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Landmark Goes Up In Smoke; Memories Don't

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By STEVE OTTO

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 13, 2008

You turn around one day and they're gone.

In a city like Tampa where permanence is sometimes measured in seasons instead of years, change is a part of our lives. The landmarks that we gauge the timelines of our lives by - old schools, favorite restaurants, family stores - don't seem to have the value they used to.

It was like that whenever I drove down Nebraska Avenue and saw the old barnlike building. There was a sense of comfort. Even if I didn't stop, in my mind I could smell the smells of a real hardware store and see the old cat curled up in the corner.

I know Tom Roberts, a big guy who drives a pickup with a "Bama" plate on it. He's married to his schoolteacher wife, Susan. It was Susan's dad, Earl Finch, who bought Tampa Bay Hardware in 1974. "He had the money and I had the time," Tom says. "I had an engineering degree, but you're still working for someone else. The hardware store allowed us to be independent."

They didn't do much to the place, or if they did they must have worked pretty hard to make it appear untouched. To me it looked pretty much like I think it would have appeared when the doors first opened in 1941.

In fact, the huge American flag that hung down from the second floor had 48 stars.

Doing The Time Warp Again

You could walk in and there would be Roberts at the counter, some locals shooting the breeze and Rebel, the gray cat with green eyes, paying no attention in the corner. You would be in a time warp and happy to be there.

Most of the business was nuts and bolts business, a couple of bucks for an odd screw that the guy down at the big box warehouse had never heard of. It was a neighborhood place, as much a place to hang out in as to shop in.

The hardware store was a different world from the Lowe's and the Home Depot stores. There were no aisles lined with fancy lighting fixtures or selections of entire kitchens. The place was what it was: a hardware store.

If you happened to meander out back you would find another shop hidden behind the hardware store. It was Sullivan's Holster Shop. Inside, Greg Gutcher would be cutting leather for his famous knife sheaths or assembling holsters for local law enforcement officers. Gutcher is internationally known for his work with Randall Knives out of Orlando.

All of this burned down last week in a fire that engulfed the hardware store in minutes.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt; even Rebel the cat managed to make a hasty exit from the fire.

I don't know what Roberts' plans are, but you can't really replace a store like this. It would end up looking like an antiseptic attraction at Disney World, with Audio-Animatronic characters sitting around a fake counter and artificial smells pumped in through secret vents in the walls.

I hope you were one of those fortunate enough to store up a few memories of a lost Tampa treasure.

Library Assault Victim Fund

A lot of you, responding to Sunday's column on the young woman who was assaulted outside the Bloomingdale library, wondered if there is a fund for the family. There is.

It is at any SunTrust Bank and is called the "Bloomingdale Library Assault Victim Fund." You can call the bank for information.

Keyword, Otto Graphs,

to read and comment on Steve Otto's blog.

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