Here’s How Bold They Are In My City:

@lost213 They’ll make more money begging than working. Those of us who work have to pay taxes and pay for whatever type of transportation we use, have work clothes etc. A beggar in California that stood by a freeway exit holding a sign every day told that to a man who offered him a meal and some working weeding his flower beds.

@SW-User I'm more surprised they moved and didn't already have security.

@SW-User My mother's second husband would have scared them off with his shotgun, he was caretaker of two of his small middle of nowhere iowa cemeteries.

@MarineBob I don’t know what this has to do with local authorities allowing these people to hive up here in my city. They are ruining it. It has become a magnet for shiftless transients who only want to take advantage of anything offered and not do anything in return. That makes for a whole lot of boredom and then drug addiction.

@easterniowegin Most cities require panhandling permits, they get their cut one way or another.

@easterniowegin they are telling the residents here not to give them money. Direct them to services instead. If they want money for anything else it’s likely booze or dope. And then the police have to deal with their resulting behaviors and crimes as a result.

@Sojournersoul My uncle was that way too. We went for a visit for a week up in the area. He wanted to pay for a subscription to the small town newspaper. We were parked outside of the business and was planning on leaving and driving back home to Oklahoma from Missouri early in the day. He spent a good hour after he came out of the newspaper office talking to other men walking by that hadn’t seen him for 7 or 8 years, shaking their hand and then others would walk by. We sat in the car for an hour.

@cherokeepatti I am sure you were like hurry up and stop talking. Lol

@Sojournersoul Yeah but thinking back that was the very last time he got to visit so I am happy he did. We should have stayed another day just so he could visit with others. We had been staying with two different sets of friends and a relative during that week.

@Slade Lemme guess, you were the school snitch 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

@Slade Seriously? 🙄

@Musicman there are people who do apparently… it is a subculture

@cherokeepatti Hopefully they were legit.

@NativePortlander1970 Last summer there were a number of women and some with children or even babies begging outside of businesses with some sob story. They wanted money. Come to find out they were roving gypsies traveling down the interstate highway near the city and also south OKC (saw one sitting next to the door of a large Asian grocery store that same week). They tried different locations and within a three weeks all were gone. They looked unkempt as though they were living in a van. Some were acting like Hispanics but I don’t believe they were. They were just pretending to be. It was really hot around the last of July and they moved on, probably north.

@cherokeepatti When I lived in northern Delaware 20+ years ago, my late ex fiancee was friends with a large Gypsy clan that had theirbown evangelical pentecostal style church. TBH I'm very surprised they let her into their group. However in february 2004 she had a bad falling out with the preacher's wife, Jane's adult younger son had failed to come home after a night out with friends so she called Sylvia asking for prayer, instead she berated Jane for being a bad mother and raising Alex wrong and other things. When I heard Jane yelling at her, I told Jane to give me the phone, then told her may her own sons turn into heathens and then spat on the floor loud enough that she could hear me over the phone, I gave her a Gypsy curse, then hung up the phone. When I looked at Jane she was white as a ghost and asked me why did I do that, that they had been friends since Alex was a baby, so I asked her if real friends condemn and criticize like she did, she said no, they don't. Less than five minutes later we got a call from a Westchester, PA hospital, Alex and his best friend had been badly rearended on I95 south, but that they were ok, no broken bones, whiplash, or concussions, just bumps and bruises.