What Are They Talking About?  Feb 21st, 2014 | By | Category:
Nick Kemper's Blog  Nick KemperOn my way home from work last
week I dropped off some items at our corporate office in lower
SE Portland, and then took the old 99E through town to get onto
I-84. I passed some kind of soup kitchen/homeless shelter and
there was a line going out the door about a half a block long. A
lot of people had duffel bags and other items. It was a cool
day, but warmer than many days previous. As I sat at the light
observing the line of people I couldn’t get over how animated
they all were while talking to each other. Every group of two or
three people was carrying on some kind of conversation. I kept
thinking, what are they talking about? What are the things that
a homeless person discusses with another homeless person?
Compare that line to the line at the post office or the line at
the airport. Put a bunch of non-homeless people in a line and
they all stand there pretending that there’s no one to talk to.
It reminded me of the