Skid Road

in the 1970's, my dad created a non-profit organization in downtown Seattle called the Skid Road Community Council. It was essentially a team of people who sought out homeless people, on the streets of Seattle, and brought them in. They were given a room, usually in downtown's Morrison Hotel, a job was often found for them, and a life was generally put up around them. They were counseled in how to use that new life, and stay off the streets. Dad helped hundreds of homeless men and women, personally in many cases, as well as managing the office to keep the system in place so that he didn't have to do it all himself. He met with the city council to get funding, and to improve how the police dealt with these kinds of situations.

He used to tell me stories about some of these people... how he could be walking down the street
and someone who he'd let into the sort of hostel they had set up, would run up to him, and yell "Mr. Bruce! Mr. Bruce!" all happy to see him. Dad would go to hug him or shake his hand--ya know, respond to this man's joy with his own--and the man would fake like dad was attacking him!

"Ahh! No! Mr. Bruce, no!" And people would look...
"What are you doing?!" my dad would say to the guy (I can't remember his name, but dad knew him pretty well). The guy would just start laughing and patting my dad on the back!

When dad told this story, he would sort of smirk and shake his head. It still freaked him out that people on the street would have thought he was attacking this crazy guy. Cracks me up.

I guess dad had to kind of strong arm guys, too. He'd be in his office when his receptionist's ex-boyfriend would walk in and start threatening her. Dad would walk out and have to talk the guy down. This guy was huge and angry. My dad was a normal looking guy, and had only his will power to push the guy out of the office. I can't imagine. But he did it. He was in charge.

My dad would tell these stories to me, to the family, and it was just his life. There was no boasting that he had somewhat-single-handedly improved hundreds of lives. I would say "that's amazing, dad, you are a major part of Seattle's history." and he'd say "yeah... I guess that's true... Chicago's, too."

"What?"
"Oh, I marched with Dr. King a decade before."
"...Oh."

Another cool thing about Skid Road, dad hired on an office assistant, somewhat late in his seven year stay there, and when it seemed they had a strong mutual attraction, they figured maybe they shouldn't be working together. She left Skid Road so that she could marry him. That was mom. I love that story.

=max