Guest column: A home for David

Well-known sportswriter had a haunted life

My oldest professional relationship, going back to April 1977, has come to an end with the death of sportswriter David Lanier.

Sports fans who lived in Benton County in the late 1980s and 1990s know David Lanier.

He was a kind, gentle, caring, friendly man, one who fought a private battle with his own personal demon his whole life.

I loved David because of who he was. He helped make me who I am.

He and I lived many adventures together. He was small in stature, but huge in the eyes of so many people. He didn't play sports, but he surely knew sports. There are scrapbooks packed with stories and columns David wrote -- stories that people will cherish for their whole lives -- because David wanted to make whatever high school kid he was writing about feel like he or she was the center of the universe.

David's way with words were unparalled; his vocabulary immense.

Many of his exploits are legend. Here are three: Eddie Sutton once threw a paper cup at him at a press conference because of a question he asked; he broke the story of a certain Razorback basketball player who was in rehab; he spent weeks on end squinting at microfilm and old newspapers to write a complete history of Bentonville football, then did the same for basketball. But none of those stack up to his entire body of work writing about the boys and girls of Benton County, people who were made legendary by the humble, spiritual David Lanier.

I now know, looking back to those days decades ago, that, while David had a home, he was homeless. The foundation for what happened to David was apparent -- at least now -- back 40 years ago. At one point, David's "home" was a storage unit. He didn't live there, he told me. Just slept there. Later in life, his home was a dugout in Fayetteville's Walker Park. He didn't live there, but he slept there. Throughout his life, his possessions were taken from him -- because his storage unit was auctioned for nonpayment, because someone discovered his stash behind the air conditioner of a church, because he just left it somewhere.

Whatever it was, some demon kept David from being able to feel "home." David and I talked about his situation, but I could never tease out of him what ate him -- and eat him it did. It ate him alive. Outside, he was the David Lanier we all know, but his inside was on fire. He tried to entinguish that fire his whole life, but the medicine he chose would not work. It would never smother the flames, despite his best effort.

Ultimately, I've come to believe, whatever it was, it's what kept David writing like he did. His muse was inside him. He used it to make other people better. But he could not heal himself.

For the past two decades, David was, in his words, houseless. He had a home, but not in the way most of us think of that word. In his final few years, he lived in Hillcrest Towers in Fayetteville. Was it a home to him? I so very much hope so.

In 2009, I asked David to write a series on houselessness for The Benton County Daily Record. I gave him a second camera after he lost the first one. Going through photos on that camera, I came upon one of a tree in a field. Asked why it was important, David replied, without any irony or sense of "differentness": "That's where I slept last summer." Out in the woods. In a field. North of the Braum's store on Southeast Walton Boulevard. Right in the middle of booming Bentonville. Where the streets are paved in gold.

Except, they are not. At least, not in the sense that most people understand.

For David, it was a great spot. He told me why it was so great.

Houselessness.

That makes it sound not as bad, right?

That's how it worked for David.

I am so sorry I was not able to help David overcome his demon. He knew I tried so hard. After a point, every time I'd see David, I'd tell him "You know what you have to do."

I came to realize no amount of words, or concern or effort was going to change David. I didn't give up, but I guess I gave up hoping.

I lost track of David these last too many years. And I'm so very sorry for that.

David died in a hospital last week. Cancer killed him. As a friend said, "At least he died in a bed."

I was glad to hear that's how it happened, because I feared David would die under a tree somewhere, to become a news story for all the wrong reasons. Or worse, to just disappear into the background and never be missed.

He's still alive in the lives of everyone he touched. There are thousands of people who remember David because he was so memorable. They can see his grand smile, hear his unique laugh that came so easily.

I know in heaven, David has found peace. I know that tree out in the field he's chosen will be the most comfortable place he'll ever call home. Because, David is finally home.

Rest in peace, my oh-so-special friend.

Commentary on 04/12/2017

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