  The Nation's #1 Independent Veterans Web Site Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage VA NEWS FLASH from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 01-01-2007 #4 |
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The Nation's #1 Independent Veterans Web Site Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage VA NEWS FLASH from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 01-01-2007 #4 |
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INDIANA WORLD WAR II VETERAN TOLD TO STOP LIVING IN VAN -- County says Chevy he's lived in for years is unhealthy, promises to find him housing.
We have two stories. The first story is the latest information...and the second story is the one that led to the "eviction." First story here...
http://www.indystar.com/apps/ Story below: ---------------
County says Chevy he's lived in for years is
unhealthy, promises to find him housing
Thelmon Green, the cigar-chomping old man who
for the past seven years has lived happily in a Chevrolet van, is being
ordered to move by the Marion County Health Department. In his gentle way, Green pronounced Crum's ruling "bull" but was resigned to it. "I'll just find me another place," he said Friday, while on his morning walk. One option for Green, said Melissa Eisele, a Health Department social worker, would be government-subsidized senior apartments. But Green said Friday he detested apartment living -- "too many people too close by." "He'd have a choice where he lives," said Eisele, adding there were some houses with subsidies that Green might qualify for. "There's some (housing) right in his neighborhood," she said. Green, who is either 93 or 86, is a longtime fixture in the area around 38th Street and College Avenue, for years having made his living repairing kitchen appliances. He was the subject of an Indianapolis Star story on Tuesday that described his unconventional yet fulfilling life: no income but social security of a different kind -- a huge social network of neighborhood folks who look out for him and provide for him. The story also talked about his phenomenal legs that allow him to walk miles every day -- and an attitude that makes him want to walk miles every day and cling hard to his independence. Crum said the Health Department would try to "relocate him to a place suitable for him, that's agreeable to him and is healthier and safer." "Lord have mercy," said Philip Hall, a friend of Green's who often brings him food. "What this is is government people who have a mandate to save us from ourselves." Green's van, its tires long flattened, rests in the parking lot at Big Red Discount Towing, in the 3800 block of North Keystone Avenue. It is on the edge of one of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods. But Green is well-known -- as either "Mr. Green" or "Old Man Green" -- and universally liked. Nobody touches him. Joe "Red" Long, the Red of Big Red Discount Towing, has known Green for years and has allowed Green to use his business's bathroom and plug an extension cord into an outside electrical outlet for heat and cooking. Crum, who learned about Green through the Star story, said the arrangement violated Marion County's housing code, which insists a domicile have running water and electricity. Long, Hall and others bring Green food and pocket change, the money principally to finance Green's one vice -- cigars (Swisher Sweets, which he doesn't smoke but, rather, chews). Through Hall's doing, next month Green, a World War II veteran, will begin receiving a monthly check from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Eisele gave no timeline on Green's removal, other than to say it would come "as soon as possible."
HOW TO HELP Thelmon Green is not asking for help. He has
never sought it and isn't seeking it now. --------------- Second story here...
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ Story below: --------------- Mr. Green is doing just fine, thank you Indy man uses network of friends and good will
to survive
Thelmon Green lives in a van. But it's not so
bad. Green says he's 93; the government says he's 86. Either way, he's old. He's known widely as Old Man Green, or Mr. Green. Green moved into the van, a 1986 Chevrolet, seven years ago. Its tires long flattened, the van is a permanent fixture in the parking lot of Big Red Discount Towing in the 3800 block of North Keystone Avenue. He's retired now, but for many years he made his living repairing kitchen appliances -- stoves, dishwashers and the like. He combed alleys for discarded televisions and radios to fix and sell. He did some roofing, worked some construction. His was an off-the-grid, cash economy. He receives no Social Security money. After a friend interceded for him, Green in January will start receiving a monthly check from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (he served in World War II). But he has no retirement nest egg and has had no money at all for a decade. But by always treating people fairly, generously, Green accumulated another type of capital-- good will. That's what has seen him through. People in the neighborhood -- many have known Green since they were children -- bring him food. They slip him fives and tens. They visit him. There are the Hall brothers, Philip and William, who bring him meals; there's Joe "Red" Long, the Red of Big Red Discount Towing, who gives Green not just a parking space but access to the bathroom, and an electrical outlet so Green can heat the van, listen to the radio and cook on a small electric stove; there's a Jehovah's Witness who comes by with Watchtower magazines -- "retired post office, helluva nice guy," Green says. Some charity is at work here, obviously, but it's more than that. "Mr. Green is just a good guy to be around," says Philip Hall, 57. "He says, 'The Good Master woke me up again today -- I'm doing great.' I learn from him. If you sit down and talk to him, you can learn a lot from that old codger." Thirty years ago, Green advised Hall to buy property in the neighborhood now known as Fall Creek Place. It was then known as Dodge City, the city's worst neighborhood. "But Mr. Green told me, 'It's close in, and people are going to want to come back here, so these values some day are going up.' " Neither Green nor Hall acted on the advice, but it was good advice. Green lives within a block of a McDonald's, a White Castle, a KFC and a Popeye's Chicken, yet he avoids fast food. "He's a chicken and fish man," says Hall, "so that's mostly what we bring him, and rice and beans." "I got all this company around me," Green says. "That's what gets me by so well." That, and his phenomenal legs. Green, who hasn't driven a car in years, walks constantly. He walks on errands -- to the gas station for cigars. He walks for recreation -- to visit friends, to see the city. He walks for salvation -- so he can keep on walking. "My daddy said, 'Keep walking, and your legs will take care of you,' " Green says. " 'Once you sit down, you're gone.' " Green grew up in Opa-Locka, Fla., then a small country town outside Miami Beach. One of his earliest business ventures was picking gooseberries and delivering them, on foot, to the hotels on the beach for 15 cents a quart. Green's gait has slowed, of course, but he still walks three to five miles a day. One of his routes is south to the railroad tracks toward Andrew J. Brown Avenue, where Philip Hall runs a salvage business. In the summer, Green heads north to Fall Creek,
where he fishes for catfish and carp -- "I'm talking some big fish!" --
and eats them. You're not supposed to eat big fish out of Fall Creek
because of the PCBs. You're not supposed to live in a van, either. Green's is an unconventional way to spend one's latter years. The van is a mass of clutter: Plastic cups are strewn about; there's a folded-up lawn chair, and several plastic milk containers; there are cushions for the bench that doubles as a bed; there's a cooler to keep food in, a space heater that keeps the place warm, a fishing rod to catch catfish and carp; and there's a hubcap for no particular reason. The odor is strong. "It doesn't sound like something I'd choose for my family," says Cathy Schubert, a geriatrics physician with Clarian Health Partners. "But if it works for him, I think that's great. A feeling of independence and self-sufficiency is important for people as they get older. They don't want people assuming that just because they're 93 they can't do for themselves." Social interaction is another key to fulfillment, geriatricians say, and while isolation is a problem for some seniors, Green still has a slew of friends and acquaintances. He lives on the edge of one of Indianapolis' most dangerous neighborhoods. The area bounded by 38th and 34th streets and Fall Creek Parkway and Sherman Drive has led the city in homicides since the millennium. Green walks through it daily, yet nobody touches him. "I brought him a golf club once, to carry on his walks for protection," says William Hall, Philip's brother. "But he never carried it. He never needed it. Too many people know Mr. Green, and I guarantee you, they wouldn't let anything happen to him." Mr. Green lost a good friend Oct. 14, when William Marion "Shorty" Hendrickson was killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing 38th Street. "Shorty wasn't but 5 foot tall," Green says. "I been knowing Shorty 40, 50 years. Good man." Hendrickson, who was 80 when he died, lived in a van a few yards from Green's. He had options. Last year, he visited his daughter, Lavella Wilson, in Lexington, Ky. She offered to get him his own apartment near her. He declined. "Daddy kept saying how everyone up there at the (Big Red Discount) Towing looked out for him," Wilson says. "All his friends were there. When he died, I came up, and it was heartbreaking to see how he was living, in that van. I got some of his letters and stuff, but I couldn't stay in there long because of the odor." "It's not how you think it should be," says Jody Long, Red's daughter, who works the counter at the towing service afternoons. "You think it must be sad, Mr. Green out there in that van. Shorty, too. But it's not, somehow. Mr. Green, he's happy. He just wants to do it his way." Green was married and divorced twice, he says, and has been single since the mid-1960s. He has three daughters, two in Florida, one in Louisiana. Green occasionally gets letters from them. He talks about visiting his youngest daughter, the one in Louisiana. But he aims to always live alone, independently. Green hopes to stay at Big Red Discount Towing indefinitely, which, whether you're 93 or 86, isn't that long. Or is it? Not long ago Philip Hall said to him: "My bet is you make it to 100." "Well, heck yeah," Green said. "One hundred -- that's just seven years more."
--------------- email Larry PGP key on request |
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