TOM CLARK: GOD WISH: Emergency Evacuation Area / Robert Herrick: Crosse and Pile (The first 100 days expire on the streets of the abandoned dream)

LaDawn [Sacramento}: photo by Rick Ele, 27 April 2017

LaDawn

She had just seen me taking photos of a pile of rubble nearby and inquired "What kind of pictures do you take?" I tried to explain that I just kinda impulsively snap photos of weird things that might disappear at any moment such as old signs or graffiti. She seemed genuinely curious: "Is it something you get paid to do?" Nah.

Then she asked if I ever take photos "of the homeless people around here" (and certainly there are many near this part of Watt Avenue between North Highlands and the Arden area). I hinted that I might want to do more to chronicle this worsening plight, but only if I could develop the right rapport with someone experiencing that struggle. It seemed that we were off to a good start with that already.

LaDawn has been constantly on the move, walking miles and miles across the Sacramento area in something of a triangle from Rancho Cordova across Arden-Arcade to this area and across the Citrus Heights and back to Rancho. "If you stop in one area too long, you draw the wrong attention," she explained. "Either people who live and work there don't want you near them, or it's other homeless people who think it's their territory, and they're just too hardcore."

She travels light. Everything she owns is in her backpack, in that plastic bag, or she's wearing it. We were right near the new Wal-Mart, so I asked her if there was anything else she needed for comfort or safety, but she graciously declined: "I don't want to be where I have so much stuff, I can't keep moving fast."

She has been without I.D. for too long and cannot get access to services such as a mobile phone. She said she needed to have an address somehow, so I suggested she try to get a mailbox at a UPS store or a Post It location. I figure it costs about $30 or $40 minimum to open one, which she thought might be within reach of raising through some panhandling but explained that it would be difficult to scare that money up near this location because there are so many panhandlers who are territorial, and there are a lot of creepy men: "I could hold a sign around here all day and maybe make only four dollars before some guy shows me his pants are unzipped and if I go off somewhere with him, I can make a lot more. But no way!" She shivered with disgust.

LaDawn seems pretty mentally sharp (not druggy), well-spoken, sweet, friendly, and just about clean enough to be able to walk into a place and get a job. She has tried, but it's next to impossible without I.D. or a place to rest and wash.

After falling on hard times after a bad breakup in Las Vegas, she came to this area which had been her home growing up, but she has not been able to find any family or friends who have remained in the area. Her sons live with the parents of her ex, and the relationship with those parents is strained. Her hopes and dreams are to be part of her boys' lives again.

If I see her again soon, I will try to get a little more involved in this quest for a mailing address and I.D., as much as I can afford to get involved anyway.

Rick Ele, 27 April 2017

LaDawn [Sacramento]: photo by Rick Ele, 28 April 2017

Robert Herrick: Crosse and Pile

Faire and foule dayes trip Crosse and Pile; The faire

Far less in number, then our foule dayes are.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674): Crosse and Pile, from Hesperides, 1648

Cross and Pile.

Money; pitch and toss. Hilaire le Gai tells us that some of the ancient French coins had a cross, and others a column, on the reverse; the column was called a pile, from which comes our word “pillar,” and the phrase “pile-driving.” Scaliger says that some of the old French coins had a ship on the reverse, the arms of Paris, and that pile means “a ship,” whence our word “pilot.”

“A man may now justifiably throw up cross and pile for his opinions.”
-- Locke: Human Understanding.

Cross or pile. Heads or tails. The French say pile ou face. The “face” or cross was the obverse of the coin, the “pile” was the reverse; but at a later period the cross was transferred to the reverse, as in our florins, and the obverse bore a “head” or “poll.”

“Marriage is worse than cross I win, pile you lose.”

-- Shadwell: Epsom Wells.

Cross nor pile. I have neither cross nor pile. Not a penny in the world. The French phrase is, “N’avoir ni croix ni pile” (to have neither one sort of coin nor another).

“Whacum had neither cross nor pile.”

Butler: Hudibras, part ii. 3.

E. Cobham Brewer (1810–1897): Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898.

Suburbanite. The remains of the former Carrow's restaurant which shut down here several years ago. By the following day, the rubble was gone. [Sacramento]: photo by Rick Ele, 27 April 2017

Hidden Stash. Magpie Creek next to the Roseville road crossing. [Sacramento]: photo by Rick Ele, 27 April 2017

XXXXX MOVIES. Crest Motel, 958 West Capitol Ave, West Sacramento, CA. Formerly an "adult motel", now just a more residential long-term weekly-rate place.: photo by Rick Ele, 28 April 2017

Working the Street by Bike. Stockton Blvd in Sacramento. Old west themed sex worker covers more ground than others on foot.: photo by Rick Ele, 25 April 2017

Take my picture [South Sacramento]. She lives not too far from me in an enclave of tents and boxes behind a supermarket. She used to maintain an appearance that could crane necks of johns cruising the boulevard, but lately she has been sliding more noticeably into apparent mental illness. She is more talkative now and willing to ham it up for a photo. I am hoping to understand her story better soon, but it is difficult to discern fact from fantasy.: photo by Rick Ele, 10 April 2017

Hey, Take My Picture! (version) | by rickele

Take My Picture! (version) : photo by Rick Ele, 16 April 2017

a thing of beauty [Chevy Camaro, Sacramento].: photo by Rick Ele, 19 April 2017

GOD WISH. City of Dharma Realm Monastery and Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, 1029 West Capitol Ave., West Sacramento California. Formerly the Hotel El Rancho on US 40 and US Route 99...: photo by Rick Ele, 28 April 2017

Hotel El Rancho Sacramento CA | by Edge and corner wear

Hotel El Rancho Sacramento CA. The Original. America's Smartest Suburban Hotel. On U.S. Highway 40, West of Sacramento "M" Street Bridge.: photo by William Bird, 6 April 2014

Satan drools, I guess. "God rules". [North Sacramento]: photo by Rick Ele, 20 April 2017

injurious fate. [Stockton Blvd, Sacramento] [Viewer comment: "We're all in this together". RE response: I wish we truly were, but we've degenerated to much into "Ask not what to do for your country but 'what will upset the other side the most'", and that effectively further leaves the most disenfranchised and unfortunate to manage somehow on their own.]: photo by Rick Ele, 19 April 2017