As I answered the phone three evenings ago, I detected a bit of hesitation on the caller’s part.
She and I had worked in the same building at Highlands for years, until my retirement in 2000. The message came haltingly: “I hope you don’t resent me for this, but I disagree with you and need to get this off my mind.”
Of course there was no getting mad; I welcome calls, even those from people telling me to grow a brain. In this case, the woman (who asked me not to identify her) was referring to the column I wrote last week about panhandlers in Las Vegas. Her point was that I somehow aggravate the panhandling situation by throwing money at the problem.
It’s true that I don’t vet each mendicant who recognizes me and asks for a handout. I don’t question the veracity of their request or situation. However, I believe that people’s current lot in life can’t be too good if they need to beg.
My first disclosure is that I welcome comments like those made by the woman who prefaced almost everything with an apology. Last week’s column drew feedback from a few others, who said it was OK to use their names.
Sara Harris wrote that on her recent trip to Albuquerque she had seen “so many panhandlers” that my column “me llegó al corazón (touched my heart).” Sara said she sometimes questions her own benevolence and wonders how people “know when/when not and to whom to give.” She added that she hates to sound so heartless, but seeing a beggar next to an Albuquerque frontage road, carrying an oxygen cylinder made her wonder whether the woman actually needed it.
Was it a prop?
A few years ago, an Albuquerque TV reporter confronted a young man carrying an empty gas can near a freeway. Obviously, people often rush to aid someone who’s run out of gas. But soon it became obvious that the chunk of money the young man collected to buy gas would have filled up a tanker.
The TV reporter, who’d been observing the young man, asked what the peddler was up to. The gas-can toter threatened to injure the reporter for his impertinence.
Another Las Vegan, Kim Reed-Deemer, wrote, correctly, that “there are truly needy people in the area that should not be written off, and then there are the chronic, ‘professional panhandlers,’ people I’ve seen out there every day for several years.”
Reed-Deemer’s lament is that these “career panhandlers take potential resources away from the former, and erode empathy for those really in dire straits.”
As I have become the “Bleeding heart of the Gallinas,” with my penchant for handing out spare change to virtually anyone who asks for it, I assume I have seen as many beggars as the next person. And, as Sara Harris and Kim Reed-Deemer aptly point out, determining who needs help and who is scamming can be difficult.
I once saw a teen, probably not yet out of high school, drawing considerable attention as she panhandled her way along a frontage road near I-25. As she accepted each donation, ostensibly to help feed her frail frame, she flirted with those aiding her, to the delight of the three male passengers in their car.
Was she a needy street person, or just someone who found a quick way to earn a few bucks? We Trujillos, by the way, weren’t involved in that cash exchange; we only observed.
And there’s a man — familiar to many in Las Vegas — who uses the west entrance to the church I attend — but only after services have begun. We’re familiar with the biblical edict about feeding the poor, and I don’t believe my fellow parishioners disagree.
But we’d rather have the visitor join us for services and also for snacks in the fellowship hall — afterwards. We surmise the man’s quiet entrance shields him from view. It would be great, however, if our guest didn’t make such a mess.
My long-time friend, Vince, who grew up in Manhattan, once told me he overheard some junior high school classmates bragging about how much cash they’d collected by riding subways and feigning a handicap.
So Vince ditched school one day to test his hustle ability. The first day, Vince said, he’d pretended to be blind and unable to navigate without holding on to his friend’s shoulder. Vince begged for money as they made their way through the cars. That technique for a day’s effort netted the couple absolutely nothing.
Yet the next day, Vince and his pal borrowed an enclosed wooden wagon, common in the big city. It’s propelled by padded dowels, which the rider uses like oars.
A bonus, Vince explained, was that the wagon had a hidden bottom which covered his feet, which he wanted people to assume were missing. Vince and his buddy made a killing that day, raking in about 20 dollars apiece, not bad when that amount could buy a lot of stuff in the early 1950s.
• • •
Everything about my job should be this easy. Earlier this month I was assigned to write about Sherlock Chen’s appearance in the State Spelling Bee in Albuquerque.
Sherlock, a fourth-grader at Paul D. Henry Elementary School, was preparing for State Spelling Bee competition in Albuquerque after having won at the county level.
Before Chen got to the state bee, he received much support and encouragement from a host of auxiliary personnel. They include Jacqueline Gomez-Aragon, a third-grade teacher at Sierra and coordinator of the San Miguel County Spelling Bee; Daniel Maestas, and Patricia Mendoza, Sherlock’s teachers; Bruce Bettcher, a retired English teacher who served as a judge at the county level; Johnny Saiz, a school secretary; and Nancy Fernandez, PDH principal.
Sherlock won the county bee by spelling “conglomerate.” And he was eliminated from the state meet by misspelling “exultant.”
The 10-year-old stuck with students up to four years older than he. And he certainly realizes that there’s always next year.