Given a homeless man a ride lately?

Saturday February 13th, 2010 our BYU married-student ward had a Valentine's party. Olive Garden catered the event. Afterwords, my wife was in the kitchen cleaning up with some of the other activities committee members and there was still a lot of food that needed to be given out. Someone suggested to just throw it away and my wife got very flustered and said, "we can't just throw all this food away, every Sunday we have a homeless man who comes to Church. We should give it to him," The next day at church I searched out the homeless man who always seats himself in the foyer. I told him that we had missed him at the party last night and that we had something for him. I walked with him to the kitchen and gave him two large containers of chicken parmesan and spaghetti. I was in awe as he took out 2 Smith's plastic grocery bags and put both containers into its own bag. I asked him If I could give him a ride to wherever he needed to go. As he sat in my 2008 Nissan Versa, I felt so guilty for the simple commodities that I have. Trust me, a Versa is not something to brag about, but as we sat at the stop-light waiting for the light to turn green, I felt embarrassed for life's little "luxuries" that I had. He told me his name was Douglas and that he was from New York and Virginia. He couldn't have been older than 45 and when I asked him his age, he told me he was 67 years old. He said that he comes out here to Utah during the winter and spring just to enjoy the snow and fresh air. I didn't look at Douglas as the black man who wears the Indianapolis Colts coat everywhere he goes. I didn't look at him as the homeless man who sits on the street corner on most occasions that I pass by. I didn't get offended by the unpleasant aroma protruding through his worn out clothing. I looked at Douglas as my brother and felt an overwhelming love for him. We pulled into the Amenities Motel off of 300 South in Provo and I reached into my wife's purse and pulled out $14 dollars. He smiled and was grateful that I had given him food, a ride, and some money.
The drive back home was very humbling and I pondered what had taken place. Not all of us are capable of flying to Haiti to help out those in need, but we all have neighbors that are in need of some kind of help. You don't have to ask someone to help them and many people who do need help will not tell you that they need help because they do not want to feel like they are being a burden. Help those who are in your everyday life, because if you ignore their needs who will help them if everyone is worried about helping those in other parts of the world and not worried about the well-being of those in their neighborhood? Have you given a homeless man a ride lately?

Traffic Violations are Cash Cows

Thinking back to my first traffic violation, I was 15 years old (Yes, you read that correctly. Ten years ago, Idaho residents could get their driver's license at 15). I was driving to school for the very first time and approached a stop light; wanting to turn left. There were no cars so I leisurely turned right at the light. I still needed to merge over a lane to my left and enter the turn lane to turn left into school parking. I checked both mirrors and saw a blue car distantly behind me in the left lane, I felt it was far enough back, allowing me to merge lanes. I quickly glanced over my left shoulder and still felt safe about switching lanes. As I merged, the blue car snuck up immediately at my side and our two cars made contact, barely scratching the paint off each car. The lady exited her car scream profanities and back pain. When the police officer arrived, I was expecting a citation and he said that he was going to cite me if the lady had insurance. Since she didn't he told us both to have a good day.

I've had many other encounters with police officers for violating traffic laws ranging from broken tail lights, to speeding in my Yamaha R1 going 110 mph in a 75 mph zone, to riding a 50cc scooter through BYU campus chasing a deer. The heftiest fine came from the scooter incident as I was cited for "wreckless driving" and ordered to pay $300.

Interested in traffic fines and how they very from state to state, I found this article in the L.A. Times saying that drivers who are caught running red lights in California pay $446 and making a rolling right turn at a stoplight costs $381. California is installing more red-light cameras to catch traffic violators. Also, cities are trying to "boot" cars and decrease the minimum outstanding parking tickets from 5 tickets to 3 tickets to do so. Cities could raise an estimated $60 million in overdue tickets.

No matter where you are, learn your state's traffic laws and pay attention to potential fines you might have to pay if you are caught violating those laws, or, you could be like me and befriend the police officers that work out at the local gym if you ever need one of them to write off a "fix-it" ticket.