By Leo Rhodes
In the worst of times I always tried to find humor, to alleviate tension. Sometimes others did the same.
After a three-hour meeting in one of Seattle’s tent cities — three hours of debating, negotiating, and strategizing — I raised my hand to speak. The people in tent city listened intently as I spoke. Knowing that I make a lot of meetings, they thought this must be important.
I said, “You all know I went on a little vacation. So I have some pictures.” I heard some groans and some “aw mans.” Everybody started leaving.
“Hey get back here I’m serious, don’t you want to see my pictures?” I went on to say; somebody went by me saying, “Meeting adjourned.”
One time a big windstorm hit the tent city. Four or five tents blew away. We found two of them. The other three tents are probably floating somewhere in space. I always say I want to call NASA and ask if the space shuttle has seen our tents, and if they can use their mechanical arm to retrieve them.
In the same windstorm, I was walking around assessing the problems, when a woman came up to me. The wind was loud. So she tells me, “Hey, Leo, maybe we should get the people to watch a movie. You know, to get their minds off the wind. I replied “Yeah, that’s a great idea. Then she said, “We can watch movies like ‘Twister’ or ‘Tornado.’ I started laughing and then offered, “How about ‘Gone With the Wind’?”
Then there was the lady that washed her hair just before she went to bed. This was in Tent City Four in the middle of the winter. She didn’t dry her hair well enough. So when she woke up to go to the bathroom, her head was stuck to her pillow. She couldn’t move the pillow as she went to the bathroom.
This was a bad storm, not only was it blowing, but there was also ice. The ice storm caused black outs. Some of the neighborhood people came to the camp with cups in hand, asking for a cup of coffee. The hosting church set up a propane fire, so we had coffee 24/7. This storm was really bad and the temperature stayed in the teens for a while. Finally, the weather broke. A long-time supporter was excited about this news and came to Tent City Four to tell us this great news. He drove up quickly, jumped out of his car and said, “Hey it’s going to get warmer.” I looked at him and then looked at my friend. My friend replied, “Yeah it’s getting up to freezing (32 degrees).”
Moving days for Tent City Four and Tent City Three are sometimes difficult (they are required by law to move every 90 days). I remember one move with Tent City Three. They were three-fourths of the way done and only had a little bit left. Everybody sat down and refused to work. The organizers freaked out. They were telling the “move masters,” (the people in charge of the move), to get the people to work. Nothing they said or did could motivate the people to start working. Earlier, somebody had put roses on my personal bags. So I got the roses and started walking through the camp. Waving the roses over my head, I yelled, “If you want to stop and smell the roses it’s going to cost you $5.” First it shocked the people, then they started laughing and went back to finish the job.
When we moved our tent cities we always rented a 20-foot truck. On another move, this one guy said he knew how to pack a truck. In our tent cities we had a lot of things to move, including tents, tarps, tent poles, pallets, bicycles, televisions, two-by-fours, plywood, to name a few. So I left this guy to pack the back of the truck. People started complaining. Then it got worse. I went to check it out. There were all kinds of big gaps. I asked him to leave so I could straighten up the truck. I had been in the back of the truck for a while. When a person came and said, “Leo …” I interrupted him and said, “I’m busy now, leave me alone.” A little while later another person came and said, “Leo.” I told this person, “I’m busy”. Then a third person came. I started to say, “I’m …” but the person interrupted me and said, “Leo, you need to take down your tent. If you don’t break it down, we’re going to bar you. We don’t want to bar you.”
“What?” I said. Then I went and looked toward the area where the tents were. The parking lot, where there were about 50 to 60 tents, was empty and clean except my tent. Then I said, “Why didn’t anybody tell me?”
So I got to my tent and there were five women sitting about 15 feet away. One of them said, “Look, our board member.” Then another said, “Yeah, you’d think he’d have his tent down by now.” A third one quipped, “Should have been the first one down.” I just smiled at them. Then said, “No, it’s like this.” I got into my tent then got out. I yawned real loudly and as I was stretching and looking around. I said, in a dumb voice, “Where did everybody go?” The women started laughing. Then I said, “Or is it like this?” I put a shocked look on my face and said, “It’s moving day? What? Why wasn’t I notified! Why didn’t I get a memo! Nobody notified me!” They started laughing even harder, ‘cause I always knew everything that was going on.
Then there was Tom. Tom was a good camper. He did chores and helped others without complaining. One day Tom disappeared. It wasn’t like Tom to disappear and not tell anybody. We found out later that Tom got hit by a car and broke both of his legs. I went to visit him and we built a strong relationship. Long story short, Tom vowed he was going to come back to Tent City Three to visit his family. That’s what he called the people there.
When Tom was healthy enough, they gave him a wheelchair. He told me he wanted to go back to Tent City Three. So I escorted him back.
There was a lady that was taking a photography class. Her thesis was on homelessness. She happened to be at the right place at the right time. She was there for Tom’s homecoming. She took some pictures and said she’d be back to tell us her grade.
When she came back she was all excited. She told me that she got an A for her project. She showed me the portraits she did of 15 people in the camp. Then she pulled out Tom’s pictures. The first one was of Tom in the middle of 10 campers. Tom was smiling real big. And the other people were either laughing or smiling real big. She told me her instructor was so amazed that homeless people with so little can be happy. Next she showed me a picture of Tom and I. I had my arm shoulder height with my hand up to my head, leaning on Tom’s head. He stiffened up his neck muscles, ‘cause when I first put my weight on his head, it started to move like a bobble head. We both started laughing. I smiled real big as I looked at these pictures.
Then I told the lady, “Yeah homeless has its funny moments. But for the most part it is not fun and games. It’s like one big family.”