Saturday, February 25, 2012

Cardboard people




 

He is the cardboard man.

He sits on cardboard pallet and has a cardboard hut next to him where he lives, cold night, hot nights, wet nights and dry nights. What he owns, he carries on his back. His collections are placed in a small cardboard box on the street where passersby can drop their donations.

His feet are shod in cardboard. He has a pillow that is made out of rolled-up newspapers flush with yesterday’s headlines and a striped blanket that looks as if it hasn’t been washed in a hundred years.

He looks as if he hasn’t been washed in a hundred years.

His name is Oliver Gold.

You probably don’t know Oliver Gold.

I know I didn’t.

Not until he asked me if I had some change.

I looked into his tired, hungry eyes and said I did.  I gave him a twenty. His eyes lit up and he actually smiled. He invited me to sit.  To talk.

You fool…you say.  He’s just going to buy wine with it.

So?  I say.  You’re probably having a cocktail as you read this.  The only difference is that you are in your wood paneled study, in a nice home in suburbia somewhere, the TV blaring in the background and you don’t have to make a living on the street.

Oliver Gold might not either, except he lost his job, lost his family and then got taken for everything he owned by an unscrupulous lawyer representing his wife.

Sorry lawyers, but this guy was the worst example of your profession.  Oliver pleaded with the judge for some leeway, but the judge, who was up for re-election needed money and votes from the lawyer’s firm so, he sided with the lawyer who promised to deliver votes and cash and Oliver was left out in the cold. 

No home. No car. No money.

When I say no money, Oliver had nothing.  He got a job for a while working in one of those big electronic warehouse stores, but when HR found out he was living out of cardboard boxes – they canned him. Undesirable.

There’s no labor union representing Oliver Gold and the cardboard people. Hell, for that matter there’s no government representing them either. Washington points to Austin and Austin points to Dallas and Dallas points to the cardboard people and says, “Keep moving. Don’t stop here.”

They are on the outside looking in.

Oliver Gold is the cardboard man.  I sat next to him on the curb and talked with him for an hour. He didn’t cry.  He didn’t try and hard sell me with a pity story, he just told it like it is.

Here’s what I came away with. Oliver Gold is a good guy. We’re going to try to get him in a halfway house and find him a job. But the real thing I learned is that judges should not be elected. There is too much graft in elections.

I’m starting to feel that way about Congress, too; but they don’t seem to have as much control over the life of Oliver Gold and the other cardboard people as do local judges and politicians, who want the men and women like Oliver Gold to just go away. Make the problem go away.

He’s a cardboard man.

But he has a name. And tonight, thanks to some very decent people who came to his aid, he has a home.

It is not in the suburbs, because you wouldn’t want him there.  Too close to you and your family. Too close to your nest egg and your slice of the American dream. But at least it’s not in a cardboard box.  Not tonight, anyway.

Now here is the scary thing. You could be a cardboard person just as easy as Oliver Gold. Think about that huge mortgage. That credit card debit. Think about how tenuous your job probably truly is. What if the downturn stays down for another two years? Can you hold out? What if that big client walks? Does your boss think enough of you to cut his bonus to keep you on?

Oliver Gold is not one of us. But we could all join him. Don’t kid yourself.

It’s that close. That close to being a cardboard person.


Photo art: John Crawley





1 comment:

  1. Your voice is unique John.
    Thanks for putting a face on a problem so few see up close and personal. You inspire me.

    ReplyDelete