Envisioning Another Life
Like many of us who are stuck in a rut, the Greek is not short on dreams of another life, and they keep him going it seems.
“I have another calling. I want to get into the boat industry. I want to start being in the lake on a boat. That's what I want to start doing. And I want to live in hot weather too. I like warm weather. So my life, that may change,” he said wistfully.
“I like boating, fishing, water skiing. I like the ocean,” he continued. “See now that's another thing. Because if I think of these two things, the lake and the ocean, maybe some day I'll make a lot of money,” he said.
But he says the longer you are homeless, the harder it is to break the cycle of homelessness. He says the lifestyle gnaws at you and grips you and keeps you down.
“I am a survivor and I don't drive a car and I barely take the bus and I walk,” the Greek said of the importance of having good shoes. “But I'm starting to get older. My feet are kind of hurting a little bit now. So I have to pay attention to how many miles I'm walking because it gets too much…”
Health Problems and Risking Death
The Greek says years on the streets are taking a toll on him, with his feet hurting and his eyes getting cataract he thinks.
He says he almost died in the cold last year. “I had too much alcohol and I passed out. It was like 25 degrees and some people found me on the ground. I wasn't breathing…. Now, I feel good about myself but I'm not sober yet. I can't say that I'm sober yet, but I'm starting to turn.”
He once hoped he could be a baseball player but he says injuries derailed those early dreams. “This shoulder right here has a pinched nerve and I got a slip right here on the back from batting practice,” he said.
Before ending the interview, he wanted to share another dream he had, to start an after school program for kids for dirt bike racing.
“I was going to get two vans, come to your house and pick up your kids and you pay me some money and I take them out to a track … I can charge them a little bit of gas money, you know, for the gas, you know nothing to get rich off of. But that was one of my big dreams,” he said.