This morning like most of my Saturday mornings I got to work at the Hopvine Pub around 9:30 and start on the kitchen prep by going out back and grabbing the day's bread delivery that Essential Baking Co. drops off around 6am. Out back behind the pub is a a couple compost and recycling bins, picnic tables we put out in the summer and a small shed to store empty beer kegs in. I first noticed the meticulously flattened out and arranged produce boxes and still being a bit sleepy I did a double take and noticed someone sleeping there on the ground. My first reaction was to think oh shit I'm being too loud I'll wake them up. Then I looked at the milk crates next to me and noticed a very sweet earnest note gingerly placed in between them explaining what this man was doing there. I grabbed my small point and shoot camera I always have in my bag and took a quick photo then texted my best friend asking if she thought it was in poor taste to take a photo of a sleeping homeless person. I'm still not sure.... I kept thinking about how even though it's late february in the pacific northwest, I noticed patches of frozen ground on my walk to work, I cannot imagine how uncomfortable it'd be to sleep outside this time of year.
I quietly brought the bread inside and closed the back door hoping our sleeping friend would be gone before my ass hole of a manager arrived and perhaps noticed him out there and gave him a hard time about it.
"Way I’m sleepin’, my back and shoulders tired
Way I’m sleepin’, my back and shoulders tired
Come tomorrow, I’ll be satisfied
If I can catch that fast train and ride
So, make me down a pallet on your floor
Make me down a pallet on your floor
Make me down a pallet soft and low
Babe, I’m broke an' I got no where to go"
-Gillian Welch
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