In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Janus is the god of gates and doors.

He is the god of beginnings and endings. He was worshiped at the beginning of planting time, and again at harvest time; also at weddings, births, and other life transitions. The month of January is named after him.

Janus was represented with two faces, looking to the future and to the past. Originally, one face was bearded while the other was not, but later both faces were bearded. In his right hand he holds a key. The double-faced head appears on many Roman coins.

This bronze coin depicts a laureate Janus with the prow of a ship on the reverse.

The research required to write this blog satisfied my curiosity about Janus, as well as the other Roman gods. There are too many. One list of the “top twenty principal gods of Roman religion” put Janus first, signifying his importance. He is followed by: Jupiter, Saturn, Genius, Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan, Neptune, Sol, Orcus, Liber, Tellus, Ceres, Juno, Luna, Diana, Minerva, Venus, and Vesta.

I’m not sure if Janus still answers prayers. I think if you have a problem with a door, you would be better off calling Anderson Lock!

Andy and Ella Anderson, Cortney Anderson Wascher’s grandparents, owned an Ace Hardware store on the northwest side of Chicago. After they sold their store, they joined their son, Gene, in his independent locksmith business. Anderson Lock is now in its fourth location, so the cartoon-covered box has been relocated at least four times.

The caption under the cartoon on the left side of the box asks, “Have trouble checking screws, nuts, bolts, washers?” Under the right side it promises, “It’s easy with Sharon Assortments!” The center copy reads, “Be good to yourself…sell Sharon Assortments” and under that, “Mr. Jobber: Easy to check / Easy to fill / Easy to sell / Even easy to bill / Mr. Dealer: Investment is small / Stock is complete / Profits are large / Shelves always neat.”

Well, maybe not that easy to sell if we still have a box full after fifty-some years!

There are no bar codes on the sturdy cardboard box with neat, labeled compartments containing 16 different sizes of thumbscrews. Still, despite its promise to keep shelves neat, it is looking a bit shabby and is no longer welcome in the Anderson Lock warehouse. So it goes into the archives to serve as an amusing reminder of an earlier generation’s packaging and marketing designs.

And, to keep thumbscrews available for the customers who know and say, “Wow. You guys have everything!”

Supra Key Box

Supra Key Box with Camouflage

Key boxes are intentionally inconspicuous, but it appears that the key box that is mounted below our bird nest filled exhaust vent is camouflaged to blend with the building. Oh, wait, that’s not camo…that’s bird poop!

What’s a key box? Not to be too obvious about an object that’s not supposed to be obvious, but it is a secure box that is designed to hold keys. You may have seen them on commercial and residential buildings but never really noticed them. (Especially the ones with camo…)

In many communities, they are required by the local fire department to give them access in an emergency. Building owners purchase the key box specified for their town, and mount it securely near an entrance. They put a key to that entrance in the box and inform the fire department. If there is an emergency, the fire department has a key that opens all the key boxes within its boundaries.

Key boxes are also very useful for elderly or disabled people who may have difficulty getting to the door in an emergency.

Interested? Check with your local fire department to determine if they have a key box program, and then contact Anderson Lock to order a key box with that department’s lock and key specifications.

Stacks of doors, in the Anderson Lock Door Division warehouse,
were used as risers to get everyone to fit into one photo at the recent annual meeting!

Britain’s Oldest Door

A friend, who is spending a semester in England, posted this picture of Britain’s oldest door, on Facebook. I was curious, did a bit of research, and learned this:

“A 900-year-old door, once thought to be covered in human skin, has been identified as the oldest in Britain. Archaeologists discovered the oak door in Westminster Abbey was put in place in the 1050’s. Tests also showed that fragments of hide stuck to the door, which legend said was the skin of a punished man, was actually cow hide.

It is thought that this is the only surviving Anglo Saxon door in Britain, and that it survived because it is indoors and has been in constant use.

The door is made from one tree, with its rings suggesting it grew between AD 924 and 1030. It has five panels and is 6.5 feet high by 4 feet wide. It opens into the octagonal Chapter House, where monks met every day for prayers in the 13^th century. Archaeologist Warwick Rodwell said, “The ring pattern displayed by the timber indicates that the tree grew in eastern England.”

Westminster Abbey, in London, is Britain’s largest church. It was founded in the early 600s and was built when the area was an island known as Thorney Island. Work on the current building started in 1245 by King Henry III. It is the location of Britain’s oldest door and, underneath, is buried St Edward the Confessor, who died in 1066.

The wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton was held there last spring.

Westminster Abbey is the traditional crowning and burial place of monarchs. Also buried there are notable people from the world of science, music, the arts and theatre, etc. These include: William Blake, Robert Burns, Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, John Dryden, George Eliot, T. S. Eliot, Thomas Gray, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Herschel, Samuel Johnson, John Keats, the Brontë sisters, Rudyard Kipling, John Masefield, John Milton, Isaac Newton, Laurence Olivier, Alexander Pope, Nicholas Rowe, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Jane Austen, Thomas Shadwell, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Dylan Thomas and William Wordsworth.”

Lock on Oldest Door

Westminster Abbey

Rose at 1801 Oakton

Thirty years ago, when Anderson Lock was located at 1539 Oakton, Rose Umana’s mother, who had a dog grooming business down the street, came into the lock shop and suggested to Gene Anderson that he should hire her daughter, Rose. He did! What a smart decision that was. Rose learned accounts receivable customer service. She also learned our products and soon earned a position in the sales department. When challenged to help develop our pro-active sales strategy, she was timid at first, but has truly excelled at outside sales. She has built a loyal customer base, and always follows through to solve door hardware problems.

At the recent Anderson Lock annual meeting, Rose was honored for her loyalty, dedication, and great customer service!

Rose with Customer at Customer Appreciation Day

Rose at 850 Oakton

It looks like a door!

...a wall with a doorbell!

When is a door not a door? My grandsons would answer, “When it is ajar!”

But these “doors” are not ajar!

I guess that a door-shaped, door-sized object with hinges, that is installed into a door opening, COULD be expected to function as a door, so if this (former?) door doesn’t function as a door, the building owners are making it clear that everyone knows it is NOT A DOOR!

The building owners for the second photo did a pretty good job of eliminating the door, but I guess they didn’t want to go so far as to remove the doorbell! It does make me wonder what happens when someone rings the doorbell, and you know that someone will!

Reminds me of a Knock Knock joke:

“Doris now a wall, that’s why I’m ringing the doorbell!”

Anderson Lock installers have been asked to add signage to doors they install, but so far haven’t had to deny that any of our doors are doors!

I probably should have saved these for April Fool’s Day, but it appears that they are year ’round non-doors, so I decided to have a little bit of Friday fun inDoors!

Oliver Wendall Holmes wrote, “Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.”

Ah, the poet thinks of love and happiness. And on Valentine’s Day at Anderson Lock, we think of that as well. But normally, our master key experts are thinking of security and access control and not having to carry around heavy key rings.

At Anderson Lock, we have about a million keys, pretty ones like the one shown here, and plain ones, like the ones you use every day to open doors and start cars. We have a giant gate key hanging in our showroom–maybe it once opened gates of happiness! And we have teeny tiny keys hanging on hooks alongside all the common keys. We have Arrow keys…but they didn’t come from Cupid’s bow. We have keys as red as a rose, and keys as shiny as your favorite dog’s nose!

You could say that although we take security seriously, we are a little silly about keys! There are antique keys attached to weathered barn boards in artistic arrangements, and decorative brass keys, like the ones shown here, hanging in cubicles throughout the company. There are newly cut keys waiting to be delivered to a customer who ordered new locks, and old brass keys that survived Des Plaines’ River floods in the 80′s.

Jeffery Glaister holds Anderson Lock's MSC Award

Purchasing Manager Jeffery Glaister represented Anderson Lock at Medeco Lock’s Security Center Program in Charlotte, North Carolina, last weekend.

He brought back a plaque which reads, “2011 Outstanding Medeco Sales Achievement Award Presented to Anderson Lock.”

About coming home with the unexpected recognition, Jeffery says, with a grin, “Aw, I couldn’t have done it without everyone here.”

Others shown in the photo are, from left, Rena DeBerry, Medeco Security Center Program Manager; Joey Kingma, Director of Business Development, eCylinders; Brian Strom, Director of Sales; and Tom Kaika, President of Medeco High Security Locks.

Cortney Anderson Wascher

A Press Release, sent to local and national media, included the photo shown here, and the following information about Anderson Lock and its new certification:

“Anderson Lock received national certification as a Women’s Business Enterprise by the Women’s Business Development Center, Chicago, a regional certifying partner of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC).

Cortney Anderson Wascher is President / Owner of the family business founded by her father, Gene Anderson. Originally a one-man locksmith service company, Anderson Lock is now a total door-opening supplier with an emphasis on doors, frames and electronic access controls. It provides security solutions for commercial, industrial and institutional facilities throughout the Chicago area. Today, there are 75 employees, 25 service trucks, and two locations.

In 2005, Wascher led the company expansion, which resulted in opening Anderson Lock’s Door Division, in Schaumburg. A huge warehouse, and state-of-the-art custom fabrication and welding equipment, increased the company’s capabilities from mainly retrofit projects to supplying hundreds of doors and security hardware for new construction. Wascher also expanded the electronic lock and access control product lines, and added CCTV security camera sales and installations.

WBENC’s national standard of certification implemented by the Women’s Business Development Center, Chicago, is a meticulous process including an in-depth review of the business and site inspection. The certification process is designed to confirm the business is at least 51% owned, operated and controlled by a woman or women.

The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council is the nation’s largest third party certifier of businesses owned and operated by women in the United States. WBENC is a resource for the more than 700 US companies and government agencies that rely on WBENC’s certification as an integral part of their supplier diversity programs.

Wascher, an active community leader, serves on the Des Plaines’ Economic Development Commission, and is a past president of both the Des Plaines Chamber of Commerce, and the local chapter of NAWIC, the National Association of Women in Construction.