Bums and drunks

I think that growing up in a city very close to the Big Apple was quite the opportunity in many ways. Being so close to New York City, it afforded me many other opportunities that I would have never had elsewhere. Like encountering a bum up close and personal for the first time. I went into the city with my dad who was playing the organ at a church one Sunday. We walked to Central Park afterwards and I decided to go on the playground. I was playing around and having fun like any normal kid. Then I spotted a slide with a playhouse at the top. Now this seemed like the coolest thing to me and I was eager to go explore it. I climbed to the top and went into the house and was quite frightened to find a drunken bum passed out inside. As fast as I could possibly manage, I was out of there and running for my father. I can remember going to the Museum of Natural History at a very young age and seeing a bunch of people lying there on the street and I thought they were fake dolls. The drunkard in the playhouse incident brought home the fact to me that bums were actually real people.