Older men seemed to love me

I was only about 11 years old at this time. My mom, me and 3 sisters moved over to the east end of this city. It was sort of a welfare building, your normal row housing. On welfare, you can’t afford that much, especially with a lot of mouths to feed.
I wasn’t doing to good in school at this end of town. I had a bad habit of playing hookie from school. Naturally I was skinny and had very little clothing that fit me properly. I just couldn’t consintrate in class, with my stomach rumbling all the time.
I used to go down to the docks where all the kids hung out on the weekends. I felt that was a good place not to be seen by a truancy officer or police. I used to make up a fishing line out of whatever was laying around down by the docks and try catching fish. I figured if I caught something to eat mom wouldn’t be as mad at me when I did get home.
This day, I started out early. Everybody was in school at 9 am so I headed down to the docks. Through the bush and down over the railroad tracks and across the old road. It was a nice hot sunny day, perfect for relaxing and cathing fish.
I sat on some rocks right beside a place called Tullock Fishing. I dangled a line in the water and let the rip tide take it out further. Boy was I ever hungry. My stomach was growling and I didn’t have a lunch to take with me, naturaly.
It was noon now and some of the men that worked on the dock were sitting around eating thier lunch. An older man, I guess in his 40s wandered down to see what I was doing. He asked, “Hows the fishing?’ I stated, “Not so good.” He asked if I wanted half his sandwich. Wow, I jumped at it as he handed it to me. “No school today,” He said. “No, I said, I had a dentist appointment this morning, so I thought I would spend the reat of the day down here.”
He then said, ” I got some juice up in the truck, your welcome to come have some.” “OK.” I said, and tied my line to a log and followed him to the truck. We got in and he opened his thermus and poured out a cup of juice for me and handed me some cookies out of his lunch box.