NY Times
A young bearded homeless man with long twisting hair stopped pushing his grocery cart full of possessions down the sidewalk.
It was 6:30 in the morning and sunny.
I was across the street carrying an 8-iron over my shoulder and on my way to the nearby city-owned (socialist) golf course to practice my chipping in preparation for an upcoming round of golf, my first in 25 years, at a family reunion in Central Oregon. I'll be lucky to break a hundred.
No one else was around. Towering cedars covered us in shade.
I stopped and watched the man. He had stopped to read the folded too half of a fat newspaper. From its considerable bulk and graphic design, I knew it was a Sunday edition of the NY Times. The man had either dug it out of recycling bin or ripped it off from the front porch of a million-dollar home. Either way, he was reading all the news fit to print and the sight certainly arrested my attention. What was the article that had compelled him to stop? I tried imagining him reading the rest of the paper in his tent or RV.
He kept on reading and I walked away. Twenty yards later, I turned around and he was still reading.