Frog Hospital: A Christmas Visitor

By Fred Owens

this story falls flat if you don't get the photo -- let me know if you saw it

Here is Bobby, our Christmas Visitor with the children sitting on his lap on Christmas morning in 1984. We lived on Maple Street in LaConner. Eugene was 7 and Eva was 5. On Christmas Eve, before it got dark, we walked out to Fishtown just for fun. That's where we met Bobby. He was camped out in one of the empty shacks. It didn't seem like a good idea to ask him too many questions about where he was from and what he had been doing. My feeling is that he was on the run, not a hippie, more of a desperado, robbed a bank in New Orleans or shot a federale down in old Mexico -- something like that. But without thinking too much about it, we invited Bobby to come stay at our house for Christmas. ....... He came to our home and played with the children for hours and hours. It seemed he did not know about families and domestic stuff like that, but he was glad for the chance....... I don't know what his habits were, but I figured he could be on good behavior for a day or two. The day after Christmas, I gave him twenty bucks and sent him on his way..... That was 32 years ago. I might wonder where he is today.... Anyway, the nights get cold in December and you might invite a stranger into your home at times like this.

Are we a nation of good tippers? Are we a nation of good tippers? Can we be proud of this? I hope so. This came up at the restaurant last night. I said Canada is a great country and they have good national health care, but we tip better.

Three of my garden customers tipped me this week. Two with cash, one with a flash frozen silver salmon filet. All good. Thank you.

Another Homeless Story:

Martin the Arsonist and Paul the Schizophrenic

Martin was a Latino man of age 30, quiet, with good manners. He had served a prison sentence for arson, but I never got the details -- didn't want the details..... Mainly I noticed small things about him -- that he had no nervous twitches and he enjoyed petting the cat. You can co-inhabit with such a fellow.

At this point in 1989 I was separated from my wife. She and the two children were living a mile away and I had dinner with them most nights. But I was living at the old farmhouse on Martin Road. This was in Mount Vernon. The old farmhouse was on a forty-acre plot that once had a dairy, but in 1989 it was only blackberries and alder -- plenty of firewood from the alder, but not much else.

It was given to Friendship House, the homeless shelter, to be occupied. And Friendship House gave it to me. There was no rent to pay -- of course there was no running water and no electricity either, and not much basis to charge any rent.

The owner didn't care about the money anyway. He just wanted someone to occupy the house and keep the ruffians and vandals away.

So that was me and my wife and two kids. After a year's time I had the money for a waterline from the road. That cost $1,000 just to get the water to the farm side of the road. But how to get the water to the house involved digging a ditch 250 long. I did that, with the help of Singin' Dan from Fishtown.

Later we got electricity. And later the marriage broke up and my wife and two kids took the good apartment.

But the old farmhouse was good enough for me, and they asked me at Friendship House if I could take Martin and Paul off their hands. I knew Martin would be all right. But Paul was a challenge.

Paul was 22, big, fat, and jovial. His mental development was about age 10. He was schizophrenic and medicated.

The idea -- and I really think it was me who was stupid enough to have this idea -- was to bring Paul out to the old farm and get him to work. A little fresh air and exercise would do him some good. If he helped me chop and load the firewood, he might feel a little confidence that he could do some honest work like any other man. He might lose a little weight. He might need a little less medication.

Worthy goals. But it wasn't easy working or living with Paul. It was like this -- he would look up at me with a big smile and say, "Fred, you're my best friend." Fine. Except he would say that again five minutes later. "Fred, you're my best friend." And 25 to 50 times a day, those same words. It got tiresome.

The problem is that I had Paul to look after seven days a week and that wasn't the deal. Friendship House figured if they left Paul with me that would solve their problem of looking after him. But they never gave me the backup they promised.

So sadly, I sent Paul back to Friendship House after about two months. Eventually they found him a good group home, so it was all right for Paul.

Martin was never a problem, but he had to leave when I had my two kids move back in with me and my ex-wife went down to Seattle for a while.

I was more involved with homeless people back then. Today if I see some fellow with a cardboard sign by the road I avoid eye contact.

Merry Christmas everyone.