It was a mild, overcast weekday morning. Elmer the husky and I were on a walk along the Milwaukie Bay trail that led to Elk Rock Island, adjacent to the Willamette River.

In the distance, coming toward us, I saw a man wearing a frame pack, fully loaded, with a pit bull off leash bounding around him. Oh great! The damn beast will probably come over and drive Elmer insane. There goes my back again.

The man came into closer view. He was in 60s/70s and exuded an unmistakable vibe of homelessness and of course, pit bulls are the overwhelming choice of dog for homeless people.

The man saw us walking his direction. He called to his dog and leashed him up. A citizen!

We met. I said hello and he said hello in return. We stopped. I asked how his day was going. He told me fine and that he just camped overnight on Elk Rock Island (no camping allowed there) because it was his dog’s birthday and the dog loved camping out. So he hiked to the island with his dog to give him a special birthday present.

I was instantly dumbfounded, but then not. I remembered one of my favorite lines by my favorite American author, Jim Harrison: “There is something about doing a favor for a dog that calm’s a person down.”

There might not be a truer line in American literature and it doesn’t matter if the dog’s owner is homeless or not.

We said our goodbyes. A few yards later I turned around and saw the man unleash his best friend and they continued on to wherever they were living outdoors, but not camping out like one camps out in the woods, near a river, for recreation and for many, spirituality, but a different kind of modern American camping, for survival or escape or something I still can’t figure out.

But at least for one night, for the man and his dog on Elk Rock Island, there was a return to the gritty and ethereal camping we all associate with the word.

A man sitting at a picnic table inside the dog park waved to me as I entered with Elmer. He was a regular with a rescue husky like mine. We’d talked on several occasions but hadn’t shared names although we both knew the other’s dog’s name. Dog parks are like that.

I put him in his mid sixties and remembered he walked with a slight limp.

The huskies converged and started running around and playing. A couple of other dogs joined to party and I headed toward the man to say hello because it seemed like the cordial thing to do.

I said hello and he stood up and began walking toward the melee of dogs. I joined him.

He’s always filming the dogs in the park with his phone. He must have thousands of minutes of footage.

The songbirds were out and I heard a woodpecker and sounds of construction in the distance.

We began talking about our dogs and then there was a pause and I asked him what he did for a living. He told me he worked at driving a forklift, loading and unloading pallets of milk. He’d had the same job for 38 year in the same warehouse not far from the park.

I said I marveled at his longevity and that was no condescension. I truly did. There is no way I could have ever worked the same job for 38 years in a row.

He said he was about ready to retire and had a good pension and Social Security pending. He was set in his retirement, a comfortable middle class existence that simply won’t be possible for the next generation of forklift drivers. Of course all forklift drivers might be replaced by robots but I think not.

I asked the man what he planned to do in retirement. He said he was moving out of Oregon. There was a hint of disgust in his face when he said Oregon and I instantly caught his drift. The state was too Blue, too damn liberal. He was a Trumpian and wanted to live among other Trumpians.

He told me he was looking to move to South Carolina or Tennessee, buy some land, get more huskies.

Imagine living your whole life in a progressive place like Portland, Oregon and then moving to those backward states with their insane and racist legislators and members of Congress. But it happens all the time these days, as does the reverse of people moving out of states like Florida because they can’t stand the reactionary MAGA politics. (I met such a man at this dog park a few days ago.)

The man didn’t elaborate and I didn’t probe. No one has uttered a work of politics in this park in my two months of visits and I think that is a good thing. There is no middle ground left in America.

Except for dogs.

Dogs flew around us and made us laugh. The man asked me what I did for a living. I told him I was a retired English teacher.

He lit up when I said that and said he loved to read, fiction, biographies, anything, he owned hundreds of books.

We discussed books for a minute and I mentioned my love of finding gold in street libraries. He said he’s never looked in one but would have to give it a try.

The man then launched into the story of his favorite high school teacher, a Mrs. Bleeker or something like that. She had taught him freshman English and he really discovered a love of reading from her.

I wondered if any of my former students are in a dog park talking about how they discovered a joy of writing from me. It seemed unlikely.

We talked some more about books and then he had to leave.

I wondered if he would like reading The Old Crow Book Club.

My lower back twinged with pain. I’d tweaked earlier in the morning doing household chores. Still, I knew I had to get Elmer the maniacal husky out for his second walk or he would be totally nuts for the rest of the day.

We were walking along a trail in a forested park that was strictly a dogs-on-leash area; an off leash park was a quarter mile away.

Since adopting Elmer three months ago, I regularly visit this on-leash park and regularly encounter dogs running wild and occasionally harassing me and Elmer on our strolls. Elmer is almost impossible to control when one of these off leash dogs approaches us. I had yet to say anything to the owners of these dogs, typically because they were nowhere to be seen or to far away for conversation.

One man in particular had vexed me. His two dogs are the worst offenders and they’ve harassed us a half dozen times. The man, who I have only seen from a distance and never his face, makes no attempt to restrain his brown mutts.

Elmer was tugging a bit on the leash, and ever pull sent a spasm through my back. But I knew the best way to lick the pain was to keep moving.

I looked to my right and I saw one of the brown mutts racing toward us. Elmer saw him and lunged so hard he nearly toppled me over.

The pain was searing. I got Elmer under control and here came the other mutt. More Elmer jumping up and down. More pain.

Their owner appeared. He was older, bundled in grimy layers and exuded an unmistakable vibe of being homeless.

Homeless people walk their dogs in parks all the time, so this wasn’t anything unusual.

“Hey man,” I called out to him. “You need to leash your dogs! I tweaked my back today and my husky pulling is killing me. Be a citizen!”

Be a citizen! I had no idea where that came from but I said it vigorously nonetheless and the man heard me.

“I’m trying,” he said softly. I saw him say it but he wasn’t trying very hard.

His dogs darted away and Elmer calmed down a bit.

I turned toward the man and called out. “Practice some citizenship!”

He said nothing.

I stewed all the way back to the parking lot. I had absolutely no regrets about demanding to his face a homeless man practice citizenship. If more of them did, more of the public could establish rapprochement with them and perhaps solve problems and build more community.

In other words, citizens don’t run a loud generator all night in their RVs parked in front of someone’s home (happens all the time); citizens throw their garbage away where it’s supposed to be thrown away; citizens bury their mounds; citizens don’t zig zag their bicycles in the middle of traffic; and so forth and so on.

You can be homeless and still be a citizen. Mark and members of the Old Crow Book Club taught me that. Several even vote!

Back in the parking lot, I saw a battered 40-year old Toyota Land Cruiser. No license plates on front. Expired tags on back. I checked out its interior. Front seat—domicile. Rest of the rig—glorified dog bed where all three of them probably slept every night.

At least they had each other and took care of one another. And the homeless man got his dogs out in a park where they are totally out of control and disturbing people.

Such are the juxtapositions and contradictions in my encounters with the homeless. They are probably not all that different from people living in homes.