Charity
 

I noticed today when going by that there were a lot of cars and people outside of the Salvation Army. Trucks, sedans, SUVs, big crowd.

The crowd was almost 100% hispanic. Come to find out that this crowd was there to sign up for Christmas presents from the Salvation Army.

I found several things interesting:
1. Almost entirely hispanic (despite a large poor black population in Dallas).
2. The vehicles present did not make one think that a poor population had descended on the place.
3. It's freaking October. Who thinks of Christmas presents?
4. How did these people find out about this?

I love America. It's a place where people who drive nice Chevy Suburbans receive free presents, presumably in order not to feel bad when the holidays roll around, and save money.

I didn't grow up poor. I didn't grow up particularly well-off either. My parents for many years did not buy a Christmas tree. I remember one year for Christmas, when my dad was a grad student, us kids did receive some used toys (among other things) for Christmas. Not sure how we received them. But did my parents ever hustle somewhere in their SUV, and sign up for gifts somewhere? No, I don't think so.

I can't remember if it was Little House on the Prairie or Willa Cather, where the kids were thrilled to get an orange for Christmas. A freaking orange! We need some real poverty in America to remind people about what's truly important. We live in a time where kids can cry themselves to sleep because they don't own a Wii. America's soul is dying in this money-takes-all consumer society.

So, if we are going to give free gifts, I think it would be great if those gifts went to kids whose parents don't have cars. That would be a nice start. There are kids who have an understanding of the world that would be completely foreign to us. I probably mentioned this before, I took a kid from an inactive family to the Father and Son's campout a while back. The kid looked out the window and said, "There's a cow, I've never seen a cow before." He was eleven at the time. His family is poor. But they eat, they have a (junky) vehicle, they have a TV, they even have a computer. There are levels of poverty far below that. And worse, there are children for whom there is not a soul out there that gives a damn. There are children who literally don't have parents who feel completely alone.

So what do we do? Oh, I'll probably think about this for a few more seconds. And then tomorrow I will probably be plotting a purchase of a flat-screen LCD or something like that. It's all good.