Robin Graham moved into a Portland nursing home five years ago. But he still isn’t ready to stay put.
Before entering the nursing home, Robin sold Street Roots for three years in downtown Portland, where he was known for his white beard and adventurous nature — the same one that took him camping for months near Big Sur and years later on a nearly 20-mile, all-night walk to Scappoose as his health deteriorated.
After settling in at Avamere Crestview in southwest Portland, he ordered a wheelchair that was more comfortable and easier to get around in than those kept at the facility. Even with the left side of his body mostly incapacitated by a series of strokes, Robin takes smaller trips through the nursing home’s hallways. Sometimes he takes his wheelchair outside while accompanied by staff who keep an eye on him because of his sudden seizures, he said.
“That’s my motor,” he said, faintly kicking beneath the blankets in his bed. He raised his responsive right arm, and added, “That’s my steering.”
Robin, 72, entered hospice care earlier this year as his mouth cancer worsened. But he said he is not worried, is being well cared for and is doing “okay.”
A Street Roots tote bag hung from a hook in his room. Attached to it was his vendor ID with a picture of him with his white beard, frazzled hair and a medical mask pulled below his chin. Recently, he reactivated his Street Roots vendor status and sold a paper in the nursing home a few weeks ago.
“I’m not dead yet,” he said. “I’m not giving up.”
‘It was something to do’
Robin said he’s tried to take his wheelchair outside the nursing home grounds, but staff stopped him because it was too dangerous.
“I thought, ‘To hell with you guys,’” he said. “I want to go do something.”
Rose Graham, one of his younger sisters, said that all her brother could talk about was getting out of the nursing home after a stroke landed him there. She helped him access money for the new wheelchair. His money was stuck in a bank account after someone stole his wallet.
Her brother escaped a few times, she said, and staff had to put a device underneath his wheelchair seat that beeped when he left the facility. She recalled telling her brother, “I am a good sister, and I am not going to help you escape.”
“He was, shall we say, a wanderer,” she said.
While Robin said he misses his mobility, he said he’s gotten used to smaller trips. Besides, he added, he is tired all the time.
Robin still wishes he could take his wheelchair to an apartment building located beneath the Broadway Bridge. He said he has a girlfriend who lives there, but he forgot her phone number.
Her father was a police officer, a nice but serious man whom Robin described as one of his regular customers when he sold Street Roots. Robin’s other regular customers included “a woman from the FBI” and “a guy from the post office.”
“I had a guy take a bus from southeast across the river to buy a paper from me every Friday,” Robin said.
Robin said he received nearly $2,000 a month in Social Security benefits while he was a Street Roots vendor, but sold the paper because he liked meeting people and “it was something to do.” He said the key to being a good vendor is to show up every day. He wishes he could visit downtown again to sell papers and let his customers know that “COVID didn’t get me.”
Before he sold Street Roots, Robin said he felt “lost,” spending most of the day sleeping and drinking.
Rose said her brother still talks about how important working as a Street Roots vendor has been for him.
“It gave him purpose,” she said. “It gave him something, and he was earning money. It kept him out of trouble.”
‘Lucky with almost everything’
Robin said he is comfortable at the nursing home where staff bring him food when he wants it. He said the oatmeal is particularly good. On one side of his bed is a can of orange Crush soda. On the other is a coffee mug that he said the staff keep full.
He watches football from bed. The San Francisco 49ers are his favorite team. He can’t remember how they’re doing this season, but he can remember growing up in Portland with 10 siblings, which he called “crowded.”
Rose said their father worked nights and their parents split up for a time, leaving the kids unsupervised for long stretches. She recalled her brother often getting in trouble, stealing things or setting fires.
Robin said when he was in high school he beat a regional chess champion. To commemorate the victory, he and his friends gave him a stick-and-poke tattoo of a knight chess piece on his left forearm.
“And my mother was really pissed off,” he said, using his right hand to hold up his tattooed left arm.
Don, one of Robin’s brothers, said he never played a game of chess with him. Robin was the fifth child in the family and the youngest boy. That meant he got stuck with grunt work and his older brothers picked on him, Don recalled.
Rose also recalled how her brother could be a positive presence. She said Pepsi sponsored a contest that offered prizes for whoever could collect the most caps from its glass bottles. Her brother, then 13, went to service stations with vending machines to collect discarded caps and had a pile big enough to win the contest, she said.
The prizes included an Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon and a shopping spree at the Lloyd Center mall. At the time, their parents were separated and Rose said winning the prize helped them get back together.
“It was a great year for the whole family,” she said.
One day before Robin turned 18, “he just blew away from the house and was gone,” recalled Don, who suspected he was fleeing trouble.
Robin said he first lived in Los Angeles and later settled in Reno, Nevada, where he said he gambled and frequented the city’s all-you-can-eat buffets that only cost $2 for an entire meal. He spent 30 years in Reno. He later told Street Roots in a 2019 vendor profile that he raised three daughters in Reno while making a living painting houses, motorcycles and prize-winning boats. He said that working as a painter exposed him to toxic chemicals that led to cancer and required several months of chemotherapy.
Don said he didn’t really have any interaction with Robin until he returned to Portland in the late 1980s to help their ailing mother. After returning, Robin worked in wrecking yards, pressure washing and other various jobs before losing the ability to do physical labor, Don said.
“He was independent and he was self-motivated,” Don said. “And that is about all I know about his personality.”
On one wall of his room is a picture of a Canadian Mountie, and on the other is a bright green picture with the word “Oregon,” both of which Robin said were gifts from siblings who check in on him.
“I have nothing to worry about,” he said. “I’ve always been lucky with almost everything.”
Robin was quick to respond when asked if he had a message for readers or other Street Roots vendors.
“Never give up,” he said. “Never give up.”
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This article appears in October 29, 2025.