The Old Man Who Lives on the Hill

There's an old man who lives up the hill across the street from where I reside, like many people, in a nice, comfy, climate-controlled house with civilized (if not ritzy) amenities.

Someone once told me the old man's name. I think they said it was Ed or Jerry but I really don't remember for sure. The picture above, which I snapped just today with my little Canon point-n-shoot, is the view I see everyday when I get into my car and look straight out through the windshield. The arrow points to the approximate location where the old man lives, just below a knoll, out of sight from the street and prying eyes.

It's a much further hike up to that point than it might look in the image, photographs being two-dimensional and all. And the old man can't walk straight up that hill. It's a zig-zagging, sometimes steep, path he needs to negotiate while getting himself up and down, rain or shine, hot weather or cold. The old man is in his 70s, most likely nearing 80, yet I see him make that hike up and down the hill, zig-zagging his way back and forth, about two or three times a week. When he makes the hike back up the hill, he's usually carrying a couple of one gallon plastic containers of (what I assume is) water and almost always carrying another plastic bag which I'm assuming contains food. Where his money comes from I do not know.

The old guy doesn't live in a house or a trailer or shack up there. I'm told he lives under something more akin to a lean-to. He doesn't have electricity, running water, or anything else that most of us take for granted. Up to a few years ago, he did (I'm told) live in something that sort of resembled a shack but it burned in the wildfires that swept through here two years ago. I've lived here for just over a year and, up until 4 or 5 months ago, he was still building his new lean-to. I know this because, for months, I watched him carry the lumber up there, one two-by-four at a time. Neighbors offered to help, to at least help him get his building supplies up there, but he declined the offer. I guess that's just how the old guy rolls.

At night, I've never seen the soft glow of any sort of light coming from up the hill. I live out in the sticks, the "boonies" some would say. (Well, in a place as close to qualifying as "the sticks" as one can be living a half-hour North of cosmopolitan L.A.) It gets dark out here at night. Sometimes pitch-black dark. I would see light if there were any coming from up the hill.

The old man on the hill has an old, beat-up, red Ford pick-up he parks on the street. He drives off a few times a week and always returns before the sun sets. Neighbors tell me he usually goes to a grocery store as well as to a local campground where, I'm also told, he showers and shaves. It's gotta be a tough life up there but, I figure, it's the life he's chosen. Most folks around here are of the opinion the old guy owns that bit of property up on the hill. People also believe he's a Veteran and receives medical care from the V.A. If so, the old guy and I have at least one thing in common.

I'm not sure how long the old man has lived up there. I've heard at least 20 years. Whatever happened in this guy's life to drive him up that hill I do not know. For about a decade he was embroiled in a squabble with some other guy who owns the property the old man must cross on his way up the hill. Eventually, I was told, the old man won out and, ever since, goes up and down the hill with impunity.

I am immensely curious about the old man on the hill. One time, when I saw him hiking down, I decided to go for a little walk of my own: One that was timed to cross his path as he arrived down on the street. I was hoping to strike up a conversation with him. When he and I crossed paths and I was a mere few feet from him I smiled cheerfully and said, "Hi!"

He oh-so faintly smiled, nodded, and walked right past me without missing a step or uttering a word.

I've considered hiking up the hill to the old man's humble surroundings but that seems like an impolite invasion of his privacy. Besides, every time I seriously consider hiking up there, these things (pictured below and also shot today) don't seem to agree to "do their thing."


It's driving me mad. I so want to find out about this guy. I want to photograph him. I want to write a story about him and shoot his picture... lots of pictures of him, his environment, his life on the hill, everything.

But all the neighbors tell me no way. No way will he permit me to do so. And they are always quick to advise me that I shouldn't "Bother him."

These days, I wonder if, given the current economic crisis and in the not too distant future, there might be many more Americans living just like that old man on the hill? I hope no one I know or know-of is one of them. I hope I'm not one of them. But if there's one thing I've learned from the old guy on the hill it's this: If that's what happens to lots of folks, they'll survive. This old guy, after all, has survived up on that hill for a very long time.