Walt Wasilewski, 77, recently ended his 63-year reign but has a standing invitation to keep trading the tales that have brought customers to Wasilewski’s Market for decades.

Rodney Firmi, 37, and his wife Sherri, 36, hope Wasilewski will keep stopping by to share his wit and wisdom. He’s been giving the Firmis his sausage-making expertise since they took over the shop -- which had been in the Wasilewski family 88 years -- on December 1.

"The neighbors seem to have accepted us," Sherri Firmi said. "But the out-of-towners miss Walt. I’m good at the counter, but I just haven’t got any war stories. I wish he could spend some more time with us."

Wasilewski’s father, John, came to America in 1907 as a 16-year-old orphan after word reached Poland that there was work in the area’s tin mill and other industries. His father began a boarding house and stumbled into the kielbasa business because he was responsible for providing lunch to the mill workers.

"He had 12 boarders -- three bedrooms, three beds, two to a bed. They worked 12-hour shifts so someone was always working and someone was always sleeping," Wasilewski said.

His father took a horse and wagon each morning to pick up saltwater-filled barrels of cured meats to feed the boarders.

"Before long, neighbors were asking him to get some for them, too. He decided to open a store," Wasilewski said.

Wasilewski was 14 when he began working in his father’s store. His parents ran the business for 44 years -- until 1956 -- the same amount of time Wasilewski and his wife, Jane, ran the store.

Wasilewski had planned to just shut down the business last September, until the Firmis approached him with an offer to take over.

"We were just going to shut the door and close," Jane Wasilewski said. "Then we got lucky."

"I gave them my recipes, my procedures, my smoker, all my equipment," Wasilewski said. "They’ll have the video that I had made showing step-by-step of the kielbasa making process as soon as I get it copied. I’ve passed onto them everything I know."

And he planned to show up to share his stories and moral support, but his health would not allow it. A bad back kept him in bed until recently, when Wasilewski and his wife visited the Firmis for the hectic week before Easter.

"It’s been nonstop," Sherri Firmi said. "And this week has been nerve-racking. I ask myself, am I going to be able to do this?"

Walt Wasilewski is confident they will. He believes the shop is proof of the old axiom that everything old becomes new again.

"I told Rodney he’s on the right track. The trend is for ready-to-eat foods," like the kielbasa, hams and salads the store sells, Wasilewski said. "People are too busy to cook."