The phone rang. I was putting away a special bag of groceries intended for a Thanksgiving feast for me and Elmer that included cooking a turkey in a burn barrel, a recipe/process I learned from a homeless man in Oregon City. It would be the first turkey I’d ever cooked!

I didn’t recognized the number but spam wasn’t indicated so I answered. Why not? Maybe some Hollywood agent visiting Oregon had discovered one of my books in a street library and wanted to make a movie or streaming show out of it.

“Hello, it’s Matt,” I said.

“It’s Mark,” said the caller.

I instantly recognized the voice.

MARK FROM THE OLD CROW BOOK CLUB! MARK MY GREAT FRIEND. A FORMER HOMELESS MAN IN PORTLAND NOW LIVING IN A SAFE REST VILLAGE! IT TOOK A VILLAGE TO GET HIM OFF THE STREETS BUT WE DID IT! AND MARK HELPED MAKE IT HAPPEN BECAUSE HE SHOWED UP WHEN WE NEEDED HIM TO SHOW UP!

I might also add that Mark is the best and most discerning reader of my writing that I have ever encountered and we had met because I’s seen him sitting on a sidewalk and reading one of my books discovered in a Portland street library. There’s got to be a word for that kind of cosmic convergence.

In due course Mark informed me:

He had borrowed a phone from a friend to call me. He was moving out of a Safe Rest Village and into an apartment somewhere in outer southeast Portland. At last a place of his own where he could invite friends over. He was unsure as of yet if he had to immediately find employment to help cover his subsidized rent. But he was up for work, perhaps. He was also applying for SSI benefits because of the double heart attack he suffered two years ago that necessitated a hospital stay and then the hospital paid for a taxi to dump him right back on the streets where he’d suffered the heart attacks. He hadn’t seen any of the book club members for months. They were all in the wind.

I was on the verge of crying at Mark’s good news and realized I was practically yelling into the phone because I was so fired up.

But…

then…

Mark steered the direction of the conversation to my new book, Gift of the Oregon Magi. A friend in Portland had bought him a copy and slipped it into his backpack resting in front of the grocery store where he sells the weekly newspaper advocating for the homeless. He had gone inside to take a piss.

Mark had apparently read the book in one sitting, which is a lot more than I can say for some family members and close friends. He started telling me his favorite tales and that several of them should be made into movies or streaming shows!

I marveled at my friend’s understanding (and dissection) of my stories and what popped out to him.

At one point, I ended the literary discussion and told Mark I would try and launch some kind of effort to help him furnish and appoint his apartment. I couldn’t handle it in person but I would ask people in Portland who knew Mark, who cared about him and the book club, and might want to pitch in and help my friend.

(If you want to make a financial contribution to assist in this unique project, please reach out to me privately through email or by phone. It’s a damn good cause to support this holiday season.)

If you enjoyed reading this story, please consider purchasing a copy Gift of the Oregon Magi this holiday season and support an Oregon author and independent publisher.

The book can be purchased directly from Nestucca Spit Press at www.nestuccaspitpress.com or via Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FR4TDMFR

When I served as caretaker to the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge from 1998 to 2008, I established a Christmas tradition of taking the dogs to a recently replanted clearcut on a federal forest, digging up a Doug fir, potting it, and having it become a live tree in my home. Once Christmas was over, I replanted Oregon’s state tree on the refuge. I visited the refuge last February for the first time since I left, 17 years ago, and a couple of those rescued trees are pushing 80-feet tall! What a marvel it was to see my old friends and know that I’d rescued them from a clearcut in the coming decades.

I got away from that tradition after I left the refuge, but I renewed it the other morning by digging up a four-foot Doug fir from a recently replanted Coos County forest clearcut along Seven Devil’s Road.

In other words, a homeless tree (because a future clearcut in the life of a tree is no home at all) will find long-lasting life in my back yard. Right now, I am looking at it all lit up, smelling wonderful, potted in a bucket I discovered on a Coos Bay beach on one of my morning walks with Elmer.

This is no Charlie Brown Christmas tree. That tree was dead. Yes, they are similarly bent, but give this tree time, and it will straighten up, and live as long as this house lives. It is no longer homeless.

Please consider supporting an Oregon independent publisher this holiday season by purchasing Gift of the Oregon Magi.

The book can be purchased directly from Nestucca Spit Press at www.nestuccaspitpress.com or via Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FR4TDMFR

I’m sitting in front of a burn barrel on Thanksgiving morning writing on my Alphasmart word processor with a crackling fire comprised of driftwood gathered from Oregon’s socialist ocean beaches and half a bag of charcoal. Inside the burn barrel rests a turkey, the first one I will have ever attempted to cook. Why try inside a burn barrel where you can’t control the temperature? A homeless man in Oregon City told me he cooked his turkeys this way, at least since he’d become homeless. So yeah, a writer’s conceit, but why not? Sometimes doing something for a story works out. If the bird fails, and I’m not sanguine about its chances, then the crows will feast on the front yard.

I wrapped the stuffed and sauteed (butter, sage and Calvados!) turkey in roasting pans and set the contraption on a raised grill rigged up via cinder block at the bottom of the burn barrel. I had cut off the hinged lid of my conventional charcoal barbecue to cover the burn barrel. Ingenious or half ass? There is such a thing as both at the same time.

The idea is to cook the bird for three hours (that’s what my step father told me, although he was referring to a conventional oven at 350 degrees. The other idea is that I will sit here, tend the fire, drink wine and write for three hours, and get a 10,000-word novella out of the experience.

Elmer is snoozed out after two long walks earlier this morning, including one at Bastendorff Beach where I met a nice family of Christians and their dogs from Medford who were RV camping for the holidays and staging a feast for 34 people. I admire that. They are making community and not sitting on their asses watching football, although I’m sure they can watch in their RVs.

I’m drinking red wine. Hey, it’s a holiday. This is my first Thanksgiving without my father.

My morning began with a brief conservation with a young homeless woman who lives with two small dogs out of her sedan in the neighborhood. She was outside her rig and I asked if she wanted some dog food that made Elmer allergic. She said yes and thanked me. I’ll drop it by later, and maybe a leftover Thanksgiving meal if the turkey succeeds.

I need to check the turkey, but not sure how because of the intense heat. It’s been a little over 30 minutes since the cooking began.

I made my mom’s cornbread stuffing recipe yesterday in the crock pot she gave me when I moved out 40 years ago. It still works. I’ve mastered how to cook with it. I nailed the stuffing. So at least there is that and some mashed potatoes.

I’ve got to check the bird. I glove up and remove the lid. The smell smells right. But the heat! This is way hotter than 350 degrees. I stare.

The roasting pans are split, and partially melted. I pry open the pans with a barbecue fork. The bird is completely burned black all the way around! All the saute fixins have evaporated, so have the vegetables!

Elmer comes over to sniff.

The crows will thank me!

But wait. What’s under the crispy black interior? Did anything survive?

I spear the bird with considerable might and it splits open. STEAMING, BUBBLING SUCCULENCE! I tear off a hunk and nearly burn my hands. I break the hunk in half and feed myself and Elmer.

Delicious. Not dry. Not wet. Perfect!

I have crozzled (it’s an ancient Cormac McCarthy verb from The Road) a Thanksgiving turkey. It’s a blackened Calvados Thanksgiving turkey! A fancy Portland restaurant would charge $59.99 a plate.

It took 37 minutes for the bird to cook, if cook is the word.

I spear the turkey and bring it inside. Elmer and I will be eating Thanksgiving breakfast at 10:49 am. The Lions game is on. I feel great.

And the homeless woman will get a big plate in several hours. (Which actually happened.)

November sunshine lit up the boat ramp on a weekday morning and turned Coos Bay the color of soft purple. Elmer and I had frolicked on the beach and my mind was set right to begin the day.

We ascended to the parking lot and I saw a 30-40-year-old Malibu sedan chipped, scratched and dented with almost artistic intent. Clearly, a mobile domicile for a homeless person. I see two or three new ones every morning at the boat ramp. Who are these people? Where did they come from? Where are they going? How do they keep their rigs running?

The vehicle was parked with a drive-in movie view of Coos Bay. The window was down and the driver’s profile revealed a man, with chiseled, almost gaunt features.

The man turned to me. Elmer and I were ten feet away.

“That’s a great looking dog,” he said.

“He’s a good dude,” I said.

I noticed the man’s face. Age? Indeterminate. No teeth. Meth scars. Great smile.

We went up to the window. I briefly shared the story of Elmer’s adoption from an animal shelter almost two years ago and how this dog had revolutionized my spirit and fitness and helped me fight off extreme depression in the aftermath of my father’s death.

The man rolled up his left shirt sleeve and revealed a massive tattoo of a Siberian husky on his upper arm.

“He was my best friend,” he said.

A thunderbolt struck me and I almost started crying but shifted instantly into teacher mode. (There’s still a little residue left inside me.)

“Get another husky,” I said. “The shelters are full of them. People got them as puppies in the Pandemic and then dumped them.”

I was conscious of raising my voice. I was practically preaching and I am a preacher’s kid!

You know what? Preaching to a homeless man about the virtues of adopting a husky felt damn good.

“Maybe I should,” he said.

I ripped off the name of three animal shelters within 90 miles.

“It will change your life,” I said.

We spent the next five minutes discussing the merits of huskies and the challenges of owning this energetic breed. They make you get off your ass and move. Maybe that’s what this homeless man needed. You care for a dog and maybe you can start caring for yourself. I’ve seen it dozens of times with homeless people.

It was time to leave.

“Go for it man,” I said. It was said as an exhortation, quite possibly a command.

I don’t know where it led. I’ll never know. I must trust the magic of huskies that it can help this homeless man.

(If you enjoyed reading this pieceplease consider purchasing a copyof Gift of the Oregon Magi, this holiday season and support an Oregon author and independent publisher.)

The book can be purchased directly from Nestucca Spit Press at www.nestuccaspitpress.com or via Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FR4TDMFR