In a city that seems to rebrand itself daily, the figure of a quiet man, pushing what appears to be a rolling landlocked boat buoyed by full rounded trash bags, has been a steady presence for nearly four decades.
Dan speaks to those who speak to him, but spends much of his day traveling silently and slowly through Downtown and Riverside, sometimes picking up things people have left for him to reuse and recycle, sometimes stopping to rearrange his bags, maybe occasionally having a smoke, tipping his ash into an ashtray he keeps on the top of his carefully balanced cart.
A hello gets a “Huyup” back from Dan and maybe a wave. He appears content in his solitude, walking every day for hours on end.
“The doctor says I’m in good health, so I just keep walking ,” he says quietly. “ I used to take all kinds of aluminum cans to recycling, but they quit taking them, so I don’t now.” It worries him. “You shouldn’t waste things,“ he asserts softly.
Dan continues to sort as he talks about moving here from San Jose those many years ago. “I’m really a Nebraska boy- from Omaha.”
He has found a home in Reno, a home that doesn’t involve doors or a roof. “I have a doorway I sleep in,” he says, pointing toward Downtown. “About a mile over there. Every day of the year,” he smiles.
Dan used to eat more often at St Vincent’s and still uses some of the street outreach food pantries and public meals. But mainly now he says he finds food that people have thrown away, in bins, behind restaurants and stores. “I eat it- there’s plenty of good food wasted. And I feed the birds with it,” he adds.
The bag he is arranging has partial loaves of bread, still in the wrapper, and an open bag of carrots. He finds another plastic bag to sort the food. People in the neighborhoods he walks through often give him extra food, a sandwich, something they have cooked, or on a hot day, bottles of water and juice.
When asked how his life in Reno makes him feel he cracks one of his fleeting soft smiles.
He looks up and he says: “I’m good. I’m just happy, happy, happy.”