Birds gone, spaceship broke and beer needed

My Aunt Minerva and Uncle Brian from Jal went shopping in Hobbs the other day and they saw something they hadn’t seen before: A panhandler with a handmade sign that read, “Why lie? I need a beer.”

“He deserves points for honesty and humor,” Uncle Brian posted on Facebook.

Their traveler’s tale reminded me of panhandlers, street people, their signs and my encounters with them over the years.

My favorite was the long-haired dude standing by a Pensacola, Fla., boulevard a few years ago with his sign: “Need cash to repair spaceship.”

I laughed out loud.

I pulled over and gave him $2.

“This is your reward for creativity,” I yelled out.

We shared a smile and a laugh.

I stood at the frontier of going to live on the street a long time ago.

I’d lost my car in a wreck and lost my job and apartment.

When I told my mom I was going to just go wander the country with my backpack she started to cry.

She squinted her eyes and pointed at me.

“You never give up hope. Ever,” she said emphatically.

I changed my mind. I was bummed I made my mom cry.

So I can relate to folks living on the street. I feel for them.

Living in Roswell years ago, a fellow outside the Post Office hit me up for money.

“Trade. My cash for your good story,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

“Tell me why you’re in Roswell,” I said.

“Late night a few months ago I was on the beach in Alabama drinking Strawberry Hill. I saw something moving in the sky,” he said. The guy was waving his arms above his head while he spoke.

“The stars were forming. When they stopped it read, ‘Roswell.’ It was a sign. Next morning I started hitchhiking out here,” he said.

I gave him three bucks.

The country entertainer Grandpa Jones had a Christmas recitation song titled, “The Christmas Guest.”

It told the tale of an old man who lived by himself, who had a dream that Jesus was going to drop in on him Christmas Day.

Well, Christmas Day came but the only people who came by his house were a beggar, a tired old woman and a lost child.

At the end of the day the man lamented Jesus hadn’t shown up, but then he heard Jesus’ voice. Jesus said he had been by -- as the three passersby that the man helped, and that Jesus was honored to have been the man’s Christmas guest.

That song was on my mind one Christmastime a number of years ago when I stopped at a convenience store in Douglas, Ariz.

Standing near the door was a fellow who looked me in the eye as I approached.

“You have a dollar or two you can give me buddy?” the guy said.

I stood there for a moment.

“Are you Jesus?” I asked.

The fellow looked at me and smiled.

“No sir, not today,” he said.

I gave him a couple of bucks.

And I remember the fellow standing on the corner of a busy intersection in Sierra Vista, Ariz., holding a hunk of cardboard box with writing on it.

He just had a question:

“What happened to all the birds? There used to be a lot of birds in the parking lot. They’re all gone. What happened to all the birds?”

That was about 28 years ago.

I couldn’t help the dude.

I didn’t know what happened to the birds.

Grant McGee writes for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him:

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