Word: vent
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There are plenty of bums in Cambridge. Don't call them transients, vagrants, victims. They're bums. Who smell bad. Who don't work. Who talk dirty. Who sleep on vents throughout the city at night when it's fifteen degrees or colder while passersby proffer money and pity and wonder what it's like to be one of them. A bum in Cambridge. To huddle on a heat vent...
...January 2, my roommate and I were "verbally abused" by a street person as we tried to enter Leverett House, our home. He did not shout from the vent across the street where he had sought shelter for the night; he was standing next to us, close enough to reach out and strike us. At that moment, I believed he was going to physically assault us. We were incredibly frightened and half-ran to our entryway. The next day we reported the incident to the Masters of Leverett and the Senior Tutor...
There is usually one particular street person on the vent outside the dining hall--he is "our" bum. He is harmless and rather pleasant, since usually he seems drunk. However, sometimes there are up to five homeless men on the vents. These men are there when we pass by them as we go to lunch in the afternoon, and they are there--sometimes rowdy and fighting among themselves--when we come home late at night from the library or from a party...
Many in Leverett House want to restrict the use of our vents to "our" bum. This is to me a disgusting thought. Leverett students should not be interested in finding an unfortunate human being to patronize as their pet. This man is not our pet; he should be treated to proper care in a proper shelter. "Concerned" students who want him to stay on a hot air vent are misplacing their concern. The Leverett House vents are not--nor were they ever meant to be--proper shelters, and students should not encourage other human beings to live there...
McFarlane countered by becoming more assertive in public, briefing reporters frequently and appearing on Sunday- morning TV interview shows. Beyond promoting his own views, this let him vent some of his frustrations, but it was resented by Shultz...