They are those people at the intersection parking lots who bring us Elvis on velvet and James Dean prints and big, ripe watermelon and brightly colored rugs, and they are doing quite well, thank you.
They are the entrepreneurs out there under God’s blue sky and rain clouds and wind and even snow, and they are a friendly sort who say they’ll give you a better deal because of low overhead, blue sky . . . and rain, being free, of course.
Maybe they are not really street vendors since they do business in parking lots, but whatever they are called they are part of the suburban landscape, particularly now as warm summer days chase people out of doors to enjoy and examine their surroundings.
Ray Woods is on the back of a truckload of watermelons at Dixie Highway and 159th Street in Markham, slicing off samples and watching the customers smack their lips and say, “Give me one that tastes just like that.”
John Podzamsky, an 81-year-old Wheaton resident, is out at the intersection of highways 62 and 25 in Algonquin waiting for customers to buy the wooden windmills, picnic tables and furniture that are displayed around him.
“The main reason I’m out here is that I get to talk to a lot of nice people,” Podzamsky says.
Brian Potucek is at Maple and Belmont Avenues in Downers Grove with his framed prints spread across the parking area as two customers look at one of Potucek’s best sellers: “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” a composite picture of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Elvis Presley and Humphrey Bogart.
Thomas Beilhart is at the intersection of Rand Road and Euclid Avenue in Arlington Heights with his rugs draped over the racks and his two dogs napping under his old Ford van while customers stroll among the rugs, and Beilhart thinks about how he enjoyed the recent visit of his wife and two kids who are now back home in Florida.
Don Kraemer is at the intersection of Illinois Highway 132 and U.S. Highway 45 in Lake County, bemoaning the fact that he cannot keep Elvis in stock because of the high demand, and he’s telling a potential customer that oil on velvet is better than oil on canvas because if you put them side by side on the wall, the oil on velvet “shows up better.”
Also, Kraemer says, if an oil on velvet gets dirty, “all you have to do is hose it off.”
So these and other merchants of the intersections were out there on a recent Saturday while the suburban populace flowed around them like a running sea and the rain-free weather outlook was enough to make an outdoor vendor smile like Dolly Parton on one of Potucek’s prints.
“I make more money than I did working for somebody else, and I am my own boss,” says Potucek, 33, who grew up in Clarendon Hills and graduated from Southern Illinois University with a business degree.
Potucek has a brother, sister and sister-in-law who are also in the print-selling business, and on this day they are at other suburban intersections.
“On a good day I might sell as many as 300 prints,” Potucek says. “We get a semi-truck load of prints from California every two weeks.”
The prints are glass-covered and in metal frames. Prices range from $7 to $45, and Potucek says they are the same prints you would buy for more money in an art store.
“We’ve got everything,” Potucek says, “Picasso, Ansel Adams, show business figures, sports heroes.”
Like Kraemer, Potucek cannot keep Elvis in stock.
“I don’t have a clue as to why people want to buy Elvis prints,” Potucek says, “but I sell as many as I can get, and lots of kids buy them, young kids who weren’t even born when Elvis was around.”
Kraemer, who lives in Spring Grove, has been a hard-core outdoor merchant for several years, putting out his oils-on-velvet year-round, even in the winter.
“I just brush the snow away and set up my paintings,” Kraemer says.
The paintings are in wooden frames that are made in Mexico, but Kraemer says the paintings are done in the United States by artists who sign themselves with names like Ortez and Sanchez.
“I don’t think it takes them very long to do some of these, but they do a good job,” Kraemer says. “Look at the detail in that Indian headdress. And the eyes on that panther make it look as if the animal is alive.”
Kraemer says that over the years, the intersection has provided him with constant entertainment. “You see some strange things,” he says. “One day two big fat guys got into it right out in the middle of the street. They were just kind of slapping at each other, and two really small women got out of their cars and tried to separate them. It was really funny.”
A passer-by honks and waves at Kraemer and he waves back. “I’ve met a lot of nice people here,” he says. “I don’t recognize all of them who wave at me, but I wave anyway.
“On some Saturdays I must see 25 wedding parties,” Kraemer says, as a limousine passes by dragging a collection of tin cans and shoes.
While his is a very unpredictable business, Kraemer says there are some things that he can plan on. Around Father’s Day he will sell paintings of John Wayne and wolves and rottweiler dogs.
“Mother’s Day is good for selling unicorns,” Kraemer says, pointing to a painting of two nuzzling unicorns over a bouquet of roses with the words “I love you,” painted across the center.
“Young people buy that one for each other too,” he adds.
Kraemer says that oil on velvet is considered trashy by some people, but he adds, “Art is whatever you want it to be, and if you like something you shouldn’t care what other people think about it.”
“These are the best oil on velvet you can buy,” Kraemer says. “I could sell cheaper stuff but I don’t want to do that. I want to sell something I like and feel good about.”
Since his paintings are more or less waterproof, Kraemer says the only bad thing about rain as far as he is concerned is that people don’t want to stop and get out of their cars when it is raining.
Rain is more of a problem for Beilhart, who has dozens of rugs suspended over the racks that he sets up.
“I listen to the weather reports on the radio all the time,” Beilhart says. “But after a while you get a feeling for the weather and you can predict it better than the weather forecasters.”
It takes Beilhart about an hour to set up his display, which includes dozens of rugs of various sizes. “I can sell you the same rug you would buy at a department store for about half the price,” he says as he rolls up a rug and puts it on his shoulder to carry it to the car for Virginia and Chuck Drews of Barrington.
“I think it’s great to do business like this,” Chuck says. “This is the American way, isn’t it? This guy is out here working to make a buck, and he’s doing it with a good product.”
The rug will go into their new house, Chuck says, adding that he and his wife shopped around before they bought from Beilhart.
“If people aren’t happy with the rugs, they can bring them back,” Beilhart says, “but I warn them that I am only going to be at one location for so long.”
From the Chicago-area suburbs, Beilhart plans to go to Wisconsin and Minnesota.
“I don’t know if I want to do this the rest of my life,” he says. “I love to sell, but it is tough to be away from my family. I’ve got two little kids, and I’d like to see more of them.”
Podzamsky, who works three or four days a week for Joe Tucker of Palatine, the owner of the wooden lawn furniture business, says, “I’ve been doing this for seven years. I like to read, but you can only read so long and then you have to get up and do something.”
“I like being out in the country,” Podzamsky says, adding that he grew up on a farm in Czechoslovakia before moving to the Chicago area when he was 18.
His customers usually know what they want when they stop in, Podzamsky says, so he doesn’t have to do much selling. “Business is best in the spring,” Podzamsky says, “and then it tapers off in the summer.”
“This is a good job for somebody my age,” Podzamsky adds. “It isn’t hard work, but it’s interesting and it gets you up and moving.”
Selling watermelons is a summer job for Woods, who is from Waynesboro, Miss., and plans to go to college in the fall at Alcorn State University in Lorman, Miss. “It’s a good summer job,” he says. “You are outdoors, and you meet interesting people.”
And you hear all kinds of theories about how to tell what the inside of a watermelon is like from examining the outside.
“Some people say you look at where the stem was fastened,” Woods says, “and others say the color is what counts, and some people tap it with their knuckles, and some say the weight is the key.”
The fact is, according to Woods, the melons are all pretty much the same-ripe and delicious.
“There may be a bad one once in a while,” Woods says, “but we stand behind them, and if people bring one back we give them another one.”
Woods works for Homer Baylor of Baylor’s Market in Chicago, which is a family street vending business that has been around for more than 40 years.
“My father started it,” Baylor says, “and I have been working in it since I was a kid.”
Two of Baylor’s sons, Brock and William, work with him, unloading the semis and manning the three trucks that are out at various intersections. Early in the season, the watermelons come from Florida, and then in July they are grown in Mississippi. Woods is the grandson of a Mississippi supplier, Baylor says.
“This is a good way of life,” Baylor says. “I enjoy working with people, and this has been a pleasure for me.”
Street vendors are required to get permits from the municipalities in which they operate. Most of the annual permits are in the $50 to $75 range, and local police check vendors for permits and to make sure their displays conform to the law.
“We don’t have any problems with them,” says Lt. Jerry Brandt of the Homewood Police Department.
Cmdr. Charles Montgomery of the Tinley Park Police Department agrees.
“Occasionally we might check someone selling a stereo out of the back of a car to see if it is stolen,” Montgomery says, “but for the most part we don’t have trouble with street vendors.”
Spokesmen for the Lake and McHenry County sheriff’s departments also say the vendors were not a problem.
“You have to abide by the law if you want to stay in business,” Kraemer says. “Vendors are misunderstood people,” he adds. “They are polite and accommodating, and you will not find any high-pressure selling.
“Oil on velvet sells itself,” Kraemer says. “You put it out where people can see it, and they come and buy it.”
Now, if he could just get his supplier to ship him more Elvis.
