Ride Lugged

.

For OW Houts

OW Houts has always had an aire of sadness. Today that aire became palpable, unavoidable. Today OW Houts annouced, that after 78 years in their present location, they were going to close thier doors forever on January 11th. Rumors that Houts had been nearing it’s end abounded, but most shoppers, like myself, refused to listen, insisting that all Houts needed was a restructuring. Cut the fat that drove up the lease price: the grocery department, the furniture department. Sink resources into updating its houseware and hardware department. These would surely fix the impeding disaster. Instead, the buisness abruptly desided to close, not willing to fight the fight against Lowes, Walmart and Target anymore. This leaves 1 independant hardware store in the country, and 1 small chain hardware store. There is no longer any indy hardware to be had in the town of State College.

How could we have let this happen? We chose low prices and bulk quantity over quality and knowledge. Howts was alone in selling A-1 grade plywood, alone in selling only brands it believed in. Houts had a lumbar yard bigger than an airplane hanger, and ninety percent of their midgrade lumber was better than Lowes’ best. At Lowes you manhandle impossibly heavy chunks of wood from percarious stacks, and bang them into place on your cart. At Howts they told you which lumber was best for the job, cut it, loaded it, and secured it if nessesary. For all of this they charged a fraction more than Lowes, and provided better storage conditions, quality, service and knowledge. We traded that in for a store so big and uncaring that it has blemished our land with a gigantic abandoned concrete box and acres of weed growing parking places.

Walking into Howts was like walking into 1965. The dusty shelves housed replacement parts for flashlights (Lowes just sells new flashlights), 6 colors of duct tape, individual screws and nails, a plethora of American made tools, all manner of fasteners that the average person would never find a use for, Radio-Flyer wagons, shovels with only wood handles, Buck knives, Lodge frying pans. You could get anything at Houts, it seemed, even good service. Looking for a willing sales person at Lowes is like looking for the Holy Grail. You might really want to find it, but it’s trying hard not to be found. Help at Howts was as easy as walking down the stairs and looking vaguely lost. You needed the help: Houts employed an organizational system based this line of thinking: lets put the garage sale signs here, and well, you’ll probaly need a hammer to get that in the ground, let’s put those next to it, and while you’re out in the yard, you might wanna rake those leaves, so let’s put a tarp for leaf collection next to those hammers. In short navigation was like finding Hawaii without understanding the concept of Longitude: sketchy at best. Luckly, there was an old, knowledgable sales person in every department, with a keen and knowing eye for those unfamiliar with the hardware store waters. After they showed you what you were looking for, they would kindly remind you that you forgot that those bolts need nuts, or that switch that you just asked for actually only works on a Sears brand lamp from 1983; you really need switch Y, over here.

They knew how to cut keys at Houts. I’ve heard more than a few converstations between the key cutter and a guy needed a key recut that went like this: ‘Well I had it cut at Walmart, and then I took it home, and the key didn’t even begin to fit.’ and the Houts key cutter would sigh and say this happens all the time, and proceed to cut it in less than 30 seconds. Perfectly, like it was thier job. Because it was. But not after January 11th.