Progress, Marching of

I rode up to a local hardware store yesterday to get some supplies for reinforcing that gate in the back yard. When I got there I realized I hadn't brought my wallet, but what was more disturbing is the hardware store is going out of business.

It was a moderately sized store with many crammed aisles full of everything. Not a lot of it, but just about always there was what you needed. If you couldn't find it, you only had to ask and someone would lead you to the end of some aisle where there were bicycle pumps or wire looms.

It was open for forty years easy, but at some point had become part of the Ace Hardware chain. I guess everyone else is going to a Home Depot, and that gigantic, faceless place can now celebrate another victory. No one who works there is half as helpful or friendly as the people were at Gerald's.

Today I went back (with my wallet) and the store is nearly empty. Everyone acted pretty sad and resigned, but that may have been my projecting. There's another independent place, one completely unaligned with corporations (as far as I know), but I never feel very comfortable there. It's actually a lumber yard (Southland Lumber) with a tiny building that sells hardware-type stuff. The receipts are written by hand, and I think they're big for supplying the movie industry. The inside walls are decorated with movie plates and signs, the kind I see all over town when they shoot on location.

They're always nice to me, but I can't help feeling I'm wasting their time when I go in to buy a pound of nails or something like a Saws-All blade.

Sure, I can ride to Home Depot. There's two of them, so I have my choice, but not the choice I want.