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Homeless Along the Highway
Today I spotted the first lupin of the season along Highway 68.
Their deep blue spikes are emerging from the lush green grasses
carpeting the camino.
Although this is only early February, the lupin are a welcomed
reminder of Spring, with the promise of many more wildflowers to
come. Poppies have also emerged, splashing their golden faces
along the vibrant green hillsides.
I also spotted the lanky vagabond, overloaded with a sleeping
bag and tattered trash bags filled with cans and bottles that he
had likely scavenged to trade for spare change.
When I drove onto the highway’s shoulder and pulled up along
side of him,
he looked at me with the same deep blue eyes that penetrate from
the lean faces of every young homeless man that I encounter
along the roads.
Were his eyes really that blue, or did they just seem that way
in contrast to the deeply tanned lines, hollow cheekbones and
scraggly beard?
These young men are the true homeless, not the “professionals”
that stand at the intersections with their cardboard signs. The
“pros” are dropped off at their corners daily from vans or
trucks. Panhandling appears to be their occupation.
But in this rural valley town on the outskirts of affluence, I
notice young men who clearly have lived without a family or a
roof over their head for a long time.
Sometimes they are tramping the roadside,
sometimes scrounging through the dumpsters,
sometimes sitting, head bent low, cradling their face in their
hands with despair,
too skinny, too cold, too lonely, too alienated in this town of
nearly 200,000 people.
What brings them here?
I do not know.
Some pass through from the railroad nearby. Others hitchhike
from Highway 1.
I have no idea how they end up along Highway 68, among the
wildflowers and the cattle grazing in the hills. I hear that in
good weather, some sleep under the bridge along the Salinas
River, but that is unlikely at this time of the year, when the
riverbanks are overflowing.
How do they get to this point of their lives?
I don’t know that either.
Perhaps drugs or alcohol have overtaken their lives. Perhaps
they are on parole,
so I am cautious whenever I pull up alongside them. They don’t
strike me as dangerous though. I think the ones who are on
parole have “street smarts” and are probably comfortable
downtown, working some sort of scam.
But the young men I see near Highway 68 appear to be truly on
the down and out.
I describe them as young men because, even though at first
glance they appear to be older, whenever I get close enough to
give them food, I see that they are indeed young men, worn out
and aged beyond their true years.
This young man today was initially startled when I pulled up to
hand him a bottle of water and a small package of crackers from
my glove box. He thanked me and I drove away, trying not to kick
up the gravel as I did so.
His eyes were the deepest blue, just like the lupin.
This is a
true story from "Where the Red Tailed Hawk Flies"
Tales from the Lupin Patch
Copyright 2005 by Gabriella Graham
February 2005 |
