When we first heard from Eddie Lanier Jr. and his friend David Wright in 2006, Eddie, the son of a former mayor of Chapel Hill, N.C., was homeless and a recovering alcoholic.
In that StoryCorps interview, the pair talked about their friendship, which began on a highway exit ramp where Eddie held a sign asking for help. David would occasionally give Eddie money and a can of food.
Eddie recalled how one night, on New Year's Eve, David walked over to him "and says ... 'I'm going to take you home with me for a New Year's Eve party. How would you like that?' "
"I went to your home and had a shower, and you gave me some clean clothes," Eddie explained. "And we sat down at the table, and I told you some stories about who I really was, and who my daddy was. There was a lot more to me than you might imagine."
StoryCorps Legacy
StoryCorps collects interviews like this one through the StoryCorps Legacy program — an initiative to record the stories of people living with a life-threatening illness.