ON THE TOWN:The giving feeling -- more cold than warm

In August 1987 I was making the rounds checking on some customers in Phoenix. As you can imagine, it was hot. Very hot.

That summer, however, I didn’t really notice the heat.

I had been married just six months and still had that newlywed glow. I had been working at my job for a less than two years and was loving every minute of it. The money was good too.

Driving down Scottsdale Road in the afternoon, I saw something that was to become a national fixture. At the time, however, the concept was new. On a busy corner, almost 20 years ago, I saw a man holding up a sign that read “will work for food.”

Perhaps it was my state of mind, perhaps it was the newness of the man’s activity, but I decided to help him out.

I made a U-turn and drove up to within a few yards of the corner. In the meantime, another fellow had come up to talk to the sign holder.

I got out of my car, pulled $10 out of my wallet and handed it to him.

It was the first time I’d ever done anything like that. The sign guy took the money with barely a backward glance at me and kept talking to the other man.

No “thank you,” no “Have a nice day!” no “God bless you,” no nothing.

I did not give the money to have the guy grovel, but I thought some acknowledgment was in order. I got nothing.

Driving away, I decided that I would never again give anything to street people. Instead, I would give money and goods to local charities to which these people can turn for help.

Yes, part of that decision was because I was spurned, but another part of me stopped giving because I did not want to support their activity; I did not want people begging for money in the streets.

But on Monday when I was getting into my car in a shopping center near my home, I saw a disheveled man wrapped in a blanket wandering around the center.

Outside, the temperature was about 40 degrees. Unlike Phoenix in 1987, it was cold.

For a reason I will explain in a moment, I ran back inside the supermarket and bought a ready-made sandwich. Back outside, I looked for the homeless guy and drove over to where he was standing. I held up the sandwich wrapped in the plastic container and said, “This is for you.”

No response.

“It’s a sandwich. Dinner. It’s for you.”

No response.

Two thoughts occurred to me. The first was that this guy was not homeless and hungry, but I highly doubted that. The second was that he was too proud to take my sandwich. So I tossed it at his feet and drove away, figuring that perhaps if I were gone, he’d pick it up.

I drove a few blocks down the street and made a U-turn to go home. On the way back, I noticed that the man was gone but the sandwich was still there.

I picked it up, took it home and ate it for lunch the next day.

So now, I am 0 for 2 in the homeless-contributionsatisfaction index. Yes, I tried twice to help just to be nice, but I would be lying if I did not state that I did want to receive some sort of warm glow as a result. I got nothing.

I was motivated to break my homeless-giving rule by a movie. The night before the sandwich encounter, we had watched “Scrooged,” starring Bill Murray.

At the end of the movie, Murray gives a passionate speech about how we should all just go out and give a blanket to someone who is cold or a sandwich to someone who is hungry. We should just give it, he says, and say, “Here!”

But most important, he says, is that at this time of year, even for just one day, we are the person we always hoped we would be.

I am going to work harder next year to try to be that person. It doesn’t mean that I will start giving money to street people, but it does mean that I am going to do more to give back.

We all have so much, readers. Even if it is just a solid roof over our heads, clothes on our back and food on the table, we have so much.

Perhaps there are more of us who would also like to give back, even just a little more next year than this year.

If so, the possibilities are endless.

Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah.