Al Roberts left Boston because he was tired of dealing with “feet and feet of snow each winter.” He came to Seattle because he knows Real Change Founding Director Tim Harris. “I met him in Cambridge, Mass., and we started a paper up there. That’s how I got introduced to papers.”
Al does miss the city where he grew up.
“It’s hard to keep up with the Red Socks out here. You just can’t go and buy a Boston Globe.” He misses the food, especially in Boston’s North End, “the best Italian food on the East Coast. The pizza tastes better, too.”
But the food Al misses most is a Philly cheesesteak. He remembers one he tried in Seattle. “It was the worst — they call it Philly steak? It wasn’t Philly steak. It was cheap imitation stuff. Really chewy. It was the worst I ever had, and I never had one since.”
Al says people out here don’t get how tough the East Coast is. “Boston’s a racial town. People just don’t like each other. You got the mafias over there. You got to watch yourself no matter where you are. If you don’t know where you’re going, act like you do, because if you don’t, you’re a certain target.” There were certain parts of Boston he never walked through alone “even when the sun was up.”
The South End, where Al was raised, isn’t like that anymore. “They turned it more into a yuppie town. It’s all townhouses. But they did clean it up.” In Seattle, Al can walk anywhere. He likes to walk in a park near where he lives, only a few blocks from his selling location at the Bartell Drugs in Wallingford. He’s been there four and a half years.
“They all know me around here,” Al said. Given turnover in the neighborhood, he might even qualify as a long-time resident. “People move out of town, but they tell their friends before they move on.” Even the people at Bartell like him, he said, because they know he’s not chasing people away from their store.
For new Real Change customers, Al recommends the crossword puzzle. “People buy the paper just to do the puzzle.” But he’s a little worried about the price increase. Some customers worry about paying two dollars, he said.
On the other hand, a lot of people were giving him two dollars anyway. Al just doesn’t know if they’re going to increase their tips to match. He’ll wait and see, though, and try not to overreact, because if he thinks things are going to be bad, “of course they’re going to go bad.”
Someday Al wants to get a roundtrip ticket on Amtrak and go back to Boston to see his mother and his two brothers and maybe get a decent Philly cheesesteak.
In the meantime, though, he’s okay with not having one.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I’ll try one here again someday.”