Fans wait for hours to meet “Red Green” in West Virginia hardware store

“The Red Green Show” fans Kerry Comerford and his longtime partner, Brooke Parker, left their home Berkeley Springs, W.Va., for their first overnight away in 25 years and drove five hours to meet their quirky pubTV fave character, currently on his “Wit & Wisdom” tour, in Charleston on Sunday (July 18). The two never get away as they have horses and other farm animals to tend. But that day they were among a massive crowd that waited at Zeeger Hardware in Charleston, Va., for hours to meet Steve Smith, the Canadian who plays the “handyman hero” on the show, reports the Charleston Daily Mail. As fan Bill Riffle of Charleston told the paper: “He’s just like us. Who else but a West Virginian would be a member of the Possum Lodge?” The show ended its original run in 2006 butis in syndication on several PBS affiliates. And its fans are famous for their devotion: Comerford and Parker brought items to give to Smith, including an honorary degree penned on a roll of single-ply toilet paper signed by folks in line. The newspaper said the roll, or “scroll” as Parker called it, “conferred the degree of ‘Philosopher Emeritus of West Virginia’ upon Red Green.”