Jim Morris, also known as Wolfman Jim, a longtime panhandler, waves to drivers in Lynnwood. Drunk and homeless for decades, he now performs his act clean and sober. (Kevin Clark / The Herald)
That bushy-bearded, toothless-grinning, guitar-gyrating man on the sidewalk known as “Wolfman Jim” has returned to the corner of 164th Street SW and Ash Way.
Jim Morris might be Snohomish County’s most prolific panhandler. He rocks out for handouts, often with an amplifier or stuffed toy to make sure motorists take notice.
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“I took a hiatus for about eight months, ” Morris said. “They’re like, ‘Where you been?’ I just tell them I was on vacation. I went to Paris.”
“I put him in the car and took him to detox in Port Angeles, ” said Robert Smiley of The Hand Up Project, an advocacy group for the homeless with addiction issues. “I knew Jim and he was ready.”
Morris, 61, spent decades living on the streets and in the woods. He says he started drinking at age 13 and the only times he stopped was when he was in jail. He has a record.
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“It’s nice not waking up freezing your butt off. I’ve got a bed, heat, a stove, ” Jim Morris said. (Kevin Clark / The Herald)
He sports a black leather bomber jacket over a red plaid shirt, tucked into black jeans. His shoulder-length sandy brown hair is combed and his boots aren’t muddy. He was more coherent than when he was profiled in this Herald column in 2014.
“It’s a whole new me, ” Morris said, his voice raspy with a repetitive laugh. “When you’ve been drinking as long as I have, doing drugs, years of living like that, it’s like being born again. It’s better than being baptized.”
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The rehab home is a four-mile commute to the 164th Street corner, which was an easy hoof from his tent in nearby woods for some 10 years.
Jim Morris is a guitar-playing fixture at the corner of 164th Street SW and Ash Way in Lynnwood. (Kevin Clark / The Herald)
On his concrete platform, he takes on the persona of an aging rock star playing to millions of fans, or in his case, gridlocked motorists. His eyes squint in concentration, calloused fingers strike the strings. He might not sound like Eric Clapton, but in his mind he is.
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Then he resumed prancing the sidewalk with the electric guitar and portable amp purchased several years ago from cash handed to him through car windows.
The way he sees it, he’s not begging for money, he’s putting on a show. He’s giving motorists something for the money or food or fake Rolex they give him in the blink of a stoplight.
He wore the watch until it broke. He doesn’t know of any other panhandlers who received a timepiece, even a knockoff luxury one.
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“I’m out there dancing and giving people the peace sign, ” he said. “The other ones, they just hold a piece of cardboard.”
In December, he ups his game by wearing a Santa suit. It historically has been his best paying month and his peak season of imbibing.
“All them years I wasted drinking, who knows what I would have been … I could have been president of the United States.”
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“I was thinking more I’d be mayor of Lynnwood, ” he said. “I did that one year when they had a mayor’s race. That was back in my Dumpster-diving days. I found a staple gun. I made a sign: Jim Morris for Mayor.”
“Before if they flipped me off I’d scream at them or throw something at their car or chase them down the street. I was just being drunk and dumb, ” Morris said. “Now I wave and smile. It makes them even madder.”
Over the years the women adopted him after seeing him on the street, bringing him clothes and toiletries. They’d take him out to dinner or home for a bath. They were among the people prodding him to get treatment and disability income.
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“I can’t be doing all that young foolish stuff anymore. I’m too old, ” Morris said. “I need to settle down and retire. I’m trying to get housing.”
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