On Friday I went out with my friends to some places (I am under 21 (see fifth amendment)). I got bored so I went to Osco drug store and bought some Fahrenheit cologne, some Fannie May chocolate mints, a deck of cards and some bar-b-que pork rinds. I got the pork rinds because some town style people told me that they were delicious. I thought they tasted like dried up bacon. The lady in Osco told me that they were the new diet fad É hmmm, maybe.

After eating my pork rinds I was going to walk home to 424 N. Frances St. But as I walked by The Linebacker Bar I saw an old guy at the dumpster. I asked him his name and he said it was Ray. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was getting cans. It was his only job. He did this every night.

We kept talking and I decided to roll up my J. Crew sleeves and dig in. We went through cans for about an hour. I noticed his hands were all cut up from broken glass. I gave him my box of Fannie May mints (which were $9 retail value).

He said that he used to work construction but then he fell off a roof and broke his foot and they fired him shortly afterwards. He had worked for the same company for 13 years. He must have been about 60-years old or more by now. So construction is out of the picture for good.

He told me that he gets 35 cents per pound of cans that he collects, which is about 35-40 cans. He didnŐt know how many he collected on the average hour, but I imagine that it is about 70-80 on weekend nights. I have no idea what he averages on a weeknight.

ItŐs easy to cut yourself in the dark. And he has plenty of competition.

At Lafayette this weekend, the after-party mess was horrendous. But by the next morning you couldnŐt find any cans. There was plenty of broken glass and paper plates and deflated kiddy pools, but no cans.

Now, I donŐt know all of the circumstances surrounding his situation, but he seemed like a nice man. And I donŐt think he could be a drunk bum if all you make is 70 cents an hour.

So why does this matter? Well, I was thinking about people who fight against/have problems with sweatshops. And it just seemed a little ironic to me that people are fighting for others so far away, and here is a guy, Ray, in our own town that makes similar wages to a sweatshop worker and he is cleaning up the beer cans that you or I may have drank out of.

I think Notre Dame students could really change some lives. All it would take is maybe a couple months of rent to get him an address, a couple nice outfits, and some encouragement. Maybe I am thinking wishfully, and I really donŐt know what kind of options are out there for him in regards to The Salvation Army or a homeless shelter, but I feel that students could make his life better.

And if students arenŐt willing to do that, the least people could do is to stop getting kegs and start using cans, and throwing the cans out in the street when you are done with them. They wonŐt be there long.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

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