New Grapevine Hits the Streets this Week

A Taste of the Upcoming Grapevine

The Homeless Grapevine #85 is now at the printers, so it will be hitting the street in a matter of days! In it, we have an update on North Point at the 6 month mark, a tribute to Anthony Waters who was killed, an interview with a vegan who has been through the shelter system, a large section devoted to the photographs taken by graduates of NEOCH’s photography class, and much more. Just to give you a taste, here’s part of a feature on Grapevine vendor Raymond Jacobs by Bernadette Janes:

"Before Raymond Jacobs became a vendor for the Homeless Grapevine, his varied careers were packed into his one lifetime like pieces of an old southern parlor game. It all started in 1947 in New Orleans, Louisiana, with an Ethiopian mother and a white German-Jewish father. Growing up in the South half black and half white was not easy. Within the multiple hues of that population, Raymond was categorized as Creole.

After finishing high school, Raymond and six buddies, all of them seventeen years of age, celebrated their freedom by going on a fateful lark. Swilling down quarts of cheap wine, they ran, screaming, through startled neighborhood, and suddenly found themselves in front of a Marine Corps recruiting office. Deeply inebriated, they decided it might be fun to drop in and visit a while. With the Vietnam war going on at the time, the group of robust seventeen-year-olds looked like fresh meat to the Recruiting Officer on duty.

He welcomed them in and immediately began pouring Jack Daniels whiskey into them, regaling them with promises of fantastic benefits if they would enlist. By the time they started for home, they understood nothing of the import of papers the recruiting officer thrust into their hands for their parents to sign. All the parents signed the papers readily and sent them in. Days later, stone sober and realizing the depth of the hole they had fallen into, the boys tried to get the papers back, but with no success.

They were now United States Marines!"

To read the rest of this article and much more, please pick up a copy of the Homeless Grapevine issue #85 from any of our registered vendors!

Josh

Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.