Vendors
Page 6
Falling Rise
VENDOR PROFILE
by Avendor
Rick Davis
Spirit of terror
and worthless emotion
spread across my soul
like a dead sea ocean
Vultures in the harbors
thieves at the door
warm beer spilled
on the kitchen floor
Escaping to the porch
I supplicate the dusk
putting oil on my head
of the ox’s musk
I pray this Autumn
bring forth a love
that could shock me
like Jesus did his disciples
For I’ve been long in a darkness
I’ve lost faith in escaping
but I remember heaven
and cant endure its unmaking
Come for me October
let your leaves fall down
fall down upon me
as you restore my crown
BY HELEN HILL
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
ick Davis describes much of his life as
blessed.
R
. He grew up in Portland’s Sellwood
area, the youngest of five. Back then, Rick
said, Sellwood was “a hard part of town.”
The neighborhood kids would “run amok”
and get in all kinds of trouble. The Boys
Club (now the Boys & Girls Clubs) helped
get him on the right path.
He went to Marshall High School, and by
his senior year, he was coaching eighth-
grade basketball, fourth-grade soccer and
third-grade flag football. At 18, he was
honored with Youth of the Year by the
Portland Boys Club 18 and was chosen to
carry the Olympic Torch in July 1984 from
Portland’s 17th Avenue and McLaughlin
Boulevard to Westmoreland Park. The lit
torch, which had traveled from Greece, was
headed to Los Angeles for the Summer
Olympics.
Rick describes the day he ran with
the torch as the best day in his life. He
remembers how proud his mother
was when she picked him up.
One week later, she died
suddenly from an
undiagnosed brain tumor,
and Rick’s life went from
Street Roots • September 29-October 5, 2017
feels blessed to have known true happiness
for all those years. He has had his struggles
with drugs and alcohol, but he was able to
kick his addictions on his own and has been
clean and sober for some time now.
“I’m stubborn, and I just got sick and
tired of the taste in my mouth, of the way I
felt, but I had to do it on my own. I had to
see nothing good comes of it,” he said.
His advice to others
fighting addiction is: “If
you want help, show
you want to help
yourself, and people
will help you.”
Rick found out
about Street
Roots from
another vendor
and has been
selling papers on
and off for a year.
Once again, he says,
he feels blessed to be
a vendor, blessed with
a good
location at Walgreens on Northeast Grand
Avenue and Broadway, and blessed with a
customer base he has accumulated over
time.
“They like me. They ask me, ‘How are
you doing, Rick?”’ He said he has yet to ask
anyone to buy a paper; he just says hello,
and the paper sells itself. “Everything’s
falling in place now because I’m doing the
right things.”
For some time, Rick has been trying to
start a movement for homeless people
to clean up after homeless people. He
hates the garbage left behind when
campsites are abandoned.
“It gives homeless folks a bad
name,” he said.
He’d like to organize a crew,
perhaps with other Street Roots
vendors, to fill garbage bags at
various sites and leave them to be
picked up.
Rick’s hard-won wisdom for others is:
“Treat everyone the same, and if you
want respect, show respect.”
best to worst at lightning
speed. His family
scattered after that, and
over the years, he has
lost track of his
brothers and sisters.
In 2010, Rick lost his
partner of 13 years, and
although he still misses
the love of his life, he
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by Elizabeth Considine