Choosing to be homeless in old-time Phoenix

Although, of course, the vast majority of people who are homeless, both now and historically, have preferred not to be, today I'm pondering those people who do it out of choice. It takes quite a stretch of my imagination, as it isn't something that I'd ever choose to be.

I was introduced to the writing of John Steinbeck in my early twenties back in Phoenix College, and I have to admit that he showed me a whole different world than I had ever imagined. My personal goal was to get a college education, find a good job, maybe someday buy a house. But he showed me that there's a world of people who prefer not to do that.

Nowadays I really can't think of being homeless as being presented as glamorous, or interesting. But there was a time when some poor slob dragging himself off to a job that he hated, to pay rent or mortgage, would glance over at someone whose only belongings seemed to be a backpack and a sleeping bag, and wish that he could do that, too. These people didn't need to wake up to an alarm clock, they didn't have to be nice to people that they didn't like, including bosses, they had no worries about the rent going up, because they had no rent. They saw sunrises, and felt the seasons change.

When I think of hobos, or bums, or transients, in old-time Phoenix I think of the Great Depression. But there were people like that even before then, and there are still people like that now. I learned the term "couch surfing" just a few years ago, when I was on a bus and saw a young woman hauling what I guessed to be all of her earthly belongings with her, and going somewhere. My friends gave the opinion that she just moved from place to place, sleeping on someone's couch until she wore out her welcome. My thoughts were sad ones, and it's still very difficult for me to imagine that it's something that she might have chosen. I will never know.

Certainly Phoenix has historically been a good place to be homeless. Compared to most cities, it rarely rains, and while it can get to freezing in the wee hours in the winter, it doesn't snow. I like my comforts too much to imagine sleeping outside, even if the temperatures dips into the 40s, but I know people who could do it, and even enjoy it. Some of my best friends enjoy camping!

When I think of someone who has chosen to be homeless in old-time Phoenix, I usually think of him (yes, only men) sleeping in a barn, or livery stable. In my imagination he's strong and healthy, and farmer John is happy to feed him breakfast in exchange for a good hand on the farm. He brings a glamour to the ordinary workaday world, possibly because he tells interesting stories of where he's been, or whatever. When I see him go, I see a kid running out after him, watching him riding away, on a horse that he earned during his stay. Tomorrow he'll wake in some other sunrise.

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