San Francisco's Shame: Bessie - 94 Years Old and HomelessCarol Harveybyline‚ Dec. 11‚ 2006Larry Wilkerson drove carefully down Cesar Chavez on his way to the laundromat. Between Mission and Valencia, his left front fender suddenly jolted downward, slamming onto the road. The beat-up black '84 Chevy Caprice, whose odometer shows 1,660,500 miles, skidded 60 feet on the rim, tore a gash in the pavement and stopped. Heart pounding, Larry got out. The tire had flown off. Rolling it out of the street, he found one lug nut stuck in the rim. Someone had removed the rest, replacing the hub cap. "I was in front of a car dealership. The guy came out with a jack." He gave Larry some lug nuts "because I had nothing to put the tire back on with. "One nice person did that," he observed in his warm, rich voice. |