Hanging out with the eagles

News Flash: Klaus001 is posting his pictures from a week on the National Geographic ship in the Galapagos. Don't miss them. They are absolutely amazing. And now, resuming normal service...

He grew up in Grant's Pass, Oregon. His parents were loggers, and around the 70s they got into playing the Ouija Board, seances, table moving, spirits. I asked if his parents were hippies.

"Hippies? Naw, they killed hippies. They were good people, and I miss 'em. But during that time, back when I was a midget, they showed me some things, which is why I know there's stuff out there that you can't account for. One time I was messing around in this empty house, and something followed me home. It was like this," he showed me with his hand, "this close to me, and moving with me, and followed me home. It was cold, I could feel it, and when I got home, a cast iron bookcase flew across the room at me. After that we had to get a woman called Natasika to come exorcize the house, get that thing out of there. She was a powerful woman, I can tell you that."

I asked if she was a Native American woman. He nodded. "That was a powerful name she had. You know what it means?"

I said no, thinking maybe he'd tell me, but he just stared quietly out toward the river.

He's been living outside for a long time. He likes sitting in the sun watching the bald eagles by the river as shadows fall across Ross Island. He says the eagles are getting ready to nest. There was one sitting peacefully in a tree about a hundred yards from us. For about the past six years he's been selling Street Roots, the newspaper of the homeless community in Portland.

If you'd rather see him in color, I put a few more pictures here.