Hi all,
It’s has been a long time coming (see my post from December, below) … but I can now report that there’s been substantial progress on Tony’s bench, the upshot of which is that I won’t be surprised to see the bench installed before the end of July. Also, everyone involved should hear that, instead of the location in front of Mabel’s, the bench will be installed about 30 feet north, in front of Timothy’s at the SE corner of Roncesvalles and Grenadier; benches aren’t permitted in areas of interlocking brick; only concrete sidewalks will do.
Thanks to donors for your quasi-infinite patience. And, of course, thanks to Pat Dixon for her infinite efforts.
Wow. The billowing response to Tony’s death is quite beyond what he might have imagined or hoped. He would have been delighted.
Ten days ago, in anticipation of the fifth anniversary of HomelessManSpeaks (October 23rd), I asked Tony what big difference the blog had made for him. His answer: “I found out I could get to the kids and tell them … don’t do what I did … they’ve gotta stick it out in school and just stay away from drugs and alcohol and especially the hard stuff.” (A terrible fact: Tony was first coaxed into using opiates at the age of thirteen.)
As to memorial services and such, watch this space — people are working on it. Tentatively, we’re planning a reception at Alternative Grounds sometime this weekend.
See the many, many extraordinary comments to the previous post.
TONY
“Well that’s another of us gone. Did you know that Marty’s dead? He just died over the weekend.”
PHILIP
“Who’s Marty?”
TONY
“You know the short homeless guy who was selling the newspapers in front of Sobey’s just down Ronces? Well he died.”
PHILIP
“Sure, I remember him but I didn’t know his name was Marty. He seemed a nice guy to me.”
TONY
“He was saying how he was feeling terrible and went to the hospital on Saturday and he had a heart attack and he died Sunday. You know he was turning 50 next week, eh?”
PHILIP
“You mean 60? He couldn’t have been just 49. He looked way too old for being 49.”
TONY
“Well let me tell you, he put a lot of things into himself in his life that shouldn’t have been put in there — and he liked a drink too so you know what I mean.”
PHILIP
“I just found my new all-time-favourite Winston Churchill quotation. Did you ever hear this one, he said: ‘The first quality needed is audacity.'”
TONY
“Nothing to argue with from me.”
PHILIP
“Believe it or not, he said it about painting.”
TONY
“Now that’s why they loved him, you know, because he could say those things like that. That’s how we won the war because of him. But I didn’t know he was a painter.”
TONY
“Did you know that I saved a little hummingbird this morning?”
PHILIP
“No, actually I didn’t know that.”
TONY
“Yup. I’m guessing he must of hit one of the store windows or something up the street. So I found him there on the sidewalk kind of flapping around so I picked him up and he was OK to fly off after a little while. Otherwise, there was a dog there and that little thing would’ve been breakfast, if you know what I mean.”
TONY
“Phil, what’s this law they’re calling, I think it’s the ‘Law of Attraction’. Have you ever heard about that?”
PHILIP
“That’s totally weird that you would ask me that. Why are you asking me that?”
TONY
“Somebody was talking to me about it just the other day. They said that it about if you really believe you’ll get what you need, then you’ll get it.”
PHILIP
“Sounds right to me.”
TONY
“Well were talking about me getting better from this cancer and and all the other stuff. So he told me about it.”
PHILIP
“Did you know I just added that very same law of attraction to my Facebook profile? Yesterday, Like, just yesterday, believe it or not. That’s too weird a coincidence if you ask me. Anyway, I was on Facebook yesterday and I posted that I was an atheist but that I also believed in the law of attraction.”
Homeless Man Speaks 