Street roots., September 12, 2014, Page 12, Image 12

Street roots
Sept. 12, 2014
Down and out in Old Town/Chinatown
BY BEN HODGSON
CO N TR IB UTIN G C O LU M N IS T
ooking up from 75 feet away I could
see the three-day notice taped to my
door. So on tfie ninth anniversary of
nine eleven I’m eighty-sixed. Coincidence?
You decide.
The shock of the sudden transition: In
Old Town with a few spare clothes and a
couple blankets. One measure of how far
gone I was is the stuff I left behind and why
PHOTO BY STEVE WILSON
I picked Old Town. (OK, two measures). You
Ben Hodson is a volunteer with Street Books, a
have probably not noticed so much those
mobile library organization in Portland.
“No Public Restroom” signs. I noticed them,
and that was my chief concern. Where am I
going to go to the bathroom? The Rescue
Chinese-owned travel agency right on this
Mission is always open. Fact is, much later,
very block. So I went in and explained about
when I started to extend my range a bit, I '
His Holiness coming and asked if they had a
did get caught out a few times, luckily while
picture, but no luck. Then I asked if she
wearing double socks. I know you want the
knew anyone who spoke Tibetan.
unvarnished truth here, so I’m giving you
“No,” she said- “Why?” I told her I wanted
the straight poop.
to learn how to say, “You got any spare
The sidewalk from the bridge and around
change?” in Tibetan. She almost didn’t smile
Second Avenue to Couch is most nights
and said, “Shame on you.” .
haphazardly strewn with various specimens
The poster shop at Lloyd Center did have
of humanity, some of whom a chagrined
a small 3 x 5 Tibetan flag, and the clerk just
creator might call failed experiments. To a
gave me a postcard with the man’s picture
new guy, just finding a spot was a source of
on it, (Tenzin Gyatso is the Dalai Lama’s
anxiety. I soon enough worked out a simple
given name). You know how one thing
four-step routine. Breakfast at the mission, 7 sometimes leads to another? I told someone
a.m. Kill time. Dinner at the mission, 6 p.m.
about it, and then Julie’s mom had a full size
Find a spot on the sidewalk This can be
Tibetan flag, and we had a good head of
challenging. Wasn’t two weeks and I was on
steam going. There were a few enlistees
Burnside over the MAX when Andre Payton
that joined up. Toby pitched in. Lucky only
came to a bad end, a block up and one over,
stuck around for about 45 minutes, but 45
Second and Couch. They counted 53 bullets. minutes of Lucky is a lo t He was a logger
Welcome to Old Town. Jesus loves you.
from the Bend area. Chudznik, the Polish
One of the happiest periods of my street
guy from Caracas, was willing, but I’m
life was when I cleaned up Davis Street
afraid he turned out to be a bit of a
■
between Third and Fourth. There are four of
thes e pi an ter boxes with a p aim tree an d a ~
shrub or rose bush in there, and the debris
had accumulated over who knows how long.
I started cleaning there, on the one closest
to the closed-up Chinese food joint, where I
was sleeping at the time, and I had
Dumpster-dived a push broom somewhere.
And then not long into it was when I first
saw the billboard saying the Dalai Lama was
coming to town, and that was what really
kicked it into high gear. On the off chance
that he decided to swing through Chinatown
while he was here, we’d get the place
looking right. All the way down to scraping
the dirt out of the cracks in the sidewalk. I
had a length of hose ànd a five-gallon bucket,
and there was a, bathroom down at the
parking garage where you could stop up the
sink and siphon hot water into your bucket,
hang it on the handlebar of your bike and
walk it three blocks back to the job site. I
kept the broom and bucket in the shopping
cart I was using for scrounging bottles and
cans.
This is a good start, I thought, but what
to do about a Tibetan flag? Maybe this
hobbledehoy. A lot of crud builds
upbver
r
cigarette butts, old needles,
scraps of paper, at least
one big trash bag per
planter box.
And we’re scrubbing
up the bronze'plaques
that are set into the
sidewalk, and scraping
the gum off, and I’m
thinking here is
something I can do
without getting
hassled. Actually,
though, I did. One guy
Came by and
suggested I
tryAA. I
got some
pretty
good flak
for the
pruning of
the palm
trees. It’s
a bit of a
said to myself, only slightly daunted, “I did
struggle doing it with just a pair of a
not get where I am today by giving up so
scissors, but it worked, sort of. A couple of
easy.” Some clear quick thinking was in
gentlemen from Clean & Safe told me that
order. What I did was, under the guise of
there were people from the city that took
cleaning up around Street Roots (for extra
care of that arid said to cease and desist I
papers to seU), I spirited a few cleaning
didn’t bother asking them where the city
supplies out,; and in less than a week I was
people had been for the past few years. I
just focused on something else until they
back on the job.
For those who are handling it weU
left and then got back to work. Later a
enough, being outdoors is not as pitiful as
friendly guy from Clean & Safe came by and
we fear it will be. One can adapt to nearly
said he’d watched me tryirig to make the
scissors work. He loaned me a pair of
anything. One can also go nearly nuts from
pruners and said if he didn’t get them back,
the shock before making the adjustment. I
then he should have used better judgment
was still on the sidewalk downtown during
(He got the pruners back.)
the aforementioned street-cleaning period of
Two of the local merchants gave me
happiness. Discovering a campsite was the
something, one a Dr. Pepper and one an
biggest help: not having to carry all I owned
orange juice. The director of the Chinese
with me everywhere.
garden stopped once and told me she’d seen
It’s a tough way to go, nobody wants it,
it gradually looking better over the weeks. A but it’s not as unlivable as you might first
young Asian lady among a group of
’ think. Even in the dead of winter this last
clubgoers said “Thank you for saving the
winter, there were a couple times I cut my
world.” I suspect she was having a bit of
six-pack down to a four-pack and went to bed
sport.
early because it was just too cold to sit
In time, the wall had featured a Tibetan
outside my te n t
flag, the picture of the Dalai Lama and
It has to come from inside. You cannot
pages from the art book “The
give someone a happiness transplant, and
Impressionists” by William Gaunt. I cut out
back when I was feeling reaUy bad, I even
thirteen or so pieces, paintings like
said it back then: somebody could give me
L’absinthe, and At the Moulin Rouge, and
$50,000 and it wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t
using duct tape to simulate frames, put up a
have amounted to much more than 50,000
real nice display on the window of the
problems that I couldn’t handle. You get a
closed-up Chinese food joint Tourists were
severely depressed person, and about the
actually coming by taking pictures of it,
best you can do is hope they don’t go
because the girl who flew a sign at Fourth
through with it (and gun ownership is not
and Davis told me.
for everyone).
You need to be timely about clearing
I had read in The Oregonian about a
yourself and your stuff out of there in
mobilebook outlet setting up shop at
the morning, and I forget why I
Skidmore Fountain, and I don’t know if I
had left or what the delay
r was there on the very first day of operation,
was getting back, but I
hustled back a little
but early in the season for sure. I had a .
too late, and
library card, but what with being an
wouldn’t
outdoorsman, and the risk of loss or theft, I
you know it, never went there. Got to talking about
Clean &
books, and I think Laura let me get two that
Safe had
day. Since I returned them the next week, I
made off
was soon getting three at a time. That was;: i
with my
. about all I had to pass the day away, and I’d
cleaning x
be down at the waterfront most every day,
stuff,
plowing through about three books a week.
shopping
I remember Laura even told me about the
cart and
whole garage fuU of books she needed to get
aD.it’
organized and would pay me for the help. At
threw me
that time, being able to get to a place on a
for a bit,
bus was just a Kttle out of my range, and I
but then I
sort of let it drop. But I’m told that I was
the main borrower that first season, and
Laura urged me to attend the event at the
end of it. At that time, socializing with
humans was just a Dttle out of my range, and
I sort of let that drop, too.
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