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8 NOV 04: FEAST AND FAMINE

"Excuse me, sir," the man well up the hill of the parking lot said. I had just finished loading groceries in my trunk -- so there was only one important concern for me on this cool November day: how fast the ice cream might melt before getting home.

The man wearing a bulky Notre Dame jacket had my attention - but as he walked down the hill toward my car Friday afternoon, he suddenly became tough for me to hear. Only on the fourth try did I grasp what he wanted. Too bad he didn't want a ride to the football game at Tennessee -- that would have been easy to turn down.

"Can I have 50 cents?" Oh no - another beggar. This makes three in seven weeks! Haven't these people heard President Bush say the economy is getting better?

Regular readers should know my drill with beggars by now. "What do you want it for?" I asked of the man's request for 50 cents.

"Get something to eat," he said. Only once or twice has someone come out and admitted to me they wanted alcohol - which may mean they'd had too much already.

I should mention at this point that this beggar was NOT in Columbus. I was outside the Opelika Kroger store - so come to think of it, he'd probably need 50 cents AND a Kroger-Plus card to afford something to eat.

"Let's go inside, and I'll buy you something to eat," I suggested to the man, throwing a last item in my back seat and closing the door.

"I can't," the man answered. A supermarket full of groceries -- and he can't eat ANY of that food? Certainly someone at the deli could have made a copycat sandwich from the Subway diet.

"I want something over there," the beggar explained as he pointed down Opelika's Second Avenue. There's a Sonic Drive-In within walking distance of Kroger. Maybe if I went with him, we could talk about Philly Cheese Steak Toasters
like those guys in the commercial.

At this point I might have offered to drive the beggar "over there" for something to eat. But Columbus Police are urging people NOT to pick up strangers in the wake of three recent killings. What if a serial killer had moved up the highway -- sneaking past Smiths Station while two-thirds of town was in line to vote?

"We can go in right now and get you something to eat...." I repeated to the beggar.

"Forget it," the man said -- and he moved on to another customer, approaching a car near mine. So often I hear people talk about being tolerant of this sort of person. So why can't they be tolerant, and show a little flexibility?

As it happens, Kroger stores are involved right now in the annual "Auburn-Alabama Food Fight" -- a campaign to collect canned goods for food banks. If this man truly was hungry, he could go to a food bank for help. But sometimes it seems beggars can't eat unless they hold money in their hands first.

E-MAIL UPDATE: We had an interesting reply Sunday to the message which inspired our current Big Blog Question:

I have been reading your blog for about a month now. I'm so glad I found it, this is the best entertainment I have found on the web in years :0)

As for the colors, DON'T change it! I love seeing the colors change as I read your comments. The reader who is afraid of having a seizure because of that, well, seems like they may need their meds changed. I have an epileptic daughter, and subtle color changes like that don't cause seizures. And all the times I visit your blog, I have yet to see any flashing color changes, except when I go to vote on the current blog question, and that ad at the very bottom ("if this banner is flashing, you're a winner!") is flashing... but if you know it's there, you can easily avoid it.

Keep up the comments, and please keep the colors!

Thanks,

Jennifer Moore

Jennifer, your words truly are humbling. It's hard to believe this is more entertaining than all those online fantasy football leagues.

I admit I don't know much about epilepsy, or what can lead to seizures. An encyclopedia check Sunday night revealed one common form is called "Jacksonian epilepsy" - which may explain some of Michael Jackson's fancy dance steps years ago.

Now let's check other items from a gorgeous Sunday:

+ Convicted murderer Daryl Kitchens turned himself in, nearly a full day after jumping over a fence and escaping from the Stewart County Jail. Perhaps Kitchens discovered the Lumpkin library was closed, and he simply got bored.

(Somebody's gotta ask it - why is a convicted murderer being held in the Stewart County Jail? Are state prisons too full to hold such criminals? Can't Governor Perdue get inmates to build more prisons, the way Roy Barnes promised he'd do years ago?)

+ Atlanta Falcons backup quarterback Corey Schaub was arrested on assault and battery charges. I fear Schaub has been watching "CSI: New York" too much -- and he decided this is his only way to be a "Vic."

+ A magnitude four earthquake shook parts of Alabama, centered southwest of Tuscaloosa. Who would have guessed the chance of Alabama attending a football bowl game would cause such shock waves?

+ Instant Message to the new H.H. Gregg store: OK, you did it. I bought one of your 18-dollar microwave ovens. But that section of the store dealing with "fabric care" - some of us can remember when that was called the laundry.

(And to Columbus Park Crossing, where H.H. Gregg is located - as big in size as this shopping center has become, when do you plan to start holding a marathon in the parking lot?)

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