The Winter Shelter

 Staying at the mission was a good place to be.  The other guys called me "Pops", as I seemed to be a bit older than some others.  We worked to keep our minds stimulated by reading, playing chess, and thinking up trivia games.  We worked to keep our bodies healthy by walking and trying to eat well.  But, there was one problem.  I couldn't stay at the mission forever.  In fact, there was a six-month time limit, and I hit that sometime in mid-March. 
 I had been suffering from constant pneumonia at the mission.  I would go to the ER to get helped, which would work for about two weeks, and then the pneumonia would come back.  I coughed all the time.  It was pretty bad.  They even thought I might have lung cancer, but thankfully I didn't.  I really think the pneumonia came from being around a lot of people in close quarters along with some mold in the room, but I had to move out.
 The winter shelter was still open, and would be for a couple more weeks.  It was open to all homeless people, both male and female.  Of course, the males were separated from the females, but we saw each other each morning.  There were about 200 guys in the shelter, which was doubled from those in the mission.  Most of my friends were there, too, so we had a good time.  Except for the time one of my friends got beat up by a guy, when my friend complained his radio was too loud.  Or, the time when I guy brought a dummy grenade into the shelter; put it in a sock; and beat another guy with it.  There was always a little violence with being homeless, but no more than any other community.  You just had to watch your back and not provoke.  Pretty simple stuff. 
 Being as big as it was, I had to take showers at 3am by choice.  Otherwise, I would not be clean, or else I would have to find a public restroom to take a sink bath.  That happened a few times.  We got pretty good at knowing which public restrooms we could use.  One guy knew where all the outside taps were on the sides of the buildings downtown.  I didn't get that bad.
 The shelter closed up April 1st.  Then, you had to fend for yourself.  But, you had enough friends to fend with, too.  More later.