September 18, 2009
Here's Your Sign
It’s not unusual to see folks who are down on their luck standing on a highway median holding a cardboard sign that reads, “Will work for food…Need money for gas…Homeless, please help.” While I feel sorry about their circumstances, let me fess up and say that I don’t have an abundance of compassion for the situation. I blame my reservations on the stories of my Dad’s riding the rails and hobo wonderings. For some free spirits asking for a hand-out was preferable to holding down a job. Recently I saw a vagabond’s sign that stated, “Why lie…I need beer.” I like this guy’s honesty and wit…even if he doesn’t move my charitable heart strings.
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2 comments:
Gail;
-----Some of these panhandlers are professionals. I remember a story I heard from either Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity, I can’t remember now which of them it was. But after he had been upbraided by a friend for being quite generous with a lady packing a “need help” sign, he followed her the next time he saw her. She went down the street a few blocks and around the corner to her Lincoln Continental. But that was in New York where the population is large enough to always provide fresh marks for the con-artist. And that is probably why we don’t see as much of this profession in Montrose as we do in Grand Junction.
-----However, the fact that professionals ply the trade does not diminish the reality that a few of these people really do need some help. Several years ago I was toting a bag of deli chicken out of Safeway for lunch. An old man sitting on a bench by the front door asked me if I had a couple dollars so he could get something to eat. I gave him my lunch, which seemed to make him pretty happy, so I presumed he meant what he had asked. I asked about his situation and whether he was able to keep food safely overnight, then I told him not to leave till I returned. I went back into the store and bought myself another lunch and him some more for the next day. Since that made him happier yet, I always figured he must have been sincere.
-----This life does not serve us easy knowledge. We see people asking for help and all we can do is assume one thing or the other. Or if we are honest about the nature of knowledge, we recognize one possibility or the other. Then all we can do if we ask for more information is elevate one of those possibilities more towards a probability, understanding that we can not really know until we have verified what we are told. Less than few of us go that far. The majority of us stop at the assumption.
-----These folks plying the trade of pan-handling provide a service to those who always assume the best about others. The giver wants to be good hearted and kind towards neighbors. But they know that any desire not followed through when presented opportunity in a sense becomes an accusation of its opposite. And the giver does not want to be accused of insensitivity by their own actions. Therefore, the professional panhandler sells them the service of verifying their generosity. Too bad the panhandler is not also in the business of verifying intelligence.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
It is the valuable answer
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