Word: gal
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...Temple of the Rainbow Food Kitchen in an empty lot on Manhattan's run-down Lower East Side. Beacon, who is homeless himself and wears a stovepipe hat that makes him look like a character out of Dickens, keeps a flame burning constantly under his 20-gal. pots of rice, soup and beans. The New York City kitchen, which serves as many as 1,000 meals a day, is not his first such endeavor. Beacon, who calls himself the Fire Tender, says he has set up similar "temples" in other cities across the country...
...reports Kevin O'Mara, bartender at the Pump Room in Chicago's Ambassador East Hotel. According to the Distilled Spirits Council, the vodka martini, though spurned by purists, is now the most popular drink in the nation's capital. Its appeal has helped boost vodka imports from 51,000 gal. in 1976 to 5 million gal. today. At Bloomingdale's in Manhattan, Buyer Susan Davis cannot keep martini sets in stock. "I'm telling all manufacturers to get busy," she says. "We can move as many as they can make...
...Rockaway, as the afternoon sun slants through the broken windows, a workman emerges from the basement and yells, "Look what I found!" Israel and the others gather around an old, 10-gal., green-glass water jug. There is a bit of water in the bottom. For a moment it almost seems that these salvage men, so thirsty for the details of the past, might take a sip of vintage 1907. But a 747 rumbles overhead, and the mood is broken. "Should we take the jug?" someone asks. "Sure," says Israel. "Somebody might want it." They pick up their tools...
Sometimes these pickers seem more casual than they turn out to be. Take Alberta Freeman, 55, who turns up at a recycling trailer in a New Orleans supermarket parking lot with 30-gal. garbage bags bulging with aluminum cans. Freeman, her daughter, a daughter-in-law and eleven grandchildren collaborate in can picking. Last year the family cleared some $500, which Grandma naturally spent on the grandchildren...
...purchasing power of the average person with a job has declined to less than 20% of what it was in 1980. Food and fuel are tightly rationed. A few weeks ago the gas allowance, obtained with coupons bearing a portrait of Che Guevara, was cut from 20 to 17 gal. a month. Earlier this year, the government-subsidized rice ration was reduced to 1 lb. a person a month, down from 5 lbs. three years ago. "A pound of rice might feed a small family for a day," complains Jose Romero Arana at Managua's sprawling outdoor Eastern Market. "What...