An elderly homeless man wearing a white floppy hat (Gilligan style), day-glo sneakers and an Oregon State University faux letterman’s jacket entered the public restroom at the Empire Boat Ramp and locked the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elmer and I wandered around the parking lot, admiring Coos Bay at high tide on a weekend afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moments later, I heard Aerosmith’s \u201cDream On\u201d rocking from the restroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I knew the song well. I had swayed slow dances to it in the 70s, sweaty, awkward embraces in Oregon City’s Gardiner Junior High’s multi-purpose room with the mirror ball twirling and twinkling overhead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We went over to investigate. Investigate what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, the downward trajectory of this power ballad in American culture for one reason. From innocent teenage romance to a 70-year-old homeless man taking a shit in a public restroom in Coos Bay. That descent is the story of my times and is about the only story that interests me to write about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dream on! Dream on! <\/em>wailed Stephen Tyler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some readers may be asking: why write about something so scatological in connection to the homeless crisis?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because the scene was incredibly funny to me and if I can’t find some occasional moments of levity in my interactions with homeless people, write about and publish them, I will descend into depression or cynicism or worse, indifference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sound emanating from the windowless restroom was formidable and I was standing outside 50 feet away. Imagine the level inside cinder block walls and a steel door! You just know the man had seen the band in its heyday, probably at the Oregon Jam in the 70s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aeromsith rocked and rolled through the din and I vaguely heard hosannas<\/em> and worship that typically accompany a pleasurable bowel movement experienced by elderly men (do women do this?) who relish such movements. Indeed, they often present the sublime highlight of the day, and occasionally, inspiration for a poem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Aerosmith’s \u201cDream On\u201d as the soundtrack for a homeless man’s dump? How does one make sense of that choice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And no it wasn’t a radio station playing tired classic rock hits. Because after \u201cDream On\u201d ended, there was an interruption of music as the man dialed up a post ecstatic dump song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The song came on. Reader, how about a creative exercise for you in these troubled American times?<\/p>\n\n\n\n You guess the song. It was classic rock, it was perfect, and I sang it all the way home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An elderly homeless man wearing a white floppy hat (Gilligan style), day-glo sneakers and an Oregon State University faux letterman’s jacket entered the public restroom at the Empire Boat Ramp and locked the door. Elmer and I wandered around the parking lot, admiring Coos Bay at high tide on a weekend afternoon. Moments later, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9728,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1264,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9727","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\/9727","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=9727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9729,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9727\/revisions\/9729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}