Verified by 
Key points
- We should not stereotype all homeless people as being the same.
- Many homeless individuals still cling to a dream of a better life.
- Many people who are homeless are experts in developing ingenious and creative survival skills.
- The homeless people who build meaningful lives on the streets deserve admiration, not condemnation.
I am not in awe of very many people. I have seen the flaws in human nature too often to be that impressed by most people. Still, there are occasional exceptions.
On my way to and from the campus where I teach, I often pass through a poorer area that has a sprinkling of homeless men and women sprawled across a small park. In truth, it isn’t really a park. It’s a narrow strip of green grass that had been temporarily spared from further development of low-cost apartment buildings. The homeless people who frequent the park come and go. None of them seem to take up permanent residence there—except for one.
At first I took little notice of him. He was as nondescript as all the others. Only after he stayed, while all the others seemed to pass through, did I notice something unique about him. From my car, he appeared to be a large, barrel-chested man who wore several layers of clothing, probably his entire wardrobe. Covering the layers of clothing was a purple and gray, patterned poncho. A light blue, knitted cap covered the top of his head. A shopping cart with a similarly colored blue tarp was parked nearby.
In the midst of so much poverty, there was something regal, even dignified and monarchical about him. I even started to refer to him as the “King.” Sometimes he sat on a small folding chair next to the cart. Usually, he sat on the knee-high stone wall that stretched halfway across the park. Often he would be strumming a small, green ukulele or a larger guitar with an elongated fingerboard. At other times he seemed content to merely sit on the stone wall, staring across the street at a small string of stores and shops. The entire circumference of his previous life, whatever it might have been, was now confined to the few square feet between the stone wall and his shopping cart.
Sometimes another homeless man sat next to him on the stone wall. Others would occasionally sit on the ground looking up at him as he played his ukulele. At the end of the day, he was alone again, sometimes still strumming his ukulele. Once the sun set, he packed everything away and crawled into a mound of blankets and the blue tarp on the ground next to his cart.
In time, I came to realize the King’s daily rituals were organized around the movements of the sun. As the sun crawled over the horizon, he slipped out of his nest of rumpled blankets and took a few swigs of water out of a gallon plastic jug he pulled out of the cart. He slipped a few morsels of food out of the same shopping cart. Then he slowly made his way over to the stone wall or folding chair, where he would sit until the sun was almost directly overhead. He would then crawl back under his blankets for a nap. He would emerge a few hours later to sit on the stone wall until the sun was dipping into the western horizon. As the sun slowly disappeared from sight, he walked back to his nighttime retreat and crawled under the blankets and blue tarp again. Sometimes, when I would drive by after a night class, I would see his round shape, silhouetted by the moonlight, under the blue tarp and crumpled blankets.
The King’s entire existence was confined to about 15 or 20 square feet on which he parked his shopping cart. That small area comprised the entire circumference of his life. Nothing else mattered.
I was often reminded of an old Beatles song, “The Fool on the Hill.” The character described in that song had a similarly quiet, uneventful, sedentary lifestyle. Others who scurried past considered him “a fool.” However, the song’s lyrics clearly depicted the fool as someone who had rejected the insignificant, superficial details of life to simultaneously gaze inwardly and outwardly at the more important, perhaps even universal significance of life. In spite of the resemblance to the character in the Beatles’ song, the truth of the matter is that the King’s life was probably a very difficult one.
Like others, I struggled with anxiety and insomnia during the long pandemic. Sometimes on the nights when I wasn’t teaching, I would go for a drive when I couldn’t fall asleep. I often made an excuse to my wife that “I needed to drive around a bit before I was tired enough to go to bed.” In truth, I would often drive over to the park to see how the King was doing. I didn’t really understand my motives for checking on him. A part of me wanted to know if he was OK. The anxieties about my own life also dissipated as I watched him sleeping under his mound of blankets in the semi-darkened park. Sometimes, as I watched him sleeping next to his cart, I felt guilty for even having anxieties.
One rainy night as I drove down that same street, I didn’t see the King in his usual place under the mound of blankets next to the brick wall. Thinking that maybe he had gone to a rescue shelter, I circled the block and drove slowly down the street again.
I pulled over to the curb and surveyed the park. He was definitely not there.
Then a smattering of different colors caught my attention on a bench near a bus stop. It was the King. He was slowly strumming his ukulele as the rain poured off all sides of the metal roof that sheltered the bus stop bench. The roof was all that protected him from the elements. His cart, still piled high with his life’s belongings, was wedged into the same area.
The King was oblivious to the rain pouring down all around him, or the occasional gust of wind that swept across the area where he was sitting. There was a quiet serenity about him as he kept slowly strumming his ukulele.
I am in awe of this man.
