The Monkey and His Mother :: Personal Narrative Homeless Papers

The Monkey and His contract My m new(prenominal) is always suspicious of panhandlers. She used to pull me closer whenever wed match a begging homeless someone on the subway and angle of dip her eyes, focusing on the stray paper and chewing-gum medallions--blackened with soot of the city--that decorated the floor. She and my render frequently describe seeing a homeless man who begs in our neighborhood (claiming to have AIDS, and afflicted with a multitude of painful- researching sores) walking devour a street near our house, dapper in a coloured business suit, his face free of the blemishes that had covered his skin on other occasions. My father, also a self-professed cynic, believes in an inherent selfishness that motivates most human actions. The tribal impulse is very strong, he says with a wry smile, as he gestures toward a newspaper article about nationalistic conflict. People look out for their make interests. When I asked him about his experiences living through the elegant Rights Movement and the Vietnam war, I found that his involvement with each was limited--he vocalized support for the ideals of the former, and by 1969, disdain for the strategic incompetence represented by the latter--as he was meshed by his studies, and the desire to begin his career. My parents cynicism spares no one. I remember my fathers fascinate upon reading the book review for Christopher Hitchenss criticism of Mother Theresa, Missionary Position, surmise and Practice, in 1995. In the book, Hitchens cites Mother Theresas apparently numerous, and highly self-interested exhibitions of decidedly unsaintly behavior. He describes her enormous--and entirely unaudited--wealth (Hitchens estimates one $50 million bank account to be only a small portion of her fortune) which she consciously kept away(p) of India--where she did most of her work--because the Indian government requires disclosure of foreign missionary funds. fit to Hitchens, Mother Theresa received money fr om some dubious donors, including Savings and bring swindler Charles Keating. Even despite her hefty fortune, the book asserts, Mother Theresas word of the terminally ill was primitive and often completely ineffective. My father seized upon this definition as a triumph of what hed always known no person should be considered angelic--most of us are equal parts good and evil, and, handle most living creatures, we will all act on our own behalves most of the time. Neither I--a third-rate Mother Theresa at best--nor my sister was adept from the slings and arrows of my parents pessimistic world-view.