touche turtle

Fron the book Insane, stupid and unbelievable. (Part IV)

  Now when it comes to those of us who can’t find shelter from the storms in our lives, or a roof over our heads, I’ve come to learn that sometimes nature provides other means.

                   

        It seems that a homeless man was evicted from his refrigerator box home that was located underneath the 6th street viaduct bridge, and once again sentenced to live in the streets.

Unable to make a decent living and finding steady work because of his limited job skills, he soon became a part of the homeless multitude.   

Ryan walker a onetime married man, and the father of four who fell on hard times, which soon thereafter saw the end of his marriage, and his once stable living arrangement just like so many of his fellow Americans before him. However, Ryan fell into that percentage of the unemployed, coupled with the fact that because of his blue collar working status and his 18 year job placement had been all but erased from the work force due to robotic replacements, and downsizing among larger companies, which at one time was the economic fore-front that once stood head and shoulders above the crowd, when it came to keeping its employee’s gainfully employed. But because the numbers were too great to retrain an entire population, Ryan Walker had to rethink his place in life, as well as his living situation. Unable to find a decent job, thereby he was unable to find suitable housing, and this meant that he had to start at the bottom, and work his way back up to the top.

Ryan Walker knew that it would be a long and lengthy process, and Milwaukee was not a place to be, during the cold winter months --- especially without a proper roof over ones head.   

So therefore Ryan Walker began his search for what started out as an intense job hunt, but through the constant door slamming and rejections, Ryan Walker soon became disillusioned when it came to looking for work, and started spending his time idly down by the Milwaukee lake front contemplating and procrastinating about searching for a job. By and by his days soon turned into weeks, and his weeks turned into months, and before Ryan knew it, winter was knocking on his; I wish I could say door, but he didn't have one.

It was there on the lake front that Ryan Walker discovered a large container that he felt would be a proper temporary living shelter. It was as large as his onetime refrigerator box that he once slept in, and called his home, but this container was a lot sturdier, and more durable than just a flimsy box, where he felt that it could in-fact sustain his living needs over the winter months. Well needless to say Ryan Walker was able to fore-go the cold and grueling Milwaukee winter in his hideaway retreat, coming out only to forge for food, and to stay in one of Milwaukee’s sheltered sites during those below freezing temperature days and nights. Nevertheless, Ryan overcame that winter, which soon turned into spring which then saw the return of summer once again.

        It was during a fact-finding mission that a local oceanographer stumbled upon Ryan's hideaway digs strategically buried in the sand against the wall of the pier. At first thought to be an abandoned tortoise shell the lowly oceanographer began digging it out only to be startled by Ryan Walker’s sudden emergence from his isolated hideaway. And when questioned about his beach front home, Ryan Walker was told that he lived inside of a once occupied tortoise’s shell, where this oceanographer couldn't believe that Mr. Walker had come to live out a Milwaukee winter living inside this mere shell.

And that’s when Ryan Walker confided in him, that it was a rough winter, and he only believes that he survived the extreme cold because of the insulating process he devised that covered the inner-shell lining walls of this said to be tortoises shell.   

Upon further examination of the inside of this shell, the oceanographer learned that because of the insulating method that Ryan derived to winterize the inside of this shell it enabled the oceanographer to determine with accuracy that this amphibian reptiles life span was well over 300 years old and because of this technique which was his own home remedy Ryan was paid $250,000.00 dollars plus royalties for the rights to his formula, as well as a substantial amount for the tortoise shell itself, but Ryan refused to part with this onetime home of his, stating how it was a constant reminder of where he once sunk to, and how it enabled him to find his way back, and although he no longer lives in that tortoise shell, but instead in a nice cape-cod near the beach, which is also a constant reminder of that age old theory of how man got his beginnings by crawling from out of the sea.