Jack Finkelstein is a serious fan. He recites the names of the heroes in his personal Hall of Fame with great enthusiasm.
U. B. Drake. Sarah Savane. JanSport. Wrangler. Timberland. Sebago. Levi's. Gant.
And yes, Duck Head, makers of fine men's and boys' sportswear.
"Duck Head is a top seller," he said as he paced the studded oak floors of Finkelstein's clothing store in Towson.
The floor is like the Finkelstein family: solid, sound, working in harmony with each other, employees and customers.
The Finkelsteins won't be walking that floor much longer. The Towson store and a store in Bel Air will close near the end of the year, and the Finkelstein name will disappear from the Towson business roster after more than seven decades.
"Everything comes to an end," Mr. Finkelstein said as he brushed at his khaki-colored Sarah Savane slacks, wrinkle-free, 100 percent cotton, on sale for $27.90. "Cost you $44 anywhere else," he said.
Jack, 65, his brother Arnold, 78, and Arnold's son Roy, 49, are still sorting out their futures, even as customers rummage through shelves filled with Jockey Classic underwear, Leatherman belts, blended oxford shirts, Levi's Original Preshrunk Jeans, and signs that read, "Sale of a Lifetime," and "Open Packages Not Returnable."
Jack ran his hand over a plump sweater and told a customer, "This is 100 percent lamb's hair, very nice and soft. Take your time."
Said Arnold: "You don't sell a customer, you help him. Hard selling is a thing of the past. And you have to cater to the kids. I'll miss the excitement of meeting and talking to customers after 61 years. I don't know what I'm going to do."
Roy has a law degree from the University of Baltimore, but has spent most of his life working in and managing the store. Roy and Jack's son, Ben, a lawyer in Washington, have decided they don't want to take over the business.
"I'm looking at my options," Roy said. "The retailing business has become so sophisticated -- just move the product -- and no personal touch. People have become totally price-sensitive. I can understand that, but price shouldn't be the driving factor."
Jack, a measuring tape around his neck, said: "We're in a chess game with the masters. The modern retailer has the edge and the smarts, and we don't have the ability, the training or the resources to compete with them. If I were 20 years younger, maybe I could figure it out."
A smiling young woman handed him a box with two left shoes in it.
"Our customers are great," Jack said, "but they do scramble the boxes."
The Finkelstein saga is an All-American story. The grandparents came to America on the great wave of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe in the 1870s and 1880s and settled in Baltimore.
"I believe my grandfather was a carpenter, but I'm not sure which country they came from," Jack said.
His father and mother -- Ellis and Fannie -- operated a small grocery store on Calhoun Street in West Baltimore. They moved to Towson in 1922 to open a clothing store on Chesapeake Avenue, where the Towson House restaurant is now.
Towson Bargain Store
It was called Towson Bargain Store, and was billed as Baltimore County's biggest department store. York Road in Towson was a dirt road with trolley tracks then, and cows grazed in a meadow where Hutzler's eventually built its department store.
"We were the only Jewish family in a Gentile neighborhood," Jack said. "The people in Towson didn't know what a Jew was in those days. They thought they all had long beards and wore black clothing. I was the only Jew in my Towson High graduating class in 1946."
Expansion and hard times
The Finkelsteins moved to a small store at the current location at 408 York Road in 1929, and expanded just in time for the Great Depression in the early 1930s.
"My father went through some hard times," Jack said. "The store was expanded on borrowed money just as the economy went to pieces," he said.
"My father wouldn't take the easy way out and declare bankruptcy as so many did," Arnold added. "He didn't want to damage his reputation. My mother and father just gathered up some boots and clothing and went down to Essex and sold them on the street to some workers on a project down there. They did whatever it took to survive."
Organization man
Ellis Finkelstein died of a heart attack in 1951 at 57, not long after the family moved to Forest Park, and Arnold took over management of the store. The business grossed $2.5 million in 1980, its peak year.
"My father was very organization-minded," Jack said. "He was a founder of Towson Rotary and a Mason. It seemed he always had some meeting to attend after he closed the store at 8 o'clock."
Jack walked over to a customer trying on a blue blazer ($175, on sale for $94.75).
"A 38? You're kidding me. Won't even button in the front," he said. He shuffled through the rack and pulled out a 40. "Here, perfect," he said, stepping back. "Doesn't even need alteration."
Loyal customers
Cathie and William Dear, their arms loaded with clothing, went through racks looking for Christmas presents and clothing for their children. They have shopped at Finkelstein's for 20 years.
"It's the end of an era. You could always depend on them for quality," Mrs. Dear said.
"We're into the third generation with some of our customers," Arnold said. "I didn't want to close it, but Jack said it was time."
Jack said: "I'm too busy now to think about it. But it has a wonderful history for me."
He recalled taking the red No. 8 trolley every weekday to a Hebrew school at Barclay and 24th streets in Baltimore, and the roots his family had in the city.
"Every Thursday, my mother and father would go the market on East Lombard Street to buy Kosher meat, chicken and fish," he said. "It was a real excursion. We had a lot of relatives in West Baltimore, and on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana we would close the store and move to town near our synagogue."
Mishkan Israel synagogue, on Madison Avenue near North Avenue, closed in 1960 but remains a fond memory to the Finkelstein family.
"I've been blessed to be part of this family," Roy said. "I've learned so much from my father and uncle, and customers who come in now, some are actually teary-eyed over the closing," he said.
"It's been like a class reunion," Jack said.
Retirement plans
He and his wife, Phyllis, have a condo in Ocean City and one in Arizona. "We'll spend some time in them," Jack said. "I've had the one in Ocean City for years and haven't spent as much as a week there. I've been confined to this store. I'll have plenty to do, but I don't want to make any long-term commitments."
A woman picked through some Savane slacks.
"I highly recommend those," Jack said. "Just have to touch them up with an iron now and then."
The woman moved on to a pile of dress slacks, $110, on sale for $66.
"Very nice, last a lifetime," Jack said.
"I don't want anything that has to be dry-cleaned," the woman said, turning away.
"Then we're out of options," Jack said.