Robert Weinberg

On occasional Saturdays, my father and I would train into Chicago to the Oxxford Clothes factory he ran with his father, who had founded the company in 1916.   I would be put in the charge of the factory ladies who sewed the custom men’s suits and overcoats made by the business. I always enjoyed their attention and the piles of buttons I played with while sitting on their sewing tables. 

Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Joe DiMaggio, foreign heads of states and several US presidents wore Oxxford clothing. I still feel a sense of pride when I see the Oxxford name in news articles or on suits/overcoats like the one pictured here that was passed down to me. It had been made for the founder of Oxxford Clothes, my grandfather. 

But the picture I cherish the most was not captured on film.

One Saturday when I was five or six years old, Dad took me out to lunch.  We were walking hand in hand across an open square full of people when a raggedy, dirty, feeble looking man shuffled up to us. He told Dad he was hungry and asked for money. 

My dad slowly looked the man up and down and asked him if he was going to buy booze.  The man swore he wasn’t.  Pausing, Dad handed him a couple of dollars.  As we walked on, my dad muttered to me that the money was going to buy the man a drink, not food.

Walking back to the factory after lunch, I spotted that man in the square and pulled Dad towards him.  As we approached, the man moved towards us.  With a very large smile, he thanked my dad and said he was full and had enjoyed his lunch. 

I cannot possibly express how exhilarated and joyful I was to see that the man had kept his word.

While that wasn’t my first lesson in either humility or charity, it has been the most important one.  I have pictured that old man’s face in my mind hundreds of times, always tearfully now; that old man with ketchup on his chin and a giant, appreciative, toothless grin.

Please help feed the hungry if you can.