Homeless Whittler in the Snow (Part 2)

I asked Mark how long he'd been residing in the area. He said he was off and on. Up until a few weeks ago, he had a sweet setup living in a field with six other people in rural area 15 miles east of Portland. It was an abandoned farmstead with a barn, couple of out buildings, and hand pumps that brought up water from a creek.

Mark said he loved the quiet there. The noise of the city was sometimes hard to take. That's why he liked this spot by the busy boulevard. It sounded like the rush of a river.

As soon as he said that, I knew I would never think the same way about traffic noise again.

I asked Mark how in the world he had found such a perfect spot. He said a buddy had downloaded an app on his phone that let him see nearby rural land and who owned it. One of the parcels didn't list an owner so his buddy figured it was owned by the county because of foreclosure or the previous owner died without a will or any relatives or the property had simply disappeared in the purple haze of litigation, indifference or a computer glitch.

So the six of them made their way out to the parcel and set up camp!

It occurred to me this was an incredible premise for a novel, but then it also occurred to me this was almost the same plot point Steinbeck used in Cannery Row with Mack and the Boys, excepting of course, the twist with the phone app.

All was going reasonably well and they kept pretty much out of sight until the Sheriff showed up and rousted the campers. Someone had apparently purchased the property and planned to build luxury homes on it. It was a different type of gentrification than I was used to hearing about, but it was gentrification nonetheless. No doubt the creek's beavers would be displaced as well.

The snow never stopped falling as we talked.

At some point, and I no longer recall what prompted Mark to share something personal about himself, he told me was a whittler. Yes, a whittler!

He said he'd whittled his father a “tight” Christmas present: a snake's head atop a walking staff. I asked where he procured the wood. He said someone in the neighborhood had left a hat rack made out of choice cherry wood out on a sidewalk and he'd snapped it right up.

I imagined Mark carrying a hat rack from the 1950s over his shoulder as he bicycled away with it.

Mark extricated a piece of wood roughly the size of a severed forearm from his backpack and held it up to me. It was not carved. He said this was going to be his next project.

“How do you know what to whittle?” I said.

“The wood speaks to me,” he said. “It's hard to explain.”

“No it's not, You're an artist.”

I asked Mark where he scored most of his wood. He told me he collected small rounds of maple and oak from various homeowners who had pruned their trees and left the branches stacked up on the sidewalk waiting for haulers to take them away for chipping and composting. Mark said he stashed the wood in a dry place so it could cure.

“You ever sell your carvings?” I said.

“No, but everyone says I should,” he said.

I commissioned a beaver on the spot and said I would pay handsomely for it. He said he'd get to work on it.

“Take care,” I said. “I don't know how you do it.”

“I do it,” said Mark.

I reached into my pocket and gave him a buck because that's all I had. I told him he could get a coffee with it. You could still buy such a luxury at a convenience store not far from where we conversed.

“Next time I see you around and I'll have the money with me for the beaver,” I said.

“You got it,” he said.

I walked away and then turned back to look at Mark. His knife was out and he was whittling in the snow.