My Afternoon as a Beggar

I spent yesterday afternoon, for a relatively short period of time, as a beggar outside of Walmart. I have to be honest, I didn't particularly care for it much. I did the best I could and kept a bright smile; acknowledging each person as they came and went. I just found standing there, with cup in hand, a bit uncomfortable.

There were many pleasant encounters to be sure. Especially with the families and their children. I was pleased to see so many parents hand a folded dollar to their youngster to bring up to me and drop into the cup. It was very gratifying to see parents try to instill a duty to charity at such a young age. Many others dropped off loose change and one lady wanted to stop at chat about the Lions club.

So, don't get me wrong. There were some positive elements. It was just all of the time in-between I had difficulty with. When you surround yourself with nothing but great friends who are themselves filled with charitable thoughts you kind of lose sight of how out of the norm that can be. For every one person who dropped in a dollar at least thirty passed by as if I wasn't standing there. I was wearing a prominent yellow Lions club apron that stated clearly we were raising funds to assist the blind and deaf. Personally, I would never pass a similar situation without making a donation.

What I found the most disturbing were the senior citizens who, even though they made direct eye contact with me, just carried on with something close to a scowl on their face; my smile and nod at them often returned with a glare and a frown. I guess I have forgotten just how grumpy some senior citizens can be. I really thought they would be the most friendly since the Lions club is as much a part of their heritage as my own. And, don't assume that these senior citizens are poor and cannot afford a bit of change for the Lions club. I live in a very affluent community and most of the senior citizens in the area are living in half a million dollar condos or private estates. We continue to have this problem in Lake Saint Louis where we have a very large retirement population but a low participation in volunteer service groups.

You can see them on the golf course, you can see them in the bar. Where you generally don't see them is in volunteer organizations like the Lions club. It's as if they are done with all of that. I don't mean to make an entirely sweeping statement since, obviously, we have retired persons in our Lions club. The point is that we continue to struggle to get new members drawn from the retirement community.

I'm not sure why I got the evil eye from male members of the senior citizen community yesterday. I'm also not sure why not a single person of ethnicity made even the smallest donation the entire time I was out there. I must say that simply observing how people act, and react, when confronted with a beggar like myself (even a beggar who is trying to raise money for a charitable cause) was an interesting experience.

For myself, whenever I see someone from the Lions club, or whatever other similar charitable organization, I always make a donation, and usually that donation is measured in multiples of five dollar bills not ones. The largest donation I received the entire afternoon was two dollars. Well, that is if you don't count the twenty I dropped in myself.

When I first arrived I was taking over the shift from one of the other members. They were completely out of candy other than handing out singles of breath mints. Now, as I recall from my youth, if you give the Lions a buck or two, you deserve a decent piece of candy at least. Before I started collecting I went inside Walmart and bought about fifty dollars worth of assorted candy bars and treats. I opened all of the bags and let each of the children choose whatever they wanted, as if it was Halloween.

I just really don't know about this whole begging for money thing. I'm all about the fundraiser; run a casino night, a trivia night, a poker run, a talent show, a breakfast, lunch, or dinner, but to stand on the street corner being eyeballed with suspicion by the local senior citizen population was not my ideal of the great fun.

As for the rest of my activities this past week. Everything went smooth. My movie showing on Friday night for the Wentzville Rainbow Assembly was a great success. On Saturday we were able to initiate a new member of Troy DeMolay at the Scottish Rite Cathedral during the day. In the evening my son Alex enjoyed attending the Scottish Rite Youth Ball which turned out to be great deal of fun for him as the girl-to-boy ratio was about ten to one. The last time a slow dance started he was accompanied not by just one young lady, but by three.

Over the weekend we had beautiful 80 degree weather and I was able to get out on my boat a couple of times.

This week my calendar is finally free. I will be able to actually be home for dinner, which should make my wife happy.