The planet is filled with objects and  complex life forms, yet we only get a slight gap of time to witness it. I suppose that’s what my parents thought when they took our family on trips around the globe. My parents, sisters, and I would go to see the things that truly capture awe of this spherical stone we call home. I can recall my experience on the London Eye and sitting under the Eiffel Tower. I can still hear the music of the piano player that rested at the end of the bridge connecting us to Paris, and the sound of lovers and family conversing below our rented apartment. Those travels filled me with comfort and ease of mind. Then, there was Germany.

Germany was much less of a romantic. Instead of lovebirds and painters, the country was decorated with homeless people and fat cigars. My family and I were amidst the day standing in one of the plazas of Munich. It was just after eleven in the morning, and we had just finished observing the large clock tower to the west of us. Whenever the minute hand struck twelve, and an hour had past, the clock’s mechanism would open a set of doors just under itself and begin a small showing of different mechanical soldiers depicting a battle. The show lasted around five minutes, and the doors shut again. To the east, a few restaurants including a cafe with a large outdoor seating area festooned with red, white, and green.

Since it was about that time, the family decided to have some lunch at a popular tavern restaurant we remembered from the tour we took earlier that day. We began to walk towards it on a road alongside the clock tower comprised of uneven bricks with corners and bulges stinking up, waiting to trip an unaware tourist. We arrived at the tavern after passing a surfeit of souvenir and oddity shops. The establishment was titled München, and served large glass mugs of beer along with plenty of platters and dishes. We all sat at a table draped with a blue and white tablecloth checkered with diamonds, and my parents immediately order two beers whilst I got one of the large pretzels.
While we waited for more food, my parents began to pass around their drinks. I suppose, now, that they thought my eldest sister would try some, since she was of the legal drinking age in Germany. Then, the glass got to my younger sister, who wanted it after her sibling got some. After my family had all taking some drink out of the glass, the attention was focused onto me. I was only ten years of age, yet the rest of the family wanted me to also have a morsel of yellow alcohol. My father began to put the large mug in front of me as I refused. As I looked back, it seemed pretty pathetic. I would push away the glass and whine and refuse to take the smallest sip. This went on for what felt like hours, but were simply a few minutes, until my father pulled back the glass to himself. To this day, I still don’t know what made this seem like a good idea.

The food we had ordered, by this point, had still not arrived. The family became much more observant. My mother gestured towards some other people sitting at a table across the room from us. A couple with their baby in a stroller alongside the table, all of which were fairly well dressed. The man was wearing black rimmed glasses, blue buttoned shirt, and was scooping the white froth out of his beer. This alone wouldn’t seem like something to frown upon, until the spoon full of foamy beer proceeded to move towards the stroller to be slurped off by the baby. Everyone in the family seemed shocked about this, commenting on how that will damage the child and that the man was terrible for doing this.

“Look at that.” My mother points out, “That is awful for such a child.”
“How irresponsible.” my eldest sister stated, agitated.
“Those parents should be arrested.” My Mother  continues.

These accusations continued and took up the majority of conversation until the rest of the food arrived. It wasn’t until we had finished, and were waiting to pay, that uniformed officials arrived to escort the couple out of the tavern. We left soon after.

We reached the plaza around mid-afternoon time. We were standing along side where the clock tower stood, deciding how to spend the rest of the day. I paid no attention to the conversation and looked around the busy center. That is then a man that caught attention.

He had untrimmed brown hair that went in every sort of direction, and a beard that did the same. His yellow jacket had stains of spilled drinks and was open to show his scraggy bare chest. The baggy pants were touching the ground and were of a light grey. He was lean, hunched, and had the most blank expression as he stared back at me.

Being so young, I had no idea of how impolite it was to stare, but I was fascinated by this man. I had yet to see a person like this in my life, and this made him very intriguing. When he had stopped looking at me, he began sifting through the top of the trashcan in between us, and pondering whether to take the shiny Red Bull aluminum cans on top. The man was pushing around a shopping cart full of cans similar to these ones, most likely in order to sell them for their raw material.

As I continued to be fascinated by this new person, the thought of what this man had for a life. Sifting through garbage day by day, in order to scrape enough money for the occasional meal. His only possessions being his pants, jacket, and cart. The realization of this sank into me as it occurred to me what sort of events in his life that made him the man that I see here. The failure of financial success that made him homeless, the shame of not being able to purchase any thing to keep him warm or cut his hair, and that he has given up on even finding a better source of income than scrambling through garbage for a few cents worth of metal. These thoughts continued to fester in my conscious, the man left the cans, and began to push his cart away, and leave me with only my thoughts.

It is only when this man leaves me that I unfocus from him and notice the container he searched in. I looked down towards the bottom, and see a glint of something metallic on the concrete ground. I bend down and, as I brush off the dust and grit, a silver disc with a golden ring around it. A coin, a single euro coin. Money underneath a heap of aluminum and soggy used napkins that the man has wallowed through to find a few cans, and left without any reward for this effort. This man must also do this every day to have a whole shopping cart full of the cans, and today he could’ve found something of real value.

The realization of this depressed me. I wanted to give this coin to the man, in hopes that it might give him a little joy in the life of his.

“Mom,” I stammer out of my boyish mouth, “I found a coin.”
“Aw! That’s so cool, bud!” My mother says with that over enthusiastic smile all mothers seem to give their younger children.
“But I wanna-”  I stammer again “I wanna give it to him.”
“Who?” My mother enquires.

“That man.” I emphasized gesturing towards the yellow jacket stranger with his back to me. My mother proceeds to hurriedly take my hand and walk me away from the scene.

“You can’t give it to him.” She states as the family trots along. “He’s filthy, and will probably spend it on alcohol.”
This saddened and  confused me. How could my mother know that from only his appearance. This would become the day that I learned about stereotypes. The fact that my mother wouldn’t allow me to give the coin, and that it was too late to do so by this point, made me feel as so I had failed to even give the smallest contribution to someone who needed it. I didn’t enjoy thinking I failed, and my father tried to comfort me in saying that it would be best if I “kept it as a souvenir”.

That coin still sits in drawer in the kitchen of my home, collecting dust and being useless, to this day. And why is the question I still ponder. Why couldn’t I just give the yellow jacket stranger a measly coin, why did the family leave so soon after I asked, and how could my mother accuse a man so negatively? Was is just because he wasn’t clean? Shaven? Well groomed? Or the mere fact that he didn’t have money of his own? All of these reasons seem appalling to me. This man has lived out a life just like any of us have lived our own. Yet, we shun him because he has no money? Because he doesn’t live life the same as we do? This man, and many others, are living in the same world as we are, and at least deserve to be treated as our neighbors and comrades in this world we share. This man is a person, who at least deserves a coin.