Lane Ballantyne puts his hot dog down and leans over the table to share a confession that is only slight exaggeration.
“This is the first July 4th in my history where I’m sober,” he said, his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses but his mouth set stern enough below his push-broom mustache to let you know he means it. “Where I’m not going out with my friends and getting drunk and acting like an idiot.”
It was, quite literally, Ballantyne’s independence day.
Ninety days ago, he was released from prison after serving three years for drug possession. He went to a clinic, then a homeless shelter, carrying his possessions on his back, trying to kick his old habits and form better ones.
And on Friday he found himself in a Salvation Army parking lot in downtown Denver quite unexpectedly enjoying perhaps his first happy moment in months: a Fourth of July picnic. Hot dogs, pasta salad, baked beans, live music, the whole bit.
“It’s a great treasure today to have the Salvation Army put this on,” he said. “. . . It’s events like this that keep us going.”
The Salvation Army has put on the Fourth of July picnic for at least a decade, said Major Neal Hogan, the Army’s local director of social services. This year, about 1,200 people were expected for the event, and by noon the line to get in wrapped around the block.
“It’s just a typical picnic,” Hogan said. “And that’s what it’s meant to be, so that the homeless and the poor have the opportunity to participate in a community event and celebrate our freedom.”
The picnic attracted a diverse crowd, from veterans of sleeping out on the streets to mothers with young children who quietly confide that this is their first time needing such help.
“Everybody here is doing the same thing,” said Al Shamshak, a recovering heroin addict who now sleeps on the streets to preach the word of God to the homeless. “Everybody is struggling with something in their life.”
Several in the crowd acknowledged that they aren’t just a hot dog away from getting their life back together. But they said they appreciate the Salvation Army’s generosity and they hope, with a little more help from the Army and the other Denver homeless advocacy groups that chipped in for the picnic, they’ll be able to make it.
“A lot of people don’t get very much,” said Alvin Bachman, who is staying in a Salvation Army shelter. “But that’s what this is all about, is giving food and giving respect. That’s what the community needs to be doing.”
For Ballantyne, though, the day means a little something more. On this July 4th, he said, he has found freedom from the tyranny of his past.
“Today is the day I will always remember,” he said, cracking a smile, “because it is the day I started my life over.”
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com
