Michone Nettles was born in Vancouver, Wash., the ninth of 10 children. His mother was a homemaker. His father worked for Alcoa Aluminum for 35 years. “She took care of us all, and he supported us,” he said.
His parents were from Hooks, a small town in the Texarkana area of Texas.
“My grandfather came to Texas from Mobile, Ala., in the late 1800s in a covered wagon with a pistol on his hip,” he said, “probably to get away from racism.”
While Michone was at Fort Vancouver High School, he competed in sports, including basketball, track, high jump, long jump and boxing.
Michone loves to travel and has been to many places around the world. He visited Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, Mexico and almost every state in the union.
In 1984, Michone flew to Hawaii and ended up living and working there.
“I met this 75-year-old man who owned a 400-acre coffee plantation,” he said. “He took me in and set me up in a coffee barn and asked if I wanted to fix the place up and stay there. I became his personal assistant. I was his right-hand man. We did everything together.”
Although he never has been a coffee drinker, Michone learned a lot about coffee from his time on the plantation.
“Did you know coffee is not a bean?” he asked. “It’s a seed. We call them cherries. You pick them when they are red, and the seed inside is the coffee.”
The barn where Michone stayed was 1,800 feet above sea level, and Michone remembers watching the sunset from his perch overlooking the ocean. He felt very connected to Thomas Duarte, the man who owned the plantation.
“He was my guy. He was an angel and one of the nicest people I’ve ever known. He had everything he needed, but he didn’t need any of it,” he said. “He was Portuguese, born in Hawaii.”
In 1987, one of his sisters flew to Hawaii to visit him. Her aim was to persuade him to come home to Vancouver for Thanksgiving. She offered to pay his way, and he agreed.
“I didn’t know I wouldn’t be returning to Hawaii,” he said. “I still miss Tommy. If I ever go back, I’d still be like one of the family.”
After the Thanksgiving reunion, Michone traveled to San Francisco, where he experienced the big earthquake of 1989.
“I was on the seventh floor of an apartment building. I saw the walls cracking, and down the road at the marina, there was a gas explosion that shook the shit out of everything,” he said.
The earthquake prompted Michone to get out of town. He moved to a goat farm in New Mexico with his girlfriend, Maria.
“It was out in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “There was nothing there but a bunch of mailboxes. We had 80 Nubian goats to milk. We made gourmet cheese with all kinds of herbs.”
Maria and Michone eventually were married and had four children, Liza, Uzziell, Lorenzo and Josiah.
Over the next 20 years, Michone worked a dizzying array of jobs. After the goat farm, he and Maria worked flea markets, selling earrings she made from paper.
He worked in restaurants and installed electronic gates for a time. He met Jane Fonda when he installed a gate outside her ranch in Santa Fe.
“She was nice,” he said. “She asked me all about myself,” he said.
Michone returned to Portland and Vancouver when his mother died in 2007. He stayed on to take care of his father, who died a year later.
Ten years ago, Michone found Street Roots. He started selling the paper and writing poems, many of which have been published in Street Roots.
“It tripped me out; I found something I love to do,” he said. “I’ve written five poetry books since then. I’m working on another one; this one is a collaboration with Daniel Cox.” Cox is another frequent poetry contributor to Street Roots.
“Street Roots was there when I needed it,” Michone said. “Last night I was thinking everything happens for a reason. Street Roots is still there, and I still need it. I’ve turned a lot of people on to Street Roots who became vendors and are now making money.
“It’s not about just selling the paper. It’s about being part of the community.”
“Before we were even thought about
our lives were mapped,
every move throughout.
Still looking through a child’s eyes
my recipes for understanding
getting back to the heart of a train ride
never ending.”
– from “Train Ride” by Michone Nettles
