Watching the Wheels Go By

Wednesday evening we made a trip to our local "Super Mall".  It takes us about 35 minutes or so to get there from our house depending on traffic and so its considered very far by most people around here.  I try to tell them before we were 45 minutes to the mall when we lived in KY but no one can grasp that concept.

The route we take to this mall takes us through a relatively high number of red lights.  And red lights mean people.  People selling maps and papers and water and light-up toys.  They also mean people playing guitar or rubbing your car with a feather duster for money.  

Each intersection kind of has its own identity.  Musicians or cleaners, maybe.  There are even a few that feature men dressed up like women who will dance and bat their eyes at you.  I have yet to figure out why I should give money to them, though, and so have yet to crack the window for those folks.  

There  are actually a few intersections that even have beggars (since none of the other folks are considered beggars). Mostly blind people or old folks.  Maybe some physically disabled person with flip flops on their hands and knees as they pull themselves through the streets.  Or folks with no fingers who receive your coins with their two palms.

On the way to the mall there is one intersection I hate to go through.  Its got these kids out there. Maybe with a stick and on the end of the stick a nail driven through a couple of bottle caps which they play for your change.  Or they just wander through the traffic while the light is red with their hands stuck out. 

"Don't give to her," I told Angie tonight.  The more money they get the more their parents will have them out in traffic.  Of course we gave anyway.  Some little kids carrying even littler kids on their hips are out there.  "Where are your parents?" we always ask.  "Over there," is the usual reply.  Over there.  Maybe in another lane, maybe on the side of the road, maybe at home--who knows?

On the way home we saw this guy--

To be honest this kid is doing pretty well. He had a little jacket and a hat. Millions don't have that. And this kid is no better off for having gotten a dime from me. He is probably still out there. Or getting ready to be back out there. I left the pictures big. Maybe you'd like to download it and put it on your desktop or get it printed out. It can help you remember the people "over there".

This post has become longer than it ought to be. But when you look at that little guy with his little guitar and see how close those cars go by. And realize you have something that can make a difference, then, I wonder, who is more to be pitied? The one who doesn't have or the one who has but doesn't do?

I am not trying to be preachy.  Just want to give you glimpses of two of my sides.  The two of these sides are perfectly summed up by my two favorite lines from A Christmas Carol:

"I wish to be LEFT ALONE; since you ask me what I wish."  Scrooge says this early in the story to the two who are asking him how much they can put him down for to help the poor.  "Oh you wish to remain anonymous?"  they ask.  "I wish to be left alone," he replies.  That is me quite often.

The second quote is from Marley not much later when Scrooge compliments him on always being a good man of business.  Marley replies, "Business?!?  Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence were, all, my business!"  That is the other side.  DO SOMETHING!