Glob Your Eman

Glob Your Eman
DIG IF YOU WILL THE PICTURE

Dig if you will the picture, of you and I engaged in a stroll down Nicollet Avenue one warm fall afternoon. A pleasant breeze is blowing, and the suits and guichi girls are out on the Avenue in full force, reinforcing the notion that I am on the loosing team of this class warfare known as capitalism.

Can you my darling, can you picture this? Everything seems to be good and correct in this bustling Utopia of corporate giants and retail Starbucks. An occasional skater boy clatters dangerously close, and once in a while you see someone of a culture other than white-anglo-saxon-Scandinavian-Lutheran-lutifisk-smelling-breath. But generally things are looking pretty good to us and we stroll towards our destination.

But then you start to notice an anomaly on almost every block. Over there! Hunkered down by a building or a bus stop, is a homeless man or woman with a cardboard sign. “Will work for money”, or “homeless, broke, please help god bless.” This isn’t supposed to be part of the Matrix, is it?

We human animals strike curious poses as we divert our gaits around these troublesome “human speed bumps” slowing us down to our path to reach Sacs or our $12 salad Waldorf Salads. Most people don’t say a thing, don’t make eye contact, and don’t even acknowledge the homeless person’s presence. I know what they are thinking, as I have had most of those thoughts myself.
They are thinking: ‘ I’m glad I gave to the United Way, so at least this person could afford to buy a piece of cardboard and a marker to make there sign.’
Or: ‘I’d give her a dollar but she probably would just use it to buy a cheap bottle of wine.’ (Like you wouldn’t want to get drunk too if you were sitting in pigeon shit all day.)
Or: ‘I wonder if the Vikings will cover the spread this Sunday?’
Or: ‘Don’t homeless people have spell check?’
Or: ‘Here is a dollar. Guess I’m on the fast track to Saint-hood now!’
Or: ‘I gave to the guy on the last block.’

So we/they go on our merry way, until we run across a person with a sign that literally tugs at our hearts, tearing us apart, a person with a need that no human could turn away from. With all the problems in the world, and all the worthy causes, this one gentleman standing humbling before us with outstretched hand, asking for a help up and out of poverty, can not be refused. Luckily we happen to have you camera cell phone, and after I write him a hefty check (yes the last name is spelled with an ‘h’) you snap a picture, attached below. Happily we walk away, knowing that at last we have made this town, this community, yea even the very planet which we trod upon, a better place for this man to live.

Can you my darling, can you picture this? (Click on link below)

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m111/hschiddy/willworkfor.jpg


Nah, me either. He’s the last guy that needs our money…isn’t he? It would never happen.