SAT备考资料：ESSAY写作素材（39）_SAT写作

SAT备考资料：ESSAY写作素材（39）

　　When he could afford it, he stayed with his son, Chris Jr., in cheap motels. When they returned home at night, Gardner says, he received help from some unexpected sources. The ladies of the evening were beginning their shift. And they would always see myself, this baby and the stroller. So they started giving him $5 bills. Without their help, Gardner said, there would have been nights when he couldnt have fed his son. The Rev. Cecil Williams, founder of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, remembers the first time he saw Gardner, who had gone to the church with his son to stand in a meal line. He said, I wondered, What in the world is a man doing with a baby? Even to Williams, it was an unusual sight. The Urban Institute estimates that children make up 25 percent of the nations homeless population, but most are living with a single mother,not the father.

　　It Is a Green Thing

　　With Williams help and a room supplied by Glide Memorial when he needed it, Gardner not only made it through the brokerage training program, he passed his licensing exam on the first try. Gardner went to work making cold calls at the firm of Dean Witter. He says no one at the firm knew he was homeless. I was the first one at work, I was the last one to leave。 Id be on the phone, 200 phone calls a day. Thats what they noticed, he said. Every time I picked up that phone, I was digging my way out of this hole. Gardner moved on to Bear, Stearns. As he learned the business, he also learned that it came with some unpleasant baggage. Because African-American brokers were rare, one phone customer, assuming that Gardner was white, told racist jokes as he placed his orders. When the client came for a face-to-face meeting, Gardner says, He was either gonna close his account with me or I was gonna get all his business. Gardner kept the account.Thats when I learned in this business its not a black thing, its not a white thing, its a green thing. If you can make me money, I dont care what color you are.In 1987, with $10,000 in capital, Gardner started his own company in Chicago，operating at first from his home. His company is now an institutional brokerage firm with offices in Chicagos financial district. Ironically, when San Franciscos Bay Area Rapid Transit System issued new bonds to raise money a few years ago, one of the underwriters was Gardners company run by a man who, when he was homeless, had bathed his son in the bathroom of one of its train stations.