Buster Pence would not let me have any.
If Buster Pence had had a real friend in this life, the closest would be me.
Buster and Dorothy had the local hardware store when I moved here. They had inherited it from Buckshot Pence, Buster's father. From 1970 to 1995 or so, I did local work in many trades.
I knew Busters front and backroom inventories almost as well has he did. Sometimes many times a week and sometimes many times a day, I was in and out. I gave opinions or what to order and checked over the goods as they came in. We did uncounted favors for each other over the years.
Nobody alive got along with Dorothy very well. She couldn't let you. I was as close as anyone.
Buster was not stupid but he didn't have so much native intelligence.
Buster, in his heart, considered himself a local logger family man. Even though he never tossed a choker or walked up a hillside behind a Cat pulling logs in his life. Never bucked logs or even knocked off stobs with the back of an ax. He still thought of himself that way.
And even though I had done those jobs (and lived to tell of it) plus most all the rest of the loggers occupational hazards, and lived here damn near as long as him, I was always an imported hippie.
Stupid. He didn't resemble a true logger any more than I resembled a true hippie. We were more like peas in a pod than not. We both had many similar interests.
His house resembled my house as much as any did. He was a little more of a yard man and his house suffered. I am more of a house man and my yard suffers.
But if you were looking in from the outside it wouldn't be easy to tell that. You have to be close enough to really know to tell any difference.
He could mix paint well but he couldn't cut glass worth a damn. He knew about many kinds of tools but not the good ones. It was my advise that covered the store there.
He sold the business to strangers in 92. Didn't even ask me. Some optimistic but ignorant couple from LowCal thought they were going to make money. Idiots!
You could round up all the money this whole town has laying around loose, and still be poor.
They gave up after a couple of years and Buster had to take it back. He didn't last long though.
The drill drawers and a couple other pieces of original Buckshot fixturing were the only things I ever really wanted from the store. Wanted them all along and asked many times.
I didn't get them from Buster, either the first or the second time he left the store.
After Buster was gone the tribe took it over and I didn't get them as they ran it into the ground either.
The old drawers, kept in fine shape for 2 generations, got knocked around hard and beat up in a short period of time.
The tribe got the money to buy the store free of course. They got anything they wanted to buy things for a while. But they didn't get anything to run it on thereafter.
So they would buy up every vacant building in town to open some fictitious business or other (Wellness Center etc) and then in 6 months it would be empty again.
At least that was the pattern all through the 90's and 00s.
After that the gov. cut back on the "idiot business startup" money and just concentrated on the clinic and tribal administration.
So now we have one semi retired doctor who doesn't work much at all and never ever anything strenuous (you have to go to the county hospital to get your finger stitched up), one physicians assistant with the ink still wet on her diploma, 9 nurses wondering what they are supposed to be doing, and ----one hundred eighty five women--- on the full time payroll,....... as support staff.
This pales compared to tribal administration though which employs hundreds of women and men both. Made up jobs galore!!!! And many get free homes to boot.
But anyway, if 25 years won't get you old school drill drawers nobody else really wanted anymore?
Well now you know why they were asking $75.
yours Scott
