Conscious
Kindness
When I lived in the Panhandle
District, I would occasionally wonder to myself from whence the name came. It
is actually a skinny strip of land at the end of San Francisco’s spectacular
Golden Gate Park, like a handle on a skillet or big pan. But with so many down
and out, there is a good bit of panhandling, the verb- asking for money. In
fact, it sometimes seems overwhelming, especially when on any given day, I
might be hit up over a dozen times. I
noticed that after 9/11, it became especially grim, as there was a scary
economic downturn that accompanied all the other chaos.
I developed a
system of my own and I always kept change in the little pocket of my driver’s
side door handle to be ready for when I was driving. Here is my system and I just did it today:
moms with kids, children, and amputee’s, anyone who really seems to me to need
help now. If I am driving an author
around on tour or out-of-town visitors, they have, on occasion, been startled
when I mutter,” Oh, an amputee; let me see what I have on me. “ I explain my
seeming rudeness by saying this is my personalized system and that I was almost
an amputee when I was hit and run by a drunk driver a few years back and managed
to talk my doctor out of that idea. I
had to learn to walk again and it took a looong time and a lot of pain. So, I
always think, “that could have been me” and I want to help. Many a vet who served their country came
back without a limb and even fewer options.
This really is the least I can do and wanting to do more is one of the
reasons behind this blog.
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