A Living Magazine - Day 16 - Library Violence and Street Peace

I woke up an hour later to my 5:00 am watch alarm. I actually felt as though I'd slept more than that, but I was still tired.

Sunrise Over Redding

I packed up the tarp and headed back down Eureka Way to a Burger King that opened at 6:00. While drinking my coffee, I got online and took a look at the area around me. The shaky plan had been to walk to the next major town north, which would have been Yuba. But there were areas of dense wilderness everywhere. I was going to try to follow the Route 5 corridor, but there were no frontage roads and Route 5 is a no-pedestrian Interstate. I got that terrible little feeling that I'd run up against another wall in the labyrinth of mountains that characterize this part of the state. I distracted my mind with looking for things to photograph on the way over to the library...

Not a good first impression--but this time I reserved judgement.

Mill Foil

Outside the Shasta County Library, Redding Branch

I had to get to there to recharge the laptop and more clearly see what my options were. Once there, I began to resign myself to a 162 mile hike, from Route 299 in Redding, to Route 3, where it would eventually meet up with Route 5 again (which was the basic path that Amtrak follows), ending up in Yreka. I was frustrated and heard myself repeatedly sighing.

If I was going to do this thing, I would need a hard copy version of the maps to take with me since the laptop would run out of battery power within the first day. I very carefully scrutinized the DeLorme Atlas (another good reason for working at a library--access to physical maps and references).

After about 2 hours, I'd planned the entire hike. I knew things would go wrong with my navigation, so I made detailed copies of the Atlas, and then Googled the distance between each tiny town and outpost along the way...

I was ready to go "old school." And, for a few moments, I was looking forward to the adventure of it. Then I began to figure in all the accessories I would need and the things I would have to prepare...

1. Wash clothes.
2. Wash me.
3. Buy at least three days worth of food.
4. Buy as much water as I could, without its weight becoming too burdensome.
5. I would need a smaller backpack in addition to my big pack, to carry these extra supplies, at the Salvation Army Store, just down the street.
6. I would also need my new hiking boots from my dear friend Allyson Robinson, who had ordered them from LLBean, and was holding them in anticipation of an address to mail them to me via General Delivery.

All of this meant that I would have to stay in Redding for at least three more days; not a desirable prospect. But spending 9 days struggling through the Shasta-Trinity National Forest and the Klamath National Forest, for an estimated additional 9 days, leaving with no money, no GPS and no cellphone began to sound bizarre to me. As I turned it over in my head, I realized there were too many unknowns. It was also dangerous to be so far from any means of communication. If I broke my leg it would be game over. It was likely no one would ever find me, and I'd pass into the legends and ghost stories of the region. The more I contemplated hiking this beautiful area, the more stupid it sounded.

If everything did go according to plan, I still wouldn't be out of California, and would have wasted two weeks. Finally, I combined all of this with the fact that I hardly even have a readership anymore. It could only be built up again by reliable and steady posts, day after day, week after week. Losing 9 days with no posts, meant little chance of contributions coming in. It would have been a serious blow to go through all of that and end up in Yreka literally starving, dirty and exhausted, just to check PayPal and see nothing there. That's usually the way it is regardless of the amount of energy I put in. But, in this case, it would floor me.

The better idea was to keep writing as I have been, there would be more chance of supportive revenue from readers, I wouldn't have to catch the blog up, and - shit! - there must be a dozen other reasons too. When I had enough, I would take Amtrak out of California. That was smarter.

I briefly discussed the situation on Facebook. That is when Allyson contacted me and further offered to buy the train ticket. There is a small, truly supportive core for fans of this blog out there. Sheryl and David Sixsmith had been my overwhelming source of support here in California. And, Allyson had been there since the beginning. I was truly thankful to these people. And, even now, I am mostly relying on their (and a few others') generosity to keep going. The only thing that bothered me was the fact that they had already given so much and to accept more from them was becoming difficult. In some ways though, I really had no choice. They must believe in this journey. Now I can't let them down.

Suddenly, as I was beginning to relax, I heard a SLAM. Then there was some yelling, over by book shelves next to the large windows of the library. And, I heard a woman saying, "Oh! There you go, assaulting me in the Library! Great!! Everybody see that?" He muttered something back to her, and she replied with, get the fuck out of my life! All you do is beat me up. This time your's gonna pay! You're gonna die!" Then, there was another SLAM. "You did it again??" she cried out. By this time a couple other guys and I got up and began walking over to the unfortunate couple.

The guy just paced back and forth. Strangely, the library cop who had made sure to walk around sticking his nose into everybody's business about an hour before - telling them to not drink from open cans, or asking people to quiet down - was nowhere to be found.

The assailant walked quickly down the stairs and right before he opened the door, a loud voice called out, "SIR, stop right there!! Stop sir!" It was the library cop, apparently back on the beat. I wanted to film it all but, after making this little snippet, I thought it improper, and put the camera away.

The woman was done with all of this and was not going to get involved in police reports and he-said, she-said type stuff. As she walked away across the parking lot, exchanging insults with the guy. I heard him say to the officer - now backed up by two town cops who swooped in just at the last moment - "I never hit her. I just pushed her to keep her away from me and she fell down."

A woman standing in the small crowd of people outside, interrupted, saying, "I saw him hit her right in the head. She has a cut..."

The injured woman heard this and yelled back, "That's right! Twice!! And now you're lying about it just like in the intervention! You're a fucking lying pig and you're gonna pay for it."

The cop called out to her to return and fill out an incident report. But she hooted loudly, now nearly out if sight, and replied with, "Ha!! Yeah, right! You guys have never helped me. Now I'm taking it into my own hands. Oh... and thanks-a-fucking-lot for that BTW!"

Her voice was barely audible by the time she had made her last remark. But everyone around knew what she was saying. I went back inside.

With my mind finally at ease again about the next step in the journey, it was time to leave the library and find a better nesting spot. Before I left, I looked up any green patches on Google Maps, within a five mile radius and saw the most over the river in the eastern part of the city. So there I headed.

It was interesting, as I walked over the Sacramento River, to see how quickly it ran...

The Sacramento River

And, I thought about how neat it would be to simply put a canoe in here and ride the river back down to Sacramento.

The sunset was gorgeous, pink and peach fluff, being well-appointed with thunderheads rolling across the mountains in the distance...

Lightning at Sunset

There are quite a few homeless folks in Redding. Even on this first full day, I'd been able to remember and then identify people I'd seen before. This was the first time I'd seen so many women, particularly young women. Many were very pretty. One got the impression though that they weren't returning bottles for their money--if you catch my drift.

In general - and I may be just assuming things here - the vibe in this town is more mellow.

I watched one 20-something blonde, loaded down with ripped plastic bags of clothes and no backpack continuously drop a sock here, and a t-shirt there, turn around and pick each of them up, only to drop another item. I felt very bad for her. She was entering the prime of her life. But, instead of college, or getting an apartment with friends, having coffee at cafes or meeting a reliable and handsome young man, she picked through garbage, slept outside, had no clue about how transport her stuff around, and probably turned tricks for $10 a guy.

I stopped and watched her dropping things, walking, dropping things, stopping and readjusting, getting frustrated and stamping her foot. I contemplated going over to her and offering my large plastic trash bag - which was thick-walled - to consolidate her things in. But then, I thought more carefully, and decided that there might be more trouble there than I could do anything about right now. I didn't want to look like I was trying to come on to her either. So, I watched her fade into the shadows...

However, this presented something that I would meditate on: How do I help one person without depleting my ability to help the next person? So far, I have been rationalizing it all by telling myself that my writing must help a little bit? Maybe some person who reads this will pay extra attention to the next homeless young person they see and choose to make her/his load lighter somehow? And, then again, maybe I'm just full of bullshit, unable to reach those readers who could really feel something from my travels, because of my own struggles or perhaps my own self-preservation? I bowed my head, cleared it of so much over-thought, and then continued on.

I walked a long way down E Cypress Avenue, maybe 3 miles until I saw Victor Avenue. It was dark now, but I could distinguish a lot of trees over to my left. I took a chance and investigated it. There was a large field with a light-duty fence running around it. On the inside on the fence brush and branches were piled up along all of what I could see. There was only one place where the wire of the fence had been stretched down far enough to step over. I knew this was the place. Cautious about running into, or over, another sleeper, I quietly checked all of the surrounding area, occasionally using my little LED flash light to make sure a shadow wasn't a man.

The field was filled with the grass I've learned to hate so much (the stuff mentioned in former posts that has barbed seeds that work their way into clothing). But for the last few field nests I've learned how to walk in it with out be speared as badly. It is a matter of walking sideways and pushing the grass into the ground with the side of my foot. The matted-down areas looked to be where people had stayed before. So I found a tall grassy place and made my side-stepping path into it. Once again, it was just ideal. My good fortune in finding sleeping spots is one of the things I am most satisfied with each day. It is a reward for the hard work and struggles I am putting myself through.

The stars were veiled. The air was warm and breezy. I was sweaty so I chose not to get into the sleeping bag, eventually just falling asleep on it. Later on in the very early morning I did climb in. It was very comfortable. It it needed to be, for this is where I planned to spend the nights this week. we'll see if that works out...

The Redding Sleeping Spot 2