The news was no surprise as it spread along the streets that the 59-year old man who died in his campsite behind the old Polly Cleaner building was Sundance. But how his tragic life actually ended hit hard for many street folks and those who serve them.
Sundance, whose real name was Ronald Marc Dailin, was one of the most familiar, foggiest and most vulnerable street people in Fort Bragg. Sundance spent a lot of his time less than 100 yards away at the Fort Bragg Food Bank, where he got his clothes, food and lots of conversation. I talked with Sundance there about many things, although the conversations were always bizarre. Sometimes he suspected I was some sort of spy or federal agent based on my news camera.
Thus, I sadly have no pictures of a man who could have been a poster boy for so many things wrong with society. Sundance, who had a way of blessing many people, had been a constant bother to Fort Bragg Police for at least five years, arrested on many minor charges, all related to either bizarre mental illness or self-medication.
Laura”s Law comes to mind as something that could have saved the life of Sundance. The law rejected locally would give peace officers and social workers the right to commit somebody like Sundance to mental health, rather than off to jail again.
Sundance blamed his mental illness on having worked “black ops” during the Vietnam War. I never felt comfortable pushing him for details to confirm any of his stories, based on how he was. He told me that he had been a newspaper reporter and writer at one time. There were several people named Sundance who were local reporters in this area over the years, but I could not confirm which of these, if any, was Mr. Dailin. He once had a career and leaves behind six children and an ex-wife in Colorado.
County Social Services worked all kinds of magic in helping take care of Sundance. A kind local bank teller helped him set up a bank account, which was one of his proudest accomplishments. The Food Bank helped him, as did many local church workers.
“It was really a blow to hear about the homeless man who died at the end of our street. It”s terribly sad when someone doesn”t make it,” said Food Bank Executive Director Nancy Severy.
Sundance had increasingly lost the ability to care for his body. Yet, our current system is to cut people like him loose from mental health care to live and die on the streets.
Former Gov. Ronald Reagan is often blamed for creating the mental health and homeless problems by closing the mental hospitals. In truth, mental hospitals had a horrific legacy of putting people in cold storage so society wouldn”t have to think about them. It was the medical and mental health professions that pushed to end long-term institutionalization. But at the same time, many politicians and society itself willfully discarded their (and our) responsibility to provide mental health care, much less housing and opportunity. If the mark of a civilized society is indeed how it treats its weakest members, we aren”t doing very well when a man so vulnerable and crazy just dies in the cold and isn”t even found for two days. And to think he once had a full life, a big family and took care of others.
Modern institutions are a failure in dealing with the mentally ill, the homeless and those who just don”t fit in. People from churches and the county fill the gap. For the neediest people who do make it, we should be very thankful and generous to the Food Bank. The Food Bank was pretty much the last institution to help him. Although just 15 percent of Food Bank clients are homeless, it”s a life giving entity to many others society has forgotten. Many people were kept warm enough to survive this year there.
“We want to send out a big thank you to all the kind folks who brought in warm coats and homemade hats and scarves. These were tremendously appreciated,” Severy said.
My research and experience shows the Food Bank is near or at the top of the list of local nonprofits in terms of how much of every dollar is spent on their charitable purpose.
Although it appears Sundance died from exposure, or a related cause, Fort Bragg Police await the results of tests from the county coroner, Lieutenant John Naulty said.
Sundance offered thanks and praise for all those who helped him, even suspicious cameramen and cops. His often-repeated parting words were really just that when we last saw him in mid-December, outside the Food Bank.
“Saying my prayers, always saying my prayers.”
On the happier news, the Fort Bragg Food Bank served 654 client families this year for the Christmas distribution. Each household got a turkey, ham, roaster chicken, frozen salmon, or even a tofurkey for vegetarians and all the fixin”s for a holiday meal.
“The support from our community was nothing short of awesome,” Severy said.
More good news; if the homeless are needier than ever, young people have been providing more help to the Food Bank this year.
“We received donations from several groups of students this year. Kids from Redwood Elementary, Fort Bragg Middle School, the Three Rivers School and the Spartan 4-H Club of Mendocino collected over two and a-half tons of food for us. We also received a cash donation from the students of Mendocino High School who braved rainy weather to hold an outside bake sale to benefit the Food Bank,” said Severy.
The Food Bank was also the beneficiary of an engineering experiment.
“Probably the most unusual effort to benefit the Food Bank was the annual Mendocino High School Egg Drop Competition that donated their proceeds to the Food Bank. Apparently, this is a contest between students to devise ways to protect an egg from being broken when dropped from a height onto a concrete floor. Go figure! We”re just delighted that the kids are taking an interest in the helping other people who are in need. We”ve had some great visits from some of these groups who have learned about the Food Bank, asked good questions and even pitched in to help fill food bags,” Severy said.
On New Year”s Eve, with the Season of Sharing at an end, holiday lines had not gone away this year, but the atmosphere was festive. A local grower had brought in some very tasty, small and very ripe oranges. The Food Bank is in need of money, food, clothes and other contributions to help it through the winter, which has been early and wet so far.
“Our wonderful community has always been there for us and we just need to remind people that the need never really slows down here,” said Severy.
This week”s donors
Michael and Mary Schuh, Kit and Sandi Mosden, John Allison and Rebecca Picard, Connie Korbel and Joe Mickey, Annie Lee, Avenue Design and two anonymous donors. The total to date is $15,766.
