This story was passed to us by a niece who lives on James
Island. Or at least, the basic details as pieced together by local reporters.
But, there is always more to a story, stories within stories. Or so we like to imagine.
The essential facts really are few. One, Dr. Warner
received a letter from the state retirement board alerting him to a reduction
of $386 in his monthly pension due to the collapse of a huge stake in precious
metals futures which state investment advisers strongly recommended. Two, the
state’s public service board approved a rate hike that raised Dr. Warner’s
monthly power bill—with the rise in temperatures, and so forth—nearly $100 over
his monthly average of $145. He, like all of us, received a 60-day notice for
the hike.
Of course, Dr. Warner did not use, in fact did not need,
much more than a third of the 1700 square feet covered under his roof at his
home. Twelve years retired from teaching as a professor in the geography
department—our niece took a basic human geography course from him during her
sophomore year and then to satisfy a business elective, she sat through his
economic geography class. She called his lectures “stultifying” and I recall
both her aunt and I praised her for her vocabulary’s obvious depth.
Dr. Warner’s consulting work for CNN during The Great
Decline earned him a fair amount of money, which he divided equally among five
wives so that they might find their own paths to happiness. He was favorably
mentioned by Forbes for his
television appearances, his book The
Great Decline: Too Far to Turn Back Now earned a mostly positive review in the
Wall Street Journal, and Chancellor Tifton
awarded him the Medal of Excellence for his academic work and public outreach while
at the college.
Perhaps now would be the time for some comment on Dr.
Warner and his five wives, but no information is available to us other than their
names. They are in reverse chronological order Olivia Edelson Warner, Mary Sara
Compton, Diane Wesson, Emily Franklin, and Tabitha Phelps Warner. My niece
thought she overheard someone say that Olivia Warner lived in Nuuk.
Apparently, Dr. Warner’s first decision to deal with his
new economic reality was to take all the living room furniture—except for a
well-worn recliner and a reading lamp—and move the items down to the middle
bedroom. Two ladies chairs—that’s what my mother called them—a seven-foot sofa,
two end tables of maple veneer, and a small curio cabinet were moved. The
mattress and foundation were placed upright against a wall to make room for the
additions.
Next, Dr. Warner took 6-foot 1x8s and with books carried
in armfuls from the library set up in
the third bedroom began stacking the books horizontally along the
outside wall of the living room, leveling a shelf about every two feet or so.
Then, after nailing a piece of plywood in front of the double window, across
that stretch as well. Then he began again. Another row of books, with the
intermittent shelving, to the ceiling. And, a third time, all three walls of
books packed tightly as in those used bookstores that once upon a time
maximized every nook and cranny of space available.
The queen-sized mattress and foundation were dragged into
the living room and set down in the interior corner farthest away from the
front door. Plywood was nailed up over the bedroom windows and the window in
the master bathroom. Smaller pieces were cut and screwed into the ceilings to
close down vent openings.
Just beyond the hall bath, which was an interior room,
Dr. Warner framed in a doorway and set a fiberglass two-panel exterior door
with therma-seal so he could access the thermostat and the back half of the
house. The news report of his demise did say the temperature setting was at 60.
A local utility foreman who maintained anonymity
suggested that by extrapolation the power company thought Dr. Warner’s summer
setting to be around 86.
So, Dr. Warner for nearly two years mostly moved about in
his living room and kitchen with breakfast nook, and of course the bathroom.
The breakfast nook window and exterior walls were layered 3-deep in books, and
the sliding glass door leading to a smallish patio had been covered by plywood
and too had the three-thick packing of books.
The video of the emergency responders going through the
front door has been watched 2,456,381,012 times as of February 14th.
Yes, I checked, for the sake of veracity. Clearly audible, the first words
spoken by a team member were “What the hell is this guy doing with all these
books!”
One of local news channels also saw five or six million
hits the first 24 hours on a video of a neighbor holding an armful of books and
magazines and what looked like a newspaper or two. She said, “I knew he was in
trouble because his stuff—this stuff—was on the ground under his box. He was a
quiet man. I didn’t know he was famous, sort of.” Then, she cocked her head
while listening to a question off camera. “No, I didn’t never speak to him.”
Now, there is one thing I know firsthand that I heard
from a cousin who has a friend who is friends with that woman living across the
street from Dr. Warner. He had a dog in there with him. One of those rescue dogs,
half cocker and half something or other.
They found Dr. Warner mostly upright in his bed, chin
dropped to his chest, reading glasses slightly askew. Several of my
acquaintances at work claimed he was reading his own book.
Dr. Warner was 81 when this portion of his story came to
an end. Ladson 2014
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