One day recently I was headed back towards the office and noticed a man sitting on a bench, but crumpled over at the waist, his arms dangling by his feet and his hands opened with something dropped on the ground. We initially walked by, but about two steps later -- when the image registered -- I stopped and encouraged my friends to protect me while I decided to check on the guy. Everyone was just walking by him but that pose was not the normal bum-on-a-bench pose. He looked, well, like he keeled over there. When I got close I bent over and asked with purpose, “Excuse me, are you OK sir?” At first, no movement. “Sir?” Then he sat fully upright. He could have been asleep. I asked again, “Are you OK? Do you need any help?” There wasn’t exactly a coherent answer, but there was enough light in his eyes and connection that I decided he was in the ordinary bum category and not a bum with a medical crisis.
There are a lot of construction workers in town the past couple years. Rutgers is going through a huge growth phase and people are buying up the old local houses and replacing them with huge student housing apartments with underground parking. I go running by them several days a week and funny thing is, I never get any cat calls or whistles. What kind of weird construction people are they hiring these days anyway?!