Hardware

Back in the day...before Lowe’s or Home Depot or Costco or Overstock.com...or LampsPlus or FaucetsDirect...or a whole laundry list of online suppliers catered to the persnickety or bargain oriented home renovator….there was Vic’s...and Friendly Boys….and Curfman’s.   

Yes, back in the day, you couldn’t sit in line at the elevator, or watch the auger, pull up a website, and pick out a gift for your wife’s birthday…. which happened to fall smack dab in the middle of harvest.  No, the opportunities to shop ranged from null to void...unless something broke down and you had to run to John Deere for parts. And then, your options were….Vic’s…. or Friendly Boys….or Curfman’s.

Many a year I received something practical for my birthday from the hardware store.  Even more likely was a Christmas present from Curfman’s especially if their Daddy took the kids shopping a day or so before Christmas. Ann remembers being particularly partial to kitchen items. Nearly every Christmas there was a cheese slicer in my pile of gifts, the perfect item to replace the previous cheese slicer, which had met an untimely demise sometime earlier in the year.  I’ve often wondered if Cathy ever noticed all those cheese slicers, or perhaps, whether....with a sly smile... she was the one who suggested them year after year!

Curfman’s almost always had what we needed...if I plopped down a bolt or tap, they found it, slipped it into a brown paper sack, and you were on your way. Paint supplies, brooms, buckets, rope, chain, shovels, batteries, fuses, extension cords, various plumbing parts or electrical parts for whatever was ‘broke’ at that time.  Cathy or Ivan knew the place for everything, even the contents of the shelves that towered into the dim reaches near the tin ceiling. Lord only knew what amazements were hidden on the upper floors or in storage in the basement. After all, there was a Curfman Hardware before there was a town of Tarkio…

Alas, after some years, Cathy retired from small business and took her pleasant demeanor and even temperament to the halls of the Tarkio school system.  Sure enough, a century of rural history emerged from the bowels and storerooms of the old brick building, a time capsule, a snapshot of what a farming community used, broke, fixed, and finally, replaced decade by decade.  

The most amazing artifact was the brand new full sized windmill top complete with vanes. It was enormous.  I don’t remember the manufacturer..perhaps it was Aermotor, but it might well have been a Dempster, hometown Beatrice, Nebraska.  I pined for that windmill, every time I stopped by and still wonder what lucky soul got the opportunity to top their tower with a “never been out of the box” windmill.

After Curfman’s closed, we had to move down the street with our hardware needs.  We bought a dryer at Vic’s and lumber and nails for all kinds of repairs in the twilight zone that was Friendly Boys.  I’ve asked Blake how long the lumberyard had been “Friendly Boys”, recollecting the personality of its longtime proprietor, but the answer seems to be lost in the past.  Vic’s is a derelict building now but the former site of Friendly Boys is a bright and shiny new grain facility, built out of the reach of the occasional soaking by the Tarkio River that used to warp the bottom boards at Friendly Boys.  

And, never fear, we still get the wherewithal for our myriad repairs and quixotic projects large and small at a place with the same “yeah we have it here somewhere...let me look” attitude of the hometown hardware stores of yore….we just have to drive a little farther.  As a matter of fact, the phrase “going to Burke’s” has become something of a family catchphrase, and the result of any trip there is almost always “something we can make work” or at least a good story.

Wonder if they’ve got a windmill stashed away somewhere?