Columnist John Moore likes the local hardware stores. And the free calendars. Photo: John Moore

When Wal Mart grew, warnings that it would put the mom-and-pop businesses under seemed to come true. Now, online businesses seem to bring the same threat to Wal Mart.

But one store that seems to be hanging on, at least in the smaller towns, is the local hardware store.

When I was moving my mom from Arkansas to Texas, I had to make numerous trips to the local hardware store in Ashdown, Arkansas. When I needed ratchet straps, tape, and a padlock for the U-Haul, it was the hardware store that came through for me.

Sure, you can order all of this online. You might even get it the next day. But most of the time, when you make a trip to a hardware store, it’s because you need something right now.

This has been true since the beginning of hardware stores. And before that, the general store.

I may be incorrect in my assessment, but I believe that the hardware store is one of the last remnants of the general store, and before that, the trading post.

No one in my family ever discussed a trading post (a central place for people to barter for what they needed), but my dad, grandparents, and great grandparents mentioned the general store often.

I was lucky to be born when my parents were young, and they were born when their parents were young. Consequently, many of my great grandparents were around for much of my younger life. A couple of them until I was a teen.

This allowed me to hear many stories about how they acquired a needed item by either making it themselves, or going to the general store. An item my dad’s grandmother kept around that she first bought at a general store was Dr. Tichenor’s Antiseptic rinse.

George Humphrey Tichenor was a Kentucky-born fella who served during the Civil War and gave us antiseptic surgery. Now, that’s a good thing. But his antiseptic was not. It was nothing more than a patent medicine. But my great grandmother was convinced that it cured everything.

My sister and I learned early that if we felt bad, we just didn’t tell her. If we did, she’d insist that we take a big swig of Dr. Tichenor’s, which is 70% alcohol. So, even if we were dying, we just sucked it up.

Other things my grandparents mentioned getting from a general store included the staples of flour and sugar. They’d buy the brands of flour that used nice prints on the flour sacks so that they could make the girls dresses out of the sacks when the flour was gone.

People got creative during the Depression.

The general stores were there when folks needed them. Same is true of hardware stores.

When I was a little kid, we lived in a small, red brick house on Beech Street. Built in the early 50’s, the home had no central heat or AC. When we moved into the home in the 60s, we used floor furnaces, but had no air conditioning. Most people didn’t have AC. We sweated.

My dad worked graveyard shift. This meant that no matter how many windows you opened during the daytime of an Southwestern Arkansas summer, you sweated. A lot. In bed. While trying to sleep.

One day, my parents’ bedroom door swung open, dad came out, went out the front door, got into his 1952 Chevy truck, and left. He came back with a window AC unit, put it in the bedroom window, plugged it in, shut the bedroom door, and went back to bed.

He’d made a trip to the local hardware store. I don’t know what he paid Mr. Bryant at Ashdown Hardware, but I’m betting he thought it was worth the cost. And I’m betting he was grateful to have a hardware store.

Soon after, my parents saved and bought window units for the rest of the house. The other bedrooms, the kitchen, and the living area.

Those who never grew up without air conditioning will never know the difference of having it and not having it. And we had the local hardware store to thank for making them available.

Those who grew up with a hardware store, staffed by people who knew our names and our needs, were grateful. I know that I am.

And I’ll continue to trade with the hardware stores in my area. Not only do they have what you need when you need it, where else do you get a free calendar every year?

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By John Moore | thecountrywriter.com