HOMELESS

A lot of people think that walking the same route every day gets boring. NOT SO!!!!!! for me. Every day is different: different weather, different people,and different incidents.

Same thing applies to today, a Sunday. This morning was quiet mostly because there was no commuter traffic whizzing by. Also because the clouds were hanging low and there was no wind or waves. So the scream of a fire truck coming at us down the hill jarred me out of my meditation on the water and waves. Down it came and stopped right in the parking lot of my turn around spot - the "Salmon House."

My mind immediately went to the scuba divers who are always active in that area on the weekends early in the morning - even in the winter. No matter what the temperature or weather. I know there has been at least one drowning there in the past year. From a distance I could see two divers in the water and a few standing around on the beach. "Uh oh," I thought.

More errant mind speculations. In fact someone had called 911 to report a man asleep on a nearby park bench. I could see him curled up facing away from the beach with his parka hood pulled up over his head. Since his bench was on my usual route I guess I could have walked right by him. I'm certainly nosy enough to want to know what was going on. But I detoured around and gave him lots of space. The firemen got out their medical bags and went over to attend to him. The firemen took off his jacket and shirt. He already had a large bandage wrapped around his left arm. It looked like they were giving him some kind of injection and trying to talk to him. By then you could tell he was in serious distress because he was moaning and rocking rapidly back and forth.

I didn't stick around to find out what was really going on. But as I started back in the other direction, the ambulance came up the road. I suppose they were going to take him to Harbor View Medical Center. All around me was the beauty of the morning - the broad expanse of sky and Elliott Bay before us.

I don't know if this kid - he looked like a very young man after they got his clothes off - had spent the entire night on that bench. I don't know if he was homeless. We have a lot of homeless people living in this neighborhood. They are everywhere. They hide in the parks and sleep on the beach. In one of our public elementary schools more than one in ten of the students are homeless. I know that many are not drug addicts or alcoholics but just people down on their luck. There are more than 700,000 homeless people living in America right now. That is almost one in four of us.

So, yes today distinguished itself from all the others. It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow.

PS. I saw "Don" today. See the story below. I hadn't seen him in about two months. He gave me a big smile but clearly had no idea who I was.