Butt Hunting in the City on the Water

But first...A way to make the poor homeless!

Dave Zweifel talked about it in The Capital Times on May 30. It goes like this. An elderly or disabled person has direct deposit for their Social Security check. They also have an unpaid bill which they find impossible to pay. (Note that government checks cannot be garnisheed. It's the law.) The creditor seizes the bank account on the 1st of the month.

The retired or disabled person writes their rent and utilities check which bounce when they reach the bank.

Quite a loophole there and it continues to happen.

Isn't life great in Amerika?

You can read the whole story here: www.madison.com/tct/opinion/138565.

Now for the Butt Hunting business...

Butt Hunting has far surpassed Dumpster Diving in my opinion. Some people strip the remaining tobacco and smoke it in a pipe or re-roll it. Others smoke the butt. Some do both. Unsanitary? Yes. Uncommon? No.

Aaaahh. The power of addiction. Some have their favorite ashtrays which they guard during the day. Others have a regular daily route.

As a group the Butt Hunters bemoan the fact that ashtrays have changed. With the new cone design ashtrays the butt disappears who knows where. Butt Hunters are incensed every time another public ashtray changes to this design.

Workforce Development on Algoma put one in and it didn't last very long. It was a plastic affair and some irate Butt Hunter ripped the top off. They are back to using a galvanized pail.

UWO Polk Library installed them and more than one Butt Hunter expressed their distaste about those to me.

Now even the gendarmes are involved.

An elderly man was wandering about the downtown vicinity the other evening after the rains loooking for some dry tobacco. He was on the grounds of a government housing unit, sat down at a picnic table and began picking through the butts for the longest ones. A woman from the housing unit dialed 911 and waited. The gendarmes appeared a few minutes after 9pm. They gently talked to the man and explained to him that since he didn't live there he shouldn't really be on the property. He agreed. He already had what he wanted and got up and left. The police remained at the scene for over another hour and left at 10:14pm.

The police weren't writing reports. They did the park-in-opposite-directions bit so they could talk non-business. They both had their motors running the entire time.

Peace.