THE TWILIGHT PEOPLE

They were odd. They were loners. Often, even in the old days, it wasn't always clear where they came from. Sometimes, they were someone's "attic uncle". But, sometimes they were drifters who came one day and stayed the rest of their lives. Often, they had conditions that would be considered, "mental" today, or maybe they weren't very bright. The never seemed to be married or have kids, or if they had families at one time, they didn't seem to any more. If they had parents, they often lived with their elderly mothers. But often they seemed to have no family at all.

In the small town where I grew up they were much more visible than they are in the urban scene I work in today. When everybody knows every one else it is not so hard to spot them. In those days they had homes of a sort, some time shacks or tiny apartment or a single room tacked on to another building. They usually had jobs of some sort.

Earlier in my life, in the small town environment, I knew them because they often did farm work and I lived on a farm. My dad was gregarious and usually knew them and hired them. It was in those days that I learned to look for them and to see them.

I see them still because I know to look for them and I know who they are. You tend to see them around the edges of l situations half hidden in day light, but they tend to come into full view only when the light is dim. They seem to cultivate invisibility. Only in the twilight hours do they ever become completely visible and even then you had to look to see them.

Today, we would describe them as marginal and they often become homeless. There is very little tolerance for them in regular society where they are misfits. I never understood them as a child. I'm not sure I understand them now.

But they are still there, I still see them. I call them the "twilight people".