Click to expand 
If Mr. Rogers had a hardware store in the neighborhood, David Corey could have been its clerk. In his customary organization of pressed Navy shirt, NEET Slax and Brown Lace-Up Oxford, Burlington natives congratulates everyone who enters City Hardware in 156 College Street, with a cheer, “looking for something special?”
Then Kori focuses on them with its big brown eyes and what really needs them. Sometimes he asks for some clear questions before bidding for the correct corridor in a 4,000 square foot shop. “Come with me,” he warmly invites, a colorful display of organic vegetable seed packets on sale for $ 1 or navigate a table of Caulk tubes.
Lola Vesan, a student of Vermont, said, “He always treats people with the same level gravity, kindness and vigilance.”
If David was a fan club, Vesan could be its president, although he would have some contenders.
A recent thread on the online forum reddit paid tribute to the City Hardware Sales Associate. It began with an all-cap declaration: “He is a angel that we should cherish and protect at all costs.”
The post was extended 139 times, and more than a dozen fans expanded Corey’s generous hand with their dogs and their constant calm, kind and supportive conduct.
“David is one of those who leave you behind and remember that there are still really good people,” the user name was written by a reditor with Lesenchi.
“I don’t even need to go [to] Currently, the hardware store, but I can go to the city’s hardware in the presence of Dave, “Secure_MainTAINCE21 wrote.
Brainon Gahatier, a city hardware regularly which resides some blocks from the store was among those who weighed in their posts. Gauthier remembered playing “basketball” with Corey, bouncing the receipt between them and between them. “He once laid it down,” Gauthier wrote it.
Gauthier explained on the phone that he not only appreciates Kori, but also has a “hearty, positive” thread in a virtual community in which the discourse leads to negative.
City Hardware also represents a bright space in a city that currently faces several challenges, including public safety, drug use and concerns over crime. Gauthier said that the atmosphere welcoming the store embodied by the clerk “is like a little back from everything.”
When Corey heard about the Reddit Thread, he was tickled – although he did not know what the Redit was. He has a cellphone, but does not take it. “I never tell my age,” Kori said. “I wish I was younger,” he said, “he said that he is” slightly smaller “than the presidential candidates.
Corey grew up in the five children’s Burlington “Smack in Smack”. He said that he had lived in the North Avenue House since the age of 2 and attended the Rice Memorial High School in South Burlington, “When the nuns were there, they were back.”
Many locals know the white, slate-stricken house of the blank, which is ready for its summer of colored flowers growing around a clean picket fence. He is very proud of his gardens and said that many of his city customers live in apartments. “You can change the entire look of your house with a garden,” he said.
Each spring, Kori buys dozens of sunpains, petunis and zinias and gives them saplings just before Memorial Day. “It used to be a day’s work,” he said. “Now I’m big, this is a three -day work.”
The former employee of the IBM Accounting Department was hired on the spot, when he applied for his part -time position in City Hardware, about six months after opening in January 2019.
“I wanted to do something, and I thought [the store] It was small and comfortable, ”Kori said, saying that small traffic and additional income were motivated. “I enjoy helping people. I get away from my house. I get some exercise. ,
Corey also believes in the value of the store. “Downtown needs this hardware store,” he said. The nearest hardware store is the Curtis Lumbar on Pine Street; Before the opening of City Hardware, downtown had not had a hardware store since Hagger Hardware on Church Street in the 1990s.
“It was a device desert,” Nii Arber said, who lives in the city before the store opens. “I was very excited when City Hardware came … David is like a beautiful glowing star there.”
The scene of the purchase of Burlington has changed dramatically since the late 1960s, when Corey first worked in the retail field on the Church Street in books and stationery books and stationery – all have gone now. He was very good at this, he said that the employers hunted him each other.
Corey thrives when helping people know what they need and help to ensure that they are not spending money on unnecessary things.
“You are with a problem in a hardware store, which you need to solve, and he intends to help you solve it with compassion and warmth,” Ryan Bergman said, who bought a fixer-upper in Burlington just before the epidemic. “It’s not a foil.” It is authentic. ,
Being a Leo, Kori said that he was born for a job. Leos “are” outgoing. They like people, and people are attracted to them, “he said.
“I should have been retail throughout my life,” they reflected.
Walt Tumans, who manage City Hardware and two other ace hardware locations in the northern Vermont, stated that Kori is a model employee, “Always exit, his shirttails in tuck, in every hair place, clean in the form of a pin.” His credibility was particularly valuable during the epidemic, Tuman said: “He will show and do anything you asked.”
If a customer comes to buy a cans of paint, in detail, Kori “will ask if they need a paintbrush, not that he is trying to sell them something else, but to save them another journey in the store.”
The manager surprised because he described some of his employee’s bizarreness: “He always calls me Walter, never a vault, and he always refers to himself in a third person. He says, “Walter, you have again made David Corey the most popular man on Church Street.”
It is difficult to say whether Corey is more popular with its human or canine customers. Recently during a quiet week’s afternoon shift, in defense of a small mixed breed, Dillon worked so hard to his tail when looking at Corey that it seemed that it could look like a dog.
“Does he want a treatment?” Corey questioned the owner of Willow Stein, Dillon, who lives in Shellburn, but works above the store and popped downwards to buy a multicolored disco ball light. “It’s not adorable?” Corey happily dropped a dog down on a dog’s biscuit. “Dogs love to come here,” Kori said. “They want to live with David.”
Some time later, Corey was busy helping a series of customers. He spent several minutes to find through the drawer of screws just for the right for a local apprentice. Then he did mathematics to showcase that the man would be better than buying a box than 20 personal screws.
When another customer inquired about an outdoor extension cord, Kori took him to the corridor and asked that he was planning to plan power with it to recommend the best option.
A young woman came for a vacuum and hanger. Corey showed him a hoover brand model and said, “It is also Bisel, which is sufficient for most apartments.” It is only $ 38 and also turns into a handheld. ,
She settled on a small vacuum. Corey pulled over a steplder to reach the hangar from a high hook, he moved everything to the front counter. As he peck the order in the register, he re -examined, “This is $ 38. Is that alright? ”
After discovering more than 10 minutes for goods in another customer list, Corey looked almost sad that the city hardware was lacking. He made several recommendations to investigate other shops.
Joah Goldberg contacted the register with materials that he gathered to finish a bathroom tiling project. Goldberg said he lives close to and appreciates Kori’s knowledge that he appreciates the time and time in investing in each interaction. Goldberg said, “He has always been able to help detect better products,” recalling the valuable advice of the clerk, on which the ant mesh will most effectively solve an infection.
Click to expand 
Next week, Holi Bachelder of Burlington dropped from the walls of a condo to clean the kerosene heater soot by demanding a trisodium phosphate. Corey admitted that he was unfamiliar with the product and asked a colleague to ask it to look at the inventory system – something that he had earlier accepted that he had not mastered. Meanwhile, he began to consider other options for the BATCELDER, including Spic and Spain and Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. He said, “Lestoil will do it, but it is very smelly,” he said, his nose wrinkles with wrinkles.
“He is the most supportive man in the world,” said Batchelder. “He is Mr. Mr helpful.”
When the other clerk emerged from the back of the store with a tub of Tricodium phosphate, Corey asked the batchelder how she would use it. The next time someone comes with that need, he will be ready to help.