Fashionably Thin and Homeless in Posh America

Parking before starting a morning stroll along one of America's more pricey strips of waterfront at Coffee Pot Bayou in St. Petersburg, FL, I noticed a woman and two cute dogs in the next vehicle. It appeared they were living there.

She got out and I got out, we exchanged "Good morning" greetings, and I walked over to peer into the shallows at  silver schools of fish hanging like clouds over the heads of the much bigger sheepshead or convict fish, dressed in their usual snappy black and white stripes. Then I turned back to the reed-thin woman and asked, lamely, "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, apparently, you are living in your car."

"You got that right!"

So....her life was in confusing flux, one of her children might come down from Michigan to help her, her dogs' toenails needed clipping, she wanted to air out her bedding, and, thank God, she made coffee every morning here at Coffee Pot Bayou, cleverly and illegally, by setting up her own Mister Coffee machine on a picnic table and using electricity from a plug presumably  readied for Christmas lighting.

I noticed good rings on her left hand, and traces of a decent dye job on her hair, and officially met her dogs, Suzy and Banjo. We'll call the woman Barb.

I suggested that the Quakers, among others, distributed food on Friday afternoons, but couldn't recall the exact location.

"I would have to drive there, wherever, most likely, and I'm way low on gas."  We laughed together, at the irony of having a movable home that was a liability if it could not move, since Barb could be in trouble with authorities if she tried to spend the entire night on C.P. Bayou.

So I gave her some $$$, and she and the doggies sputtered swiftly out of the parking lot. After the gas purchase, Barb said she would head to McD's for a cheeseburger. She said she could get it for a buck.

Earlier I had read on-line about economists predicting a 7% rise in food prices in 2009--food from cows, poultry and hogs--because of higher feed costs. So much for the cheap burger.

Maybe by 2009 Barb will have found her way. It's only two months away.

( Thanks to arichny.blogspot.com/.../coffee-pot-bayou.html for the pic. My camera was elsewhere...)

Comments

[Foodie]

Yeah, well....Yes, We Can!

[Rose]

How very depressing.
And chapeau to you- most people (me included) would probably not even have talked to her. There is a natural embarrassment in most of us to approach people and ask if they are alright.