Allegory of the dead bird

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[In the eave of a house is a hole with the lower part of a dead bird sticking out of it.

Beside the dead bird is a barn swallow nest made of mud.

The bird poked its head in the hole and got stuck. It fluttered for a while -- maybe days -- and then it died. Maybe it was after a bug.

All creatures make mistakes. Most of the time they can right those mistakes and get on with their lives, but sometimes they get stuck and sometimes they die alone.

David Condon of Anderson, S.C., lost his job at the museum last year, according to the Associated Press. Condon spent his store of money and failed to meet his $500 a month rent. His truck had been towed because he could not afford to fix it. He took prescription medication for seizures.

In July he went camping on Lake Hartwell 10 miles from his house at a spot where his grandfather once had a house.

On Labor Day weekend a group of kids vacationing nearby opened Condon's tent and found his nude, emaciated dead body.

Condon had lost 50 pounds in the past two months. The coroner decided he died of pneumonia and malnutrition.

People are asking why Condon did what he did and did not ask for help.

He could have gotten another job to support himself. Condon's county in July had a 12.5 percent unemployment rate.

He was likely depressed and may have benefitted from counseling and medication. He likely had no health insurance. He could have gone to a free clinic. Low income clinics in Southern Illinois in Anna and Vienna are not taking new patients -- they are booked.

Condon could have applied for government disability for his seizures. He very likely would have needed help of and money for a lawyer to do that.

He could have asked his friends for help. They may have been willing to help him, but for how long? First rule of friendship if you want to keep the friendship, don't ask for and don't loan money.

Condon did something dramatic and something I consider to be kind of brave. The outdoor afficianado packed up his equipment, went to a place that was peaceful to him and set up camp. No one will ever know if Condon planned to die there, but it is apparent he knew he could not continue living in his downward spiral.

I wonder if his emotions were similar to those of Chris McCandless, who left college in 1990 for the life of wandering the country. In 1992 he starved to death alone in an abandoned bus in Alaska.

In 1931 Everett Ruess at the age of 20 left home in California to explore the canyon country of the desert southwest. He is believed to have died in 1934 at the hands of two Utes who wanted his two mules, though controversy exists about this theory.

Timothy Treadwell felt more at home with the grizzly bears in Alaska than in civilization and spent 13 summers there with them. He and his girlfriend were killed and partially eaten by a bear in 2003.

Condon's story is not as adventurous as McCandless', Ruess' and Treadwell's. Those three set out with the equipment and knowledge to sustain themselves for years and all died unintended deaths. Maybe Condon did, too, though his malnurished body would seem to refute that. Maybe he intended to live on fish, but couldn't catch them. Maybe he caught fish until he became ill and someone stole his rod. Short of that unlikely theory, it appears Condon had given up on supporting himself by society's standards, as had the other men I mentioned by varying degrees.

There was help available to Condon, if he had wanted it.

But he could have shared the ideals of those gathered with their signs on Harrisburg's square Saturday. I understand the group now wants to do away with public welfare. Members of the group likened government funded health care to socialism.

I have never considered the subjects of welfare and affordable health care to be topics unique to any political persuasion; I've considered them subjects of basic human decency.

Assistance for the less fortunate is one of the benefits of living in a society. Otherwise, we are about as well off living in the wilderness hoping the bears aren't hungry today.

We can hope the bears already ate someone else, and tell ourselves that person deserved to be eaten, because he was too lazy to run fast enough, because he did not take care of his physical fitness, because he was too prideful, because he was too lustful and arrogant, because he did not clean himself well enough and that's why the bear smelled him when it did not smell the rest of us.

We can all tell ourselves we are the invincible ones, and I hope we all are right.

I just hope none of those gathered at the square last Saturday suffers the misfortune of losing a job, losing health insurance and being diagnosed with cancer. Under their credos they and their families would have a hard row to hoe.

There are a lot of people in our country and in our communities already hoeing.