Iceman's got your six

But behold, the drought has ended with this street person Seraphim.  I was driving down the street and saw this guy winding his way along the side walk peddling his bike and balancing bags of stuff.  I watched as he would peddle, stop, bend over and pick up a can, place it into one of his bags and peddle down the street.  The steering of this over-laden bike was interesting to watch as he weaved around cars, into parking lots and dodged broken sidewalks.  This was a Cirque du Soliel act without the strange costumes and artsy French make up. 

Ok, he had the strange costume which was a mix of jackets, shirts, sweat suit and the loveliest aqua marine trimmed winter jacket I have ever seen.  It was clothing scrapple! (For those not in the know, scrapple is a breakfast concoction of the Pennsylvania Dutch – the Amish – which basically involves corn meal, pork broth, pork scraps, and spices to cover up the fact you are eating scraps).  Fashion week may be over in New York but I am sure one of those young funky designers would have jumped on this urban retro look creating a line of bum couture.

He was all the way on the east side of the city where HWY 302 intersects with Hacks Cross Road just before the county line.  It seems he had turned around before the county line knowing that the county does not seem to enjoy hosting the homeless. I caught up with this industrious soul as he crossed the street and we had a conversation that was so enjoyable that I, and the people in the cars behind me that could not get me to move with their incessant honks, sat through several light changes.  I proudly introduce you to The Iceman.

Although he only shared his street handle, The Iceman should be an example for all the street people in our city.  It seems he peddles his bike from Orange Mound out Summer Ave to the outskirts of the city along the major traffic area then turns back circling around and coming back home down Winchester.  Along the way he stops and searches the streets, gas stations and sidewalk for aluminum cans.  Iceman is providing a service of keeping our city clean.  If we win another city beautiful award Iceman has something to do with it because we know with all the budget cuts it has not been any city services picking up trash of the side of the street.

Iceman peddles and balances his bags from Orange Mound out to the Airport to the recycling center to turn his cans into cash.  He averages about $5 a day peddling 30 pounds of cans to the recycling center.  Realize the amount of work that goes into earning that $5 and the hours he is out hustling to earn that money – he is making about $0.45 cents an hour.  It is lucky for him that he knows a guy that lets him stay at his house on the floor as Iceman is not going to be moving into a place of his own soon.  I don’t know how he can afford the tires on his bike.

I asked him if he realized that he could earn more money per hour by getting a job and he commented that he works some odd jobs cleaning up and sweeping for some gas station every now and then.  He had a fulltime job at a car wash but they played FM 100 and he could not stand the music so he had to quit, it was just noise and it hurt his ears.  I understand FM 100 hurts my ears and if I had to listen to that everyday at work I would probably start collecting cans for a living.  The change from employed to street person does not seem so far fetched when you put FM 100 in the mix.  It is the Chinese water torture of radio dripping Ron Olson babblings into your ear until you go insane or collect cans for a living so you can have some peace. (This of course does not apply to Tom Prestigiacomo who is one of the nicest guys on the air.)

I asked how he managed to steer the bike safely with all the bags and cans.  He said he just has to work at keeping it balanced and not putting to much stuff on one side.  He adds that having the tarps and stuff helps because they don’t tear like the bags. 

Iceman had to peddle off as he spied a can just off the street from where we talked.  I am not joking he had to go to pick up a can.  I asked him if he had ever heard the urban legend about the tabs on the cans are collected by dialysis patients because a copy sponsors a program so they may the get free dialysis for every 1,000 tabs collected.  He just looked at me like I was crazy.

Comments (3)

Only registered users can do that.
Please login or register.

Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.4