During a recent visit to Los Angeles, which has some 90,000 homeless, I was drawn to a young couple in a McDonalds on Hollywood Boulevard within sight of the Academy Awards theater. I noticed first the young woman who I guessed might be 15 years of age. She had a backpack and bedroll on her back; seemed very fragile and overloaded. It was hard to tell the age of the boy with her but I would guess he was also a teenager. Their clothes were not tattered but a little dirty as were their faces. When the boy raised his head it appeared he had been crying. The girl kept giving him assuring pats on the arm. My heart went out to them and I did what any good Christian would do . . . gave them money for the journey. I felt good about what I had done until our group walked down the street toward our bus. Sitting there on the sidewalk, with a sign in front of them that read "Spare $$ for pot" was the young couple I had given money to in the restaurant. I was upset that I had been "taken". Then I remembered they had not asked for money, I gave of my own volition. Then, believing in what I did, I started rationalizing that maybe they needed the marijuana for medical purposes. Whatever the situation, I came to pity two lost two young people, just a minuscule part of the vast legions of homeless in LA.
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