Doug Dawson Was A Man

This comment about my July post on Doug Dawson, the homeless wheelchair-user in Spokane, Washington, who was murdered when set on fire, deserves it's own attention. Al Chidester apparently met Dawson just a few weeks before his death:

I met Doug Dawson on highway 2 west of Spokane on June 2, 2006. He was crossing the road when some plastic bags in which he was carrying what little he had became tangled in his wheelchair spokes in the middle of a traffic lane as the light changed. I pulled over and got him off the road. He was heading back to Spokane after failing to get a ride to Davenport WA to check on his mother’s house and visit a friend. I took him to Davenport for his visit, where he arranged to meet his sister at the House of Charity where his SSI check is mailed so she could help him get a place to stay.

Doug told me that in May he had given a woman friend $300 to go get him an apartment or a room, but that she never came back with money or news of a room. He said that he slept where he could in the alleys and parking lots and that the “House of Charity” didn’t welcome him anymore because he didn’t always observe their rules on alcohol. Doug told me he had lost his leg at 23 (he was nearing his 50th birthday) – hit by a car in Airway Heights. This turned out to be a little misleading, implying some kind of traffic accident. It was actually a freight car he was trying to hop to get to Davenport. He had been drinking and slipped under the wheels. This is according to a housemate of mine who knew him well and was one of the folks who always tried to help Doug.

In the end Doug seemed to have succumbed to the hopelessness of the “cast away as societal trash” situation he was confined to by the callous greed of our “help the rich get richer and we’ll all prosper” society. One of the ways we help the rich get richer is to cut help to the poor and homeless so we can cut rich folks’ taxes. Another way is to criminalize the behavior of the poor, force them to pee in a jar to find work, blame them for their addictions to the alcohol and cigarettes we tax, and the illegally obtained prescription drugs whose real source is the large pharmaceutical companies who are the real pushers. They even advertise on TV. The rich get richer and the poor get prison for their drug “crimes”, and who owns the private prison corporations that have become fashionable hellholes in states like Texas? – the rich, of course.

When the news hit I wrote this song. An email to alchidester@juno.com will get you a free mp3 of this one, or check out my website: www.leftneckrecords.com

Doug Dawson Was A Man
©2006 Alan C. Chidester aka Fiddlin’ Big Al

Doug Dawson was a man
Who held a bottle in his hand
He tipped it ‘til he drained it dry
Then Doug rolled off for some shut-eye

Many years ago, they say,
A bottle took his leg away
Trying to hop a freight car home
Doug slipped beneath the wheels alone

Doug didn’t have a happy life
But there was a fire in his eyes
And a will to live that passed all pain
Though One-Leg Doug became his name

Refrain: “Doug Dawson was a man …”

I picked him up, he was alone
He was still trying to get home
To Davenport on highway 2
Then on back to Spokaloo

With that fire in his eye
Doug said “Sometimes I wish I’d die.
You don’t know what all I go through
And people, they can be so cruel.

My SSI Check comes next day
Perhaps I’ll find some place to stay”
I am so tired of rollin’ on
With not one place I can call home.”

Refrain: “Doug Dawson was a man …”

I dropped him off by Sonnenberg’s
“God bless you, brother,” his last words
As he rolled off among his friends
And onward to his tragic end

What kind of twisted trick
How can people be so sick
To set a man on fire
And watch him burn

Though his killers may have names
There’s many more than two to blame
Obsessed by money, power and fame
We cannot feel another’s pain

He may be lost but so are we
With eyes so blind we cannot see
Our duty to our fellow man
To simply lend a helpin’ hand

Doug Dawson was a man
Who held a bottle in his hand
He had a heart that few could see
But I had some luck, he showed his heart to me

Doug Dawson was a man
Who held a bottle in his hand
He tipped it ‘til he drained it dry
Then Doug rolled off for some shut-eye

Fiddlin’ Big Al, aka Al Chidester