We showed up to the "Uptown Shelter" and met an amazing woman named Linda Miller. Was the volunteer coordinator for the Uptown Shelter, and she fell in love with our project. She told us to come in the next day and she would find something -anything- for us to do to help. We were really excited that this worked out and I swallowed my pride.
After visiting the Uptown Shelter we decided to take a train into Charlotte and walk around the city and do some sight seeing.
My breath was taken away by the massive that reminded me of Jack's beanstalk... Just by how they stretched towards the sky and never seemed to end... They rose all the way to the clouds... And I swear if you were to go to the tops of these buildings and look out, you'd see a land full of giants living in the clouds.
We walked around, taking pictures and window-shopping, when we came across a little park with a waterfall. The park was dotted with metal tables and chairs, and there were homeless men playing chess. I walked to the other side of the waterfall and found some homeless men playing Texas Hold 'em. I walked right them; a little bit of fear and shame began to flow like a stream through my veins. I walked into a building trying to make it look like I knew what I was doing, only to find out that everything in the building was already closed.
I turned around, a little embarrassed, and walked over to the men playing poker. There was a little pale man, with red hair covered by a cheap NY hat, that seemed to a bit big for him, but you could tell he was proud just to be able to own it. It was easy for me to see that this man ran things by the way he spoke and how he moved. There were about 5 others sitting there laughing and enjoying themselves gambling with quarters and dollars.
The little pale man saw me standing watching and yelled over to me and asked "You wanna' play?! Come on! sit down! We'll deal you in!" So I pulled out two 1 dollar bills and placed them on the table, they changed me out with quarters and we started to play. They were so fast. By the time it would usually take me to shuffle and deal, we had already played three hands. I was having trouble keeping up, but the loud little red-headed man helped me to keep track of everything.
I ended up losing fifty cents on the first hand, and then a dollar. I only had fifty cents left and threw that in. I was all in. I ended up winning that hand with a queen high. So, it was totally all luck; no skill involved whatsoever. I had two dollars and fifty cents and was ready to take my fifty cent winning and leave, but how could I do that? I felt bad taking from the guys haha. So, I sat down and played a few more hands.
During one hand, between a little man from Thailand and the little guy with the NY hat and red hair, things got pretty intense. During the river card (which, if you don't know anything about this poker game, is the last card drawn) the little man from Thailand threw down his cards declaring that he had won and took all the money without letting anybody see his cards. The rest of the table, excluding myself, went insane. Expletives were being hurled everywhere and I seriously feared for my life. But for some strange reason I knew that the other guys had my back if anything had come my way. I didn't have any physical evidence that they would atnd up for me, but as soon as I as walked over to that table, some 30 to 45 minutes ago, and opened up to them and talked to them I knew that there was a connection.
The first day was amazing... and very intense. All-in-all a good first day.
Peace and Love,
Lance
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