The License

[Mike P]

The License


I always buy my hunting license at Mr. Bader's hardware store. It has become somewhat of a ritual for me. I could buy my license at much closer stores that are more convenient like the local Wal-Mart or Bass Pro or any of the large big box retailers around greater Cincinnati, but it wouldn't be the same. It would just be a transaction at those stores. At Mr. Bader's hardware store it is also a transaction. But the transaction is just the end result. It is everything leading up to the transaction that draws me to this little town southeast of Cincinnati that time has left behind.

The town is the gateway to Appalachia. To the east of the town lie nothing but other small towns struggling to survive. This struggle is not new to these towns. They have always struggled. Struggling to survive is a way of life in the hills and hollows around the Ohio River as it ambles westward on its path to join the Mississippi. The river dictates the border between Ohio and West Virginia before it later designates the boundaries of Kentucky and Indiana. And Mr. Bader's hardware store is the front door to a way of life that most of us only hear about but seldom see.

The hardware store has no national affiliation. It does not have celebrities like John Madden touting its attributes on expensive television commercials. But Mr. Bader's hardware store has something the big box hardware stores claim to have in their catchy jingle. You see, Mr. Bader is the original "helpful hardware man." And no matter what product you purchase at his store, you not only receive instructions on the products use, you also receive a detailed history of how the product came into existence.

The inside of the store is something you would picture on the cover of some ancient Saturday Evening Post penned by Norman Rockwell. It is complete with narrow oak floors divided by wooden bins and overhead shelves displaying any number of items, almost all without the bright packaging one sees at the modern hardware stores. If you want nails you get them out of a barrel, not out of a cardboard box incorporating a plastic "see thru" window. It seems like most of the items in Mr. Bader's hardware store come out of a wooden barrel or wooden box. The only items displayed that incorporate any type of packaging are the familiar colors of the boxes of shells and cartridges underneath the long row of shotguns and rifles behind the well worn wooden counter. On the counter sits the still functioning silver plated antique cash register. And next to the cash register is the gray covered "account book" that Mr. Bader tally's his customers purchases that seldom see cash actually change hands. No, the only cash that changes hands in this hardware store is when crops come in or timber is cut. And only then is the account settled.

Mr. Bader is eighty years old if he is a day. But age means nothing to this Appalachian raised German immigrant. His store seems to have no organization of any kind. Shovels and chain saws share space with baking tins and cast iron frying pans. Rivets for horse bridals are strange bedfellows with tire inner tube rubber repair patches. Nothing makes sense. And in this lack of order you find the beauty of a time long since past. You find the wonderful journey you must take to find what you are looking for. It is a magical hunt for your item. Your hunt takes you to see items that challenge the mind as to their purpose. You look at these items and do not have a clue as to how to use them much less any idea of where and why. And every time you reach the end of a narrow isle and make your turn on the old wooden floor to the next row, the adventure begins again.

Of course you could ask Mr. Bader where the item is you are looking for. The old man has total recall. He not only can tell you where the item is, he can tell you when he put it there. And that is no small feat as there are items on some shelves that were placed there during the Eisenhower administration. But to ask first is to eliminate the journey and the experience. There is a better then average chance you will eventually have to ask where the item is, but the thirty minute hunt prior to waving the white flag is any thing but wasted time. It has taken you to places you didn't know existed. And you are richer for the effort.

I finally walk up to the big wooden counter and tell Mr. Bader I want to purchase my hunting license and deer tag. There is silence for the first few minutes as Mr. Bader takes a long look at me. I always feel he is trying to decide if I am worthy of a hunting license. Do I have the "right stuff" to be out there in the woods. In his words, do I have any "grit." And the yearly ritual begins.

Like every item in the store, the purchase of a hunting license includes a free history lesson. And it always starts the same. "When I first started huntin these hills we didn't need no gald dern huntin license" are always the first words out of his mouth after the long silence. And for the next twenty minutes I learn about his lifetime of hunting in the local hills and hollows. I hear about the time the "Revenoors" chased him for three miles because they thought he was operating one of the many stills in area. He thought they were after him for "killin squirls" without a "gald dern" license. I listen and learn of every large buck taken in the local county for the past seventy-five years. I hear about the "Shentz brothers and old man Taylor" and their feud over hunting spots up on "tater ridge." And I sit on the old wooden stool and stare in wonderment at the old man as he tells his tales.

"Yer that city feller that came in here last year and bought yer deer tag aint ya" he says to me as I sign my now purchased license on the old wooden counter. I smile at him and say "Yes Mr. Bader, I am." He has said the same thing to me for the past ten years.

As I drive west on my way back to my house I think about the new hunting season that is before me. And I feel bad for those that had to buy their hunting license at Wal-Mart.

[hetichunter]

I was in the chat room over at hunting.net when it lit up with info there was a new Mike P post here at the excalibur forum. Man i have to tell u that u make me feel like I am right next to you in that hardware store.

Tanks a bunch for another great little slice of americana.

You made my day as well as a bunch of others over here at hunting.net.

[kg6mta]

Mike, every time I see a post from you I know I'm in for a treat. You have the gift that so many of us, myself included, wish we had. Please keep sharing your stories that make life wonderful. Thank you Mike.

[mikej]

another great post mike

[Benu]

Fantastic story, thanks for sharing. I will be searching out your previous tales.

[hetichunter]

Fantastic story, thanks for sharing. I will be searching out your previous tales.

Hey Benu check out this one. This is the one he did that really got to me.

http://www.excaliburcrossbow.com/phpBB2 ... rady+texas

[FredBear]

Great read Mike! I hope to be reading your next story shortly, about the fall of a palmated gaint!

[cdup]

I could almost smell the old wooden floors! Thanks for the read Mike, if only more of us share your values things may change in life's everyday occurences.

[MADMAX2]

I go to a local fellow to purchase my tag also instead of canadian tire or walmart he always has hunting stories to tell and I enjoy them, also it becomes part of my weird way of thinking that if I stop going there my luck might change it becomes part of the ritual.

[Sandman]

Thanks Mike~!

[maple]

Thanks Mike.

A great read as always.

It reminds me of the time up at Woodlawn about 1975 when me and my buddy Bob were duck hunting. Friday evening we witnessed a huge flight of mallards fresh from the north and fired off every shell we owned. We were frantic to buy more for the next morning, but it was late. We had to go wake up Mr. Vance, the local hardware store owner, to come and open the store for us and sell us shells. He walked across the road in his pajamas. I'm sure he charged us a premium, but we didn't care. We were desperate. Every time I went into his store after that he tried to sell me shells, saying I was sure to need them someday. He sure got a kick out of that.

Needless to say, we didn't see a single duck in the morning.

[Grizzly Adam]

Ah! I have deprived myself, being a NC Lifetime License holder.

Oh, well. It paid for itself last year. I'll never spend another cent to hunt NC.

More lucre for my reserves.

Nice read, Mike.

Does Mr. Bader sell Enzyte?

Maybe that's why he's doing so well at his age.

[awshucks]

Sounds like Herrcke hardware store in La Salle, Illinois. Been there a gazillion times and still can't spell it right, lol. Good read, Mike lots of memories there.