I realize most of you are quite tired of seeing this pic, but I feel I have to post it again for Downtowners who are new to my blog. Jumper Cable Guy (pictured at left) is back on the streets of Downtown. You can click the pic to see a larger image of him.
Jumper Cable Guy will approach you and tell you that his truck broke down and he needs 7 dollars and some odd amount of change to buy jumper cables. He’ll tell you that he’s a veteran and a former teacher. If you have jumper cables, he’ll tell you he has a heavy-duty truck and needs bigger cables than the ones you have, and again ask for money.
The thing is, JCG’s truck breaks down many, many times a day. It seems to break down around Main and Union a lot, and also around the Civil Rights Museum, and lately he’s been seen a lot in Midtown.
This is probably his fifth time to have his pic posted on my blog. He knows he’s on here too. Last spring he came up to me on the street and introduced himself. “Hey Paul. I’m Jumper Cable Guy. I just wanted to apologize, man. Yeah, I’ve been out here scamming people. I’m a former teacher and I needed money and got desperate. But I ain’t going to do it no more.” Yet stories continued to come in to the Handling-Panhandling forum of him approaching Downtowners and Midtowners with the same old song and dance.
Yesterday I was out taking my “what’s the Fire Sale” walk, headed north on Second when H-P co-moderator Mike King pulled over in his car. “You’re about to run into Jumper Cable Guy,” he told me. Sure enough, I saw him on the Main Street Mall talking to three tourists. I followed behind them until the group got to Main and Beale. At that point JCG turned around, saw me, hastily bid his guests goodbye, and headed south on Main.
I called Mike. “You still out in your car? JCG is headed south.” Mike caught up with him and followed him to an apartment building on Abel Street. Abel is a little street in the South of Forum area that runs parallel to Third. It’s the section of Downtown that hasn’t been redeveloped yet, and there are several slummy apartment buildings and rooming houses on it and the next street over, Allen. We frequently see panhandlers heading toward these two streets after they’ve collected money. Two residences on Abel were busted by Blue Crush in 2007 as crack houses. I’m not implying JCG was headed there to buy drugs – he may legitimately live there – but Abel is a very common destination for our top panhandlers, for whatever reason.
Jumper Cable Guy has been wearing a navy blue jacket with a light blue V-shaped stripe on the back lately, and a light colored cap. He looks like he’s lost a little weight since the pic shown here was taken of him last spring. If you see him on the streets, yell out, “HEY, JUMPER CABLE GUY!” to him, especially if he’s talking to passersby. Let’s let him know his actions have seen the light of day.