Worth every penny
Jeremy and I stepped outside for some fresh air last weekend at the Lo-Fi Social Club's reopening party, and this middle-aged guy with a cane walked up to us.
"Are you from Pennsylvania?" he asked me.
"Nah, I'm from Maryland," I said.
Then this guy launched into a his life history, including how he had moved to Scranton and married a fat Italian woman, who made dinner for him.
"She would slice a big loaf of Italian bread, butter it up, and then cut up some cucumbers and ask me, 'Am I gaining weight,'" he said. "AM I GAINING WEIGHT?!?!?!?!"
I figured sooner or later he would ask me for something, and sure enough, after the Italian wife story, he asked for five dollars. I gave him a buck and told him that's all I was going to give him.
"Is that a five?" he asked. "Could you make that a ten?"
"That's a single," I said.
"Oh. One dollar. That might buy me a Snickers bar. I might be diabetic. How about a five?"
I laughed, told him no and thanked him for the story. It was definitely worth a dollar.
Later that night, I walked outside again and he was out there strumming his cane like a guitar and singing Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze." Only in Baltimore.
Erik Maza is a features reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He writes for several sections of the Sun paper and contributes weekly columns on music and nightlife. He also writes and edits the Midnight Sun blog. He often covers entertainment, business, and the business of entertainment. Occasionally, he writes about Four Loko, The Block, the liquor board, and those who practice "
Comments
You may be kind hearted, but the only reason that people give money to panhandlers is that they are emotionally weak. People do not realize that giving money to panhandlers does not help these individuals, but acts as an enabling mechanism to continue behavior that is counterproductive. Of course, you may not care about that, because your only motivation in giving money is to relieve emotional insecurity you have.
Posted by: Loren | September 13, 2007 9:04 AM
sheesh, insecure or not, until someone comes up with a way to teach these beings to help themselves, then getting santimonious about giving someone a buck for a cup of coffee really doesnt help anything, does it?
i say until then, sam, go ahead and give the man a buck, and feel good that you helped a fellow human being.
Posted by: ss2 | September 13, 2007 12:09 PM
Loren,
You're so right. I almost got mad at you, but I'm too emotionally weak.
I think I'll just mope.
=(
Posted by: Sam Sessa | September 13, 2007 12:22 PM
loren, i think most of us would rather be around an emotionally unstable but kind-hearted and giving person than one who judges others motivation for giving money to homeless people... . here's hoping that your "insecurity" level comes up to the level of the rest of us :)
Posted by: a | September 13, 2007 7:30 PM