I love hardware stores and we have many excellent ones in the Dena. Besides Altadena Hardware there's Crown City Hardware (specializing in antique and Craftsman stuff), the highly recommended Berg Hardware and Eagle Rock's beloved Tritch Hardware. You probably know of more you can tell me about. I'll be honest, Pasadena's OSH isn't bad, either--the staff there is knowledgeable.
But I like the small stores. I like aisles not quite wide enough to walk two abreast. I like shelves stacked from floor to ceiling with things I want but don't recognize. Shiny!
The best, though, is the language and the experts who speak it. "What you need, ma'am, is a consarn two. They used to come in two sizes but they don't make the three anymore, the two's standard now. How's your wingbrack? Threads still tight? Huh? Oh. Lemme show you. Here's a wingbrack. It's got this here hinge, and you just flip the spring--no? Okay, so you take the consarn two like this, and you jam it into the wingbrack until the flip nozzle opens..."
I will arrive home with a bag fully of shiny wingbracks, flip nozzles and consarn twos. I will love them and perhaps not remember what I learned about how to use them. I might regret not having bought the blue wheelbarrow, but I've still got my red one and that is one tool I know how to use.
