A Gentleman Wanderer
Gene “Chico” Taylor may have died in his tent down by the bay, but he was no bum
(Feb. 25, 2010) Lately he’d been reading a big Dean Koontz novel that was so good he’d urged his sister Bonnie to read it, the last time they talked on the phone. “Write it down, Bonnie!” he’d told her. Of course, he and Bonnie were always swapping good reads. They talked just about every day, Bonnie Taylor from her home in Washington state and Gene Taylor — everybody called him Chico — from wherever he was living at the moment. Usually in a tent, somewhere pretty and natural where the birdwatching was good and there weren’t too many people around.
Chico had one of those cheapy cell phones you can get at the drug store and just add minutes to, and Bonnie made sure she kept him in minutes so they could keep in touch. It was the one concession her proud, handout-shunning, wandering younger brother made for her. Every now and then, however, she wouldn’t be able to reach him. One time, a couple of months ago, a few weeks passed in which she didn’t hear from him, but his phone had crapped out, that was all, and it had taken him awhile to get a new one.
Once she got through, she heard Chico’s good news: He had finally landed in a spot that felt like home. “Bon, I’m 50 yards from the bay!” he told her.
It was November, and he was in Eureka.
On Jan. 9, Chico experienced his first earthquake. He called Bonnie to tell her about it.
By the morning of Feb. 14, Chico, who would have turned 50 on April 18, was dead. Bonnie, who is 51, got the call from the Humboldt County Coroner’s office. His tent had caught fire while he was sleeping the night of Feb. 13, and he died from smoke inhalation. Investigators ruled out foul play. They said the fire probably was caused by a lantern. All of this was noted in brief reports in the Times-Standard.
And, for most people in Eureka who read those news reports, that might have been all we were to know — or, let’s be honest even care — about Gene “Chico” Taylor. Just another poor transient, come and gone.
But then on Feb. 18 the T-S ran a letter to the editor from Kathy Anderson. It was a screed both personal and political. She said Gene Taylor was a friend of hers and that he wasn’t camping but surviving. She also said that he loved living alone, “… where he could feed the birds and read his latest novel.” She said he’d tried living in the Serenity Inn, “but found being there unacceptable, so he went off to the woods because there were no other options for him.”
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EIGHT Comments
Comment / By kathy anderson / Feb. 25, 2010, 1:46 p.m.
Heidi did a good job of reporting this story. She is excellent at playing what she called “the devils advocate”.In answer to the question of whether I used my friends death as a ploy to get attention to the homeless situation I must state what is obvious to others who advocate for homeless people and there right to be treated equally within our society; I speak and do what I can to bring justice to those who are unjustly treated in this society. That is all, it’s very simple. There are no hidden agendas of financial gain or prestige, as a matter of fact my fellow advocates and I are in poverty ourselves and understand what the average citizen wonders about and know that we must tell the true stories of what is REALLY going on in and about homelessness. We get spit at and harassed by police, government, property owners and business persons just like our homeless neighbors do. The personal stories need to be told because society forgets about the human condition that is made more dangerous as each day passes when ignorance and cruelty are running rampant. Why do we not have campgrounds as affordable housing? God have mercy on our souls for being negligent and mean-spirited!
Comment / By belle / Feb. 25, 2010, 4:51 p.m.
It makes a big difference when people like this are “humanized” and made real people. Thank you for this article. As much as I would hate to read obituaries, I would love more human contacts with those who are alive and well, living an “alternative” life style that we need to try to understand. Kind of goes with your Indian Island story.
We are all here together. Let us look at ourselves first to make change and life a better thing.
Comment / By unanonymous / Feb. 26, 2010, 7:35 a.m.
“She said he’d tried living in the Serenity Inn, “but found being there unacceptable,”
sounds like he did have a place to stay but didn’t like the digs. As for hobo code of ethics, chico was or had neither. That piece of park is a dangerous place to go because of these people and the nasty trash and drug paraphernalia they leave behind. The amount of trash and the type of trash is friggin disgusting. There are free trash cans about 2-300 feet from his ‘campsite’.
Romanticizing the vagrants will only get some poor innocent person killed when they go down to the park to feed the homeless like some friggin zoo animal and think they are doing gods work. campgrounds? we need drug/mental health councilors, more police patrols to stop the druggin’, and real place for them to stay that provides rehab and training, and maybe, to cite a real 1889 code of ethics, a swift kick in the ass.
Comment / By kathy anderson / Feb. 26, 2010, 12:51 p.m.
I’ve been going out to woods like at Del Norte Pier for 45 years and never once have i been attacked in any way except by police officers or good ol boys who were trying to scare us into their type of oppressive lifestyle. Romanticizing? Telling a persons life story is not romanticizing them. The story you tell vilifies people you don’t even know personally. Your attitude is prejudiced and mean spirited and the reason I do what I do. Poor people do not deserve to be thought of and treated like you suggest. Poverty is our enemy. Give us truly affordable housing so that just like the rich we can do what we do behind the privacy of closed doors, toilet and shower facilities and garbage pick-up and your delicate sensibilities can be better satisfied!
Comment / By kathy anderson / Feb. 26, 2010, 1:30 p.m.
By the way….when Mac began cleaning the campsite Heidi wondered why the mess was still there nearly a week after police and firemen knew the place had been trashed by their being there but did nothing to clean it up! Huh? Does that mean that the trash problem is a bit more complex than that of “transients”?
Comment / By unanonymous / March 2, 2010, 10:56 a.m.
last time I checked trash pickup wasn’t on the job description of our busy emergency services. That area has been cleaned several times I know of by volunteers (you, thanks?) and city staff. There is a trash can at the parking lot. Why not use it?
Del Norte Pier is not the woods, its a public owned, city greenway over run by invasive plants, refuse, drug addicts, prostitutes, and people in need of mental health services.
A murdered body was found in the bushes just east of there near Eureka Garbage, I would be very careful pushing into the bushes around there thinking everyone is an innocent soul discarded by society.
Comment / By Heidi Walters / March 2, 2010, 2:14 p.m.
Unanonymous: From what Chico’s sister told me, Chico was generally a tidycat, with a picked-up campsite and a kept-together person: Half of his backpack contained clean socks, she said. Perhaps he did use that trash can when he was alive. Not to excuse illegal camping. Certainly he parked his tent in an unauthorized spot, and that alone could be deemed a trashy eyesore, tidy or not. Regardless, in this particular case, the trash that Mac McCormick was cleaning up was the burned-up mess the fire made of Chico’s campsite. For the record, Deputy Coroner Charlie Van Buskirk said that the police had been planning to bring a con crew out to the site to clean it up. And, yes, John Shelter has been bringing homeless volunteer crews out to illegal campsites to teach campers to clean up after themselves.
Comment / By John Shelter / March 9, 2010, 9:25 p.m.
Hi Folks, I do not often reply to any of these blogs because they turn so hateful.
I have to agree with Heidi. This gentleman’s camp was clean the three weeks I knew about it. I have pictures to prove it. The reason it was not cleaned was that I had concerns with the site after the fire. I photo it because of the unbelievable amount of trash that was there. There had been NO signs of trash at all before the fire. Unlike Ms. Kathy we are trying to assist individuals find new locations other than the woods. However, with no safe place to send people it sometimes takes awhile to relocate people.
We had been trying to contact the gentleman that was forced to live in the woods, to hopeful try to find him a better place. And to you unanimous you are wrong everybody needs their own space. The Serenity inn is OK for familys, however the single people are four to a small closet. A single homeless person gets 265.00 a month and food stamps. That is it!!!! No education, no employment training, no place to sleep, no place to be at all. It is illegal to be on private or public property. Yet we expect them to roll out from where ever they could get a few minutes of sleep in the cold without going to the bathroom. AND GET A JOB?? PEOPLE deserve more, and we need to start with a safe place to be and sleep. The people I see on an almost a daily basis are not mean or scary. Maybe scared… However, I promise I will never stop my pursuit in changing the laws that will make what we do to the homeless a hate crime. Because it is no different than what we experienced in the 70’ and 80’s. I remember laws that made some people ride in the back of the buses, or use different bathrooms should I go on? Most of these individuals have underlining issues that have brought them to where they are. Not all are mentally ill or drug addicts or want to live outside, just people that may have made the wrong decision. I was tought to get respect you must show respect. The way I see it starts with each one of us.