365 Jobs, Day 120: New Market Hardware, St. Louis

Monday, April 30, 2007

I'm only in St. Louis for one weekend helping my daughter and son-in-law remodel their bathroom.  St. Louis plumbing - at least, old St. Louis plumbing - is different from California plumbing.  Fortunately, there's an old St. Louis hardware store.

There's nothing "new" about New Market Hardware, and that's exactly the charm.  The store was bought as an ongoing enterprise by the current owner-family in 1914, so it's even older than that.  They moved to the present location in 1932. 

If you're ever in the mood to step back to 1932, just step into this store.  For a quick tour, there's a good video here.

The owner says, "We are fast."  Don't believe it.  Maybe they're fast by the standards of 1932, but when I buy one item there in 2007, it involves following a salesman down a rabbit warren of narrow aisles lined floor to ceiling with stacks of old wooden drawers the size of library card-catalog drawers, searching among several before finding the odd-size fitting I need, then a good ten minutes writing out the receipt by hand, looking up the sales tax by hand from a sheet of paper.

But then, have you ever gone to Home Depot for one item and spent 45 minutes crossing the endless parking lot, walking the endless aisles, trying to get non-existent "help" from some clueless clerk, waiting in an endless checkout line?  And Home Depot would never carry the obscure fitting I was seeking.  They have it - in drawer #872 or whatever - at New Market Hardware.  If I lived in St. Louis, I'd be there every weekend.

To be fair, my ten minute checkout might have been slowed by the fact that as the clerk is writing out my receipt, he sees that my address is in California.  Immediately I'm surrounded by three or four clerks who all want to talk about governor "Ah-nold" as they call him.  They think he's hilarious.  They all take turns imitating "Ah-nold" saying "It's not about me."  And that, too, is part of the charm of this place: personal service, which just might include ten minutes of Arnold Schwarzenegger imitations.

New Market Hardware is in the Central West End at the corner of Sarah and LaClede.  The neighborhood itself is classic St. Louis brick.

Go there and get a key duplicated.  Or buy a bit of plywood and watch them cut it on their one-hundred-year-old table saw.  Yes, one hundred years old.  It's an experience.

365 Jobs, Day 119: Peace of Mind

Tuesday, April 29, 1986

"I'm a little nervous about earthquakes," she says.  "I experienced a six point four quake in Santa Barbara.  Would you take a look at my foundation?" 

Her name is Marilyn.  She has a nice house in Los Altos. 

"Gladly."   

"And also tell me if you see any fire hazards?  My husband—"  Her eyes indicate a back bedroom.  "My husband is on one hundred per cent oxygen twenty-four hours a day.  I'm a little nervous about fires."

She's young.  She's gentle.  She has grade-school children.

I crawl under the house.  I return and report that her sills are properly bolted to the concrete.  No fire hazards, either.  Their home is already safer than 90% of the dwellings in California.  If she wanted to be any safer I could attach steel plates to the foundation posts where they meet the beams.  Right now the beams are toe-nailed, the weakest link.

"I want it," she says.  "But wait.  Let's run it by my husband.  I try not to completely emasculate him."

She leads me to the back bedroom.  A young man - somehow I can tell that he's young, though he looks like he's ninety - lies in bed, propped by pillows, with tubes up his nose and a big steel oxygen tank at his side.

I explain the situation, describe the steel plates as optional but something that might give them peace of mind.

"Fine," he says.  He looks at his wife.  "That's what I want for you.  Peace of mind."

In the hallway I have to stop, compose myself.  Marilyn glances at me and says, "You're right.  It isn't fair."  She offers no explanation of his condition, and I don't ask.

I spend the rest of the day on my back under the house banging 44 steel plates onto 44 foundation posts.  Upstairs, I'm sure he can hear - and probably feel - every strike of the hammer - pounding for peace of mind, the one thing nobody can give.

Clear Heart podcast had a glitch

A very kind listener notified me that the last 6 episodes of Clear Heart couldn't be downloaded from iTunes nor directly from podiobooks.  Meanwhile I noticed an obnoxious loud "pop" at the beginning of many episodes of the Babcock podcast.

The missing episodes are now available.  There was a problem with Libsyn, the host.  They've fixed it.

The "pops" remain.  We'll find a solution...

Lit Night in La Honda

My Google statistics show that this blog has a few readers in Brazil, Australia, China, Russia, Iran, Germany, Pacific Islands...

I want all of you to know you're invited to the next La Honda Lit Night - or any La Honda Lit Night.

They take place the last Wednesday of every month at Sullivan's Pub starting at 7 pm.  You can come early for dinner. 

Have a beer, a glass of wine, and listen to some audience-friendly poems and stories - or read your own.

Next Lit Night is Wednesday, April 27.

Here we are as discussed in the New Yorker magazine.

Here is our weapons policy.

I'll be there.  Hope to see ya!

365 Jobs, Day 114: Leather Tool Belt

Leather Tool Belt
Monday, April 24, 2006

First thing in the morning, the phone rings and it's Stan.  Uh oh.  I repaired his kitchen faucet yesterday, and when a client calls you at 7:15 a.m. after a plumbing job it can mean trouble.  Spectacular, spraying, floor-flooding trouble.  Actually, it's only happened to me once, but for the rest of my life I'll have PTSD - Plumbing Trauma Screwup Damnation.  Thirty years later, I still dream about it.

But not today.  Stan says, "I just want to thank you for coming to my place on a Sunday."  Stan is one of my core clients.  I have a key to his front door.  Heck, I installed his front door and the lockset that controls it.  In fact, I drew up the design for the entry and created a sand-blasted pattern for the glass.

Stan is an insomniac, so I guess I'm lucky he didn't phone me at 3 a.m.  He's still talking: “You know, I look around this house and see all the nice things you put in, and I just want you to know that you’ve made this a great place to live, and I appreciate it.”

Which is nice to hear except that it's almost like an elegy.  He's an old man.  Yesterday, Stan was dropping hints that he wasn't making any long-term plans.  He's a wealthy real estate developer, my polar opposite in politics, but we respect and trust each other - which you could say about all my core clients.  I hope he's okay.

My day's task involves setting up planter boxes and generally sprucing up the entry to an office building.  After a week of rain, it's a sunny day.  I'm attaching a flower box to a stucco wall - hammer drill, molly bolt, spirit level, caulk - when it comes to me: I love this work, this simple but skilled puttering in a pleasant place in cheerful weather.  All the nice things you've put in.

At one point there's a commotion.  A bearded man in layers of old clothing is walking down the center of Menlo Avenue followed by a Menlo Park police car with flashing blue and red lights.  Staggering slightly, the man ignores the cop car and the oncoming traffic.  He's homeless, crazy, and high.  He veers from the street and walks straight toward me.  Two policemen approach on foot, grab the man, and place him in handcuffs while the man looks directly in my eye and shouts “LOOK AT ME!  THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS!” 

Do I know this guy?  I don't think so. 

Back home my son Will has come for dinner and brought a couple of friends.  Will lives in San Francisco now.  He plays a new song he's recorded which begins: "I am a carpenter, and I'm trying to get back home..."  It's an autobiographical song mentioning the successful careers of his brother and sister while he is still a struggling musician working as a carpenter.  All true.  In the chorus there's a line: 

"Got these carpenters' bags slung over my shoulder.  

My father used to wear them before he got older..."

Ouch.  Also true.  I gave him my old leather tool belt when I could no longer cinch it around my expanding waist.  I'm taking fewer jobs because - yes - I'm getting older.  Look at me.  This is what happens.  I do have a new belt with built-in lumbar support and a nice holster for my drill, but it's made of some kind of nylon polyester crap, and I've never warmed to it.

Will apologizes for making it sound as if I'd retired and for ... the other thing.  "I had to do it for the song," he says.

I understand altering reality in pursuit of truth.  I should; I'm a writer.  And I understand the other thing, the underlying, unspoken message of the song: a carpenter is a failed musician.  Or a failed writer.

A writer who is still mounting flower boxes.  I've lost weight.  Maybe the old belt would fit. 

"Hey Will.  Can I have the old tool belt back?"  

No elegies yet, please.

(Continued, sort of, here...)

(Note: You can hear part of Will's song at the beginning and end of each podcast episode of Clear Heart.  You can hear the complete song at the end of the final episode.)

365 Jobs, Day 113: Superhero

Saturday, April 23, 1983

I'm repairing a dishwasher at an apartment complex in Palo Alto.  I've removed the front door panel when suddenly a voice is shouting "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?"

He's a big burly guy with a toolbox.

"I'm Joe."

"WELL I'M RED AND THIS IS MY JOB!"

The apartment manager, a little thin man, is standing behind, looking frightened.  "I'm sorry," he's saying.  "My wife called Red.  She didn't know I'd called you."

In a wrestling match, Red would have me by 75 pounds and a mean streak.  "It's all yours, Red."  I pack up.  I can tell from the look of the apartment manager's wife that Red may have won the battle, but he's already lost the war.  I leave the door panel detached - no point undoing my work - but while Red is outside berating the apartment manager, I plug the dishwasher's electric cord back into the outlet and turn the water shutoff back on.  It just seems like the right thing to do.

A week later, I'm back.  The dishwasher remains unrepaired.  "What happened?" I ask.

"We'll never call him again," the manager says.  "First thing he does is stick his hand in there, and he nearly electrocuted himself.  Then a minute later he flooded the kitchen.  Then he messed around for an hour and never figured out what the problem was."

Rarely does life work out so well. 

The dishwasher had two glitches, the timer and the float valve.  Red got confused because it's harder to diagnose multiple breakdowns.

"I'll fix it," I say.  I'm the Super Handyman.  My cape is brown and slightly soiled.  At this moment on this day, I could fix any problem.  Sometimes the power strikes you like a beam of light.  "Anything else I can do for you?"

Clemens Starck: Putting in Footings

I can't resist posting another poem by Clemens Starck.  I don't have permission to post it, nor do I know how to obtain it.  If lawyers come after me with six-guns blazing, before I die in a fusillade of subpoenas, just let me say this: I'm only trying to call attention to this great poet.  He slops in mud and at the same time steps back in his mind and considers what it's all about (or not about), how tearing down a house - or building a Safeway - or repairing a car - blends into the great cycle of life. 

People, buy this man's books.  If you find the man in person, kneel at his feet and hear whatever he has to say.

The poem is in Journeyman's Wages published by Story Line Press, © copyright 1995 and 1997 by Clemens Starck. 



Putting in Footings

Jake is the superintendent on this job,
I draw foreman's wages.
Mack the carpenter, Tom the laborer,
and there are others
wet to the skin
and cold to the bone --
that's Oregon in December.

Be joyful, my spirit.  Be of high purpose.
We are putting in footings --
slogging through mud, kneeling
in it, supplicants pleading for mercy,
brutal, cursing,
drizzle coming down harder.

This is the Project Site.
Tobacco-chewing men in big machines dig holes,
we build the forms.
Ironworkers tie off rebar.
This concrete we pour could outlast
the Pyramids.

        . . .

After the weather
has cleared, and the concrete has cured
and the paychecks are spent --

millennia later,
after the Pyramids
have pulverized and Jake has disappeared
and reappeared many times,
as grouchy as ever,
angels will come to measure our work,
slowly shaking their heads.