I got my census invitation in the mail and completed the questionnaire online. Doing my civic duty took about five minutes. It’s a simple process, as it always is every 10 years. The census carries a sense of importance and patriotism that I don’t feel when I fill out a form at, say, the Motor Vehicle Department.
Participating in the census was a little more exciting in 1990 when my son, Haven, was counted as homeless.
After graduation from college Haven joined the staff of the Global Walk for a Livable World, an organization in Los Angeles that was putting together a coast-to-coast walk to call attention to environmental issues. The group, which averaged around 100 people, spent most of the year walking from Los Angeles to Boston and stopped in every town to conduct environmental information programs. The walkers camped out or slept in church basements, using a converted school bus as a mobile office.
When the census questionnaire arrived in the mail I dutifully filled it out: Wife and I are living at home, daughter is away at college, son is walking across the U.S.
A couple of weeks later a guy from the Census Bureau phoned. Tell me more about your son. We’re trying to figure out how to count him. I explained what he was doing.
Where, exactly, was your son on April 1? Somewhere in Arizona, I said. If you wind up with an extra Navajo, that may be my kid.
The census guy concluded that since my son was with an organized group he probably was counted somehow.
And so he was. The next time Haven called, he mentioned that on the morning of April 1 a couple of people from the Census Bureau drove up as his group was breaking camp and counted them. The census was making a special effort to count the homeless that year, and the census takers probably exchanged high-fives when they came across a bunch of nomadic people sleeping in tents.
My son was proud to be counted as homeless. But he made a point of saying that he still wanted his room when he got home.