by Pam Hogeweide

“Hey, can you spare some change?” asked a scruffy looking white guy sitting on the sidewalk amidst hip boutiques and contemporary eateries on Portland’s busy Hawthorne Boulevard. “To be honest, I just want to get another beer,” he confessed.

I squatted down on the sidewalk to get eye level with the spanger (someone who asks passerbys for spare change). Sitting next to him was his traveling buddy and there road dog, who started sniffing me. Piled next to them were two backpacks and a large hand drum. We kept talking – I can get a conversation going with just about anybody – and I learned that the spanger’s name was Solo, short for Solomon. His younger friend was Chris.

“Where you boys from?” I asked in my most friendly Portland voice. “I’m from No’Oleans,” drawled Solo, which I found curious, for he had not been drawlin’ a word up to that point. I grew up in Louisiana so straight away I started talking with him about places I remembered from the South. Before long he confessed, “I’m not really from New Orleans, but that’s where I cut my teeth. I’m actually from Medford ( southern Oregon).” His friend Chris hailed from Pittsburgh.

I found out they had just arrived to Portland by bus a couple of hours earlier. They were miles from the downtown area, which is where most street youth and vagabond travelers hang out. They didn’t know where they were going to sleep that night. “And it looks like it’s gonna rain,” observed Solo with a gloomy look up at the cloudy night sky.

They said they were planning on staying in town a few days before moving on. I told them about HOME PDX (Ken Loyd’s HOME PDX church for people who don’t live in homes in downtown Portland) and gave them the address. “Food, fun and friendship,” I told them, “12th and Clay at noon.”

“Oh man,” exclaimed Solo, “how come everybody is getting on me to get to church all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know, but nobody will try to convert you. It’s about the 3 F’s: Food, Fun and Friendship,” I assured him.

Suddenly a torrent of storytelling came hurling out of Solo. He told me he used to be involved in his church’s youth group in southern Oregon. “I was the worship leader,” he said. I sat there looking at this guy, grimy and smiling with a half-drunken grin on his face while the scent of his adventures swirled around the city sidewalk street. He’d already told me that they hadn’t showered in over a month.

My face must of betrayed some kind of askance at his worship leading credentials for he spontaneously grabbed his drum and straddled it like a biker climbing up on his hog. Thunder erupted as the drum came to life. Solo smiled, then tilted back his head and began to croon in a strong, smoky voice: Sing Hallelujah to the Lord, Sing Hallelujah to the Lord….

I could not hide my amazement. This song, Sing Hallelujah to the Lord, is an old staple from my Calvary Chapel days. It’s been a lifetime since I’ve heard it. And now, on Hawthorne Boulevard, one of the trendiest streets in our city, I was being serenaded by a slightly drunk thirty-something-year-old homeless singer.

I joined in on the second chorus. Solo’s drumming echoed from the sidewalk into the night air. His singing loud and clear. My voice not nearly as good as his, but I found my alto pitch and together we sang amidst the pedestrians and passing motorists. Chris, and the dog, sat there quietly, enduring the performance as if this was normal evening entertainment.

I searched all through my purse for money to give them. Damn. I only had coin, no paper. But they were gracious and grateful. “Anything helps,” they said.

I gave them a postcard before I left, one I happened to have with me. I wrote it out to them on the sidewalk, as if I was really writing a postcard intended for someone far away. “Hello Solo and Chris, How’s it going? Hope you are well.
I am doing fine. Hey, have you seen Into the Wild?…”

I included on the postcard details about Ken Loyd’s HOME PDX church in downtown Portland. Later, as I said good-bye to them and encouraged them to check out HOME, I reminded them, “Remember, it’s about the three F’s: Food, Fun and
Friendship.”

That night as I prayed bedtime prayers with my kids I offered up what I could for Solo and Chris. As I tucked my son into his warm bed, soft and dry, safe in the shelter of our home, I could only wonder about Solo and Chris, what was their story, where were their mothers, what was their past and what would be their future? Would they sleep dry tonight?

I remember asking Ken one time, “How do you give to street kids and then go home to your warm house? How do you leave them and do that?” Ken’s countenance grimaced as his posture slumped a bit more before he answered. “I go home and turn my electric blanket to the highest setting to warm up from being out in the cold with them. And then I feel like shit.” Ken told me that if you cared, you’ll feel like shit about it.

And so that night, as I laid in my own cozy bed, the soft, dry blankets pulled up snug around my chin, I breathed another prayer for Solo and Chris, for their safety and shelter. I wished I could have provided them my home, but for all kinds of reasons I could not. I could only give them a bit of conversation and friendly welcome to my city. As my eyes closed and I drifted off to sleep, I heard the rain come, and in the distance, the sound of drums and of hallelujahs. “Keep ‘em safe, God, keep ‘em safe,” was my slumbering prayer.

–Pam Hogeweide