No time to be lonely on a lovely fall day

Everyday Peopls

Tom Loewy

NEWS

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Jerry Stancomb loves days like Tuesday.

"When it's hot out I can't really breathe too well. When it's hot I have to have my oxygen on," the 63-year-old said. "On a day like today, I can get out and sit or I can take a ride uptown.

"On days like this, I like to mosey up to the Dollar General. There's not too many places left downtown, but I like to get out and ride around."

Stancomb adjusted his Pronto M91 Sure Step power chair and eased his legs into the sun. He kept his head and upper body in the shadow of the Mary Allen West Towers' front overhang.

He had a cell phone clipped to the breast pocket of his button-up shirt and wore a watch, medical ID bracelet and a Lifeline call button on his left wrist.

"I've got emphysema and bad circulation," he said. "I have diabetes and nerve damage in my legs, feet and shoulders."

Stancomb held a Styrofoam cup filled with coffee in his left hand and a still-lit stub of a cigarette in his right.

"I used to live over on Maple Street, in an upstairs apartment. I could walk around just fine, but then I started falling and dropping everything. So I moved over here. ..."

Stancomb paused as the bus pulled away from the stop on West Simmons Street.

"I moved to the Towers two years ago in January," he said as the bus moved toward Academy Street.

The man in the power chair fell silent for a time. Fallen leaves rattled across the pavement of the Towers parking lot, stirred by the autumn breeze.

"I had three jobs in my life, all of them working as a farm hand down around Farmington. I grew up on a farm down around Gladstone and I loved to work outdoors.

"Now I just pretty much keep to myself. I don't tell people what to do or give them advice. As long as I can get around, I'm satisfied."

Stancomb stubbed out the meager remains of the cigarette.

"I never did get married and I never wished that I did. My life seemed better without it. I never did get lonely."

He shrugged his shoulders and shifted in the power chair.

"There are a couple of ladies around here who I'm friendly with. One lady, her name is Cindy, sits out here with me. Some days, I take her to lunch.

"Cindy and I are just friends now - and we'll probably be friends forever. We do live in the same place."

Stancomb smiled.

"When I start to get lonely, I just come down here and talk to somebody. In fact, the ladies got worried about me just this morning because I didn't come down earlier. But I slept in today."

Stancomb paused as a woman named Dee took a shaded seat on the bench behind his power chair. The tubing in her nose was connected to a small pack.

"Sure is a nice day to be sitting outside," Dee said. "You talking to Jerry? He's such a sweetheart."

Dee removed the tubing from her nose and lit a cigarette. Stancomb shifted his chair to face the new arrival.

"When the weather does get bad, I just watch more TV," Stancomb said. "I like to watch 'America's Funniest Home Videos.' It's funny, the things people do. The people on that show act like they don't get hurt, but I know they do."

Tom Loewy is a reporter and columnist for The Register-Mail. Contact him with column ideas at tloewy@register-mail.com or 343-7181, Ext. 256.