Sunday, September 26, 2010

"Pledge to America."

The Repugs want us to believe that the United States guvmint is trying to drive Tart Lumber Company of Sterling VA out of business? It's the location they chose to unveil their "Pledge to America."  Looks like a big hardware store, though it does qualify as a "small business." Keeps old-time small business hours. No evenings, closes 2 pm Saturday & closed  all day Sunday.  There are three Home Depots & at least one Lowe's within five miles of Tart.
***
I feel bludgeoned by the NFL this time of year. No interest. I enjoy some college football, though the few schools  I might actually care about are never contending for much. Big East football this season is so weak that  the Rutgers nonconference game  yesterday against  U of North Carolina was a must-win. Rutgers lost.* The intensity of my  interest in the baseball playoffs & World Series depends on the teams involved. Some seasons it's  mostly background noise, but pleasant noise.  College basketball season starts less than two weeks after the Series.  So except for Sundays, it's fairly easy to keep pro football at bay if I stay away from sports talk radio.

* I haven't been able to embrace  Dear Old Rutgers as a Big Time football program. When I was a kid, Rutgers was a nostalgia team, &  Jerseyans tended to gravitate toward Penn State, Syracuse, & Notre Dame.  My family was Army because we had a cousin at West Point during the glory years in the Forties. Even now one can admire their pugnaciousness.

Comments:
You really cannot compare a lumber and mill yard with a Home Depot or Lowes. They are vastly different and serve a different market. Most lumber yards do very little retail business, but mostly cater to the professional contractor. Their mills shops also create custom woodworking the likes Home Depot or Lowes could not touch. My neighbor owns Jefferson Lumber and Mill Works and his business problems are not the 3 Home Depots or 2 Lowes within 10 miles of his yard. They have been there for a decade or more. I sold my business in 2007 because I feared the Democrats in control of congress wanted to take this country. When turned the keys over to the new owner there were 15full time employees and 5 part timers. The business grossed in excess of $5,000,000 a year. Today, he has 3 full timers and 1 part timer and grosses about $800,000 per year. Every business person I speak to fears the direction this administration and congress is going.
 
Most Home Depots open at 6 am & are catering to the small contractor at that hour. So much so that Lowes built its business by going to the older Rickels & Channel do-it-yourself model.
 
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