On Thursday morning, Henryk Gorny caught a bus in Mountain View and didn’t stop until the end of the line.

“I don’t like to stay home all the time,” he said.

At the Downtown Transit Center, he settled on to a bench, took a swig from the bottle of beer wrapped up in his bag and selected a hand-rolled cigarette from the Altoids tin in his pocket. He’s in no hurry. 

He wanders Anchorage by foot and bus, stopping to bask in the sunshine or have a drink or share a smoke with a stranger. People recognize him. It’s been about five years since he came to Anchorage and more than 30 years since he left Poland, though he never lost his thick accent.

Sometimes he forgets things, like where he is or why he came. But he takes it all in stride: As long as it’s not raining, he says, he’d rather be outside anyway.