The man in the fountain
By John Joyce
Published in News on March 13, 2016 1:45 AM
Craig Hassler's skin is evenly bronzed from thousands of hours -- and miles -- spent shirtless and in shorts atop his chosen mode of transportation, a Millenium GX bicycle.
His 51-year-old frame is lean and sinewy thanks to his limited diet and laborious effort.
He comes across as well-educated, philosophical and is generally easy to talk to.
But neither his bicycle, packed with all his earthly possessions, nor his casual conversation conceal the fact that Hassler is homeless.
"Everything I had was taken from me four years ago," Hassler said.
An out of work marine biologist, Hassler pedaled through Goldsboro Friday afternoon on his way from Mount Olive to Wilson. He stopped only to rinse his body and a sweat-stained pair of pants in the fountain at the roundabout at the intersection of Center and Walnut streets.
"It was really hot. I just wanted to rinse off the sweat and keep moving on to Wilson," he said.
His trespass into the centerpiece of Goldsboro's multi-million dollar Streetscape downtown revitalization project earned him a stern talking to from a Goldsboro police officer, but Hassler is accustomed to receiving the brush-off from law enforcement.
"I was down in Charleston, in a sort of a tent city. We were given 48 hours to clear out," he said.
Hassler has been told to move along in cities stretching the length of the Eastern Seaboard, from New York, to Washington, D.C., to Charleston. He said he fled 3 feet of snow that fell on his make-shift home, an abandoned warehouse in Harrisburg, Pa., to the South Carolina coastal city for an art contest he heard the historic city's local library was hosting.
"I got on my bike, it was about 1:30 in the morning, and I started riding," he said. "I did 94 miles that day."
He made it to Charleston and got busy working on his art project.
"I collect cans, turn them inside out so the silver is showing, and I make art out of them. I put the name, 'White Trash,' on the outside," Hassler said. "That is also the name of the book I'm writing."
He said he won second place in the art contest, meeting some very nice people along the way. But, as he often is told by uniformed men with badges, he and his fellow homeless artisans overstayed their welcome.
He hopped on his Millenium, faced it north and pushed off.
"I left Tuesday. I camp along the way," he said.
Hassler has been making his way back to Harrisburg, Pa., stopping only to rest -- and to rinse in public waterworks -- before resuming his trek. The 13-day trip south, according to Google maps, traversed 274 miles. But that was just the distance from Mount Olive to Charleston. He has not measured his total miles, something he intends to check when he gets "home" to Harrisburg.
"I'm going to work on my home, fix it back up."
Hassler survives by working odd jobs. He said he takes work in bicycle shops if he can get it, cleans up at construction sites and the like if he can't.
He gardens, makes art and maintains his Facebook page, www.craighassler@Facebook.com.
Hassler said he studied marine and atmospheric science at Stony Brook University, New York. After receiving his masters of science marine and environmental science -- it checks out, his graduate thesis on burial depth and its relation to predation, growth and behavior in clam colonies was accepted and is published online -- he went to work building oyster and other shell fish colonies, stabilizing their habitats being lost to over harvesting, erosion and commercial practices such as dredging. He was paid well for his efforts and the group he was working with had success.
But life, the high cost of living and other complications Hassler shrugged off with little explanation, brought him south. He took up with a non-profit based at Carolina Beach that failed, he said. He has been homeless and unstationary ever since.
Hassler's outlook on life -- that people are not meant to sit behind desks and work toward material living and instructional learning, but rather to move about and to use their senses and perception and to apply historical and scientific learning through experience -- is sympathetic even to the police officers who chase him from his public baths and camp sites.
"They wear those dark, heavy uniforms. They have to sit, most of them, in their cruisers all day long," Hassler said.
He understands when an officer seems agitated or quick tempered. It is reflective of society in his view. His conversation sidetracks at times. His takes on gay marriage laws and civil rights issues decided recently by the U.S. Supreme Court bleed into diatribes about man being restrained mentally and legally and it can be hard to get him back on a single train of thought. But it is evident in his diction and knowledge of a wide range of topics that Hassler is telling the truth about his education and his intellect.
And while there might exist some emotional or psychological disorder just below the surface -- the subject did not come up next to the fountain in the mid-afternoon heat Friday --Hassler simply likes to keep busy and stay on the move.
"If I can't move and do stuff I get bonkers," he said.