A Boy in the Dalles, A Man on Burnside
Edmo's personal stories of alcohol, discrimination in school, movie theaters, and on the streets
Edmo shares difficult stories of his life on Portland streets (often on inner West Burnside) as he struggled through alcoholism and drug use. Even as a boy in the Dalles, he also experienced daily discrimination in school. When he visited the Granada Theater in the Dalles with his brother, a Vietnam War veteran, Edmo recalls that his brother refused to sit up in "heaven" (the upper, segregated part of the theater, reserved for native people) despite the manager's threats of calling the police.
As Told By...
Ed Edmo
Storyteller
Ed Edmo is a Shoshone-Bannock poet, playwright, performer, traditional storyteller, tour guide and lecturer on Northwest tribal culture. Ed offers guided tours to the She Who Watches petroglyphs on the Columbia Gorge, as well as to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in central Oregon's high desert country. Ed conducts workshops, traditional storytelling performances, dramatic monologues and lectures on such issues as cultural understanding and awareness, drug and alcohol abuse and mental health. He is a published short story writer, poet and playwright, and serves as a consultant to the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian.
