Warning!!!! Not Your Usual Morning Post

Good morning, everyone. I do see a vacation myself in the near future...before it gets too hot.  I don't travel, but totally love sleeping in...not having to get dressed if I don't want to...and not having to go anywhere that isn't fun.  Thanks all of you for your concern.  Now, I just have to figure when.

"Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat."--Mother Theresa

This is not your usual post from. Hopefully, no one finds this too strange or upsetting.  I mean, I usually try to keep this blog upbeat...aside from my occasional rants.  But, today, there is a story that has to be told.  It don't know why it has been gnawing at me so, but I just knew this is what I had to talk about...the forgotten ones....the drug addicted, the mentally ill, and the homeless who inhabit a hellish labyrinth of abandoned subway stations, tunnels, and old waterworks beneath the city streets...the "Mole People".  

It is very easy to forget that they are there  until one day you are passing near a subway grate and find yourself gagging over an overwhelming stench of urine and feces.  Then, you remember them...the thousands of homeless men and women who "choose" to live underground rather than in a city shelter system which is far more dangerous than the dark labyrinth they now call home. But they choose to live there with the rats, in the dark and gloomy stations because they trust their underground communities far more than they trust the society that lives above.  

While it is true that many are drug addicted or mentally ill, who, ravaged by illness, live like animals, others are actually very intelligent and enterprising people who have college degrees. In fact, there are a few sizable communities...complete with a 'mayor', elaborate social structures, and some even have electricity.  There are cooking and laundry facilities, teachers, nurses, and you will even find children scampering around. Some never come up to see the light of day (the real mole people)  while others (runners) come up during the day and beg for money. Others come up in the wee hours of the morning to raid the restaurant dumpsters, taking their loot back to the underground to share with their neighbors.  Amazingly, some don't even look homeless. 

What was my purpose for writing this?  As I said, I really don't know. Yes, I did walk by that subway grate yesterday, and yes I did begin to gag, but,I think, in part, I am writing this to acknowledge their existence. According to one mole man, he is content with "just being, and not being seen"...but I think, deep down we all want to know that someone knows that we are here, that in some little way, our lives meant something to someone....that someone remembers us, that someone remembers we were here.  Thank you for letting me share.


"Just to be remembered is good enough for me.  Lots of people are forgotten."--Sadie Frost