I spotted Tom, Ruth, and Zacchaeus in a Helen parking lot on a luminous April morning when the little city was stippled with marathon runners and Easter colors and spring traditions. After capturing some of that action on a company camera, I saw the trio again — husband, wife, dog — walking along Edelweiss Strasse, next to the river. We met up in the water park’s empty lot.
Worn and determined, Tom and Ruth — they asked me not to use their real names but gave approval to use the dog’s name — dragged their lives behind them in two wagons. Zach, a cute little blendhound, trotted next to Ruth, looking kind of sad. He was downhearted, Ruth explained, because his father had just died.
They arrived in town the day before, Friday, two humans and two dogs, delivered by a kindhearted, if geographically challenged driver — they were headed for the Walmart in Cleveland, but he dropped them off in Helen. They managed to spend a comfortable night in a local hotel, thanks to the largesse of, “a lady who was Godsent,” Ruth said.
Zach’s aged and ailing father went to sleep Friday night and never woke up. So they furtively buried him in the hotel garden the next morning before setting out for Cleveland. “Poor Zach lost his mama in August. Spider bite,” Ruth said. “He’s had it pretty rough.”
Ruth is 53 and strong. Tom, who walks with the help of a cane, seems older than the 59 years he’s claimed. Zach is a pup.
They’d been depending on the kindness of various strangers at least since Savannah, and I figure, for a lot longer. They’ve been living down there in “Macon by the Sea,” homeless except for their tents and sleeping bags, for 11 years.
They moved there from Kentucky, “for a more permanent job,” Tom said with emphasis, probably thinking about the too-many cases of bad luck that converged at once. When they got to Savannah, the gig on a salvage boat didn’t materialize.
“The boat broke down on the way to Savannah from Miami, blew an engine, and then my truck broke down,” he said. “By the end of that week, my license expired.”
He didn’t have insurance, proper ID, no way to prove who he was, no money for a car, nothing but his wits and his wife and before long, a tent to sleep in. For years, they camped in Savannah city limits. They survived. There were occasional odd jobs, and handouts — though they insist they never actually asked for money.
“People just see you and most of them are kind, or they want to be kind,” Tom said.
Ruth added, “We’ve been lucky. We don’t need much.”
When Savannah started putting the kibosh on urban camping, Tom and Ruth started moving north to the mountain air. They’ve got a cell phone, and they keep up with the news of the world, claim to have strong faith in God, but little faith in the culture of stuff.
“Because it all goes so quickly,” Ruth said. “People shouldn’t be so attached to things, to living beyond their means. You can replace stuff. You can’t replace life or people. We’ve lost everything twice, and stuff just don’t matter to us anymore.”
They have children but haven’t heard from them in years, and it’s kind of a sore subject — the van got quiet for a few minutes.
As we reached the packed weekend Walmart parking lot, they talked about where they might set up a camp nearby. But first, they had a few bucks to spend and a few things they needed. Because the family van accommodates our wheelchair-propelled son, we have special parking privileges, so I could pull into a handicap spot up front, which delighted my weary passengers.
Last I saw them, they were walking to the store entrance. Tom led, pulling his wagon, limping iambically — one, two; one, two. “God figures it out for us,” Ruth said with a serious face before turning to follow Tom, wagon handle in one hand, leash in the other. Orphan Zach hustled to keep up on his little paws. There were miles yet to go.
Jerry Grillo is the editor/publisher of the White County News.