Lary Bloom photo
The Landino brothers, Harry and Frank, with Frank’s wife, Betty.
And so it came to pass that the old lock on the front door became cranky and resistant to any attempts to turn the key.
Not that this should come as startling news to anyone familiar with the relative joys of home owning. Every week something reminds me that I should have paid attention to my father’s mechanical wizardry.
His delight, for example, when the washer or dryer in the basement broke down. There was then no happier man on earth. He could excuse himself from the upstairs turmoil (my mother was most often the executive producer of this, though two kids were not just bit players), and plant himself under a jacked-up Maytag.
Sometimes he did not emerge for several hours, and usually only after raucous expressions banned in polite conversation.
He never passed this gift on to me. And so, as I grew up, and became a homeowner myself, I relied on the expertise of the fellow (and it was almost always a fellow) at a family-owned hardware store.
In recent years, I have driven to Hamden, where the fellows at Spring Glen Hardware & Appliances have tried for several decades to teach the unteachables.
That is, aside from me, a large percentage of customers who aren’t sure about the difference between semi-gloss and semi-sweet.
Too, the owners over the last several decades, the brothers Harry and Frank Landino, have seemed as enthusiastic about selling an item priced at $1.49 as a fancy gas grill.
Alas, no more. Not after this month. New Haven Biz reported recently that after 74 years, this place of old wooden floors and expert advice is going out of business.
Frank and Harry Landino, third generation proprietors, have decided it’s time. But their decision was not driven by the actions of the customary culprits in the age of mammoth box stores. Their business was not eaten by Home Depot or Lowe’s. They are as busy as ever, and that’s part of the problem.
In fact, on the day I sought their counsel on the front-door lock, there was a long line at the counter. To ordinary souls who know what they are doing when repairs are needed, such circumstances might prove irritating.
But to those of us who have come to appreciate the personal touches of the Landinos, it was an opportunity to sing their praises, and lick our wounds.
They are closing the store even though it has not become irrelevant or noncompetitive. Their dad, Harry Sr., 95, worked at the store until a few months ago. And now it’s time for the brothers to hang up their hard hats and tend to issues of health and, after so long at the lathe of hard labor, to consider making their first visit ever to Italy, their family’s ancestral home.
“Thank you,” I said to Frank, “but just because you want to have a jubilant retirement, why should we suffer?”
The 74th —and final year—for a Hamden institution.
Others offered similar “tributes.” There are few things sadder, in the world of mom and pop entrepreneurial matters, than a group of aging customers facing the prospect of finishing their DIY days wandering the cement jungles of Home Depot buying things they will later have to return.
And yet, even here, there is a spark of merriment and satisfaction.
Earlier that day, I had called my locksmith to see what I should do about the balky front-door lock. He was helpful. He said, “Have you ever lubricated it?” Duh. Why on earth would I have done that?
“Get yourself some WD-40. It could solve the problem without us having to come out and charge for the visit.”
So, elated by such a diagnosis, I confidently searched the shelves of Spring Glen and found a can of the prescribed oil with a long snout that could be inserted right into the keyhole.
The price of was just $8.49, and when I took it to the counter, I explained to Frank why I was making this purchase. He proceeded then to undercut himself.
“Oh,” he said. “You don’t need this. The oil will make the job messy. I’ll get something better.”
He went to the pertinent aisle and returned with a tube of graphite which I could easily spray into the hole. And the cost? $2.49.
That is, he recommended a cheaper solution, and even then charged only two bucks for it, as the brothers need to dispose of their inventory before closing, and seem to applying an attractive mathematical rule: rounding down.
I went home, read the directions (something rare in my experience), and managed to get the graphite powder into the hole and, in the process, on my fingers, sweatshirt, shoes and the floor) and, after a few minutes, was able to pronounce to my astonished wife that I had fixed the problem.
Though of course I had used the wrong pronoun. It was we who did it. The “we” disappearing from the face of cities and towns across America.
So, get there while you can. Jan. 1 will be too late. Get deals. Offer your well wishes to the Landinos. And, of course, stay lubricated.
Lary Bloom will host a party for his new book, I’ll Take New Haven: Tales of Discovery and Rejuvenation, this Sunday at 3 p.m. at mActivity, 285 Nicoll Street. Reservations are not necessary. And you don’t have to drink the free East Rock Brewery beer.