Forgotten

The news story about a troubled, 92-year-old California loner appeared, then disappeared, in one day. Freed against his wishes from a county jail that was home, Coval Russell leaped to his death from the Table Mountain Bridge, above the Feather River at Oroville, CA.

Sitting in comfortable suburban living rooms, young people asked, rhetorically: "How could he have done such an irrational thing?"

"Easy," it says here. Listen to these facts:

Coval Russell outlived whatever family he once had; he possessed little or no money; his health was poor--and failing. Writing in The New York Times, Evelyn (cq) Nieves reports, "Mr. Russell, stoop-shouldered, blind in one eye and suffering with prostate cancer had been rescued from a life of utter loneliness... (in jail) he had found community."

Known as "Pops" to fellow inmates, Russell always was first in the chow line, and enjoyed Monopoly game marathons. Guards never handcuffed him and afforded him another courtesy: they called him by his first name.

Forced by a court order to leave his small, dark Butte County jail cell, the World War II veteran, who grew up in Texas with grandparents, threatened to kill himself if: "I'm sent back out there."

Here are relevant, and compelling, judgments from two observers: The administrative sergeant for the jail, Dan Young, says, "We're living in a society that sometimes forgets its seniors. This is a prime example."

"During his time in jail, everyone befriended him," recalls Jim Phil, a private investigator who worked on Russell's behalf. "Actually, he was being treated better there (in jail) than on the outside."

A Superior Court judge ordered Russell's release, stating jail was not the proper place for a man of his age, especially one in poor health. The sad truth remains: we, as a society, have no readily available, humane place for men, and women, such as Coval Russell-not until they become sicker, and are then warehoused in a nursing home.

I once interviewed a loner who, like Russell, was old, sick and tired of life. This was on Miami Beach, known then as God's Waiting Room. After an hour's interview, I returned to the Miami Herald and wrote, "Edward Scanlon sits alone in a hotel room smaller than some prison cells. He is 84. He is waiting to die."

"I been parked in this room going on four years," Scanlon told me. "It's just a matter of sitting and waiting for the end, waiting for them to come get me."

A retired Chicago fireman, Scanlon had once lived only to fish from South Florida causeways. Remembering the good days, he said: "I almost never missed a day off the MacArthur Causeway. Met a lot of good friends there."

Now, Ed Scanlon was crippled by degenerative bone disease in both hips, failing eyesight and, most likely, heart disease (hardening of the arteries). He seldom left his room. As I looked around the cramped, and cluttered, cloister, I noted four items of obvious importance to this lone pensioner. There were two small radios, a hot plate ("I don't bother much with food."), and a sparsely worded, handwritten letter instructing that Edward Scanlon be cremated, and his ashes "dumped from the bridge where fishing was my whole life."

Edward Scanlon was a page one story for a few editions. After that, I lost track of him. However, as I read the melancholy account of Coval Russell, I remembered Scanlon. I wondered, "How many desperate old man are out there... without family, friends, without some life-support?"

During a time when politicians, including the incumbent United States president, are fond of saying, "We will leave no child behind," this columnist believes we leave older adults "behind" all the time.

Now, consider this statement from a recent mental health study: "For decades, the federal government has been concerned about high suicide rates. The suicide totals are exceptionally high among white males over 75 years of age." Coval Russell sat for a half hour on the bridge, staring down at the river rocks, where his body was later found. Administrative sergeant Dan Young delivers this editorial: "It was such a tragedy."