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From Sourwood Cove Driving south toward Atlanta on a hot August day, I saw a shabby old man standing by the road holding a crumpled brown bag. He crawled into my car surrounded by a pungent odor. He said his name was Thomas Jefferson Madison and that he was trying to find his way to Florida. Mr. Madison was a seasonal worker in the orange groves but he had worked his way up to South Carolina picking peaches. The peach crop had been short, or he had been late getting there. Anyway, he had been laid off shortly after arriving, He could not read and had no idea how to find his way home by hitchhiking since he could not read road signs. Someone had dropped him off between South Carolina and Atlanta and he had no idea where he was. His only hope was to get to a rail yard where he could hop a freight train to Florida. How did he know if he might catch a train to Chicago instead of Florida?, I asked. He said someone would always help him catch the right train. Other than asking how to board the right train, he didn't have to talk to anyone. I asked Mr. Madison if I could buy lunch for him. He accepted but was very uncomfortable going into a Waffle House full of people with frowning eyes. I felt perfectly relaxed, thinking "to hell with those SOBs. They know from nothing." It soon occurred to me that I was stuck with that gentle old man. What was I going to do? I had delivered him right inside the 1-285 beltway of Atlanta where he could never find his way out through that mazeof roads and intersections! I had no choice. Mr. Madison would have to be delivered to the massive railroad yards in south Atlanta, nearly thirty miles from where we were. He assured me that he had been in that yard before and would have no problem finding a train to Florida.
As I dropped him off in the middle of that hyperactive rail road yard, I asked if he could use a little money. He accepted ten dollars only as a loan. He asked for my name and address, which I wrote down. He did not expect charity from anyone, nor did I expect that he would ever pay that debt. In case you were wondering about the brown paper bag, it contained several wieners left over from a package the man had purchased three days before he crawled into my car. It's best never to pick up a drifter unless you wish to adopt or do all you can to send him on his way.
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