Homeless in Red Bank

HOMELESS IN RED BANK

I am sure all towns and cities throughout the country have had there share of homeless people living on the streets.  There are also the characters that are present in the town that are the more hapless with mental illness or alcohol related issues. Red Bank is no exception.  Many think that this is new problem erupting in the last couple of years, in my memory it goes back to my childhood.  

In most novels about small towns there is always the town drunk or the slightly twisted individuals that wander the town and is known but unknown to most citizens.  Our town was no exception to this observation of American small towns and cities.  In this story I am trying to recall the names and more comical incidents of some of those hapless individuals that lived in Red Bank.  Most have died or disappeared to area health centers others are still with us.  Most I know only by first or street names. 

Rodney was an alcoholic that lived in an about Red Bank for about 15 years.  He had a “Cliff” from Cheers way of talking and a mentally to match when he was sober.  He did odd jobs around town to earn money.  I remember one time when he was hired to paint the luncheonette, Gus’s I believe it was, at the corner of Monmouth and Bridge, now a Mexican restaurant.  He was using a roller on the outside of the building when it started to rain.  He continued to paint as the rain poured down.  As the paint ran down his arm I walked up to him and said, “Rodney it is raining, you should stop painting.”  With that he turned his head to me and said, “It's okay…it is a water base paint.”  I stopped laughing a short time later and left the scene watching him continue to work, the paint now running down his side on to his shoes.  Rodney died from exposure in the Blaisdell Lumber Yard a year or later, he was in his forties.  

As a young adult I remember the “push cart lady.”  I believe her name was Bella and you would see her walking all over the area pushing a grocery cart.  What freaked me out a couple of times was seeing her in Red Bank at 11:00 AM and then seeing her in front of Edie’s coming back from the direction of Fair Haven.  This time distance lapse occurred a number of times.  For the life of me I could not figure out how she got around so fast.  It was years later that I learned she had a twin sister or sister that dressed and push a cart around the same way she did. 

One of the most notorious for years in Red Bank was Willie.  He was a young black man with multiple mental and drinking problems.  He was harmless except for the fact that he was a pack rat.  He would set up house anywhere he could, in an alley, in a deserted garage or house and spend all day and night picking up “things” in the nationhood and bringing them to his “house.” 

One time he found his way into a deserted house and garage behind the Anderson Building.  He filled every inch of the house and garage with stuff he picked up around town to the point where you could not walk through either building.  It took the owner days and 3 forty yard container to clean them out.  On another occasion he came down Bridge Ave with a shopping cart.  In it was a full 8 foot red wood picnic table with both benches all balanced straight up in the air.  When I asked him where he got that his answer was always the same….”I found it in the garbage.” 

Most of his food he got from the dumpsters behind WAWA or the area restaurants.  He would store this “food” where ever he set up house.  Living  in box on White Street He had a TV plugged into an outside outlet on the side of the building complete with lounge chair.   The most outrageous stunt I ever saw him pull was one day he came down the middle of Bridge Ave. pulling trailer with a 16 foot Boston Whaler complete with outboard engine.  I called the police and of course when asked where he got the boat…..”in the garbage.”  Actually it belonged to the Schwartz car lot and was parked a little to close to the dumpster….ergo Willie got it. 

Willie has disappeared in the last couple of years…maybe he found a car parked a little to close to a dumpster and decided to leave us for a while.  

In a story in the AHHerald.com published on June 28, 2001 titled “The River Men” I wrote about a man I called Smithy his name was actually Chub Chandler I found out just recently.  It was a story about growing up in Red Bank and one of our local characters.  You can find it at www.AHHerald.com  under windows on Red Bank in the Archives sections