Rummaging through Trash Cans

I remember people who went through our alley on a regular basis, rummaging through the trash cans ... always gave me the creeps. Mama always said they were looking for scraps for their animals, but I always wondered ...

Were they eating food we had thrown out?? I thought so at the time. Were these people homeless? This was beyond my childish imagination. Were they looking for items they could repair and sell? Maybe so.

My most enduring memory of people one might call unfortunate was of a man who sat in his red wagon and pushed himself around downtown Birmingham, asking for donations. He did that for years. Was he disabled, or a con man? I never knew, but I always wondered.

nostalgia, childhood memories, homeless