Street roots., February 10, 2017, Page 6, Image 6

1 / a w i
Drinking Tea
by Ricky Duane Wagner
Flash
The first cup is so
Good down my throat
The second cup breaks
My state of stillness.
The third cup goes
Deep until my soul
To search for the
Wisdom and knowledge
That is so valuable on
The Streets.
The fourth cup makes me
Sweat
All of the injustice of
Homelessness vaporizes
Through my skin and pores.
The fifth cup of tea
Lessens the weight
Of my flesh and bone.
The sixth cup of tea
Brings me to encounters
With the immortals.
As I finish my
Sixth cup of tea I can
Feel the wind blow through
My body and soul.
o o H
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c o ntributing w riter
lash, a new Street Roots vendor, will
enthusiastically engage you in a
conversation about language,
philosophy, his favorite authors and a host
of other subjects before you finish your first
gulp of coffee.
Flash’s ambition and curiosity are obvious
as he talks about the journey from his small
hometown of Forest, Va. out to Bend a few
years back.
“I knew that I was bigger than the
place I happened to be from,” Flash
said about his decision to leave
home.
“Fve always been attracted to
the individuality of the Pacific
Northwest... there’s always
been that intuition of T need to
move here.’”
One Greyhound ticket later,
Flash arrived in Bend where he
found a host of jobs, from
repairing pallets on a
conveyor line and working
in a beer factory to raking
j
leaves.
“I never worry about
the payoff, the payoff
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will come,” Flash said
. w ith a sm ile a s h e
b v s e ik i
/ v a rie ty o f w ork
J experiences.
This philosophy has
held true many times for
him.
One notable instance was S
making money from dumpster
diving for cans in a back alley
behind a restaurant in Bend.
s z
6 p
£ 8
L S
17 k
9 6
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8 L
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£ 6
z k
s 9
6 Z
9 L
p 8
After collecting cans for some time, Flash
was offered a dish washing position by the
restaurant’s head chef and an opportunity to
have
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BY MEGHANN VAN PELT
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a sustainable income, which he gladly
accepted.
,
Much like his name indicates, Flash is
always on the go.
He sought out Portland to expand his job
and educational opportunities.
“I’m always asking, ‘What can you do now
ta better yourself?”’
For Flash, this has taken on many forms.
He has audited language classes to learn
German and basic Gaelic and is currently in
pursuit of a third language while continuing
to expand his education.
Flash’s interest in language was
particularly evident in our conversation.
“Language dictates how literally you
interpret the world and how imaginatively
you interpret the world,” he said.
Flash sees the world as an opportunity
¿
to invest in his education whenever
possible.
When not writing or selling
Street Roots, Flash is reading
works from Nobel physicist
Richard Feynman to favorite
authors such as Fyodor
/ Dostoyevsky.
L
This adventurer of
I both land and mind said
|
he is trying to stay put
in Portland for a
while, though the
k
lure of seeing
more of the
%
worldis
,
|g k
tempting,
i
“I think
tig B r Portland, for
gjlft
me, is a. great
*
base to do
great stuff out of.
I’m going to do the
best that I can here but there’s a big
world out there. There is nothing to
compare reading about something to
doing something.”
Flash can be found selling Street
Roots at Southwest 6th Avenue aind
Taylor Street in downtown Portland.
p
£
6
1.
Z
9
L
9
8
©
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