At 6 o’ clock, the Powell BART station is crowed with daily commuters, shoppers and tourists. This time in summer, the sun is fairly strong and people coming out of Bloomingdale’s have to take a moment to adjust to the warm air.

While people went on their way, I kept staring at one who sat on a road side “assistance”. I could not figure out how someone could sit on a tapered fire hydrant? And he seemed not to mind the discomfort that pointy iron seat might cause! In fact, he had a glitter in his eyes and a smile on his lips!

So I walked up to him and smiled too. “Hey man! Wass’ up?” he asked. A police cop pulled up behind with the sirens blowing and the car all lit up with red and blue. Our attention diverted as the cop pulled up a driver who jumped the red lights! That’s when he said the most brilliant thing one could ever! “We could go and control a country, but we can’t control gangs!”

Think!  There’s more than just truth in that. We make more wars than we bring peace. And did anyone say charity begins at home? Well, not many heard that I guess.

So it came to pass, that Ernesto Romero had spent a lot of time in Los Angeles where community and gang wars claim to have taken a lot of lives of innocent people. From what I see in National Geographic, these gangs have international reach and fairly “rule” posh areas of the world.

Not to sideline the reason why I approached Ernesto in the first place, he was waiting for his family to meet him and got fairly tired of waiting. The commuters make use of stand rails, fire hydrants and anything that they could land their rear on for a moment’s rest. And no, these fire hydrants have a flat top. The city planners had a lot in mind when they built them!