Sitting Man and his pretzel bites

Every morning, as long as it isn't raining, there is this man who sits on a bench in the Common in Cambridge. What the hell is he doing??? He has a cell phone and buckets of pretzel bites, so I'm assuming he's not homeless. Sometimes he wears a suit and sometimes he wears a hat. He has a book, so I would like to think he's reading, but it could just be a cover. He also smokes rolled cigarettes, and takes pictures of squirrels from his phone. Is he out of work and won't tell his family? Perhaps he has no one at home to be with. Maybe he's a teacher and likes to spend all of his summer time having business meetings with squirrels.

He is there in the morning when I go to work and there when I leave work. I've tried different times of the day and he's still there.

We exchange pleasantries. I say, "have a good weekend" and he says, "be well" -- which I respond with "thanks you too." My doctor tells me to "be well".


He's probably some spiritual leader who meditates his days away in this public park, quietly training squirrels to be circus performers and every time we exchange words, he casts a lotus spell on me.

Hypotheses aside, he is interesting to me. Sitting on a bench while the world turns around him. I have no idea what brought him to that place or point, but part of me wants to share some of it with him. I'm always in a rush to work or home from work. There obviously isn't time for me to watch the squirrels in the park, alone, eating pretzel bites, each and every day of the week from dawn until dusk, but perhaps one day, I'll take a minute and exchange more than pleasantries with him to find out his story. Stay tuned.