things are -SO- much better upstairs!

ON TOP of recognizing a Greenville homeless street dude a few days ago, I just stopped in Barley's, and I was only going in to use their bathroom to wash my hands (story later), and on the way to the bathroom in the back, a man was in a meeting at one of their tables, and as I passed, I thought "Hmmm, I think I know him." So after I washed my hands, I waited until they were leaving, and I approached, saying "This may seem off the wall, but does the name Zig mean anything to you?" He said "I hope so, that's me! How ya doing man?" This fellow is part of the crew that runs Albino Skunk bluegrass festival, the best bluegrass festival around, which means I just recognized someone I only see ONCE a year! HECK YES!

Now the reason I was washing los manos was that at my bus stop, I recognized the other bus patron, and we got to chit-chatting, the way good Southerners do. (I shook his hand, thus the hand washing) I don't remember how we got into our tales of woe, but it turns out his story is unbelievably worse than mine! He says that he was hanging with the wrong crowd, and they all did cocaine in some guy's bathroom. It being his first (and only) time doing that, he OD'd, and was left for dead on the bathroom floor. Amazingly, he came to a few hours later and went straight to the hospital. Doctors told him he actually was dead for those two hours (I don't know about that, but this is the part where you & I just nod our heads and say "Uh huh, oh really"). Anyway, it turned out that with both of us coming that close to death, we end up sharing many similar attitudes. Like making a point of always being nice to strangers, and avoiding most of the old crowd these days. And since his name's Lloyd, and I sometimes need to give you a nickname to remember your real name, I now take the same bus most days with "Lucky".