A few weeks ago, a friend and I were making our rounds of our local train shops. As always, we talked to other customers in the stores about one thing and another (usually train related). At the last shop we visited, I noticed a scruffy looking guy over at the book rack thumbing through magazines and checking people out as they came in. I had kind of hoped that he would move on so I could have my chance at the books without his company, but it didn't work out that way. As we were about to leave, I went over, picked up a book that caught my eye and was looking through it when this guy starts trying to strike up a conversation with me. You could tell by the way he talked, looked and acted that he was very out of place. After a few minutes, I'd finally had enough of his cigarette smoke smell and foul mouth, and motioned for my buddy that it was time to leave. As we were walking out, this guy follows us out and asks us if we've got a light. We don't smoke I tell him. Then he asks if he can catch a ride with us, but I make up a quick lie and tell him we're late for an appointment and don't have time. He then asks if we have "a few bucks" we can spare, and I'm thinking if it'll get rid of you I can spare $5.00... He then goes into this story that he just did three years in prison for robbery, and that he would have never commited the crime in the first place if he hadn't gotten hooked on dope... I wished him luck and we got on out of there. God only knows what this guy was up to, but my instincts told me he was up to no good. After we got down the street, I called the train shop and told one of the employees what had just happened and he said if the guy came back in the store he would call the police to come check him out.
Tracklayer
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
csmith9474 wrote:At the LHS that I go to, the owner has several cctv cameras in the shop. There are some shady looking types that go in there, but be real careful with stereotyping (although I keep a cautious eye myself). Some of these scruffy lookin' sorts give the hobby shop a lot of business.
Please don't think that I'm the type that makes snap judgements about people upon first sight. But I had a feeling about this guy right off the bat for some reason. And you're right. This guy would have given the shop "the business" that day alright if he'd had the chance...
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Tracklayer wrote: csmith9474 wrote:At the LHS that I go to, the owner has several cctv cameras in the shop. There are some shady looking types that go in there, but be real careful with stereotyping (although I keep a cautious eye myself). Some of these scruffy lookin' sorts give the hobby shop a lot of business. Please don't think that I'm the type that makes snap judgements about people upon first sight. But I had a feeling about this guy right off the bat for some reason. And you're right. This guy would have given the shop "the business" that day alright if he'd had the chance... Tracklayer
I apologize if that came off the wrong way. I am guilty of the same thing. You just never know in this day and age. I understand about getting those feelings about somebody though. It is pretty easy to tell who is on the up and up and who has other motives. Like you said, it wasn't one of the regulars.
mlehman wrote:Good point, Smitty. As one of those probably considered to be a scruffy-looking character, I can tell you that it's really is how people act, not how they look, that matters. I've seen plenty of conventional looking characters act like jerks at shops, too.
This is very true...
TL
Not just train shops. We were rather frightened by such a charicter in a nice resturant in Seattle. The owner threw him out, but we were frightened by an possible act of retaliation.
As some have said, it is more than just scruffiness or odor, we all get into that, especially on days off. But most can sense the difference between danger and when I do not get to the shower often enough.
Most owners seem to appreciate pointing these people out.
jeffrey-wimberly wrote:If it was all about how a person looks, I'd be in big trouble! I MIGHT shave 3 days out of 7, my idea of formal dress is old jeans and T-shirt. My hair may be combed if I remember to do it. Often times I don't. People who know me accept me for who I am, not what I look like.
As I get older, I've began to loosen up a bit about my appearance. It use to be that I wouldn't leave the house unless I was clean shaven, well dressed and every hair was in place until I finally realized how much it was stressing me out to be this way. Now I'm only that way when I have to be...
We already had problems with bums in my former retail job. They get hauled out of the store and banned on sight. If necessary, arrested.
We dont have bum trouble that I know of here in Arkansas as long you stay out of the downtown center where the homeless hangs out.
Sorry to be blunt but Ive years going around and around with these unsavory characters and have no toleranace for the sob story, unclean appearance etc... The most I would do was hand out a few cigerettes in the Market while trucking and that was it.
That's a good example of somebody trying to get something for nothing. If he really wants to help, he can go get a job. But then that requires that he work, and that type don't like 4 letter words that start with "W". Every other kind, but not that one.
People sometimes wonder why I don't have a job and then take into account my physical condition and answer their own question.
I will allow myself one story.
There was a Produce Market in LA. A very dangerous part of town. My assignment was to load up produce heading to the east coast and was assured by my dispatcher that I dont have to do anything but "Count the children" as each pallet went into the trailer.
One person being very clean, sober and eager to work won himself a job counting the freight as I stood over him double checking. In exchange I earned intelligence on who are workers trying to get themselves a better position in life, who are lazy and prositutes and other bits of knowledge.
That information is to prove useful as I had other loads out of that market and put him to work every time. One day I was told that the worker will be leaving town to go to school and that I would need to find another counter (With a short list of "Good" workers)
The rest of the riff raff simply played thier game squatting in the sidewalk along the market bumming off other people who are also drivers. Some of the drivers were wise and stayed out of trouble... others were not so lucky.
Yea, but.....was he a model railroader or not?????
Tilden wrote: Yea, but.....was he a model railroader or not?????
No he was not. From what I understand the person did not want to accept the prospect of spending his life in such a poor and dangerous area. He wanted to reclaim his life and future while he was still able bodied and had a desire to lift himself out of poverty.
Im willing to bet the dirty and filthy person in the trainshop had no such desire as evidenced by following a customer out to the parking lot asking for handouts. Im just glad it was not me he followed out to the parking lot.
The strangest looking guy in my shop is me.
A model train shop has to be one of the safest places to be...with the very rare exceptions like this one Tracklayer posted.
Bums are bums. Go to Atlanta or Baltimore and they are all over. Kliens is a gaunlet of homeless looking for spare change that causes a guard to be at the door
But in Denver it is the same thing with bums begging at the offramps . They must get cash given to them or else they would not be there.
CurtMc wrote:They must get cash given to them or else they would not be there.
No doubt about it, although some people consider it simply just an "urban toll booth," where you pay a buck to make sure this guy doesn't put a rock through your windshield and run. The last couple of weeks I've noticed that panhandling at traffic lights has become so successful that professional fundraisers are doing it. You'd expect the police to break these things up when they start jamming up traffic, but what are the cops going to do? Arrest all the firemen that are doing it?
CurtMc wrote: Bums are bums. Go to Atlanta or Baltimore and they are all over. Kliens is a gaunlet of homeless looking for spare change that causes a guard to be at the door But in Denver it is the same thing with bums begging at the offramps . They must get cash given to them or else they would not be there.
Are they still in the same location down the brick street? (I forget the name, aint been there since the early 90's)
Atlanta brings the Bankhead Petro Truck stop to mind. You have panhandlers on the Interstate Ramps around the traffic signals, up the hill all the way to the truck gate down into the fuel area and if that isnt enough you gotta walk past them inside the resturant arcade as well. Many a un-wary driver got scammed there. Even a few bums got left out with a few smart drivers who knew the area.
Baltimore aint too bad as long youse stayed near the Harbor by daylight and away from the Block. Sometimes they will run up to you and do your windsheild for money and then claim that you did not pay for services rendered. I always used the weight of the big car I had to bull my way past these. If a foot or two got run over... oh well.
Ive used the subway to go downtown and it was not the problem it was once.
I remember one lucky bum in New York City. He was in a wheel chair. They had closed the GWB completely on the upper deck at the Manhattan Side and we ALL had to get off 95 and wind our way past 15 blocks worth of panhandlers. But that wheel chair bound person was the first hand everyone passed on that ramp and boy did he make a killing.
I had a warchest of change and ciggies that night and it was one of the few times that they made a good profit, just hoped they went to get food and bed instead of good old thunderbird.
Sometimes I think I should have been a Engineer and roll a train past all of those beggers blasting the horn to clear the track. It would not be a problem. (Shows how much I need to learn about the engineer's life doesnt it?)
Cheers.
aloco wrote:Tracklayer, this is not a forum for judging people. Let's stick to discussing model railroading, okay?
?...
MisterBeasley wrote:Yeah, we have gotten a bit far the LHS and off into social commentary, haven't we? So, how many of us model areas where some members of the local populace might be considered "undesireable?" The figure makers have hobo camps, ladies of the evening and even a shootout with police. Is this a part of your layout, too, or do you lean more towards a more Disneyesque view of the world? I've got a few "rough types," (WS "Rebels") but at the moment they're merely looking for an opportunity to get into trouble.
We did go off track didnt we?
I know of a few HO scale hobo camps, a little Red Light there and a few other goodies in HO.
=)
Personally I try to balance between the good, bad and the ugly. The glue spots on the buildings need something to cover them up.
I tried to make my layout as close to the "real world" as possible without going too far. For personal reasons I left out things like cemetaries, road kill, litter and things of that nature, but did include a cop giving someone a traffic ticket, some suspicious looking folks standing around in front of the bank, a hobo camp and city dump. There's also graffiti on the water tower.
TA462 wrote:I don't think Tracklayer was judging anybody.
Thanks TA462. I wasn't. I was just sharing my experience with the other members. It's too bad that we've got members that elect themselves forum police and "get onto" other members to make themselves appear to be righteous guardians of the forum... I don't get onto anyone unless it's a personal issue. Otherwise, that's Bergie's job.
One Track Mind wrote: The strangest looking guy in my shop is me.
I have to agree. What is weirder than a Mexican/African-American mix teen in a WIDE brim cowboy hat and steel toed pull on boots in the hobby shop pricing Lionels?
Lionel collector, stuck in an N scaler's modelling space.