LYNN - Around 4 each afternoon, Arthur Foster pushes his slim frame along the gritty downtown streets toward the Lynn Emergency Shelter. Foster is 6 feet, 150 pounds, grips a worn purple cane, and seems tired. At 77, he is the oldest homeless veteran in Lynn - a city he seems to know little about and would like to leave if he could find the money to get home to Minnesota.
There’s a lot about life that Foster would prefer to forget. He said he made a living over the years working in sales: computers, cars, and insurance. Around 24 years ago, Foster said, he had a nervous breakdown after expe riencing a personal tragedy. After that, he lost his home and drifted from St. Paul to Seattle to San Francisco and other big cities. In September, he said, he boarded an Amtrak train in Minneapolis, and came to Boston to try his luck. Here he quickly spent his monthly Social Security and Veterans Administration pension checks and ran out of money.
By night, he drank coffee to stay warm, and walked the streets to stay awake.
“During the day, I slept on the grass at the Boston Common,’’ he said.
A polite, well-groomed man who said he never had been homeless before coming to Boston, Foster has blue eyes and thin white hair and wears a red windbreaker, a gray sweatshirt, chinos, and black work shoes. After he ran out of money, he said, he figured he would sleep in the park until his checks were rerouted to Boston. But he has had problems arranging that and drifted to Lynn about a month ago. The shelter staff has worked with him to find temporary housing but, so far, he hasn’t found a room he likes.
“I want to smoke in my room and a lot of these buildings don’t let you,’’ he said.
In Lynn, Foster also saw a doctor who diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“That doesn’t surprise me one bit,’’ he said of the doctor’s finding, which he struggles to pronounce.
In 1950, he was drafted by the Army and went to Korea. He stayed 18 months and eventually served as a medic. He said he has tried to forget the war, but the images of bodies have always stayed in his mind.
“If I live to 150, I’ll never see as many dead people as I saw in Korea. It was a no-win situation. War solves nothing. It’s stupidity,’’ he said.
Killing was a daily occurrence.
“It was either kill or be killed,’’ he said, noting that he carried a revolver even though medics were supposed to be unarmed. “The first guy I killed, I remember very well. The guy I was treating said ‘look out’ and I looked up and saw a soldier running at me with a bayonet. So I took out my gun and shot him and he fell on his face.’’
Around 5:30 p.m., he got up from his chair inside the shelter and slowly climbed the steps back out onto the street.
He walked next door to My Brother’s Table, which serves dinner to the homeless.
Foster talked about returning to Minneapolis, and taking a place in a rooming house that allows smoking.
“I like the people at the shelter, and the dinner’s fine over here,’’ he said, pointing to My Brother’s Table. “But as soon as I can, I’ll head back to Minnesota. This is the last time I’ll be homeless.’’
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