I love oldtime hardware stores. My favorites are the mom and pop independent stores , the kind that have towering aisles and everything under the sun in their inventory. My long deceased uncle had one in a little podunk farming town in Missouri, where I lived as a small child. It had huge walls of solid oak shelves and drawers filled with every imaginable piece of hardware that a farmer might find useful, including some specialty farming items. I don’t have any photos, but his store was similar to these,
There was a back room that had a pot bellied cast iron stove in the middle of it and it was surrounded by chairs made of oak , and in the winter time, when the fields were bare, the local farmers used to gather in his back room and visit and smoke hand rolled cigarettes and just pass the time.
By the time he had grown to be an old man, there wasn’t much left of the town. It had gone the way of so many little Midwest farming towns and simply died off. He retired and closed his store, but he was wise enough to realize the value of all those solid oak fixtures and they were sold in pieces to antique stores in far off big cities. A bit of Americana gone by the wayside.
When I get my XS2 running I am going to go in search of an old historic store that I know of, and write about it.
So I’m curious, I’ll bet some of you guys that live back east probably know of an old mom and pop store still operating. Hmmm?
By the way, have you ever noticed that you can never just get what you went to the hardware store for?
I ran to the local True Value store for about two dollars worth of stuff, and left with a new continuity tester and a bag full of assorted electrical terminals and spent about 10x more than what I went there for. They always get me, just like Harbor Freight.
There was a back room that had a pot bellied cast iron stove in the middle of it and it was surrounded by chairs made of oak , and in the winter time, when the fields were bare, the local farmers used to gather in his back room and visit and smoke hand rolled cigarettes and just pass the time.
By the time he had grown to be an old man, there wasn’t much left of the town. It had gone the way of so many little Midwest farming towns and simply died off. He retired and closed his store, but he was wise enough to realize the value of all those solid oak fixtures and they were sold in pieces to antique stores in far off big cities. A bit of Americana gone by the wayside.
When I get my XS2 running I am going to go in search of an old historic store that I know of, and write about it.
So I’m curious, I’ll bet some of you guys that live back east probably know of an old mom and pop store still operating. Hmmm?
By the way, have you ever noticed that you can never just get what you went to the hardware store for?
I ran to the local True Value store for about two dollars worth of stuff, and left with a new continuity tester and a bag full of assorted electrical terminals and spent about 10x more than what I went there for. They always get me, just like Harbor Freight.
Yes ! Especially if they have metric chrome hardware. Which they prob don't lol..
