Woodhill Road

Mader Hardware 2938 Woodhill Road The eight hundred square foot store was divided into three long parallel aisles with shelving that reached to the back. The right of the center aisle shelves ended with a cash register and checkout counter. The two outer aisles ended in the workbench area up against the back wall. Housewares were up front. Bins of nails were found on the bottom of the counters that formed the bases of the shelves. Paint cans were on the left side shelves. The electrical and plumbing works were on the far back wall. Glass gallons of paint thinner, turpentine, and linseed oil were stored in the workbench. The glasscutter square rested on the edge of the bench. Rows and rows of stovepipe reached from the bench top to the ceiling. The Oster pipe-cutting machine was on the opposite side on the right. Shelving of nuts and bolts filled every space in-between. Bags of plaster of Paris and Portland cement were squirreled away behind the cash register. Miscellaneous door and window hardware were lined up in boxes to the right and behind the cash register. The cash register was a great big old antique monster that spit out NO SALE, CHARGE, TOTAL tabs when you pressed on its red and ivory keys. All this merchandize and tools of the business formed a colorful mosaic that was Mader Hardware. The first thing that you were aware of when you open the door to the hardware store was the smell. It’s the odor of an old-fashioned hardware store. Paint thinner,

turpentine, greeny, the oily powdered floor cleaner, pipe thread machine lube, tobacco smoke, and whiskey all mixed together attacking your nose with an unmistakable male presence. This distinct aroma gave a warm inviting feeling to the customer. You were welcomed into a whole different world. This was a world of men for men. Seldom would you catch a woman in the store. This was a special male place. If a woman did come in to buy something, it was because her husband sent her with a drawing of a particular plumbing or electrical problem. Some of the funniest moments in the business were when a lady would present a drawing of pipes and a list of items needed. Usually the husband didn’t really know what he needed, and his descriptions could have been in Sanskrit for all the help they were. The guys, our storytellers, would gather around and try to figure out the drawing. They would never embarrass the lady. When she left, they would almost pee their pants with laughter. They would talk of male and female fittings and couplings. The male fitting goes into the female coupling. What size nipples did she need? Was it close nipple, a copper nipple, an iron nipple? And all that talk of fluxing. They could hardly hold back with all the wink-winks, nudge-nudges. The average age of these old farts was seventy, but you would never know it by the way they talked. Every time they opened their mouths, the little boy in them came out. The noon lunch whistle would blow and signal the meeting time at Mader Hardware. A group of factory workers, retirees, and professionals would meet in back of the store to eat lunch and talk. They ignored the unwritten rule about never talking about religion, politics or sex. That’s all they talked about! The men would go on for the allotted hour about every topic near and dear to them: the church, their priests, city politics, and the right way to change a faucet, the old country, farming, and women. Most of all they would tell stories. The stories would be about what happened that day or about what happened long ago. The stories would be about the neighborhood, the city, and their adopted country and about the old country-Slovakia. These stories were not jokes like we are accustomed to hear when a group of men meet today. Jokes were told but they were seldom off-color or dirty. The jokes were just filler between the real tales. The stories were mostly true, some were downright tall-tales, but no one could or bothered to check to know for sure. They didn’t really care. They had time to kill and a good story suited that purpose. What was important was that they were together, and they were safe in their sameness. The stories were most always told in English. John Mader, a first generation American-Slovak, born in Cleveland, owned this store so from time to time the tales were told in Slovak. On rare occasions, they would let the only Hungarian of the group use his native language. Most of our storytellers were able to understand three to four Central European languages. They were as comfortable speaking in Hungarian, Polish or German as they would be in Slovak and English. English was special to them. It was so special that they went as far as forbidding their sons and daughters to speak their native Slovak outside their homes. English was the official language of the community. It was the language of the fulfillment of their dreams. John Mader’s dream of owning his own part of the American dream was played out daily in what the storytellers and his family called “the store”. The story telling would start after everyone got comfortable. Getting comfortable usually meant opening their lunch boxes, if they were factory workers, and reviewing what their wives made for them that day. The professionals of the group bought their lunches at the local deli. On special occasions, John would have a pot of beef soup simmering for all to help themselves. A hot plate on the backbench was the makeshift kitchen in which John’s delicacies were prepared. For those who wanted, there was a bottle of Black Jack underneath the back counter next to the turpentine. Cups were not needed; just wipe the top off with your shirtsleeve before and after taking a drink. If water was your drink of the day, one single cold-water faucet located behind the basement door in a cubbyhole was available. After these preliminaries were attended to, one or the other of the group would usually start off by saying, “You should hear what happened to me today.” What was related was a mundane incident about their job usually revolving around their boss. This was the jumping off point. Another would tell how much worse it could be “If you only walked in my shoes.” Then the litany would start always beginning with “You think you have it bad.” This banter ended with one person prevailing by capturing the floor and beginning his tale.