Tim Steller's column: Tucsonans rally around victimized vendors

At first, it seemed like a minor disaster, the kind that it can take weeks for a street vendor to recover from. 

For the last 10 years, Rodolfo Monreal has spent his days selling oranges to friendly customers. The 79-year-old from the mountains of Sonora enjoys his customers' company as they stop by on the northwest corner of East 36th Street and South Park Avenue. 

But one of them betrayed him earlier this month. The person paid for a $20 jumbo bag of oranges with a fake $100 bill.

"I pulled on it and it didn't break, and I said, 'fine,' " Monreal said in Spanish Thursday. "That's how I lost the $100 — I lost the oranges and the $80 that I gave in change."

This could be where this small story ended, with a sad lesson that people aren't to be trusted, except for an unlikely savior intervening: People on social media. These platforms have caused a lot of chaos in our country, polarizing us against each other and inviting foreign adversaries to exploit our differences. I use them, but have not been a fan lately. 

Monreal's grandchildren posted on social media about the incident, intending to warn other street vendors about fake bills being passed around. I ran into one of his grandchildren, Jenny Vasquez, while talking with Monreal on Thursday morning. A University of Arizona student, she was bringing him a new, small folding table for displaying his oranges before running off to school. 

"We all thought it wasn’t correct, so we wanted to bring awareness to other vendors like him, just to be aware and really pay attention," Vasquez said.

Word spread online, and before long, people were flocking to Monreal's humble stand. 

To call it a stand may even be exaggerating a bit. Monreal buys his oranges from a grove in Queen Creek, filling up the bed of his 1995 Ford pickup truck. Then he drives back down to Tucson, pulls down the gate, and sells huge bags for $20 each or large bags for $8 each from a fold-out table. 

After the social media posts, Monreal quickly sold out his full truck bed. 

"I recovered what I lost," Monreal said.

'People started stopping by'

In fact, he got even more back, as his granddaughter explained. 

"After that got posted so many people started stopping by, which made him so happy. He really just loves being out here talking to people," Vasquez said. "He doesn’t do it for the money. He does it to connect with the community."

"He got to meet so many more people, and he was so happy about it," she said. 

After Telemundo did a story on him, Vasquez said, "He said, 'Someone stopped by and told me I was famous.' He was so excited about it. He thought it was hilarious."

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Monreal grew up in the mountains near Cananea, Sonora and nearby parts of northern Sonora, he recounted to me.

For years as a child, he said, his job in the family was to transport the firewood that his uncle would cut. He would take it from the ranch down to the road, where a driver could pick it up for sale in Nogales. He would walk with burros carrying the wood, two or three hours, he said. 

He and his wife married in Nogales, Sonora, 60 years ago, and eventually moved to work on a ranch near Patagonia, Arizona. They had four children, which is what brought them to Tucson in the 1970s, Monreal said.

"I came here so the girls could go to school," he said, even though he doesn't like cities much. "I've been here a long time, but I'm still not used to it."

In fact, he said, he worked for 35 years in the concrete business before retiring at 62. He still wears knee pads that he kept from the concrete days, for climbing up onto the bed of his truck. 

Another vendor aided

Tucsonans grow fond of, loyal to and even protective of their favorite street vendors and food trucks. One of the longtime local trucks is next to Monreal's orange stand — it's called El Manantial and serves typical Mexican favorites. I got the torta. 

Coincidentally, as I was headed to visit Monreal on Thursday, I passed the remnants of a car crash at Broadway and Swan. Sitting on Broadway was a yellow cart bearing the name Dany Hot Dogs that had been smashed from behind, the front vehicle in a three-car crash. Bacon-wrapped wieners were strewn across the asphalt. 

Lots of people noticed the collision — it's a busy intersection, a bright cart and Dany, it turns out, is also beloved. He is Marcos Daniel Maciel, and he and his brother run the cart from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday at Broadway and Rosemont. People love them and their hot dogs.

Customer Linda Morales told me via Facebook, "We live nearby and are regulars. The dogs are excellent. I feel awful this happened and hope he’s ok."

Again, social media took over, for the better. Posts of photos of the crash scene flew around, shared and shared again. One person quickly set up a GoFundMe fundraising campaign, now cosponsored by the owner of that food cart, meaning he is really getting the money. 

It's unclear how much the crash will cost Maciel, but the initial fundraising appeal was set for $1,600 and was quickly surpassed. By Friday afternoon, the fundraising goal had been raised and surpassed again and was reset to $4,500.

Maciel told me he doesn't yet know what insurance will cover and what his costs will be for the damaged truck and cart, as well as the lost business. 

The cart, he said in Spanish, "will be a total loss. We're going to get another one."

He is in fact physically OK, but still sorting out the other impacts. As happened with Monreal after he was passed a fake bill, Maciel said, "We've received very good support."

That, it appears, is what happens when Tucsonans use social media for one of its best purposes — protecting vulnerable and beloved street vendors.