Difficult to Verify
As with many street stories, it’s not always easy to verify details. What we like to focus on is the present and how people are surviving, how they help each other, and what ideas they might have to make our community a better, more caring place.
Teme says he’s a veteran, who has been around the world, studied at various universities, met important figures and was present for important historical moments. This might all be true, we just couldn’t verify it. What is true is that when we met him he had set up his possessions, including his scrap treasures, on a picnic table along the Truckee river.
“I learned the craft from my Dad who also taught me how to make a gold watch. I mostly make men's but I do make women's. I have mostly rings, necklaces and bracelets. I've made anklets and some jewelry in the Egyptian style,” he said of turning scrap to jewelry.
Reno’s Changing Identity
What he did share with us is that he wants to leave Reno, because he says, in his estimation, the Biggest Little City is more about money than it has ever been.
“They're trying to remodel,” he said of recent changes. “Gambling's being downsized. I was here before they built all these new places. You never really saw anybody and nobody really had any money. They built all these (new) places to get money.”
But he says they are still trying to get people’s money the way they’ve always tried.
“My last message to the people in Reno is if you don't gamble, you don't smoke, you don't drink then you don't really belong here. That's just what it is. They don't want you up there. “
We left Teme without understanding his many secrets and hidden worlds but took a few pictures and thanked him for his time and insights.