I live in a small rural village that has about 400 homes and Main Street is only a few blocks long. In the last few months the town has taken some pretty big hits. The auto parts store, the hardware store, an antique store, and even one of the two bars in town ended up closing their doors.
Saturday the hardware store held its final clearance sale. The store itself has remained about the same over the last several decades. It has the creaky wood floor and shelves with just about anything you needed from plumbing, to paint, to lawn and garden. Even though it was nothing like the big box stores with endless options; rest assured, if they didn’t have it you really did not need it!
One of the greatest places to look for things was upstairs in housewares. They had an incredible assortment of unique things. As I trudged up the stairs for one last time, the shelves were pretty well picked over. However, if you rummaged around enough there were still some good “findsâ€.
After picking up a fry pan and some muffin tins I was on my way out when I looked on the top shelf and there I found it. I was staring at a 1960’s vintage “Farberware Open Hearth Electric Broiler and Rotisserieâ€. It was new in the box, but the box looked like it had seen better days. It was dusty and held together with duct tape. I don’t know who engineered the cardboard packaging, but it was pure genius. It was meticulous and everything inside the box was still as bright and shiny as the day it left the factory!
It was a bittersweet find and truly represents the end of an era. Mom and Pop hardware stores are no longer able to compete and are going by the wayside, yielding to the chain stores. I think this store had been in the same family for at least a couple of generations and had been in business for over a hundred years. At least the couple who owned it were able to sell and retire. Not sure what if anything will be coming soon.
