"I may be sick. I may be offline for a while."
That was the last thing Ed Clark's online friends and followers heard from him for more than two years.
A former member of the left-wing Students for a Democratic Society, Clark posted his political musings once a week starting in 2003. He was typing on an August night in 2006 when a funny feeling washed over him. His left hand fell lifeless onto the computer keyboard as a stroke gripped him.
"It's like something coming unplugged on your body," Clark recalls.
Clark's online essays were part of his life-long dedication to leftist thinking and Cuban communism in particular. He joined the SDS in the early 1960s. In 1964, just after the Cuban missle crisis, he and others defied U.S. authorities to spend a summer in Cuba learning about the country's Communist government.
"I met Fidel. He came around to say hello to everybody and shake hands with everybody, kind of like politicians everywhere."
He moved to New Orleans after returning because "I wanted to do radical political work in the South."
In 1975, he moved to San Francisco, but in 1992 headed back to New Orleans, for good, he thought. Then came Katrina and the beginning of a journey that brought him to a Shreveport nursing home.
Deborah began searching for Clark after the hurricane. She came to know Clark through online political and religious debates. She tried to meet him a couple of times when visiting New Orleans but things always came up.
"After Katrina, that was the first question on everybody's mind, 'How's Ed?'" she said.
The confusion in those post-hurricane months stymied her search. Clark popped up online in 2006 and let people know he was OK. Then came the last message he was able to type.
"We knew something must be wrong," Debora said.
Clark's neighbor from New Orleans logged on and said Clark had suffered a stroke but didn't provide many details.
Questions from the other forum members prompted Allen to start looking for him again. A bout with cancer interrupted the search. Prompted by Clark's online friends, she resumed the search in 2008 but kept hitting dead ends when nursing home social workers refused to answer her questions.
Clark can be demanding and sharp-tongued. He criticized the quality of care in some of the nursing homes and complained about not being able to smoke. He talked social workers at some of the facilities into getting him moved. By the time Allen started her search again, he was in his fifth nursing home.
She made one final, desperate call, to the nursing home that first admitted Clark.
She hit pay dirt, in the form of social worker Brent Montou, who helped her track down Clark.
"For some reason, he thought I was Ed's sister," Debora said.
She didn't hesitate. She was still sick from chemotherapy, but talked a friend into driving her to south Louisiana to bring Clark back to Shreveport.
"Ed had no one in his life at that point. I couldn't not be there for him. It was something bigger than myself and something bigger than my not knowing him personally," Debora said. "It was worth taking that chance to ensure he wouldn't ever be alone again. I just cannot imagine how heartbreakingly painful it must be, to face death alone. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself knowing he was down south all alone."
She found the 6-foot-tall Clark was a shadow of himself. His weight had dwindled to 98 pounds.
"He was on hunger strike," Allen said.
Clark says he wasn't starving himself, just refusing food he considered inedible.
"I don't put things that taste bad and smell bad in my mouth," he said. "San Francisco and New Orleans have great food."
Clark begged for some fried chicken on the way back to Shreveport, so they stopped at a mom-and-pop store in Keatchie. These days, Debora brings him anything he wants to eat. Packages of cookies and chips sit atop piles of magazines beside his bed.
The magazines, among them The Economist, are gifts from online friends like Stephen Smith, of Preston, England. Smith, 24, has been one of Clark's online followers since 2003.
"I got involved in helping him because he's a very intelligent and deep-thinking person that had been through a lot in his life," he said via e-mail. "When he had his stroke, it did come as a shock, but many people who knew Ed were more than happy to help in any way they could."
Some forum members also send postcards and pictures. Debora hopes they'll support an effort to get Clark to an eye doctor and get him new glasses so he can see his computer screen again.
She expects he'll have to ride to the doctor's office in an ambulance because he can't sit in a wheelchair for long periods of time. Medicaid and Medicare won't cover the ride, but one or the other probably will pay for glasses, she said.
"Once I get my vision back, I expect to spend every day online," Clark said. "During those months at the nursing homes in south Louisiana, I wouldn't have minded that being the end, but not now, not if I have a chance to get back online."
Written by Melody Brumble
That was the last thing Ed Clark's online friends and followers heard from him for more than two years.A former member of the left-wing Students for a Democratic Society, Clark posted his political musings once a week starting in 2003. He was typing on an August night in 2006 when a funny feeling washed over him. His left hand fell lifeless onto the computer keyboard as a stroke gripped him.
"It's like something coming unplugged on your body," Clark recalls.
Clark's online essays were part of his life-long dedication to leftist thinking and Cuban communism in particular. He joined the SDS in the early 1960s. In 1964, just after the Cuban missle crisis, he and others defied U.S. authorities to spend a summer in Cuba learning about the country's Communist government.
"I met Fidel. He came around to say hello to everybody and shake hands with everybody, kind of like politicians everywhere."
He moved to New Orleans after returning because "I wanted to do radical political work in the South."
In 1975, he moved to San Francisco, but in 1992 headed back to New Orleans, for good, he thought. Then came Katrina and the beginning of a journey that brought him to a Shreveport nursing home.
Deborah began searching for Clark after the hurricane. She came to know Clark through online political and religious debates. She tried to meet him a couple of times when visiting New Orleans but things always came up."After Katrina, that was the first question on everybody's mind, 'How's Ed?'" she said.
The confusion in those post-hurricane months stymied her search. Clark popped up online in 2006 and let people know he was OK. Then came the last message he was able to type.
"We knew something must be wrong," Debora said.
Clark's neighbor from New Orleans logged on and said Clark had suffered a stroke but didn't provide many details.
Questions from the other forum members prompted Allen to start looking for him again. A bout with cancer interrupted the search. Prompted by Clark's online friends, she resumed the search in 2008 but kept hitting dead ends when nursing home social workers refused to answer her questions.
Clark can be demanding and sharp-tongued. He criticized the quality of care in some of the nursing homes and complained about not being able to smoke. He talked social workers at some of the facilities into getting him moved. By the time Allen started her search again, he was in his fifth nursing home.She made one final, desperate call, to the nursing home that first admitted Clark.
She hit pay dirt, in the form of social worker Brent Montou, who helped her track down Clark.
"For some reason, he thought I was Ed's sister," Debora said.
She didn't hesitate. She was still sick from chemotherapy, but talked a friend into driving her to south Louisiana to bring Clark back to Shreveport.
"Ed had no one in his life at that point. I couldn't not be there for him. It was something bigger than myself and something bigger than my not knowing him personally," Debora said. "It was worth taking that chance to ensure he wouldn't ever be alone again. I just cannot imagine how heartbreakingly painful it must be, to face death alone. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself knowing he was down south all alone."
She found the 6-foot-tall Clark was a shadow of himself. His weight had dwindled to 98 pounds.
"He was on hunger strike," Allen said.
Clark says he wasn't starving himself, just refusing food he considered inedible.
"I don't put things that taste bad and smell bad in my mouth," he said. "San Francisco and New Orleans have great food."
Clark begged for some fried chicken on the way back to Shreveport, so they stopped at a mom-and-pop store in Keatchie. These days, Debora brings him anything he wants to eat. Packages of cookies and chips sit atop piles of magazines beside his bed.
The magazines, among them The Economist, are gifts from online friends like Stephen Smith, of Preston, England. Smith, 24, has been one of Clark's online followers since 2003.
"I got involved in helping him because he's a very intelligent and deep-thinking person that had been through a lot in his life," he said via e-mail. "When he had his stroke, it did come as a shock, but many people who knew Ed were more than happy to help in any way they could."
Some forum members also send postcards and pictures. Debora hopes they'll support an effort to get Clark to an eye doctor and get him new glasses so he can see his computer screen again.
She expects he'll have to ride to the doctor's office in an ambulance because he can't sit in a wheelchair for long periods of time. Medicaid and Medicare won't cover the ride, but one or the other probably will pay for glasses, she said.
"Once I get my vision back, I expect to spend every day online," Clark said. "During those months at the nursing homes in south Louisiana, I wouldn't have minded that being the end, but not now, not if I have a chance to get back online."
Written by Melody Brumble
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