The Old Blog in the Desert

Late in afternoon I tripped upon a homeless encampment. There were some fifty people here, from children to slightly older than me and it has me unsettled.

When I first realized I was nearby this tucked out of the way place, I was confronted by a pair of men who wanted to know what I was up to.

“I’m traveling through,” I said.

“What does that mean?” one asked.

“It means I’m simply going to keep on going, not stopping.” I answered.

“Good,” stated the other one.

As they escorted me from one side of the encampment to the other, people said ‘hello,’ and one young man asked if I’d like to sit and have a bite to eat and visit with his wife and little boy. I looked at my escort and they turned away.

It was obvious I was out of my depth. I studied the guy that asked me to stay, he looked like he’d been living rough for a long while and that some of that time had or was still spent on a meth addiction.

Tired and hungry, I failed to heed my voice of intuition that whispered harshly at me to be careful. I sat down anyway and allowed myself to relax.

“Don’t mind them,” Jake said, “They’re assholes and think they’re protecting us. But guaranteed, if the law showed up they’d disappear as fast as a jack rabbit.”

“Well, thanks for rescuing me from them,” I said.

“My wife, Karen and this is Sam,” Jake said.

I stood and shook Karen’s hand, then smiled at their baby. Cute kid.

We talked about life, travels, shared a few stories and laughed. This greatly lifted my spirits from the day before.

We had hot dogs, beans and a salad, made mostly of wild gatherings including dandelions and dandelion leaves. I offered some of my beans and rice, which they refused to take.

To drink they offered me a warm cup of Earl Grey tea, a treat, I told them. And as I readied to toss-off for the night, I felt better about the aspects of travel come the morning.

This date would have been my younger brother, Adam’s 56th birthday. I remembered to wish him a ‘Happy Heavenly Birthday,’ as I said my prayers that evening.