Can you give me a dollar?
Happy Easter. It's Easter so I went to Mass today. The church in Medford is beautiful, the congregation seemed to be in a springtime mood. Afterwards I drove to Crater Lake where there is still at least 10 feet of snow on the ground in places. It was surreal. I was driving down a black hardtop road lined on each side with white walls of packed snow. The contrast of a couple thousand feet of elevation is amazing.
But that's not what this post is about. When I returned from my drive I went to a movie (The Bank Robbery) and while I was walking out to my car a kid asked me if I could give him a dollar. WTF? He was with a buddy and he said he was only 16 when I asked him why he didn't work for his own money. For a moment I actually thought this punk was going to try to mug me for a dollar. After confronting him about working, and he said he was to young I asked him about his parents, and he said that he'd already asked them. What is it about our society that makes people believe they can approach strangers and ask for money without offering something in return? I'm not sure what made me more angry. The fact that this kid asked, or the sense I had that these two kids might have considered trying to mug me.
One thing we were always taught in the military is to be a hard target. If you're alert, and aware of your surroundings you appear to be a difficult target and the punks will try someone else. Someone else who doesn't appear to be as hard to handle. Be a hard target.
