Need To Go

Widespread Panic, ready to jam around the campfire with me.

Preparations are underway, to make my way to Live Oak, Florida for the Wanee Music Festival.
I am going through my stuff, deciding what to leave in and what to leave out.
I can see myself cooking my food over Live Oak wood, should I be fortunate enough to have any. I will have to spend cash for food, because I am out of food card money for this month, just as I had told the people who begged me to buy them things off my card, that I would be, if I bought them things off my card. They act like they think that the food is free, but, now I am spending my cash on things that I would have had, had I not caved in to them.
Yesterday was a bum filled day.
I played in front of the Save-A-Lot in the morning, until a drunken (in the morning) bum came and sat next to me. He wanted me to play "Hotel California." He wanted to sing "Hotel California." I humored him, thinking that his singing would provide a strong argument for my telling him that he needed to move on; he wasn't "cutting the mustard..."
He wanted one of my cigarettes. I told him I only had one left. He said that he would give me 50 cents, if I shared it with him.
"Just give me a quarter, how's that?" I said.
I shared the cigarette with him. He handed me a nickel, acting as if he thought he had a quarter in his pocket, but, by golly it turned out to be only a nickel. Easy mistake to make.
Then, as I played music, and he remained sitting next to me, despite me telling him that I wouldn't be able to make as much with him sitting there; people are funny that way; a lady came along and handed him two dollars, one for each of us, perhaps.
The bum pocketed the money. I stopped playing and asked him about that.
"Oh, you want half?" asked the bum.
I said something sarcastic. He said "I got you," and promised that he would pay me back "later" and started walking off.
That was the closest that I have come to beating a man half to death in the parking lot of the Save-A-Lot, in a while. Over a dollar, no. Over the way that he used me, probably thinking that he was being pretty slick.
An elbow to the head, to knock his drunk ass to the ground, and then a kick to the face, and he would have gotten his dollars' worth, in my opinion.
I let the incident go, which is good, because I ran into no less than 5 more bums that day.
One snivelling dweeb in front of the beer store tried to strike up a conversation (ie. give me his "pitch")  and I told him: "I'm doing pretty good today, except for getting panhandled everywhere I go. I can't stand panhandlers."
He looked at me, as if he was still considering panhandling me, regardless.
I hate panhandlers, but the one's who approach the people who are listening to me play and say something like "He accepts tips, you know. Support the arts!" and then pocket the money. They need to GO!
I need to realise that there is always a chance that I will never make it back to Mobile, so, anything I leave here may be forever lost.
Depending upon how well the "Panic" show goes in Florida, there is another one shortly thereafter, in Pelham, Alabama (near Birmingham, they say). Then, they make their way to the west coast, finishing out by Los Angelos, where one of my old friends, Shawn Patterson lives, and works as a music composer for some kind of animated movies.
(3271 visitors -note to self)