The fantasy headline in your Opinion section, “Manna relocates 5 minutes south of Durango – homeless ‘problem’ in town disappears!” (Herald, Jan. 6) has me suffering from a case of cognitive dissonance.
My baser farting, burping, good-ol’-boy instinct has me laughing as the dirty, tattered exodus goes slouching toward Bethlehem, up the hill, out of town. My flawed character nods in agreement as the unsightly mass walks away. The part of me that my mom raised blushes with shame at the snotty, elitist attitude that makes me think that way – even for a moment.
Durango is a lovely town. I have been here since 1999. Homeless people are never a pretty sight, but am I right to want them to vanish? Is it really all that bad? I have seen the minor problems of unkempt homeless camping, some public urination and panhandling in the streets, but does that really affect me to the point I should want them to disappear?
I believe that our circumstances are exclusively our own fault. I cannot sympathize with someone who won’t work. When someone on the street asks me for money, I invariably tell them I got up at five in the morning to go to work – and I do not feel bad telling them “no.”
But they’ve done me no harm. What small blight the homeless “problem” might be is so exiguous that it makes me feel like a trifling ninny to even think negatively about it.
The part of me my mom raised is ashamed for laughing at that ... and feels like a snob and a jerk for doing so.
John David Cochran
Durango
