It was a joyous evening. The hype for the special event to come was intoxicating. We were all getting ready and going in one car for the trip downtown to the Civic Center Theater for the performance of the Nutcracker Sweet. I had never seen this fabulous performance before and the tension mounted. We all climbed into the Toyota Ford runner. There were five of us in all in the car.
We drove downtown through the fog, rain and rush hour traffic. We wanted to get there early enough to get parking on the street. Everything was fine we were all excited about the upcoming performance.
What happened next was so unexpected to all of us we had to take a step back and wipe our streaming eyes. When we parked the car on the street just up from the Civic Center Theater the sidewalk was packed with homeless people. If the people weren't there their bags of possessions were sitting on the ground holding their place (or home).
I looked out into what I know call the homeless brigade. What did these poor people ever do to be put out into the cold world, alone and hungry?
We had a couple of bags of food in our car and I asked my friend if we could give the homeless people the food. She said, "of course we're not going to eat it." I think we all lost our appetites when we saw our fellow human beings so broken from life and living right in front of our eyes.
I got out of the car and handed out the food. Thanks were said. I wish I could have done more. My heart was breaking. President Obama where are you when we need you. My friend received a call from her son who was driving his own car and he had parked about two blocks farther up. He and his family were walking down the hill. When they got to our car, he asked if there was a restaurant nearby. He took off walking with his wife, two small children, my daughter, her boyfriend and his twelve year old sister.
We were about 45 minutes early for the event. They had plenty of time to walk to Wendy's and buy food and hand it out to the homeless. They fed many homeless within that 45 minutes. It was a wonderful event for all these young people to witness a man who spent a large amount of money on the homeless that night, and then could watch the faces of the people receiving the food.
The performance was wonderful. Too bad they couldn't have a special performance for the homeless which included hot food, blankets and toiletries.
Besides the items mentioned above the homeless need baby strollers, carts, anything with wheels they can put their possessions and move them easily. We need more homeless sheleters. There are more and more people living on the street. We need to accommodate these people. They are human beings just like you and me.
What is so scary about seeing the homeless spread out on the sidewalks sleeping and living is that with the economy of today, many of us could be one of the homeless living on the sidewalk and forgotten by family, friends and society.
Linda E. Meckler
Copyright 2010
