The Carlyn Can

Back in the days when Mistah was a wee tiny tot, he lived in fear of the moment his Dad would write, in chalk on the kitchen blackboard, what The Project was for the weekend.

Little baby Mistah hated projects.

Mistah’s dad was not exactly handy. Neither was Mistah. Weekend projects were nothing but misery for our poor young hero.

Projects invariably involved a trip to Schneider’s, the local hardware store. You know: back in the Olden Days before Home Depot and Lowe’s existed. I love hardware stores. And Home Depot and Lowe's. Something tells me, however, little baby Mistah did not.

Everyone from this New London / Waterford area remembers Schneider’s -- it was the go-to place for weekend project supplies.

Back at the Hanrahan homestead, when the project was complete, and everything was duct-taped into place, every extra nail, screw, hook and odd doo-dad got put into an empty coffee can which my father-in-law called, inspiringly, the Schneider Can.

We, too, have a Schneider can; of course we do. And when we need a screw (um, wait) or a nail or a hook or an odd doo-dad, we do the Schneider Can Shuffle: we open a big piece of newspaper, we pour out the contents of the Schneider Can onto the newspaper, and we pick through the decades-old crap looking for a needle in the haystack, the diamond in the rough, a nail why can’t I find a stinkin’ nail?!

Anyway.

When my Dad, the handiest Dad in the world, died 2½ years ago, my sisters and I, as you know, went through the world’s most excruciating afternoon -- it was awesome, and it was awful -- taking what we wanted from his Wood Shop. Ach. Mom sold the remainder in one piece to a young handyman -- a young, handy, family man -- who was so excited to have those old but so well-tended table-top tools, and all the accompanying accoutrement.

But although we said good-bye to Joe’s Shop that day, Dad’s odd doo-dads linger on. A couple of months ago I helped Mom clean out the loft in her garage, and there we found Dad’s omnipresent cigar boxes, with his quintessential print in black Sharpie on masking tape on the side . . .

. . . like this . . . 

. . .  oh, wait. Jacquie's shot is even better . . . 

. . . full of all class of crap nobody needs anymore -- (remember cable TV?? Yeah, Dad saved all the cables and cable hookups and cable screws and cable doo-dads) -- but still, it's awesome crap. And I, for one, will never throw away a screw (um, wait) or a hook or a nail or an odd doo-dad.

So I took it. And in the meantime, I had an old Skipppy peanut butter jar from Dad’s original shop, full of nails. I combined the new doo-dads with the old and . . .

. . . Voilà! A new Schneider Can.

But wait.

Schneider’s was a Waterford or New London or at least a New London County establishment. Down there in Fairfield County, another hardware store entirely provided for the good people of that county, doing their best at their own godforsaken weekend projects.

I asked Mom, I asked Aunt Lill, I asked Mrs. Cronin, "What was the name of the go-to hardware store in Norwalk? What was the Schneider's of Norwalk??" Finally, after several months, Mom told me: Carlyn's.

Carlyn’s!

So we have duly and proudly named our second (well, probably fourth) screw and hook and nail and odd doo-dad can the Carlyn Can.

Which Mistah promptly dumped out the other day, onto the obligatory newspaper, in search of a screw (sigh).

The contents of the Carlyn Can, however, have not yet been returned to their can home . . .

 No, instead, Mistah made an art project out of it.

Pretty good, don't you think? For (still) not having looked at a map?

There's New England . . .

 . . . and there's Florida -- and, crucially, the Florida Keys -- and Texas' Big Bend region and that big, bad Gulf of Mexico . . .

. . . Mistah is very proud of his representation of the Corn Belt . . .

. . . and I love the guy emerging out of the West Coast . . .

We're gonna need a new can.