Ignoring the ‘Bums’ Used to Be So Easy . . .

Most journalists in my office have always had genuine, heartfelt concern for the homeless. Not me.

Frankly, I’ve been too busy. I have a kid to raise, a wife who wants me home nights, bosses to please and bills to pay. My compassion is for the plight of the Los Angeles Rams and the California Angels.

I’ve found my own way of dealing with the homeless that’s gotten me by just fine--I don’t think about them.

Which is why it’s so unsettling that I’ve had Earl on my mind lately.

Earl is this guy who lives on the concrete at the Plaza of the Flags in the heart of the Civic Center in Santa Ana.

I first came across Earl stretched out underneath the stars and his Catholic Charities blanket close to a year ago, as I walked through the plaza from my courthouse office to my car. His first words to me were: “Sir, you have a good evening.” My first words to him were a grunt. And why not? It’s a beautiful plaza, and this unsightly, unshaven, unkempt, unwelcome sprawling figure was trashing up the place with his blankets and shopping cart teeming with life’s leftovers.

By day, Earl was out scavenging. I’d see him only at night. “Sir, you have a good evening.” Earl was a broken record. Same message every night.

He had no idea he was intruding at a bad time, that twilight of the day when your brain is oozing out of its work mode and trying desperately to climb into the proper frame of mind for facing the wife and kid. It’s not a time for small talk with the city’s vagabonds. But after a few months, I decided he meant no harm.

He wasn’t Earl to me then, of course. He was just this nameless lie-about. A few months more, it came to me that Earl seemed to smile more than I did and seemed to care much more about my evening than I did about his.

And then this funny little thing happened. Earl started to make me feel good. This bent-over piece of humanity with hollows at his shoulder blades seemed determined to make me smile back at him. My Scrooge-like grunts finally warmed up to at least “hellos” and “you doing OK?” I found myself leaving the courthouse wondering if Earl would be in the plaza. Earl’s greeting helped ease the day’s grind. Finally, I sheepishly realized that it was long overdue that we meet each other.

Earl is a 53-year-old, skinny, raggedy, mostly toothless man who has been “on the road,” as he calls it, the past five years. He won’t tell me his last name. But he has a daughter somewhere back East that he still thinks about, and he really would work, but he explains the problem in a way that makes sense: “Nobody wants to hire someone like me, at my age. Only jobs I can get are the ones worth $20 an hour but they want you to do it for minimum wage.”

Says Earl:

“I pick this spot because it’s quiet. I love the peace and quiet. I love being alone. I’ve got a couple of row dogs (fellow homeless) who join me here most times, and we talk when we want. Don’t you worry about me none, sir. I’m doin’ just fine.”

That’s the problem. I am worried about Earl. Because it’s getting cold out. Winter is here and getting worse, and Earl’s blankets are thinner than what I’m using at night inside a heated house. I try not to think about how many other Earls are out there facing those same cold nights with biting wind and icy concrete beds.

It’s easy to ignore the homeless, to leave such problems to folks like Catholic Charities, and hope their budgets can be stretched far enough to cover the basics.

But it’s hard to forget about Earl, once you’ve met him.