For someone who is not a certified member of the Handyman’s Union and a complete all-thumbs fiasco in most do-it-yourself projects, I find myself having to make a stop at a hardware store a couple times a week. Especially in autumn.
I suddenly discover my string trimmer is running low on string and snow shovel cracked after slashing at icicles last spring. I should also lay in a small stash of duct tape, candles and batteries in various denominations. Something to melt the ice? One more trip.
I am sure there’ll be more, such as replacing the scraper and brush for the car windows if I can’t find the one from last year. Making lists doesn’t work when you misplace the list.
I avoid big box stores, as much as possible, even if I could save big bucks. They have plenty of inventory, just not on the right shelf so I can find it. Nor do I have great luck flagging down a sales associate.
Like some of you Olds, I grew up in an era when there were only small, locally-owned stores. The type where everyone knew your name and if you were a regular, the employees shout it as you walked through the door, as if we were long-lost friends. If it was a quiet day, they’d like to visit and would eventually walk you down the aisle to get the widget.
Growing up, we went to the Ace Hardware not far from my father’s business. As soon as I came through the front door, and before he would ask if I needed some help finding something, Mr. Jensen would ask about my parents, how my sister “pi-anny” lessons were going and things like that.
Before he let me proceed, he would always remind me that Old Axel was in the basement and it would mean a lot to him if I’d go down and say hello. I sometimes wondered if they kept him down there on purpose.
Axel was an old codger who came over on the boat from Norway back when Grover Cleveland was in the White House. You could tell that from his accent that never changed.
When he settled in Rochester, Minn., he joined the Sons of Norway as a charter member. Through his lodge brothers, he got his first job as a fireman on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad,
He saw the country one scoopful of coal at a time until the diesels replaced the steam engines. Ace hired him because he was experienced in shoveling stuff and keeping the firebox going so the store stayed toasty.
His lodge brothers held their meetings in the basement until the night police raided the place sure it was a speakeasy, long after Prohibition was over. It wasn’t.
That’s where a helpful hardware employee suggested an old-fashioned a lot less expensive. He said they had industrial-strength fertilizer in the basement and I should start off with just one bag because it wasn’t safe to keep too much of it lying around. No kidding! That stuff was bomb-grade 48-percent nitrogen.
He advised on the way home I stop by a deep-discount store, buy inexpensive nylons, fill the legs with the fertilizer and put them up on the roof, with a little hanging over the roofline to make a channel for the melting ice.
When I asked if this was safe, he assured me it was. “Just don’t drop a leg-full of it down on the cement.” He didn’t say what might happen but suffice it to note I was careful going up and down the ladder.
Nothing blew up or caught fire that day nor did I fall off the ladder, so I thought I was home safe. Neatness counts in a job like this, so I made sure just a little of the toe was hanging over the edge, the better for the melting snow to drip.
Then on Sunday when we were coming home fro church, Pat wanted to know what was up on the roof. “Are those my …?” she started to ask, and I explained I bought them especially for the purpose she saw before her. She was even less impressed when I told her what I put in the nylons.
It worked more or less, although Pat never got used to the toes hanging over the edge. We didn’t have the build-up of snow and ice on the roof, but neither did we have a very rough winter.
We need shops and stores where we have the people connection. It is good all around, starting with the ritual of small talk before making a purchase.
We are grateful the store hasn’t been swallowed up by a big-box corporation. So we get what we need, sometimes things we don’t need, and keep the connections alive and well.
It’s a good thing and an important part of life.
