Alvin Tull and Gail Blumberg

Recorded August 2, 2012 Archived August 2, 2012 40:03 minutes
0:00 / 0:00
Id: atl001465

Description

Gail Blumberg (54) interviews Alvin Tull (55) about his experiences growing up involved in gangs and graffiti in Philadelphia, becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol, and participating in the "Back On My Feet" running program as part of getting clean and sober.

Subject Log / Time Code

Alvin (A) talks about growing up poor, the child of a single mother in Philadelphia.
A became a "wall writer," doing graffiti from the age of 13, and this is why the gang recruited him.
A went to school to study graphic design and passed all classes except for art history.
A describes the running program through which he met Gail, called "Back On My Feet."
Gail (G) and A talk about his getting married in February while he and his wife were both still living in shelters.
A talks about a mural he is designing for an upcoming race, and other ways that Back On My Feet has taught him to believe in himself and care more for others.

Participants

  • Alvin Tull
  • Gail Blumberg

Recording Locations

Atlanta StoryBooth

Venue / Recording Kit

Partnership Type

Outreach

Initiatives


Transcript

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00:04 My name is Gail blomberg. I am 54 years old today is August 2nd 2012 and we are in Atlanta with storycorps and Allen are both run for the Gateway back on my feet running team. My name is Alberto. I'm 55 years old today is 8 to 12. I'm located at the Gateway Center my relationship with Gayle as I'm she is my coach with back on my feet.

00:35 Well, we have known each other for about 6 months now and I love your story of where you came from and where you are now, so why don't you talk about where you grew up in Philadelphia and how you grew up. First of all, I'd like to say girl. I really you have really encouraged me to your diligence and come in to practice everyday bringing out the course until noon and teaching me how to actually run. I was I grew up in the city of Philadelphia. I was the oldest of four boys and one girl, I grew up in the neighborhood was really rough. My mom was very very young. I was very very poor. She was blackballed because she was so young and happy children. The other little girls couldn't play with her because of the stigma of having children at such a young age. So I had to take on the responsibility of

01:35 Father because I didn't have a father my father banned in my mother at a young age also by the age of 15 16, my mother had three children.

01:46 I grew up in the public school system gangs a lot of violence. A lot of drugs not being able to have things that I that the other kids had. So by all means necessary. I thought as a young man that I would get and I grew up stealing robbing Jews in any kind of means that the getting material things to the point where I got arrested. I was incarcerated coming out and that's a bad that was a badge of honor for me to be able to be arrested and locked up instead of using that as a way of

02:33 Navigate myself through life. I used it as a way of getting some kind of building up my self-esteem and I'm joining a gang being a part of a gang using gang members as role models. It introduced me into drugs and introduced me into not going to school and introduce me into things that was totally against my family's belief and religion. I was in the military wind up going to jail it really ruin my life.

03:14 Talk about put the pressure was like when you were so young to join a gang and then the pressure to start using drugs really wasn't no pressure was just that I felt as though I had to do to be long smoking marijuana to tell you the truth smoking marijuana wasn't taboo because I learned to smoke marijuana in my basement. I like to drink on the corners are we use drinking as a way of building up our self-esteem to to a false the Foria to being a vegetable you drank then you went out and you started a gang rival with another gang. It was a way of

04:02 Building up a false sense of being alone. So 2 to go out and approached. Another group of individuals of alcohol. Rudy was the most as I think about it now, but then it was very up. I enjoyed that. I mean I thought it was fun. I thought it was exciting not having telling my mom telling me to be on the steps and being defiant and not staying on the steps and trying to build a reputation with individuals that were a bunch of hoodlums a bunch of thugs and I thought that was what life had an offer that your siblings did they swear to follow in your footsteps the truth my brother my brother here and the Gang I was the oldest but he really ran the game so and because he ran the game I learned how to make zip guns. I learned how to fight we had.

05:02 Practice in the basement everyday me and my brother we practice in the basement on each other on how to fight because you had to when you went through or you wasn't at a meeting or you were absent from a certain gang if they called the meeting then they they sent you through the Rue. This is where you had to fight five or six individuals simultaneously and you had to have pretty good skills in order to survive. So we practice daily and that's how we me and my brother became we grew up real close and we had names like Elias office Pistol Pete things that I nature or how is it decided for you like which gang you join?

05:58 Took for that it had its own neighborhood manufacturers manufacture and we became so popular because we will wall Riders. That's how I became a graphic artist because I was war writer and because we were wall right isn't he became more famous than the gangs. They actually drafted us chase this down and drafted and sent to the game at a young age 12 13 14 years old. I'm talking about Pee-Wee's midgets squidgy Juniors 200 heads. That was the level of gang activity you moved up in the ranks as you Grew Older you still was in a gang I'm time. I was 35 40 and they had some reputations that was phenomenon time. I'm going through jail and holding it and you somebody that can

06:58 Behold the hands. I'm Simone two-headed or thing where you can go down on it to the tippity toes and come up here. Like, you know, it was it was something that we strive to become Nike fast with your hands.

07:17 Can't Hold Us funny because when you when you're very young I mean it's the most frightening experience in the world because first of all you're taking away from your family and you lose your freedom then you slammed into a place where you start to learn at a young age things that I'm not able to say here in the place like this you before you be amazed at the change in the way that you have to change your thinking in order to survive in a place where there's bunch of villains rapists murderers are individuals that's totally defiant you turn my X Generation, individuals with some mental problems that's phenomenal and the only way to survive is that you be very very cautious about your surroundings about who you hang with.

08:17 If I came into an institution of prison and I had like two years an individual 7 years would not even deal with me because after being being with somebody for 2 years every day and then to see them leave and I still have 5 more years to go. It's really really very difficult to see somebody that I prone to have a relationship with leave is hard system. I remember the first time being locked up and you know. Pressure.

08:59 I was very easily lead into doing the wrong thing. I wanted to always please people. I was a very pleased Abu person because I was very humble but I always wanted to please because I wanted to be be a part of I wanted everybody to like me. So whatever I had to do for them to like me and how can you get a group of them gangstas and thugs the like you you had to try to be I don't do a gang still you had to out-do a thug you had to do slug as things and those type of things was not my cup of tea, but I did it just to be long and I understand that today.

09:39 Tell me about the wall art because you're such an incredible artist now and I can't wait to find out how it got started in such an interesting way of the I think the most thrilling thing is to be able to do something and get away with it. So if you do something like create your name, just your name. See you do it at night and wake up in the morning to see your name all through the neighborhood it gave you a sense of build up your self-esteem and gave you a sense of of conquering something or it gave you a sense of the being apart of cuz you created this name and you practice everyday all day just to be able to see your name in lights. You know, when when you talk about being an artist you talk about the singer when the Applause of the crowd and you talk about the dance ass he's performing and

10:39 He's finished his rendition of whatever he does and applaud the cloud being in a graffiti artist at a young age. You just look at the victory of accomplishing climbing up on a highlighter or climbing up on somebody's roof for clamming up on a bridge or climbing up on something real hard just to achieve the thrill of seeing your name in lights. I realize that today I didn't realize that now because it was very dangerous some of the things that we had to do and some of the skills that we had the masked in order to make it multi colored spray paint cans the average salt cans they call it now Amazon start doing it illegally in at night and try not to get caught. Say what tell me how everything worked.

11:39 Can you get nozzles off of this was back then now? They have a very moderate technique. They got different nozzles for different cans. Now you just switch him, but we had to learn how to take a nozzle off of say starch or nozzle off of any other kind of aerosol to get why the tips you just had a jacket with a lot of inside Pockets that you sold in and I can remember going into like Pep Boys what they what they call an AutoZone now and you and you was easy accessible to go to spray paint cans and you just have to learn how to use it and it wasn't hard but it was very difficult because you do you do it in at night and you do it undetected. And so did you plan the images that y'all produced or was it just freeform when you got there and you decided what you want to do?

12:39 They tell me now that my my Graphics looks looks the same damn time. I've been practicing this for like 35 40 years you write it everyday everyday everyday, so you become so you can do it almost with your eyes closed. You can do it in the dark. It's just repetitious. It's like what they called muscle, you know where your muscles just asking in your eyes just asking these can do it easy easy. I mean who can't make the name you learn that in school write your name? That's the first thing you know, so if you just change it and modify it to where it becomes something that's appealing to the eye something that catches but, you know, also it was very dangerous to because the address I caught my first case riding on trains and writing on buses and writing on walls and I made a vial that one day that they would pay me for my

13:39 A man that what that's still my quest today. That's how that's why I'm in school. And I do what I do from new stealth in the night on the walls to your actual public murals that you did in Philadelphia artist be interested it several times and I'm finally realizing that there is a way that I can actually become a professional but I had to go to school quit a job to go to school because I didn't want to work in a factory and I went to school and then you talkin about going to school as a graphic designer 30 years ago. It was easy, then it was easy for me because I remember only having three sets of clothes to wear. I remember going through photography without a camera. They didn't even know I didn't have a camera.

14:39 Member one day we had it interior design 3d design. We had to make a lamp. I went around and cut everybody's lamp on and critiqued everybody's lamp and teacher finally said to me she said I hope it wears your lamp. I didn't even have a laugh because I couldn't afford the phone board that it took the car the lampshade out of and the little thing that went through the lamp in order to put the light bulb in it was it was very hard for me to make it through school. But I thank God that it was only one class that I actually fell in that was our history and I was just telling that story. I fell. History and that is the only book that I ever bought in school and never read it. I think about that today because going to school today. I read I do expensive studying. I have done essays. This is today seem like I'm very renowned and what I'm doing but

15:39 Didn't have no idea that I went through school and didn't absorb any kind of knowledge in order to be a productive member of society. This is one of the things that I'm back on my feet. Let me come to understand that it's a lot of work that it takes in order to be a productive member of society. I wanted to be successful and back on my feet. It was the only real group that I that I was a part of the show me enough love to be able to help me to cross over to be successful there so many times in my life that I had the opportunity to face and become successful. I didn't have no kind of love. I didn't have nobody to just give me a little now just say that you're going in the right direction. I resented not having a father for so long, but I didn't realize that I resented not having a father. I didn't know that

16:39 The app I was drawn to these negative individuals because I was representing the fact of not having a father and I always said as it as a Young Man growing up that I wish I would have had a father it would have helped me to be able to cross over so many hurdles. I would have been so easy to fall into these homes. And so today that's why I've been married so many times that's why all the girls that I had always wanted to be a father. I didn't want my children to grow up without having a father and it and it cost me a lot because I didn't know what it was like to be a family man. I just knew that I didn't want my children to grow up without having a father and I lost myself in the process. So because of being and Gateway being a part of going through

17:39 Books being and being a drug addict smoking and drinking for so many years and winding up in a place like Gateway and to have come out of Gateway meeting in the back to do the physical exercise. That was the first and I just now realized that today that coming outside and being a part of back on my feet was my first interaction with society as a whole because when I went in to Gateway, I didn't want to have anything to do with Society. I didn't I didn't want to be a productive member of society that I realize that now I didn't realize that when I was growing up, why was so rebellious. Why didn't want to be successful why I thought that I was a lesbian because I couldn't read or I thought that I couldn't read always wanted to write poetry but I never sat down and took the time to do something that I really wanted to do for myself.

18:39 Always was trying to please somebody else and then when I came to Gateway and I started to realize that my disease started before I even picked up a drug and I can remember being isolated being up in my room not wanting to socialize but I picked the wrong organization to be a part of so now that I had the opportunity to be introduced to back on my feet and back just just the name alone really attracted my attention and so I had to find out what this back on my feet buzz and I was on the waiting list a long time and because of the progression of

19:25 The endurance

19:27 And I want I want I want people to know that just because that you can run three miles or to my the endurance that it takes physically to get up every morning at 5:45 when you didn't even go to bed to that time and you had to build up your mind to be able to say that I'm going to get up at five forty-five three days a week and no matter what it takes that 90% participation in order to be successful than endurance that it takes to be successful is what I learned the most and I remember sometimes feeling less because of my physical condition. I thought at one time that I was invincible and I can do anything. I'm running across the street. I can run you can run real fast outrun anybody is to call me way back Elementary School black rabbit because I really was fast and then when I came to realize

20:27 I was

20:30 Older and mature but my body won't respond as I can remember used to could have been the drugs but being a part of back on my feet and building up my endurance and the fact that I had to get up in the morning. I had to be responsible. I had to be responsible for myself. I didn't have my wife. I didn't have my family anymore. I didn't have anybody that I could rely on so I had to find a whole new way of looking at life. I had to find a whole new perspective to find out what really motivated me. And what motivated me was the fact that I had people.

21:14 That love me that hug me in the morning to say I'll no matter what if you only can walk a mile and you can run it we still here with you somebody to walk with you and I think that was the main attraction and before I realized it and then I can remember, share this with you get I can remember seeing you come out then. I was like, she's really nice looking. You know, you really I mean to be as mature as you were. I mean, you know, it really really inspired me to see that you win that you're determined, you know, and you remind me of a real close friend of mine that I had in Philadelphia and then the other individuals in the group and I'm not going to name a more because it's a team team Gateway is really been a major force in my determination.

22:14 And it has helped me in school and I didn't want to be able to say like I said so many times before I used to sabotage in that was my disease. That was that was that was the drugs. I used to get to a certain level.

22:31 And I just wouldn't go any further because I didn't want to be responsible for other individuals or other people. I did Murrells for the city of Philadelphia for a long time. I was in the public school system with kids for a long time and that just that one certain point when the drugs started taking control the progression they say the progression when 90% of my thinking was using using the living living to use and I couldn't show the kids and I didn't want to be that type of role model. I just turned away and walked away and I'm looking for now the opportunity and I thought about him I thought about when I was

23:15 When I was coming up everything and I have somebody gave me.

23:20 Let me know and if it wasn't for the opportunity of what back on my feet offers that if you continue to run and you should 90% participation, you'll be able to gain something substantial that'll be able to help you to be successful in society. Well, I wouldn't be able to ever afford. It is a dream to me to just think that eventually I'll have a laptop and the thing about this laptop is that I work for

23:57 You work for a hard. You have been out there walking and running you've worked for so hard.

24:07 You know what my one of my favorite mornings with you is that this was right when you had almost just started and we were going around a circle talking about what we had done for the weekend and you walked up and said I got married this weekend you got married and so we can't wait to meet your wife, but tell me about your wife and how y'all met and she's been such a wonderful support to you. She's been so great. You know, we agreed to come to Atlantic minutes 7 years. I've been there too. We agreed to come to Atlanta together and she left because I was still using drugs. She has 13 years clean and I couldn't come because I was off somewhere another one of my sabotaged.

25:07 And so she kept coming back kept coming back to Philly. I try to lose her and I finally made up in my mind that I would leave Philadelphia and it was so hard even for that almost killed me leaving the city of Philadelphia by the time I got to Atlanta and it goes straight to Atlanta Medical I had court all kinds of poison ivy had got beat up that night, but I could poison ivy hustling, you know, cutting weeds cutting grass doing anything to try to get another another hit another dream. And by the time I got to Atlanta I was so warm. I went to Atlantic Medical and she was so inspirational Because by the time I got to Atlanta I got family here on family wouldn't even help me.

26:00 And she came to my rescue and she did so much to help motivate me. She's one of the main reasons why I meant I was in Gateway because it had to be the drugs are she said Alvin? I cannot risk my recovery and I love you, but I cannot risk what I worked on so long to be with you. So it's either me or the drugs and so I went into

26:31 Gateway she was where she was at and I said to myself knowing that I had a spiritual background knowing my morals. I knew that she didn't ever get married because she didn't never live with anybody and I knew that I didn't want to disrespect her by living with her. So she went into a shelter. I went into a shelter and I said to myself that if I was to marry anybody and this is my fourth wife if I was to marry anybody. She showed a prove to me that she really love me that she would do anything for me and I said, I would never get mad again, but I said that I would marry you.

27:18 If nobody else I'll marry you and we got married both in the shelter. We still in there today, but we're looking forward to moving together. But the most wonderful thing about it is that we will be moving into a house as husband and wife. I don't have to worry about committing. No kinds of fornication. No kind of abomination because I know that our relationship has been blessed. I've been truly blessed by marrying this woman because she actually helps me pay for my financial aid she pays for my phone and I'm not saying this and I'm not saying that she just paid for my phone, but she convinces me that she paying for this because it's to help me. It's not to hold it over. My head is not to belittle me, but it's to encourage me to do the best that I can she said that I'm her best investment and that is so wonderful and she is so sweet and she knows

28:18 And through all of my experiences with my past wives she had my experiences as let me see that I really love her. I really I really would do nns was motivated me to that's what help me with back on my feet also because she still reminds me of what you got to run this morning. You want me to call you at 5 you got to run this morning. I'll be nice even if I didn't feel like it so she has been a great asset as being a part and being a partner to help encourage me to do things that are positive benefits to help me to be able to understand that I am important.

29:00 And I let her know that she's just as important to me as I am to myself and it has helped me to be a whole new different man who knew different outlook on relationships working together both of y'all working to the time and go I've been married several times and I guarantee you if you don't take the time out to understand your mate find out what y'all Brody have in common instead of just going out here.

29:39 Having sex and then the girl get pregnant and because she having a baby I thought was or hockey I get home by having a baby. He won't need me cuz I have his baby. That's where that baby. Mama my baby daddy. Which one you talkin about your wife when you talk about your husband when you talkin about a relationship building something that's going to be productive that's going to be beneficial to the both of you. My wife works two jobs and all she talks about is that she takes she works those jobs in order to help us to be successful and you can best believe when the time come if I ever be successful if I ever and I'm I'm going to be with the help of back on my feet with this laptop and I am so excited and been able to accomplish something be a productive member of society. I can't be

30:39 I'm so excited about just mold and back in talkin. Like I know what I want talking with some confidence walking with confidence holding my head up high feeling a lot better because even though I didn't walk to 3 miles you can best believe I'm in the best shape that I think a man of fifty-five could be in after living again from drugs and being on drugs and going and being incarcerated being in jail going through what he had to go through in order to do the city of Philadelphia because it was really, you know, those kind of places it's hard. They could you so used to have them up 55 years in the city.

31:26 And now you're getting the chance to Showcase your art in front of a whole bunch of people at our race this meant have you started that cuz we can you paint a mural that people can be photographed in front of at the Rays. Have you started thinking about your design yet? Since it was brought to my attention if it's in my mind if I can ever get the chance to execute. It is phenomenal. I think that I really would like to try to design something that everybody can be a part of have a little footprint in have a little footprint in like the the edges. I'm only sharing that with you. I'll have a way with that before it's actually done and everybody can put a footprint around the edges as the Border was in love with what you do and now we get to Showcase it to all the Run.

32:26 All the volunteers at back of my fate will get the post it on the Facebook page. So everyone will get to see how talented you are and I was so impressed with your dedication and cuz I think of it like in the past couple weeks. There were a couple times where your alarm didn't go off and you've looked out the window. He said they were there and then and you came downstairs anyway, and you did the walk anyway, even though you were on your own that morning and came back up and circle with up with us at the end and eat it between that and between you know, how hard you're working at school. You can just feel the difference in the dedication in your life and that you are going to be successful now, I think that to all the members of back on my feet cuz when we share a question in the morning

33:16 When we say that we going to run forever and when we share and the camaraderie of hugging I feel I feel something from the drawer of that and this is how it has been one of the most heartwarming experiences because it was something that I never done before and they say if you expect something different than do something different. I can remember getting a bad morning hanging on the corners. I can remember being dedicated to wanting to be one of the biggest and best thieves in the city of Philadelphia, but now I can look back and I can stand on my feet my own two feet and realize that I'm able to accomplish far more than my lokanam. I can have an imagine if I continue to just trust my amp hour because he puts people in my life like back of my feet 10 Gateway in order to help me to strive.

34:16 Stay on my feet, and now that I'm back on my feet. I don't think I'm going to let anything knock me off. My second favorite part of every week is an alumni program so that when you leave Gateway and you move in with your wife that we are still going to be in touch and still be friends and still keep in contact and so will get to keep up with everything that you're doing and watch your progression through school and see your art and to me that's one of my favorite things because we get to see you soon be successful, but we don't just eat I'll just go off into and we never see you again. We get to still keep in touch. I talk to him Andrew about 2 weeks ago, and he let me know that he wasn't going to be

35:02 Part or be involved and he told me a little bit about the mentoring program old what they do and what he was doing and and I'mma tell you A lot of the things that I have done that he didn't want to do but I found that they would the things that I didn't want to do that. I have the most successful most except that and I would love to be able to go and speak and talk about the camaraderie the inspiration the love that was shed and the success of the actual program of what it has done not only in my life, but the life that it has done inside a Gateway y'all she is outside, but it's something to be a part of back on my feet inside the Gateway. It's just a little more inspiration when you see somebody with a t-shirt on or you see somebody that you know that you have ran with that morning. It's just

36:02 Little bit more inspiring and I think get back on my feet for the support the sneaks the outfits.

36:13 Dressing as a team being a part of a team has done so much for our character for those individuals inside the Gateway that has no kind that has no inspiration. What do you belong we see y'all every morning. We so proud of y'all motivators y'all, you know, you're so dedicated and that's the kind of inspiration the kind of dedication the kind of mental or inspiring other individuals to be able to reach beyond their imagination with the support of an organization such as back on my feet and I'm really really proud to have experienced this through being in Gateway and Gateway allowed me to understand that I'm not responsible.

37:07 My disease responsible for my recovery and Gateway has given me an outlet to be able to experience the fact I'm living a clean and sober life. I love that and I love our team. I love how close our team is and I'll tell you the difference from December when I joined and no one really knew each other and you be checking on someone you say what you said was his not here today. Where is he and someone I don't know who that is. And now you can be darn sure that if I sent you inside to say where is Russell do, you know exactly where he is and what's going on with him and we can check up on everyone and make sure everyone's okay and and that word, you know is the distension of coming outside of Gateway is knowing that y'all concerned about us. Y'all know where we at and the concern about y'all know and we reacted.

38:08 Is that is extended it extends outside to that we know where y'all are and once I get outside, I'm going to let y'all know where I'm at. And I know that y'all would be able to be able to reach out and come and get me come and find me. I know we only required to run one day a week, but what has been achieved that's wrong with three days a week running in the morning. I'm able to face that day with so much energy so much enthusiasm. It has been phenomenal and I am really grateful and I thank you gave for being one of the most inspiring coaches.

38:54 That I have ever encountered most coaches on big boy. But it was a pleasure seeing you walk across the street in the morning with yellow envelope.

39:06 It is really encouraged me to take another Step Beyond the steps that I thought I could take a appreciate every morning when I cannot read my routes because it's too dark and I don't have my reading glasses that y'all are very patient as I passed them around for everyone to see exactly where we're going and we haven't lost anyone yet. Have we been a few times with Anna with you in the morning. So much fun to go around the Streets of Atlanta with the store. Can you say hi to everyone we pass and everyone wants to do who were with and what we're doing. It's it's so fun to wake up Atlanta with you and it's been and when you move out, I know your schedule going to change a little bit, but we want you to come back as much as you can in the mornings and come and run with us. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so very much.