On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:47:12 +0000, frater mus
> wrote:

>Lou Decruss wrote:
>
>> I'm far from a "bleeding Heart"
>> but a hungry person can touch my feelings.
>
>Same here, but upon closer inspection I think I have a different
>reaction to:
>
>* hungry for reasons beyond one's control
>* hungry due to decisions one has made during this calendar day.
>
>Example: if I give someone $3 for a sandwich and they buy a 40 with it
>in front of me instead of food, I am unlikely to provide them with
>additional funding due to their hunger.

I worked with a guy who borrowed five bucks for lunch. The next day
he was telling stories about the fun he had the night before at his
local pub but he didn't have money to pay me back. I don't think I
ever got it back and I learned it was a common thing for him to do. A
few years later he spent a weekend at some Beatles revival fest. He
came to work in a tee-shirt he claimed cost him 50 bucks and was
yappin about all the other memorabilia he'd purchased. Of course at
lunchtime he was asking everyone for lunch money. Every told him no
as we all new his act buy then. Most of us packed our own lunches so
he started asking if anyone had an extra sandwich. I told him to eat
his tee-shirt.
>
>An anecdote related to hunger and charity:
>I worked at a decent bakery attached to a restaurant and there were
>certain kinds of breads and pastries we couldn't keep and or
>cost-effectively recycle into other foodstuffs: breads with nuts or
>whole grains, filled croissants (peach, apricot, cream cheese,
>chocolate). Anything that couldn't be rolled over into croutons or
>bread pudding the next day. Decent food, good stuff, good ingredients
>used well.
>
>Since we were tossing them in the dumpster every night got permission to
> offer the leftovers it to the local homeless shelter (the company made
>me track every item for tax purposes) but they said they didn't have
>anyone to get it. So I started taking it by every night after work.
>
>The complaints from the homeless started immediately --
>"where's the meat?"
>"how come you only bring us bread?"
>"I don't like this crap. What the hell is this stuff?"
>etc
>
>After a while got tired of schlepping it on my own time and own dime and
>getting harrassed for it. I don't need thanks but please spare me the
>heckling. After a while I thought: tell ya what, fellas. Fsck you,
>get your own fscking food.
>
>Hell, I was a poor grad student eating the same stuff at night and knew
>I was lucky to get it. My girlfriend and I basically lived off our
>bread allotment and leftovers from that place.

Thanks for sharing the anecdote. Some people make me sick. At least
you tried to help.

>> Luckily for me coke isn't part of my life anymore but I still think
>> about it once in a "long" while. And my pantry and fridge are always
>> full.
>
>Glad to hear you survived it. Several from my high school class didn't
>make the trip back...

One of the group went on to a wonderful career. He had a beautiful
house and a kick-ass car. His wife was absolutely gorgeous. By the
time he was 45 he was unemployed, alone and homeless. Coke isn't very
good to those who love it.

Lou