The Couscous Chronicles

As I headed up Main Street I noticed a young man off to my right wearing a faded yellow surgeon’s mask making a diagonal bee line across the street into my general vicinity. I could not help but wonder why a dude with a surgeon’s mask was heading towards me on the mostly empty Main Street. Net, I tightened up and quickened my pace pushing the shopping cart through ruts of un-shoveled snow as best I could without looking like I was trying to avoid him.

As he approached behind me I heard him talking, “Hey you in the green skully and tan overalls”. I kept pushing.
Again, “Hey you in the brown work boots”.
Once again I did not stop, thinking to myself did he not notice my cap partially pulled over my ears and understand I could not hear him very well?!
Next, “Yeah, you pushing the Kroger grocery cart in the green Freestore Food Bank volunteer vest”.
That did it. I braced myself and turned around and said, “What up”? Noticing he had removed the mask to make sure I could hear him…
And his simply request, “When y’all closing”?
I thought of the masked inquisitor’s question as though he thought I owned the place. I replied, “I think they close around four o’clock” and I then turned and continued heading North up Main Street.

This is how my suburbanite ass learned what it means to walk through the so called “tough” streets of Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine (OTR) neighborhood which last year was reported as “America’s most dangerous” neighborhood in a questionable survey that was convincingly debunked in this short Fox 19 news clip http://www.wxix.com/Global/story.asp?S=13267849. Despite its shortcomings of boarded up buildings and pockets of gentrification, I love OTR as it is still considered one of the largest historic districts in the country and at the end of the day it still represents in many ways what is still real about America.

During a half day of volunteering at the Freestore Food Bank, I reaffirmed what I always knew about OTR: Its a place mostly made up of honest hard working folks and while many of them have a tough time making ends meet in working low paying jobs and raising families they majority of them do need and appreciate the help.

The genesis of my walk up Main Street began with my assistance of pushing a grocery card full of a women’s allocation of a turkey, sides, bread and fruit to her family of five to her doorstep because her only mode of transportation was a baby doll umbrella stroller. On the way to her apartment, she and I had a lively discussion that included debating the value of the Cincinnati street car project and what she saw as far more important issues in improved education and more responsive police and fire support citing “you call 911 for someone getting stabbed or shot in the street and it takes them twenty to thirty minutes to get here”! This is reality for her and all in all this was the exclamation point of my time spent in OTR and helped to reinforce and ground me more as a person who has been out of touch with the “reality” for some folks.

So on my way back from dropping off the umbrella stroller women’s groceries and within five minutes of taking the photo below I had four events occur:

1) I ran into someone I knew. She was approaching me as I took the shot and is second from the left in the photo. As I walked up and we noticed each other, she said “hey what’s up” and I am sure she immediately noticed what looked like a puzzled look on my face that said “what are you doing on Main Street in OTR” and her reply, “I work downtown” and then she gave me the same look as she noticed what really was giving me my own puzzled look and that was the thought of her seeing me pushing a Kroger shopping cart and wearing an under sized florescent lime green safety vest and I replied, “oh yeah, I’m volunteering”

2) Next I ran into the “masked inquisitor” described in the first paragraph above and I then headed North toward the busier intersection of Liberty and Main Streets. The light was green and I knew the masked inquisitor was closing in on me and I needed to cross the street fast as I was tired and ready to be done. Within steps of Liberty Street the light changed and “don’t walk” flashed on the crossing post. The inquisitor over took and passed me skirting across the busy street at an angle avoiding the cross walk and the cars zipping past him altogether. The very sight of this masked young man crossing and the traffic dodging him was an event in itself. I paused.

3) As I crossed the street a two young girls with two guys, all creative types dressed in mostly black and two of them pulling suit cases (ballet or theater or homeless?!) came toward me and after they passed I heard one of the young ladies giggling and saying, “he looked like he took it (referring to volunteers helping the food bank haul folks groceries) all the way to they door step”. I paused again.

4) After crossing the street and getting within yards of the Freestore Food Bank, a young lady reached out to me and cried, “sir could you please help me, this guy brought my groceries only as far as here”. “Here” being only a few feet beyond the Freestore entrance and I assumed the guilty guy was a volunteer. I said, “no problem, where are you trying to go”? She said, “He did not even act like he wanted to bring it this far and I need to get to my sister’s car down the street”. She like all the other people I assisted was very thankful and courteous for the help.

After dropping off her groceries I returned to walking down the series of ramps leading into the bowels of the Freestore Food Banks basement and I noticed the “masked inquisitor” heading out of one of the I.D. check outs with his allocation of food in one hand and a bagged chicken in the other. I watched him out the door as he skipped across Liberty Street with the traffic once again dodging effortlessly around him as he made a trajectory towards Main Street.