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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=459670" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Hardware Shop</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">There's nothing so becomes a man<br>as a local hardware shop - it expands<br>the horizons of his home improvement, and<br>brings harmony to his home life as <br>those little jobs get done; <br>and although these days a car-trip<br>would take you to an out-of-town<br>with wider variety and lower price, <br>there is greater delight in detailed chat<br>with that little man around the corner<br>who's been there since - oh, you knew his father.<br>He's got it; or will get it; you chat; come out feeling good; <br>there's order in the world. Things get done.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>But they're a dying breed. We had two - didn't know<br>just how lucky we were until Mr and Mrs Tidy<br>(how many Tidy generations of hardware had there been?) <br>with their two shops run together - he in one, she in the other - and<br>he identified just what it was you wanted; she<br>knew just where they kept it - suddenly they went, still sprightly young, to<br>a well-deserved retirement, after a life of virtue. <br>They exuded some sort of spiritual strength <br>between them; as if your purchase had<br>a hint of allegory in some non-conformist book of life.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Which left the other hardware shop. I hoped<br>that their departure would encourage his own trade<br>but it was not to be. The stage set of his shop is perfect -<br>behind the obligatory front-of-shop basics, put out<br>each day - camping gas, the bags of dried manure, <br>plastic bins of every size -<br>the shop is filled in every nook and cranny, leading to<br>a further vista of boxed shelves, a hint of aisle on aisle<br>to joy the DIY-er's heart - and<br>that faintly oily, metallic, woody, dusty, smell - the precious essence <br>of a hundred years in that same shop, of visits by<br>a century of proud home owners, treasuring their addiction..</div><div style="margin:10px 0">but this is a man upon whom no tidy destiny, no spiritual path<br>has fallen. Enter his crammed shop with hope, of the friendly chat<br>that from the furthest depths, produces just the size<br>of split boggle ring of finest brass that you were looking for, <br>and what do you get? Twenty minutes of sad-smiled, patient<br>explanation of why he hasn't got it; couldn't get it, <br>because they'd want an order of two dozen. It's only done<br>in industrial sizes anyway. And the supplier's changed hands<br>and you'll need to change the whole system to metric.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">You should have known - for it was always so: <br>for this he exists, as if living out a punishment for past sins<br>against the gods of hardware. Or should you (itching to get away) <br>join in the sad elegaics for a world in ebb, the small shopkeeper<br>who existed only to serve his fellow villagers? To talk to him<br>makes you feel that somehow, somewhere, in the back room<br>of shared humanity, it just might be - your fault...</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At last you get away, empty-handed; and wonder at<br>this world of little shops and shopkeepers: <br>the joyous absurdity, the hidden tragedy<br>of lives you daily knock against, yet never really know.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Michael+Shepherd">Michael Shepherd</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=459670" data-title="Hardware Shop de Michael Shepherd" data-description="There's nothing so becomes a man
as a local hardware shop - it expands
the horizons of his home improvement, and
brings harmony to his home life as 
those little jobs get done; 
and although these days a car-trip
would take you to an out-of-town
w..."></div>
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