Greggity meets the PeaceWalker, turns down lots of money

Tuesday night I had an interesting encounter with a bizarre old man at the intersection of 18th and I NW, just outside my office building, a little after 9 PM.

I heard him before I saw him. He shouted something – to nobody in particular. The only words I could make out from his initial shout were “motherf**king” and “Bush.” We’re in DC, after all, so I guess that isn’t too strange to hear.

He was very tall, with white hair, a white beard and a backpack the size of my first car. (A ’73 VW Bug). He mumbled something towards me, then spoke of “two big black bodyguards,” though he was alone. At this point he was standing right next to me. He motioned for me to read a sheet of paper he was carrying. I briefly scanned it – it said something about sending money to an address in Winslow, Arizona – before I laughed and turned away. I also noticed something that said “PeaceWalker” and a URL including Blogspot.


The PeaceWalker takes a break

PeaceWalker: “Are you a lawyer?”
Me: “No.”
PeaceWalker: “Are you a lobbyist?”
Me: “A junior lobbyist, yeah.”

The man didn’t seem happy with that, as he began to scowl. The weird thing was right then he offered me a job as his press secretary, with a salary of $200,000 a year!

[I told you this is a bizarre story.]

I told him, “I don’t like money,” and started to cross the street. He shouted he was trying to save me (?) and yelled, “you like to f**k people, don’t you?”

“Only women,” I replied, as I continued my way to the Farragut West escalator. He yelled back, “Thanks for nothing, Mr. Junior Lobbyist!”

FIGHT ON! Who knew he was a USC fan?!

I chuckled to myself on the metro platform and frantically scribbled down a couple of notes about the encounter for future reference. When I got home I did a cursory search online and found out this guy’s name is Mike Oren. He’s walking around the country – AKA being a bum – to protest the war in Iraq.

How in the world could he have paid me my $200,000?

g.

(Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent)