Jesus Folk & Hobos

The past week or so has been pretty slow around Sacramento. It's been hard to find anything worthy of praise or mockery, so I started going through my archives looking for some good journalism-related entertainment to share with you, the faithful Photocalypse subscriber.

Here's a classic moment from my early days in Eugene, which began as one of those stories that probably wasn't going to be anything but turned out to be something magical.

So the newsroom got a call one evening from a jolly fellow named Jebediah. He and his religious group were protesting a pornography store, as they felt that pornography was tearing apart families and their values. Being the only nightside photog, my dinner break was abruptly interrupted so that I could make it downtown for this "story". My Taco Bell gorditas and Simpsons reruns would have to wait.

So I arrived at ye olde pornography shoppe to find 15 or so protesters. Ok, I said, at least something is going on, so it might be a story after all. As I grab my gear, a homeless gentleman (perhaps a hobo, although those reports are unconfirmed) passed by me, pushing an empty wheelchair. A strange sight, although not an uncommon one around Eugene, so I thought nothing of it.

As I'm asking around to see who's in charge of this holy brigade, I noticed that ol' Patches had climbed into his wheelchair and wheeled himself out into traffic, flailing his arms and legs as he shouted wild proclamations. Between him and the wacky Jesus crew, it made for quite a sight...

Fortunately they were there to pray for his safety, because he made it out of the predicament unharmed, and clearly those cars weren't about to be bothered with slowing down.

Sometimes I miss the ridiculous things that you come across working in a top 125 market.

Upon my return, my gordita was cold and the ice in my soda had melted and transformed what once was Orange Fanta into a watery imitation. A highly unsatisfying meal.