Benefield: Remembering ‘O.G.’ the song and dance man with a smile for everyone

First there was a handwritten sign, taped to a utility pole at Mendocino Avenue and Steele Lane. It read: “R.I.P O.G. #1 Sign spinner & dancer.”

Then came the flowers.

One pot.

Two pots.

Eight pots.

Someone left a black Star Wars baseball cap.

Then people started writing personal messages on the sign.

“This guy new (sic) how to work with joy in his heart. A pleasure to watch him! I’ll miss your love of life …”

Then another.

“OG — A kind soul who worked hard and loved his music! Rest in Peace!”

The growing memorial, and the accompanying heartbreak, was for O.G., a man who spent his days dancing his heart out and spinning a sign advertising Canevari’s Delicatessen just up the street on Lewis Road.

He was the perfect ad man. If O.G. was spinning, you could not miss him. And you couldn’t take your eyes off him.

Some days he danced to music pumping through his headphones. Some days he danced to songs he belted out loud. Sweating, smiling, waving and spinning that sign.

And then he was gone.

O.G. died Dec. 30 at Finley Park in Santa Rosa. At the time of his death he didn’t have a permanent residence and wasn’t carrying identification, so there was some difficulty reaching his family.

Identification was always a tricky thing with O.G. He was a man who friends describe as both ebullient and fun-loving, and exceedingly private. Close to the vest didn’t begin to describe how O.G. kept some aspects of his life, they said.

Case in point: His many, many friends called him O.G. but no one could say why.

His tight inner circle, including Debra Sedeno, the mother of his 19-year-old son Antonio, called him Terrelle.

But even that name had an air of mystery.

“Terrelle is not his name,” Sedeno said. “His real name is Vincent.”

Sedeno had always thought he just didn’t like the name Vincent, so chose to go by his middle name: Terrelle.

“Just recently, at the funeral, come to find out it’s not even Terrelle. It’s Travelle?” she said, laughing a little.

Where did he get Terrelle?

“He just made it up.”

And genesis of O.G.? She couldn’t say.

“OG? It was later that he took that name,” she said.

So O.G., the guy who had friends all over town, the guy whose larger-than-life personality was always on display on that busy Santa Rosa street corner, the guy whose dancing and singing shouted “Look at me,” was a guy who, in many ways, hid from truly being known.

“He was a man that everybody knows but nobody knew,” longtime friend Heather Archer said.

Looking for work

In recent years, O.G. took to announcing how many days, or months, or years he’d been sober to anyone who’d listen.

Lou Chambrone, owner of Canevari’s Deli, knew O.G. had dealt with addiction, but also knew him as good worker with a good heart.

For 10 years, O.G. had walked through Chambrone’s door asking if any odd jobs needed doing, and for 10 years Chambrone put him to work.

But a leg injury from decades ago had been flaring up in recent months, and O.G. told Chambrone he couldn’t spin for him. But he was willing to do anything else.

“I kept him busy,” he said. Usually doing dishes.

‘He was good for his word’

O.G. spent some of his money and his time, at “Fatty’s Threads” a second hand store on Sebastopol Avenue run by Dave Puccetti.

Gena Kingsley has worked there for years and said O.G. was a fixture and became a friend.

“He’d usually need a radio or a bike tire,” she said. “He was super cool, really well known.”

From another counter, Puccetti chimed in: “He was always buying flowers and balloons for girls.”

O.G. would sometimes let his guard down a little and tell Kingsley his foot was really bothering him.

He told others that his blood pressure was getting a little high.

“But he wouldn’t go to the doctor,” she said.

O.G. came to the shop on Sebastopol Road a lot to socialize, but often it was to replace stuff that had been stolen or lost. Sometimes he had money to pay on the spot, sometimes not.

Puccetti and Kingsley trusted him.

“He would come back and pay. He was good for his word,” Kingsley said.

‘He seemed fine’

David Jones let O.G. stay with him in his apartment in Moorland for years.

Jones asked that O.G. chip in with the rent and help with the chores. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t.

But he was good company and a good friend, so Jones looked the other way.

“Sometimes he had trouble (paying), but I let it slide,” he said.

Jones wasn’t supposed to have long term guests at his place, and O.G. being O.G., he got caught, Jones said.

“He kept getting himself seen,” he said. “He couldn’t stay still.”

So he had to go.

“I was one of the guys to tried to help,” Jones said.

They still saw each other. For Jones’s birthday in late November, O.G. came around with, yes, a present.

“He bought me a can of chili. I’m not too picky,” he said. “That’s my favorite.”

O.G. didn’t tell Jones he was homeless.

“He just said he was staying around,” he said. “He seemed fine.”

All of his friends remember O.G. had a thing for holidays and birthdays. He loved giving gifts.

On Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day, he would buy an inordinate amount of balloons or flowers, and just hand them out to whomever he saw.

Chambrone remembers O.G. showing up for work on his bike one day, huge smile on his face, trailing a massive bunch of balloons he planned to hand out.

It was almost comical, his trying to balance his bike while holding on to so many balloons.

“He never had money,” Chambrone said. “But he had a great heart.”

‘He owned the stage’

Archer, who referred to O.G. as Terrelle, said they met on a River Rock Casino bus in 2006.

“We just started talking,” she said.

He told her he was a regular at karaoke at the Flamingo Hotel and invited her to join him.

“I’m thinking this is just another guy who says ‘I can sing and dance,’” she said.

She remembers he sang “Let Me Love You,” by Mario.

“He owned the stage,” she said.

Sometimes he’d write his own stuff. There is a video on YouTube of O.G. singing what appears to be an original song called “Just Want You To Know.”

I realize those times

that we spent through the years

going through the pain

escaping our fears …

O.G. provided a soundtrack to their friendship, Archer said. Always singing. Always a smile and a kind word for everyone.

When Archer moved to an apartment behind Canevari’s Deli, she could hear him singing as he did dishes.

On a recent sunny afternoon, sitting in the front room of her apartment with the front door open toward the street, she could hear the sounds of the street and the chatter from Canevari’s.

“I’m just sitting here, waiting to hear him sing.”

‘He was very kind, giving’

It was singing that originally brought Sedeno and O.G. together.

They met in 2002 at a karaoke bar.

“They aren’t there anymore,” she said. “Moondogs it was called.”

She sang “Blue Bayou” and caught O.G.’s attention.

Sedeno remembers telling their son, Antonio, the story of how his parents met.

“ (Terrelle) said ‘Your voice is like the angels singing,’” Sedeno said. “And Antonio goes ‘Mom you fell for that?’ and I said ‘Yep.’”

They had Antonio early on and were together for about five years, Sedeno said, but they never married.

“He was very kind, giving, never ever mistreated me. Ever. Not even a bad word,” she said. “And boy did I push the buttons.”

But it was rocky. He’d miss events. Or show up late. Sedeno said she felt as if he repeatedly chose friends over family so she called it quits.

Even though they were no longer a couple, they remained close.

When Antonio was younger, O.G. would take him to Chuck E. Cheese. Later, they’d do weekly dinners at Sedeno’s and O.G. often ended up doing the cooking.

His fried chicken and fried fish? To die for.

“No one can make anything like it,” Antonio Downing said, adding that is probably because his dad kept his recipe a secret.

Sedeno knew Terrelle struggled at times.

He hadn’t held down a regular job in years, not since losing his security guard job when they were together. But he never asked for help, never seemed down about his lot in life, she said.

In fact, he never complained about anything. Not when his car broke down, not when someone stole his bike, or ripped off his cd player. He just kept on keeping on with a smile on his face.

And he never told her he had been living in a shelter. But she knew.

“I would hint, ‘Why are you carrying your backpack with you all the time? Why don’t you leave it at your house?’” she said. “He’d say, ‘’No, no my roommate will steal it.”

If O.G. had a drinking problem when they were together, Sedeno said she didn’t see it. She wouldn’t have stood for it.

“He knew my thoughts about anything like that,” she said. “My boundaries were firm.”

“I didn’t even know he had an alcohol problem until maybe four or five years ago.”

And that was only when he began openly discussing his recovery.

With all of his ebullient greetings, O.G. would announce how many days it had been since his last drink. To everyone.

“It drove me nuts,” Sedeno said, laughing.

But he was so kind, so giving, she said. And thoughtful.

He’d never show up empty-handed. He would have her favorite Kit Kats, flavored seltzer for Antonio, and he’d bring Lunchables for her daughter.

That’s what she’ll remember most about him.

“It was his kind heart, always seeing good in everything,” she said.

‘He just found the blessings’

Saturday was the day Sedeno and Antonio would normally have O.G. to dinner. But in late December, they’d be away for Christmas. So they rescheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 29.

O.G. came over and they ate and laughed, like they always did.

The next day, Dec. 30, Antonio met up with his dad to return something he had left at their house.

O.G. reportedly died just hours later.

“They found him at the tents around Finley. I’m assuming that’s where he hung out with his friends,” she said.

People experiencing homelessness have a life expectancy approximately 20 years shorter than those who are housed, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless.

O.G. had expressed concern about his blood pressure and was struggling with leg pain, but Sedeno was told he had a heart attack. His death is under investigation, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.

I asked her if she believed it was some sort of sign, that the family’s schedule changed and they saw O.G. just before he died.

“Of course,” she said. It was if it was supposed to be this way, she said.

Sedeno and Antonio went to O.G.’s hometown of Houston for his funeral. On Jan. 22, she had a small memorial for him locally.

In addition to the growing memorial at the corner of Mendocino Avenue and Steele Lane, signs are posted at the Sam Jones Hall homeless shelter, remembering O.G.

Messages read “O.G. now you are singing with the angels and you will struggle no more,” “R.I.P. O.G. keeping singing in heaven,” and “O.G. flew free.”

Over time, Sedeno said she came to view O.G. almost like two different people: The “all eyes on me” guy who would dance and sing like he didn’t have a care in the world, and then the man who never told her his real full name and could not bring himself to tell her he was homeless.

But at his heart, O.G. was a good and giving man. His friends and family agree. Strangers too.

“To be able to live the life he lived and not be down about it, but be positive? He just found the blessings,” Sedeno said.

Vincent Travelle Downing was 46.

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.