Death of a lonely man: Randy Johnson

[drkeegee]

A landlord in Brevard North Carolina went to check on an elderly tenant whom he hadn’t seen in days.

There he discovered the body of his tenant, a 65 year old alcoholic. He had been homeless for most of the past ten years. But after a suicide attempt in Florida, suffering from diabetes and stubbornly estranged from a loving family in Texas he’d sought refuge in that small cottage in that small town.



He’d been in the area for the last two years but kept to himself. That is why no one missed Randy Johnson the first quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons when he died.

Randy Johnson also spent playing time with the New York Giants, Green Bay, Washington, and a few other stops on the way down.

Few of Johnson's former friends or acquaintances had heard from him in years.
In his last public comments in May 1999, he talked about his descent into alcohol abuse with Atlanta television reporter Ken Rodriguez.

Rodriguez made the trip to Florida after reading a newspaper story about how police, responding to a 911 call, had talked Johnson out of jumping off the bridge.

Johnson said in an interview at a homeless shelter in Punta Gorda, Fla., that his alcoholism was so bad that he didn't want to see his family and that the separation led to increased despair.

“I decided my daughters would be better off without me,” he said. “That was probably the biggest thing that kept me down.”

Johnson made the remarks at the Bread of Life Mission, a homeless shelter.
Rodriguez aired part of the interview on Fox5Atlanta earlier this week in reporting the player's death.

Claiming at the time that he had “cried so many tears,” Johnson said he wanted to assure his daughters that he loved them and that he was sorry.
“It's almost unbearable to spend 20 years and do that (drinking) every day,” he said. “It'll lead to a lot of things that don't make any sense.”

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/F...ead_at_65.html

http://www.kens5.com/sports/stories/...1ad8b82f8.html

[jus shaking my head]

R.I.P. This is so very sad.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

It is sad. Especially since there is a way out... it's hard but so is living that way.