Some time in early 2025, I finally tracked down this homeless dude near my house who is on a Forrest Gump-like mission. For those who watched the movie, you may recall Forrest begins running across the country for no particular reason for 3 years, 2 months, 14 days and 16 hours. Except, this homeless dude, whom I will refer to as HD hereinafter, shows no signs of slowing down after years of walking up and down Laguna Canyon road every day, all day, even in the rain.
For a while, I'd been looking for the opportunity to ask HD about his shoe size since his shoes were torn and in awful condition from all the mileage. I wanted to buy him a durable and comfortable pair of walking shoes, and maybe keep doing it, given that he'd likely go through any pair of shoes in a hurry from all the walking he does every day. I finally got my chance one day, and I parked my car a little past the Anneliese elementary school by Laguna Canyon Road and El Toro Road. If there was ever an example of no good deed goes unpunished, this fateful day would be the one. Where I stopped my car are multiple mogul-like bumps on the road asphalt that are not particularly visible to the eye. So when I stopped my car on top of one, the bottom of my car hit the bump. This caused damage to the undercarriage panel made of plastic composite called "aeroshield", and it cost me $400 to replace a couple of weeks later when the damaged part came loose and made loud machine gun-like sounds as it dragged on a freeway offramp.
Small price to pay for a good deed, but alas, I failed at obtaining HD's shoe size because he refused to give it to me. Instead, he asked that I give him the $100 cash and he'd purchase the shoes himself. And during this fruitless conversation, he barely made eye contact with me and kept walking on his pathless journey.
This picture of HD is from yesterday, on March 29th, 2025, when he walked past me as I was about to leave my condo. This time he turned his head and looked at me sideways for a good 2-3 seconds. He was wearing black sandals, which are also ill-suited for long walks.
A relevant Forrest Gump quote: "My mama always said you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes, where they going, where they been."
