Home Town

He first appeared sometime in the mid-70s.  We thought he might be a vet with PTSD.  In retrospect, he was one of the first homeless people I recall.  Before that we had the term "shopping bag ladies" and before people used the term bum freely.
In my childhood, everyone seemed to have a home.  Maybe not a house, but definitely a home.  Somewhere to go at the end of the day.  A safe place; a campsite.
We didn't know what to make of him because he was silent.  We wondered.  Was he broke? Hungry? Was he well?
When I picture him I see him in shades of brown and black.  He was a white guy, but living on the street can make you filthy in a hurry.  His clothing was tattered; his shoes barely had soles.  He walked...a lot.
People gave him a nickname: "the victim."
"I saw the victim today, " they'd say.  He was down on Telegraph and Ashby, making his way back to College Avenue.  He walked long stretches but by late afternoon always made his way back to the same intersection, or nearby.
Over the years, I gave him money a few times.  I wondered where he went at night too.  There was a door between two businesses on one of the main drags he frequented and I liked to think he opened it each evening and climbed a staircase to a small apartment.  Maybe he's doing some sort of psychological experiment and wants to collect data on how people react to his look, his needs, his presence in their neat and orderly world.  I liked to think that, but I always knew better.
In the decades that followed, scores and hoards of homeless have followed.  It's the visual reminder of the failure of our economic and health care system, isn't it?

Recently a major TV network aired a special on the homeless crisis in Los Angeles.  I thought I knew homelessness from my town, Portland, Or.  I thought I knew it from my many years in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Los Angeles is every other city times 10. It's been compared to Calcutta, India the scope is so large. Mile after mile of tents and encampments.  One observer has called it dystopic.  Aptly named.  Instead of "Night of the Living Dead" we have "Day of the Living Homeless."
We see the physical change in our urban areas all the time.  The constant encroachment of new apartments and condos, the reconfiguration of streets, the gentrification of communities that force the inhabitants on the periphery of their hometowns and replace barber shops with bridal shops, diners with brewpubs, grocers with baristas.
Maybe Armageddon will arrive not in the form of a massive earthquake, a foreign power, or global warming.  Maybe it's lining up right now on the fringes, in the bushes, on traffic islands and the space between railroad tracks.  They aren't victims and their numbers are growing.

Constitutional Crisis

Irwin Shaw said in his famous short story, "Tip of a Dead Jockey,"
"...In this age there comes a time when everyone finds that he is forced to gamble--and not for money, and not only at the seller's window. And when that time comes and you are not in the habit, and it does not amuse you, you are most likely to lose."
The President is a gambler. He's been forcing himself to sit at the table and go to the window more and more lately. There is no book of strategies, no Daily Racing Form for his pursuits. None is needed because this is an old tale.  The better adage might be, "A man should never gamble, more than he can stand to lose.  The President is obsessed with loyalty.  Trouble is that the concept has flipped on him.  The greater loyalty has become elevated to the Constitution and a sense of ethics.  The moral compass has turned.  Our Constitution works when tested.  Ethical people rather than the craven autocratic demigods catch more bees because they are the honey of human values.  It occurred to me recently that the Rosetta Stone will surface in his tax returns.  Those elusive documents that never seem to be available.  Now that immunity from prosecution has been extended to most everyone who possesses a key to the kingdom, the dark corridors of manipulative duplicity will feel the light.  The treasure will be there for the taking and the tiny man who does not feel the need to read books will fulfill the role of naked emperor.  If they weren't really loyal to you, Mr. President, what or who were they loyal to?  The idea that you might have some decency? The job you so graciously provided...for a fee?  A deeper sense of principle that is as alien to you as the ability to dissect complex issues.

The sociopath can easily lie.  Far easier for them than to tell the truth.  The President's lawyer said, "The truth is not truth." Think about that for a minute.  Not only are they not bothered by deliberately misleading, they are often unable to do the right thing...because it is not the right thing.  The President would rather collect the wages of the gamblers he panders to.  But the time has come for him to gamble.  He who boasted about being able to shoot someone on the streets of New York and get away with it.  He whose appointments often wait for the adversary to "bow down."  He who has his name on the "tremendous" erections he has blessed the world with...must now roll the dice, pick the winner, show his hand.  Get away with it?  No just get away.

Danger Ahead

He is a runawy truck ramp
    his face that dusty, rough, unnatural shade
like the unpaved, sandy surface
                   of the side road that leads up a sudden hill
to nowhere.

He is a RUNAWAY TRUCK RAMP,
            that side option that hopefully never gets used.
     It's unfinished, sudden, unlikely to stop the motion of an uncontrollable force.

This ramp paints an eerie feeling,
  It's impossible not to glance over when passing,
It conjures images of disaster.

He is a runaway truck ramp,
     possessed by the possibility of function
But nobody wants to travel that road.

An Alternate Universe

Everybody needs an alternate universe.  They come in handy, especially these days when the one we all inhabit becomes insufferable.  Right now, aside from the current political scene which features more lying and corruption charges than a B Western, we've got a major dose of disunity to deal with.  People can hardly talk to one another.  Even the talking heads of cable news are interrupting one another at an increased pace.  If I were to return to the classroom this fall, I'd revise my curriculum to include the methodology and strategies for having a discussion about politics.  First, you have to hear the person.  We all could use some revising on that topic.
Having an escape is both useful and necessary.  My alternate universe was once the world of horse racing.  That is to say, I used to inhabit that world.  I only do so virtually now.  But being there offered the opportunity to see, smell, hear and talk about equine athletes.  As a standard of beauty, the thoroughbred has few rivals.  I miss going out to the backstretch early in the morning.  Somehow, seeing the mist and steam waft off of a horse that has just worked 4 furlongs can be very calming. Alternate universes often have a mythology that accompanies them.  People like to believe that the inhabitants are the way they have been portrayed.  To be sure the race track has some colorful souls that more than reinforce the stereotypes that have become familiar to most.  But for everyone, there are two or three others who don't conform to the familiar.  In my 20 or so years of having access, I met people who would be the last person thought of to have an interest in thoroughbred horses.  That's one of the things that kept me interested.  For every hardboot trainer that spouted right-wing politics, I met a college-educated horseman with equal or superior ability.  Most people, with few exceptions, were friendly.  They were easy to engage in conversations about their passion: the horses themselves. But it is a closed world.  Strictly licensed and patrolled, the backstretch is a microcosm of the larger society that tucks it into a semi-rural corner of a big city.

I sacrificed that world to move to the northwest, where it's just not the same.  Oh, it could be, if I let it because a horse is a horse, especially if all you want to do is look at one. But the big tracks are in California, New York, Florida, and of course Kentucky.  As an ex-Californian, there was a time when my alternate universe contained the best of the best.  As a correspondent for The Bloodhorse magazine, I was privy to the inner world of the community that inhabits every race track.  For most of those folks, their sub-culture insulates them from the daily doings of the real world.  Not so everybody.  Just look at the names of some horses or the variety of people that attend the races.
Alternate universes can be manufactured.  We can find them everywhere, so substitutes abound.  My other one involves catching trout on the fly.  I know a few folks who put their entire existence into that endeavor.  I could never do that, so I guess that makes me a "weekend warrior."  Except that I never go fishing on the weekends.  In fact, this very month of August is becoming so hot and steamy that I might not attempt a fishing trip until the post-Labor Day days of September.

At First Glance

With August comes the dreaded phrase, "back to school."  Professional educators are always eager to return to the classroom and begin another year.  In fact, one of the most enjoyable things about teaching is the opportunity to begin again.  The job has a built-in reset.
We usually hear the phrase when it is attached to commercials about school clothing or school supplies.  Both of those rituals are usually a welcome experience.  Who doesn't like putting together a new notebook and re-stocking one's stash of paper clips, staples, binder paper, and perhaps a couple of new items that will soon become either poor choices or unnecessary.
In my first decade in the classroom, I looked forward to buying a few new shirts and a couple pairs of pants destined to occupy that spot in the closet for "school clothes."
Along with the familiar ads reminding us that the 2018-19 school year is almost upon us has come something new.  Not first time new, but in the last few years new.  In my town we have a huge
school supply drive, reminding us that many children are often forced to return to their local school inadequately supplied for the year ahead.  It's well-meaning.  But it begs an important question.  Why are so many students (presumably public school students) unable to purchase their own school supplies?  And of course, what does this say about our culture and country?

My intention here is not to diminish a charitable effort or to question anybody's intent.  It just seems to me that an equal amount of effort thrown in the direction of an equitable distribution of wealth, or a fair minimum wage, might be even more desirable.
My guess is that these supply drives are intended for public school kids.  Though, these days with the propensity and complexity of charter schools and academies on the scene, one wonders.  Do we supply kids who choose to stay at home and commit to online education as well.  By the way, one of my favorite ads for this latest version of removing your children from having to share their education with other people's children features a young scholar spouting the line, "It's public school...at home."  No it isn't.  It's you at home and other kids in public school.
School supply drives are unfortunately needed, so I hope they live long and prosper.  I'd just like to hear some mention of why they seem to be so necessary in, arguably, the richest country in the world.