Archive 1 January to 31 March 2015
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From our WestCare correspondent
Today (14 Jan 2015) the Westcare mob wanted us to help carry a VERY HEAVY pool table (billiards table) off the back of a truck. We do not carry pool tables or pianos. HERNIAS ARE NO FUN... The Diabetes Game or (Pity the unfortunate psychiatric patient) The blue-eyed woman asks the priest to pray for her. She’s been at the hospital when the sugar levels in her blood went awry. They told her she has diabetes. At the table with the priest her cool-eyed boyfriend begins crying. The priest tells her it is treatable and he touches her hand and prays for her. Another well-meaning worker mentions the bad eating habits of psychiatric patients. This is true, but the main answer is that anti-psychotic medications prescribed by doctors cause most cases of diabetes amongst psychiatric patients. This isn’t the opinion of a renegade General Practitioner, but the considered opinion of twenty bio-chemists and forensic psychiatrists from multiple universities commissioned to write a textbook for medical professionals. The book was printed by Oxford University Press. Its title is: Adverse syndromes and psychiatric drugs: A clinical guide. 13 January 2015 Homeless get shoved aside at homeless joints The tragedy of most places funded to service the basic survival requirements of people living under trees is that 90% of the clientele don’t live outside, but when things are given out it is the non-homeless who grab the most while the actual people living outside are not to be seen. The reason is that when a person lives outside they are exhausted and vulnerable and instinctively avoid the dangers of aggressive queues of people grabbing things they often don’t even need. The indication of a well-functioning homeless joint is that those in the most desperate circumstances are protected, and received an equitable share of whatever services are being offered. 13 January 2015 Saturday evening at Salvation Army Pirie Street Adelaide The volunteers were Chinese and Vietnamese Christians. They were polite and helpful. Roast beef and roasted vegetables, coffee, and Magnum ice-cream sticks were served. There were food packages handed out, but sadly the most aggressive and greedy got the most. One woman arrives every week with an empty shopping trolley and leaves with it overflowing with free clothing. What she does with it is anyone’s guess, but she takes ten times more than she needs. Grinder helped someone with a spinal problem. He is a real hero having returned to life after a broken grinding disk sawed its way into his skull. A “Sons of Anarchy” motorcycle club fellow got to close to Margo so she tried to grab him by the testicles, but got something else. Margo also tried to spike the coffee maker’s foot with her walking stick. It was the first time I’ve seen him smile. Margaret asked Captain Laurel at the church service, “Why does God test us?” I didn’t hear Laurel’s reply. Her Bible interpretation is interesting, but the canned inspirational music is horrible. Lance Armstrong is concerned he may be mistaken for the other Lance Armstrong who used stimulant drugs. Our Lance is a professional rider and doesn’t touch drugs. He likes bio-dynamic food and gets angry when Margo smokes cigarettes near him. He believes it slows the healing process of his injuries suffered in crashes during bike races. The former concert pianist said he didn’t expect WestCare to last beyond this year. He said he’d heard the Magdalene Centre was stopping their Saturday meals, but a criminal named Barry says they’re re-opening on Saturday 31 January. “The Cousin” said the concern pianist’s accuracy rate is about 40%. “The Cousin,” who worked at WestCare, said that when the drug police arrived, the drug dealers would escape by climbing up a pillar then running across the roof and jumping down onto a back street. “The Cousin’s” accuracy rate is higher than 40%. Bob, the convener, appears to be an ex-impresario, because he makes sure the Quiz takes up the whole hall, leaving no room for the ping pong table. Captain Matt Reeves put his hands on his hips when talking to a slightly drunk customer. An affluent ex-public service who recently received an involuntary package and lives in Glenside told us he has three sons, all of whom are studying or working at boring job, which, he says, “put food on the table”. Two are accountants and one is a physiotherapist. In the public service he worked at IT so he and Lance Armstrong, who also worked in IT (before he became a champion bicycle racer) had lots to talk about while the rest of us looked on like dummies. 11 January 2015 Trauma of lives past A quietly spoken man warned that one had to exercise constant wariness at homeless-style venues. “You can never relax,” he said. The older woman who wears a visor at Mary’s Kitchen said she lived across the street from Kirsty Gordon, who was abducted from Adelaide Oval in 1973. She was also related to the woman killed at Encounter Bay last year. Another person was related to the man who was killed at Aldinga last week when the body was dumped in a rubbish bin, and after police forensics had finished, helped clean up the murder scene. Most people in the homeless scene have tales of savage beatings. 11 January 2015 Exclusive rental flats near Torrens River at Walkerville There are over a hundred solid brick flats near the Torrens River at Walkerville. Tenants can walk along the river paths into the CBD without crossing a single major road until they reach North Terrace. Being Housing Trust owned the rents are cheap. One tenant recently couldn’t help notice a woman being shoved from one unit. At first the tenant thought she was wearing a bulky jumper then realised she was naked to the waist. Bags began being thrown from the front door by a man named Ashley, who was a volunteer with the Salvation Army. He shouted at the woman: "Be Gone Before I Get Back OR YOR Dead." The observer couldn’t help, but notice the big knife sticking from the back of the woman who also had numerous knife wounds to front of her torso. He said, “She wandered about the place whimpering... dripping relatively small amounts of blood.” The Salvo volunteer hasn’t since been seen in the area. The observer said his sympathy for the woman, whom he referred to as Big Fat Lady, was muted because “Obese humans get the least of my sympathy...better to have sympathy for skeletons living/dying on the brink of total starvation.” 7 January 2015 Corrections 11 January 2015 The Death of Melissa Kelly |
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People die like flies in the homeless scene but it came as a shock that few of us comprehended until months later that our friend known as "Mel" was dead. Her body was found naked to the waist and her long blonde hair spread out over her head. Packets of prescription tablets were found nearby. It was a gothic taking of her own life.
Her boyfriend was blamed for her death by her friends who met at Mary's Kitchen in Glenelg then on Tuesday evenings, then later at Gloria Jeans coffee lounge on Jetty Road. He dumped her in a particularly cruel manner and was a student of "mind control" according to Mel's friends. Mel had been suffering from anxiety and could be seen walking her dog for four or five hours at night. She was also worried about her aged parents. Yet none of us were astute enough to see the danger lurking in her mind, and this leaves us with great regret. You are free now, Melissa Jane Kelly. 5 January 2015 Saturday evening at Pirie Street Salvation Army Peter the urbane Spaniard appeared to be having a seizure, but he wasn’t. He’d been banging his hand against the walls inside the Sky City Casino earlier in the day. ‘The Ghost Who Walks’ said he’d seen Peter wrapping his bad arm around power poles then twirling around. On Saturday he used his good hand to hold down his bad hand, which wanted to jump about by itself. Peter told me that he’d had trouble sleeping last night because his legs began jumping about. He has Parkinson’s disease. His bad hand became worse in Melbourne where someone sliced through it with a knife. With Fred’s Van not happening on Saturdays, and the Magdalene Centre closed for January, the evening was so crowded that a table was put outside the back door for the overflow. Gary Rankin slept on the footpath at the front. Service was slow especially for my no-meat, no-gravy meal. The others at my table got their meal and I’d asked the waitress for a none-meat meal, but Lance Armstrong delayed her by asking why she was happy and they had a talk about Jesus. That pissed me off. Then Lance had a shouting discussion with Father Christmas, the Russian Ukrainian. Three people broke glass cups by dropping them on the floor. There was unlimited bread, cream buns and pizza throughout the night, but the latter contained MSG. The Brazilians took over the ping pong table and I lost 3 of 4 games with them. Three people donated three new bats. Maria said she went to Pitt Street meal last Sunday. She didn’t know it had moved to the Pilgrim Church. John Swan didn’t sing, but served meals as usual. He said he wasn’t part of the Salvation Army, but had been on both sides. He seems mildly shy despite being famous. It’s like at St Bedes where the quietest man is the former Minister of Housing who dries the dishes. 4 January 2015 Free
breakfast in Semaphore
St Bedes Anglican Church provides a free extended breakfast on Tuesdays and Wednesday from 8:30am to 10:30am. It is staffed by twelve volunteers and one paid worker, the latter whom you couldn’t readily identify. The staff include people who were once well known, even famous, and all of them are kind in a wise manner. The preacher rides a big motorcycle and has an implanted pacemaker. This morning about twenty people arrived. Usually it is thirty to forty. Breakfast this morning included sausages, bacon, scrambled and fried eggs, fried tomatoes with herbs, cereal and milk, toasted cheese and ham sandwiches, homemade scones with jam and cream, cake, fruit mince pies, slices of watermelon and other fruit, tea, coffee and Milo plus two-minute noodles and crackers to take away. The food is cooked by people who are good at it and take care to make it high quality. They even supply it themselves as the budget is about fifty dollars a day. The key to the success of this place is that the people who work at St Bedes are kind and wise, they want to be there, and they constantly try to learn to be better people. It is quite inspiring. They kept open through the Christmas period because they know that many welfare places shut down during the Festive Season. They are at 200 Military Road, Semaphore near the intersection of Military and Semaphore Roads. 1 January 2015 |
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