I briefly saw my old friend John Joseph walking down Bull Street at the corner of Bull and Broome Streets. He was unkempt and probably suffering from medically addressable extrapyramidal effects from decades of anti-psychotic pharmaceuticals. He offered to shake my hand, but I refused since he may have any kind of cold or flu virus or some form of infectious bacteria. I guess his extended family who dole out his meager funds don’t really care about his day to day appearance.
I met John in 1973 at a dance sponsored jointly by Peachtree-Packwood Hospital and Peachford Hospital both of which are in Atlanta, Georgia. We were both too shy and emotionally reticent to ask any females to dance. Also, the females ignored us as the social outcasts the we were and remain in that state of constant rejection.
I don’t know John’s precise diagnosis, but he is treated as a completely worthless piece of human flotsam. I know my diagnoses and I am in the same social detritus realm as John. John has never been challenged by his family, psychiatrists, and social workers to try to make a positive impact on his milieu. He does know a lot of folks’ names in this area and he is well known and recognized by the businesspeople of LaGrange, but the local capitalists only want our money and the tips we leave our servers. I am more infamous as a curmudgeon or iconoclast.
Both John and I need to be more careful crossing the downtown streets. I notice that John does not always obey the crosswalk signals. That is certainly highly dangerous behavior in modern LaGrange. I am probably going to get killed for being overly aggressive at asserting my crosswalk rights. Also, I need to stop cussing and yelling at the motorists who violate my pedestrian rights.
Numerical Explorations 