Many journalists enter the profession to make a difference, and LA Times columnist Sandy Banks made an epic one in the lives of the Dotson family — reuniting a homeless father with the children he abandoned in a haze of pain and broken dreams a dozen years earlier.
In February, Banks wrote a column about Eddie Dotson, 67, who had been living in a tastefully designed shelter of his own making under a highway overpass near the University of Southern California. Two weeks later she received two emails within an hour of each other: one from his daughter in NYC and the other from his son in Austin, Texas.
“My name is Ericka Dotson. I just received word of your story published in the L.A. Times about my father. My brother and I have been looking for him for over 12 years. This is the happiest day of my life!” Ericka Dotson wrote to Banks, as she detailed in her follow-up column Sunday.
Ericka quickly booked a flight to Los Angeles with her father’s best friend. There was trepidation on all ends, but the reunion was a resounding success. Two days later Ericka convinced her dad to return to Austin — via a 40-hour train ride because Eddie had no form of identification for a flight.
During it all, Banks learned about Eddie’s slide into homelessness. When Ericka and her brother were kids the family prospered: They lived in a leafy Austin suburb and her parents ran a successful janitorial service business. But the business eventually sputtered and her parents divorced. Eddie spiraled downward, first living in an abandoned trailer in a rural area of Texas, then taking off for L.A. and cutting off contact.
Today, Eddie lives in his daughter’s furnished condo in Austin while she lives in New York. He has reconnected with many childhood friends and his children are grateful he is back in their lives.
So many lives changed for the better because of a newspaper column. Not a bad day’s work for one journalist.