  Flanders_field Member Username: Flanders_field Post Number: 1686 Registered: 01-2008 |
"In his despairing leap from his downtown 16th-floor apartment window two weeks ago, Timothy H. Regan, who once worked in finance and human resources for General Motors, ended his life in the shadow of the Renaissance Center." "When a 36th District Court officer opened the apartment door to evict the former clerk on that frigid Jan. 29 morning, he found the living room occupied only by an empty reclining chair and an open window." "The court officer, Cieve Turner, didn't wonder about the window, which had been laboriously unscrewed. He and three other employees closed it, then cleared out the clothing from a walk-in closet in the $956-a-month apartment. As they left the building, they heard sirens." "Why did he have to put that on my conscience?" Turner wondered later. "Regan's last act, in its suddenness and horror, stamped an exclamation point on a life that might otherwise have ended in an ellipsis, trailing off inexorably in the almost three years since he lost his job. He left behind no wife, no children, no debts, no note or final phone call to either of his two older sisters or his friends. His Detroit friends believed he was moving back to Marine City, his hometown, and gratefully accepted his possessions. On the morning of his death, he even helped move his treadmill to a neighbor's apartment." I met Tim 20 years ago when I briefly worked at the GM Tech Center as a contract employee. He was a pleasant guy, who despite his disability. seemed to always be walking around the building more than most with his gimpy legs and rocking gait. Detroiter checks out I have to think that his condition worsened as he aged, it must have been stressful on his hip joints. Why he burned through his savings and severance, and apparently did not try to apply for SSI or some kind of assistance, including help from his family and friends is mystifying. It is one thing to be full of pride and enjoy one's independence, but time and money was eventually going to run out. I guess that he decided to play the string out until its end, how sad. RIP Tim....  (Message edited by Flanders_field on February 16, 2009) | ||
Emu_steve Member Username: Emu_steve Post Number: 733 Registered: 11-2006 |
Very sad and unfortunately this story is probably repeating itself more and more. He was the human face of the problems Detroit and now the nation is going through. RIP, Tim. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 4476 Registered: 02-2004 |
So that's why he comitted suicide. Loss of American jobs means a loss of your life! That man who jump out the window is the one of preview for the next Great Depression is coming soon in the near future. | ||
Janesback Member Username: Janesback Post Number: 508 Registered: 08-2006 |
Danny, hes not the first. They have had a few incidents with men who lost their jobs that in turn take the family with them. I think there were 2 reports of this in California.....his wife, the 3 kids and one took his pets out with the family.........so sad.. Jane | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 9002 Registered: 12-2003 |
There was one AT Ford World Headquarters within the past eighteen months. | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 9003 Registered: 12-2003 |
It was actually almost two years ago...March of 2007. Boy has the time flown. Not at the Headquarters, either, at a building identified as the Regent Court. But Ford was way ahead of the curve on this...but it was kept very quiet. | ||
Sstashmoo Member Username: Sstashmoo Post Number: 3324 Registered: 02-2007 |
Incredibly sad stories, these folks that feel compelled to commit such an act. People need to put things in perspective and view adversity as something to overcome. | ||
East_detroit Member Username: East_detroit Post Number: 1938 Registered: 11-2003 |
Gannon, who said the guy was losing his job? Ford kept his personal life quiet? No conspiracy there. | ||
Cambrian Member Username: Cambrian Post Number: 2003 Registered: 08-2006 |
What to do when society has taught us what type of job we have is what defines us while simultaneously the nouveau solution by the MBAs is to fix any corporate crisis by offering up peoples' jobs for sacrifice by the thousands? Maybe instead of asking young kids what do you want to do when you grow up we need to start phrasing it as what type of person do you want to be? | ||
East_detroit Member Username: East_detroit Post Number: 1941 Registered: 11-2003 |
When the only tool you have is a train, everything looks like a rail. | ||
Sstashmoo Member Username: Sstashmoo Post Number: 3326 Registered: 02-2007 |
Quote: "That is the future, unless people like Danny wake up and support my cause to make Lansing pay for SMART." "SMART" funding is why Michigan is like it is? Michigan is like it is because of labor unions and idiotic trade agreements. No auto related business is going to move it's facility here and fight with the UAW. Mom and Pop shops are dropping like flies due to Chinese imports, outsourcing and loss of local auto related work due to the downturn in auto sales/production. | ||
Downtown_lady Member Username: Downtown_lady Post Number: 565 Registered: 08-2008 |
quote: What an excellent thought! I love it. | ||
Wash_man Member Username: Wash_man Post Number: 1037 Registered: 05-2006 |
A member of my H.S. graduating class (1978)killed himself two weeks ago today. Lost his job, then his house and was currently being evicted from his apartment. No wife, no kids, yet still a tragedy. I hadn't seen him in 10 years, but it was still a shock to hear this news. He was a tool & die maker that couldn't find work. Very sad for his family. | ||
Blt Member Username: Blt Post Number: 5 Registered: 02-2008 |
ALIGHT TRAINMAN! Glad to see you seize the opportunity to hi-jack a thread dedicated to the memory of someone who probably needed a little love. Have a good life. | ||
Daddeeo Member Username: Daddeeo Post Number: 462 Registered: 09-2008 |
Must have a one track mind. | ||
Gsgeorge Member Username: Gsgeorge Post Number: 724 Registered: 08-2006 |
Nice one Trainman. Try taking that crap to a thread NOT dedicated to a human's life. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 4479 Registered: 02-2004 |
Trainman, I'm unemployed, how can pay higher taxes if I don't have a job? | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 4480 Registered: 02-2004 |
Trainman, I'm going to VOTE yes on SMART bus millage 2010. and a lot of people will too. A NO vote will make SMART bus system disappear. | ||
Irish_mafia Member Username: Irish_mafia Post Number: 1244 Registered: 10-2003 |
If a man finds himself in dispair, unemployed, unable to pay his taxes and he throws himself in front of a train, does the death tax get offset by the tax rebate on the taxes that he never paid under the new Democratic spending bill? or is there just a mess for trainman to clean up? | ||
Trainman Member Username: Trainman Post Number: 750 Registered: 04-2006 |
I just think it is very said that our government is trying to raise money for new commuter rail and streetcars when people are out of work. There is no evidence that raising mass transit taxes will bring job growth or more federal transit grants to southeast Michigan at this time. | ||
Gene Member Username: Gene Post Number: 189 Registered: 10-2006 |
With all the gloom and doom, no hope of a recovery and the fearmongering rhetoric lately from Obama, what do you expect. | ||
Otter Member Username: Otter Post Number: 591 Registered: 12-2007 |
Trainman, The world does not revolve around your obsession. Please try to have some respect - for the subject matter, if nothing else - and talk about what the OP posted about. Plenty of other places to spam about the one thing you seem able to talk about. O. | ||
Wash_man Member Username: Wash_man Post Number: 1038 Registered: 05-2006 |
"With all the gloom and doom, no hope of a recovery and the fearmongering rhetoric lately from Obama, what do you expect." Would you prefer "the foundations of economy are sound" two days before a wall street collapse like the Republicans offered? I'd rather have the truth and deal with it accordingly. Sorry for the hi-jack. I couldn't resist. | ||
Rel Member Username: Rel Post Number: 793 Registered: 02-2008 |
I think that since most of us didn't even know the man, it's a bit inappropriate for us to theorize what was going on in this troubled soul's mind. Not to mention pointless, since he's not here to answer to any of you. I think the best we can do here is send condolences to his loved ones. | ||
Trainman Member Username: Trainman Post Number: 751 Registered: 04-2006 |
Otter You are right, but it just makes me so mad that people just don't care about others. It is very wrong for our state to fund new rail along Woodward Ave after slashing community transit money from the handicapped, elderly and the low income. And the mult-billion dollar freeway plans are still not back of the shelf where they belong also. | ||
Irish_mafia Member Username: Irish_mafia Post Number: 1245 Registered: 10-2003 |
It is very right for our state to fund new rail along Woodward Ave. Keep slashing community transit money from the handicapped, elderly and the low income. Fire all the trainmen. Let's keep the mult-billion dollar freeway plans right where they are. One might suggest that this is the motor city and it is the trainmen of the world that caused this poor soul to jump. ass transit/schmanzit....buy a car , save a life ...ride a train...just cause strife. Eventually, if you ride the train long enough and pay enough tax dollars to the train projects , you become just like the train men....they are not like other people...they are singularly obsessed...no food, no women, no games, ...brains of oatmeal, easily molded to take one obsessive idea forward...no bathing, no shaving, no deodorant...eyes glazed over from just the dim black and white light from a PC monitor illuminating their abodes each night....the light squeel of the hamster wheel just a distant memory as they forgot to feed the rodent and its molted corpse lies in the corner...no longer making the sounds of the long past era of the T R A I N M A N AHHHHHH! | ||
Trainman Member Username: Trainman Post Number: 752 Registered: 04-2006 |
Irish_mafia Thanks for the post. A recent study showed that 3 our every 5 railroad workers has personality disorder which was disputed. But, who really knows? Maybe there is some truth to this? It must be the PC monitors at work and at home. | ||
Mikeg Member Username: Mikeg Post Number: 2231 Registered: 12-2005 |
I knew Tim from when we used to work in the same building at the GM Tech Center back in the early 1980s. He worked in finance and I was in engineering and we were often in the same meetings together. Tim was always friendly and talkative when we crossed paths in the hall, but I never got to really know him closely and when GM went through the big reorganization in 1985 we ended up in different groups. RIP, Tim. | ||
Bobzilla Member Username: Bobzilla Post Number: 63 Registered: 11-2003 |
I understand that a lot of people attended Tim's funeral in Marine City - and there was a nice turnout last Wednesday for a gathering upstairs at the Detroit Beer Co. It was a mix of his relatives from around Marine City, and friends from the Millender Apts, Old Shileilagh, Detroit Beer Co, and elsewhere. Rest peacefully, Tim. |
