Eagles, Beavers, a Snowy Egret

Friday morning, December 22. The Oregonian reported that in 2022, government officials determined 315 homeless people died in Multnomah County. Average age: 49. Typical cause of death: hard drugs, a bankrupt American culture, and the Combine as Ken Kesey so accurately described it in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The county coroner said the number was undoubtedly higher.

Why does it take a year to report this kind of news? There is no urgency in this emergency. I have never understood the pace of the response to the crisis.

The number of homeless deaths in the county for 2023 is surely higher. If you figure in the deaths from adjacent Clackamas and Washington Counties, I suspect 600-800 homeless people have died in the Metro area in 2023. Perhaps a great many more. More than a few probably died in remote rural areas and their bodies were never discovered.

So far, none of the members of the Old Crow Book Club have died. It’s only a matter of time before one does.

This morbid news was on my mind that Friday morning as I walked the neighborhood at first light in rain.

Most of the inflatable Christmas decorations had deflated and looked as if they’ve been murdered. I saw a couple of homeless people wandering around. They were new to me. It was a weird juxtaposition seeing homeless people shuffling past holiday displays of lights and Santa Clauses on million dollar homes. There has to be a word for it, but it hasn’t been invented yet.

The blues overtook me, but I kept moving. I wanted to rally, but how? Forlorn holiday decorations certainly didn’t help.

I looked up to a dead tree that overlooked a wetlands that homeless campers had done their best to destroy in recent years. As of this writing, they’ve been swept out of there and I don’t feel a lick of remorse for that action. Being homeless doesn’t give you the right to destroy habitats of other living creatures.

Two bald eagles perched in the tree. They were making bald eagle chirping sounds. A giant illuminated star atop the nearby 80-foot neighborhood Christmas tree was part of the eagles’ background.

The image was staggering beautiful and almost entirely the color of gray.

What a juxtaposition! Thank you Oregon! Thank you Rachel Carson for leading the charge to save bald eagles from extinction. Thank you JFK for actually reading a book, Silent Spring, and then acting upon its findings.

My rally was instantly instigated. I took a photograph. A Black man came running up with his phone in hand. We exchanged pleasantries. He had seen the eagles and the star and had to get the golden shot. When people still run to take a photograph of bald eagles, there is still hope for this country.

I kept walking. I kept rallying. My Old Man taught me: if you don’t rally, you’re dead. I’ve been proud of his spirit for rallying in assisted living. He has never given up, although he was on the verge a few times.

I was standing under the neighborhood Christmas tree. Rain fell harder. More light was coming on. I looked down to the wetlands, also known as Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. I saw a beaver lodge, a massive one, in the marsh. Then I saw a snowy egret circle the lodge and land on the damn thing! It made my top five of all time sightings in Oregon nature, maybe it ranked number one; it was like a scene out of the Lord of the Rings movies if there had been beavers in that trilogy, which there damn well should have been.

My rally was complete. I walked to a coffee shop and drank black coffee and watched homeless people outside the window, doing whatever they do to survive.