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Homeless doesn�t mean thoughtless By Paul Fattig Kathie Young�s orderly world was in shambles. She faced a chaotic future. But it was all put back together by a homeless fellow she has never met. Her troubles began when Young, a program manager for the Rogue Valley Council of Governments, prepared to leave her Central Point office on the morning of Aug. 16. In her work, she administers a program for low-income senior citizens and folks with disabilities. It�s a demanding job that requires overseeing three branches in Jackson and Josephine counties. A busy person with a thousand things on her mind and countless appointments to keep, she makes her life a little easier with a day planner. We�re not talking the computerized kind, but the user-friendly paper type with a binder. On the morning in question, she stuffed some signs into her Chevy Blazer before heading north on old Highway 99 to visit senior meal sites. Her first stop of the day would be Gold Hill. "I was rushing to the meal sites, thinking about what I had to do that day," she recalls. After Gold Hill she stopped in Rogue River, Eagle Point and Shady Cove. Later that day she returned to her Central Point office. "My assistant immediately said there was something wrong with this picture � she wondered where my planner was," Young says. "I�m never without it. It�s attached to me. "I have all my calendar stuff through September of 2001 in there. I have my address book in there. I�ve collected them over the millennium. My whole life is in there." She thought she left the planner in the Blazer. Nope. After searching the office, she called the meal sites. Still nothing. "As we were retracing my steps, I remembered hearing an odd sound when I was driving that day," she says. "It was kind of like the sound when metal expands, kind of a �pop� sound. I had looked in the rearview mirror but didn�t see anything at the time." That�s when she recalled placing her daily planner atop the Blazer roof while putting the signs in the vehicle. But she didn�t remember picking the planner up again. A search of the highway out of town revealed nothing. Not one missing page. "We even stopped and asked local businesses," she says. "Everybody was hugely nice. They were very understanding." They took her name and phone number should something turn up. "I was fairly despondent by end of the third day," she says. Remember, the planner contained names and addresses of people important to her past and appointments in her future. She ordered a new binder. "About an hour later this wonderful human being called my assistant," Young says. "He said, �I think I have Kathie Young�s binder thing. I can tell she�s really busy and probably needs it.� " The fellow, who identified himself as James Munneman, said he was walking along Highway 99 when he came upon papers blowing in the wind. He carefully gathered all the pages and put them back in order. "He didn�t have a car and a phone so he carried it with him until he got to the Salvation Army office in Medford," Young says. "He called and apologized for not getting it back sooner." That was Aug. 18. Young�s assistant told him on the phone that she and Young would run over to pick up the planner. "He said he was just doing his routine when he found the planner," Young says. "He said he might be there and might not. When we got there, he was already gone." A Salvation Army Thrift Store employee who gave Young the planner said Munneman stops in periodically. Young left a small cash reward for Munneman. "When I talked to her this week she said he had come in and was really touched that someone would give him something," Young says. "He didn�t expect it." Yet Young notes that most of us in mainstream society also don�t expect kind and considerate actions from the homeless. "Sometimes the public gets to thinking that homeless folks are all scoundrels out to get them, that they are all ready to rob them or something," she says. She can tell you that generalization is wrong as well as unfair. "Most homeless in our community are not living there by choice," she says. "They are trying to do the best they can. "This is a guy who did way more than he had to do, more than most people would," she adds. "He may be homeless but he is really quite rich in what counts in life." Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA