How times change.

It is truly impossible to be destitute or without a meal in today’s America and while the results are not always praiseworthy, today’s social society has a lot to be proud of compared with that of of the Victorians or America’s Robber Barons, though many of the latter did a far better job of reallocating vast sums of capital to help the poor than ever did a politician.

At the 16th Street BART, San Francisco.
G1, kit lens at 14mm, 1/500, f/6.3, ISO 100

This chap, none the worse for wear after a bottle of hooch, was holding forth happily at the entrance to the BART station in one of San Francisco’s poorer areas in the Mission District. A fun guy and not the least down about his status or circumstances. The last thing I saw him do was pull a cell phone from his pocket to make a call ….

I can only think that the great humanitarian John Thomson would be amazed at the changes the pioneering work he and like minded photographers did 150 years ago has wrought. However we got there, it’s change for the better.