Friday, November 10, 2006

Good Adirondack Advice at the OF Hardware

This sign hangs in the Old Forge Harware. The OFH is certainly the best place to shop and spend a rainy day in Old Forge. It's a truly old fashioned general store, with ancient wood floors that creak as you walk across them, and a surprise around every corner. We like to visit the store often to talk with our favorite sales person, Jimmy, who mans the front cash register faithfully. He knows everything in the store and everything about anything to do with building, hardware, maintenance and Adirondack lore. So it's an experience not only about buying cool stuff, but about visiting with friends. Sarah Cohen and her sister Linda Cohen, the owners of the store, founded by their great-grandfather (I think), Moses Cohen. It is a family owned store in an era of bland, concrete, impersonal "super" stores, like Wal-Mart and Target. In some respects, it reminds me of a little old sandwich shop that died a long, slow death in Ann Arbor, Michigan, called Drake's. Drake's was the same when my parents attended the University of Michigan as it was when I did so, many years later. But, in the end, it could not stand up to Starbuck's and the other faster, more efficient places that take credit cards and have websites. But the Old Forge Hardware is still kicking. We hope it doesn't suffer the fate of Drake's and that it continues to serve and entertain visitors for many years into the Adirondack future.

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