Fame for hero no easy thing

KEN GIGLIOTTI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

Faron Hall, formerly homeless, saved two people from drowning in the Red River. Hall was assaulted Christmas Eve.

I have some unfinished business from last year.

Too much to fit in one column.

Enlarge Image

Stephen Green: given a new bike (RUTH.BONNEVILLE@FREEPRESS.MB.CA )

But I'm going to reel off some things I forgot or neglected or simply didn't get around to mentioning.

The good, the sad and the hopeful.

Beginning with an update to a familiar story about a familiar face that took six stitches to the eyebrow on Christmas Eve.

"ö "ö "ö

THE DOWNSIDE OF BEING A HERO... At first, when he called Christmas Day, Faron Hall told me he slipped and fell on his face and some kindly passersby took him to St. Boniface Hospital. But this week, when he called again and we met for lunch, he told another story.

Some dudes beat him up on Main Street.

Faron said it was because they recognized him as "the homeless hero" and they wanted to bring him back down to earth, which in this case was the sidewalk in front of the Winnipeg Hotel.

Faron has never felt as if he were better than anyone else just because he's been awarded bravery medals for saving two people from drowning last year in a pair of incidents when he was drinking by the Red River.

Late last year he finally decided to try to save himself by entering a detox program because, as he said later, "I wondered whether I'd live to see Christmas if I kept going the way I'm going."

He got out of treatment just before Christmas. And if the beating he got the night before Christmas had continued, he might not have lived to see it.

The problem is Faron was already back on the street drinking before the thugs dropped him on it.

I suppose, in retrospect, the hope Faron had for himself, and the hope so many others had for him when he was doing so well in treatment, was too much to hope for.

There were people who cared for him waiting to help when he got out, but he was already back to drinking the day before he left treatment. In fact he was drinking the night before he presented the Main Street Project with $1,000 from the Faron Hall National Fund for the Homeless.

He was frightened of what would happen when he got out, when he didn't have the structure, the companionship and the purpose supplied by the treatment centre.

He was frightened because he knew what would happen.

There would be no more structure and purpose, and the companionship he would gravitate to was the bottle.

"It's not an addiction," Faron told me this week. "It's a disease."

Faron has gone back to something else, though.

Something he's more comfortable being than the person in the sports jacket and slacks who was hung over when he presented that $1,000 cheque in front of all those media cameras.

He's gone back to being the person he wants to be.

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THE OVERLOOKED ENVELOPES... It's getting to be an annual event. I'm cleaning up my desk at year's end and I come across an envelope I haven't opened. This time it was a letter from a recently widowed mother of eight children, ages eight to 15. A plea for help at Christmas from a woman who can only afford a small two-bedroom house in a rural area she says doesn't have a food bank or a cheer board.

Made me feel like that Grinch guy who stole Christmas.

Then I opened another envelope I hadn't seen.

It referenced a previous story about a family going through a tough time economically. A St. James woman named Susan Green wrote to vent about someone stealing the bike her son rode to his job at Wal-Mart.

Soon after a letter arrived with five $20 dollar bills inside.

"Dear Mr. Sinclair.

"Just over a year ago one of my grandchildren died. Usually at Christmas time I send a cheque to all of them to buy something they really want but not necessarily need. Sadly this year there were will only be eight cheques not nine. Your column today told me that there are many people out there who not only want but need. Enclosed is some cash for one of them. Could you possibly give it to Susan Green for her oldest son towards another bike. This year he is my ninth grandchild.

"Sincerely yours,

"Regular Reader"

It turns out someone -- actually many someones -- offered to replace young Stephen Green's stolen bike.

Since he's looked after I've decided that, given that there is a needy mother with eight children, the grandmother with eight grandchildren would probably approve of my passing her present along to them.

May they all be her ninth grandchild.

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AND NOW A STORY OF HOPE... This email from a 59-year-old reader was inspired by something he was watching on TV probably about the time that Faron Hall was being assaulted on Christmas Eve.

"Dear Gordon,

"Twenty-eight Christmases ago I was sitting in my house trying to figure out what had gone wrong in my life. My wife was forced to take our two babies and go back to Scotland. I say forced because my drinking had made life impossible for her in Winnipeg.

Fortunately for me my life changed, with the help of my higher power and my recovery program I have not drunk in the past 28 years. My wife came back with our babies and our marriage has been very successful.

The reason I am writing is that last night, Christmas Eve, I was at my daughter's house playing with our grandchildren Stella, who is two, and Cruz, who is five months, and we were watching that corny old movie with Jimmy Stewart and Clarence the angel. I have seen that movie about 20 times and I enjoy it because it is all about second chances.

"I look at my granddaughter who happened to be born on the 17th of November, which was the same date that I had my last drink all those years ago, and I realize that there are many people out there struggling with alcohol addiction who will wake up this holiday season feeling hopeless. My gift to them is the gift of hope and the knowledge that there can be a second chance AND even through the trials and tribulations it can be 'a wonderful life.'

"Brian"

There they are, some of the things I forgot or neglected to mention last year.

Oh, there's one more thing I forgot to mention.

Happy New Year.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 2, 2010 B1