by Alison Oatman
Everyone knows Tony the Vet. For fifteen years, this disabled 72-year-old veteran has been hawking his wares—a combination of baseball caps, decals, flags and other assorted patriotic tchotchkes—on a side road next to the Target on Main Street.
Tony is a warm, spirited man who presides over his collection of carefully lettered signs with pride. “If you like your freedom, go hug a veteran,” reads one of his posters.
“You’ve got the mean people and the nice people,” Tony says. “There’s a lot of people that help me.” Tony is out every day, except when it’s raining. He lives in a black van nearby. “I’m a little entrepreneur,” he continues. “I try to make a little living. I try to be honest.”
Tony tells me he served in Vietnam from 1963-67. “He was a sergeant, a platoon leader,” his best friend Russ chimes in. Russ—a philosophical UCSB grad with pale eyes who looks like an aging surfer—is also homeless. They offer each other a great deal of emotional support.
“Tony, tell her what the stop sign stands for,” Russ says, gesturing to the crimson hexagon that dominates the cluttered display of merchandise. “It stands for ‘Sergeant Tony Offers Prayers,’” Tony says with a glint in his eye.
Russ tells me Tony is “a visible, friendly, social person” who is well-liked. “People come up, he lends an ear, he listens,” Russ says. In a part of town conducive to alcoholics and drug addicts, Tony has prevented more than one suicide. “He’s like a surrogate dad or uncle.”
According to Tony, there is a government code that says vets are permitted to sell to stay alive in designated areas. Despite his disabled veteran’s license, Target doesn’t want him there, and neither does the city. But the police ultimately sided with Tony.
The feisty veteran has serious heart problems. During the hour that we spoke, he had to pop a nitrate pill twice. Suddenly his cell phone rang. An overwhelmed Tony blurts something out, and then abruptly ends the call. He immediately regrets hanging up, realizing it could have been someone who might help him get housing.
I ask him about his Dodgers hat. “I hope we can win the world series before I’m in the big one in the sky,” he says with a lopsided grin.
Squinting into the sun, Russ next lays out a meandering story about an eccentric woman on the freeway that everyone knew in the 1970’s. “When Tony dies people will remember him the way we knew the freeway lady in Santa Barbara,” Russ concludes. “He’s an icon.”
Russ also mentions that Tony is a former drag racer and that he has adult children. “Isn’t that right, Tony?” Russ asks. An aggravated Tony runs his fingers through his thick white beard. The interview has gone on too long, and it’s bad for business.
Just before I walk away, I see the faces of the two friends framed by the late afternoon glow as if bathed in nostalgia.
