He died in vast isolation

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-alone31mar31,0,3497949,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines ^

[Muentzer2005]

Southampton, N.Y. — THE blind man died alone in front of his television in a lounge chair, near a table covered with medicine bottles wrapped in rubber bands and a cereal box stuffed with mail. Each rubber band marked a prescription he recognized by touch. Each envelope contained information he could not read. He never received letters, only bills.

A neighbor called police after she noticed a pipe had burst at his house. His double-door garage was cloaked in a frozen waterfall. Police discovered the man inside, still as the icy water. His television still buzzing, his living room blanketed with dead flies. His electric bills had gone unpaid, but the company for some inexplicable reason had not shut off power. Warm air had preserved his face almost perfectly, like a dried rose.

They found him 13 months after his final breath ...

A few days later, Kelly told her mother about a poem someone had anonymously posted about him online:

Vincenzo Ricardo lived all alone

Diabetic, and blind — left all on his own.

For a year, no one saw him

For a year no one cared

So a man sat dead, while his TV blared….

Out of sight, out of mind,

As the days moved forward

Just a crabby old man

Whom the neighbors ignored….

He was just an old man

Who needed a friend,

No one deserves

This lonely an end.

[ansel12]

Sitting by the radio helps focus your attention and keep from being distracted as you move around doing things.

Even now while listening to talk radio, if an important segment or interview is coming on, I prefer to sit close to the source of the sound (the important part being "to sit")

[adorno]

They are all over you if you don't pay the bill.

Somebody was paying the bill or somebody paid for a whole year in advance. That somebody had an agenda? What was that man getting that paid for his bills and food before he died? Hmmm? Curious minds want to know.

[P-40]

Vast isolation? How big was his house?

[Hildy]

Hurling unwarranted insults at some blind guy who died alone indicates that there are bigger jerks in the world, however.

ouch.

[al baby]

Better to remain quiet and be thought a jerk than to post and leave no doubt

[Uriah_lost]

Direct deposit the SS check and auto pay the bills.....no mystery there.

[RegulatorCountry]

Electronic deposit and automatic draft could explain the situation, especially since he apparently had trouble reading the statments/bills.

[RegulatorCountry]

Beat me by one second, lol.

[billorites]

"What ya watchin?" and he would always answer "Nuthin" and then he'd laugh like crazy.

Yeah, blind people always crack me up.

[ansel12]

This is one of those threads that would be different, if everyone read the entire article, but that just doesn't happen much.

[Rodney King]

Well, that would be your conclusion. Hurling unwarranted insults at some blind guy who died alone indicates that there are bigger jerks in the world, however.

You can get all emotional about it, but probability suggests I am correct.

[It's me]

I wonder why a blind man would sit in front of a television?

Sound -- for company.

[Rodney King]

Better to remain quiet and be thought a jerk than to post and leave no doubt

You can read news stories through an emotional filter, or you can try to deduce things from them. In all liklihood, I am correct. But, being an emotional type of woman, you don't read stories that way.

[RegulatorCountry]

While at home, I just leave the tv on all the time, with the volume low enough for background noise. I "zone in" if I hear something I want to watch, but ignore it otherwise, unless something annoying comes on; then I change the channel. I only listen to radio while in the car, or at my office.

[Normal4me]

This is precisely why I don't have automated banking....;-)

[It's me]

The woman who cared for him is an angel.

Apparently she didn't care that much. He was found 13 months after he died.

[CzarNicky]

Well, that would be your conclusion.

If one reads the article one would find that he had a tendency towards jerkiness. He seems to have alienated everyone around him. Granted that came from reading the LA Times and judging by their accuracy he could have been an angel.

[billorites]

"The circumstances of his death do sound pitiful and sad, but there are worse ways to go."

Yes, you're right of course. There are worse ways to go.

And they all involve Helen Thomas.

Taking her teeth out...

[Rodney King]

HE told her he would pay her $20 to clean his two-story house, to scrub its grimy kitchen and bathrooms, to clear its fireplace heaped with trash. Twenty dollars — take it or leave it.

The guy was a jerk. That is why he died alone. There is a lesson here.

[Rodney King]

Molina's daughter, Kelly, now 21, remembered being at Riccardi's house that first day and giving her mother a look that said, "Don't do it." The man was rude. Twenty dollars, she thought, was not nearly enough.

The guy was a jerk. That is why he died alone. There is a lesson here for people who put logic before emotion.