(note: I was planning on writing about my "relationship" with Trump before he ever became president but I will save that for tomorrow--this post just popped in my head)
On today's Drudge Report they showed today's front cover of the Daily Star tabloid newspaper in London. The top headline: "Trump Faces Final Curtain."
With musical notes instead of quote marks, a second headline in much bigger black type read: "And now the end is near." In the graphic, Trump is holding a microphone as if he's crooning (like Frank Sinatra), singing in a cartoon bubble, "I did it MAGA way . . ."
This reminded me of when I lived in NYC and there was a homeless-looking eccentric guy who I witnessed on two separate occasions at the top of the stairs for the Lexington and E. 51st subway stop. He had a homemade placard that read in bold black, "THE END IS AT NEAR," and he was preaching into a microphone.
It gave me a big chuckle in my head (why I never forgot it) because I knew what he was going for. People used to say, "The end is AT hand," and he was obviously "incorrectly" mixing that with the common saying, "The end is near."
*****
This time in NYC (Oct. 20-23) I didn't see any stranger-than-normal homeless people or, in what would be a REAL long shot I'm guessing, a true "offbeat" guy on his own trying to give out the gospel and warn people of going to hell.
Now, here's where this gets "out-there", as in I still remember it as if it was yesterday.
A year-and-a-half or so after I quit my job in Manhattan (2003), I went through a HORRIFIC and weeks-LONG spell of anxiety where I didn't know what was wrong with me and I thought maybe I had a life-and-death physical problem.
I had no health insurance at the time, but I had heard that if you were a tax-paying citizen of Manhattan without insurance you could go to Bellevue Hospital's emergency room and they would treat you free as long as it was your first visit.
As an aside, I still have the red hard-plastic wallet card they made for me that night with Bellevue's name and my name stamped into it by a machine.
When I was admitted to ER, they gave me a white gown to put on to lay on a designated rolling bed.
I was there for 30 minutes or more, feeling waves of relief knowing I was finally getting "checked out," and suddenly they wheeled in an overweight woman on a bed and placed her right next to me (with no curtain).
I could immediately tell she was homeless and, among other things, she had grossly over-sized black-and-purple ankles and basically stumps for feet!!
The ER people gave her some kind of something and, before leaving, told her it could likely make her bowels move within the next half-hour or so. They placed a standard stainless-steel bed pan next to her.
Unbelievably no one was anywhere within earshot when the bowels gave her the "green light" and, even though she called out "Nurse" more than a few times over the course of at least five minutes, no one came.
She could not lift herself to save her life. We were communicating at this point about her situation and, knowing the increasing urgency she was under, I jumped off of my bed and started desperately looking for stuff in some cabinets behind us.
"Go-time" arrived quickly, though, and I just remember lifting her up with my bare hands to slide the bedpan underneath her. I remember using a bunch of paper towels I did find in the cabinets to sort of clean her up!
After it was over and I returned to my bed, with no ER people coming around whatsoever, we started to "get to know each other"--she was very appreciative of my helping her.
When I told her I was a Christian, etc., she told me she and her husband liked to give out the gospel in midtown, especially near the Port Authority Bus Terminal. I asked her if her husband preached from the Bible and she said he did.
For months after this Bellevue experience (thankfully they took X-rays of my internal organs and found nothing wrong with me) I looked all the time in midtown at the homeless people sitting on sidewalks and under construction scaffolding, etc., to see if she and her husband could be among them.
Then one day, lo and behold, she was with her husband sitting on the sidewalk underneath a construction awning not far at all from Port Authority (I lived at 48th and 10th).
I said hello to her but she didn't recognize me. I reminded her about Bellevue but I don't think she remembered even though she said she did. She introduced me to her husband.
Neither one of them had any sign or anything around them to indicate they were trying to give out the gospel or "spread the Word." I tried to engage them in conversation but it was short-lived. I gave them a $20 bill and walked away, never seeing them again.