shortly after 8 am and walked the six or seven blocks to work. The first half of that morning walk is through the edge of downtown Shreveport past city hall and a YMCA then past a large church and a few more smaller homes and the new movie studio, and some abandoned lots then the cottage house left standing from around 1890 ( no typo ) which is directly across from the cemetery where the city buried a number of people who died from yellow fever around that same time in Shreveport.
Its a small but old cemetery. During the treasure hunt last fall they chose a spot in there as a treasure hunt location and the one who forst found the hidden treasure won about 1500 dollars. The founder of the program is buried there too now. A fitting place for her since the organization she founded to serve the poor in that historical area is so near the spot of her internment. It is not far from where Elvis Presley played at the Louisiana Hayride along time ago too.
So I work each day in an old part of town with lots of wooden buildings usually owned by someone renting out the semi delapidated dwellings to the low class men and women who depend on all kinds of public existence just to make it physically from one day to the next. SOmetimes you see a person living in neighborhood like this one in the South actually make ends meet and they rise out of the stark poverty into an overworked and anonymous middle class, other times that man or woman becomes a fmiliar face in the social services offices that dot city, especially the downtown area.
I started to become familiar with these faces and poverty stricken places almost three years ago now. I have to report that I have gotten to know many of the folks that will be there until they die. I myself may be one of them but I hope not at this point. It is not an easy life to endure such a fate into one's later years.
Once to my employers office, the director gives me the keys to the van and some outgoing mail and daily instructions and Mary who arrives just before me gives me more details. Then 65 year old James arrives. He is a black man, retired boxer who escourts me through these once rough areas to deliver donated food and clothes to and from the free soup kitchen and countless charities and charitable private homes and businesses around Shreveport and Bossier city. This takes all of about 3 hours each morning and each week like clockwork we pour 75 dollars worth of gas into the 1999 red van we use to haul food and clothes to upwards of 300 people. It is difficult to realize that many people's meals each day are comprised of such meager rations.
The second half of my day I answer the phones and take philanthropic applications of and from a variety of sources. I try to match peoples needs with one of several assistance programs that might benefit them. The requirements for these programs are simple and strict. I end up telling far more people no than yes when they inquire about such things but through it all I am able to help about 3 maybe sometimes 4 people each day toward problems they have paying rent or utilities. That can be gratifying. But the real reason I am there is just like anyone who works for a living. I am there simply to put food on my own table and keep a roof over my own head. If in the process of doing so I also can help keep a few others feed clothed and sheltered all the better. After all I am a socialist at heart. I am not so much a follower of Ayn Rand anymore as I could never figure out what her philosophy proposed to do with the poor and the criminals of society.
So that's it. I call myself a coordinator. And after that I walk back through the fields where the red light district thrived for a century and now has been slain by bulldozers police and the light of day. I walk back into downtown, past the big church and past some old multi-level buildings and old movie theaters past the court house and boarded up department stores and past the buildings where they house the ubiquitous energy company to the city bus station -- a big tent held down by steel cables ad concrete pillars that looks like a giant cream colored sail against the blue sky. I wonder that it might fly off in the wind every time it rains.
Today Henry picked me up from there. We ate Mexican food for cinco de mayo. I had chicken wrapped in corn tortillas and a beer. That shot my budget for days, meaning more bus rides and more walks through the quiet mornings. Tomorrow is Friday. The list of things to shuffle around is long on Fridays. The weather is supposed to be nice though. And there will be phone calls and people to assist as best I can. Sometimes this psychology degree is as much for my own peace of mind as it is to help others in need of counseling. I am my own best patient most of the time. Lately things have been going so smoothly.
Yet I must hold myself to the same set of standards that I require of my clients. Sometimes I let my personal habits slip a little especially around the edges of my budget. If I can't fix my budget problems soon I will be there in the poorest part of town forever paying back big loans I took to help just those populations I face joining now in the bread lines and at the free clothing stores. Scary to see this preview of the way things might be for me if I dont watch it. Really motivating too. You should try it.
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