America is a wonderful country and no one appreciates it more than an honest hardworking guy like me. America, the land of opportunity, where anyone who wants to can become a millionaire. With such fabulous possibilities around us, it just amazes me that the majority of the people in America seem to have taken up a vow of poverty.

While I was never one for volunteering myself, lack of money and the fact that I was down to my last jar of peanut butter had sort of naturally put me in the "voluntarily poor" category, anyway. If only I had the time I could have kept trying to make that million, but right now rent was due and I needed some quick money.

Fortunately a job is always available in the security business. All you need is proof that you have no criminal record, and a pair of black shoes.

"We provide two clean uniforms a week, you provide your own shoes. If one of the security supervisors finds that you are not wearing a pair of black shoes you will be terminated. Any question?" Yeah, I had plenty of questions, but they had nothing to do with the security job.

The job was part time, night shift and weekends, standing guard in a jewelry store - one of those ironies where life likes to tease the poor by making it easy for them to get jobs guarding the treasures of the rich.

The security man already on the job not only did his own eight hours of work but was putting in six hours of overtime daily, the six hours I was about to start doing.

He says to me, "You're another relief. They show up every once in a while but they don't seem to last. No, they don't seem to last." He didn't seem relieved as he was talking.

I've done what he was doing before, working twelve to sixteen hours a day. After about a week on those kinds of hours you get desensitized to personal needs. Even thinking stops being important, and in a strange sort of way you get to like this numbed-out state. On one hand you yearn for something to happen that will put you on a normal eight-hour schedule, and on the other you feel apprehension because the overtime money will come to an end and you will be forced to start making decisions about what to do with your life. I was glad for his sake that I was going to be helping him out.

So there I was standing in my uniform, given to me free of charge, and wearing a pair of ten-dollar shoes, the cheapest pair I could buy at your local high-quality, low-pay shoe store. One of the things I immediately liked about these shoes was the smooth surface on the bottom. I thought this would make it easier for me to move my feet around on the dance floor.

In front of golden rings, diamond bracelets, and strings of pearls, I stood there daily watching people go by. Adults who came in to shop looked upon me trustingly. Some who had children would bend down, whisper to the children and point at me. You could almost hear the message. "Behave or the policeman will…" The children's eyes would turn wide and big as they looked at me.

As I stood there, to some I was a symbol of truth, justice, and protection. To others I was just a boogieman. All those hours of standing around did not go to waste as I spent the time thinking about finding another job, and finally I found one, a teaching position. When I showed up for my last day at the jewelry store, I said to the other guard, who had still not re-adjusted to working only eight hours a day, "You were right, people who get this job don't stay around very long."

Well, I was unemployed again, but it was all right because in a week I would start my new job as a teacher. That Friday, my girlfriend Bebe and I decided to go dancing to celebrate the change in my fortune.

It was night-time as I stared waking to my girlfriend's house. It was raining, I had on my new pair of black ten-dollar shoes, I was crossing the street at an intersection. The light had just changed from red to green and even though I had the right of way, cars began moving. I walked a little bit faster to get out of their way. One sep more and I would be on the curb: all that stood between me and my destination was a puddle of water, which I decided to jump over. I didn't want to get my shoes wet.

Once while in mad passion, I raced a friend down a mountainside. Nimbly I'd step on rocks that were solid and half-loose and I'd kept my balance. Countless time I've jumped over puddles of water.

This one was a tiny puddle of water. I sailed across it effortlessly, but as my left foot touched the ground I started falling. It happened so fast I had no time to catch myself, and as I fell I heard this snap, crackle, and pop, and I suddenly realized that my foot was breaking at the ankle. To this day I still remember that snap, crackle, and pop. Heck of away to be reminded of breakfast.

I quickly sat up on the sidewalk, grabbed my left foot and drew it closer for inspection. A one hundred and eighty degree turn. I'd never seen my toes pointing in the wrong direction before. I looked at that broken, dangling foot and the slick-bottomed shoe that was gong to help me move easier on the dance floor.

It could have been my medical training from when I was a corpsman in the U.S. Navy, or my mechanical inclination, but I knew I had darn well better get that foot back in place before swelling started or I would be in real trouble. It was just like turning a socket wrench - the foot snapped right back into its proper position.

Just like a story in the Bible, there are good Samaritans. Maybe because it was a busy Friday night and the chances of caring people passing by were greater, but out of the throng who filled that dark and rainy street, two individuals stepped out to offer assistance, just seconds after I fell.

As I stumbled to stand up on my still good right foot, two umbrellas started covering me and a kind female voice asked, "Do you need help?"

"Yes, I would. I just broke my foot." I said.

Another kind voice, this time male, asked, "Would you like me to get you an ambulance?"

I said, "I'm in a hurry - why don't you get me a taxi." While the woman stood by holding her umbrella over me, the man rushed off to find a cab. As I waited I felt very secure and dry, thanks to this unknown woman upon whom the rain was falling. She was willing to get wet so that I could feel some comfort. I never found out who this unknown man and woman were, but they are a pleasant addition to my life's memories.

The taxi brought me to the emergency room entrance of a hospital and I was put into a wheelchair and wheeled to the reception area, where before I would be allowed to see a doctor I had to fill out the appropriate paperwork.

Ever since computers became popular, I've noticed a trend for receptionists to sound like computers. Maybe they figure if they talk like one, they won't be replaced by one. The receptionist droned mechanically, "WHAT IS YOUR NAME? LAST NAME FIRST, FIRST NAME AND MIDDLE NAME LAST."

"My name is IN PAIN, first and middle name, IAM." Sometimes I wonder if people ever listen to what others are saying. I answered all the questions and the receptionist says to me, "ALL RIGHT MR. I AM IN PAIN, IF YOU WILL WAIT IN THE RECEPTION HALL A NURSE WILL BE WITH YOU RIGHT AWAY.

As my wheelchair turned, there she was - all dressed in clean, pressed bright white. In a human, caring voice she asked, "Does it hurt?"

"Yes!" The word escaped my lips like a whimper.

She lay me down on a movable bed, made sure I had a soft comfortable pillow for my head, took my blood pressure and temperature, and when she gently held my hand to count my pulse rate, the beat I felt was all for her.

It took a little while for the doctor to show up, but when he came he reassured me in a soothing voice that I was in good hands. "Is there anything I can do for you right now?" he asked me.

"Could I have a telephone? I'd like to tell my girlfriend that I am no longer interested in going out dancing."

Having a broken foot meant X-rays. Because I came in at the end of one shift and the beginning of another, I was exposed to two different personality types in the X-ray department.

The first technician put a lead shield over the area of my sexual reproductive organs, like and encouragement to family life. Since the break was serious, I was sent back for a second set of shots. This time the other X-ray technician shows up. Instead of offering a lead shield, the X-ray gun was pointed at my genitals. I started panicking. "You're supposed to take an X-ray of my foot!" The X-ray gun was moved, but reluctantly. Who knows what that was all about. Maybe the technician felt there were too many people in the world, and the X-ray department was one place to limit population.

The doctor, finally satisfied he had all the information he needed, says to me, "You need an operation on that foot. See this X-ray - this is part of a bone that was chipped when the ankle broke. If it's not taken out it will teach cartilage in your foot."

For the past year, I had been getting visions of someone I a hospital. Every time I had any of these images, I would ask myself, "Gee, I wonder who I know is going to get sick?" As they wheeled me into the Operation Room, I finally had my answer. All around me were all the things that had been in my visions. I kept thinking, "Yeah, I saw that, I saw that, I saw that." It was a living de-ja-vu experience.

When I finally woke up after the operation, I was in a hospital room, lying in bed on a soft mattress. It was all over except for the pain, which was taken care of with medications. After three days in the hospital I was ready to go home, but I had to leave the same way I came in - filling out papers. This time I had to use my real name.

"The name of the company for which you are working?" asked a human sounding voice.

"I don't have a job. I would have started a new one yesterday if I hadn't broken my foot."

"The name of your insurance company?"

"I don't have any insurance."

"The amount of money you have in your bank?"

"Five dollars. That's the minimum you can have without your account being closed out, plus fifteen dollars in my wallet. It was supposed to be spent for dancing but I think I'd rather spend it for food."

Some people don't know how to handle real-life situations. The person asking me questions was one of those. "You don't have a job, no insurance and no money. How are you going to pay for all your medical bills?"

"I don't know." It was the only honest thing I could say.

I couldn't pay for the hospital bill and someone else was panicking. This was my problem, and if anybody had a right to panic over it, it was me. Finally the department supervisor was called in to handle this fiscal crisis. "He has no job, no insurance, no money. What should I do?"

The supervisor was a clam lady who said, "Have him sign a statement that he will try to pay, and let him go home." This was the old professionalism in action. Don't try to fix something that works, and don't force someone without money to pay or you will spend all your time listening to excuses.

Home was my girlfriend's apartment, as the doctor advised that I should have someone look after me for the first couple of days, and Bebe volunteered her time during this medical crisis. She transformed her small living room into a bedroom for me. My mattress lay on the floor so I could get things I needed without worrying about falling out of bed. Next to the mattress all kinds of things, like cookies, jars of water and juice and a urinary bottle, were scattered about in case I needed them. My only worry was that I might wake up in the middle of the night and drink out of the wrong container.

The doctor recommended that my temperature be taken at regular intervals, a way to monitor possible infection problems. While I lay in bed, my sweetie came into the room with a thermometer, shook it down, and placed it in my mouth. I was in a naturally drugged out state but I became alert when I felt the sensation of glass in my mouth. "Did you just place the rectal thermometer in my mouth, darling?"

Stumbling for words, she said, "I don't know what the difference is; besides, I washed it."

The doctor also advised that I be given to eat whatever I felt my stomach could handle, which in my case was soup. For a week, I lay in bed. Each time before soup was made I was awakened by Bebe grumbling, "I hat to cook!" Mostly I just slept.

About a month later the other pain of my accident came along: a hospital bill, an anesthesiologist's bill, X-ray bills, X-ray advisor bills, doctor bills, and God knows what else bills. To all these bills I added the ten dollars I had paid for those black shoes with a smooth surface on the bottom. It all came to about eight thousand dollars.

Paying eight thousand dollars for a pair of shoes is like buying a car. After you pay for the car and insurance on it, you still have to walk, as you have no money left to buy gasoline with.

These days I only wear expensive jogging shoes or high-class tennis shoes. It's like an investment in all-weather tires. They might not look like regulation works shoes but it's hard to slip in them, no matter how rainy or slippery it is outside.

Sure, it's expensive to pay sixty or more dollars for a pair of shoes, but it's cheaper than buying an eight thousand dollar pair of shoes disguised as a ten dollar barbain.