Don't Just Buy Stuff. Do Stuff.

[captainsblog]

Interesting article in Artvoice this week about the strip-mauling of our little corner of America. It reports that, despite our declining population and even more rapidly declining economy, we are still right in step with the rest of the nation in the conversion of our suburban main drags into mere strips of Little Big Boxes Made of Ticky-Tacky. It chooses, as one of only many possible examples, one such strip of stores that ends a brief walk from our home:

American civilization has its perfect expression in Union Road, in the entirety of its run from Orchard Park to Williamsville. Union Road is a succession of strip malls that link the marquee suburbs of Western New York. It is what the anti-suburbanites call “Generica,” and it is a refutation of every fond hope for “smart growth,” “new urbanism,” “transit-oriented development,” and “green infrastructure,” because Union Road is all about automobiles.

Just as sad is the way in which these generic strips of stores take over the locally grown establishments that are at the root, and in the roots, of local communities such as this one. Along that stretch of Union are the graveyards of once-beloved businesses, from restaurants to retailers. Gone are the Holiday Showcase cinemas, long replaced by Regal stadium-seated multiplexes. Putt-Putt Golf just HAD to be replaced by another strip of storefronts that either remain empty or caused three others elsewhere to empty. In their place are the same chain this, and franchise that, which are just down the block from you, as well, providing the same homogenized product and the same dull-but-acceptable level of service.

Fortunately, a few pioneers continue to homestead in the face of all this. Three times in the past few weeks, I've visited one of them: AP Wagner is in an unassuming storefront in yet another of those ubiquituous strip malls, this one just over the Amherst-Tonawanda border. Eleanor was tipped off to them a while back when our dryer needed a replacement something-or-other, and we've been back since then for a replacement lint filter and, most recently, for new burners for our built-in stove.

You walk in and, other than the computer/cash register and the phone (which drives me crazy because it's the same model, and thus the same ring, as the one on my own desk), you're back in 1971.  Guys who know everything about every make and model, by part number if not by sight. Realistic recommendations about what can/can't, and should/shouldn't, be repaired versus replaced. Just good people, providing a service that the Best Buys and even Radio Shacks of the world increasingly insist on giggling at when you suggest it.

When I picked up the second burner yesterday, a woman was in there singing their praises while she bought whatever replacement part had been ordered. Her husband (or possibly father) had recently called home to report that he'd found a needed dryer part there- for 190 bucks. When she just about gagged at that, he laughed and said, "Kidding. It's ten dollars to fix it."  I doubt if many stores even carry ten-dollar parts anymore- and if they do, they're only available online, or from centralized parts warehouses- because the goal of their business is to get you to replace, not repair. Companies in the computer business are among the worst at this, as they make their products out of the cheapest of materials, make it difficult if not impossible to service them, and think the one-year warranty is something you shouldn't even think of trying to get a day beyond.

The other customer asked the manager if he was planning to retire. Fortunately, he said he had no such plans. Far as I'm concerned, he can't retire until our last appliance finally stops working- and if they replace his storefront with yet another Subway or nail salon, I will pelt it with broken parts.