It’s an old family inside joke, When asked where we were from, we would say, Bel Air. It sounded cool, or at least normal. And it was partially true – because we lived IN a 1956 Chevy Bel Air coupe. Yeah, those were the days. We were homeless a lot….
We lived in Bel Air ..Chevy, that is.
I was a kid at the time and I didn’t exactly realize that this wasn’t normal. I’ve had an interesting life, anyway. I just thought I’d share this…
Try to imagine living in a car like this with your alcoholic gun-slinging dad and chain-smoking mom. We mostly slept in national parks and other forests of Oregon and California. Good times.
We usually parked somewhere in the woods/forest whatever…. I had several birthdays while living in a car or tent in forests.
6th Birthday, homeless
Here we see a picture of me on my 6th birthday. I think the area is the woods outside Red Bluff, California, which is where we were living at the time. We didn’t call it being homeless, we called it camping. We just didn’t have a home to go to.
Later, in this very car, my dad would blow his brains out while sitting in the driver’s seat. After that, my mom just gave that car to someone – so we didn’t even have a car for a while. But I digress…
I will credit the homeless years with my early introduction and experience in street art. And while I am aware that some people are horrified by the things that have happened in my life, to me they are just part of my history and part of what has made me who I am.
If I were to deny these things and wish they had been different then I would be wishing that I was whole different person from who I am. I find that unacceptable; for better or worse, I have no desire to be someone else.
