"I was going to school, but I wasn't doing very well. I was starting school late in the year and then having to get out of school early to go find work with my parents traveling. We traveled to Minnesota, and all over, Wisconsin and Illinois, Tennessee. I ended up dropping outta school in the 9th grade and I was already behind by two or three years. I went to work where my parents were working out there at the Turkey Farm, in Zealand. From there I just got different jobs, factories, foundries work, I did that here in Muskegon, commercial roofing, flat roofing, schools, and factories.

​

I ended up living in a rooming house over here on Jefferson. This other lady, a friend of mine Wendy also had a room there. She was friends with Gale and Gale was the one that told us about the Lemonade Stand. I don't know if I started coming regularly or not, or if just sometimes I would stop by here. I like the outings where we go out by the lake, or Hoffmaster park or go on a hayride out there on Apple Avenue. So yeah different outings, different people, socializing with different people, meet different friends. There's a lot of people that have been through here, a lot of them have passed away already. A lot of different people went through here, Judie started this 20 years ago. I pitch in to keep the place clean, you know I take out the garbage, if I see the garbage is full, I take it out. I like sitting here and watching tv, I like nature channels, realistic shows are what I like.

​

I have had 3 closed head injuries. You can't tell by looking at me. The first time I had a head injury my cousin hit me in the head with I don't know what, but I was about 4 or 5 years old. It knocked me out, that was the first time I got hit in the head when I was that young. Then when I was 11 they had bought my older brother a bicycle and we would ride it, me and our neighbor Luis. That day I went to take some beer bottles back because there was a dime you got or something for the deposits. So I took them to the bar, when I came back, the kid {Luis} had run alongside me and he couldn't wait to ride the bike. He couldn't wait so just as I was around the corner from where I lived the kid, because he was angry, he pushed me into traffic. I don't know if he knew what was gonna happen, I don't even know what happened but a car hit the bike, and I flew to the corner, where there was a great big truck engine sitting outside the garage by the sidewalk, and I hit my head against it and it knocked me out for 3 days. They didn't know if I was gonna live or die, I remember waking up in the hospital finally, yeah I had a really bad head injury. So yeah I'm very much disabled. My dad's philosophy about my injury was "Oh he's alright, he eats the most tortillas!".

​

2001 I was homeless at the time, I was staying off and on at the rescue mission, there's a guy I knew who had a garage with a wood burner and I had dragged a roll-up bed I had found in an abandoned house, I had dragged it up to the garage and you could fold it up. So it was nice, I loved it there. My only job was to take out the garbage for the guy, that's what he charged me for staying there. So when I was taking out the garbage, somebody thought it was funny to throw something at me, they threw something at me and hit me right in the temple. Boom knocked me right out. I think it was a hardball, they got me right in the temple, I'm surprised they didn't kill me. That was my third closed head injury. That messed up my memory a little bit. Yeah, well eventually I got my memory back like it's supposed to be. You know I didn't get my disability until 2004, I finally got it, I have a physical disability and a mental disability.

​

There's a guy out there in the streets, he's always lived on the streets, as far back as I started going to the mission in 1985. He's been out in the streets, and through the winter, I don't know how he makes it through the winter. But sometimes you find them in a snowbank, the guys that are alcoholics or whatever. If you drink they won't let you in the Mission, that's what was in Judie's mind about the guy who didn't have a place to stay, that he could come here and get a cup of coffee and get warm for a bit, or get food. Judie belonged to the food bank, she got a grant so there was money for food for this place.

 

Judie wanted this place kept clean and kept it open, for the people who really need it. Some people need it more than others is what I mean by that. Some people really need it. Judie got this place for people who need it, she saw it was needed and it's still needed. She was a sweet beautiful lady, and Larry {Judie's Husband}, were some good people. Good people are hard to find, they don't come along very often. Like Gracie, she likes to keep this place clean and everything, and Charles, he works to keep everything clean and organized, but we need more people like that." 

​​​

The above story was put into writing by Pat ApPaul, a Welsh Documentary Photographer based in Michigan USA.