The Blog

Who is Fritz Dutter?

Hur­ri­cane Hell

 So who is Fred­er­ick “Fritz” Dut­ter? Fritz is a self described alco­holic, Bud­dhist, and chess mas­ter. A 57 y.o. Viet­nam vet, who vol­un­teered at the age of 17, only to return and spent time in a men­tal hos­pi­tal due to PTSD. ” I was real­ly messed up when I got back. I saw a lot of nasty shit when I was over there. I did­n’t know how to han­dle it, how to deal. I need­ed help. After I got out I used to receive dis­abil­i­ty checks from social secu­ri­ty because I had a hard time cop­ing. I real­ly was­n’t func­tion­al! I turned to alco­hol to numb the pain and the mem­o­ries. But then one-day social secu­ri­ty cut me off say­ing I was­n’t dis­abled just an alco­holic. So I end­ed up on the streets. I’ve been here for 30 plus years now. It’s not so bad”

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Fritz’s sto­ry is a famil­iar one.  A Vet­er­an, who has been failed by the sys­tem after he risked his life defend­ing our free­doms.  Vis­it fstoppers.com for an inspir­ing sto­ry on one man’s jour­ney to bring atten­tion to home­less vets.

Bud­dha Pose

I find Fritz to be fun­ny, some­times errat­ic, spir­i­tu­al, and at times tru­ly insight­ful. He has giv­en me the gift of per­spec­tive. He has taught me to appre­ci­ate the sim­ple things in life and not sweat the small stuff. Prob­lems are per­cep­tions of the mind! Sim­ply put, they are cre­at­ed by unmet and some­times unrea­son­able expec­ta­tions. Wise words from a man liv­ing on the streets! I often remind myself, com­pared to his world, what prob­lems do I tru­ly have? But then again who is more at peace. He seems to be unen­cum­bered by the day-to-day stress­es that make up our lives. This is not to say that Fritz is the sec­ond com­ing of Bud­dha. At times he can be inpa­tient, irra­tional, and quick tem­pered. When remind­ed of his Bud­dhist beliefs he sim­ply replies, “Hey, I nev­er claimed to have it all fig­ured out.” I guess hold­ing onto ideals in the real world has chal­lenges for all of us.

Fritz does­n’t real­ly under­stand my world and I’m just begin­ning to under­stand his. Job, mort­gage, respon­si­bil­i­ty and trust are for­eign con­cepts. For the first three months, our semi-week­ly meet­ings start­ed with the same con­ver­sa­tion; “I did­n’t think you were com­ing ” and ” I don’t under­stand why you are doing this. Why do you care?” At times, Fritz has been hard on our friend­ship, test­ing the lim­its of my com­mit­ment. Per­haps it’s eas­i­er to believe that no one can be trust­ed then to trust and be dis­ap­point­ed. But Fritz has trust­ed me enough to open his heart, his mind and his world to me. He has giv­en me instant cred­i­bil­i­ty in the shel­ter less com­mu­ni­ty and for that I am tru­ly thankful.

Com­pas­sion

Fritz spends his morn­ings med­i­tat­ing by the riv­er, then a run to the recy­cling cen­ter, fol­lowed by an after­noon fly­ing his sign at some choice inter­sec­tions look­ing for a hand­out. He’s real­ly quite a show­man when he gets on a cor­ner. He tru­ly knows how to work an audience.

Fritz can be very fun­ny, he makes me laugh. His wit and respons­es at times can be trea­sures. When asked by a police offi­cer if he was home­less, he respond­ed ” No, I’m an outdoorsman!”

Until next time…

” Give freely of your­self to oth­ers for ser­vice is food for the soul”. And I might add you may be sur­prised at what you get in return.

Have you ever befriended a home­less per­son ?  I would love to hear your story.