Street roots., August 18, 2017, Page 6, Image 6

Page 6
Vendors
David B.
BY LEONORA KO
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
s a middle-schooler, David B. couldn’t
read. Now he wants to tell the world his
story, so he wrote a book about it.
David grew up as the youngest of eight
children in St. Louis, Mo.
“My mom passed away and a couple of years
later my dad passed away,” said David. “I was
taken out of school for a long period of time
until my aunt finally took custody. So when I
got into kindergarten, I had a learning disability
and the school system back then sucked. They
passed me from kindergarten all the way to
middle school, without knowing how to read.”
His widowed aunt took over raising David
and three of his siblings. When she had to quit
her job, life become even harder.
“That’s when everything went downhill,” he
said. “There were times where I would come
home and there would be no lights. Or there
would be no food and we would have to go
figure out which church was giving out food.”
He was often in trouble at school, he said.
“The reason why I would misbehave is
because I didn’t want the kids and the teachers
to know that I couldn’t read. Because then I
would become a target and bullied. It was bad
enough getting tormented by my siblings. They
knew I was a little bit slow.”
He clearly remembers the turning point
when he was in seventh grade.
His aunt was keeping an eye on him and sat
him in the kitchen to do his homework. As she
was cooking*she asked him to get some baking
soda from the pantry.
David recalled: “After a while of me just
standing there trying to figure it out, my auntie
came. She was like, ‘What’s wrong with you?
Didn’t you see the baking soda? It’s right in
front of you. Can’t read or something?’ I just
kind of stood there with a blank face.“
The next day, his aunt asked him to read the
back of a cereal box and David knew he was
A
Barry Richard Mattern
May 31,1945 - August 13, 2017
Barry Mattern, a long-time Street Roots
vendor, passed away Sunday, Aug. 13.
Barry sold the paper outside Starbucks at
Fourth Avenue and Oak Street, and the
former Zupan’s on Belmont Street
A memorial service is scheduled for 11
a.m., Tuesday, Aug. 22, at the Macdonald
Residence lobby, 605 NW Couch St. in
Portland.
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busted. My auntie looked at me and she
calmed me down. She wiped my tears and she
said, ‘It’ll be all right. I’m going to get you
some tutoring.’ And that was a huge sigh of
relief because I thought I was going to be in
trouble. So she got me tutoring at this church
and a nun tutored me and taught me how to
read.”
After that, David was on fire. “I had to
constantly learn,” he said. “The more and
more I read, the more and more I became
fascinated with literature - and that’s when I
started writing.”
At first David wrote stories in notebooks. He
eventually transferred his stories to a broke-
down computer and flash drive. Unfortunately
the flash drive was lost awhile back.
“I’ve been homeless off and on since I was
18,” he said. “And moving around, you lose
things.”
David returned to Portland in 2013. He first
discovered the city through a job with a
traveling crew that sold magazines door-to-
door: “All I could think about was Portland and
how cool the place was. How
chill the people were.”
A ,.
As a Street Roots vendor,
■IIS
David is clean cut, articulate
and has an easy laugh.
“When I’m between jobs or
I’m not having luck with
jobs, Street Roots is a way
of keeping my head
above water,”
he said.
B
So far, David’s biggest writing project is “an
exaggeration of my life,” he said. He wrote a
plot summary, notes, characters and
backstories, and then created chapters from
there. David transformed the novel into a
script by downloading a scriptwriting program
and writing during his two daily allotted
computer hours at the local library.
“But within that two hours I would just jam
it. Jam, jam, jam,” said David, rapping his
fingers on the table.
In the end, David said he completed and
copyrighted a 138-page script and a 240-page
novel.
David described the act of writing as being
productive and doing what he loves. “Writing is
really what kept me out of trouble, to be
honest with you. Because it gave me
something to look forward to - to be
passionate about.”
He has travelled to Los Angeles twice to
look for support for his life story, but has not
had luck. David remains positive in spite of the
struggles.
“Every day you wake up, it’s a chance to do
something better,” David said. “You don’t just
have to conform to the system or anybody
else’s way of thinking. Have your own
mind. Have your own goals. Work towards
your own dreams.”
by Elizabeth Considine