Thanksgiving By The Numbers: 34:34:40:3:1

Out on my AM Run, round about 8:00AM, I took the usual route through the park trails. Here's what I saw in the approximately 34 minutes it took me to do the loop:

At least 34 homeless folks - this is an underestimation as if there were clumps, I only counted heads, not lumps on the ground covered with sleeping bags and/or cardboard.

At least one 40 oz beer being shared for breakfast between two homeless folks.

Three Hell's Angels riding their expensive machines down the street.

Also spotted a candle light vigil spot in the park with flowers and pics and the like celebrating a good samaritan who was killed warning a woman about a man with a gun.

Don't know what to make of these numbers, but as we stuff ourselves silly, it would be well to remember those less fortunate than us - perhaps there is something we can do about it:

We often find it hard to be as thankful as we should be these days. For so many Americans, it is no longer a question of having too little or having enough. It's the difference between having too much and having way, way too much.

It is too easy to forget, amid this abundance, that all across America a different kind of Great Depression is still going on. The old stories would have been told very differently - if they were told at all - if they had been tales of growing up poor in the midst of wealth. There was no shame in the collective poverty of the Great Depression. There is no shame in the poverty Americans suffer today. The shame adheres to those who do nothing to change it.