Sunrise Coos Bay Homeless Man

Elmer and I bounded down Bastendorff Beach north toward the south jetty of Coos Bay. Freighters were lit up out to sea, waiting for the right tide to shoot the gap.

It was still dark in the April morning and a full golden moon hung low in a cloudless sky over the ocean.

Sunrise was mere minutes away. I saw stars and planets and heard gulls. Sunrises like this one can change your life, and I would know.

One question dominated my mind: was I going to put an offer on the Coos Bay house 12 miles from here, in the gritty and disheveled Empire district.

The previous afternoon I had toured the house: built in 1959, three bedrooms, excellent windows, covered patio, decent roof, a towering cedar in front, Sitka spruce and aspen in back. The back yard was overgrown to the point of wild and blackberries dominated one fence ready to collapse. The other two sides of the fence had already fallen but hadn’t found the ground because English Ivy held them up.

The back yard would require herculean manual labor. I was too broke to farm it out.

Would I become a blackberry killing man again like I was for a decade in my 30s and 40s as caretaker of the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge?

I am 61 years old. Did I still have it to take on this yard? Blackberry Fields Forever…the b side?

Yes. Yes. Yes. I relished kicking this yard’s ass and whipping it into shape. I have cut more blackberries by hand in this state than any other Oregonian in my lifetime. Not a single application of herbicide. Why not put the record even more out of reach?

No one was around. I let Elmer off the leash and he sprinted to the wrack line to sniff out the signals. I ran straight to the sea. I was feeling it, something extraordinary.

Here came the sun. The moon sunk on the horizon. I looked east and saw contrails ripping through an orange and purple sky.

If I bought the house, this would be my beach with Elmer.

I saw Elmer jetting toward me. I ran straight at him. It was a combination game of joust and chicken. Who would blink?

We collided but neither one of us went down.

I would put an offer in on the house! It would be mine.

We ran to the jetty and Elmer attacked me the entire way. I parried his lunges with forearm shivers.

At the jetty we turned around and made our way to the dunes. I saw a pile of fabric near a massive drift log. It was red in color. Probably shit washed ashore.

Elmer darted over to investigate. He sniffed the pile. The pile moved!

A man stuck his head out of what I now recognized as a sleeping bag. He was young and Latino.

I called Elmer off and yelled out an apology.

“No problem,” said the the man.

He exuded the unmistakable vibe of homelessness.

“Hey,” I said, “you need to get off your ass and see this sunrise.”

I was exhorting a homeless man sleeping on the beach to wake up! It verged on berating.

One sunrise at the beach can change your life.

“Oh man, you’re right,” he said.

He started to stand up, but made it only half way and then tumbled back into the sleeping bag.

“Are you camping too?” he said.

“No, just here with my dog to start the day.”

I wished him good luck and Elmer and I began running toward yet another iteration of my life on the Oregon Coast. Number five had already unfolded.