The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/9/09 Section: Opinions

MARC MCAFEE

I looked at the world through the eyes of a man who had nothing, and I found everything.

His name is Robert Hood Jr., and he showed me patience, kindness and optimism. You may have driven over his roof before. He lives under the North Avenue bridge. He calls the bridge "a blessing" because he took refuge under it on a cold and rainy night when he had nowhere else to go. As the small community there welcomed him with open arms, he no longer was homeless.

I visited the bridge outside of Athens last week because I was curious. I wanted to learn about the people living under there.

I'll admit I was a bit surprised, I thought I might be waved away by angry people wanting to be left alone. Instead, they waved me in and asked me how I was doing.

They had gathered around a fire amid piles of clutter and bunks nestled between beams of the bridge. The men talked to me about what got them there and what they were doing to get out. We watched from under the bridge as the rain came down on the Oconee River.

Hood stayed busy, he walked between a fishing pole and the fire, and then tore into a can of beans, his dinner.

He also took time to feed a group of hungry ducks - perhaps a man living under a bridge can understand the feeling of hunger. As he tossed them stale bread, he told me about how he once had to protect the ducks from a brick-wielding stranger who had a brief stay underneath North Avenue. Drugs and troublemakers apparently pass under the bridge from time to time, but they usually leave when asked.

"It happens," Hood said, "but that's life - you find those kinds of things anywhere you go."

Hood and other men under the bridge didn't fit the comfortable stereotype of the lazy homeless bum, and Hood certainly took issue with that view. He said he'd been working since he was 8, then pointed at a sleeping man next to him who had been in construction for 20 years before his jobs dried up.

Hood said firms that used to hire temporary workers before the economy soured are now "money scared - scared to spend money."

He said he and several others were heading to a job fair for the homeless in the morning. They know the prospects are few - especially for Hood, who years ago accrued a couple of theft convictions. He remembered watching potential employers look over his résumé.

"You could tell when they got to that part," he said. "Everything would be fine, and then they'd make a face and say, 'OK, we'll call you.'"

Hood said he's trying his hardest to stay on the right side of the law to avoid getting locked up again.

Some people's thoughts of concern tend to shift toward the homeless when it's cold or raining outside. Hood said not to worry about him.

"When it gets cold out here, we go up under there under the covers," he said as he gestured toward the blankets. "It's really not bad. We sweat - we burn up!"

Some people worry about them even when the weather is good. These people, many of them students, often visit the men under the bridge several days a week. They bring food and musical instruments and a warmth to the men's lives matched only by the fire they surround.

These good citizens don't ask for headlines or pats on the back.

They simply see the faces of human beings under that bridge, people who aren't necessarily lying around on park benches waiting to waste another dollar. These helpers see people dealing the best they can with the choices they've made and the cards they've been dealt.

At least, that's what I saw. Under that bridge I saw Rush Limbaugh without the money, Robert Downey Jr. without the star power and myself with a stroke of bad luck and no family to fall back on. I only hope I could keep my head held as high as Robert Hood's.

"This is just where I'm at right now," he said, "And I'm OK with it - this too shall pass - that's the way I try to look at it."

Strong and determined words from a man with few material possessions, but a wealth of honor and dignity.

- Marc McAfee is a senior from Kennesaw majoring in broadcast news.

Interview with Robert Hood, Jr.:

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