After leaving Ron, I drove over to Olive St. In front of an abandoned auto body repair shop I found three latino men huddled under the front doorway overhang. They were all sitting/laying on an old mattress on the ground there. Last year I had a quite memorable enounter with four men in front of this exact same location. It was sunny that day. When I lifted up a bag of food so they could see it, two of the men immediately got up and came over to the car. The third man, after seeing the other two getting the bags got up and came over too. I heard him say, "comida" (food) and he kept making eating motions with his hands. All three men were hungry. The first two who came over where Hernando and Luis. I know I've helped Hernando before and probably Luis too. The third man I didn't get his name. While driving over to Olive St. I happened to pass by a man sleeping under an awning on 16th St. just before Main St. After leaving the men on Olive St I needed to find a gas station (and soon) and ended up in a station just across the street from this man. His name was Jose. Although, I intended to drive back to this guy, after seeing the men on Olive St and then noticing my car was almost out of gas, I kind of forgot about (photo)
him. Wouldn't you know there was a gas station directly across the street from where he was (although the station turned out to be closed)!
I haven't seen Willie in about a month now. I thought I might try driving by where I last saw him on the east side of Alameda. However, when I got there he wasn't there. I did see a man laying under the freeway there all covered up with a couple of blankets. It turned out to be my buddy John Stokes. He has lived for years about 20 or 30 feet away from where I saw him Sunday. Recently, the police have made him move from there during the day. I commented about the few things he had with him. He told me the police had taken everything away a week or so before.
One of the things he missed the most was a little AM radio that he had. He said he listened to his favorite program, Coast to Coast, every night on it. He asked me if I could get him another radio with an ear piece. I told him I'd look for one. John had on a light jacket with no shirt on underneath. I was able to come up with a couple of long sleeve shirts, a knit cap and a sweatshirt with a hood. He was doing a lot better when I left.
At this point I had one bag of food left. I decided to prayer-walk down skid row before leaving the area. As I drove around the area a little bit before parking the car I found David sitting in a doorway on 7th. He was cold and hungry and it was starting to rain more consistantly. I parked in front of the police station. The tents had already gone up along the sidewalks (see photo) due to the rain. Most people had found a place to hang out under a covering so there weren't near as many
people out standing around as there usually are. I walked around a couple of blocks that I normally don't go down. One man named Bill, was struggling with his cart and umbrella. I asked him how he was doing and he said, "Miserable." That kind of sums up the general feel of the whole place Sunday. I did give Bill a can of food, although he passed on the cookies due to the condition of his teeth. What is normally, during good weather, a hard enough struggle to survive, is made even more difficult in the wet weather. Even crossing the streets is difficult due to the water in the gutters. Most of the gutters seem to be stopped up so there is a lot of standing water that one has to jump over to cross a street. That's one of the reasons I didn't walk all the way down 6th like I normally do. However, every side street down in the skid row area is home to many people too. It was difficult to watch the people with few possessions trying to get by, in particular, those with shoes that obviously didn't fit. There were also many people with no jackets, maybe just a small blanket draped over their shoulders. On a digital thermometer I had noticed the temperature at 50 degrees.
It was starting to rain a lot more and by the time I got to Cloud Nine Alley it was a real downpour. I parked and hopped over the water in the street/gutter and started down the alley. At the south entrance to the alley I noticed someone new had put up a temporary 'house' complete with plywood and tarps to help keep them dry during the rain. He won't be able to stay there on Monday. It looked like Ray was probably in his 'house' too, but since it was raining so heavily at this point I didn't try to talk to any of the residents. I prayed, I stepped over large pools of water and tried to keep out of the range of the drain pipes that were spewing out a lot of water. One thing that the rain will do, is help wash away the smell of urine which can be overpowering at times around skid row and Cloud Nine alley. I was really soaked by the time I got back to the car. I survived, the folks living on the streets and alleys survived and more importantly, winter is officially over! From the streets of downtown L.A. I can tell you we're all looking forward to springtime! Until next week. John
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