I gots ta know.

Homeless with Clint

I was watching the Redskins kick the Eagles ass 30-14 when the first half ended. The date was September 17, 1989, and I was watching from a beachfront condo on the north shore of St. Croix.

Shortly after the ‘Skins kicked off to start the second half, the TV kicked off. I wouldn’t find out the Eagles rallied to win 42-37 until three weeks later.

Hurricane Hugo knocked out the power and turned my place into a movie set – no roof or exterior walls. Before the storm him, I placed some clothes in a walk-in closet – along with my bike, a small TV, a VCR, and one old VCR tape. If you recorded at the slowest speed in those days, you could fit three movies on one tape.

There was no power or water on most parts of the island for months, and this was before the invention of cellphones. So, basically, we were out of touch with the outside world – and I was homeless.

Three weeks later power was restored to the town of Christiansted so I moved into the Daily News office. I started sleeping on the floor until Donald – a down-islander from St. Kitts and our circulation manager – came in early two mornings later and saw me. By that evening I had a cot, two pillows, and a blanket.

Thanks a million, Donald.

And there’s more good news. With power restored in town – while most of the island was still without – the newspaper office had air-conditioning, a shower with hot water, a refrigerator to keep beer cold, and electricity to run the TV and VCR.

And the three movies on the tape were Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, and The Enforcer. So for quite some time I was homeless with Clint – watching Dirty Harry movies in air-conditioned comfort, drinking cold beer, and asking myself, “How do the poor people live?”

IMDB describe the movies like so:

Dirty Harry – “When a madman calling himself “the Scorpio Killer” menaces the city, tough-as-nails San Francisco Police Inspector ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan is assigned to track down and ferret out the crazed psychopath.”

Magnum Force – “San Francisco Inspector ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan is on the trail of vigilante Police Officers who are not above going beyond the law to kill the city’s undesirables.”

The Enforcer – “San Francisco Inspector ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan must foil a terrorist organization made up of disgruntled Vietnam veterans. But this time, he’s teamed with female partner Inspector Kate Moore, with whom he’s not too excited to be working.”

And here’s the classic “I gots ta have it” scene from Dirty Harry.

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Warner Books published Born to Be Wild in 1992 & it still sells every day at Amazon & Kindle. True story about certain members of the Warlocks motorcycle gang.

The story takes 21 years to play out – with many twists & turns – an amalgam of Sons of Anarchy & Breaking Bad – but these outlaw bikers make the Sons look like Cub Scouts.