Mr. All

Graceful, elegant, unique, well-spoken and articulate, well mannered, hospitable, friendly, kind, soft-spoken but not lacking force, knowledgeable, bright, beautiful, loving, loyal, enchanting: Most any descriptive word that you can use to describe a person that you want to spend time with, applies to this man.

I met George on the steps of a church in St. Paul, quite near the Dorothy Day Center. Our conversation lasted, perhaps, only twenty or thirty minutes. Six hours have passed now and I cannot get George off my mind.

George is a man of the streets, resting his hands and feet in Minnesota for the summer before he moves on. He is a traveller not to be confused with a vagabond or drifter. He is in a separate class.

He spent most of his working life in Connecticut where he commercially caught the fish that many of us may have consumed. It is a story I here all too often in the streets: The demise of the non-farmed fishing industry.

Though his last permanent home was in New England, with his mesmerizing voice and melodic tones, he did not have to tell me that the State of Virginia was in his past. There is nothing quite as pleasing as the tonality and modulation of a Southern gentlemen or lady.

George asked me to send a photo of him to his daughter in Connecticut. Gina is undergoing dialysis whilst she waits for a transplant. He speaks to her every other day unless he has no money to replenish his phone card. He gave me her address from memory and I recorded it. A print of this image will be in the mail by Saturday. He made me promise. There is not a promise that I have ever made in my life that I have felt more compelled to keep.

I could go on and on about this man. He was that special. That engaging. That entertaining. And he was that pleasant to be with. I was upset that I had to move on. But I will never forget his voice and warm face, his graceful hands placed atop his cane, and the vision of his crumpled but perfectly tipped hat.

I hope my path may cross again with his.

I am thankful to you all for your ever-present kindness. I am feeling remarkably better than five days ago, no doubt due to your warm wishes. And I still am catching up with blip-life.