Tony the Bag Man
His bag stand was at the rear the market hall. It was in a little alcove where the vendors of the fish department would wash up. It was only after the West Side Market went under renovation that he had to move his stand across the street and into the warehouse which he continued to sell from at the time of this interview in 1981. He received his merchandise from a manufacturer in Mobile, Alabama called International Paper Company which is still the largest paper manufacturer in the world (73). Although his stand was relatively small, when he grew into his warehouse is sale demands grew with the space. He started supplying his paper products to anyone who needed them in the market. His deliveries at the time of this interview were 42,000 pounds (73)."Whenever the Market is open for business I am over there, servicing my customers."
Despite what one might think about a paper based business, Nasa showcased his knowledge on what the different vendors wanted and found in what he sold. He explains how brown butcher paper was in a lower demand than white butcher paper because "when you wrap a piece of red meat on a white sheet of paper—that has an appeal" (74). He also talks about the string that he sold and how it was used by butchers because it was the only thing that would hold the butcher paper together, due to the waxlike coating on its that's similar to parchment paper. Even when I went to the West Side Market a couple weeks ago, and I visited Pinzone's Meats stand which opened in 1976, they wrapped my mom's Italian sausage up in the same white butcher paper and tied it with string. When discussing a recent purchase for some veal chops from another vender named Eddie, he said he never had to look at the products he bought from the West Side Market because he always knew they were fresh. He said, "I been shopping [here] all my life and [Eddie's] not going to give me something that he knows I'm not going to use. See, there's nothing packaged in the Market; if that meat was packaged, they wouldn't draw any crowd" (74).
Throughout his interview with Lewis he explains that for every day that the market is open he is there to serve his customers. He had been doing that for 51 years. He talks about why he didn't want to retire at the time because he loved his job. When faced with the question of why he didn't want to work for somebody else, he said that he loved his job because he got to be his own boss. I find that this is something that is common amongst vendors because although they are a part of a larger market, they are in charge of what they sell. They show up and they either have their product or they don't, but it's always up to them.
"We're not going to be here forever, but the Market will be here forever; only the faces will change."
Since he's gotten older he explains how it gets harder and harder to find people his age because the people he spent his life working with are dying out. He ended his interview with Lewis by explaining how even though he's had to watch some of his friends go and watching younger faces replace them, these people are gonna age and die just like the others. It makes you see what he sees. People are always gonna pick up the jobs at the Market because as he puts it "we all get old by living, so there will be others needing to be there" (75). He touches on this idea of being able to truly live but only being able to do so by aging, a couple times throughout the interview. But it's how he explains the way he lived. He lived through his Market.
