October 02, 1993

YOU CAN'T STAY HERE

There wasn't many places to camp out in the Jacksonville Beach, FL area. I had hoped to find a minister to see if there could be a way for me to maybe camp out around a church for the night. There were not very many parsonages near the churches in the area except for some Catholic churches. I pulled into the parking lot of one Catholic churches because I saw some activity at the fellowship hall.

The hall was actually a school. I was able to talk to somebody to see if they knew where the priest was because there didn't seem to be anybody at the rectory. I was told by the guy that I talked to that the priest had gone to some hospitals for visitation but he should be back to the rectory before dark. Before the guy went back into the school, he slipped me fifteen dollars. This was really great and I thanked him a lot.

I walked the bike back to the rectory to wait. It got darker and darker but no priest showed up. All the people who was at the school had left. Around nine in the evening a car pulled into the parking lot. Instead of the priest, it was an old couple who had come to lock up the gates.

The guy was pretty upset that I was there. I tried to explain to him and say that all I wanted to do was to wait and talk to the priest to see if I could camp out on the grounds. He really didn't want to hear anything and all he wanted me to do was to leave the church grounds. The lady with him was a lot friendlier. She got out of her purse twenty dollars. I didn't really want to take it but she insisted that I did.

It was really dark when I got out on the road around 9:30 p.m. I walked down the road about a mile and found a place to camp out in a open area that I thought was a park behind a large bush. I just hope to get a good night's rest tonight.