The Hardware Store, Detroit, 1926

My father said he was going to the Hardware Store.
A Saturday morning and he was home
and I thought Saturdays to be the most
exciting day of the whole week.
And so I went along to the hardware store,
walking and skipping right there by my father.

I wondered what hardware was;
we walked past the Greek Grocery Store
where I waved at my friend Joe Joe,
(his father owned the Greek Grocery Store)
and I truly loved him for the grapes and gum balls
he filched for me, at my request.
An important walk with my father.

And there it was, the Hardware Store,
on the corner of Lemay and Charlevoix:
Charlevoix being the street with the streetcar
that took us once in a while back to
our old neighborhood on Gratiot
(our mother called those trips "going up the line")

A big disappointment at first;
This Was the Hardware store?
But then, the DOOR, the darling door made the difference.
A Dutch Door. A Holland Door
A door from the land of tulips and Windmills!
A door cut in half that swung open and shut
when you touched it.
And then, on the other side of the door
was the dark, almost black, floor that slanted downward
and on the walls were hundreds of little bins
holding shiny nails of every size,
screws, nuts, wires, tools; every blackish greasy
piece of hardware Detroit needed
to repair and build its greatness
as the second largest city in Michigan in the 1920's.

In the meanwhile, my father was busy
running the key machine, it made a noisy
grating and whirring sound; my father made
three or four keys and after each one was made,
he studied its cut and let me hold one.
I knew he was the best father in the world,
to be able to make the golden keys.

The hardware man gave me a piece of hard candy
for being so well behaved (all store people did that,
gave out candy) and I thoughtfully asked for
a second piece for my father which I thought
was only fair since he had bought the keys there.

I gave a couple swings to the wonderful
Dutch door as we left the store.
I could hardly wait to tell my sister all about the store,
the key maker, the dutch door and the candy.

My mother never went to the hardware store,
even though I pointed it out whenever we took
the Charlevoix Street Car back to our old neighborhood.
I wanted to just drop in for a look at the Dutch Door.