Don Peterson has a big voice and a dry sense of humor. Sometimes, he said, people just don’t get him.
“I try to be the comedian,” he said. “Like when people say, ‘Have a good day,’ I say, ‘I can’t. I woke up.’ Some people think it’s funny, and others wonder, ‘What did you say that for?’”
He admits he’s a hard person to get to know. So not everyone sees that sometimes when Don gets loud, it’s because he’s defending others. Like the time he sounded off when a person was turned away from a meal at a local shelter.
“I don’t think it’s fair to deny somebody food if they’re not doing well,” he said. “I mean, we all have a past. Nobody has a voice for them.
“Right now, I can’t go a couple places because of my big mouth,” he said. “But I’m not threatening people. I’m not using intimidating words. I’m just loud.”
What people might not see is the years Don spent as a certified nursing assistant, work he found very rewarding until he had to care for a friend’s mother as she was dying of cancer. Or the time he spent as a soldier in the Salvation Army. Or when he lived in an apartment and was always storing things for people who were being evicted or didn’t have enough room in their place. He watched dogs and walked dogs for his neighbors there, he said.
“It was just fun,” he said. “My hope is to be in an apartment and be like a mentor. Have home groups, be able to show the other side of Don.”
Selling Street Roots, he said, keeps him out there so he doesn’t dwell on past mistakes. He was locked out of his house when he was in middle school and didn’t go back. He was shut out of his son’s life when the boy was very young. In his varied employment history as a security guard, a cannery cook, sanitation worker, handyman and in the military, he hasn’t always made the best decisions.
His feet and legs hurt and swell up a lot – the result of a series of breaks, surgeries, ruptured tendons and just not very good footwear, he said. His heart is not strong, and he gets winded easily.
And he has dreams for his future.
“I’ve always had this dream of a bicycle hot dog stand,” he said. “I’d call it Peterson’s Dogs. I’d go to these parks in the summer, these runs downtown. We’d have sodas, chips and a dog for five bucks.”
Mercy Corps has a business program, he said, that will help him start a business. Maybe do something else during the winter, he said, like waffles.
In the meantime, Street Roots is a help to him. He moves around a lot because his feet give him so much pain, but he likes to sell at Southwest Sixth Avenue and Washington Street, near the parole office.
“When I’m out greeting people, I have to smile, step out and be that salesperson. I don’t let my feet hurt me. It feels good when I sell the papers.
“I used to think that my world was important, but it’s more important what I contribute to the good of the city, the people,” he said. “I’m not wanting to be Mr. Tough Guy. There was a time for that, a long time ago. I don’t care for that much anymore.
“Now I’m more open to know that my way of thinking isn’t always the right way of thinking. There’s always another opinion. I may not like what that person does or stands for, but I can always find out more about them.”