East Fourth Street

The homeless guy walked by as I waited for the police to come to check out the shattered glass of my car window.

"Aw, did someone bust your window?"
"Yeah."
"Want help? I can help get the glass out."
"No, thanks. They told me not to touch anything."
"OK. I hate this. I stay down here, y'know. This just makes the rest of us look bad."
"Yeah, I know. I didn't assume this would happen just because my car was here."
"When we see people doing that, we turn 'em in. This guy Cruise, he would bust out windows. We saw him doing it one time, he busted a window of a truck and took something, and people started chasing him."
"Homeless people?"
"Yeah. The next time I saw him, his head was busted, and he had a black eye."
"Wow."

He was a lean black man, and the whites of his eyes were yellow.

"I was just gonna go over here and try to get some money, get something to eat. I haven't been able to work because of the rain."
"Ah, really?"
"Yeah, I got this job down in Hutto, and we're putting down grass, you know -- sod -- and we can't do it because it's too wet. They don't want us to drive the trucks over it."
"Because it'll rip up the sod?"
"Yeah, and it'll mess up the drainage."
"Ah. Well, I would give you money if I had some. Oh, wait, I think I have some change."
"Thanks. I'm sorry about your car. God bless you."
"Thanks. Thank you."
"God bless you."

A blog of another color

"Kathy, I said, I feel lost
though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why"
-- "America," Simon and Garfunkel

This blog's title explains it all, I suppose. It's meant to be outward-focused (though reflection isn't barred). I don't know if there's a cohesive America out there. I'm starting out with the tentative assumption that there are common threads spun among the people of this nation.

Could be wrong.
I aim to find out.
My wish is to find stories of America -- stories of any and all -- and share them.

We'll see how we go...