Rick Davis describes much of his life as blessed.
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 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 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.”
FURTHER READING: People on, off the streets work together on universal problem: garbage