Giving Thanks in a Year of Trial, Sorrow

It was barely Thanksgiving in Jaime Aguilar’s East Hollywood apartment Thursday.

The turkey was donated. The unit next door was empty--the neighbors, newly laid off, left Wednesday night to move in with a relative in El Monte. And Aguilar, who lost his job as a doorman in a Santa Monica hotel last month, said he couldn’t accept his brother’s invitation to a family feast in San Diego because he couldn’t afford the gas.

Aguilar, 40, tried to focus on what he called the “foundation” of Thanksgiving--the warmth of his family. His 8-year-old son, Jonathan, ran through the apartment, his wife, Maria, tended to the pupusas, potatoes and turkey. His brother-in-law, Florencio, lounged in a back room.

“But I’m thinking of my job, I’m thinking of how I can provide for my family,” Aguilar said, a folder filled with job and welfare applications on his lap.

With the economy in a tailspin and the war such a presence that even the homeless on skid row were discussing Osama bin Laden’s possible hiding spots, Thanksgiving 2001 was a day on which some people had to grab at silver linings.

Aguilar had been nervous since Sept. 11. He saw the tourists vanish, but hoped he would end up like some other hotel workers he knew--given a few weeks off without pay during the downturn, then brought back when business picked up.

That did not happen. Aguilar said he and the woman who also worked the 4 p.m. to midnight shift in the lobby were summoned on Oct. 1. They were handed sheets of paper to sign saying they had voluntarily left their jobs, in exchange for seven weeks severance and continuing health insurance.

Aguilar would not sign it. “It was a lie,” he said.

He said he was fired from his $9.85-an-hour job, which he had held for seven years.

The corporation that runs the hotel where he worked “is a billion-dollar company,” Aguilar fumed. “They are using Sept. 11 as an excuse to get rid of their employees.”

The last few weeks have been a maddening mix of fruitless job-hunting, dodging creditors and battling with the state to get Jonathan enrolled in Medi-Cal. Aguilar’s wife works as a nanny in Redondo Beach but makes $150 a week--not enough to pay the $700 rent on their two-bedroom apartment, which they share with a boarder and Aguilar’s brother-in-law.

Last week, Aguilar had to tell his son not to expect Christmas presents. If he does not find work in a month, his family may have to move. He has been able to survive so far through odd carpet-cleaning jobs and help from the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, which has reported a surge in requests for food assistance. Union officials have set up a hotline at (310) 260-9149 for donations.

What is Aguilar thankful for? “That we’re breathing,” he said.

Miles away, in downtown Los Angeles, Edward Stone was also having a different Thanksgiving than he expected. He sat at a crowded table covered in white butcher paper, staring at his fat science fiction novel as hungry people milled about and a gospel choir echoed in the background.

It was his first Thanksgiving at a homeless mission.

“It hurts a little bit that I have to come here,” said Stone, who is 41 and has been homeless since the platemaking company he worked for in North Carolina shut down. “But it’s a blessing that the people here, who could be at home with their families, are here helping us.”

He was joined by another first-timer at the Fred Jordan Mission--31-year-old Rebecca Harris, who brought her two baby daughters for a free meal.

Harris lost her job at a South Gate Del Taco earlier this month.

As her daughters waved heart-shaped lollipops in the air, Harris acknowledged that she would rather spend Thanksgiving surrounded by friends and family than strangers.

“But I don’t have food to make, so I’m grateful to be able to come here,” she said.

Norma Flores and Michael Lovett twirled past the outdoor tables, salsa-dancing to the Latin-tinged gospel tunes. The West Los Angeles residents were two of the 1,000 volunteers who flooded the mission.

Flores, like many volunteers across the city Thursday, said the terrorist attacks were what spurred her to donate her time. “I can’t fly to New York and be out there helping, but I can be here in downtown L.A.,” she said.

For eight years, Dara Laski has been in charge of a Thanksgiving giveaway meal in Canoga Park, but never before has she been so deluged with offers to volunteer as she was this holiday season.

“I know that after 9/11 there has been a huge outpouring of support,” said Laski as she dumped a pound of butter into a pot of mashed potatoes in the cramped kitchen of the Guadalupe Community Center. “I have so many volunteers, I don’t know what to do with all of them.”

In Orange County, Betsy Livingston took her family--even her parents visiting from Hawaii--to the Orange County Rescue Mission to help clean up the mess left by 100 volunteers and more than 300 hungry diners.

“It makes it seem more right to help after 9/11,” said Livingston, 40, of Newport Beach.

Jim Sugarman, 43, rounded up his family and neighbors on his Mission Viejo cul-de-sac and brought them to the mission, where they served and cleaned.

“In light of the terrorist attacks, we all have so much to be thankful for,” said Sugarman, who is the neighborhood block captain.

His wife, Ilona, helped serve food while his 9-year-old daughter, Samantha, passed out cranberry sauce.

“It’s not about turkey anymore,” Ilona Sugarman said. “It’s about getting together, camaraderie, humility and being humble and being alive. My friends are getting laid off. The stock market stinks. It’s time to be thankful that I’m alive.”

Livingston’s husband, Dan, said things have changed after the terrorist attacks and there is so much more to be thankful for.

“So many Americans are serving our country overseas right now, so there’s a greater feeling of thanks for our country,” said Livingston, an attorney. “It’s different now because of what our country has gone through.”

But in other places, there were few differences between Thursday and the rest of the week.

Linda Widener opens the King Edward Saloon on skid row Fridays through Tuesdays at 6 a.m., so the regulars can get their morning coffee and beer. On other days, she’s a customer who lives upstairs in the King Edward hotel.

On Thursday morning, Widener was perched on a stool at the bar, a glass of beer before her, the football game blaring on the television in the background. The only hint that it was Thanksgiving was the manager carving a turkey in the back for a $4-a-plate dinner. Otherwise the regulars were all there, sipping their booze, cracking jokes.

“This is a great place to come down to,” Widener said of the 99-year-old bar.

Brian Reuter agreed. Sipping a glass of Coke--he had his bourbon earlier and couldn’t afford another right now--Reuter, 50, who lives in the hotel across the street, called the bar “home.”

“If you walk around here on that sidewalk, it’s terrible out there,” he said. “You come in here, and it’s home.”

And with that, Reuter took another sip of his Coke, laughed at his friend’s joke and was thankful for the one place on skid row where everyone knew his name.

Times staff writers Michael Krikorian and Mai Tran contributed to this report.

‘I can’t fly to New York and be out there helping, but I can be here in downtown L.A.’