Meet Geral, he was such a positive and friendly human being. Very glad I had the chance to talk to this man. Here is part of his story, “I’m from Kentucky. In 2004 we came up here to meet up with an Indian fella, but he was shot down by the river and killed. So I’ve just been living here since. I don’t want to leave Tulsa, I’m addicted to this place. It’s addictive, it’s good. I like the people. I hope I ain’t out here much longer, I got a good feeling.” .
Meet Daniel, he is good friend with Geral and was also very happy to share part of his story. “I became homeless October 28th of 2018. My landlord came around and kicked me and my girlfriend out with no notice, I originally moved out here for my girlfriend. We’re still together, she’s down at the day center right now. I don’t really like it there, I only go there at night to sleep. Geral is tougher than me, I can’t sleep at this bridge like him. This isn’t a permanent thing though, we pick up odd jobs here and there till we have enough saved up to get a place again.” .
Had the wonderful opportunity to speak to this woman while working on this series. She preferred to go by Two Feather, here is a bit of what she shared with us. “I’m getting older and it’s getting harder. I do a lot of artwork to get by. I don’t have any family left so I just hop the freight trains to get around, I learned Spanish that way. I tried to get help from the Cherokee Tribe but they don’t want to help me.”
We met this soft spoken individual next to the small park in downtown Tulsa. No matter what has happened to him he still was not giving up. He chose to go by Dow and here’s a bit of his story, “I had an apartment up until about three years ago when I got COPD real bad and couldn’t work. I can’t work and when it’s cold I can only walk about a block at a time before I have to stop and rest. I get a disability check, but it keeps getting smaller.” .
We met this man outside the Greyhound station in downtown Tulsa. As he was telling us his story he pointed out the multiple scars from being stabbed or fights. Here is a bit if Paul’s story, “I’ve been incarcerated for 33 years of my life, stabbed 12 times, and hit in the back of the head with a pipe that broke my neck. I had no feeling in my legs for 2 years but it’s coming back. That’s how I know God is real, man. I read a lot of books in prison about a lot of different religions, but God is the only one that makes sense to me. I wouldn’t have survived everything if he didn’t want me to.”
We met another wonderful human being on this adventure named Jan. She was recently robbed and cut her hair short for safety so she asked nicely to not be photographed. She did allow us to grab a shot of her cart and share part of her story, “been in Tulsa 20 years now. I have two sons, the oldest born in ’79. My sister has control of everything to do with the family money and that’s just fine. I don’t need all that. I just need enough to get by each day. I wake up each morning with a “glass 1/2 full” mentality. My boyfriend recently passed away from lung cancer, I was born with leukemia so I knew what he was going through. Our apartment had a lot of particle board that got wet and I’m worried some of it got into my lungs. I’ve been raspy and can’t breathe right lately. I can’t shake it, and I’m not ready to go yet.” .
On our last stop for the day we met a very positive and uplifting person named Anthony, Ant for short. We talked with him a bit and learned part of his story, “Well I’m not from here, I’m from Oklahoma City. I ended up down here, life happens, my wife died, and I’m 4 years clean. I’ve been in Tulsa for only about 34 days, and this is hard. This is my first time doing this. Life happens and I relapsed on some shit. I’m leaving, hopefully, tonight though. I’ve got $27 and I just need $28 to get a bus back to McAlester so I can go see my probation officer, then I’m going back to Oklahoma City. I used to work at the Crisis Unit as a recovery support specialist. There was a woman who had a seizure and they were able to resuscitate her, but that’s how my wife died so it fucked me up. I quit and I’ve been unemployed since August. I lost contact with the higher power, but I’m coming back. This is all temporary.”