Life on the road is a tough business

By Tom Chace

Jesse Marion waits upon customers in her Sun Optics sales booth. photo by Tom Chace

Those "transient merchants" who set up in Sisters almost every summer weekend pay a price in home life to earn their living.

They seem to sell everything the tourist might want to buy: Sunglasses. Rugs. Hats -- both comical and western. Novelties. Sno-cones.

David Marion and his wife, Jesse, travel from May through September hitting community events all over the State of Oregon.

"We do maybe three or four shows a month which doesn't leave us much time at home on the weekends," he said.

They plan to arrive at their out-of-town destination on Thursday evening to get set up Friday for a weekend event. Depending on the type of show or promotion, they will break down late Sunday and drive home, if the distance is not too far, or stay over another night arriving back in the Rogue Valley on Monday.

They have a 2000 Winnebago Motorhome that serves as their home-away-from-home for themselves and their seven-year-old son, Mason. David said that it is not easy, but it is what they do and how they make their living.

The Marions live in Shady Cove. They own Sun Optics in the Rogue River Mall in Medford, "which Jesse operates week days. It is really a reading center," Marion said. "We've been there three years now."

Jessie Marion does all the buying for the company.

"We carry over a hundred different styles," she said. "All sunglasses. This is our third or fourth time in Sisters and we do love this town. Everyone is so nice to us and we look forward to coming here. We were also here for the Rodeo and may be back later this year if we can schedule it."

The Marions and their traveling Sun Optics store travel from the Fourth of July events in Drake Park, Bend, to the Rhododendron Festival in Florence.

"We're a Christian business," said David, "and we back up our sunglasses with a Lifetime Replacement Program."

A card they handout with each purchase says, "If they (a pair of sunglasses) become damaged in anyway, for as long as you own them, you have the option of sending them in for a replacement."

They do have a "service charge" of $5 for "material, shipping and handling." Their Shady Cove address is given on the card.

All glasses on display were priced from $5 to $20.

"I've got 120 pair of sunglasses at $5 here," said Jesse Marion, "and another 70 or more pair priced at $10."

They display and sell clip-ons, fancy rims, contemporary styles, glasses for kids, lenses in a variety of colored glass and some purely novelty, for fun and attention.

Their display tent and counters fold into a 5-by-6-foot "low level" trailer that they hook on to the back of their traveling home. Once delivered to the site where they will sell, the "booth" is unhooked and set up, freeing the motor home to park elsewhere.

They made an interesting observation about their location at the Sisters Oil Company corner, Fir Street at Cascade Avenue.

"It appears to us that people come to this corner (where Sisters Drug Co. is on one side and Bronco Billy's is on the other) and do not walk farther east. They either cross the street or turnaround and go back."

The City of Sisters charges transient merchants such as the Marions $100 a day for selling within the city limits. This fee was recently raised from $40 per day, which kept at least two of the regular out-of-town sellers from coming to the quilt show.

Each traveling merchant must also pay the lot owner a rental in order to sell on his or her property.

An observer said they must have to sell one "heck-of-a-lot of $5 or $10 sunglasses ... to cover their costs."