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Old Chair, New Heartbreak
TBT to that time in late December when we drove past this scene: a lovely chair strangely parked in a gas station bay. We pulled over around the corner. I grabbed my phone and walked over. As I move around taking photos, I hear a voice in the background. He says, you like the chair? I respond, breezily, I really do, but I’m just there to take its photo. I realize he’s talking to me from inside the passenger seat in the next stall. The door is open, and they’re watching my spontaneous, weird photo shoot. He says, it’s antique, you should take it; I’ll help you put it in…
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Comfort for the Unsheltered
I met D as he was pushing this cart of furniture down the street. He found them at the DMV. “They were just left there,” he said. D was in transit to his tent in Mosswood park, a large homeless encampment just two blocks away. An abandoned stroller by the car wash caused him to stop. The cart wasn’t working well. We spoke as we unloaded and reloaded the entertainment center and chair from the cart to the stroller. D told me that he’s lost 5 tents to rats at Mosswood park. It’s inundated with rats, he said. Oakland’s unsheltered population recently earned national attention by @nytimes in a powerful…
