Mr. Green On Christmas

December 25, 2007

Mr. Green changes home, keeps routine
By Will Higgins
will.higgins@indystar.com
December 25, 2007

Thelmon Green, the elderly man who last Christmas was at the center of an outpouring of compassion as well as a firestorm of controversy, relaxes in his studio apartment and declares: "My life is just fine, by George. But I was enjoying it over there, too."
"Over there" refers to the parking lot at Big Red Discount Towing, at 38th and Keystone, where Green lived in a decrepit Chevy van. He'd lived there seven years, penniless but surviving -- enjoying life, even -- through the generosity of friends and acquaintances, who'd give him food and walking around money. Joe "Red" Long, Big Red's proprietor, let Green use the shop's bathroom.
A story about Green published in The Indianapolis Star the day after Christmas brought change to Green's spartan existence: Concerned citizens heaped canned goods on him; the Marion County Health Department ordered him to move; friends helped him secure Social Security and a military pension that he'd let slide but were rightly his.
Green became a celebrity of sorts. "People who didn't know who I was found out who I was," Green says. "That was nice."
A year later, Green has traded the van for a nearby studio apartment, at 39th and Sherman Drive.
His apartment has a small kitchen with a stove, but Green mostly cooks on the old hot plate he used in the van. His staple: canned pork and beans.
Like always, Green chews on (but never lights) cheap cigars, about five a day, Swisher Sweets.
He has neither a telephone nor a TV. He listens to the radio, the same one he had in the van.
Green's apartment is not particularly tidy, but the place is livable and relatively free of the massive clutter that made his van the tightest of cocoons.
Furniture-wise, he started out with one folding lawn chair but now has two tables, three chairs, including a dilapidated lounger, and a bed.
At 94, Green still starts each day with a four-mile walk. "I keep walking so I can stay out of a (nursing) home," he says, "and my legs is still strong."
Most days he stops by Big Red Discount Towing to shoot the breeze with the folks gathered.
They mull the events of the day. Green was buoyed by the Red Sox's World Series victory ("Always liked Boston"); perplexed by Michael Vick's dog-fighting ("That's brutality. I've seen it. How could a man get his mind on that stuff?"); and outraged over the war in Iraq ("Ain't nobody benefiting from that").
Green carries a seven-iron with him to keep away stray dogs. He often encounters them, Green says, as he fishes in Fall Creek, mostly around the bridges at Capitol Avenue and Meridian Street.
"In nice weather, Mr. Green goes fishing a lot," says Yeozenith Eaton, who lives in an apartment above Green's. "He'd come back with, like, bluegills and crappies and give them to folks. That guy's the happiest guy."
Green continues to be intensely frugal. The only thing he has purchased in the past year, other than pork and beans and the odd meal at Long John Silver's, is a pair of insulated boots.
He still dresses in multiple layers, and the effect is not elegant.
And instead of buying bait, Green waits for rain, then beats the robins to the night crawlers.