I used to be a patron of Starbucks. I loved the caramel macchiatos and the oversized plush chairs. But one thing has changed since then: the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 marked a day that I and countless others will never forget.

What is memorable still is hearing how a Starbucks store located in Battery Park near Ground Zero actually had the heartless nerve to charge emergency medical workers $130 of their own money, out of pocket, for three cases of bottled water.

In the face of terror and death, I find it sickening that a store actually charged for water that would be used later to help some of the victims pulled out from the rubble.

The president of the Brooklyn ambulance company, Al Rapisarda later wrote a letter to Starbucks complaining on behalf of the rescue workers involved. However, it was not until the incident leaked out to the press did the president of Starbucks actually take action.

After the press picked up the story, Starbucks apologized and reimbursed the rescue workers. For some time, several of the Starbucks near the World Trade Center and New York City hospitals stayed open 24 hours a day to serve coffee, tea, water and fresh pastries to all rescue workers free of charge. Starbucks even donated hundreds of pounds of coffee to the Red Cross and

invited them into the stores to oversee blood donations.

If Rapisarda's letter of complaint had not been publicized, I highly doubt that Starbucks would have made any effort to reimburse the rescue workers involved and to reach out to the surrounding community with such eagerness and

to the extent that it did.

But this is debatable of course. It is futile to say what might have been done in a hypothetical situation. But what is clear is what happened that day, at that moment and when it counted the most. What happened after the fact doesn't quite count for as much especially when in all probability it was a shameless corporate cover-up.

Refusing to help victims some mere feet away because of a price tag, on what is overpriced water in the first place, is greatly disconcerting. Materialism in America is certainly not dead even if its consumers down the street are lying in waste.

Instead, materialism today in America is alive and well, and with it are the price tags placed on nameless human lives. All of the faces hidden in a choking dust of obscurity will never fade from memory, and neither will the thought of those rescue workers digging into their pockets to pay for what should have been generously given.

What was once the Alumni room will now become the new home of a new, glittering Starbucks. So when the day comes for the bright green sign to light up, I will think of those who desperately needed but were asked to pay the price for their lives.

To this remembrance, I would gladly pass on a caramel macchiato any day.

Contact Kiflin Turner at kturner@nd.edu.

ontact

• Spiritless Starbucks