I spent the morning in Des Moines.  On the way home, about lunch time, getting on the freeway, I spotted a man standing along the side of the road, holding a cardboard sign.  Up ahead, the light was green, and I about to coast right on by.

I gave him a once-over.  Did he look a guy driven by life circumstances to be standing along the side of the road holding a cardboard sign, or did he look like a guy that merely dressed the part and had a Lexus SUV around the corner?  Did he look like a veteran?  Did he look stable?  Did he look like a guy the police knew by his first name?

His face did not appear used to a life of comfort.  His eyes looked too serious for that.  A black mustache sat above lips as straight as it was.  His clothes were certainly nothing fancy nor nothing tattered.  His hands appeared to know what work was, and the boots he wore were for working in.

Almost passed him now, I looked at his sign.  “Trying to get home,” it simply read.  Perhaps, I am a sucker, but it has stayed with me all day.

Aren’t we all?  He looked like it, but do we?