What follows is a story about an immortal fridge, a dead crab named Ichabod, root beer, and The Golden Rule.
Do you remember those really old refrigerators that had a gargantuan pull handle that went ka-klunk, the kind that might be described, chillingly, in the dark in the basement in the pages of a Steven King book? They hummed along, day and night, loudly compressing moisture out of the air and pushing that cool, dry goodness into a can of wet soda pop.
My grandparents had one. It was in their farmhouse cellar, filled with A&W Root Beer for me, Mountain Dew for my Grandpa and sister, and a Pony Pack of Miller Lights for my mom. 8 oz’ was all she could handle, so a Pony Pack would last for 6 visits — no more, no less. My grandparents would make my sister and I wait until after dinner, and then give us the go ahead to get ourselves drinks, as long as we took orders from the adults and brought something up for them as well. It was scary and dimly lit down in the cellar, but, I mean, come on — there’s Root Beer down there, so let’s go, sis, and hold my hand.
The Pony Packs didn’t actually make it 6 visits — 2 or 3 if I’m being honest — but it makes my mom look bad if I say anything less than 4.
I was still pulling drinks out of there in 2004, when my Grandma finally moved out after my Grandpa passed away. Mind you, this rusty, clunky, chunky old white grandma fridge was built in the 1950s, and I’d give it a better than zero chance it’s still being used by whoever bought the farm house. I’m sure it weighed more than a horse, so it’s at least still down there, even if it did eventually croak after 50+ years.
Speaking of croaking, sometimes there were frogs in the cellar, sunning in the dark. My Grandma scrubbed the ancient cement floor with bleach — indeed — but a farm frog is always gonna find a cool cellar in the summer. In the middle of the room, two raw wooden tree trunk-lookin’ things held the entire house up. And on a shelf, in a small aquarium bowl, remained the remains of Ichabod, a hermit crab we killed when we moved from Colorado to Minnesota in a vintage 1980 January. 10 year old Steve didn’t know that a crab can’t handle minus 20F temps in the back of a 1974 Ford LTD Country Squire station wagon. We put him down there, thinking “he might wake up,” and that’s where he stayed, trying to play dead longer than the fridge could stay alive. He might lose that bet — the fridge was built when companies served their customers well. I’m sure he’s still sitting there, hiding in the aquarium rocks, keeping a quiet watch on things, his perfect dead claws sticking out ready to grab any sister named Heidi who stood in front of a brother named Steve who said, “Boo!”
I don’t know why I remember this beast of an appliance with such clarity — was it the handle? The Root Beer? My Grandma showing me how to open a beer bottle with my bare hands when I was maybe 11? I dunno. But I think of it a lot more than most things I should have forgotten.
Keep reading. I’ll come back to this.
I was at a tuba show at the end of Jan, in Arlington, VA. Every 3rd tuba player was walking around that show carrying one of our bags — there had to have been 500 tubists attending, and the room sounded like a recorded bee hive tuned down 6 octaves. Note: I said “tubists,” not “people.” There’s a difference. A LOT of them were old, like, 15 and 20 years old — the bags, silly — and many of the proud owners came up to confirm what we already knew: There was nothing wrong with their bag, folks, after all those years. “Do you have one that fits the new Meinl Weston?” They’d ask.
“Of course we do!”
But that’s not the punchline you’re looking for. It’s not even a punchline. Hang with me, now.
I recently took over the Cronkhite and Torpedo Bags sales@ inboxes, and I took the opportunity to write 13 template responses to save my time and sanity. I honed my response to “Can you design a bag for this double-barreled trombone?” and I carefully crafted one for the 19 people who ask me every day, “Where’s the case I ordered?”
I get it — it’s coming — you’re gonna love it — ask the cats at that tuba show who never have to buy a bag again.
The template I wrote for the First Time Buyer, though, took up almost a full day for me. I really wanted to reveal to people how our bags are actually different.
Fundamentally, holistically, plainly … different.
I put what I wrote at the bottom of this email, in case you want to see it. It’s a good summation of the case I’ve been trying to make for 25 years, and the reason I knew I’d be a good match for Glenn’s line 8 years ago. After 25 years of trying not to rip anyone off, I started asking myself … why.
Why do I make bags and cases of such high quality?
The answer is no joke.
Wait. Is there a joke coming up? Is it a dad joke? A bad joke? A bad dad joke? Dang, I hope so.
A few weeks after the tuba show, I drove to a huge store in the midwest. Huge, as in “one employee bathroom has 40 sinks” huge. I took it upon myself to create a new brochure for this trip, and spent a day marrying my philosophy of design to a specification list of all the ways in which we meet the philosophy.
I ended up with two parts:
Why we make bags that don’t fall apart — the philosophy of junk bags vs. bags made like my Grandma’s fridge.
And…
How we make bags that don’t fall apart — the list of techniques and materials.
The how, I discovered through this thought exercise, has to follow the why. Think about it: “Why? Because I want to be associated with quality” has a much different How? than, “Why? Because I want to make a lot of money selling a voluminous quantity of cheap bags, which I want to fall apart so I can sell the same bag to the same person 3 years later.”
The “How?” ——> follows ——> The “Why?”
The sales people I was there to inform came up to my table, one by one:
“Here: Hold this stick bag in your hands. It screams quality, right? [Obvious yes’s all around] Look: When a customer calls and you introduce them to our line, at first they’re going to be skeptical at the premium. At first they’re going to think you’re trying to wring some extra bit of their cash from their wallet. But when it arrives? They will immediately know that you were steering them in the right direction, and you will be their best friend. But, if you sell them any other brand, it’s gonna die on purpose in 2-3-4 years. And you will be nothing more to them than a salesman who does not enjoy their loyalty. Who will sell more in the long term: Their best friend … or a salesman?”
I got this from a tubist the other day — I probably get one of these every week:
“I’ve been meaning to send this to y’all but have just now gotten the chance.
I recently bought my first Cronkhite gig bag for my F tuba and I wasn’t sure what I would think of your product. A couple weeks after I received my order I took my first audition in seven years, having not played much that entire time. I felt good, strong, and had planned every detail so I’d have a stress free audition.
As I was unpacking my instruments from my car and loading them on a rolling device I use, one of the worst things imaginable happened: While situating my instruments with bungee cords, my F tuba, in the Cronkhite, starting falling toward the ground of the parking lot. It was terrible watching this happen in slow motion, but I couldn’t stop it. The horn hit the ground hard and I was sure my audition was over before it started.
I quickly scrambled and opened the bag to assess the damage, but the gig bag actually protected the horn enough so that no damage was done. I was so relieved. The audition went well and I ended up in the finals. That wouldn’t have been possible without my horn and the horn wouldn’t have made it without your bag. Thanks for making a great product! I have a …[censored] Bag I love for my C tuba but have decided to switch to a Cronkhite for that horn. Mostly because it’s so heavy and I don’t think it would have protected the instrument like the Cronkhite did.
Again, thank you for a great product.
Best,
Justin”
Tubas weigh a lot more than a sax or a guitar. Our bags can carry 30 pounds or more, every day, for 10-20-30-40 years, and the tuba world thanks us for making them so well. On the other hand, I had a buddy in the shop with his brand new tuba and the OEM bag that came with it — a major brand — and there were already 6 things broken on the bag, from stitches to clips to zippers. It was 6 days old!
I saw a new keyboard bag in a store I was at, a brand everyone knows. I saw that the main zipper was already broken — Still in the plastic! It likely hadn’t even been unzipped a single time, and…
it…
was…
BROKEN!
Arrgghh! We don’t have to put up with this! I’m literally here for you.
You’ve heard of the Golden Rule, right?
Treat others the way you want to be treated.
This is magically both the how and the why of it.
Treat others the way you want to be treated.
I’ve been in this industry a long time, and I’m convinced I don’t have a single competitor.
Now go get some Root Beer for yourself, say hi to Ichabod, and bring up that Pony Pack for my mom. It’s in the fridge, in the basement, enduring in my memory because the maker gave a damn.
–Steve
PS: Don’t slip on a frog, yo.
All right, I teased a joke —>
“Did you hear about the bass player who was so despondent about his time that he threw himself behind a bus?”
Amen, sister.
Discuss the merits of the case with your trumpet.
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