Now that the official eulogies have been paid to the late actor Peter Falk, it’s time to clear up one serious matter: the signature schlumpy raincoat he wore when playing the off-beat detective, Columbo.In the past few years I have heard several people claim it was their raincoat that inspired him to adopt it as his never-ending article of clothing when tracking down bad guys — and an occasional female.Not true. As anyone who knows me can testify, I am a paragon of un-neatness.I wear sneakers that are two decades old with holes in the front; my pants rarely fit my expanding tum tum; I get a haircut every six months whether I need it or not.But this is about raincoats. Let’s cut to the quick.Many years ago, give or take 60, after college and the Army, I got a job as a reporter on the late lamented Hartford Times, at the time the biggest and most important newspaper in Connecticut.But in my last year at the University of Michigan I took a course in playwriting—and got an A! That set me thinking that maybe dramatics, not newspapering, should and/or would become my life’s work.But I married a beautiful freckled-faced co-ed with auburn hair after I returned to Ann Arbor on the GI Bill. When we graduated together, sitting in a garret writing a Tony Award-winning play wasn’t going to feed my new wife.I put off playwriting for the nonce but not my interest in the live theater. In an abandoned building in Hartford a lively group of actors had formed the Mark Twain Masquers. (Why not Mark Twain? When he came to live in Hartford, he called it “The most beautiful city I have ever seen.”)I joined the Masquers and while I was never chosen for the lead role, I and a worker in the state capitol who was managing the finances had fun playing character roles.My salary at the Times is not worth discussing. After all I was a reporter; I had a glamour job.But there was hardly enough extra money to buy clothes. So I worked the schlumpy raincoat I had brought back with me from Ann Arbor.Aha, are you getting the message? I wore that raincoat to the Mark Twain Masquers as a raincoat, but just as often as my topcoat.One of the most memorable plays I appeared in was Thornton Wilders’ “Our Town,” later made into a movie and still staged annually throughout the country by amateur groups like the Masquers.In “Our Town,” I played the drunken Methodist minister. I forget Peter Falk’s role, but he sat next to me in the final cemetery scene, a scene that to this day brings tears to my eyes.Falk acted in a number of other important plays we put on, “The Caine Mutiny,” the “Crucible” et al. Then he left Hartford and started acting in theaters in Fairfield County which segued to New York and then Hollywood and the TV show, “Columbo,” the detective with the schlumpy raincoat that ran for 30 years plus or minus.I contend to his dying day he would agree that the inspiration for his famous raincoat, which should be hung in the Smithsonian Museum, was inspired by the old rag that I wore to the popular Masquer’s group that has passed into oblivion. Prove me wrong. Freelance writer Barnett Laschever lives in Simsbury and is working on a play about Joshua and the walls of Jericho.
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Dick Hermans in the Oblong Bookstore on Millerton\u2019s Main Street in 1985.
Provided
For Hermans, the award has prompted some reflection about why he has spent so much of his life involved in community projects.
“I was thinking about it this morning: Why do I do what I do?” he said. “And I think no matter what I’ve done, whether it’s been school board or rail trail, I’m trying to be useful to the communities I’m associated with.”
Hermans is perhaps best known as the longtime co-founder and steward of Oblong Books in Millerton, a business that began almost by accident. He and his former partner, Holly Nelson, were living in Millerton and looking for something to do during the winter. They had been painting houses, including the Grange Hall in Millerton, a job Hermans got through his aunt, who belonged to the Grange.
At the time, Hermans was also working in insurance for his father, doing collections.
“It was fine except I was doing collections, and it really kind of left me cold,” he said.
He and Nelson began thinking about what they might do together. Nelson was an avid reader, while Hermans had studied journalism and had worked in a record store. They noticed a chain of book and record stores operating elsewhere in the Hudson Valley and decided to follow that model.
And so Oblong was born.
Dick Hermans in the Oblong Bookstore on Millerton’s Main Street in 1985.Provided
“We really learned it by the seat of our pants,” Hermans said.
The business would eventually become a beloved and integral part of Millerton’s commercial life. But although Hermans may have learned the book business as he went, his affinity for retail — and for the connections that happen across a counter — had begun much earlier.
As a child, his second-grade teacher operated a little cardboard pencil shop in the classroom, and Hermans still remembers the satisfaction of selling a pencil for a nickel.
“I really liked selling somebody a pencil for a nickel,” he recalled. “I can remember that experience, and it was so pleasant.”
Later, while living in Arizona, he helped establish a food co-op and worked at the counter.
“I kind of knew that I liked doing that kind of thing,” he said. “It’s a nice way to be pleasant with people, but without making too much commitment to them.”
His relationship with Millerton also predates Oblong. His grandparents lived in the village, and he first came to Millerton as a baby. Over the years, he has watched the town change through several generations.
He remembers a Millerton with a much broader array of businesses, when stores such as Delson’s, the Main Street department store that stood for nearly 40 years in what is now Millerton’s Antiques Center, seemed to carry almost everything a resident might need.
“You could find everything from a set of dishes to a shotgun,” he recalled.
The rise of shopping malls changed that kind of downtown retail, he said, but Millerton has remained a lively commercial village.
“For us, it’s been a great place to have business,” Hermans said. “It’s a busy village.”
For Hermans, running a store was never simply about selling books and records. It was a way of being part of a place.
Music has remained another constant. Hermans continues to sell music at Oblong and hosts the radio program “New Harmony” on WKZE. The business of selling music has changed dramatically over the years, particularly with the rise of streaming, but Hermans has adapted.
He was initially reluctant to bring vinyl records back into the store because of their expense. But about four or five years ago, he began stocking LPs again, and they have become the main form of music the store sells.
He finds that many of the customers buying them are reconnecting with music they loved years ago.
“I do best with classic albums that people may have had when they were young,” he said. “And now that they’re retired, they want to hear it again.”
Hermans still reviews between 700 and 1,200 new music releases each week through the store’s distributor, Alliance Entertainment, carefully deciding what belongs on Oblong’s shelves.
That same commitment to place has led Hermans into a wide range of community projects. His work with the Harlem Valley Rail Trail is among the efforts he mentions when reflecting on his years of civic involvement. He has also served on the school board and has been involved with the Millerton Business Alliance and the Irondale Schoolhouse. He is now involved with The New Pine Plains Herald, which he sees as complementary to the work of The Millerton News and The Lakeville Journal.
“I really think that the important thing about this award is that people understand what a newspaper does to connect them to their community,” he said. “And if that means anything to their lives, they gotta support it.”
Hermans knew Mary Lou and Robert Estabrook and remembers them as people who were deeply conscious of their responsibilities to the community.
“They were really nice folks,” he said. “They were very conscious of what their role in the community was.”
There is, in fact, still plenty on his plate. Hermans admits he needs to scale back because he has taken on more than his current abilities can comfortably accommodate.
“To be given this award is very special,” he added. “But I don’t feel like I’m done.”
This article has been changed to reflect that Hermans and Nelson were partners. A prior version states that they were married.
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