The People You Meet At Pioneer Square

I was in downtown Portland this afternoon waiting for the MAX at Pioneer Square to bring me home. I was just minding my own business and a little tired when I felt a tap on my shoulder. When I turned around there was an older looking man, kind of looked middle-eastern but he didn't look very threatening. Anyhow, he has another guy with him but they were both older gentlemen so I wasn't too worried about anything bad happening. I figured that they saw me smoking so they wanted to bum one off of me. Sure enough, the taller of the two asked me if I could spare a smoke. I gave it to them and then they asked for some spare change, but as a rule I never give out change so I lied and told them I was broke.

Holy shit, both of them started preaching to me about helping those in need and being honest. Anyhow, this went on for about fifteen minutes until the train showed up and I was able to leave. But as the MAX was pulling away it finally dawned on me why those two old dudes looked so familiar. One of them has been in the news quite a bit lately, it was none other than the Prophet Muhammad and his cousin Ali. Slumming it in downtown Portland.