surprises and had some laughs, often about the many absurdities of simply being human.

To end I will quote a small poem I learned as a child:

A wise old owl lived in an oak,

The more he heard, the less he spoke

The less he spoke, the more he heard

Wasn’t he a wise old bird?