Tom had been a working man his entire adult life. He made good money in the car business and parlayed that good fortune into trips to some of the world's great locales. As he approached his 60s, life was looking pretty sweet.
But last week he found himself back at a destination that he never would have imagined visiting: a food distribution center in Laguna Beach.
And instead of leaving with trinkets or lasting reminders of an exciting vacation, he walked away with two boxes of cereal, salmon patties, two cans of beef stew, scones and a loaf of bread.
The man who once thought he had all he needed, now, at 60, needed free food.
"I always did what I wanted to do, never had to look for jobs because they were always offered to me, and I had these great, exciting jobs," he said from the apartment he and his estranged wife are vacating. "I always thought I'd be fine, always be able to work and never thought that anything like this could happen."
Food giveaways aren't uncommon, especially in recession-racked America. But influenced by what is shown on TV and in the movies, the outside world doesn't expect to find them in the seemingly luxuriant Laguna Beach, with its hillside mansions and Pacific Ocean views.
And certainly not for someone with Tom's pedigree.
On his first visit to the center six months ago, he recognized some of the homeless people who stay in a park near his apartment off Pacific Coast Highway. "They kind of recognized me, which was really odd. They gave me looks like, 'What are you doing here?' "
He remembers driving there. "It was surreal," he said. "Amazement. It was guilt. What have I done to myself that I'm now driving out to ask for food? But when I got there, the people were so nice, and I saw people in the same situation."
Tom's need stemmed from a complex series of events: losing a job and not landing another. The loss of his wife's income and their subsequent breakup. Not saving enough money. And, more recently, needing what money he has to pay bills and resuscitate a business venture that he thinks will pay off.
It's not shameful to need food, but Tom doesn't want to identify himself publicly as a food recipient. His self-consciousness is a familiar story to the officials at the Laguna Relief and Resource Center on Laguna Canyon Road.
"Middle-class people never had to use this," said Tony Rogers, the center's manager. "They're embarrassed. A lot are very tentative; they want to tell you they don't really need it yet, but they only had to come in because they were desperate."
