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Ugly Laws
Often, I reminisce about those days in the 1970s walking down Madison Ave or Park Ave in New York City. When I had my children or grandchildren with me, we would, it seemed like, always run into a large African man with gray hair and beard about at the corner of Madison and 54th. He had a quick smile and dancing eyes as he tried to entice the walking public to drop a few coins in his cup. He was a big guy, and my heart twisted into pain every time I saw him. I’d pretty much empty all dollars and coins I had on me (and I would fill my purse with cash hoping I’d see him), and over the years he remembered me, although it might be once or twice a year. I visited New York in those days when I was fashion editor for the Memphis Press-Scimitar. If my children were with me, they too ran to him and dropped coins in his cup. He was one of our favorite stops and always in our prayers.
 It’s hard to pass up a beggar. Worse, I’ve just wandered through a book called “The Ugly Laws” by Susan Schweik. Read it. It is painful how man treats man. It talks about how the beggars, the homeless, the deformed, the unsightly, the poor, the hungry, the maybe mentally ill and crazy have been treated on the streets and corners of wherever they tried to live. Governments have always tried to brush them off the streets, out of areas where they might “bother” people. So many are still wrapped up in cardboard and ratty blankets squashed in the corner of a store in a big city trying to sleep usually in the daytime when they are safer. So many are mentally ill and, like in Memphis, there is no place the mentally ill or street beggars can go unless a police officer picks them up and drops them off for a quick around at the mental hospital (always in and out, with a spoonful of drugs to help them for a day.) I remember that when I rode with police in the Crisis Intervention Training, who specifically handle the mentally ill or someone on a drug high that is out of control. That program began in Memphis and is now worldwide. The officers (and many others) learn how to deal in a moment with the mentally distraught and disturbed.
Ugly Laws arrived in the 1800s because the public didn’t like the unsightly, disgustingly sad, often blind, and smelly and disturbed person sitting on the streets, rolled up in corners in the middle of winters, trying to survive, scuffing along sidewalks with a stick poking their direction, and, if possible, to have the privilege of begging for something, whatever the reward might be. Many were/are insane, many are alone, no family who recognizes them, and the only conversation they might have would be an effort to get someone to give them some coins, or something that showed them that they are still human and not some ugly animal.
One of the first cities to make laws against the “ugly and invasive” folk was San Francisco in 1869. California was often the first in crazy things, like the gold rush, - and beggars were tossed into the category of maniacs, vagabonds, and outcasts because no one cared for them and were horrified to get near them. Even today, when I stay in a super hotel flat on the walkways and sand and roaring ocean of Santa Monica, there are a bunch of uglies, I guess one would say, who are shouting out hatred and curses and political discrepancy and try to disturb those doing their daily fast walks or bicycle rides and races.
Anti-freak bills started in San Francisco. When the Chinese first came to California in the 1800s, they were called “coolies” and were treated like mental cases, which had no relevance at all. But they looked weird to the miners and settlers along the Pacific coast. And of course, now they are some of the most brilliant people in this country, especially in the field of Medicine. There seems to be something in urban situations that people must be categorized and put into some sort of regulation or law. And it still goes on, although there are now more solutions, but racism also has a stranglehold on this kind of situation. For too long, Africans, Chinese, Indians could be thrown in prison just because they looked like they did.
In the 1880s there was a son of a choir director, who after a series of injuries and illnesses and chronic pain left him distorted and helpless. He wanted to earn a living. He was described as queer-looking in a little cut-wagon in which he labored and moved. He looked odd, so he was treated odd, as most street and homeless people are. But, studying this opened so many exciting doors because everyone is not beaten down because they don’t have all their body parts, or the spirits normal people carry in their hands.
Think about the amazing athletes who compete in the Paralympics - who are as tough and talented as anyone with full body in the world Olympics. Sports Illustrated saluted them equal with the best of the best. There were 800 athletes competing in 78 events of six sports specially geared for people with deformities of body but tough spirit in the heart and soul. - And this was just winter sports: Andrew Kurka - who aimed to be faster, stronger and go harder than the next guy and has done many miracle achievements in his life. Declan Farmer plays sled hockey?? (ice hockey is one of the toughest of all sports), and Dana Aravich who cross country skis with only one arm, and then there is Oksana Masters who has been 10 times Paralympic medalist in four sports. Well, this is just the winter athletes in the Olympics. There are huge amounts of amazing athletes in the summer ones, from swimmers to wrestlers to volleyball and wheelchair tennis - all people who haven’t let a deformity or a problem mess up their passion for competing and winning not only for themselves, but for their countries. It’s all about spirit, confidence and believing that nothing is impossible.
My daughter in Nashville has helped save the lives of the homeless, to the point she bought an apartment for one man who hung out on the Vanderbilt canvas, and as he has to have a leg amputated in these weeks, she is beside him, trying to answer the needs he always seem to have, and when he gets irritated and yells at the doctors and nurses, she steps in and helps him to keep hope in his heart so he can return to his apartment, his own home, which is heaven compared to the dangerous streets of that city. I’m so proud of my daughter.
I still weep when I see the crowds of homeless men and women on our Memphis streets, begging for a dollar or anything when cars come to a stop or a stoplight. Over the past 25 years, they have become a prime concern of Calvary Church here in Memphis. It is amazing how, with the leadership of Christine Todd, the homeless have facilities they never had and probably never would have had; and there are healthy meals around the downtown stretch and every Sunday there are bags of clothing dropped into a large container which are folded and cleaned and taken to a store in the church to clothe, for free, the homeless men and women continually, because we all care for them. In their new clothes, they don’t look like bums, or idiots, or mentally ill. They can have pride and know people care and they are warm and looking sharp. They just never had the opportunity to re-start their lives, to accomplish a dream, or to have partners to help each other.
So don’t turn your back on a homeless person, ugly or deformed or saying crazy things, maybe cursing life. They never had a chance in life. And some of them, if young enough, can become superstar athletes and compete in the Olympics. Bless them all.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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