Awwwrighty-tighty, here’s the plan.
Dick, Larry, Casey…. Listen up!
What you need to do is put the entire village of Garrettsville under roof, hire all or nearly all of the inhabitants and you can play in the big leagues with the Hartville Hardware which just had its grand opening last weekend.
Holy Schmoley! The place needed a map to direct customers to the various departments. Or they could just punch info into a GPS to find the right size washers or drill bits. Not often you find a hardware with a clothing section featuring 30% off on Carhartt goods. There’s a basement with a whole ‘nother level of merchandise–building supplies, appliances, windows, you name it. I didn’t spot an operating room or a performance space but they could have been behind the hanging carpets or the rows of John Deere machines. Definitely not in the greenhouse–I looked.
The Duck Tape people were out front with an arts-n-crafts truck and a video machine to record the creations. I signed up to win any number of valuable prizes (What’m I going to do with a bench grinder? What IS a bench grinder?), got a fifty-cent hot dog and free lemonade, looked at the four full house facades–Farmhouse, Craftsman, Western Reserve, Victorian–INSIDE the store, checked out the greenhouse space, got lost looking for light bulbs, eyed the snack racks and beverage dispensers and thought, “Wonder if they’d change my watch batteries for me?” as frequently happens at Garrettsville Hardware. And I can walk there!
There’s a lot to be said for local, personal service. A Cash Mob would get lost in that place. Keep on keepin’ on. Ditto to all of the local businesses out there
