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And then during the Depression,

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there were 15 million people
sleeping in every empty lot.

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That's a lot of people.

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What happened is they bought houses and cars,

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and the banks failed, you know about that?
They closed down.

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And they couldn't get their own money out,

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so they were kicked out of
the buildings they bought.

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And they were sleeping in every empty lot,
millions of Americans.

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And I looked around,
and the stores had everything in the windows,

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you know, radios, in those days,

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whatever people would need,
but they had no money.

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So then I thought:
there's something wrong with our system.

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You know,
how can this happen in this country?

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I didn't have any answers but,
there were people up on soap boxes,

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talking about Mankind United,
a new organization.

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Technocracy, socialism, communism.

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Every park, everybody, every university,

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kids were talking about social change,
because conditions were bad.

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See, that brought them around to it.
So, at that time,

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I was going to hitchhike to
Florida for other reasons,

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because the winter was so cold,
we didn't have heat,

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and I had to get to Florida, so...

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In hitchhiking toward Florida,
when I saw an old man walking,

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with all his worldly goods on his shoulder,

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you know, they called him a bindlestiff,
that's an impoverished person,

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with all his worldly goods in a blanket,
and he was shuffling very slow.

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So I called out to him.

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I wanted to help him carry that load,
because he could hardly walk.

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But I called out several times;
he was also hard of hearing.

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And he turned around,
and he had acromegaly- you know what it is?

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Elephant man disease.
His face was all distorted.

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And as a kid, I didn't know what that was.

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And I was kind of shocked by that,
and I kept hitchhiking,

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until I got into,
I think it was Savannah Georgia,

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and I went to the local police station.

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And I said I have no place to sleep,
can I sleep in a jail?

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They said only if we fingerprint you.

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Well since I didn't commit any crimes,
I said sure, go ahead.

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Then they put me in this
jail with a dull red light,

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I must have been about 16 or so and ...

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the toilet bowl had shit all over it,
it was filthy.

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There was no place to sleep, it was dirty,
so I just sat in the corner,

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and looked at that red light,
it was so depressing, you know.

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And then I heard moaning in the next cell.

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And I looked in there,
there was this dull red light,

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it was this guy with acromegaly, the old man,

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with the distorted face, who couldn't speak.

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So I banged on the bars of the prison,
and a trustee came over.

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He said "What do you want!"

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I says "This old man belongs in a hospital,
not prison."

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He says "He's a no good bum!"
These people seemed to have

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no humanity at all, none.

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So I said "He belongs in a hospital."
"Ah, shut up!" and he went away.

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And I left the next day,

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and I met another kid my age, about 16 or so,

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and we both continued together.

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And a guy drove up in a fairly
new looking car, and he said

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"Would you kids like to make a buck?"

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So the kid that I was with said

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"I'd like to make a buck.
What do you want me to do?"

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"I want you to tell my girlfriend
I can't see her Saturday,

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I'll be occupied.
And so she'll give you a package for me."

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So what the note said, I found out later,

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the girl was a cashier at a movie theater,

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and the note that the
kid gave to the girl was

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"If you don't give the kid all
the money you've got there,

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we'll blow your head off,
we got guns aimed at you."

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So the guy was using this kid,

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and this kid didn't know
what the hell it was about.

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So the woman screamed,
and the police came and took the kid away.

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I had nothing I could do,
I was in rags myself, you know?

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And all I remember saying in my own head,

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"Boy, this shit's got to go."

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"There's no such thing
as justice or anything."

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You know, I realized that as a kid,

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I was alone, I had no power at all.

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And then,
I continued to hitchhike on toward Florida.

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And in Florida they had, under Roosevelt
administration, Transient Camp.

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That's for wild boys of the road.
They weren't wild, they were just kids

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that had no place to go;
their families were dispossessed.

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We're moving in that direction now again;
we're not there yet.

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And it was those conditions
that helped me understand.

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