If I Can Be An Inventor You Can Too

My inspiration was a one time thing; A stroke of cleverness

I’ve had a number of careers: 6th grade school teacher, investment firm owner, radio station owner, real estate firm owner. However, the time that I enjoyed the most was the time that I invented the Window Sash Hanger and took it to market.

There are people that earn a living, become wealthy, from inventing one thing after another. I’m far from that.

My inspiration was a one time thing. A stroke of cleverness.

I was looking out of the window of an empty apartment when I was checking it out for a tenant’s deposit return. The view was a brick wall about 10 yards away.

Wouldn’t it be great if the next tenant in this apartment could hang a plant in that window; something to look at other than a brick wall? Maybe even a bird feeder on the outside — living large.

Even better if the tenant didn’t put screws in my wall or holes in my woodwork? When the lease was over, no trace the bracket was ever there?

This discovery was one and only inspiration, my lifetime masterpiece; the Window Sash Hanger. The challenge was; almost all window sashes are a different size. They range in thickness from around 1/2" to 1 3/4". The hanger had to be made to fit all thicknesses of windows. A simple IKEA like modern design with flexible metal tabs that can be molded to the top frame of the window was my claim when I applied for the patent.

After presenting the product to a number of manufacturers with little success, I was able to partner with Novelty Manufacturing of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

We were in business. After a successful couple appearances on QVC, we were able to get on board with Ace Hardware, TrueValue Hardware, Boscovs, lawn and garden shops nationwide — to name a few. We were even a hit at the Philadelphia Flower Show.

My love affair with the Window Sash Hanger gradually cooled. Novelty, who incidentally is the largest maker of funeral vases in the worldwide returned to featuring their vases and plastic window boxes and eventually dropped manufacturing the Window Sash Hanger.

But what a ride!

Last summer I had the good fortune to be on vacation in Vermont with my son and his family. When on an excursion to stock up on food and to buy mouse traps, the bunch of us went into the hardware store.

The hardware store was huge, stocking the normal product mix of a suburban store with additional essentials for the farm.

A familiar voice seemed to be disturbing the otherwise bucolic atmosphere of the laid back country store.

My grandchildren came running over to me. “Gramps, Gramps, look you’re on television!” they exclaimed excitedly!

They grabbed my thumbs and literally dragged me over to a shelf, upon which there were 8 or 9 Window Sash Hangers. Looked like they were ready to host cobwebs.

Next to the Window Sash Hangers was a small television that was playing the continuous loop of me demonstrating how to use the Hanger as seen on TV (QVC). It had to be made more than 20 years ago.

Scary?

The kids seem to like it.

I asked a salesperson about how the Hangers were selling. She said they hadn’t sold one that she could remember. The hardware store continued playing the loop, however, because it livened up the place. They’d been doing it for years. Long before she started working there.

The kids told her it was Gramps on the TV! *

He was just younger.

She didn’t believe them, I’m sure.

*Find it on — You Tube: Easy Installation Plant- Bird Feeder hanger.