By John Bulger, December 5, 2010
5 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 4: The light mist that has been falling most of the day continues as I arrive at Caldwell Park Encampment Project to the scene of a cityscape of huddled appliance boxes, one of which will serve as my bed for the night.
This temporary encampment, a yearly event hosted by Aid For Friends, is meant to showcase the plight of the homeless. The congregated boxes look something like a low-budget set for the residents of the Hoovervilles in the stage play “Annie.”
A group of people are huddling around a campfire built inside a 50-gallon drum that has been neatly sliced in half. Alan Priddy is giving a primer on how best to stay warm during winter camping. Having been stationed for 54 months in the Antarctic and 13 in the Arctic, 700 miles from the respective poles, his bona fides are unquestioned.
The sponsors of this camp-out had hoped for colder temperatures and drier conditions. Bundling against cold is pretty easy, but moisture can make the task much harder. Many of the converted appliance boxes have tarps over them to ensure the contents stay dry.
Cardboard is actually a pretty good insulator, Priddy explains, noting that the natives of Greenland employ in four-inch thickness as their preferred insulation.
I agree to bunk with a friend. It’s not a spacious accomodation, but two bodies in the box will go a long way towards warming the interior.
Back at the fire, Priddy is winding down his talk, pointing out his own box for the campers if they need aid during the freezing night to come.
“If you’re cold, you can crawl in with me,” Priddy says, then adds: “I sleep naked.” The crowd laughs. “If you’re that cold, you can drive home. You don’t have to suffer.”
I go look at my box. It has a bit of a sag already from the rain that has since frozen. I really should find a tarp to throw over it.
5:30 p.m.: While the adults drink coffee and stand around the fire, a passel of Boy Scouts run and shout, whipping snowballs at each other, interrupted by calls of “time out!” as another rule is instituted to either keep order or make the game more difficult.
The rain continues and it’ll be hours before bed. If I were outside being active, this weather would be nothing. Standing and gazing into the fire, I’m getting a tad cold. I decide to go sit in my car for a bit and read my book or catch the end of “Prairie Home Companion.” I reason that it’s not really a cheat, as numerous homeless people live in their automobiles.
6:15 p.m.: What is quickly apparent is being homeless is pretty boring. I decide to walk — OK, drive — the couple of blocks to Ace Hardware. It’s certainly within the parameters of homeless behavior to find a warm retail store to wander, particularly during the holiday shopping season.
Bonus. The store has a crock pot of meatballs to knosh on. I get a few and wander through the camping section. The sleeping pads and the propane heater get my attention, although I already have the first and the second would be a kind of unfair to use.
Over by the fishing section, they’re having a wine tasting. Folks are milling about, talking about the refreshing naivete of this little domestic burgandy. It’s tempting, but the thoughts of having to crawl out of my sleeping bag to use the Port-a-Potties near the encampment in the middle of the night militates against it.
I drive to the Albertsons, where I buy two boxes of Animal Crackers. Creatures in a box being consumed while sitting in a box has some sort of synchronicity. Plus, they’re only a buck a box, which seems to be within the realm of possible financial largesse of a homeless person.
7 pm.: Back at Caldwell. The crowd has become significantly larger. Someone pipes up, “There’s more pots of soup over there, so eat up.” The Salvation Army has set up on the park’s edge, along with some Boy Scouts, to provide us grub. I could have saved two bucks on the Animal Crackers. Rats.
The soup is excellent. I have two bowls and return to the fire.
The group seems to present an economic cross-section of our community. Many here have never spent a winter’s night sleeping outdoors, while some of the people, formerly homeless, have.
One older gent perhaps gives a hint to some of the travails he’s faced. He smells of drink, is a bit unsteady and is voluble, but gentle. He engages a woman in lopsided conversation, hums of bit of the Everly Brothers, then approaches somebody else to chat with. Spying a young woman smoking a cigarette and wearing a Irish cableknit cap, he asks, “Where’d you get that hat?”
“SEICAA,” the woman replies before taking another drag from the cigarette.
“Who’s he?” the man asks.
8:30 p.m.: The group around the fire grows. The talks is generational. The young adults, including members of the Idaho State University Rugby Team, talk about music and sports and kid each other, occasionally letting out a loud snort at a double entendre. The adults ask each other about their lives, families and jobs. There is a smattering of politics here and there.
BJ Stensland, director of Aid For Friends, expresses some misgivings about another encampment that has been set up at the other end of the park. The rogue group has started a fire and she is worried, because Aid For Friends had to jump through the hoops to get permits to have their single fire here in the park, which sits on a mound of dirt atop several tarps to keep the grass underneath from being damaged. Someone eventually wanders over and asks the group, which has come to the camp-out of its own accord and has not registered with Aid For Friends, to extinguish their fire. They are not happy, but they comply.
9:00 p.m.: Scout are dishing out Dutch oven apple and peach cobbler. The shame of my profligate Animal Cracker purchase burns deeper.
Chatting with a board member near the fire, she notes that the vignettes of homelessness are not as straightforward as many might believe. She recounts one man who came to the homeless shelter here who had been employed by Micron. The dominoes that made up his life toppled — he lost his job, got divorced, became depressed, took to the bottle. There but for the grace of God, we both say.
9:15 p.m.: Alan Priddy is still helping campers erect boxes. The group has the necessary materials to build 80 boxes and has run out. There are more campers at this event than they had bargained for.
A boy uses an battery-operated drill to make a hole through the boxes that have been slightly nestled to give sufficient room for sleeping. A yowl from inside stops him. His brother, inside the box to help with wiring, has backed into the drill bit, which has twisted in the hair on his head. The drill is reversed and the hair comes free, most of it remaining on the boy’s scalp. He proclaims he is fine and the building continues.
My boxmate Andy has returned, having attended a dance performance at ISU with his family. Several days’ scruff of beard makes him look authentic, although the stink of fine arts is about him. I pretend not to notice.
I set up my mattress and sleeping bag. Several years before, I camped at a yurt in the local hills with my wife and others. My sleeping bag, which was certified to keep a person warm to, oh, 60 degrees, left me a shivering, fetal-positioned wretch in the night’s slightly sub-zero temperatures. We splurged after that event and bought good down-filled mummy bags.
10:30 p.m: Andy and I decide to close up the flaps of our box for the night. The air temperature rises considerably within a short time, melting the frost on the insides of the box. We pull out the cribbage board and play two games by the light of our headlamps. Others are following suit, getting in their boxes. The boxes abut each other and there is considerable seismic activity as people blunder about, making their preparations. Already, there can be heard snoring over the din of the few who laugh and occasionally shriek over by the fire.
11 p.m.: It’s time to turn in. The down sleeping bag is toasty and the mat is doing a good job of insulating from the cold. What it can’t do, as becomes abundantly clear as the night progresses, is keep my hip from aching.
There is a noise like the drip of water, but it’s hard to tell if it’s coming from our box.
3 a.m.: Andy opens the flaps and pulls in a tarp from outside. Perhaps he needs extra insulation? I got back to sleep.
7 a.m.: The bona fide jostling of people awakening in their boxes wakes me. I hold on for a half-hour more before getting up. It becomes quickly apparent that the drip was coming from inside our box. Our body heat has permeated the cardboard roof, melting the ice atop, which has all run in. Andy has suffered through the night slightly damp. Although my bag and pad are wet, I am still dry in my bag.
7:45 a.m.: Coffee. Sweet, sweet coffee.
8 a.m.: We untangle the wires holding our box together and place our damp bags and pads in my car. Over by the fire, the Boy Scouts are reading prayers in honor of the homeless, including a passage from Psalm 31:11-12: “Those who see me in the street hurry past me; I am forgotten, as good as dead in their hearts, something discarded.”
The smell of pancakes wafts over to the fire. For us, there is food. And the knowledge that we will now seamlessly slip back into our lives of warm homes and ready meals and the company of our loved ones.
For many in Pocatello, such will not be the case this night.
3 p.m.: BJ Stensland confirms that 95 people spent the night in Caldwell Park to raise funds and spur donations for Aid For Friends.
“Our previous high was 35, maybe 40,” she says, referring to previous years’ events.
I have not raised any donations yet for my night out. I had thought to do so mainly among co-workers, but decided to try to appeal to a broader audience. That audience is you, if you have read this far. Please consider donating to Aid For Friends, to give a hand up, rather than a hand-out, to your fellow citizens who are not as fortunate. Send your donations to Aid For Friends, P.O. Box 4233, Pocatello, ID 83205.
You might not be thanked personally by the person you help, but it may be the most welcome gift you give this year.
John Bulger is a reporter for the Idaho State Journal. He stayed out all night Saturday at the Homeless encampment at Caldwell Park in Pocatello.
Originally published in the Idaho State Journal on December 5, 2010: https://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/local/article_166c70ca-00dd-11e0-9084-001cc4c03286.html
