Tracker wrote:the 1970s, when I was 18, two friends and I were driving around town and stopped at the local washateria to use the bathroom. It was a cold drizzly evening. There was a guy sitting in a drier door trying to get warm. I felt sorry for him but I friends laughed. When we came out of the bathroom he asked in a broken voice if we could give him a cigarette. I told him none of us smoked. The three of went to our homes to eat supper. I then went to the store, bought a pack of smokes, stuffed a $20 in the pack and went back to the washateria. I asked him how it was going and if he still wanted a cigarette. When I handed him the pack and he saw the $20 he got tears in his eyes and said "I can't take this" and tried to hand it back. I wouldn't take it back. I wanted my address so that one day he could mail the $20 back to me. I tore a personal check in half and gave him the portion with my name and address. If asked if there was a bus stop around and I told him a few block down. I saw him walking towards the stop while I was driving off......Now that's someone who needed a break, unlike these professional beggars with their canned stot very ury who get mad if you don't give them their gas money
and that was the 70's...
times have changed, i've done similar things, but looking back, I was very trusting in my early years.