Vendor Spotlight

Michael W. finds new family, envisions a new future

IMAGES AND STORY BY HANNAH HERNER

When Michael W. was in his 20s, he and his father built a log cabin in Dover, Tenn. It was his mother’s dream to have the house and some land to retire to. When his mom passed, she left it in Michael’s name. It was her intention for that to be his forever, but things didn’t go that way.

Michael’s first job was raising rabbits. He’s worked a bunch of different trades in his life, before starting at The Contributor back in 2008, the year the paper was founded. He’s been selling at his spot at Woodmont Boulevard and Harding Pike for two years now. “With my learning disability, they told my mom I needed a hobby doing something where I wouldn’t get bored,” he says. “So she thought, ‘OK, we’ll get you some rabbits, that’ll be something for you to take care of. I would have my rabbits and dad would buy chickens, I would take care of those. Whatever we had, that was my job for me to maintain. I got used to the wildlife. You could say I’ve probably worked all my lifetime doing something.” The mother Michael talks about had raised him since he was 10 years old. His biological mother left so quickly after his birth that her name isn’t even on his birth certificate. As a young child he was raised in Illinois by his grandmother and his father — when his father wasn’t on the road as a truck driver. Michael hated the job’s taking his father away so much that he never learned to drive.

Michael’s learning disability qualified him for special education classes throughout school, and makes a more traditional job difficult in adulthood — too many tasks overwhelm him.

“People say, ‘why don’t you want to go back to work?’ I did all that,” he says. “This is my job. I like doing this. Yeah, I have to stand out there in the cold, rain, in the heat. But sometimes it pays off. Especially around Christmastime. People think they have it hard. Walk in my shoes growing up.”

His first-ever job also grew in him an appreciation of the animals who live near where he camps these days.

“Yes, I have rats, raccoons and birds,” he says. “That’s just nature. I say ‘You have neighbors, I have neighbors. They’re just four-legged ones.’”

Aside from his animals, Michael also loves to talk about his bike. He was saving up for one when a customer gave him one as a gift. Other customers have stepped up to help him with repairs. It saves him bus money.

The family members who looked out for Michael are gone now. His Uncle Rick, who lived in Bellevue and would stop by to check on him periodically, died earlier this year. He misses having people who remember his birthday. He turns 53 on Sept. 27.

“I tell every kid, treasure your mother and father because one day they might not be here,” Michael says. “There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t miss my real mom and Nancy and my dad and my grandmother. There’s not a day I don’t miss them.”

Michael values the connections he has with Green Hills-area business owners and his customers. He loves to be able to stop in those businesses, get a drink and get a short break from the elements, and feel welcome. It means alot to him when people notice if he misses a day, if they worry about him, or ask him if he needs something.

“I don’t have no family,” he says, choking up. “This is my family. So yeah, the people out there that come by — they don’t have to, but they do.”

He’ll sometimes get frustrated when he’s been at his spot for two and three hours and nobody stops or even makes eye contact. He’ll pray that God send him just one person who will roll down their window. And one always comes, he says.

Michael has had multiple homes foreclosed on in the past, starting with the log cabin that he and his dad built. Rather than risking loss again, he decided to camp instead. He feels confident in his ability to survive in those conditions. Michael was not interested in being connected with a social worker about affordable housing for years. But he’s recently softened to the idea of getting into housing. And he’s trying to get a government phone so he can stay in touch with people better — and so he can submit pictures of wildlife to the paper.

“This year I’m going to be 53. My dad died when he was 70. He died at home. We don’t know how long we’re going to be on this Earth,” he says. “I could live past 70, but I don’t want to die in a hospital. I’d rather die indoors, or if I have to die outdoors that’s fine too. But either way I want something where I can say ‘this is mine, while I’m here.’”

If he can get some resources in order, he’s also floated the idea of getting a small piece of land and building a house on it. He’d like to live out his mother’s dream and have his own forever home.