Jackie Wallace & Ted Jackson

Back from Broken

Colorado Public Radio

Society & Culture

5 • 703 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2022

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When journalist Ted Jackson set out to do a story on homelessness, he never imagined he'd meet a former NFL player who'd made it to three Super Bowls. But there was unhoused Jackie Wallace, a former cornerback facing a long journey of recovery. After Ted wrote a story about Jackie, the two became good friends. But then, as the years passed, Jackie disappeared -- twice. Yet Ted refused to let Jackie slip away. This is the powerful story of their friendship.

Back From Broken is a show about how we are all broken sometimes, and how we need help from time to time. If you’re struggling, you can find a list of resources at BackFromBroken.org.

Host: Vic Vela
Lead producer: Rebekah Romberg
Editor: Erin Jones
Additional producers: Jo Erickson, Luis Antonio Perez
Music: Daniel Mescher, Brad Turner
Executive producers: Brad Turner, Rachel Estabrook

Thanks also to Kevin Dale, Hart van Denburg, Jodi Gersh, Clara Shelton, Matt Herz, Martin Skavish, Kim Nguyen.

BackFromBroken.org
On Twitter: @VicVela1

Transcript

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0:00.0	In three, two, one.
0:04.6	It was a hot afternoon in July.
0:07.5	I had no assignments at the time, and my editor came in, and he had seen a homeless camp under a bridge, and he thought, well, you know, while you're not doing anything this afternoon, why don't you just go check it out?
0:19.6	Nothing was expected from it. It was just go check it out? Nothing was expected from it.
0:21.1	It was just go check it out and see if it looks interesting to you.
0:24.8	Ted Jackson is a photojournalist. On this hot summer day in 1990, he was working for the Times
0:31.1	Picayune, a newspaper in New Orleans. So I headed down under the bridge and the camp he was talking
0:37.4	about was totally torn up.
0:40.2	There was no one around, no homeless hanging around.
0:43.9	It was just an empty spot.
0:45.0	But that, you know, happens on these kinds of assignments.
0:48.1	Just go check it out.
0:49.6	So I was headed back to my car and I literally almost stumbled over a man who was sleeping on a kind of
0:57.8	a makeshift bed and a campsite there. It was really, it was very hidden in the spot where he was.
1:04.4	But I was curious about the camp where, you know, I had just been. And so I shot a quick picture
1:10.6	just because it was an unusual camp. It was
1:13.2	very neat. That photo gives almost a bird's eye view of the man Jackson stumbled across.
1:21.0	The ground is covered in seashells so small, they look like gravel. And the man's wrapped in
1:26.3	clear plastic and is laying on a piece of cardboard
1:29.1	on top of a rusty old box spring. His shoes, with socks tucked carefully inside, sit intentionally
1:36.0	near his feet. And next to that, a jug of water and a pile of folded laundry, with the sports
1:42.9	section of Ted's paper sitting crisply folded on top.
	...

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