Dear Reader:
Last Thursday night I was standing in line to pay at the Dominick’s near Sheridan and Foster. In front of me was a couple who must have been in their 70s, waiting with a few groceries. After the cashier rang their total, they handed her a handful of food stamps. The cashier looked at the loose one-dollar stamps and refused to take them. “They have to be in their booklets,” she said to the puzzled couple. “You have to rip them out in front of me.” “But that’s all we have. We don’t have any money,” they pleaded. “I’m sorry. It’s the store’s policy,” she said. They continued to plead; she remained immovable.
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Recently I visited a friend who lives on the outskirts of Antioch. One afternoon we went for a walk around her subdivision, admiring the abundant Queen Anne’s lace growing along the roads and watching the sun glint off the nearby lake, which was visible now and again between old white frame houses. We passed a home with lots of well-tended marigolds and begonias massed around the front porch. Next to the door was one of those black lawn jockey figures.
