Jeremiah has backpacking in his blood.
His grandfather was president of the Maine Appalachian Trail Club and devoted his life to getting easements for the original Appalachian Trail, Jeremiah said.
Thirteen years ago, Jeremiah hiked the entire 2,200 miles of Appalachian Trail in one hiking season, a mammoth feat. When “crushing” the miles, he would hike 20 to 40 miles per day, he said. “It’s not as hard as it sounds.”
Now Jeremiah is tackling the Pacific Crest Trail in segments because fires and snow make it difficult to finish this trail in one season. He has completed 500 to 600 miles so far, he said.
For Jeremiah, nature has been a life saver.
“That’s why I go hiking, and that’s why I go into the woods,” he said, his face lighting up. “Some people go to church to find whatever god or their higher power is. For me, it’s in a campfire. It’s in a beautiful sunset. And it’s in the sweat and blood it takes to get to the top of a mountain.”
His happiest moments are soaking in silence at Bagby Hot Springs near Mount Hood, to where he has hiked “hundreds of times.”
Jeremiah was born in Waterville, Maine, to a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“Before I was in kindergarten, I read the Bible from cover to cover,” he said. “My mom was fairly abusive when I was a kid. She took from scripture and used the rod of discipline, literally.”
Everything changed when Jeremiah was a teenager and he visited his dad in Gresham. He attended a sweat lodge ceremony, which was forbidden for Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“It was a very positive, spiritual experience, like I had never experienced before up to that point,” he said. “And it gave me the ammunition to start questioning the things I was taught.”
When he was 15 and visiting his dad a second time in Oregon, his Maine family told him not to come home.
Through his teens and 20s, Jeremiah worked different jobs: landscaping in Portland, running a tractor at Maine’s largest dairy farm and grooming ski slopes on the edge of Lake Tahoe.
But years of drinking and heroin caught up to him.
“My house burned down in Tahoe and the following day, I showed up drunk and lost the best job I ever had,” he said. “It was a real wake-up call for me that I needed to change.”
Jeremiah went into drug and alcohol treatment in Portland. That’s when he started selling the Street Roots newspaper. Fifteen years ago, he said, Street Roots “kept a roof over my head and allowed me not to be homeless.”
Jeremiah got clean and found work.
“I’m pretty motivated when I’m at work,” he said.
But his back gave out for the first time on a remodel job. And last year, he developed a herniated disc while working with a tree trimmer. Unable to afford rent, he was sleeping on the east bank of Portland when someone kicked him unconscious and stole all of his belongings. Fortunately, he said, a bus driver gave him a ticket to his ex-girlfriend’s house, where he is now staying.
Through his Street Roots earnings and friends, Jeremiah has replaced his gear. He sells the newspaper at Great Harvest Bakery in the morning, Powell’s City of Books near midday and New Seasons Market in the Hawthorne District in the evening.
“The best thing about Street Roots is that it reminds you there’s a lot of good out there,” Jeremiah said. “With all the bad that you hear in the news and all the bad that you see all around you, there are still good people out there, trying. And you can choose to be one of them or not.
“I think everybody needs to do the best they can with what they have. And I do it actively every day.”
To help others, Jeremiah regularly gives bags of bread to street kids and hands out Street Roots Rose City Resource Guides. He has also testified before lawmakers in Salem about the Right to Rest Act.
To help himself, Jeremiah is saving up to buy a small motorboat to fish for the northern pikeminnow on the Columbia River. He hopes to catch the invasive species and earn bounty money. He said he wants to buy a boat, but if “I have to do it by canoe, I’ll do it by canoe.” His ultimate goal is to have a sustainable farm on the back side of Mount Hood.
When told he has led a full life, Jeremiah laughed.
“Some of it’s been rough, but a lot of it’s been really rippin’ awesome and amazing,” he said. “I’ve just started. I have a lot of dreams and aspirations.”
Street Roots is an award-winning, nonprofit, weekly newspaper focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. Our newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Learn more about Street Roots