I’m visiting my son in Richmond California this weekend. He tells me Richmond is the most dangerous city in California. It seems pretty nice to me – but I’m only looking at the new parts. I shot this truck while driving in the city.
I have a subjective measure of a city’s viability. I call it the panhandle experience. In Long Beach, I can be count on one panhandle experience every 15 days or so. Most are homeless people looking for a meal. In Richmond, in one day, I’ve had two direct experiences and one indirect.
Two bicycle riding methheads hit me up for a dollar. Both had the same line. I’m a good guy/girl, only out of work and looking for food money. They did not fool me. I traded conversation and a photo for a dollar. Both were missing teeth and had trouble focusing. I asked how old they were, both responded with 22. They looked to be at least forty.
The third panhandling experience was uplifting but unfortunately a scam. I was standing outside of a restaurant, Sala Thai on San Pablo, when I noticed a man asking for gas money at the Mobile station. He had parked his car near the pumps with a gas can on the roof. He asked anyone who walked by for “gas money to get home”. I was skeptical, but then an obviously poor woman stopped to talk to him. She offered some change, but soon changed her tune by telling the gas man to pull his car to the pump for a few gallons. The woman, a fat woman in a Denny’s waitress outfit, said “I’m a student and don’t have much money.”
The gas man said “I understand, how about a few quarters?”
She smiled as she said “The lord says he who gives shall receive”. She seemed happy to help. Joyful in fact. It was uplifting to watch.
I retold the story to my family as we left the restaurant. I pulled into the same Mobile station fill up as the gas man pulled away from the pump. He parked his car next to the pumps. Pulled a one gallon red plastic gas can from his trunk and placed it on his roof. Then…. He looked me in the eye and repeated the story he had told the kind women a few minutes earlier. I was unkind
