Meet Elmer!

NSP Meditations

Meet Elmer, my new dog, a husky mix almost two years old. I adopted him from the Multnomah County Animal Shelter for $25 on a cold weekday morning in late December. When we first met in a yard, he was indifferent toward me and seemed scared and nervous. He’d been at the shelter for three months and was clearly shell shocked.

He didn’t want to get in my car, but finally, with some assistance by a shelter staffer, we got him inside and I drove him home as we listened to the jazz station.

It was a deeply emotional moment adopting this dog. I had been dogless for almost seven years after putting down my beloved husky Sonny, my boon companion of almost 17 years, during a personal crisis of catastrophic proportions.

I thought I’d never have the desire or wherewithal to have another dog.

That changed.

I showed Elmer around the house and yard. I fed him a meal and he devoured it. We took our first walk around the neighborhood and he pulled a bit on the leash.

He has yet to make his unique howl that all huskies have. It will come in time.

I celebrated my new dog with a good bottle of wine.

In the morning, it was still dark and we walked for several miles. Three hours later, I took him to a fenced dog park and watched him gallop and play with a couple of dogs.

My life will radically change with this dog. I am ready for change. I needed something to smash the stasis I’ve been feeling. Elmer the husky will certainly do that.

After orientation around the home and neighborhood for a couple weeks, I’ll take him to the beach. I am thinking Nestucca Spit in Pacific City, where I rambled with Sonny and Ray and Jo a thousand times. It’s time to reclaim part of who I was then.

Hustling My Stories

NSP Meditations

The main pleasure of my recent literary life is hustling my books to Oregon readers. I’ve always relentlessly gigged, but somehow it feels different these days as I distribute almost exclusively via street libraries and through homeless vendors themselves.

I derive almost no financial gain through my distribution, outside direct sales via the blog and website, (thank you readers if you have supported Nestucca Spit Press in this manner!) but it doesn’t matter; it’s about getting the stories out while I still can. One day, I won’t have the wherewithal to do so.

I have a talent to write, design and produce print publications, enlist other creators to help me in my endeavors and time and energy to distribute my writing across the state in haphazard fashion. There’s nothing quite like stocking the street library in Drain and Elkton and getting thanked for it by someone I’ve never met before.

Many of the publications I produce and distribute are anonymous. Bylines don’t matter to me anymore. It took a long time to figure this out. More writers might enjoy their labor if they got their writing out to the public by any means necessary and not wasting their time trying to hit the big score. In the last two decades of my literary career, I have met so many writers who have languished and suffered or become unbearable because they wanted prestige with their published work, not readership with the potential effect to move, educate or entertain people. Sad.

Next up for 2024? A children’s book about…you guessed it, the homeless in Oregon. My dearly departed husky Sonny makes a star turn in the book. I’ll never let that dog go.

Homeless in the Dunes

NSP Meditations

“So you know where the official homeless camps are in town?” said a woman’s voice at the counter of an animal welfare thrift store in Gold Beach.

It was a dry and balmy Saturday afternoon on the Southern Oregon Coast and I was browsing the store’s selection of VHS tapes.

Gold Beach had official sites for homeless people to camp? Impossible.

I heard the clerk describe three such places.

Three?! Portland doesn’t have one. In this extremely conservative beach town in the extremely conservative Curry County? No way.

I eased around a corner to better eavesdrop. I heard, “Near the hospital” and “Fifth Street” and “airport” and that was it. I then noticed the woman asking about the camps and the man standing next to her. They were Gold Beach residents, or used to be. I recognized them from various local dive bars during my multiple stays over the recent years. He was a Grateful Dead fanatic and she worked as a waitress at the most expensive restaurant in town. Both were in their 50s.

They now exuded the unmistakable vibe of being homeless.

I left the store and walked to my vehicle. Parked next to mine was a red sedan I knew belonged to the couple years ago. I inspected it. Sure enough, they were living out of it, and most likely returning to town and looking for a place to crash.

What had happened to them?

I drove away and to the bookstore. A good friend manages it and I knew she would give me the lowdown on these official camp sites in Gold Beach.

She did, somewhat, but there was confusion. Was there three or five or were they even up and running at all? She also told me a rumor flying around town that some homeless advocate from Gold Beach was driving to Portland and transporting homeless people to Gold Beach because there was money in it from the state. Total bullshit of course. I hear this in every rural Oregon town I visit. They just can’t admit it’s their own people.

I drove around the hospital and didn’t seen anything that looked like a sanctioned site for homeless to camp, such as the one I had seen in Sweet Home. There were no tents anywhere. I did see, however, two or three vehicles that were clearly being used as domiciles.

Next, I drove toward Fifth Street and it looked like a dead end from Highway 101. It was near the high school, public works department, and a sewage treatment plant. The airport was around there, too, but I didn’t see anything so I turned around in a parking lot of a grocery tore and drove to check into my motel. I was exhausted after a six hours of driving and delivering a eulogy.

I checked in, ate a snack, tried watching some football, but felt restless as dusk approached. There was story about Oregon’s homeless nearby and I wanted to find it.

Shoe leather time. I donned my pea coat and headed out to the hospital. On the ground. It’s the only way to investigate a story.

So there I was, on foot, seeking a story about homelessness. I was supposed to be here for recreation and relaxation and not thinking about, interacting with, and writing on the crisis.

Fat chance. It’s everywhere in Oregon.

I walked around the hospital and down a few side roads that narrowed into housing, the willows and woods. Nothing.

An older man in uniform stood out behind the hospital dumping garbage into a dumpster. I walked up to him and saw his ID badge that read, “Housekeeper.”

I introduced myself as a writer working on a book about homeless in Oregon. Did he know anything about the alleged sanctioned homeless encampments in the area?

Yeah, he knew a lot about homelessness in Gold Beach. It was all around him and part of the hospital’s day-to-day operation. We talked for 20 minutes as the light faded. This is what he told me:

Sometimes the church next door lets homeless people camp or park their cars on its property. But they have to leave every morning and can’t leave anything behind. Maybe that’s one of the official sites? Check the dunes near the south end of the airport. I haven’t seen it but that’s what I’ve heard. We have homeless people coming to the emergency room all the time. Usually the same people. They show up or the cops and EMTs bring them. We do what we can and then discharge them after a few days. A couple have died not too long ago right after being discharged. Their bodies were found in the bushes down by the river. Exposure. We don’t have anyone on staff like a social worker to find them housing. There is no housing. There’s someone doing something in the city, I think, but I don’t know anything about that.

I thanked him for the information. It was too dark to walk to the airport so I went back to the motel.

In the morning, I walked to the airport in search of the homeless encampment carrying a cup of coffee.

I found it.

Fifth Street dead ended at the beach. A barricade blocked vehicles from driving on the sand. Someone had spray painted ALOHA on the barricade.

The encampment amounted to five tents pitched at angles in the dunes. It had a million-dollar view of the ocean and it was rolling white, slate and loud on a dry and bright morning when I stood in front of the site. The airport runway was to my back. The high school football field was a hundred yards away.

I saw the remains of a few campfires. Garbage was strewn about. There were no dumpsters or portable toilets. No water. No power. No pallets to pitch tents on. All of these amenities I had seen at the sanctioned site in Sweet Home two years ago. That site is gone now and I have no idea why. I thought it one of the best ideas to address the crisis on an emergency level.

This place was an official site? I surmised the City simply made this piece of public property available with the understanding that the cops wouldn’t hassle the residents and they wouldn’t be squatting on private property. But the City apparently wasn’t going to provide anything more, because, as the conventional wisdom goes, that enables and attracts more homeless people. I really don’t know if that is true or not. I do know if you don’t provide a few basic necessities, there is still homelessness and its squalor is intensified.

No one was stirring in the encampment. I felt a little strange doing so, but I took out my phone and snapped a few photographs.

I wanted to talk to someone but it’s not like you can go up and knock on someone’s tent and introduce yourself as a writer about Oregon’s crisis of homelessness.

Sure, I could have done exactly that, but I didn’t. I wasn’t feeling it. I want my interactions to be spontaneous and not an editorial errand.

What would these residents do when they awakened? Two inches of rain was forecast for the evening. Do homeless people take walks on Oregon’s socialist ocean beaches? Sure they do. I’ve seen it for years. They collect agates, limpets and party in driftwood forts. They run their dogs and play ball and stick with them. They also fish for perch and crab off docks and jetties.

I didn’t stay long. True, it wasn’t much of site, but the Pacific was right there as a neighbor and perhaps a counselor. It seemed much better to me than living under an off ramp to an Interstate Highway in Portland.

A half an hour later, I was walking through the dunes of another beach, Bailey Beach, across the Rogue River. I was killing time before a coffee date with a good friend.

I saw a vehicle parked in the dunes, 20 feet from the beach and approached it: a Ford Bronco 2000s, battered, rusted, duct taped, bald tires, Washington plates, expired tags. A mobile domicile for sure. They all have that look.

Nothing stirred around it. I peered inside the driver side window. The passenger seat was crammed with stuff.

I hit the beach and saw a man playing stick with a dog and assumed they were the inhabitants of the Bronco.

After a 15-minute walk, I returned to my car via a path through the dunes. The Bronco was blocking the way, but I kept heading that direction. The man materialized with his dog. His back was to me. The dog was a pitbull mix and wore a coat. The dog saw me and bolted my way. He didn’t seem angry and I greeted him like an old friend. The man called out to the dog. I met the dog and he was an old softy. Then I met the man near his rig and a woman who was in the back seat. She called out a hello from a half open back door and I caught a glimpse of her wrapped in a blanket.

They were in their 30s/40s and evinced a post meth look. His cheeks were sallow. Her face was riddled with scars. They didn’t seem high at all. They looked totally exhausted.

I asked how it was going. I said I couldn’t imagine how they survived. They said it was hard. I got their story, at least part of it:

The couple had been homeless for about a year and were from the general area. They were broke and the Bronco had run out of gas. Tomorrow, they had an appointment to meet some homeless advocate in Gold Beach who might be able to help them find housing. Was there such housing in Gold Beach? They didn’t know.

I asked if they got into housing were they going to look for work. I don’t know why I asked that—it just popped out because I had seen Help Wanted signs all over Gold Beach. They kind of nodded to that question. I didn’t press. There was no way they could live out of the Bronco and work a minimum wage job. They needed somewhere to clean up, rally and get their bearings.

“My heart breaks for you and others,” I said. It felt weird and corny saying that, but it’s what came out.

“It’s tough,” the man said.

I fished out seven bucks and handed it over to the man.

“Thank you,” he said. The woman thanked me, too.

Then I dug out a $20 and gave it to him. “Get some gas and make the appointment, “I said. “Get something for the dog, too.”

The man thanked me again.

We shook hands. I wished them good luck.

I returned the next morning intending to give them some power bars and dog food. They were gone.

Swept Away

NSP Meditations , , , ,

I was walking the neighborhood on the morning of December 4th when I heard siren after siren and thought nothing more of it than a probable automobile accident on a dangerous stretch of Highway 99 that parallels Westmoreland Park.

That evening, I watched the news on television and learned what the sirens were all about: at approximately 7:30 AM, high water on Johnson Creek in SE Portland swept away a man under the Tacoma Street bridge, the site of a homeless encampment.

Television crews broadcast from the bridge site and interviewed a resident of the encampment, who said the deceased man was his best friend, a tattoo artist, and they’d tried to save him but the current was too wild. It was unclear from the reports whether the missing man resided in the encampment, but he was there nonetheless. I did know he wasn’t a member of the Old Crow Book Club and that fact greatly relieved me.

The man’s body was discovered by a downstream homeowner two days later.

Five days after the death, the weather front that had produced record rainfall had moved east and the morning was dry and bright. By then, I’d read more media reports of the drowning and failed attempts at rescue. The man had yet to be identified to the public, perhaps he never would.

It was time to visit my father at his assisted living center. We would discuss the man’s death and converse about homelessness, one of our main topics of conversation.

I set out on foot. Not far from the house, I decided to detour to the exact site where the sweeping away occurred because I wanted to see it for myself. There was something about this death that really got to me. It seemed so much more awesome a tragedy than an overdose under a highway overpass. As soon as I reached the bridge, a thought overwhelmed me: what an immature writer’s conceit to consider this man’s tragic death something literary. I felt ashamed.

In the moments when I talk to my father about the deaths or imminent deaths of homeless men and women in my neighborhood, he always quotes a line from John Donne, “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind,” and he undoubtedly would again after hearing the terrible news of happened a quarter mile from where he lived.

I stood on the bridge and peered down to the encampment. It looked like a mortar round had scored a direct hit. People still lived there. I saw no makeshift memorial at the creek’s edge but perhaps that would come later after the water level receded. It was still running with fury.

Unsatisfied with the view from above, I took a side street off the bridge for closer inspection. I saw a well-worn path that led straight into the encampment but didn’t take it. It didn’t feel right—at this point in time.

What struck me about the entrance to the path was seeing several neat piles of split firewood. This was grade A Doug fir, seasoned and obviously not harvested from the woods in the area. Someone in the neighborhood was supplying the encampment with the firewood.

I kept walking. Fifty feet from the encampment a newly razed former manufacturing plant on a roughly two-acre lot was being graded and prepped for future construction. A thought materialized: this was a perfect spot for a temporary homeless encampment. It had water and power already on site. It had sewer hookups. It was surrounded by concrete and railroad tracks. There wasn’t a residential dwelling in site. There were already 20 or 30 homeless people living along the creek and in nearby RVs within shouting distance. The neighbor across the street was a public golf course.

If there were any urgency addressing the emergency of homelessness in Portland, this site could host temporary housing for 30-50 people in purchased second-hand trailers and fifth wheels. It would take two weeks to set up. Hire an onsite manager. Establish a residents’ council and draw up some rules. No accumulating shit. One strike and you’re out.

It was so obvious to me as an ad hoc solution.

I saw two men coordinating the grading and surveying of the site. I went up to them and asked what was planned for the space.

“Storage units. We’ll break ground in a month and have them opened by late spring.”

Storage units. Heated no doubt. I walked away knowing that my state probably builds more heated storage units than it erects unheated temporary housing units.

Swept away. Such poetry in that vivid image; it has the force of a folk song commenting on monumental loss. (Think “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” or that song Dylan wrote about a bear mauling people at a picnic.) Someone should write a song for this drowned man, but it wouldn’t be me, Someone should write an elegy for this drowned man, but it wouldn’t be me. I didn’t know what to do with the story.

A day later I walked to my local dive to drink a dark beer and begin writing up the story. Everything was so incomplete with any possible editorial approach, but sometimes you just start and see where it goes.

I ordered my beer at the bar. It was just me and the bartender, Cassie, who had once been homeless herself years ago and lived in an encampment downstream from where the man had been swept away. Cassie and I have discussed the homeless issue many times when business is slow and she knows many of the homeless in the neighborhood because they often come in a for a drink or to play the slot machines. When they do, they also charge their phones, use the restroom, keep to themselves, and try to keep it together. Most do. Cassie and the rest of the bartending staff treat them with incredible patience and compassion.

The joint had a new stout on tap, and as it settled before taking it to my customary table, I asked Cassie if she’d heard about the drowning.

Cassie knew a lot. She’d spent the past two days consoling Kenny, the man who had appeared on television after he witnessed a raging creek sweep his friend away. He shared with Cassie everything he remembered from the incident, but it was still so raw.

Half an hour later, I had heard what Kenny had told Cassie of the death and Sean, the person. It wasn’t the full story, or at least the full story I wanted to know, but it helped fill out the picture of a human being who was gone forever.

At least with this information, news the media will never report, those of you reading this can consider the loss of another person in connection to the homeless crisis and assay how that one loss diminishes us all.

His name was Sean Struckman and he was around 40 years old. He had a young son who lived in the Portland area with his mother, Sean’s ex. Sean was not homeless when he died, but perhaps had been at some points in his life. He lived in an apartment in North Portland but often traveled to Sellwood for days at a time to hang out in the encampment with friends. Sean was a small man and exuded a skater sort of vibe. He admittedly suffered various mental illnesses.

Sean was a tattoo artist and tattooed housed locals and homeless people in the neighborhood in their residences. He was not affiliated with a shop. Cassie had bought some of his tattooing equipment for her daughter when she became interested in tattooing as a possible career. After Sean’s death, Cassie gave Kenny one of Sean’s tattoo guns as a memento of his friend.

Kenny said Sean had thrown a seat cushion into the current before he ended up there. He wasn’t sure why. He thought Sean might have jumped into the creek as a kind of joke or was just horsing around with nature, but he didn’t believe his friend committed suicide. Who really knew? No one would ever know for sure.

What Kenny did know for sure was the last time he saw Sean. The current was ripping and roiling and turned Sean momentarily around. Kenny got one final look at Sean’s face before he went under and it registered a look that he would never forget: I fucked up!

Kenny hadn’t slept since he’d last seen Sean’s face.

As I sat at the bar listening to Cassie tell the story, a stillness overtook me. I wasn’t taking any notes. I didn’t drink my beer.

Cassie concluded the story and I went over to my table and sat down. I drank my beer and pulled out my notebook. I wrote nothing.

I returned the next day to see if Cassie had learned anything more about Sean’s death. I asked if she knew anyone who had one of Sean’s tattoos. She told me Johnny had one. He was right outside!

Cassie retrieved Johnny and introduced me. Johnny rolled up his left sleeve and I saw NATIVE inked on his forearm. Johnny told me it was very recent. He said, “I think I was the last person he tattooed.”

Johnny went to the bar and sat on a stool. I bought him a whiskey. He recounted the night before Sean died. He had been with him near a convenience store. Sean was extremely upset about a breakup with a woman. He had two black eyes. In the morning, he ended up in Johnson Creek at flood stage and lost his life.

I left Johnny and Cassie and went to my table and took a few notes. A few minutes later, Cassie came over with some of Sean’s artwork. She remembered she still had it tucked away in the bar. I didn’t ask the provenance of it.

Cassie placed two pencil drawings of women on a pool table and I took photographs of them. (One is the graphic for this story.) Shadows made for tough picture-taking. Cassie said she could make photocopies for me. I said that was a great plan. I could scan them at home for whatever I was going to do with them. I told her if there was some kind of fundraiser for Sean’s son, I wanted one of the drawings. I was good for a hundred bucks. Cassie said she’d let me know.

On my way home, with the photocopies staring at me from the passenger seat, the idea of what to do with Sean’s story of being swept away hit me and hit me hard.

Oregon Tavern Age: Holiday Party Prepping

NSP Meditations, Oregon Tavern Age

Willie Nelson’s “Frosty the Snowman” plays.

I’m sitting at a table in my local OTA joint with my back to a real Doug fir Christmas tree decked out in lights and decorations.

OTA elves are prepping for the holiday party, which starts in a few minutes. Someone brought two dozen deviled eggs for the potluck. They have a shitload of items for the holiday raffle. I really do need a Crown Royal scarf!

An Andy Williams schmaltz holiday tune plays.

A tasty Oregon porter whets my appetite for dark beer.

Several homeless people hang around outside in 40-degree weather and whipping winds. They are wearing Christmas-themed garments.

That reminds me of something from previous day when I drove past a homeless encampment. Someone displayed at least a dozen tiny live Christmas trees potted in coffee cans around a tent. A few had balls and tinsel in their branches. It really got to me.

A heavy metal version of “Carol of the Bells” plays.

I scored at a Goodwill earlier in the day: a two-CD set of classic and obscure soul Christmas music. Sheer gold! I bet you didn’t know the Ohio Players released a seasonal song. I sure didn’t! It’s called “Happy Holidays” but not the classic one most of us know. You will not believe the sweet gentle groove of this track. Listen to it now! It’s eight minutes long!

More OTA elves enter and start prepping. Shit, I didn’t know elves smoked and drank vodka! Christ, they’re digging into the deviled eggs before the party starts!

My mind returns to a Christmas from eons ago, when the only Christmas card I received was from Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill. That made me laugh. I kept it for decades. You think Mike Johnson sends out Christmas cards?

I saw a dead coyote along a road the other day. Five minutes later, I saw a live one in a field. That juxtaposition seems worth pondering.

Charlie Brown Christmas music plays.

I helped a friend cull his liquor cabinet a few days ago. The weird fruit brandies and liqueurs had to go. The homeless men and women of my neighborhood will at least be drinking better booze this holiday season.

A strange older man walks out wearing a green stocking cap emblazoned with NYQUIL across the top. NYQUIL?

Everyone knows everyone here. I even know a few people. There is family here.

The party is about to begin. Time to leave. I’ll enjoy it in my mind.

Christmas Rakes for the Homeless

Fiction, NSP Meditations

(Readers: I have rewritten this Christmas tale from last year to reflect my heightened interest in writing about the homeless.)

A wealthy nuclear family lived in a large home in the fashionable and historic neighborhood of Sellwood in Portland. It was their first year in their dream house. They’d moved in during the winter so they had missed the onslaught of leaves that fell in the fall.

The woman worked in health care billing. The man worked in high tech. There was a boy, age ten, a girl, age eleven. They were spoiled brats, but not in the classic sense. They were part of the new generation of spoiled brats who didn’t display traditional bratty behavior. Their quietly obnoxious behavior manifested itself in a total refusal to do anything to help around the house or yard. They had no chores, no responsibilities. They were sluggards, snot-nosed sloths. They never ventured outside or goofed around in the park or bicycled past the homeless encampment two blocks away. Indeed, the bicycles hung on the wall in the garage and hadn’t been ridden in years. Did they even remember how to ride?

At one point, years ago, the parents had instructed the kids to take out the trash and dust the furniture, but they did the work poorly and then not at all, and the parents finally gave up. The kids were so indifferent to anything except their digital gadgetry that they forgot to feed their hamsters and the hamsters starved to death. The kids didn’t cry.

The house sat on a double lot. There was a fancy outdoor kitchen, fire pit and home theater. In the yard grew towering maples, oaks and a cherry tree that hosted a half dozen squirrels. In the spring, a million beautiful leaves clung to the trees. In the fall, they dropped on the lawn. Boy, did they drop. The parents couldn’t believe the accumulation. They wondered what to do about it.

Rake the leaves themselves? Or make the kids? Forget it. The kids had never raked leaves in their lives and the parents didn’t own any rakes.

The parents called a half dozen landscape outfits. Sorry, all booked.

No one wanted to rake leaves in Portland anymore. So the leaves spread on the yard like a blanket, then a mattress. The parents watched with mild distress. The kids didn’t notice a damn thing.

Thanksgiving arrived and Grandfather came to dinner. He was an interesting man, and his son was definitely not a chip off the old block. Grandfather lived in an old farmhouse on 40 acres outside of Estacada, roughly 20 miles southeast of Portland. In other words, rural Oregon.

He’d been a high school social studies teacher and football coach at the local junior high for 30 years. He wasn’t all that dynamic a teacher or a successful coach, but he was a kind and decent man and he cared for his students, particularly when Estacada’s timber economy bottomed out and then disappeared forever.

After retiring, he remained in the area and expected to live many more happy years with his wife. Then she came down with cancer, died quickly, and he was alone on the property.

Grandfather then had choices. Drown in grief and hit the sauce. Turn on Fox News and become deranged. Play with firearms. Or continue to engage with the world with positive movement as he had as a husband, parent, teacher, coach and citizen of Estacada. He did, after all, have a son, a daughter in-law and grandchildren, a family to live for and support in some material and emotional fashion. Thus, he chose engagement and didn’t let his mind or body or property go to seed.

Now about his only child. He was a middling athlete and went on to earn a degree in computer science at Oregon State University. He landed a job in Portland writing software his father didn’t really grasp, a job that did absolutely nothing to enrich the world beyond enriching corporations. He was a nice man, kind of feckless, who married a blasé woman he’d met via an algorithm. They brought the aforementioned brats into existence with about as much passion as it took to complete an online form. They bought the dream home in Sellwood and flew to corporate resorts for vacations.

The brats paid a visit to the farmhouse every now and then, but the older they got, the less they went. Grandfather had tried interesting the grand kids in work around the farmhouse, but they were utterly indifferent and fell down a lot. The son hadn’t been like that growing up. He performed all manner of chores around the property, from splitting wood to mowing fields. He liked it, but surely didn’t pass this trait on to his children. They’d never done a lick of manual labor in their lives.

In recent years, the holiday tradition developed that Grandfather visited the family for Thanksgiving and Christmas. He used to host the family at the farmhouse with a real tree and a turkey cooked in the oven, but the kids bitched privately to their parents that Grandfather didn’t have any Wi-Fi and they didn’t want to go there anymore, so now it was games on tablets around the table and a pre-cooked turkey with all the pre-cooked trimmings purchased from a swank market. Oh joy!

Another tradition had developed for the family. Grandfather used to pick out thoughtful gifts for the grand kids, like tool boxes, rain jackets and bicycles, but they were all a bust and the parents suggested Grandfather nix the presents and dispense cold hard cash in a nice card. He agreed and the amount gradually rose over the years until this Christmas it stood at $300 a brat.

Thanksgiving. Grandfather showed up early as he always did and drank a dark beer while watching some NFL team trounce the Lions on television. The grand kids came down to greet him when he showed up, but then quickly raced back up to their rooms to separately watch movies.

The parents toiled in the kitchen. Grandfather stood up from the couch and walked over to the big window that overlooked the yard. He couldn’t believe how high the leaves had piled up. They were practically shin high! It was a lazy homeowner’s disgrace! The grass was going to die!

Grandfather strolled into the kitchen and casually mentioned how good everything looked outside. The son said he needed to get the leaves hauled away but he couldn’t find a service. Grandfather almost suggested the kids rake the leaves, but he held his tongue.

He excused himself and said he was going to take a walk before the feast. He donned his coat, opened the door, and started walking down the sidewalk. He passed the garage and stopped. He turned around, moved forward, opened a gate, walked into the yard, and onto layer cake of leaves. He found a door to the garage and entered. Automatic lights popped on overhead. He surveyed the interior of the garage and could not believe his eyes—not a single yard tool. Not even a broom!

A quiet fury, then disillusion, crept into Grandfather. He left the garage and began pacing the sidewalk. He needed to clear his head and think. There was no way he was giving those brats more cash for Christmas! You had to be a good boy or girl for Santa to deliver the bounty. That was the rule.

Then Grandfather had a Grinch moment like when Grinch heard Whoville singing after he’d ransacked their Christmas. His heart grew and grew. He felt great empathy for his grand kids. They needed help and mentoring. They needed a good country belt lickin’ as well, but that was from another era.

A super great Christmas notion walloped Grandfather! It bowled him over. But it all depended on his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren doing absolutely nothing about the leaves from Thanksgiving until Christmas. Grandfather laughed. It was in the bag!

He returned to the house, ate his meal, and drank a couple more beers while watching the Cowboys game by himself on the couch. The Cowboys, his favorite team, lost on a last second field goal, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Grandfather would brave Black Friday madness in person tomorrow and buy real gifts for his grand kids. The days of gratuitous cash were over.

It was hardly Black Friday madness for Grandfather. He drove seven minutes to the Estacada hardware store, about the last business on Main Street that wasn’t boarded up, walked inside, and said hello to the store’s owner, a man he’d known his entire adult life. He ambled down an aisle, turned right, then left, and there they were! Rakes! Rakes! Rakes! He selected five old school models with wooden handles and metal tines. No plastic for my kin! The brats must hear the soothing sound of metal trilling through grass!

A rake for each member of the family so they could rake together like American families used to do every fall. They came in red, green and black. Hell. It was Christmas so he chose three red and two green. He was paying cash at the counter when he saw the section of dangling work gloves, including some real leather beauties. He thought about throwing them in for the kids, but then changed his mind. Screw it! Let my grand kids get blisters!

The owner of the hardware store inquired: five rakes? You’re only one old man. Grandfather erupted in laughter and shook like a bowl full of jelly. He told the owner to throw in a wheelbarrow, too. No goddamn leaf blowers to blow the leaves to the street for the city to pick up. Leaf blowers were the handiwork of Satan. Leaves would would be raked to the curb or hauled out with the wheelbarrow.

His Black Friday effort took all of ten minutes and kept most of the money in Estacada. Now all he had to do was wait for Christmas and pray it didn’t rain. And pray he did.

Grandfather checked the forecast religiously in the days preceding Christmas. All was looking good. Cold and dry. No rain whatsoever. He laughed. God was on his side!

On Christmas morning, Grandfather loaded his truck with the rakes and wheelbarrow, stuffed his pocket with cash like he always did for emergencies, and drove to Portland. He was in a merry, merry mood, and turned on the oldies radio station and grooved to the cornball holiday hits as he passed fields and forests. The Clackamas River was running with its usual frosty grandeur and Grandfather noticed a couple of fishermen in boats and on the banks casting for salmon. When Oregon men and women stopped fishing on Christmas morning, either sober, stoned, or drunk, then Oregon was dead.

Grandfather was half an hour early so he parked a block away from the Sellwood house and decided to take a walk down to the park to admire the creek and ducks.

On the way there, he walked into a homeless encampment, right across the street from an apartment complex and the park. He was shocked and saddened by what he saw. In Portland? In Oregon? On Christmas morning? These were my fellow citizens. He’d seen a few zonked homeless people wandering around downtown Estacada but no encampments (they were out in the woods). This was something beyond his comprehension. Had something passed him by? Had something passed his beloved state by?

Grandfather counted seven battered RV or fifth wheels, three sagging vehicles, four tents, one tarp and pallet shanty, and an igloo dog house that was serving as a domicile. A dog house!

He noted the inexplicable accumulations of objects. He noticed bicycles and bicycle parts by the dozens. Trash was piled up here and there or strewn around.

Many of the residences displayed Christmas decorations. That walloped Grandfather. It broke his heart, but also bolstered his heart, because decorations meant someone still cared and had energy and spirit. He saw hope in that.

Two older men sat in dining room chairs outside one of the RVs, playing on their phones. The RVs’ name was The Diplomat. A small black dog rested between the men. A small fire in a barbecue crackled. The men sipped malt liquor from cans.

They hailed Grandfather and said hello, Merry Christmas!

If you’ve ever been wished Merry Christmas by a homeless man or woman, it is a strange and wonderful feeling indeed, and it felt strange and wonderful to Grandfather so he wished them right back.

Grandfather stopped in front of the fire. He warmed his hands. He asked how they were doing. They told him, not too bad. It’s Christmas!

They introduced themselves as Larry and Frank, they were brothers. The dog’s name was Milton, after the poet. Larry and Frank had grown up in a house not too far from the encampment. They had a lot of nice Christmases in that house.

And here they were 40-something years later, homeless in their childhood neighborhood.

Grandfather pondered. It made no sense to him. What had happened to these men? He wanted to know, but he didn’t ask. He should have. We must know these things in America.

Larry and Frank offered Grandfather a snort of malt liquor. He declined but thanked them

Some geese flew overhead. They honked. There might have even been a sliver of a Christmas carol in the honking.

Grandfather got an idea, a semi absurd, semi possibly great notion. He pitched the idea to Larry and Frank.

They were in. It was arranged. It was going down in a couple of hours.

No malt liquor on the job, said Grandfather.

No problem, said the brothers.

Grandfather walked for a few more minutes and then knocked on his son’s door. It was high noon. His son and daughter-in-law greeted him and they all wished each other Merry Christmas in perfunctory manner. The brats were still in their pajamas, lounging on the couch, playing with their shiny new gadgets unwrapped earlier that morning. They sort of looked up at Grandfather and said hello and Merry Christmas. All they really cared about was how many smackers were inside the cards they never bothered to read.

The usual routine was to unwrap gifts first and then nibble the stringy ham and soupy scalloped potatoes from Costco. But not this year. Grandfather insisted they eat before he gave his special gift to his darling grandchildren. The brats perked up hearing this: special? More dough?

So the family ate and the adults talked while the kids played a game on their phones that entailed murdering and dismembering thuggish elves and putting a pistol to the head of Santa’s scantily-clad mistress. It was all in good fun, though.

The meal concluded. The brats were losing their minds in anticipation of the money. At last they gathered around the fake tree and Grandfather pulled out the cards from his back pocket. He handed them to the brats and they ripped the cards apart.

NO GREEN! They stared up at Grandfather and their lips trembled. They stared up at their parents. The parents were mystified. Grandfather told them to read the cards. They read the cards and didn’t bother holding back their disappointment. The gifts were in the garage. Go out and get them. What the hell? No cash! The old codger probably bought us a tent or sleeping bag! Forget that! We don’t camp!

Out to the garage the brats sulked and skulked. Grandfather and parents followed. The son had a feeling his father was up to some Christmas mischief like those incidents he pulled when the son was growing up. These pranks always proved memorable.

Grandfather directed the brats to an area where the rakes leaned up against a wall. The wheelbarrow was right beside them. The grandchildren were confused. They’d never seen a rake before and didn’t know what was happening. The son knew what was happening. He right then and there had a casual epiphany that revealed how he and his wife had been terrible parents in the formative years of their children’s lives. He said nothing.

The grand kids remained frozen. Grandfather grabbed the rakes and held them up. These are for raking leaves. He handed the rakes to the grand kids. They held them like they were sticks of dynamite with the fuses lit. They didn’t know what to do, so Grandfather asked for the boy’s rake. He demonstrated proper hand position and expert raking motion, then handed it back to the boy. The grandchildren took up their rakes. Grandfather said they should all go out to the yard. It was time for a job. The son rolled the wheelbarrow out and his wife followed him in silence.

They all went out of the garage and stood in a circle on the mattress of leaves. In fact, a few strays were falling at that very moment, the last ones of the season. Grandfather asked for the girl’s rake. This is how you rake leaves. He demonstrated and raked some leaves into a pile. Once we rake them up into piles, we load them into the wheelbarrow and dump them in the street. The city comes along and picks them up.

The grandchildren looked at him in disbelief. They were ready to bawl. Grandfather told them the rakes and wheelbarrow were their Christmas presents (same for the husband and wife), useful tools for a job that he would pay each grand child $500 to perform, if their performance met his high standards of leaf raking and disposal. He figured the yard would need roughly three hours of raking. The weather was perfect and the offer was only good for this day. Right now. Take it or leave it.

Grandfather asked if they wanted the job. No raking, no money. Simple as that.

They hesitated. They consulted. They argued. Their parents left them alone because they didn’t know what to say.

As this went on, Grandfather pulled out his phone and texted to Larry: it’s on. Come around to the yard.

The grand kids said no. They didn’t feel like raking on Christmas. Their parents said nothing.

Larry, Frank and Milton materialized.

The parents looked puzzled.

Grandfather introduced them as Larry, Frank and Milton. He said they were homeless men, brothers, who lived in the encampment nearby. This was their dog. They had just met and Grandfather had hired them to rake leaves in case the grand kids didn’t want to. A leaf-free lawn was going to be his present to the family and he’d prefer to spend the cash on his relatives, but if they didn’t want it, so be it. This was his backup plan. The damn leaves were getting raked up no matter what.

The wife started to say something, but the son shot her a look and she didn’t say a word. The old man was on roll so let him keep rolling. He was alive and engaged with the world and they were not. The son knew that now.

Nothing from the grand kids. Grandfather told Larry and Frank to pick out a rake and get to work. Larry chose red, Frank chose green. They staked out positions on the yard, and started raking with a strategy in mind. They knew how to rake. They’d raked ten million leaves in their Sellwood childhood.

Brother and sister verged on tears. They conferred. Now they wanted the job! Please! Grandfather told them to get work clothes and sneakers on and get back here in five minutes or no job. They didn’t have any work clothes but they didn’t know that. They sprinted away screaming like Puritans at a witch burning.

The son was smiling, nodding. He didn’t say a word to his father. He did tell his wife he had to make a quick trip to the big box retailer to pick up something he forgot. This being capitalist America, the store would naturally be open on Christmas Day and paying their employees an extra 15 cents an hour.

Five minutes later, the grandchildren were geared up and ready to do battle. Grandfather told them to report to Larry and Frank and receive instructions. He handed them rakes and off they trudged.

Grandfather knew how he would coax these Freddy freeloaders into extra hard work. He grabbed the remaining rake and began dancing with it like it was Ginger Rodgers to his Fred Astaire. Then he held the rake like a tommy gun and blasted the coppers like James Cagney did in White Heat. You’ll never take me alive! yelled Grandfather in his best gangster voice. The kids were dumbstruck by his strange voice. Larry and Frank laughed.

The grand kids quickly got into it. Larry and Frank encouraged them. Milton even pitched in by nosing leaves into small piles.

Grandfather raked as well, off in a far corner of the yard, and ordered his thoughts during the labor. Raking can do that.

Work progressed. The son pulled up in his sedan. He carried two rakes out to the yard and leaned them against a picnic table. His wife gave him a smile. They went inside to change their clothes. The grand kids kept raking. They got a rhythm going. That happens when you rake leaves.

At one point, Grandfather instructed the grand kids to try out a James Cagney-gangster insult on him. He ripped off one, C’mon you filthy geezer, get to work and then it was their turn. They gave it a try and cracked up before finishing. They tried again and pulled it off. It was such glorious fun! Then they riffed on their own. Hey you old fart wizard, fork over the loot. Hey you senile coot in diapers, cough up the cash. Grandfather yukked it up with every new improvisation. Larry and Frank joined in the madness.

The parents showed up in work clothes and they went to work. They raked as a family. They raked with two homeless men and a dog. The piles grew. They implemented Larry and Frank’s unique system of raking and piling of leaves. Every American family used to have a unique system when American families raked leaves together in the fall football afternoons. They don’t anymore.

Two hours elapsed. They had created two enormous piles the size of haystacks. The grand kids stood in front of the piles and glowed with admiration. Then on pure instinct, the boy and girl sprinted toward a pile and dove in headlong and screaming. They tunneled through, stood up, and dove in again. Milton plowed in, barking, frenzied. The dad joined them. Mom was next.

Grandfather watched it all smiling. A few minutes later he called the grand kids over. They were soaked with sweat and panting. While the parents tidied up the piles, Grandfather peeled off five Ben Franklins for each kid. They rubbed and kissed the dollars with delight like Tiny Tim might have done with a toy, had he ever received one.

He next paid Larry and Frank 500 clams each. Milton got a $50.

Grandfather said he was starving. How about some leftovers outside? The mom thought it a grand idea.

Larry and Frank shook hands with Grandfather, waved to everyone, and started walking away with Milton.

The kids wouldn’t stand for it. They asked their father if Larry and Frank could stay for leftovers. Especially Milton!

Dad said yes, of course, and went inside with his wife to whip the meal together.

Larry, Frank, Grandfather and his grand kids sat at a picnic table.

Grandfather asked the brothers if they would share their story of how they became homeless.

Once the meal was set out on the table, they did.

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