When you talk about "street life" in today's world, most people probably imagine homeless people, drug dealing thugs, rappers, or something like that. The Streets has that type of connotation, thanks to gangsta rap, hip hop, graffiti, and other street cultures, over the last few decades. But streets began with ancient paths to get from one place to another. Here are some of the oldest highways in the world.
Human beings have been traveling since we became humans. Some traveled in canoes, kayaks or other boats, along waterways. But many traveled on foot or by horse, and later with carts and wagons, to trade with people in other areas, to explore, or to migrate for one reason or another. As dirt paths became more highly traveled, someone realized that by laying down stones, they could make the paths more durable and stable in adverse weather, and for longer periods of time. According to this report, some of the oldest constructed roads were made about 3,800 B.C., or 5,800 years ago, near Glastonbury, England. Those are much older than the better known Roman built roads, some of which are still in use. Yeah, "The Streets" go back to the days of the Druids and Celtic tribes in the U.K. The oldest trails mentioned in this short video were wooden trails through marshlands, connecting islands of higher land in the area.
The ancient Romans are known for their road building and architecture skills, and built tens of thousands of miles (or kilometers) of paved roads, starting over 2,000 years ago. This video gives a good idea of how they built them, and that they even had mile markers, way stations, the the ancient equivalent of roadside markets and other needed artisan shops along the way. Some of these highways are still in use to some degree, 2,000 years later.
In the early 1800's, in Scotland, the Macadam style of road building was devised. This used small, angular rocks of similar size, combined with rock dust, to form a durable form of road for carts and wagons. These took far less work to build than Roman style roads. These seem very similar to the "chip and seal" roads we had a couple of places I lived as a kid, gravel roads, but macadam roads didn't have the oil sealant on top. With macadam roads, the travels of horses, carts, and wagons would press the small rocks tighter together over time, ultimately forming a fairly solid surface that also drained water well. The first macadam road in the United States was built in 1822, and called the Boonsboro turnpike, in Maryland.
Bringing it all together, here's a quick video, under 5 minutes long, that gives you a look at road building techniques, and where the roads were built, over the last 6,000 years of human civilization. Now primarily asphalt and concrete, streets are found in every city, and larger highways connect nearly every city on Earth.
As a human born the late Industrial Age here in the U.S., my family moved nearly every year growing up. The factories of our native Ohio were still thriving then. One of my first experiences of the streets, was riding my bike around each new area and town to learn my way around, when we moved in. We lived mostly in small towns in Ohio, and later New Mexico, and Idaho, as my sister and I grew up. A year past graduating from high school, I followed my family to San Jose, California, after working my summer job in Boise.
I was seriously into BMX bikes then, drawn in by the brand new sport of BMX freestyle or trick riding. It was 1985, and riding around the emerging Silicon Valley area, alone, on my Skyway T/A, was my real introduction into the streets of a major American city. Some weekends, I'd go ride with the pro and amateur freestylers up in San Francisco, Dave Vanderspek's Curb Dogs, Skyway pros, and others. After performing for crowds in Golden Gate Park, we would usually head into The City, to the Embarcadero, or some other fun street riding spot. It was there that I really saw the hustle, bustle, homeless people, addicts, and crazy subcultures that come with the street life of major cities. It was a bit like Luke Skywalker going into the Cantina in Star Wars with Obi-Wan Kenobi for the first time. Suddenly I was seeing all these people who inhabit big cities, up close, the people who spend their days in, on, and moving along the big city streets and sidewalks.
A Xerox zine I produced about freestyle landed me a job at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines, in Torrance, southwest of Los Angeles, a year later. I moved in with a couple of my co-workers, in Redondo Beach, and began riding around that region every weekend, usually alone, looking for banks, little jumps, ledges, and interesting things to ride. In the skateboard world, street skating was just becoming a a thing. Skaters like Mark Gonzales, Natas Kaupas, and Tommy Guerrero were discovering that the whole urban landscape was a potential skatepark, with a bit of imagination. I'd make a huge plate of pancakes, watch Powell-Peralta's 2nd Bones Brigade video, Future Primitive, every weekend, and then go exploring, if there wasn't a contest to go to. Much like in the San Jose area, I began to ride the street spots my friends showed me, and then found more of them on my own. I kept doing this for another 15 years, throughout L. A. and Orange County, California.
I became a taxi driver in 1999, my license got accidentally suspended in 2000. I started driving a cab again in August of 2003, and had to start working 7 days a week. My experience with "street life" moved to a different phase. I didn't have time to ride my bike, because of my work schedule. But I wound up working late nights, often all night, driving thousands of miles on the surface streets of Orange County, and a bit of L.A., picking up strangers. I was giving rides to all kinds of people, from homeless people, to typical weekend partiers, to business people, sketchy people doing sketchy things, and even a billionaire. For a few months in 1999-2000, and then most of the time from 2003 to 2007, I lived in my taxi, sleeping in parking lots every night. I saw the full spectrum of people who roam the streets at night during that time. I have have dozens, probably hundreds, of taxi driving stories, and I'll share some in this blog, as time goes on.
I was driving a taxi when new technology, dispatch computers, completely changed the business, and made it much harder to earn a living. That's why I couldn't afford an apartment during that era, the taxi business was in a downward spiral, even before Uber and Lyft sprang up. By late 2007, I weighed over 350 pounds, compared to about 185 when I started driving a cab in 1999. My health declined, and finally I just couldn't make enough money to pay $550-$600 a week to lease my cab, and another $300-$350 a week for gas, let alone earn money for myself.
On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, in 2007, I dropped off my taxi, and walked out onto the streets of Orange County, fully homeless, with about $15 in my pocket. I'd been homeless, living in some bushes, for a while in 2002-2003, but had a low wage restaurant job. In 2007, I had no income, no home, and only some personal belongings packed up, in a 5' X 5' storage unit. I lived almost a year on the streets in SoCal, ranging form Orange County up to the San Fernando Valley.
In November of 2008, my family, who had wound up in North Carolina, flew me there, to live with my parents, in their small apartment. I couldn't find a job there... at all..., and wound up homeless and living in shelters for a couple more years. More homelessness later on there eventually led me to leaving North Carolina in 2018. I landed in Richmond, Virginia for close to a year, and then a friend helped me get back to California. But I've been homeless most of the three years I've been back. I make some money doing my Sharpie artwork, and blog and write continually to help promote my artwork. But I haven't been able to get back to making a legit living yet. Obviously the Covid pandemic made things much harder, as it did for everyone else. But things are looking up again, as we emerge from the Covid era, although things are crazy right now, with high inflation and soaring rent prices.
Altogether, I've spent about 15 of the last 23 years in some form of homelessness, of which there are many levels. About 5 1/2 years was spent living in my taxi, working 70+ hours a week that whole time. A couple more years were spent in North Carolina shelters, unable to find any job there, except another year of taxi driving, also while living in my taxi. I spent close to a year living on the streets while working a restaurant job. I lived in a tent in the woods of NC for over a year, making some money as a working artist. The rest of the time I've been living on the streets of Richmond or SoCal, earning some money as an artist, using my blogging and social media to promote my work. I've sold around 100 original drawings, most of which took 40 to 45 hours to draw, and some prints. Sharpie art has kept me alive, and obviously I'm pretty damn prolific, but don't make near enough to rent an apartment. Not yet, anyhow.
When I talk about my "street life," it's the 20 years of riding BMX bikes around urban areas, 6 1/2 years of driving a taxi, which overlaps with about 15 years of homelessness, that I'm talking about. Life decided to kick my ass for the last 20 years or so, and there are always people willing to help out, when life does that. I'm not a thug, a drug dealer from The Hood, a rapper, or that kind of street level person. I don't drink at all these days, and didn't drink that much when I did drink. I don't do any drugs, legal or illegal, even weed. I'm weird and creative enough naturally, I don't need drugs.
But I have spent an ridiculous amount of time wandering the streets, driving people around them, and living on them. I decided to finally embrace all these years of street life, and begin to share what I've learned from it all. That's where this blog comes from. I've got a lot of stories, and lessons learned, and thoughts about homelessness, and where our society, as a whole, is headed. I also get sick of all the stereotypes and misinformation about homeless people, and the streets in general. So I decided to put my thoughts and some of my stories out on this wide array of street oriented subjects. Much more to come. Stay tuned, and thanks for checking out this new blog.
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