To the editor:

On my walk downtown a week before Christmas, I saw a young couple crossing the intersection by the courthouse who didn’t look like they were from here. The woman was speaking a language that wasn’t English. I don’t know if they were part of a sleeper cell or not.

When I approached the Wild Territory I saw a fat man parading himself in red plush, although his beard was more groomed than I remembered. Someone said the guy was giving candy to children. Probably not a pervert.

In front of Central Bank, I saw a young man give a handful of change to another man sitting in the doorway. Was he deserving?

At the Eldridge Hotel, a young woman started and stopped singing “Jingle Bells” several times while a man repeatedly walked by and dropped a bill into the bucket she was holding. A camera crew filmed the whole exchange. Staged panhandling?

I tend to believe that the people I encounter are real, if the whole truth of their unknown stories may be suspect. We live in a society where we make hasty assumptions when we see people in head coverings or piercings, black, white or other colored skin, clean-shaven or poorly dressed. People are real. We should learn their stories and reject the stereotypes.

If you were on Mass. Street last Saturday, you might have seen me, wearing clothes probably bought at The Salvation Army, singing under my breath: “I’ll be home for Christmas…” I often feel that way in downtown Lawrence.