\u201cI’m from New Zealand,\u201d said Morgan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNew Zealand!\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYeah, I’m a Kiwi.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A homeless man in his 70s named Morgan had just told me where he hailed from. He had been a regular presence in my Coos Bay neighborhood of Empire ever since I’d moved here seven months ago. We had held multiple, brief, pleasant conversations and Morgan was a big fan of Elmer the husky. In fact, we had introduced ourselves early on, and Morgan would always call out my name and Elmer’s when we walked past him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New Zealand!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In all our previous conversations, I had never detected any accent, but then again, Morgan had no teeth and was sometimes difficult to understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But as soon as he said \u201cKiwi\u201d I heard the accent. And the more Morgan talked the more pronounced it became.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was 7:30 on a weekday morning and Morgan sat on the sidewalk, under an awning of non profit organization that serves the developmentally disabled. He often sleeps there when it rains. He was drinking a can of malt liquor. His possessions amounted to one small backpack resting on the ground. Everywhere around Morgan was tidy. He never left a trace after spending the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had vowed at some point to ask Morgan his story of homelessness and for some reason, this morning was the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In due course, I learned Morgan had been living on the streets for ten years and residing in the United States since the late 80s. He was a tourist in LA, missed his flight home, and never returned. He worked construction in California and Arizona for many years. I asked him how in the world he came to live in Coos Bay. He laughed and said, \u201cThat’s a long story.\u201d Doubtless, I’ll hear it one day. How could I not? A homeless man from New Zealand ends up in Coos Bay?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I asked Morgan if he had any desire to get into housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think I’ve been doing this for too long,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I asked him if police hassled him. He said one cop gave him an MRE for a Christmas present and another one threatened to jail him. Why the stark difference?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey’re just two different people,\u201d said Morgan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A younger homeless man crossed the street and came up to us. He was wearing an all red, mismatched ensemble and bedecked with gold chains. A classic 90s white rapper look. He smiled and asked if he could pet Elmer because Elmer was so handsome. I said of course! Elmer dug that 90s white rapper look as much as I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn’t have any cash on me or I would have given Morgan a few bucks. Perhaps next time when we meet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elmer and I said our goodbyes and walked away. Behind me, I heard the two homeless men talking about my dog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI’m from New Zealand,\u201d said Morgan. \u201cNew Zealand!\u201d I said. \u201cYeah, I’m a Kiwi.\u201d A homeless man in his 70s named Morgan had just told me where he hailed from. He had been a regular presence in my Coos Bay neighborhood of Empire ever since I’d moved here seven months ago. We had held multiple, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1264,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coos-bay","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9692,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9690\/revisions\/9692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}