Three cheers for independent stores

A twist switch on a kitchen wall light wouldn't stay in the on position.  I kept putting off looking at it, but finally did last week.  We turned off the circuit breaker for the kitchen and I disassembled the light.  Hurray, there was enough wall wire to reconnect it.

I took the switch to Denny's Hardware for a replacement.  Denny Moran, the former owner, who now spends his time on the floor, was in.  He said he didn't have exactly the same thing but something close.  The difference was the new one had screws to attach wires rather then wires soldered to it.  Close enough and in fact even better.

This afternoon I reassembled the light and it works fine.

Now if I'd gone to a big box hardware/lumber store, I would have wandered the aisles to find the right shelf.  If I didn't find what I needed, I might wait five minutes for a clerk.  The clerk may or may not know if the store had the part.  I might have paid a few cents less for the part, but I would have used up the savings in the gas to get to the box box store.

As it was, I parked right at the door of the local hardware store, I was waited on right away, I got exactly what I needed, and was in and out in less time that it would have taken me to walk from my car to the correct aisle, walk to the cashier, and walk back to my car.

Three cheers for the dying breed, the local hardware store.  Two bigger ones have closed in the last five or six years in Duluth.  Killed not by policies in Washington, but by big box stores.

And maybe by local politicians who are always trying to attract businesses to town.  Often those new businesses put local businesses out of business.  The key to business success in a city is not to attract businesses but to attract people.  People start businesses.  Businesses don't start people.

There is no maul at the mall

A couple of weeks ago I wanted to whack something with our splitting maul. I don't know if it was to dislodge something or to split some wood. I couldn't find it. It wasn't in the wood shed. It wasn't in the tool shed. It wasn't in the cabin. I repeated the search again. It had to be somewhere.

Then it dawned on me. It wasn't at the cabin at all. I had split the handle and the head was in the other car. See "Gang aft agley in the North Woods".

As the title implies, there is no maul at the mall. Well, there might be at Sears, but I haven't gone to Sears for years, another big box avoidance of mine. Hardware, drug, and grocery stores, the really important types of stores are just not found in malls. I think I vaguely remember one mall having a hardware store other than Sears. Well, maybe it was only a small mall.

I used to have three favorite hardware stores within ten minutes of my house, now it's down to one and it was the smallest of the three. Denny's Ace Hardware may be small, but the staff is knowledgable. I asked a roving clerk where handles were and she took me right to a reasonable selection. We selected a hickory handle the fit the head.

When I got to the cabin, I pounded the head onto the handle and inserted the wedge. Now I have a working maul again, but I won't be using it for a while. Watch for the blog entry "I'm not left-handed".