REMEMBERING WHEN: The small town hardware store
By Keith Schell
While society is more flexible nowadays, gender roles were much more rigid and distinct when I was growing up. Back then, men generally did "manly" things, and women generally did "womanly" things. That was simply the way it was, and one of the manly things men often did back in the day was fixing things around the house.
One day, the kitchen faucet in our house began to leak, and Dad tried to fix it. After searching through his toolbox, our junk drawer, and all the old tin cans on our basement shelves that held every nail, screw, clip, and little metal oddity known to man, he realized he didn’t have the right washer on hand to repair the faucet.
So you know what that meant—a trip to our small-town hardware store!
Before long, Dad would say to me, “Son, let’s go. We’re going into town.” And I would hop into the truck and accompany him on a manly pilgrimage to our little hardware store to find the perfect replacement washer for our kitchen faucet.
Back then, our little hardware store was located partway down Main Street, with a big yellow sign over the door. I believe it was originally part of a small regional Canadian hardware chain that has since grown to national prominence. We found a place to park the truck and went into the store.
As we entered the store, I remember hearing the familiar “ding-a-ling” of the little bell over the door, announcing our arrival into that most manly of hardware worlds. The faint smells of paints, thinners, epoxies, mothballs, and fibreglass insulation lingered in the air, declaring to the world that this was indeed the domain of men (perhaps not the healthiest of smells, but certainly the manliest!).
If you stepped in the right spots while walking through the narrow aisles, you would sometimes hear the squeak of the wooden floorboards under the weight of rows of tools, washers, boxes of nails and screws, assorted metal clips, and cans of paint on display throughout the store.
As Dad began searching through the shelves for the washer he needed, someone he knew who worked at the store would often come over, greet him by name, and ask what he was looking for.
When Dad explained what he needed, the store clerk would head straight to the specific drawer on the shelf in the back of the store where the washers were kept, match the washer perfectly, and the search was complete! After the clerk offered Dad instructions on how to install it properly, off we went to have the purchase rung up on the mechanical cash register at the front of the store.
When we took our purchase home, it always fit perfectly! This was back in the days when hardware store clerks truly knew their stuff. They could answer questions with expertise, unlike today, where many big-box hardware stores tend to be understaffed with apprentice shelf-stockers who may currently lack appropriate hardware knowledge as they learn the business—assuming you can even find someone around the store to ask for help.
The level of knowledgeable service that clerk offered my father back then is hard to find in the average big-box hardware store nowadays. Should you experience someone that knowledgeable and helpful in your own hardware adventures today, treasure them and be sure to thank them for their assistance.
Nowadays, a trip to the crowded big-box hardware store has become a “get-in-and-get-out” experience for most people. It has lost the small-town social feel and familiarity of days gone by, when everybody knew you and you knew everybody, and I personally think we are lesser for that. But things change, and time marches on.
Today, the building that housed our little Main Street hardware store is no longer standing; it was destroyed in a major fire in 2011, caused by an electrical and natural gas accident.
The store had changed hands and retail themes many times over the years before the fire. Though too small to compete with the invasion of the big-box hardware stores with their low prices and vast selection, its strategic location on Main Street still attracted foot traffic from all over town. I believe the store had become a 'Mom and Pop' souvenir shop before it was finally lost to the ages in the great Main Street fire.
Although our little Main Street hardware store is now long gone, my childhood memories of father-and-son time spent there on manly hardware quests will always make me smile.
So, to all the sons out there—and perhaps even a few daughters who went along for the ride—I hope you fondly remember the trips with your father to that one special place in your town that helped shape a boy into a man:
The “Mecca of Manliness”, the small-town hardware store.