The other day I took teenager #3 out with a friend. We are white, his friend is African-American. We picked him up from his house and headed out of his predominately African-American neighborhood. As we approached an intersection I noticed a guy who was clearly physically handicapped in a wheelchair in the intersection. He was not on the sidewalk, he was on the edge of the road, in the sun, without any sun protection. I watched cars drive past him, I watched cars drive a little too close to him and then move along, but I did not watch any car pull over to see if he was alright. I had to.
I pulled over and got out of the truck and asked the man if he was okay and if he needed anything. He simply asked me who was in the truck with me. I reluctantly told him my children and he replied with exasperation, "I need someone to push me to the store. Can your children come with us?" Frankly, I was not sure what to make of that. So many things were going through my head, not the least of which was, I do not know this person, this could be some kind of scam. He was definitely handicapped, that was not a scam. He was no more than four feet and his legs were atrophied. I thought about my kids and made a quick decision. I went back to the truck and asked the two teenage boys if they would be willing to push the man to the store if I followed along in my truck. They reluctantly said yes and got out. I drove a little ahead so that I could see them easily and waited for them to pass me and drove ahead of them again and did that two more times until we reached the store.
When the boys got in the truck I asked if the man told them how he found himself in the middle of the street and they told me that the man's family brought him there and left him. My son said that he repeatedly asked them to move away from the ditch that ran along the sidewalk which made me wonder if some wise guys kids have pushed him in in the past. We talked about it a little, the three of us, but more than anything I thought about it.
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