Two Couples

Memorial Day. A quarter to six in the morning. Elmer and I were on the move.

Johnson Creek beckoned. I wanted to hear its gurgle and flow to begin my day. I might even see a beaver. There is nothing like starting an Oregon day by witnessing a beaver gliding upstream or dragging a 20-foot willow branch to a lodge.

In the park, Elmer and I encountered an elderly man cutting pink rhododendron flowers with a Bowie knife. He's a regular in the park at this hour and always chats with ducks. We said hello to one another and that was it. He was cutting the flowers on Memorial Day, perhaps for someone he loved, now gone. You don't cut rhododendron flowers in a city park with a Bowie knife just past dawn if it wasn't for someone you loved, now gone.

Elmer and left the park, walked six blocks, and turned off a street onto a gravel path that led to small park that Johnson Creek paralleled for 50 yards.

The path ended and we emerged into a grass area with a single picnic table ten yards away from the creek. Sitting at the table across from each other, were a homeless man and woman. They appeared in their 50s. A bicycle rested behind the man. Several backpacks rested behind the woman.

I took this in from ten yards away.

All visual evidence pointed to a serious conversation underway. Their faces indicated that, as did the low voices. I didn't catch a single word.

Elmer and I passed them. The man saw me and nodded. I nodded back.

Thirty yards away, I stopped on a footbridge and looked back at the couple. She extended her right hand toward him. The man reached out with his left hand and grasped it. I thought right on right would have been an easier maneuver, but the couple went the more intricate route.

We continued on our way. Three blocks later we emerged from a pedestrian path along another creek and beheld a homeless couple spooning on a bench typically used to observe the many ducks that populate this section of the creek. Parents bring small children to this spot all the time and teach them about ducks.

Fast food and convenience store detritus and garbage bags surrounded the bench.

A ratty blanker covered the couple's heads and torsos. I deduced from apparel and footwear that the couple was a man and a woman.

Ten or so ducks swam and quacked below the couple.

Elmer and I passed them at five feet. They didn't stir.