When I went to see the film of Paint Your Wagon, in a time long gone by, the song I most identified with was “sung” by Lee Marvin near the end of the movie – “Wand’rin’ Star.” The film deviated drastically from the original stage version. The stage show involved an interracial relationship; the film made an attempt to switch gender roles and present a woman, who was once wife number two in a Mormon household, as desiring polygamy herself with Clint Eastwood and Mr. Marvin. Because Lee Marvin was a compelling film presence with a body of work behind him his voice was fully accepted for what it was. Add to that a soaring male choir and majestic scenery and the film had its own particular charm.

It’s now well known that Lee Marvin was a rabble rousing alcoholic, but we sure did love him. He wasn’t purty; he wasn’t cute – the young lanky Clint Eastwood fulfilled that role – but he was lovable. Even if the woman was Jean Seberg, you understood why she wanted him too.

 

The song hit a vibration in me that spoke to the romantic nature of a vagabond life. At that time young people were hitchhiking all over the country, running away from the influences of home, many sent to exotic strange places because of war. We still lived in a world that made it possible to pick up stakes and take off.

Not so much anymore, though I keep wand’rin’, most recently to Oregon, further west and further away from the connections of family. I recently was ecstatic to find my birth certificate so I could prove to Oregon that I’d actually been born. I’ve given my Social Security number to utilities to prove I’m worthy to have lights, water and garbage pick up. The Patriot Act has set up all sorts of hurdles to jump before a life can be sculpted until the next wand’rin’ comes up.

I’ve wandered so much that people are suspicious. They don’t trust someone who was born under a wand’rin’ star. Finding a new place to live was a challenge because of all the rules, regulations and financial requirements. We’re in a recession, the country is out of work but where do they live when they’re required to bring home three times the amount of rent each month and have a solid work and rental history? Every place has its own application. You need to have contact information for landlords at least five years in the past. I came across one that asked if I owned a vacuum cleaner (I do) and if so what brand is it (Hoover). All the rigmarole weighs a wanderer down.

I visited Eugene, Oregon to find my new home. Eugene looks on its counter culture quaintly as a feature of the city. These wanderers came to Eugene forty or so years ago. Now a good many of them are on the streets, sleeping in parks and under the bridges leading to the highway. There are new, younger wanderers who have joined them. I stopped, talked briefly to one – dreadlocked and accompanied by two sleepy dogs – and gave him a dollar. He looked healthy, if a little dirty, and was a prime target for the usual “just go get a job, buddy.” Ah, but we’re in a recession.

Could this child be a wand’rin’ experiment gone awry? He may have once set off with the same sense of romance I had about being free and unattached, but found himself in a place that, even if he wanted to, wouldn’t let him put a roof over his head. With two animals he nailed the homeless coffin shut. Eugene, OR, for all its liberality, has a low to nil view of pets in rentals. The proprietor of a shop I visited, who primarily made little glass pipes and elaborate large glass bongs, said “it’s because forty years ago every hippie in the country came here and their dogs destroyed the place.” Well, okay, but that was a few decades back, wasn’t it?  My young wanderer, and his two dogs, is someone who needs some serious compassion and assistance but most of us just can’t bear to look at him. How easy it is to sink in the societal strata to the sidewalk because your official papers aren’t in order.

During the Great Depression there were a great many people on the move, on the roads, riding the trains, catching work where they could. Those still in their homes gave out odd jobs and possibly a hot meal to these wanderers.

We are now far removed from that openhearted way of looking at people. What once seemed romantic is what it always was – being unsettled and restless. The song implies there is an initial wound (“only people make you cry”) that draws the wand’rin’ star near. And when you listen to Lee Marvin sing about it, he doesn’t sound very happy, does he?

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