Fat Chicks and the Homeless

While the title of this blog may turn a lot of people off of it I feel they shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Fat Chicks has absolutely nothing to do with what you think it might and, well, homeless people is a topic everybody has an opinion on so I am going to give mine today. Welcome to the second edition of my blog.

Fat Chicks
I have returned to my home state, Colorful Colorado, for my annual summer visit. On the weekends during the summer my father and stepmother run the Hedlund House Museum in my hometown of Hugo. I went to visit my pops this past Saturday afternoon and while he was showing some out-of-towners the house and its exhibits I was chillin in the office reading various items lying around. Then I came across a local magazine called Colorado Country Life. One of the story headlines on the cover stated "The Fat Chicks." The way my mine works I immediately became intrigued by this thinking "Why in the world would someone put that on a cover of a magazine."

The headline did its job, however, sparking my interest to read the article as I was laughing pretty hard when I read it. Turns out the story dealt with four draft horses that pull a wagon. The owner of the horses gave them the nickname "Fat Chicks" after looking at their "nice, round, colorful behinds" all day long.

This story also reminded me of another reference to fat chicks. A co-worker of mine is always talking about a restaurant in Pennsylvania that sold a sandwich called a "fat chick" and he wanted to open up his own place that sold the same sandwich. A google search for fat chicks brought some unfortunate results so I had to add in sandwich to the search title. What I came up with was the same exact sandwich he always talks about located at a place called Benchwarmers in Ithaca, N.Y. The sandwich contains a 20 oz breaded chicken breast, grilled bacon, melted Monterey Jack cheese and an excessive amount of fries and if anyone eats it in under 30 minutes they get a t-shirt.

Homeless People

I think a lot of people share my points of view on homeless people which basically entails anybody can avoid being homeless they just have to be willing to work. In my opinion there are plenty of opportunities out there for work you just have to be willing to do anything. If I were homeless I would accept any job out there to get off the streets and have a roof over my head. An argument some might have is that businesses aren't willing to hire someone off the streets because of their appearance, stinch or reliability issues. Are you telling me though that even the insurance place that has a person dress up as the Statue of Liberty or Chick-Fil-A that puts someone in a cow suit won't hire someone to stand on the corner and wave a sign at cars driving by. There are plenty of opportunities out there just watch the show Dirty Jobs. Those people stink from their job so have homeless people do some of that.

The problem as most people know is that the reason 99 percent of them became homeless was alcohol and drug addiction. I hate when people give them money because they will just go spend it on their addiction. In college when my buddy and I were in New Orleans I went and bought a bottle of liquor and a playboy to give to a homeless man. I figured I would save him the trouble of taking my money and buying the same thing. He was probably the happiest homeless man ever. Sure I would like to believe in the best of people and that if you give them money they will use it for food or save it up to where they can buy nice clothes and get back on their feet with a job, but nine times out of 10 there is zero percent of that happening.

Even Ted Williams "the man with the golden voice" that was found in Columbus, Ohio couldn't get his life straight. He was offered numerous jobs people would only dream about but continued his alcohol addiction and was convinced to go to rehab by Dr. Phil. I looked up what he is doing now and an article two months after his story hit the national news said he was living in a halfway house in Los Angeles trying to shop a reality TV show. That is what is wrong with television these days but I will get into that another time.

One other thought I have had about homeless people is why don't they migrate to warmer climates. Not that I want Florida and Arizona to be only retired folks and homeless people but what sence does it make to sleep out in the freezing cold. I always think about this when I am in New York City or Boston or even North Carolina in the middle of winter. Save up $40 and buy an Amtrak ticket to somewhere down South where you won't nearly freeze to death. Homeless people should take lessons from birds and fly south for the winter.