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Updates: September 11, 2011 - I have been able to get a part-time job which is good news, but the rest is just about the same. Thank you for your help Malum Designs
and Pete B.
Since my previous posts have yielded only four donations over the last five months I thought I would try this approach. My financial problems are quite real. If you find my fable entertaining please send a small donation.
- Fortuna vitrea est, tum cum splendet frangitur -

The Grasshopper and the Ant
A Classic retold by Joseph the Beggar King
Part One

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, there were two friends, the Grasshopper and the Ant. Why these two became friends is a bit of a mystery. The Grasshopper was a dreamer and a drifter. The Ant was a believer and an achiever.

In school the Grasshopper would look out the window without thought and only learned the subjects he found interesting. Sometimes he would fall asleep in Math class, other times when a angry teacher would jump him with a pop question he would give the correct answer in way that would confound them.

The Ant was a teachers dream, he soaked up every subject the system taught him, gave the correct answers in the correct way and got straight A s. He would delight his Math teacher by doing compound interest in his head. The Ant believed that what they taught him would help him succeed and was very completive. After graduating High School the Ant got an Academic Scholarship and the Grasshopper got a Pell Grant.

Within four years the Ant got two BS degrees in Business Management and Engineering. The Grasshopper dropped out after the first year. He went to live with the Rainbow Tribe for a few years. On the way to the bus station he found an old fiddle in a trash pile along the road and when he got station he was able to panhandle his bus fare. That was the Grasshoppers first beg.

The Ant took the College like a fish to water. During open Rush some Greeks invite him to be a brother in their Fraternity. He earned his dues by being the Frat Houses Accountant and made beer money by writing term papers. One day while visiting the Tri Deltas he watches the girls play volleyball and is amazed that even though they are playing a vigorous game not one of them breaks a sweat. It is there he meets the girl of his dreams, Polly Fishbane.

While the Grasshopper was living with the Rainbow Tribe he never meets the girl of his dreams, but it does not really matter too much because they believe in Free Love. So free, in fact, that after what you might call the Honeymoon he found himself getting a little bored with it. From the Rainbow Tribe he learns to live off the fat of country and from his new friend, Buffalo with Runs, he learns to live off the land. Buffalo with Runs was an very old Indian that was adopted by the tribe. He taught the Grasshopper what wild plants were safe to eat or use for medicines. He showed him how to set traps and hunt small game. Then, during one winter Gathering four people froze to dead because they were too stoned to come in out of the cold. The Grasshopper became very sad and hopped away.

The Ant is recruited by a Aerospace firm even before he graduated college and goes to work on the Apollo Program. He and his new wife Polly loved the Florida sunshine and settle down to start the American Dream. They decide to have two and half children. Even though the third kid looked a bit odd the Ant loved him as only a father can. With easy money down and mortgage tax deductions compliments of Uncle Sam, they get a house with a two car garage. Next they get two cars and the Rat Race is on. The Ant loves it! Working on the Apollo Program is more than a job, it is being part of history. Polly loves it! Raising their kids and Keeping up of with the Jones. She starts selling Avon products on the side. The Ant buys the best bass boat in the neighborhood, but only uses it once a year because he too busy working. He sets up his retirement funds and a small stock portfolio. Life is Good!

After leaving the Rainbow Tribe the Grasshopper panhandles his way across the country. He sets up in parks and subways where he pretends to play his fiddle while selling jewelry made of deer anthers and beads. The noise he makes with his fiddle sounds like a cat being killed and people give him money just to make him stop. Before the Cops run him off, the Grasshopper usually made enough in one day of begging to cover his needs for the week. When he is hungry he goes to a Soup Kitchen and when he needs clothing there are the Sharing Centers. Every now and then he lets some good hearted woman try to save him. Life is Good and he hops away.

The Apollo Program ends and the new Shuttle program does not start for a couple of years. The Aerospace company were the Ant works at does not win any of the new bids. They offer him a job in California at 20% less of his salary. Polly and the kids are in a rage. Nobody wants to move and leave their friends. The Ant sells his house at a loss because the real estate market in flooded by the laid offs. The one car and the boat are reprocessed. He sells off his stock portfolio for the down payment on the new house in California and even though money is tight the Ant decides to take the family on a short vacation to Key West to uplift their spirits. He finds the Grasshopper selling deer antler jewelry at the Front Street Market. While Polly and the kids go shopping, he and Grasshopper catch up and have a couple of beers. The Ant tells his friend about the laid offs and the move. The Grasshopper asks him - Are you Happy - ? The Ant says - Yes -. His friend says, - Good - . They watch the sunset and see a green flash on the horizon.
To be continue.

Hi, my name is April May Johnson, As I have located this site, I can validate all information that I am submitting here is true honest information, along with my lawyers contact name and info.I am a single mother of my son who is 11 years old for four years now, with a boyfirend I have had for 10 months now who is deployed here in the south for the oil spill serving his time to give us a cleaner gulf and make our waters cleaner and safer. Both of us chrisitans have big hearts and accepted people in our lifes that have done nothing but stole from us and even let there envy tear us apart. My nightmare started the day after my birthday when my sister and my babysitter changed my whole life and took everything from me. I was sleeping upstairs when the law came and arrested me and I was totally oblivious. My babysitter whom was downstairs on my computer messaging my sister, had woke me up crying saying we were going to jail I totally confused just waking up walked downstairs immediately to my open door and walked outside to five guns pointed at me and telling me I was under arrest. I had never been in trouble my entire life, I have and now had a perfect record, and never would hurt anyone, everyone in my community knows me and knows that i would give the shirt off my back. Well 'i was arrested and charged with distribution of drugs and put in jail with a 100000 bond, I still confused after six days of being in local jail had finally gotten bailed out and found out that when my babysitter, which had kept my son the night prior nat my apartment because it was my birthday and me and my boyfriend had rented a suite to have a nice relaxing night for my birthday, had been making drugs and had all this hidden in the attic of my home. Totallu unaware I walked out of my home with five guns half asleep when my 11 year old son watched these cops throw me around on the concrete like a rag doll, scraped my skin all up, and slammed me head first into the ground screaming and fighting these cops to quit hurting his mommy. Totally unaware of what this girl had in my attic I was telling hese cops to search my home I had nothing to hide while they were being cruel and jerking me all around in hang cuffs. It was trultuey the worst day of my life. Helpless and handcuffed, crying, hurting and wanting nothing more than to comfort my confused son, I laid there helpless trying to figure out what was going on. The babysitter soon had came out of my apartment behind me with her hands up stating that there was stuff in my attic and stating also to the cops it was all mine. I was flabbergasted, freaked out, and speechless. I didnt have a ground to stand on.The apartment was in my name and she blamed everything that was in my attic she had been doing the night before the arrest on myself. So hours later I am taking to jail when much to my knowledge I was notified in jail that they released the babysitter, which was a third time felon in drug court, and on parole which i was unaware of. So six days had past and i was stuck in jail crying, in vigorous pain from the freezing cold temperatures and from sleeping on the concrete cause there was no bed in the holding cell i was locked up in with 11 other girls. It was six days later my parents were finally able to bail me out and my father had to put up his week vacation and sale things to be able to do. I came home and was notified that the very next day after my arrest my apartment was broken into and robbed of everything me, my son, and my boyfriend had owned. Down to our clothes, we had lost everything. After a few days things started to surface, i was completely positive that I was clean, had passed the drug test and prayed that God would bring to the surface any proof to prove that I had been set up. Well my parents which are christians had had my son the day prior to me getting out of jail and they had questioned him about what the babysitter was doing while she babysat him the night before the arrest. He simply replied and without knowing that everything that was found in my apartment was in the attic, he had told my parents she was in the attic and when she was questioned by him she simply replied checking it out and told him to get to bed. Thats when things started to slowly make since. My boyfriend the day after my arrest had came to the apartment and had picked up a few things during the day before the aprtment had been robbed that night and had picked up my two laptops and his also. Much to my surprise he had brought them to my parents where i am now living and I signed on to it like normal and went to check my facebook where when I had typed in facebook.com it came up on the babysitters facebook still signed in and we were able to see the email and text messages prior to the day of my arrest when she was babysitting texting friends inviting them to my home and using code talk stating she had some candy and they should chill. I was again speechless. Now due to all this and the chrges I am facing I am looking at 2-5 years if I dont get a lawyer and fight for my future, and with the proof I have i can have justice served, I have been in college three years with one year left, my boyfriend whom is governement in the military has been ordered by his supervisor to stay away till my court dates are over and prove i am innocent cant even help me and my family have and know i am innocent. i have lost custody of my son, and live with him and my parents and my whole life due to this girl is in shambles. After several lawyer consultations, I have been billed 5000 for my lawyer and due to jail time I lost my job. I am in desperate need of financial help to protect my future and the future of my son. i am already in debt to my parents who are both diabetics, and both have high blood pressure for 2600.00 which they didnt have, and now they are hurting for money. I am a very honest hard working person and I have never been in a situation my whole life where I asked for help from anyone. I am not asking for anyone to give me this but I am asking that if you would read this, and again I can prove anything you need, to give me work, help me raise the money to protect my future cause i am truly innocent and without a job i do not have the funds to pay for this lawyer, I would even agree on terms of a loan. God knows I would be more than greatful and assure you that my 11 year old son would be the happiest kid in the world to keep his mother with him where she has always been and loving him like she should be. please help us....We would be more than greatful and God Bless You All