The Grass Isn't Always Greener: Introduction

Dear Diary,

Yesterday I went on a long trip that included visits to two libraries in two counties.  I didn't bring water along on this trip, but did bring my bottles, so I could fill them along the way.

In Seattle's Central Library, I filled one without even thinking about it, and certainly without taking a photo.

But in a suburban library outside King County, that I was told had just re-opened last week, I was shocked to find this, and certainly did take a photo:

After seeing that, and other things nearby, I went on a long, and increasingly parched, hike with very dispiriting results.

People complain that the homeless flock to Seattle because it's "Free-attle", full of things homeless people can get for free here.  It hadn't occurred to me before that one of the things these complainers object to Seattle providing is free water.  But based on my hike yesterday and my pounding on the relevant park district's website already this morning, I fear it is.  Indeed, I wonder whether twenty years from now Seattle will be thought irresponsibly easy on the homeless because it won't have started charging them for the air they breathe.

I can't call the relevant agencies during the holiday weekend - in particular, the parks I visited yesterday (but not that library) could have lead as a better explanation for their paucity of fountains - and I can't really hike today, as I'd planned, because I still hurt from yesterday's unplanned hike.  I don't intend to let up on Seattle, and will still be doing water fountain hikes in North Seattle soon.  But as I get chances to go elsewhere, I'll take them, and as I learn more, I'll report it.  Because Seattle should also get what credit is due, and places that claim to be cities but are barbarously lacking in the basics of life, in things the Romans had already mastered two millennia ago, should get what shame is due.

Results of a relatively short hike, in Seattle but not North Seattle, tomorrow, I hope.  Until then, dear Diary.

 

New water fountain hikes coming

Dear Diary,

My life has gotten much more complicated, as housed lives tend to, but I happened to pass the street water fountain at 45th and Wallingford today, and it still isn't back on.

So I'll be hiking soon to see how many of the water fountains the city turned off in order to force homeless people to buy water or die of thirst were turned back on before, or shortly after, the hottest weather in Seattle history.

Until then, dear Diary.  I'd been hoping I could complete you this summer, but it's looking increasingly probable that I'll have to keep you going until the current city administration is over.  Always assuming, that is, that the next one isn't also headed by someone who personally wants all the homeless people in the city to suffer, leave town, or die.

Dear Diary

Dear Diary,

This is going to be so much fun!  Parks are so pretty!  I don't know why I don't spend more time in them.

Oops, darn.  Everyone knows you should never lie to your diary, and there I've gone and done it in the first paragraph.  As an unsheltered homeless man, I know perfectly well why I prefer to spend my days inside.  Top of the list:  running water, to flush, to wash, and to drink.

Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan wants us, during this crisis, to use the parks' restrooms and water fountains for these purposes.  I've been mostly failing to fulfill this perfectly reasonable request, and have decided there's a story in these failures.  So here goes.