GROVER wrote:

Many years ago when I lived in northern New Jersey, and before the
advent of the big box home improvement centers there were
independently owned hardware stores ( which have been discussed
previously on this NG ). They generally had creaky wooden floors,
gray haired clerks who knew the location and names of a lot of arcane
hardware, and a lot of bins which housed bulk items, not much blister
packaging.They had a scale and weighed out nails by the pound.

As a high school kid, I was one of those clerks.

Had some Amish customers which resulted in having some very interesting
inventory.

Got to assemble all the lawn mowers, wheel barrows, kid's wagons, etc.

Got to cut the glass, repair broken windows, repair broken window
screens, etc, etc.

Got to drive the truck after school to make all the deliveries which
also included picking up kegs of nails from the local lumber yard,
bringing them back to the store, opening them and putting the nails in bins.

Got pretty good at weighing out a pound of nails on the first try.

Every Saturday morning you could depend on some guy walking into the
store with some pipe fittings in his hand and saying, "Moving this
morning and I've gotta hook up the gas stove", or words to that effect.

Want to talk about paint?

How about firearms?

A trip to the town dump with a .22 rifle was a Sunday ritual in the summer.

All in all, a great experience for a pimple faced, snot nosed kid, in a
small town.

No, those days will not return; however, my grandson has learned to be
quite the cook while working at a restaurant after school.

The opportunities change, but they are still there.

Lew