"Where's Your Harley?"

Sunday 2/23/2014 6:12 AM

Last weekend Jaci and I went to San Luis Obispo to visit with family.  Friday night we had gone to order pizza for dinner and went for a walk while it was being prepared.  I was deep in conversation with my brother-in-law, Stan, standing on a corner waiting for a streetlight to change.  “Where’s your Harley?” queried a gravelly voice to my left.  I glanced in his direction to see a wizened face sporting a week’s worth of stubble and a gap-toothed smile staring at my Harley Davidson tee shirt, a gift from my wife and daughter.  “In my garage,” I responded, wishing the light would change soon.  “Are you a professor at the college?” he continued.  I told him I was a math teacher at a community college in the Los Angeles area but not at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, as he assumed.  He proceeded to tell me that his dad was a professor but had gotten fired because he “did” one of his graduate students, more information than I really wanted to know, and then he accompanied me as we walked down the sidewalk, filling me in on more of the details of his life.  After walking with me a few blocks he slowed his pace, stopped in front of a convenience store and ended the conversation.  He thanked me for talking with him, gave me a fist bump and walked into the store.

I caught up with Stan and our wives as they waited for our pizzas.  We discussed the problem of homelessness in our country for quite some time.  As always, when I have those kinds of discussions, I get a sense of hopelessness that I can do anything meaningful to alleviate the situation.  I want to solve the problem but anything I do seems insignificant.

This past Wednesday I had lunch at local diner that I visit about once a week.  There is a homeless man sitting on the pedestal of a former newspaper vending machine nearly every time I visit.  I often park my motorcycle in the spot next to him and greet him each time I visit.  After I eat I often sit in the diner for a couple of hours and correct papers.  Wednesday he came into the diner to use the restroom and he stopped by the table where I was grading papers.  “I thought you were a teacher,” he said.  “I often see you correcting papers when you come.”  I engaged him in conversation and found that he has lived in the neighborhood nearly all his life but was recently separated from his wife and ended up on the street.  He was unable to work because of injuries he had sustained.  He explained that he slept behind the diner each night next to the dumpster to keep vandals from wrecking things at the diner.  In return the owners allow him to use the restroom and occasionally give him a meal.  He is not using drugs and is not an alcoholic; he simply is unable to afford to get a place of his own.  After nearly ten minutes of conversation he thanked me for talking with him and told me his name was Al.

Looking back at the two situations I have mixed feelings.  I am still frustrated by the enormity of the homeless problem in our country but I also realized that just taking a few minutes to talk to someone and hear their story is meaningful to them and informative for me.  It is easy to stereotype all homeless people as addicts or mentally impaired and simply walk the other way, ignoring them.  I pray that I might have the grace to treat them with the same dignity and respect that I would like when I interact with people.