Autumn sunrise off Cannery Row. The inky black sea lightens, starts to take on gold and dark blue hues reflected from the sky. A crack of sun over the hills to the east, a tiny bit later, its center a tiny bit farther south. Swatches of brown in the water mark rafts of kelp.
My contact at the Food Bank explains how two minimum-wage incomes are not enough to afford the average rent in our county. People skimp on food because they pay first for transportation and clothing, and their children have to have two shoes.
When María was six, her parents took her to a carnival at the elementary school. In one room, dozens of small goldfish bowls were arrayed along a table behind a red velvet rope. For the price of a ticket, you could throw a Ping-Pong ball, and if it landed in a fishbowl, you got to keep the fish.
María saw a goldfish flopping on the floor. She deftly captured it and cupped it in her hand. She knew what to do. She got back in line and silently waited her turn to hand the goldfish, which had long since stopped flopping, to the ticket taker.
Now it was 20 years later, and María needed shoes for her boy. She went to her neighborhood Sneakerz™ franchise, looked around, and was aghast. "I can't pay that much for shoes," she thought to herself as she walked up to the register. "I can't pay half that much for shoes."
María pondered what to do as she approached the counter. When she arrived she knew, and broke the plastic tie. "I can only afford one."
The clerk's look cycled rapidly through "That was random," "Whatever," and finally "The customer is always right."
Autumn sunrise off Cannery Row. The inky black sea lightens, starts to take on gold and dark blue hues reflected from the sky. A crack of sun over the hills to the east, a tiny bit later, its center a tiny bit farther south. Swatches of brown in the water mark rafts of kelp. A white egret standing on the kelp pulls its head out from under its wing and starts to stir. Time to get going. It had a shoe to deliver.
Photo by John Balcom