The Village of McBride is a small place, but when we first moved there, I was surprised at how many crotchety people ran businesses there. Lyle was one of them.
Lyle, owned Fort Electric, one of the two hardware stores in McBride; he had a public relations problem with his customers.
Lyle liked to watch soap operas on the small television that sat on his counter. Woe be to any customer that came into his store looking for something when Lyle was engrossed in one of his soaps. He became rude and agitated whenever his viewing is disturbed. Many a locals avoided shopping at Fort Electric, unless Lexi, Lyle’s kindly wife, was at the counter.
While I always tried to be very polite and meek while in Fort Electric, I did once have a bit of a struggle with Lyle. One summer during fire season when I was working for the Forest Service, we were sending a small fire fighting crew out to fight a fire. We supplied them with fire fighting equipment and food. They needed a styrofoam cooler for the food, but we didn’t have any left in our warehouse, so I was sent into town to buy one.
Trying to avoid having to deal with Lyle, I checked the bigger hardware store first, but they didn’t have one, so I braced myself and headed over to Fort Electric to find one.
When I got to Fort Electric, I looked around on my own for one, carefully trying not to disturb Lyle who was engrossed in his TV watching. I finally did spot a cooler on a high shelf right behind where Lyle stood. I asked if I could take a look at it and he reluctantly got it down. It was covered with a thick blanket of dust so it must have been sitting up there on the shelf for years. I told him I would take it, and that he could send the bill to the Forest Service.
“Oh, I don’t want to sell it to the Forest Service,” Lyle said, “it takes too long to get my money.”
I shook my head in disbelief, and replied that the cooler must have been sitting up on the shelf, unsold for years, at least now someone was going to buy it and he would eventually get some money for it. Lyle did then reluctantly decide to sell the cooler to the Forest Service.
Once Jim, a close friend who grew up in the US, first moved to McBride, he needed a broom, so he went to Fort Electric to buy one. Lyle was watching TV, so Jim went wandering around the store looking for brooms. The only brooms he found were strange-looking ones that didn’t have a price tag on them. He picked one out and carried it to the counter to ask Lyle how much it was.
Lyle looked at the broom and said, “$40.00”. Jim gulped at the price, thinking, “My god, what kind of place did we move to, if a broom costs $40?”
He couldn’t believe a broom could cost $40, so Jim asked Lyle why it cost so much. Lyle said it was a curling broom (a strange northern sport where players sweep the ice in front of a sliding “rock”).
Jim who had never heard or experienced curling, then asked Lyle if they had any regular household brooms. He was then directed to another section of the store, and was greatly relieved once he saw the price of the regular brooms.
Another time Jim went into Fort Electric needing a cast iron part for something. He had first gone to the bigger hardware store, but they didn’t have the part he needed, so reluctantly Jim headed for Fort Electric to see if Lyle had the part.
He told Lyle what he needed and Lyle walked Jim to the back section of the store (I guess there was nothing good was on TV). Lyle pulled out a drawer with a few cast iron parts in it . Jim found the exact piece he needed, (it was the only one like it in the drawer) and he told Lyle he would take it.
Lyle then looked at Jim and said, “You can’t have it; it’s the only one I have. What if someone needs it?”
Jim told him, “I, need it.”
Luckily, Lyle relented and let Jim buy it.
In 1995 I needed a hook for hanging a swag lamp on the kitchen ceiling, so I went into Fort Electric to see if they had one. When I entered the store, Lyle was engaged in reading the paper. He didn’t look up at me, just asked me what I wanted. When I told him, he still didn’t look up, just pointed over toward a shelf and said, “Look there.”
I walked over to the shelf, and sure enough I found the hook that I needed. Its price was $.17. I took it over to the counter and reached into my pocket for money, but Lyle looked at the hook and said, “Catch you later.”
Not understanding and confused, I replied, “What?”
Again Lyle said, “Catch you later.”
I told him I didn’t understand and Lyle then told me, “It isn’t enough money to open the cash register for.”
Lyle was a strange one to be owning a store.
That 17 cent hook is still holding our kitchen swag lamp 30 years later.
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