Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Sonny Harris is quite content living and working at the Oldsmar Flea Market. In fact, he almost never leaves.
By JANEL STEPHENS
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 12, 2001
OLDSMAR -- To many, the Oldsmar Flea Market is a maze with bargains on everything from socks and T-shirts to used lawn mowers and furniture. But for Manly "Sonny" Harris, it's home.
Harris, or Sonny as everyone calls him, has lived on the flea market property for 20 years.
In the early years, he lived out of his red Chevy pickup, which also had a calliope in it. That gave way to a small travel trailer.
Then, 12 years ago, the flea market management bought him his current trailer, a carpeted, air-conditioned model, 8 feet wide and 33 feet long.
Sonny, 81 now, has no vehicle. He pays people to fetch his groceries and other supplies.
If he needs to use the phone, he goes up to the front office.
His mail comes there, too.
He has left the property just 30 times since he settled there in 1980, usually to visit a sick relative or go to a doctor.
"I've got everything I need here at the flea market," Sonny says happily.
Sonny is on the flea market payroll and does a little bit of everything. He works security, opens and closes the gates, entertains shoppers by playing his calliope and helps out the other vendors.
When the flea market is open Friday through Sunday, his world is a happenin' place. But on other days, it's mostly just Sonny, and, of course, his 5-year-old Doberman, Red Barron.
"He's my eyes and ears," Sonny said. "Without him I couldn't survive."
Sonny, who was born into the circus and traveled the world his first 60 years, landed at the flea market kind of by accident.
He was 60 then, and making his living selling cotton candy, popcorn and souvenirs in carnivals throughout the United States.
He was checking out a carnival off Linebaugh Avenue when he came across a big tent going up on Tampa Road.
"I said, "What show is coming down here?' " Sonny recalled. "They said it was going to be a trial flea market."
Former carnival entrepreneur Richard Ferkich decided to build a flea market on the 22 acres he owned there. The market opened on Nov. 13, 1980, with one building, 50 spaces and a few carnival tents.
Sonny helped build some of the booths, but he doesn't remember how many. He does remember his reaction to the speed with which people rented booths back then.
"Every booth we'd build, somebody would rent it," Sonny said. "I just rented some booths and started selling junk."
He sold knickknacks, housewares, used furniture and "anything you can get a dollar with."
And he stayed.
"He's been here ever since," said Babe Wright, flea market manager and one of Sonny's longtime friends.
A typical day for Sonny begins at 4 a.m. He hops on his golf cart and unlocks the 62 gates that keep the flea market secure from intruders.
The market is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday, but vendors and maintenance workers have access during the week.
Sonny watches for deliveries and answers vendors' questions. He spends part of his days in his trailer and part outside walking the grounds.
"He's a wonderful person," said Peter Aleksic, manager of the Oldsmar Nursery and Landscape, which is in the market. "When he locks up, he makes a point to stop and talk to everybody."
Sonny spends his free time working on the 5,000-piece miniature circus he has on display in one of the booths. Flea market visitors can tour his booth for donations, which he gives to the Humane Society of North Pinellas.
"He sends us about $100 a month," said Rick Chaboudy, Humane Society director. He noted that many in the community donate to his organization, but "few are consistent as Sonny."
In another booth, Sonny has other circus items: a Cole Brothers circus poster, a carousel horse, a mechanical monkey.
"You wouldn't believe how many people come by and ask if any of this is for sale," Sonny said. "I tell them it doesn't go on sale until after I die."
He also makes band organs, the ones that play on the merry-go-rounds. He has built 149 and sold 145.
For 40 years, the circus was all Sonny knew.
He was born in France in 1920 to Haynes and Essie Harris. His father was an equipment man for both the Ringling Brothers and the Cole Brothers circuses. Sonny, the fourth of six children, began helping with the family concession stand, which was part of the Ringling circus for eight years.
By the time Sonny reached his late teens, he was on the circus payroll as an animal keeper. He cleaned elephants.
"We got $1 a day, $7 dollars a week and were rich," he said. "We ate three good meals a day and had a place to sleep."
But his family soon discovered they could make more money working in the carnival. They set up a monkey show and a snake show and managed a concession stand. They hopscotched into different carnivals until the children grew older and settled down with a families of their own.
Sonny didn't slow down long enough to marry. He spent his time taking care of animals.
"I've been an animal man all my life," Sonny said while patting Red's back. "We had the greatest monkeys, dog acts, pony acts and snack shows. . . .
"I'm sure if there could be an animal heaven, I would like to be divided and put in there," Sonny said.
His blue eyes gleam when he speaks of his circus and carnival days. His trailer is packed with memorabilia of his time on the road: a bull hook that he used when handling elephants; a pulley used to construct the big top; a plate with a picture of Gunther Gebel-Williams, the famed animal trainer and circus performer, who died recently.
"I knew Gunther 31 years ago, God bless his heart," Sonny said. "I knew he was the greatest coming from Europe. He had something."
Sonny remembers meeting Gebel-Williams in Charleston, W.Va.
"I had a box of circus memorabilia -- both good and bad and some real old stuff, had some Barnum stuff back in the 1880s," he said.
"I boxed them all up and I went down and gave them to him and said, "Maybe you could used these, Gunther.' His eyes lit right up."
That was the start of a good friendship, Sonny said.
"We would write letters back and forth. I saw him several times again."
Sonny said Gebel-Williams' death was a great loss to the circus.
"All the animal trainers could never believe how that man could get away with what he did. . . . He just had a way with animals."
Sonny says he would still be involved in the carnival business if he were younger. But those days are gone.
"I figured I'd settle down, have a regular doctor. I made me a good decision.
"I wouldn't move out of this trailer even if someone bought me a new one," he said. "I love it here. I don't want to be bothered."