I keep two of these in my wallet. I don’t use them to buy stuff. I use a credit card for that, a Visa card from United Airlines that awards me a mile or so for every dollar I spend. Covid has brought me thousands of miles and no travel to show for it.
I keep the twenties to give away. Once it was the Berkeley High School Jazz Band who were playing outside of a restaurant where Jadyne and I were dining, but mostly the money goes into unwashed hands with dirty fingernails, paper cups held between knees, people pushing shopping carts filled with all of their belongings up Shattuck Avenue.
I don’t need the twenties They do. If the “generosity” of giving away a handful of meaningless twenties could be measured it wouldn’t even show up on the scale.
Last week Jadyne and I were walking down Solano Avenue. In front of us was a man carrying a sign that read, “Any Little Bit Helps”, imploring passersby to give him money. As I began to reach into my wallet Jadyne said, “Not him. He comes into the Turnabout shop and makes a scene!” (She volunteers at the Turnabout shop, a store mostly filled with donated used ladies’ clothes. It’s a charity. The money pays dentists who take care of indigent children). Startled, I put my wallet back in my pants and walked on.
She immediately regretted her comment. We both recognize that the crux of the twenty dollar giveaway is this. Passing judgment cannot be part of the equation. They can use it for drugs, alcohol, or however the choose.
Some time after beginning the giveaway someone posted the following on Facebook.
