Sunday at dawn in Portland. Elmer the husky and I had prowled the park and stopped to watch the baby ducks zigzag on what used to serve as a casting pond that hosted a touring event on a professional fly fishing league. The pond was built by the CCC boys during the Great Depression and now hosts waterfowl that delights visitors six months a year. See how good old fashioned brick and mortal socialism can enhance our lives almost a century later after its construction? Timberline Lodge. Silver Falls State Park. Cape Perpetua. the Yaquina Bay Bridge. We need a lot more of this kind of Oregon socialism today.
Elmer and I left the park and headed for home. We stopped at a STOP sign. So did a Ford Transit van, 20-foot long, white, doubtless a former member of a delivery fleet, mangled in back, pulverized up front, no license plates. I saw a young man driving and another young man riding shotgun.
The van stopped and the sliding doors swung open. The man riding shotgun jumped out and winged two blue-plastic covered issues of the NY Times onto driveways. I saw the interior of the van; the two men were clearly living out of it...and delivering the NY Times!
It made perfect economic sense. You gigged a few early morning hours three or four times a week in a tony neighborhood of Portland. You lived out of your delivery vehicle, roamed around finding a place to crash for the night, kept the rig gassed up and running, and you could earn anywhere from $300-600 a week depending on the publication. Maybe you deliver the Oregonian along with the NY Times and double your wages. The Wall St Journal has home delivery in Portland, too. You're an independent contractor, homeless and never file an income tax return. You're working. The contractor I saw even had a partner for more speed and efficiency.
On my early morning walks with Elmer the past six months, I have seen four different newspaper delivery rigs. Only one had license plates. The one that did had expired tags. Why bother? No cop is going to pull over someone for those infractions at that hour. In all my dawn walks through the neighborhood, I have never seen a police vehicle.
The two men are homeless, living out of the Transit, teaming up, working, but not paying $1500-1800 a month rent (plus deposits and utilities) for a one-bedroom apartment.
They also have plenty of free time to do whatever they do until they rise at 3 a.m., drive to the distribution warehouse to pick up their papers, wrap each edition in plastic, and then hit the road.
I couldn't do it.