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I was but for being injured on the job, getting cheated by AIG of back surgery, and ended up living in the National Forest illegally 3 years. I made birch bark boxs, canteens of that and split pine, pinned with hemlock twigs, sewn with basswood bark coradge and bee's wax, which I did buy. The canteens sold at 100 bucks each the boxes varried depending on size and shape, covered or not etc.
The injury caused a divorce, the combination ruined me a long while, but i got over it. The thing that sets me off is AIG was too big to fail, and I was not. Workers comp in NH isn't great.
Neither is the courts system. The court would mail me stuff the day of and sometimes that day after to summons me. I got their papers wet living as I did. I did maintain a post box which was 15 bucks a year at the time. Since it's 40 now I wouldn't again.
It was lots of fun to show up late for court because i didn't get the summons on time, and not because I didn't pick up the mail, but because by the post mark it was mailed after the hearings.
Once the court demanded I make it know to an officer of the court exactly where I was. It was deep winter and around -20 below. So I told them and made the invite for around 3AM so I would be in camp. No one ever came. I had camp fires for cooking, 4 of them depending. I had 2 under a light canvass roof, one for light and making coal, one for coals to cook. The other 2 were in a tee pee I had before all the BS began, One in a folding stove I wore out and replace with a used cracked box stove, and a fire that the stove more or less was the backing reflector for.
And OH! 1 more a barrel stove I made to cook off maple sap, I converted again with a flat steel plate and a big farm mail box as the oven.
never has 2 cents of welfare, while the court demanded I get it, welfare turned me down for no real physical address, and no utility bills as proof.
These days i don't worry alot about stuffed shirts telling me what I must do, and demanding money.
Currently the IRS thinks I made better than 18,000 more than I did this year, and all I really made if a laughable 5 grand. That's it! I really don't care much what they think they can do, and if they can do anything, chances are what ever that is would only improve my situation.
I grow my food so no dollars there. I supliment it with wild foods still. And I will eat what ever varmint it is in my garden as soon as I kill it. I just came in from being out there all night dozing on and off. Later I will get to work on a larger truck project for hire.
I have no idea what it is to be legally homeless. No one I know in NH likes to be involved with the system. I suppose there are, but I don't know anyone on it.
I don't mean to say I was never hungery or cold,wet and tired either because I was and a lot, but I managed to get by. I made a lot of other things and gathered yard sale tools which helped. I stored things I would need later that I already had. Mainly tools. The few people i did encounter for hired work would often comment I smelled like a BBQ LOL, and when they found out my way of living would ponder on how I stayed clean. I showered just like anyone else, but my shower was a hand made canvass bag to hold about 5 gallons of water. I would boil 1 and add cold to suit me and hang the bag in a tree. I showered quite naked before God since no one else was around to see. Well except my current wife after a time. She became the soul source of company and friendship. 1 person. Pretty much today she is still that 1. other people I will only get so close with. i tend to get a bit more friendly on line than anyplace else.
Each of the 3 years I changed locations as well. Sometimes I miss that way of life and do consider going back. I might one day. At first it was hard to be alone, but after a while I got used to it. These days I spend a lot of time alone too.
So do you have a laptop? where are you connected to the internet?
I am not homeless now, but I was. I didn't have any electricy for 3 years, and if i wanted cooked food or hot water i made a fire.
AIG is a insurance company not a bank, and they were the carrier for the B&B I worked for. I was crushed by a saddle horse, a drunk guest spooked. That day i had been painting the metal 12/12 pitch roof 3 stories high, and there were to be no trail rides.
A van full of 8 people showed up and the boss said to take them. No horses were tacked up either, and i failed to put my riding boots on before I tacked up the horses. The drunk came in the barn, and spooked a horse in new cross ties which ripped apart and the horse fell on me while I was picking out the horses left rear foot. L1 L2 and L3 were crushed on the job, and i was to have titainium screws and a cage installed in my back but AIG beat me in court the 7th try.
I was Mr. Fix it at the B&B. I cared for the summer gardens, the pool, the truck, the jeep the Honda car, did const old and new, cared for 16 saddle horses, 4 draft horses, did wagon and sleigh rides, cut trees, maintained x-c ski trails, groomed and tracked, fixed both snow machines, taught x-c sking, ran the rental shop, painted, kept the Inn fires going, and did everything except make beds and clean rooms.
For 3 years all full years winter too this was home. Locations changed each September though, this is the last year.
You can't drive a 4x4 truck to that location today, and you couldn't then.
Note the poles at far left above.
This is what they are with no cover
This is the barrel stove at around Thanksgiving time
This is us 10 years later in Cal, and I still wear the back brace.
I also had 3 broken ribs in this picture. Crashed in SD on the bike and just kept on tickin anyway.
I am not homeless now, but I was. I didn't have any electricy for 3 years, and if i wanted cooked food or hot water i made a fire.
AIG is a insurance company not a bank, and they were the carrier for the B&B I worked for. I was crushed by a saddle horse, a drunk guest spooked. That day i had been painting the metal 12/12 pitch roof 3 stories high, and there were to be no trail rides.
A van full of 8 people showed up and the boss said to take them. No horses were tacked up either, and i failed to put my riding boots on before I tacked up the horses. The drunk came in the barn, and spooked a horse in new cross ties which ripped apart and the horse fell on me while I was picking out the horses left rear foot. L1 L2 and L3 were crushed on the job, and i was to have titainium screws and a cage installed in my back but AIG beat me in court the 7th try.
I was Mr. Fix it at the B&B. I cared for the summer gardens, the pool, the truck, the jeep the Honda car, did const old and new, cared for 16 saddle horses, 4 draft horses, did wagon and sleigh rides, cut trees, maintained x-c ski trails, groomed and tracked, fixed both snow machines, taught x-c sking, ran the rental shop, painted, kept the Inn fires going, and did everything except make beds and clean rooms.
For 3 years all full years winter too this was home. Locations changed each September though, this is the last year.
You can't drive a 4x4 truck to that location today, and you couldn't then.
Note the poles at far left above.
This is what they are with no cover
This is the barrel stove at around Thanksgiving time
This is us 10 years later in Cal, and I still wear the back brace.
I also had 3 broken ribs in this picture. Crashed in SD on the bike and just kept on tickin anyway.
Very nice area, where is this located? You said your in California now. Sounds like your one of those outdoorsman. Maybe you should try contacting A/E or one of those stations, I watch that man vs wild, so forth, love those shows. You never know, one of them might pick up your story. That is how the other folks get on those shows. They contact them.
No I am in New Hampshire now, and will be for so long as i suck air on this side of the grass. I spent all of 19 days in Cal because there was no bridge to Hawii........ 1 pic is in cal circa 2005.
The homeless pics are in NH circa 1994. That was the last year. The next place was trailer hell . a cheap rental in the dead center of the ancient volcanic ring d i k e. (nannied word around here)
I never was sure that trailer was any better than a tee pee. The whole trailer was warped and bent, so there were air gaps around the doors and windows mice and small birds could get thru, the bath tub was falling thru the floor and it held dead mice that starved to death not being able to get out. But as they say location location location, and to me that place was in the middle of nowhere and I loved that location. In storms bad enough to scare me we slept outside, fearing the trailer might fall and kill us both.
You are correct, in that I am a child of the remote places. You could do anything you wanted there, anything, and no other man would even know you did.
I am not homeless now, but I was. I didn't have any electricy for 3 years, and if i wanted cooked food or hot water i made a fire.
AIG is a insurance company not a bank, and they were the carrier for the B&B I worked for. I was crushed by a saddle horse, a drunk guest spooked. That day i had been painting the metal 12/12 pitch roof 3 stories high, and there were to be no trail rides.
A van full of 8 people showed up and the boss said to take them. No horses were tacked up either, and i failed to put my riding boots on before I tacked up the horses. The drunk came in the barn, and spooked a horse in new cross ties which ripped apart and the horse fell on me while I was picking out the horses left rear foot. L1 L2 and L3 were crushed on the job, and i was to have titainium screws and a cage installed in my back but AIG beat me in court the 7th try.
I was Mr. Fix it at the B&B. I cared for the summer gardens, the pool, the truck, the jeep the Honda car, did const old and new, cared for 16 saddle horses, 4 draft horses, did wagon and sleigh rides, cut trees, maintained x-c ski trails, groomed and tracked, fixed both snow machines, taught x-c sking, ran the rental shop, painted, kept the Inn fires going, and did everything except make beds and clean rooms.
For 3 years all full years winter too this was home. Locations changed each September though, this is the last year.
You can't drive a 4x4 truck to that location today, and you couldn't then.
Note the poles at far left above.
This is what they are with no cover
This is the barrel stove at around Thanksgiving time
This is us 10 years later in Cal, and I still wear the back brace.
I also had 3 broken ribs in this picture. Crashed in SD on the bike and just kept on tickin anyway.
Thats absolutely amazing to me. For someone to be able to do this and not give up on life is very respectable.
gman, It appears I am not good at quitting anything. To quit smoking I began to roll my own in 1999, and here i sit today still rolling my own, but I have cut down a lot.
When you get to be homeless a great deal of common things are no longer so common. Getting hurt bad caused the loss of that job, then in time with the law as it is caused the loss of lots of jobs. I learned to never say I have a bad back on a job app. That pre condition clause is a duesie.
So the loss of heath and work caused a divorce, and that cause a lot of BS in court once my x got a lawyer. I had to let go of a great many things my family just wanted stored and let her have them to convert as she pleased. These are items not mine and not hers but the court didn't care.
The court would mail me hearing notices the day after the hearing, and i still have several unopend. Evidently 10 days legal notice doesn't have much standing.
On the other hand living in a tee pee isn't the best conditions for papers and the court did set up a squallor about the cheap ink they use running around on ther papers. Oh Well.....
So while it seems i have made a recovery it isn't like it was before. I don't earn much money, and have created another life style, apart from the American Dream.
Worse maybe was a string of deaths to deal with, and not all that long after the tee pee days.
Get this:
My Father never sick 1 day in his life and a non smoke all his life
Died Labor Day weekend in 97' of double lung cancer.
Next My little brother the next Memorial Day 98' from complications to Lymes disease, had he lived another week he would have turned 40. That morning he was out riding his motorcycle and after eatting lunch collapsed for good.
Ah yes there is more.....
Easter 99, again just month between deaths, my wifes father and his 2nd wife were stabbed to death in their home, not 3 blocks from the cop shop.
So many things in my life have changed and anyone could be enough to cause some people to quit living.
Currently the IRS and I are in a dance, over the 5,000 bucks i earned last year. I get no assistance and don't want any.
So if they make a case and toss me in the slammer I can't see any of that as a really bad thing.
Why just maybe I will get the surgery I need after all.
Yeah probably the OP has no more electricy, hot water, 3 squares a day, and is wandering around somewhere wondering why his life blew up. I didn't really expect him to be on line much.
The original purpose for me to be on this site was job hunting too, but there is no job hunting to be had on here. He will have to do as i do, and seek one job out at a time, then go a long time to find another job for hire. That is what i do now and have since getting crushed in 87'. All of it has been hard labor too. I do things no one else will do, and illegals can't.
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