for 26 JUL 06: FOUR, TWO, ZERO
When the Columbus Public Library opened 19 months ago, it moved to a more convenient location for many people. But for others, I suspect it was quite a loss. And it goes beyond the hikers who could practice for the Appalachian Trail, by climbing the hill from the old main library to the Columbus Museum.
BLOGGER BEGGAR #5: The woman stood outside the old Bradley Library after Monday night's school board meeting, waiting for someone. The group of three women who left the school board meeting together were NOT it. I was it -- and no, she was not selling band candy.
"Sir, can you help me?" I'd helped this woman before -- in fact, a couple of times in recent years. I knew this woman from her limp and her artificial leg. Yet she's not so helpless that she can't walk across Wynnton Road to beg -- sometimes even blocking the exit lane to get your attention.
I was trying to walk away from the woman toward my car, but her question called for an answer. "It must be harder for you to beg these days," I said, "since they moved the library." Of course, she could ask for help from the school district personnel now using that building -- but we all know how underpaid teachers are.
But the woman didn't want to discuss the impact of economic changes in her neighborhood. "I'm trying to get some food," she told me. I drove her up Wynn Hill to Wendy's and bought her lunch a couple of years ago - and amazingly, the crew there seemed to recognize her.
Yet on this evening, supper at Wendy's was not the beggar's need. "Can you give me five dollars, so I can buy food at Lewis Jones?" Then the woman looked at a crumpled bill in her left hand. "Four dollars." So I guess I was eligible for a rebate.
"Come on," I told the woman. "I'll take you to Lewis Jones, and buy you four dollars worth of food." I started to walk toward the car, so certain she'd take advantage of this offer that....
"Sir!" The woman called to me, not even budging from her spot in front of the building. An old Wayne Newton song came to mind for a moment -- "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast."
"I have a car parked over there," the woman said when I walked back to her spot. Then she tried to explain a bit of her background - that she's taken college courses, and was let go from some sort of job involving computers. But her voice was a bit weak and dialect-filled, so she might really have been talking about a long-lost daughter.
The woman claimed the Department of Family and Children's Services handles her monthly payments for rent and other necessities, but she has to beg total strangers for groceries. "Can you give me two dollars, so I can go buy some food?" Now the demand had been cut in half. If only this woman was selling me her car.
"Like I said: get in the car with me, and I'll take you to Lewis Jones - and now buy you TWO dollars' worth of food, since your need just dropped."
(Of course, the longer this negotiation process went on, the more likely we'd arrive at Lewis Jones on 13th Street and find it closed for the night -- leaving the beggar to choose off the menu at Loco's across the street.)
At this point the haggling took a strange turn. "I need money for the bus," the woman claimed. "About two dollars and 50 cents. I can give you my dollar for change." She may not have been a housewife, but she clearly was growing desperate.
"But you just told me you have a car over there," I said pointing in the same general direction the beggar did seconds before. "Why do you need bus fare?"
"It's a long way - across town," the beggar said. For what, I wasn't exactly sure. Perhaps for the job application she said she was making the next day - or perhaps to get as far away from me as possible before crowds came out.
"It has a hand rail," the beggar continued in her bus fare explanation. Yet she'd limped all the way to the front of the old Bradley Library, with no sign of a brace or walker anywhere.
"I'm sorry," I answered, "but you asked for food - and I can't let you change your demand in the middle of the negotiation process." Can beggars be prosecuted for bait-and-switch techniques?
I offered again to drive the limping beggar to Lewis Jones to buy her two dollars' worth of food, marked down from four. "Never mind," she answered. If she suspected I might really give her a ride down the hill to police headquarters for panhandling, she was wrong. The headquarters closes at 7:00 p.m. now, and I don't know where you take people for citizens' arrests after that.
"Keep in mind," I told the woman in a wrap-up reminder, "that if you wind up starving, I offered to take you to Lewis Jones and buy you food." She seemed to begrudgingly admit that as I left. But at least she still had a one-dollar bill in her hand, several more school board meeting attendees to meet - and that Wendy's up the hill still has a 99-cent value menu.
LOOK OUT BELOW FOR MORE....
Power Frisbee holds an open tryout in Augusta this weekend, to see who will represent that city on opening night! And pre-season stops in Columbus and LaGrange are coming August 13. Find out where and learn all about our new game at the official Power Frisbee web site; then offer your comments about it at the P.F.G. blog.
Maybe the beggar wasn't driving because of some of the top items in our Tuesday news summary....
+ Gas prices jumped by about 12 cents across Columbus, to a low of $2.89 a gallon in South Commons. Has someone bothered to tell the managers the latest hurricane watch is for Hawaii, not Biloxi?
+ Columbus traffic managers warned backups could occur when school begins in two weeks, as the new Northside Elementary opens. For one thing, left turns no longer will be allowed from Veterans Parkway onto American Way. You can tell the mayor is a Republican when a left turn onto the American Way is illegal.
(To make room for more traffic, Veterans Parkway is being widened from Moon Road to Cooper Creek Road. Maybe someday a bigger project will begin - to extend Cooper Creek Road all the way to Cooper Creek Park.)
+ A police dive team pulled an empty car out of the Chattahoochee River. Someone apparently stole Robert Greathouse's 2003 Malibu from a Victory Drive repair shop, even though Greathouse said he couldn't get it to start. Maybe the thief should have left a calling card, so Greathouse can get the job done right next time.
+ A federal judge in Birmingham refused to order extra water to flow down the Chattahoochee, to protect endangered species in the Florida panhandle. So maybe the state of Florida has flexed its mussels for the last time....
+ Columbus Police shut down Timp's Auto Shine Center on Macon Road. Officers told WRBL they found more than 2,500 counterfeit videos and CD's on sale. Detectives may have become suspicious when they found a rock album spelled "Lincoln Park."
(If an "auto shine center" is selling counterfeit videos, can you really trust anything else this business does? Is the car shampoo nothing more than Head and Shoulders?)
+ Ground was broken for a new four-acre Russell County Recreation Center in Seale. But public contributions are needed to pay for the construction - as apparently not enough convicted teachers are on the list for "hard labor" duty.
+ The evening news reported six-year-old Allison Pierce of Columbus won the "tiny tot" championship of in-line skating. Now she needs to get some friends to join her, so Columbus can become the roller derby capital of the South.
+ Instant Message to OfficeMax: Aw c'mon - 99 cents for a regular-sized Snickers bar?!?! Are you trying to make convenience stores actually look inexpensive?
(BLOGGER'S NOTE: Again this week, our Thursday and Friday post times will be around 8:00 a.m. ET.)
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