Someone Should Give a Nobel Prize

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Mon May 26, 2008 8:12 pm

Hey folks, I hope you all had a nice Holiday weekend. Except for today it was beautiful.

I'm agreed on the Depot's.

john · Post by **john** » Mon May 26, 2008 8:40 pm

Minimalist wrote:Except at the Depot!

Minimalist -

I should take you at the advertisement

of your own name.

I also purposefully avoid

The BIGBOX stores, preferring,

Where I can find them,

The small, family owned hardware stores.

BIGBOX = TEVEE, n'est ce pas?

Oh well

I know I am a throwback,

Kinda like a Neanderthal

In a Homo sap world.

But

Wotthehell, wotthehell,

As Archy sd. to Mehitabel.

john

Post by **Minimalist** » Mon May 26, 2008 9:03 pm

The small, family owned hardware stores.

Pretty much extinct around here. The closest one can come is Tru-Value...which is a corporate chain of smaller, higher-priced stores.

dannan14 · Post by **dannan14** » Mon May 26, 2008 11:36 pm

Minimalist wrote: Pretty much extinct around here. The closest one can come is Tru-Value...which is a corporate chain of smaller, higher-priced stores.

i guess a place like Tru-Value is a hybrid. They are franchises (or maybe even less formal than that) rather than a corporate store, and often locally owned and owner operated. i'm happy to pay a little bit extra in that case.

The owner of an independent bookstore where i live wrote an article for the paper a few years ago that quoted some amazing statistics to support 'Buy Local'. A Barnes and Noble spends about 16 cents of every dollar of revenue in the same area as the store. For an independent bookstore the figure was something like 52 cents. As an entrepreneur myself i like giving money to those who are more likely to give it back to me

But as far as hardware stores go, my town is lucky enough to have a sizable downtown hardware store that is in the neighborhood of 100 years old. Same family for its entire existence i think.

Post by **Minimalist** » Tue May 27, 2008 8:33 am

There was an old-style hardware store when I lived in NY...it was there in 1957 when we moved in. About 50 years later I went in for something and saw a "Going Out Of Business" sign in the window. Since I knew the owner for 20 years (he was a long-time Little League sponsor) I asked him what was going on and he said he was retiring. His sons did not want to take over the family business and it was "almost impossible to find qualified workers" and he couldn't do it all himself. He could have sold out to Tru-Value but didn't want to. I guess he made a fortune on selling the building so it all works out but it was sad to see an institution like that close up.