Hunkered down beside a trash barrel near the entrance to the busy Starbucks where I had gone for morning coffee, he appeared to be one of the thousands of ubiquitous homeless persons living by the river and in the alleyways and parks of San Diego. His stringy, uncombed hair made a bizarre halo around the dirty ball cap on his down-cast head. If he had been kneeling with hands in an attitude of prayer, he would have been a perfect peasant in a painting of a religious scene by one of the great masters. He would be perfect as a poor man watching a procession of Medieval nobles pass him by on a tapestry. His arms hung loosely, his hands rested palms-down on the sidewalk. He wasn’t striking a pose of a beggar. He was a weary man.

From where I sat with my Atlantic Monthly and my cup of coffee, I watched the steady stream of customers coming and going. The man didn’t look up at them, He said nothing. Nobody said anything to him. Once a trio of Transit Authority cops paused, glanced at him as if on cue, and came into the shop.

This Starbucks is small... maybe half-a-dozen tables with straight-back chairs. Four comfortable, brown leather chairs anchor the front corners of the shop. Soft music from Starbucks weekly CD mixed with quiet ordering of regular coffee and louder announcement of specialty drinks, breads and sandwich orders being delivered to the take-away bar. For everything but plain coffee you hear the name of the customer and what was ordered... “lattes and turkey-bacon sandwich for Sharon.” A pretty young woman dressed for office work picked up the drinks and the sandwich. Being an old retired guy, I have plenty of time to speculate about everything and everybody. I thought to myself that in these uncertain economic times this young woman should get up early enough in the morning to make her lunch before leaving home. She left the shop; and as she passed the homeless man, she handed him the sandwich. The hand-off was fast; she barely paused. I don’t think she said anything to him. His back was turned to me, so I couldn’t see if he said anything. She walked toward the parking lot with the three lattes. He unwrapped the sandwich and ate it. He half turned to the trash barrel and threw away the sandwich paper. The paper didn’t make it into the barrel. I expected him to ignore the wadded wrapping on the sidewalk; but he didn’t. He looked back and saw that he had missed the container. He reached for it and put the paper where it belonged.

The same kind of thing happened three more times: two cups of coffee and another sandwich. After the second sandwich and the second cup of coffee, the man stood slowly and walked in the direction of the river. At this coffee shop there are always all sorts of people coming and going: all ages, all sizes, well-dressed, casually dressed, sloppily dressed. Several things about the scene surprised me: first, that the man didn’t ask for money and wasn’t given any; second, that he didn’t make any sign of begging. Looking back on it, however, the biggest surprise is that the four people who gave him food and coffee were young people. The second sandwich was given to him by a young man who was walking arm in arm with a very pretty young woman. Neither of them could have been more than twenty-five.

What I saw at Starbucks gives me reason to believe that things are going to be all right. Empathic, generous young people feeding homeless persons outside a coffee shop in Mission Valley won't solve the problem of homelessness in San Diego or in America; but at least it's a response. Young people in America are often characterized as apathetic. Many are not. When I hear the talking heads on evening news programs telling me about all the dreadful things that are happening in the world. I will try to remember what I saw... and I will try to do better myself.