homeless

Library Castaways

January 23, 2009

Sometimes you see something over and over without really seeing it. Then one day it registers more vividly and emotionally. The scene, static and benign before, comes alive. That was my experience today at the Multnomah County Library in downtown Portland. I had popped in to check out a book. A library employee, whose makeup […]

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Man at the Park

October 21, 2008

Assumptions are dangerous. That maxim was drilled into me years ago as a newbie journalist. But I’m not writing a news story. I’m speculating about a man at the school park up the street. He was sitting at a table, alone, surrounded by squealing kids and watchful parents. My son, Atticus, was playing nearby on […]

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Good year, 1950

May 7, 2008

“Is your birthday really Friday?” I ask the wisp of a man leaning against the Post Office wall in Northeast Portland and panhandling for money. Thickets of wiry gray hair spill from beneath his maroon stocking hat. A beard partly hides sunken cheeks. His clothes are faded but clean. It was our second encounter. I’d […]

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