Women on the corner

On Shugart Road there is a lot of retail shopping. One piece of property there houses a Home Depot and a Walmart. Obviously, the access road to these two big box stores is very busy.

A woman stands, almost always, across the access road from Home Depot. She is not on their property and she is not the only one who stands in the vicinity, but she is the most consistent one who sets up for business there. The others seem to rotate out, and some take the funny but honest approach, carrying signs like “need money for beer and weed.”

This woman appears to be in her 50s, at least. She has thick, long graying blonde hair. She is rather tall and stands erect and motionless except for an occasional little wave at drivers. Her head is bent down a bit; is it embarrassment or shame? Her sign says she is homeless and needs help. I assume that means she wants money. I have seen her in cold weather and warm. In warm she wears short shorts, making me wonder, to my everlasting discredit and shame, whether she is willing to please a male donor if asked and if given enough.

To this day I have only pondered this woman from a more sociological perspective. Where does she really live, or “stay,” as people say? Is there a homeless encampment around there somewhere? If she is known to people in Dalton, why don’t they stop her and get her help? There are social service agencies and ministries and shelters. Do people stop and try to help and she dismisses them, just wanting money? Is she mentally ill? Is this begging to support a drug habit? Does she have a car she sleeps in? Do people molest her? Do people give her money? Why does Home Depot let her stand there if they own that property? (Apparently not)

So, why don’t I just park my car and go ask her?

Why not? Perhaps I should, although unless I felt there was some reason for her standing there, I would not give her money.

And why not? Probably because I see her there all the time, every time I go to that Walmart or Home Depot, which is once or twice a week. She must do well with her begging, or she would find a different space. Unless she is mentally ill. in which case she is not able to make logical decisions (a facility, Highland Rivers, is across Shugart Road from where she stands)

This is all a mystery to me, and stopping to ask her may or may not yield truthful answers. I have compassion and yet dismissiveness about her. And a little bit of “middle class morality” as Bernard Shaw calls it. I have worked since I was 14 at all kinds of jobs to get an education and finally, after 45 years of teaching, live comfortably. I can contemplate giving or not giving such a woman a $20 bill. It wouldn’t hurt me; I wouldn’t miss it. But is my dropping a twenty with the women on the corner in everyone’ best interests? Hers, the community’s, or mine?  I don’t think so. She needs more than my bill, the community is not enriched by panhandlers, and I can find another charitable purpose for the money, pure and simple. And dog gone it, I’ve worked for my living since the ‘70s. Why should I subsidize those who don’t, when I have the choice?

I am not proud of these thoughts. And she was not there today when I drove by.

The woman on the corner haunts me a bit, to be honest.