Off Swiss Trains and Back on the Bus at the Food Pantry

And there were many rides on the London Underground

On my first day back at the Food Pantry after a month-long vacation, a man came in wearing a hospital bracelet (not unusual), and told me his trials of the last 24 hours. His chronically injured back seized up in church on Sunday, and he collapsed.  A friend drove him to the hospital. He got a shot for the pain and a prescription for painkillers.  He took a bus to Walgreen's to fill the prescription, but it turned out he'd been switched to new health insurance plan and his claim wouldn't go through.

He left Walgreen's and managed to get home on the bus.  Then Walgreen's called and said his prescription was ready, but the store closed in ten minutes.  He had no way to get there in time to get his med.  He had a very bad night.  When I talked to him, he was still wearing his hospital bracelet.

Transportation is a major problem for a lot of Pantry clients.

I'm always amazed to see how elderly ladies manage two heavy bags of groceries on foot with a cart or on a bus.  I'm always fighting the urge to leave my post at the check-in table and just DRIVE them home (and have done it). This wasn't the first time someone has taken a bus directly from the hospital to the Pantry so they'd have some groceries at home.

The problem of transporation  is so big, that it'd be like putting an octopus to bed to try to help them all.  I know this, but it still drives me crazy how some poor Americans have to try to cope.

Train station in Lucerne, where things started to go wrong--a gold-plated problem.

 So, I spent some time beating myself up about my recent whinging over having to ride six trains across Switzerland to get to an airport where an air traffic controllers' strike in another country meant our plane had to be delayed an hour at the gate, and I was hungry.  Oh, poor me!

Very hungry on a no-snack plane

I don't know where to go with all this.  Give up my lifestyle (travel) to help the poor?  Take no more trips (right now, that'd be no sacrifice).  Get more micro about it?   See about a program of volunteers at the Pantry who would transportation to sick or disabled people who don't drive?  Donate some grocery carts or roller bags for people who don't have a car and have to walk home?

A different role:  My suitcase in the flat we rented in London.  Some Pantry clients find these are a godsend getting groceries home.

But I'm still ashamed of my whining.   As a lady at the pool told me today, "You have the money, the time, and a companion, so you can travel."  She's been widowed for years.  And looking at that fork in the road is a major motivator for hassling around on Swiss trains, the London Underground, and the TSA.

Jerry in England, two days after his 80th birthday