BY JAMES A. MEROLLA SUN CHRONICLE STAFF
Sunday, January 28, 2007 10:31 PM EST
Jim Whelan, an ever-moving, ever-grateful Attleboro man, punctuates the end of each conversation or meeting with a very sincere “God bless you.”
That warm sentiment is even at the end of the voice mail message on his answering machine.
Whelan, 57, has a lot to be thankful for. A physical therapy assistant who works part time as a courier for Sturdy Memorial Hospital and who also cleans carpets and home
accessories part time, Whelan has a riches-to-rags-to-rats-to-runs life story that could be a book.
In fact, he’s writing one. If it wasn’t true, you’d never believe it.
Healthy for the past 19 years after too many hardships to name, Whelan started an annual March Run for Humanity 5K event in 1992 to benefit the homeless and hungry of Attleboro. On March 24, the race will mark its 15th running.
Whelan stills runs, but not from his demons. SUN CHRONICLE: Tell me your background, the good life, the secure life, when you were a kid.
JIM WHELAN: I come from a wealthy family. I’m a Milton native. My grandmother was a good friend of Howard Johnson (the hotelier) who lived in Milton. Huge money. My family members inherited hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 1940s.
I knew how to set a table for a five-course meal when I was 8 years old. It was an all doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs town. Nobody got in there if they had no money. Well, it’s still that way today.
SUN CHRONICLE: What was the seminal event that changed your life?
JIM WHELAN: Well, the first time, when I was 16, my brothers and sisters were put out in the street. There were 10 kids in the family. My parents separated. My father stayed in the house with my grandmother, and we ended up in the projects.
There was one bathroom for 11 people, and my mother was pregnant with my youngest brother. I had one more year at Milton High. That was traumatic, hanging out on the street corner in gangs, getting into fights, I gravitated toward the negative. I saw a lot of bad things and did even more.
I’m writing a book about my life. Stay tuned.
SUN CHRONICLE: You then had some serious health issues. Tell me about them.
JIM WHELAN: I contracted spinal meningitis at 21. They didn’t know anything about that then. They thought I had the flu. I was vomiting on the walls and my kid brother says, ‘Ma, Jimmy doesn’t look good at all.’ I went into a coma. I had the last rites said over me.
I saw those white lights just like they talk about. It was like going into a tunnel in the mind’s eye, with lights on the top, dark on the bottom, with figures of people moving in the dark.
SUN CHRONICLE: Obviously, it didn’t kill or cripple you, but there were more problems, right?
JIM WHELAN: Well, you can get many things. You can have amnesia. I had amnesia. I remembered some faces, and I’d say, ‘I know these people.’ I remembered my family. But others - I forgot so much. It came back to me (later), but I still suffer to this day.
At my worst moment, they picked me out of the gutter. In the dead of winter. They saved my life. The details will be in the book.
SUN CHRONICLE: How did you get your life back together? How long did it take?
JIM WHELAN: About 17 years. In those 17 years, I was homeless many times. Almost 20 years of homelessness and the streets and mayhem.
At 38, I sought help. I came up from that.
SUN CHRONICLE: Is that why you started this race? Because you had been there?
JIM WHELAN: To experience that homelessness and desperation and hopelessness in life, you have no idea how bad it is and how much is out there. I knew people who had jobs, then lost their jobs and were homeless. Boom! Gone. $50,000, $100,000 a year jobs.
So, I knew it was going to get worse. And those are only the people you here about. I used to work the soup kitchens at LaSalette. There were 100 families a week going through, and that’s going way back.
I started the race to make a difference, to make aware the growing needs and the problems. If everybody would do what I did in every town, in every state, we’d wipe out hunger.
SUN CHRONICLE: Can you believe it’s been 15 years since you started the race?
JIM WHELAN: I tell you, when it first started, (TV reporter) Glenn Laxton asked me, ‘Jimmy, what makes you think people will keep running in this race? People start these things all the time and they fall off.’
Well, it’s been in my heart for 15 years. That’s a long time. Here we all are. Still here.”
Anyone wishing to enter Jim Whelan’s 5K run/walk for Humanity on Saturday, March 24, may call 508-222-4538. Pre-registration is $18.
JAMES A. MEROLLA can be reached at 508-236-0431 or at jmerolla@thesunchronicle.com.
and Mark (12th, 19:22). The combined placings scored a close third among the five international squads, earning a set of team medals. The invitational field 6K race, which dates back to 1970, was won by Irish champion and world competitor Seamus Power in 18:32.
Announcing …