Tent City Report


By C.V. Beck

At Tent City, (southwest corner Frederick/California Streets, now called "Squirrel Square Free Speech Area") we Lincoln Placerites still maintain a vigorous presence twice weekly, Wednesdays and Saturdays, 10-5 pm, as we await the court date scheduled for August 16, 2006, superior court, downtown LA. We are there to support each other and to answer questions as best we can. We also tell jokes and gossip. We have snax and cool drinks on hand and our 8-10 chairs are mostly full each day we are there.


People give us the thumbs up frequently, stop by to asks questions as to what is going on now. Sometimes, we receive some hostile remarks from a couple in a small red pickup, who shout out, "Bye-Bye"!!! or "Burn it down"!!! Nonetheless, many people are supportive of our position and fear they might be next, as the City (Soylent Greenly) eats some of its eldest, most disabled, poorest citizens for breakfast.

At Lincoln Place itself, we are also under a state of siege from arrogant Yuppie-like beings, who feel it is their right (because "They" are "Them") to trespass and to dump. We have had four/five incidents this past month or so, one concerned with trespassing and the rest with dumping. I will relate some of these here:

• One of our seniors, upon reproaching a mom, (for trespassing on private property) apparently teaching her son how to drive in and out of the carports here, was abused by this woman who made hateful, age-ist remarks to him, a dark-haired woman with black glasses, driving a black open Jeep, license plate something like 2TOOU(?), being furious that her Yuppie-self had been challenged.

• On another occasion, the small red pick-up, with a trailer with a dirt bike, had unloaded and started doing wheelies or donuts in Elkgrove Circle. On being challenged again by our fearless senior, this younger male was outraged, vomiting verbal hatred of the elderly to him, as our security stood by watching and said to the senior later, after the biker had left, that he should have let him handle it...

• I, myself, had several incidents of dumping. One was a very large pile of extremely flammable leaf trash dumped overnight in a carport directly across from where I park my car. It had been left very carefully and neatly and could have been deadly to me if anyone had dropped a match. People doing remodelling in the neighborhood are using Lincoln Place like a free dump. (These Yuppies seem to be really cheap!) I stopped a man driving an SUV (license plate 3UKD147?) filled with what looked to me like bar trash, a variety of imported beer bottles, paper plates from using the Lincoln Place garbage cans at 8 pm on a Sunday night. I explained to him that he couldn't put his trash here and he was so put out because we have all these empty, apparently very inviting garbage cans. I was able to convince this bodybuilder to go away and do the right thing by taking care of his own garbage in the right way...

• and finally, an incident of what appeared to me to be prostitution or car date, in the carport right next to mine, the day after the carports had been cleaned, left behind was a freshly used condom, a clean white towel and some wipey things, called: "Vionet --healthcare antiseptic towelette" (manufactured by Metrex), which remains in place today.

Posted: Tue - August 1, 2006 at 03:00 PM          


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