Newsletters

Happy Holidays from all of us here at Brettuns Village Trunk Shop, and from Brettuns Village Leather while we’re at it.  Here’s hoping this finds you and yours in good cheer, swept up in the spirit of the season. There’s a lot going on that can put a smile on your face in spite of whatever your current attitude may be, just take a look around.

Up here we’re smiling because it’s looking like we’re scheduled to have a white Christmas.  This is a vital factor in determining the success or failure of the holiday season in New England.  Snow on the ground goes a long way toward improving everyone’s attitude, particularly those involved in the skiing industry, or those who sold their truck to buy a new snow mobile last February.

We’ve got snow, and more headed our way Friday.  Course, if you live anywhere from northern Florida on up the east coast you’ve got some of the white stuff to brighten up your day too.  I’ll bet you had a good time driving in it.  Go find a big empty parking lot and really gun the old Chevy through there, spin the wheel hard left, and jump on the gas. You’ll be spinning bumpkin beside tea kettle in no time.  Don’t try this on I-95.  It’s a good idea to have a teen-ager in the car when doing this, so you can tell the constable that you were just teaching the youngster how to handle slippery driving conditions.  Works pretty well.

So your stocks are in the dumper, your credit cards are limiting out, and you don’t know where you’ll find the cash to take that holiday trip to go ride the Face Melter Tobaggan Run at the Camden Snow Bowl.  Don’t despair, tis the season to be jolly.  I’ve got just the thing to cheer you up – a Christmas story.  This is a typical sort of Christmas story, complete with good friends gathering together, lots of food, presents, a giant snake, food poisoning, a huge palace, and malaria.  You’ve probably heard this story before.  Well, just in case, here it is again.  The difference is, this story is real and it happened to me.

When I got out of college (about a thousand years ago) I got hired by a company that did oil exploration all over the world.  After learning the ropes in one of the most primitive areas known to mankind (southern Louisiana) I got shipped over to Africa.  I spent a lot of time over there, including a couple of holiday seasons.  It was always tough to get in the spirit of things, being a few thousand miles from home, pavement, electricity, modern medicine, hamburgers, and on and on. One year, when I was living in Port Gentil, Gabon, a few of us expatriots decided we’d get together a holiday gathering to rival anything that continent had witnessed previously, missionary gatherings excluded.  We got in touch with every transplanted person we could find – the British hard-hat divers on the offshore rigs, the French helicopter pilots who supported my crew, the Australian radio tech who kept everybody communicating in the jungle, the Scottish girls (two of them) who worked as imported black-jack dealers in the casino in town (this 20×20 foot building had a working light bulb, which was quite an attraction), the Lebanese family who ran the restaurant (called The Cedars, believe it or not), and the man with no country (Palestinian) who ran the bank.  Don’t forget a handful of us Americans, doing our part to keep our country’s gas tanks full.  At any rate, we were in the midst of planning a huge bash when we realized there was no place to hold it.  At the last moment the casino owner contacted the caretaker at the Presidential Palace in Port Gentil (President El Hadj Omar Bongo lived most of the time in the capitol city of Libreville, he rarely visited our town, so the place was empty most of the time) and talked him into letting us have the gathering there.

Cutting now to the main event – Christmas Eve found about 70 of us gathered in the main dining room, which was about the size of your average high school and had chandeliers the size of some small Maine towns, with wine flowing and a smorgasbord of food from all around the region.  We had antelope steaks, crocodile tail, python wrapped in bacon, and all sorts of fruits and vegetables, most of which I had trouble identifying.  We ate, we drank, we laughed, we cried, we exchanged presents, we drank, we ate, and then, at long last, a few of us got bored and went exploring.  By and by we came to the President’s bedroom with its 20-foot diameter round bed and huge pillows.  The ceiling in the room had to be 16 feet high.  Giant painting hung on the walls; it was breathtaking.  If you’re like me there’s only one thing you can do when you come upon a spectacle such as this.  That’s right, I knew you’d come up with the same thing that we did. You jump on the bed and try to reach the chandelier.

After 40 minutes of this we (my helicopter pilots and I) reached the following conclusions:

1. Wait at least 2 days after eating such a huge meal before you jump on the bed.
2. If you reach the chandelier do not pretend you are Doctor J and hang from the rim.
3. Scottish black jack dealers who do not chose to wear undergarments should not jump on the bed of any President at any time.
4. Something was dreadfully wrong with the crocodile soup.
5. Presidential palace caretakers start most evenings in good humor, but they feel no pressure to remain that way.

Moral of the story – you’re here in the states or whatever country you call home, it could be a lot worse.  There’s so much to be thankful for here, sometimes we forget how lucky we are.  If you had been in that palace that night, and if you had worked so hard to have fun just because it was a holiday and you had to be away from those you truly care for, you’d understand what I mean.

So from all of us, to all of you – when I say, “Happy Holidays,” I really, really mean it.  This truly is a magical time of year, make sure you take a few moments to think that over amidst all the hustle and bustle.

Merry Christmas-
Churchill Barton
Brettuns Village

Here it is, Christmas.  Sure got here fast this year, or so it seems to me.  I can still taste the Thanksgiving turkey, and now here’s Christmas, right in our laps.  Time flies, they say.  Hope you got all your shopping done, and presents wrapped, and that you met some friendly folks from your village whilst you were standing in line at the post office.  Here at BrettunsVillage we went about the holiday uptick with a new plan ‘ better inventory management, better dog food, more water for all employees; it still didn’t help a whole lot.  I gauge the success or failure of these in-house corporate efficiency programs by looking in the mirror when I get home at night:  if there’s packing tape stuck in what’s left of my hair then I know we worked faster, but not smarter.  Oh well, just wait ’til next year.

Had a little trouble finding time to go shopping this year, and I have you customers to thank for that.  I appreciate how busy you’ve kept us, and look forward to another uptick next year.  I made it to Freeport once ‘ you know about Freeport, Maine, right?  Home base for LL Bean, and, since the 1980s, about 42 bob-zillion outlet stores.  Still, even with all the buildings and retail commercialism going on down there that sure is a pretty village to visit, especially at night with all the lights and decorations in full swing.  Really puts you in the Christmas spirit, or at least it has that effect on me.  I like it.  I like that I can poke around in Freeport’s stores looking for gifts for my Mom or my wife or my daughters, dog, cat, brother, in-laws, or neighbors, and when the stores close up at 10pm or so, I can still walk right into the front doors of LL Bean and continue the search.  That store never closes ‘or rarely.  Not sure if you knew that or not.  You know, in case you need a woolybooger fly at 3:42 am when you just happen to be driving by on your way up to The Forks to try to catch the salmon that lay in there like logs in the Fall.

So, I did my poking around, found some things worth giving, and saw a lot of things that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.  Stuff I wouldn’t buy.  Stuff I wouldn’t want to receive.  You know what I mean.  Well, if you’ve been a victim of this newsletter for more than a few years you know what I mean ‘ it’s time for the Annual List of Stuff I Don’t Want for Christmas.  Buckle your seatbelt.

OK, I’m going to cheat and use some easy things to get the ball rolling.  For Christmas 2015 I find that I do not want:

Another presidential candidate debate, televised nor otherwise.  No thank-YOU.

Anything that says ‘New York Yankees’ on it.  Period.  Unless Granderson signed it before he hopped over to the Mets.  I like watching that guy bat ‘ he’s wound up like a buoy line at spring tide when the pitcher toes the rubber.

Bluetooth anything.  I told you last time ‘ blue teeth in Maine means you’ve got mercury in your well water and if you don’t do something about it you’re not going to like what happens next.  OK, I know that it’s about wireless this and that, but I happen to like the wires.  They make sense to me ‘ they’re little roadways for bluegrass music to follow on their way from receiver (or phone) to speaker.  I can hide wires anywhere ‘ they don’t bother me.  No Bluetooth.

Compression Stockings:  Yes, I’m old, but I’m not there yet.

Cufflinks:  Never in my many decades on this planet have I found my cuffs flapping around.  Can you even purchase a man’s shirt that needs cufflinks?  Was the designer too cheap to stick a couple of buttons on there?  Scratch this item from my list.  In particular the ones that are glitzy and glimmering and showy.  Lose one of them in the snowbank and you’ll cry when you hear something metallic pass thru the snowblower chute at Mach III.

A new cell phone:  Why in the blue blazes would I need a new cell phone?  I have one that’s 5 or maybe 6 years old.  It works. It’s a better camera than any camera I ever owned.  It’s got more music on it than all the book shelves of LP records up to camp, and I can actually make and/or receive PHONE CALLS on it.  The cell phone makers, or what’s left of the crowd nowadays, wants me to ‘upgrade’ to the new model, but that thing looks pretty big to me.  I was alive in the 1980s ‘ I know what a big cell phone feels like ‘ to carry around, to speak into, to balance on your knee in the car so it can charge.  Notice that?  Little cell phones don’t exist anymore, so the trend to get smaller has reversed and I think it won’t be much longer before we have a desk top computer on our back and a pole that sticks out over our head in front of us so we can have a 32’ diagonal monitor to look at (except outdoors where you can’t see anything on any screen mankind has developed thus far).  My cell phone works.  No thanks, Santa.

A Razor Scooter or Segway:  Don’t get me either of these, please, because it seems to me with all these people driving cars into people and onto people lately you’d pretty much just have a virtual bullseye on your back.  If I need to get from here to there I’ll walk if the weather suits, or I’ll take my truck, so that those folks who feel the sudden urge to mow something down will know good and for sure that they’ve hit something solid when they smack into Unit 9 (that’s what I call my truck because it’s the 9th vehicle I’ve had the pleasure to own thus far).  Once they get their front teeth out of the steering column we’ll have us a chit-chat about safe driving habits.  If I had been on that Segway thing it’d be MY front teeth in their steering wheel and after all these years of brushing and regular dentist visits and those nightmarish orthodontist years I feel I’ve got something worth protecting here.

Seen those obnoxious TV ads where they’re trying to sell you something that’s a fabulous NEW invention that you’ve just GOT to own?  Don’t get me any of that stuff.  If the package says, ‘As Seen on TV’ then scratch it off the list.  Now, come on, can we be honest for a moment?  They’re making that stuff as cheaply as they can and charging as much as they can in order to increase the delta. The delta is the difference between what it costs to make and how much they can sell it for.  Profit margin.  Got it?  Another indisputable fact:  Each and every one of us has purchased just enough of that disappointing hooey to pretty much get an idea of how cheap it’s going to feel, look, sound, or taste once the package arrives at your doorstep.  Also, don’t forget that it’s not heading to your place until AFTER you’ve paid ‘separate processing and handling’ charges, whatever the blue blazes that means.  Shouldn’t the price be the price?  No shipping charges, no processing, no handling.  Take a clue from Brettuns Village you TV snake oil salesmen.  OK, enough — no, wait, not enough ‘ why do all these guys have a British accent?  Is there some sort of training school over there?  ‘Hey James, haven’t seen you in ages ‘ what’re you up to?  Oh, hey Niles, I’m attending the UK School of American Hucksterism over by the docks where the women beat fish against the rocks.’

I don’t know if it was Steve Jobs’ idea or not, but I can tell you with complete confidence that I DO NOT want a computer or phone that I can wear on my wrist.  You put my e-mails and Facebook postings on a wrist watch and I’ll need a hat with an extension arm that holds a magnifying glass so I can read the darned thing.  Scroll back up ‘ the trend is toward BIGGER screens.  On my wrist?  Come on.

This next one is just personal preference I guess, and maybe I’m swayed by past experience, but do I have to grow a beard now? Really?  Beards are in?  Seriously?  I saw ‘beard oil’ and even ‘whisker wash’ at the store the other day and I’m telling you I almost lost my lobster lunch on the spot.  Beard oil?  Why?  Was it squeaking?  Slowing you down on your downhill runs?  I’ve tried growing a beard a couple of times in my adult life and the results have been horrific.  The most recent time, which wasn’t all that long ago, I had people asking me to swap food stamps with them and if I knew how to fix shopping cart wheels.  Yikes.  I’m done with the facial hair thing.  No thanks.  So, I don’t need any of those ‘bearded man’ supplies this year.  Or next.

I guess this list sounds like a bunch of complaining but for me the bottom line is always the same ‘ I’d like to spend time with my family, maybe take a nap after Christmas dinner, maybe build a snowman late in the day.  OK, so this year he has to be a mudman because we still have green grass in the dooryard and the ground hasn’t frozen yet.  Fine by me.  Haven’t had but a couple of fires in the woodstove this Fall, and the heating oil tank level hasn’t changed much since last Spring.  That’s a pretty good Christmas present right there.  Anyway, as I was saying, I’m looking forward to family time for Christmas ‘ our youngest got home from college two days ago; our eldest, now out of school and working in the Big Apple at a job she loves, arrives on the 6 o’clock train tonight.  It’ll be nice to be all together again, though only for a couple of days.

Special thanks to you, our customers, for supporting us this year. We’re incredibly grateful to you, and can’t thank you enough for continuing to spread the Brettuns Village name around.  Eighteen years into this game and, well, we can’t thank you enough.  From all of us here at BV worldwide HQ, best wishes for a Merry Christmas, and a rip-tailed snorter of a New Year, as my grandmother, Elizabeth Churchill, would have put it.  Now get to bed so’s Santa can get in the living room and do his job.

Thanks- Churchill Barton, Manager BrettunsVillage

It’s hard to say, but, well, just the first thing that comes to mind, more or less, is that out there somewhere are people with pet sting rays, and maybe some of those pet sting rays are looking a little shabby.  Age, outdoors too much, shark encounters, stepped on by overweight tourists down near Panama City, or whatever.  So, if it looks like your sting ray could use a new coat, boy oh boy do we have you covered with this week’s Deal of the Week.

Cool pigskin leather panels, polyurethane coated, and molded with a very convincing sting ray pattern.  Priced to move, as we have several hundred of these things here and we’d rather you had them there.  Where you are.  You get the idea.  Whilst you check out these sting ray panels over there in the DOTW department be sure to look at the past deals that are still active.  Jingle bells.  Bazillions of them.  $10 per 100 bells, USA shipping included.  Show some mercy.

Need a thick piece of leather that’s about the same size as s sheet of plywood?  We recently reduced pricing on our thick (9 oz) double butts, caramel finish.  Tanned for making belts, this is a sturdy leather at low cost ($135 for half a steer, 48-state shipping included).  View our Vegetable Tanner Leathers here.

Feels like summer upcountry – stayed at the camp last night and swam the dogs until the lightning and thunder seemed to be getting too close.  Labrador retrievers, as it turns out, sleep very soundly for a lot of hours if you can get them to swim about a mile in the late evening.  Works like a charm so tuck that one away in your dog training bag of tricks.

Hope your summer is going well – be sure to Like us on Facebook for DOTW updates and other useless information.

Thanks-

Churchill Deputy Commissioner for Tennis Ball Throwing Brettuns Village Leather Lewiston, Maine

Winter it’s right here in our laps, and it’s been stuck here since Thanksgiving week.  No let-up, no January Thaw, no strange warm breezes other than the hot air that spews from our office folks.  Winter.

We’re in Maine.  We embrace winter.  We long for it during those pathetic, insect-ridden off months known as Spring, Summer, and Fall in some parts of this great land, though we seem to squeeze all 3 of those seasons into eight weeks of hard sledding up this way.  We’re Mainers.  We have the hats, gloves, britches, long underwear, fleece vests, wool socks, sock liners, and snow machine suits to help us ignore the temperature.  At the gas station when you get to the cash register you can’t help but notice all the cool lighters, air fresheners with NASCAR drivers on them, e-cigs, corncob pipes, key chains, and lucky coins that are sold there, but our eyes often focus on the HotHands – miraculous little packets that, when removed from their wrapper, magically heat up so’s you can put them in your gloves or shove the blessed things into your boots or just do like Charlie and drop them right down the front of your drawers (not recommended).  We know how to get through Winter.  We just don’t know how to get through THIS Winter.

Maybe it’s just me.  Maybe it’s my age.  In February I turned 117.  Well, it seems that way.  I walk all hunched over, my legs are so sore I almost checked myself into the clinic to ask if they’d be able to remove my nerves from both legs.  Just yank em out.  My head hurts.  My arms are killing me.  Is it age, or is it the fact that last night, until about 9pm, I scraped and chiseled and scraped and banged and scraped about four inches of crusty, ice-ridden frozen armor off of the driveway over at the Barton Farm?  Maybe it’s both.  Bottom line?  Here it is:  This Winter is a test.

The last several winters up Maine way have been on the mild side.  If I remember correctly, last Winter I ran the Frozen Precipitation Relocater (snow blower) only four times.  The Winter before that it was three times.  This Winter I ran that thing so many times in early December the gasket blew out of the carburetor bowl so hard that it almost broke Window Pane 16-7 in the Trunk Storage Barn.  It’s still stuck there.  That was the first week in December, and I don’t think the engine on that thing has cooled down all the way since then.  Fix it, run it, fix it, run it, and on and on.  A snow blower will heave snow just so far, and you can determine that distance, at our place, by the positioning of a new mountain range that none of us recall as having been there in the dooryard last Fall.

It’s a test.  Are we really Mainers?  Do we really smile like those maddeningly attractive folks you see all through the latest LL Bean catalog?  Smile as we scrape the windshield for the 123rd morning in a row?  Smile as we lug another load of cordwood down cellar to the wood stove that’s been keeping us toasty since late September?  Smile as we strap on the snowshoes for yet another trek through the woods out back, to clean out wood duck nesting boxes?  Well, yes, that one does make us smile.  Again, this Winter is a test.

Tonight we’re supposed to have temperatures right around zero degrees in our part of Maine.  Maybe a few degrees below zero, but what difference does it make?  Cold is cold.  At some point over the weekend they tell us to expect to top 30 degrees F.  If we can get to 32.1 then those maple trees that mark the property line along the stone wall will activate their roots, sending the signal to force water upward and branchward, and sugaring season will be underway at last.  Bring it on.  At this point, 32 degrees sounds like one heck of a heat wave.

Well, I guess I’m not Mr. Rosey Outlook today, for which I apologize.  Fact is, I know what’s coming.  It starts like a trickle, and then grows to a flood.  The return of Tourist Season upcountry.  Once our ponds and lakes thaw it’s usually not long before summer cabins and camps get opened up, aired out, and readied for the season.  You know when this time of year has arrived – cause you can’t buy a mouse trap anywhere.  They’re gone.  Next thing you know you can’t drive on Route 1 on account of all the cars, and then the restaurants fill up and the best camp sites are taken and there’s no more Moose Tracks ice cream over at the Dairy TeePee and before you know it we all start wishing Winter would move back into place.  What a cycle.

Thanks for letting me get that off my mind.  Been managing to keep warm through much of this winter by doing Aerobic Box Taping, so thanks to all of you who’ve been wandering the web site, stocking your shelves.  Greatly appreciated, I hope you know that.  Some new stuff is here; thought you should know about it, so here comes the sales pitch.

Sunrise Wigwam has always been our top selling leather.  It’s naturally rustic looking, a wonderful reddish-brown color, has some pull-up to it, and the darned stuff even smells great.  Over the past decade we’ve gotten WigWam in stock, then sold it out, then gotten it back again.  This latest batch was a whopper, so we should be good for a bit.  It’s there, sold by the half-hide, on our ‘Side Leathers’ page.  Don’t need an entire side?  No problem, we also got in (today) double shoulders of the same leather.  See the Double Shoulders page for those.  Great way to save some money.  Back on the Sides page, by the way, we also got in Crazy Horse in a heavy side leather, waxy and waterproof; this is a wonderful leather.  While you’re there, also take a look at Pit Row, Black Bart, and Black Tag ‘ three nice side leathers that are all blacker then the inside of a moose.  Here’s a link to our Leather Hides page; you can jump from there to the Sides or Double Shoulders pages:

https://brettunsvillage.com/leather

Where are our Purple People?  You know who you are.  Check out the Purple Boot Laces on the Leather Laces page.  Screaming purple boot laces, 72″ long, available in pairs, groups of 10, or bundles of 100.  We love how well purple leather does for us on the site.  It’s like a sub-culture thing.  Either you’re into purple or you’re not.  If you’re not, maybe you should still take a look at our laces – several new colors are in stock and just waiting to be poked through eyelets or wrapped around walking sticks or strung around necks.  They have that look about them.

Would you look at that – it’s Friday.  How’d that happen?  These weeks just sort of float on downriver.  Under the ice, I mean.  It’ll be April before we know it and then there can only be about, what?  Five or six more weeks of Winter?  Yikes.

Thanks for reading and for visiting our site- Churchill Barton Corporate Literature Department Co-Chair Brettuns Village, Inc. Lewiston, Maine 

It’s nice to see some green color out in the dooryard again; the grass is coming along, doing its part to chase winter away.  Still, the radio station weather guy said to expect snow tomorrow, so I guess we’re not ready to switch to sandals and shorts quite yet. Spring in Maine is known for highly variable weather, even with all this global warming going on, so things are still a bit nippy around here.  Another month should have us in the clear, and the grass will need to be mowed even before then most likely. I’m always glad to get back on the tractor at this time of year, as it means that I’ll soon have blackflies zipping right up my nostrils and directly into my brain, but if you take your hands off the steering wheel to swat at the bugs the tractor takes that Correolis-induced hairpin to the right, landing you right in the compost pile.  There goes the tractor, heading for the next farm over.  Darn it.

Last week our Deal of the Week here at Brettuns Village Leather was our most popular edition since we started the Deal game.  I thought it’d be a good one, but even I didn’t expect to see so many of you lining up to buy brand new 2010 Ford hybrid vehicles for only $100 each as part of their initial test marketing campaign. I thought Ford was crazy to try it, but the cars are well made and it’s tough to argue with a brand new car for a hundred bucks flat.  When they threw in free delivery to your driveway and the first year of gas for free I almost fell off my hay bale.  If you missed it don’t worry ‘ I’m sure we’ll engage in another such Deal of the Week sometime in 2040. Pretty sure.  Don’t hold me to it.  Have you been checking the Deal of the Week every Wednesday?  You’d have looked good in a new car.  Just my opinion.

Once the new cars had sold out, and thanks to all 2,500 of you who took advantage of that Deal, a lot of you turned to our next best Deal of the Week, which was 3 of our Putty Calf hides for $40 flat, with the usual free shipping to any address in the 48 contigupullingyourlegamus United States.  That calf hide pile is growing shorter by the hour around here.  I think we’ll leave them on the Deal list until we sell them out; meanwhile, we updated the Deal of the Week today to include our Gator-Embossed sheep hides (3 hides for $40, 48-state shipping included). Our past Deals of the Week have been left on the site until they sell out ‘  so our list now includes:

3 Gator Embossed Sheep Hides:  $40 3 Putty Calf Hides:  $45 Thundercloud Full Cowhides  $100 flat 4 Basket Weave Suede Hides:  $50 10 Lined Pigskins for $50 flat and that’s a lot of leather per dollar right there 50 Woven Leather Panels for $25 Yellow Lizard Print Cowhide Sides  $35 each 100 pairs of Crystal Tassels for $20 flat 10 Pounds of Sheep Shearling Scrap Pieces for $25 1000 Fabric Flower Decorations for $25 flat and that’s enough flowers to start your own country and name it Holland Part Deux

Once again ‘ all of these prices include shipping within the 48 states and for those of you in AK and HI we’ll do our best to use flat rate boxes and will give you free shipping too on as much of this stuff as we can.  Do you get the idea that we could use some room in the warehouse?  You’d better believe it.

Looking for a rather firm leather in a dark reddish brown color, 6 oz?  We’ve sure got it.  Check out our Cognac sides on the Sides & Hides page.  We love this leather, and I think you will too. Great leather, from USA cows, and it’s tanned and finished right here in the USA too.  You can see it right about here:

https://brettunsvillage.com/leather/sides.htm

We’ve also added quite a few new hides to the Clearance page.  Some bright colors, some dark leathers, some full hides, some partial sides ‘ a little bit of everything.  That page, last time I ran across it, was sitting here:

https://brettunsvillage.com/leather/sides/

The Clearance page is a lot of fun lately ‘ we’ve got pillows on there, and snake skins, and shoe lasts (little plastic feet that you build your slippers around), and groups of suitcase handles, piles of shoelaces, bags of snap hooks, and some other stuff that I can’t remember.  Might be worth a look if you need something.

So, don’t put the snow shovel away and for the love of Mike don’t push those peas into the garden quite yet; snow’s coming back tomorrow, give or take, and even though it might not stick it’ll still feel cold all day and the driving will be challenging.  This is Maine, after all.  Good thing those new Fords are front-wheel drive.

Thanks- Churchill Barton Lead Sales Tech, Imaginary Automobile Division Brettuns Village Lewiston, Maine

Greetings from Maine-

What I like about June is that we begin to get some warm weather, so it’s usually safe to put away the long underwear, thermal socks, and some of the sweaters that we’ve worn like survival gear since the 1st of October.  Sadly, thanks to Global Warming I guess, it’s still darned cold up Maine way.  The long underwear are still deployed, and even with the sun shining in through the window here at BV Worldwide Headquarters, scenically overlooking the sewage treatment plant in Lewiston, I’ve got on those thick socks and a polar fleece sweater. It’ll warm up a bit later in the day, but it’s not there yet.  By the end of this month we should feel some heat, though it may only be emanating from the fire pit out back.  At least the snow has melted around town.

Updated the Weekly Deal this morning – we stuck our woven leather panels on there for you, and knocked the price back by a third.  We also put our Evergreen suede hides on sale there at $11 each (sold in groups of 5 hides for $55).  Free shipping within the 48 condealerous United States, and we can do free shipping for AK and HI on those woven panels, thanks to the US Postal Service.

Check it out – our Weekly Deal is updated every Wednesday morning.

Here’s another quick note – a way to save $5.  We have our own line of setting tools, made right here in Maine for us, and we just put a group together at a discounted price.  You can get our rivet splash tool, our large eyelet setter, and our small eyelet setter for $40 flat.  Shipping included for our USA customers.  You know the drill. See this on our Tools page.  If you feel like it.

OK, let’s get back to work.  Busy hands make light work or whatever. Have a great mid-week-

Churchill Brettuns Village Leather Maine (state motto: “As Cold as it Sounds”) 

Bad times? Says who.

Churchill Barton, left, goes through some pieces of leather with customer Tobey, who came from Bristol, N.H., to visit the store that is only open a few hours each week. The majority of business is done online.  Russ Dillgham photo

By Kathryn Skelton , Staff Writer Sunday, May 3, 2009

Local businesses say it’s possible to buck the trend and do great in a down economy. “Expect to find bullet holes, arrow holes, scratches, cuts, and even tire tread marks, we kid you not.” His online store, BrettunsVillage.com, offers deer, elk, goat, sheep, cow and fish hides, all with a side of humor. (“What is this type of leather good for? You tell us and then we’ll all know.”) Barton, who runs the company from a Lewiston warehouse, seems to have hit on something of a secret formula: Keep the customer entertained and keep the price right, and that will keep products moving. He sells to Cub Scout den mothers, costumed pirates and the Coast Guard. Business is, in fact, growing. “We’re way ahead of last year; it’s huge,” Barton said. Perhaps surprisingly, he isn’t alone. All over Western Maine, companies say they’re having a great year, even expanding, as gloomy headlines warn they should be doing anything but.

“I was talking to my accountant – I thought maybe I was a weird bird doing well in tough economic times,” said Don Grant, vice president of Grant’s Bakery in Lewiston. “He says, ‘No, I’ve got two or three restaurants doing as well as you are.’” Some have tweaked their strategies.  Barton is marketing more aggressively. Betsy Dorr is stocking a wider price range on her Quilt Essential shelves in Auburn. A few are benefiting from others’ downturns: Heather Rideout suspects some of her file-shredding business used to be done in-house at companies that have since cut jobs. Now her File-Busters in Lisbon is looking for a bigger space.

Some had expansion plans in the works before the economy started to sour last fall and decided to go for it anyway. “We never turned back. I think the economy’s helping us without a doubt,” said Kristen Glazier, who with husband, Jim, opened the Roaring Brook Farm & Garden Market in Sabattus in mid-April, a roadside stop for local produce and grow-your-own fans. It complements their Roaring Brook Nurseries. There is a lot of “back to the basics in this economy,” Glazier said. “We’re really gearing up for gardeners.”

A sign of the times? Now hiring Barton credits his success to old-school business advice. Listen to the customer. Pay attention to (and try to outdo) the competition. Watch your money. “When it started turning bad last fall, then we started paying attention to how we spend our advertising dollars,” he said. He also “dramatically increased” that budget. The company sells dog supplies, antique keys and restored trunks in addition to the odd stock of industrial leather. He said he’s close to adding a sixth person to the payroll.

Jen McEntee, director of customer care for Barclaycard U.S. in Wilton, anticipates hiring 20 throughout 2009, bringing staff up to 105. The contact center opened last May with just 10 people. Barclaycard issues credit cards for companies like L.L.Bean, Jo-Ann Fabric and Travelocity. Wilton answers in-bound customer calls. Corporate spokesman Kevin Sullivan said that sort of growth has been possible through business partnerships and getting a larger slice of the millions of new credit cards issued each year in the U.S.

Another call center in an upswing: NotifyMD. Its Winthrop branch will open in early May creating 16 jobs. At the Farmington branch, employment is up to 76 from 16 in 2007. Employees take mostly non-urgent daytime calls for hospitals and doctors’ offices. General Manager Sharon Cullenberg said NotifyMD has shown it can save time and money – an enticing pitch.

Dorr, the owner of Quilt Essentials in Auburn, said she’s grown with a mix of approaches, like a recent Open House and new, less expensive stock. Clientele seem younger lately. Knitting and quilting classes are filling up faster. It helps that people can do both from home and make small purchases to keep a project going, she said. “I’ve heard lots more people saying, ‘I want to make sure I’m supporting local business’ after seeing others close,” said Dorr. “People seem to be more conscious of that.”

Several business owners credited solid reputations – there’s hardly a better time when reputations come in handy as when the economy is down.

“In this kind of a market, people may not be thinking about building a new home, they might not be thinking of moving up, but needs go on,” said Dan Allen, owner of Allen & Co. in South Paris, a building and remodeling company. “Trees falling on houses happen, fires happen, roofs still need to be reroofed. Changes continue to be made.” On his backlog: a repeat customer who needs work on a barn and a surgeon, new to the area, who wants a remodel and an addition and had several people recommend Allen. “That’s the way it goes, I’m wicked established,” Allen said. All the same, he said: “Anybody that’s prospering in an economy like this should say, ‘Wow.’” ‘Right project, right time’

Glazier said her business hadn’t seen a serious capital upgrade in about 15 years. The new retail shop on Route 126 features garden supplies, two greenhouses and will stock local produce. She and her husband have big plans for their 150 acres: a pumpkin playland, new fields of pick-your-own fruit, opening the farm to school tours. “It was just the right thing for us to do at the right time. It’s a big undertaking,” she said. The business will soon go from four employees to eight.

Agren Appliance & Television in Auburn debuted a new Sit & Sleep Showroom in February with 10 beds and 20-plus recliners. Marketing Manager Paul Baribault said that second floor had been warehouse space. “We were well into the renovation when things started to get bad,” he said. “This was looked upon as a means of broadening our appeal to customers. It seems to be a good decision and we don’t regret it.” International Door Corp. in Lewiston is putting the final touches on its $100,000 upgrade, a project that added a showroom and conference space where there used to be parking lot. The old show space? An oversized bookcase. “You had the phone ringing, contractors coming in and out, and you’d be trying to sell something big using hand samples,” said President Paul Baril. “We’d say, ‘Use your imagination,’” added his son, Manager Jason Baril. The new, long room has seven to 10 full-sized garage doors on movable tracks, better to showcase the thickness, energy rating and styles, Jason said. It’s been about a 60-40 split, he said, between customers upgrading an existing door and buying one for new construction. Even now, new homes are going up. “When we can bring people in and show them, when they can touch and feel the product, we probably close 90 percent of the sales,” Paul said. He believes 2009 volume will match 2008 – a figure he would be happy with. “If you’re good at what you do, good times, bad times, it’ll work out,” Paul said.

Shoot. No more snow.  I miss it already.  Look out there in back – the grass is turning green.  Started the lawn tractor last weekend. This all leads to one inevitable situation – here comes tourist season.

In Maine, where our state’s entire economy is about the same size as the first 18 floors of one of those NYC high rises, we count on tourists to drive, fly, or boat in here with pockets spilling over with cold, hard cash.  Leave as much of it here as you can, as we’ll surely need it next September when you all go driving, flying, or sailing back from whence you came.  We’ll need it for firewood, heating oil, wood pellets, and other heating fuels, including the most popular one, Coffee Brandy.  Here comes summer, and don’t forget that we’re counting on your support.

No recession here in the barn, thanks to you customers.  You’ve been doing a great job of keeping us busy, and we appreciate it.  To show our thanks we’ve been updating the Weekly Deal (on the Leather site) every Wednesday morning, and a lot of you have gotten into the habit of checking that deal out every week.  Thanks.  If you’ve forgotten to check on the Weekly Deal, let me just run through a sampling of some of our recent deals:

Wed, March 25: 200 sq ft of sheep shearling for bomber jackets, $95, free shipping

Wed, April 8:  Denim suede hides, $20 for 4 hides, free shipping

Wed, April 15: Full set of leather working tools, $4,000 value for $50 flat, free shipping

Wed, April 22: Week-long stay at the cottage on Brettuns Pond, with lobsters for your first evening’s meal, and open bar all week, $175 per group of up to 20 people (this one was really a hit and we’re now booking this into 2010 – thanks!)

Wed, April 29 – Full cowhides, upholstery leather, Dark taupe, about 60 sq ft per hide, $10 each, free shipping

I should mention that I’m going from memory on these, and I turned 50 a few weeks ago, so, well, I know the free shipping part is correct. I’m not so sure I got the rest of it right.  My point is, and right here I should stop and mention that these newsletters always have a point, even though sometimes you have to swab the newsletter and send the sample to the crime lab for DNA matching to figure out the exact point, and even then there’s a reliability factor that can be argued in court, but anyway, the point is, we’re running these Weekly Deals so you may want to mark it on your calendar, or soak your hands in a bucket of water for about three weeks until they shrink down small enough so that you can actually type on that PuckerBerry phone/device/contraption you just had to have, and stick it in the memory so that it gives you a shock or plays ‘War’ (Huah!  What is it Good For?)(now that’s stuck in your head for the rest of the day – sorry) to remind you of something important.  Sort of.

The Leather site (BrettunsVillage.Com/Leather) is gushing with new stuff. Been a while since I sent you any of these literary road kill wrappers, and in the meantime we’ve added a bunch of new leathers, beefed up the Clearance page, added 8 new types of snap hasps to the Parts/Hardware section, and even initiated a cool new software nightmare that makes little boxes show up now and then to show you even more stuff that you really don’t need but wouldn’t mind having. Very cool.  Very high-tech.  That’s a fib.

I guess the big news on the Trunk site is that we were invited to load our truck with refinished trunks and take them down to Rumson, New Jersey for display (and sale) in the Design Show House.  It’s very cool.  Quite a mansion, old enough to have a Trunk Room in it, so we filled that room with trunks and now they’re for sale. You can learn more about the place here:

http://cts.vresp.com/c/?BrettunsVillage/e4df24d082/TEST/eec2b9bda9  

Great time of year now that mud season is about behind us.  To celebrate, the black flies are out in force.  They’ll be gone soon, and then the mosquitoes will arrive.  Right after that will be our first snowfall, and then we can get back to wearing long underwear.  I rather miss it.

Thanks- Churchill

Ho Ho Ho – here he comes.  Clean out the chimney and make room for the loot; Santa’s on his way.  Got all your shopping done?  Get enough e-mails about free holiday shipping from this company or that?  Me too.

A few weeks back we made a family voyage to a bigger town than the one in which we reside, for the sole purpose of doing our Christmas shopping.  There’s a mall there with good heat, so it seemed like a good place to get the season started.  Amanda and the girls were in a frenzy in no time, zipping this way and that, this store, that store, the other store, one more store.  I found the tool section at Sears and spent a few hours comparing pliers to one another.  Eventually I wandered back out into the mall, found an open bench, and parked myself.  A young guy came up, well dressed, some motor oil or something in his hair to slick it down, and he sat on the other end of the bench.  He was very chatty, just gabbing away about the loafers he had on, which were new, and how he needed to find some socks to match his britches.  I nodded and when he paused to take a breath and I told him I had done some work in the shoe factory where those shoes used to be made, back before the production lines were moved somewhere closer to Margaritaville than Maine.  He looked at me and I saw nothing other then fear in his eyes, and then he stood up and walked away quickly.  That was when I saw that thing hooked on his ear, that little phone doo-dad, and it hit me that he had never been speaking to me; he was on the phone.  I said to myself right then and there, ‘Well, that gadget right there is something I sure as heck don’t want for Christmas.’  And I don’t.  Don’t buy me one.  I won’t wear it, won’t use it, won’t even read the instruction manual.  That’s item number one on this year’s ‘I don’t Want It’ list.

Blue Tooth – that’s what the salesman in Radio Shack told me it was called when I mentioned it to him.  Let’s make that item 2 on this year’s list.  No bluetooth anything, because I have no earthly idea what it is, and Bluetooth Incorporated should have picked a name that better describes just what it is that they do or provide or render.  Up here blue tooth means there’s mercury in your well water so you’d better call down to Poland Spring and get on their delivery route for bottled water.

I saw an ad for a cell phone that had ‘Blue Tooth Technology’ and I have to ask you is that the sort of phrase that makes you want to plunk down your paycheck for something?  Not me.  But, the cell phone itself – let’s have a look at this little gizmo.  I like my cell phone.  I can use it for the following functions: 1.  Make calls 2.  Answer calls 3.  Store up to 22 phone numbers (possibly more, but that’s all the people I know)(all the people with phone lines anyway).

I had to go renew our family’s cell phone contract the other day.  You know what I mean – that piece of paper that says “I don’t really know why but yes, I’ll pay those fees and charges and taxes and fees on the charges and taxes on the fees for two more years for no reason at all other than if I don’t do it I’ll have to store my 22 phone numbers on a piece of paper.”  While there they had me look at some new phones – I was free to choose one to go along with my new contract.  This one has a 44 megapixelated camera and stores over 1,000 songs.  That one unfolds until you have a full sized keyboard in your lap and an antenna that goes around your neck like jewelry.  I decided on the spot that the following statements are true and factual:

1.  If I want to take a picture I’ll use a camera.

2.  If I want to listen to the 43 songs on this planet that I really like I’ll listen to them in my truck on those scratched up cds that didn’t used to be scratched until That Dog walked on top of them because she claims (as if I’m stupid enough to fall for it) that she just can’t get them back in that little sleeve that’s attached to the sun visor.

3.  OK, Miss Salesperson, I’m not going for the camera phone or the entertainment center phone, so what makes you think I’d like to at least get a new tiger striped faceplate for my old phone?

I don’t need any of it.  Thanks for asking.

I don’t need a crescent wrench that has little pins in it to adjust to any size of bolt or nut.  I like digging around in my toolbox to find the right one.  How else will I ever find that 1968 Tigers pin with attached dangling gold baseball bat that I thought I’d lost?

I don’t need a can of spray paint for the top of my head nor a manicure set nor electric carving knife nor just about anything that has that ‘AS SEEN ON TV’ label on it.  Don’t need a spiral cut ham (Fred gave me a great knife that does the cutting perfectly), a wrist watch that costs more than $30 nor a hydration pack.  Remember when we used to call that a canteen?  Now they strap it on your back and run a tube to your maw, like you’re strapped in a hospital bed.  I’ll save that for the final stages of my existence, thank you very much.  For now, if I need to bring water with me I’ll just lug a bottle or my old Boy Scout canteen (Eagle Scout, 1976).  Hydration pack?  You’ve got to be kidding me.

Let’s finish this year’s list with a bang.  I don’t know where you stand on this auto maker bailout program – you stand wherever you want.  For me, I have this to say to those Detroit buffoons:  I’d be in favor of a bailout if just one of you Einsteins would move the radio antenna to the rear of the vehicle, so that I can scrape the ice and snow off my windshield without that thing slapping me in the face.  I realize that snow or ice have never fallen on any part of Michigan or the other central states where these vehicles get slapped together, so it’s clear that none of you have any experience with clearing a windshield.  Let me explain – you start on the driver’s side, which makes no sense because when you then switch to the passenger’s side all the snow and ice you’re chipping away flies back onto the driver’s side – but you do it anyway because it’s easier than the passenger’s side.  When you get over there, you reach up to start chiseling away at whatever brand of armor plating Mother Nature has decided to spew on your windshield, and then there it is – pain in the cheekbone area, swelling, watery eye on that side, and a drop, just a drop, of blood.  Darned antenna.

I’ve grabbed that thing a number of times right after that first impact, ready to tear it from the truck and be done with it once and for all, but then I remember how it’s the only way I can get the station to come in so that I can complain that they don’t play any good music and all the news is from Massachusetts anyway.  So, it’s there, slightly bent, and I hate it.  Yes, I used the word hate and I mean it.  No bailout for you auto companies until that thing is hidden or moved away from where I have to do my morning routine.  I’m sorry that this may mean that your companies have to operate under bankruptcy protection for a while, but think of it like this – if, during the design stage, you came up with a vehicle that paid even a small amount of attention to the human that may eventually end up owning it, you might actually sell a few of them.  No kidding.  This Christmas, I don’t want anything you’re making.  Just because of antenna placement?  Yes, because it represents everything you’ve been cranking off the line since your last good vehicle, which was in the mid 1960s.  That and those ridiculous miniature spare tires you so politely provide.

Boy do I feel better.  I hope you do too.  If not, try working out for a while with any sort of exercise device that’s been endorsed by Suzanne Somers.  You can have it, because I don’t want it.  Not this Christmas anyway.

On a lighter note, and a much more serious note – my wish for you this Christmas is joy, peace, and a good night’s sleep.  Go out of your way to smile, share a little, and enjoy this season.  Truly the most wonderful time of the year, so let’s make the most of it.  From all of us at Brettuns Village, a very Merry Christmas-

Churchill Owner of a digital coyote caller (coolest gift ever)

July 4th has come and gone, so summer is in full swing in Maine, for at least another few weeks.  Here at Brettuns Village Trunk Shop the humidity level is off the charts, and the little electronic weather station on the window sill just blinks:  “You’re Now Underwater – Please Hold Your Breath.”  Just walking through the barn makes you sweat, and the very sight of the trunks stacked up in there only worsens the situation. I just have to hang in there for about eight more weeks – then we’ll be back to some reasonable temperatures, somewhere south of 60 degrees. Best part of the year.

Looking for a project trunk?  We’ve got a lot of them out there, and have added a few to our ‘Sold As-Is’ page on the site. On that page we sell trunks that have not been refinished – just the way they are, complete with the dust and grime of the ages on the outside, and on the inside you can usually find one old sock, a broken keychain, a feather from a canary, the arm off a GI Joe doll (left), an empty coin purse that appears to have been made by hand, three paper clips, a bar of Ivory soap still in the wrapper (supposed to keep the trunk smelling fresh), 2 cents, 4 newspaper clippings (cookie recipes), a mesh bag with a bunch of pine needles in it (in case the Ivory soap doesn’t work I guess), one marble, a house key, and two hairpins. That’s about the average list of hoo-hah we find in these trunks. Anyway, if you’d like to find a project trunk, might be worth a look at the ‘As=Is’ page.  The prices you’ll see there include shipping to any location in the 48 contiguous United States, so the price you see is the price you pay.  Like a used car lot.  Here’s a link to that page:

https://brettunsvillage.com/trunks/forsale/ready.html

We’re certainly deep into yard sale season at this point in the summer, which means when I wander into the office on Monday morning I get a bunch of e-mails that pretty much say the same thing:

“I found an old trunk, I don’t think you’ve ever seen one like it before, but it’s real nice although there are some stains and something moldy in it but anyway it has metal wheels on the bottom and wood slats on the top and sides and the handles are broken and how much is it worth and oh yeah guess what I got it at a yard sale for five bucks LOL!

If you’ve sent us one of these on a recent (within the last 19 years) Monday, you’ve probably received the ‘generic response’ that goes out every Monday:

“Many trunks of this style were made in the late 1800s by contract manufacturers and then sold through catalogs such as Sears or Wards. It’s common to not be able to find a maker’s label or tag because the retailers wouldn’t allow the maker to put their own name on the trunk.  In general, trunks like this sold for around $2.75 brand new. The largest contract factories were Seward Trunk & Bag in Petersburg, VA, Taylor Trunk of Michigan, and MM Secor in the Midwest, so there’s a reasonable chance that your trunk was made by one of these companies. If you’re interested, we offer an appraisal service that provides a complete written report; more information about this service is available on our website.”

We get great responses to this, including my personal favorite:

“I don’t want to pay for an appraisal, I just need to know how much it’s worth you idiot.”

I love my job. Yes, like so many other professions, it’s the customers who make it memorable.  Still, I can’t imagine a better line of work.  Maybe if we started finding rare coins or unmounted diamonds or platinum ingots or first edition Hemingway novels signed by old Hem himself or Al Kaline’s original bat then the job would seem even better, but it’s pretty difficult to envision it gaining any ground over how it already is.  Next time you’re banging a trunk around inside the garage you’ll see what I mean.  I think.

Stay cool and calm- Churchill Barton Brettuns Village