I have to admit that I still possess a kind of disdain for homeless street people. And even though I empathize over their plight, I can't often sympathize with the fact that this is their choice...or is it?
Without getting into the societal, political, or moral dilemmas that this situation evokes, I try to understand some sense of it on a strictly personal level. Why are they here? What should I do? And, who are these people? Yesterday, I had a close encounter with one of these unfortunates, very first hand, that made me ask myself those questions.
I manage a restaurant. During lunch, one of my customers pointed out that someone had fallen in the parking lot, right outside the front door. My restaurant shares a parking lot with the mid-town chamber of commerce located right next to a small park area. This grassy area is loaded with large, old shade trees of some sort. It is one of the prime gathering spots for the homeless around here. On any given day, there may be anywhere from one to a dozen people
day camped with their shopping carts, bicycles, and little wagons containing all of their belongings. The local cops do a pretty good job of keeping this spot free of any permanent, overnight dwellings. I assume these transients move on late in the day to some more acceptable or clandestine havens for sleeping.
The majority of these homeless folks are relatively young men and women. Many of them appear to be well groomed and well fed. While others are a bit older, disheveled, unkempt, drawn, and dirty. There is also a contingent of people who wander around talking to themselves, ranting and raving about this and that...about God, the Bible, and the end of the world. These are the ones that make you feel uneasy about their presence, especially when they turn their grungy-faced scowls and comments in your direction. It is unsettling to say the least. For the most part, the majority keep to themselves. They are quiet in their do-nothing world. Fiddling with their carts and possessions, arranging a blanket for mid-day naps, reading a newspaper, chatting with a nearby peer on another old blanket or sleeping bag.
Howard Wood ambles through the restaurant parking lot from time to time. His gate is slow, head facing down toward the half full shopping cart containing a backpack, a blanket, and a small, black kitten tied to a rope. There is a gallon-sized plastic water bottle in the child seat of the cart. He walks by every day, only stopping to check for cigarette butts in the large, sand-filled receptacle just outside our front door. Howard gathers a few acceptable, half-smoked cigarettes, places them in his shirt pocket...then moves on. He wears a ball cap, barely concealing brownish, matted hair badly in need of a trim. His sallow, wrinkled faced sports a long, untrimmed beard. He appears to be about 50 years old, although I suspect his actual age is much younger than his body belies.
Yesterday, we found Howard Wood stretched out on the asphalt between two cars, shopping cart next to him. The hot, summer, noon day sun beating down on his heaving form. He was having a seizure. The little black kitten on a rope meowing and pawing to get out of the cart and attend to his owner.
Myself and a customer from the restaurant tried to attend to his unfortunate situation. I knelt beside him trying to verbally comfort him the best I could, the customer on his cell phone trying to get an ambulance dispatched. Howard continued to seize, twitching and wreathing, saliva dripping out of his toothless mouth. He was breathing fine, so CPR was not necessary. Most of the time, you simply let a seizure victim's symptoms run their course, making sure they have a clear breathing passage and are not biting their tongues off. I continued to pat him on the leg and talk to him while waiting for the ambulance. Howard was beginning to come out of it.
He eventually sat up just as the ambulance and fire department entered the parking lot, sirens blazing. He was becoming more lucid, but really didn't know what was happening or where he was...typical for post seizure. The EMT's took over. Howard was back fully conscious as the attendants began to ask him some questions. He didn't have answers for most of the queries.
The got him to stand and get onto the gurney. His skinny frame still shaking, a dazed look on his now wide-eyed face. He gingerly grasped the rail on the gurney with his scrawny, dingy fingers that had long, dirt-filled fingernails. The EMT's help him swing his skinny legs onto the white sheet...old, beat up cowboy boots protruding the end of his worn, unwashed jeans. He seemed concerned about his cart and belongings...and the kitten. The guys assured him that they would take care of that stuff.
"Where are you taking me", he asked. "To the hospital, buddy. They're gonna check you out", they answered. He seemed to accept that answer and settled his shaggy head back onto the pillow.
I spoke to the fire department captain for a few minutes as the ambulance pulled away taking Howard Wood to the hospital. He told me this sort of thing happens all the time, coming to the aid of the homeless in one sort of distress or another. For the most part, he continued, they keep to themselves and don't really bother anyone. Although there are some who present more of problem...pandering, theft, or worse. The captain assured me that he would secure Howard's belongings and have animal control come to pick up the kitten. Howard could retrieve it at the shelter when he got out of the hospital...and back on the street.
I keep thinking that Howard Wood
is somebody. Obviously, he is not the same person he used to be at one point in time. But who was he way back when? When and why did he end up living on the street in such squalor? Is he 50 years old...or is he 35 years old? You couldn't tell by looking at him. Did he have a viable profession at one time? Probably. Was he a mechanic or a carpenter or a lawyer? Did he have a family, a wife, kids? More often than not, the answer to that is
yes. And the one question I keep asking myself: Does he have any hope left? Does Howard Wood wish for something better, some way out this dilemma? Or, has he accepted the fact that this is what his existence is going to be forever? There was no way of me knowing from the brief encounter in the parking lot of the restaurant in which I work every day. And I am not convinced that Howard Wood would be able to answer that question himself.
I hope Howard is feeling better today. Maybe he spent the night in the hospital. Perhaps social services spoke with him and informed him of his options. At least I hope they did. And the little black kitten he wheeled around in his shopping cart is probably safe and sound in the animal shelter...waiting for Howard...or someone else to come in and adopt him (or her).
I still feel sad for Howard Wood. But more than that...I feel fortunate to be me.
I can only imagine what it would have been like to be raised in such a mundane, average, overgrown farm town. For many years, the population of that city remained constant. As many people left as were born or moved there each year. It was some forty years later when I read that Sioux Falls was one of the 10 Best American Cities in which to live and work. Evidently, statistically speaking, my home town has the best of everything per capita: job opportunities, housing cost, cost of living, the least amount of crime, and so on. Large companies scooped up the cheap dirt and built factories and corporate headquarters there. The fact that Sioux Falls is smack dab in the middle of the American tundra must not have been considered when they wrote that magazine article. South Dakotans can only leave the comfort of their homes from April to October or they will be instantly frozen to death! No wonder my parents pulled up stakes and headed west shortly after I was born. They longed for the sunshine twelve months of the year. California, here we came!
To most of us, the name Tom Howard doesn't strike any chords. But to the people of Turlock, California, it is very recognizable.
