rivett608
Diamond
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2002
- Location
- Kansas City, Mo.
This simple pair of pliers is very special to me. It is THE FIRST FINE QUALITY TOOL I EVER BOUGHT. That was 50 years ago!!! Scary thing is as anyone that follows me has noticed I collect antique tools, mostly 100s of years old. But this is 50 year old tool, along with many others I bought brand new as a kid have served me well. Years later I engraved (with an ugly electric vibrator thing) “1st Quality Tool, 1970”.
It wasn’t the first tool I bought but it was the 1st High Quality, Real Professional grade tool I bought with my OWN MONEY, I was 14. Since I first experienced Shop Class in the 7th grade (I wrote about this in my Christmas Day post about the vise) I started gathering tools, mostly used or junk, for my basement corner workshop. My dad was an upper level government bureaucrat, not a tool user. As a matter of fact when he started dating my mother, her father, a union carpenter, told her “he was nice, but when is he going to get a real job, one that involved work.” He also said “never trust a man that just wears a necktie to work”. Btw, they have been married for 71 years! Talked to them this morning. Anyway back to the story, dad would take me to the hardware store to help with any home repair projects. Hardware Stores were my second favorite place to go behind a Hobby Shop. See, patterns of behavior develop early in life. At Hardware City and Wheaton Lumber there was always a display of cheap (mostly Japanese if I remember correctly) tools. It seems they were all .88 cents each, be it a pair of pliers, set of screwdrivers or little socket wrenches. Dad had try to drill into my head that there was no reason to ever pay more than .88 cents for any tool and he didn’t. His tool box was a old rusty affair filled with junk and broken tools. Btw, I threw it in the trash when I was about 16, no loss.
So as a young teenager I loved shopping, loved standing in the tool isle of the Hardware Store staring up at all the tools trying to figure out what they did and why they differed from each other. Now understand that in the late 1960s there were basically two types of kids, those clean cut, short haired ones like my brother. Or those scruffy longer haired type hippies that must be up to no good, that was me. So as I stood there looking and of course wanting to touch all these shiny fine tools I would constantly get asked to be helped or at least watched like a hawk to make sure I didn’t steel something. Damn teenagers.
One of my favorite stores was Triangle Hardware on Veirs Mill Rd. In Wheaton, Md., it was right across the street from Wheaton Plaza, where the vise came from. It was the old style hardware store, wood floors, long isles, drawers and shelves to the ceiling with the rolling ladder, a scale to weigh nails, you know the type place. I had braces on my teeth back then and this store was on the Y-6 bus route to my orthodontist in Silver Spring. So after stopping a number of times to look at these pliers and saving up my money I was getting close to having enough. Then one day I figured if I walked the miles home from my appointment the saving of the bus fare, about .35 cents, would give me just enough to buy them. I did and was so proud of them!
Nearing my 16th Birthday I got a job at Aspen Hill Hardware, one of Triangle’s competitors. As the years went by I brought home nearly every tool our store sold, a few each payday. My tool chest, not rusty as my dad’s was, is filled with fine tools and great memories.
It wasn’t the first tool I bought but it was the 1st High Quality, Real Professional grade tool I bought with my OWN MONEY, I was 14. Since I first experienced Shop Class in the 7th grade (I wrote about this in my Christmas Day post about the vise) I started gathering tools, mostly used or junk, for my basement corner workshop. My dad was an upper level government bureaucrat, not a tool user. As a matter of fact when he started dating my mother, her father, a union carpenter, told her “he was nice, but when is he going to get a real job, one that involved work.” He also said “never trust a man that just wears a necktie to work”. Btw, they have been married for 71 years! Talked to them this morning. Anyway back to the story, dad would take me to the hardware store to help with any home repair projects. Hardware Stores were my second favorite place to go behind a Hobby Shop. See, patterns of behavior develop early in life. At Hardware City and Wheaton Lumber there was always a display of cheap (mostly Japanese if I remember correctly) tools. It seems they were all .88 cents each, be it a pair of pliers, set of screwdrivers or little socket wrenches. Dad had try to drill into my head that there was no reason to ever pay more than .88 cents for any tool and he didn’t. His tool box was a old rusty affair filled with junk and broken tools. Btw, I threw it in the trash when I was about 16, no loss.
So as a young teenager I loved shopping, loved standing in the tool isle of the Hardware Store staring up at all the tools trying to figure out what they did and why they differed from each other. Now understand that in the late 1960s there were basically two types of kids, those clean cut, short haired ones like my brother. Or those scruffy longer haired type hippies that must be up to no good, that was me. So as I stood there looking and of course wanting to touch all these shiny fine tools I would constantly get asked to be helped or at least watched like a hawk to make sure I didn’t steel something. Damn teenagers.
One of my favorite stores was Triangle Hardware on Veirs Mill Rd. In Wheaton, Md., it was right across the street from Wheaton Plaza, where the vise came from. It was the old style hardware store, wood floors, long isles, drawers and shelves to the ceiling with the rolling ladder, a scale to weigh nails, you know the type place. I had braces on my teeth back then and this store was on the Y-6 bus route to my orthodontist in Silver Spring. So after stopping a number of times to look at these pliers and saving up my money I was getting close to having enough. Then one day I figured if I walked the miles home from my appointment the saving of the bus fare, about .35 cents, would give me just enough to buy them. I did and was so proud of them!
Nearing my 16th Birthday I got a job at Aspen Hill Hardware, one of Triangle’s competitors. As the years went by I brought home nearly every tool our store sold, a few each payday. My tool chest, not rusty as my dad’s was, is filled with fine tools and great memories.