Clare Johnston
A homeless man was alone and would likely end his days that way
I’VE been plunged back into autumn after a two-week break visiting friends and family in California.
This time I actually saw a cloud one day we were over and experienced a few spots of rain amid otherwise constant sunshine.
I have been three times previously and usually return wishing I could move there with my family. But this time, I didn’t.
No, it wasn’t the drops of rain and I haven’t fallen out of love with the place either.
But I had a creeping realisation over the fortnight that I would miss the reassuringly cool and sensible air of home.
The US is a land of plenty, and in California that includes bountiful sunshine, super cars, luxury homes, countless restaurants and fast-food outlets packed with customers everywhere you turn, the stubbornly huge size of portions and sugar or sweeteners heaped into drinks and snacks.
This time, though, I noticed among those fabulous types who swished past in their sports wear and baseball caps, clutching their Starbucks non-fat iced coffees, there were those either left behind or consumed by the excess.
There’s no denying obesity levels are on the rise in this country but it remains on a different level over there. There is temptation everywhere you look. From row after row of junk foods filling enormous supermarkets, to the fast-food drive-thrus on each corner and free refills wherever you go.
But there was one sight in particular that shocked me. As we walked along the front of the stunning Laguna Beach, I passed a homeless person – of which there are estimated to be almost 60,000 in Los Angeles County alone – sitting in the shade under a
store-front canopy. His lips were covered in bulging black, angry sores which made me quietly gasp as I walked by into a nearby cafe. I bought the kids ice creams and we walked back passing the man again on the way to the beach. I studied him this time and saw his skin was discoloured head-to-toe by pigmentation patches, peppered with more of these nasty growths. There he was, a man clearly riddled with cancer, sitting out on the street in temperatures of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I couldn’t imagine his agony. He was alone and would likely end his days that way. It was a sad sight in a place where so much opulence was on show, where their advances on us in terms of their use of technology and the standards of their food and service and sheer volume of options, was plain to see. For those left behind though, like the man on the beach, the sun is no friend and shelter from their troubles seems hard to find.