The Wheelbarrow – 3

A quick online search indicates that the Chinese invented the wheelbarrow around 100 A.D. If this is true, it is much to their credit. We could have done without gunpowder but not the wheelbarrow. Think of all the lives saved if they had passed on gunpowder…but the wheelbarrow…now there is a worthy invention.

Perhaps a man was riding a unicycle with a basket of produce on his head. Perhaps he passed another man carrying produce in a box. Perhaps a third man saw them and put two and two together (or is that put one and one together?).

When we moved to Chesterfield the closest hardware stores were Lowes and Tom Brown’s – not the Lowes at Winterpock Road but the Lowes in the K-Mart shopping center. The Lowes by the K-Mart eventually moved to Winterpock Road…at least as I recall. If your memory is different I’ll defer to you.

There was a Hechinger’s hardware store, or home center, or whatever they were calling it then, down on Midlothian Turnpike at the Route 288 junction. Growing up in the D.C. area we had Hechinger’s around town, however, like many companies they expanded, and expanded, and acquired, and expanded some more; now they are out of business.

Tom Brown’s Hardware was a local chain of stores, they’re gone now – the big fish swallowed the little fish. The Leviathans Lowes and Home Depot are on a mission to rid the sea of competitors. Maybe Darwin was right.

There was a Tom Brown’s in the Ukrops shopping center at Hull Street and Courthouse, I still think about it at times when I drive by. I know it is weird to think of a hardware store that has been closed for years.  I also think about McIntyre’s Hardware back in Montgomery County, MD. That was the local hardware store in the Kensington area when I was growing up. I just checked the internet, that infallible guide to everything, and it looks like there is a McIntyre’s Hardware in Damascus, MD.

Speaking of Tom Brown’s Hardware, do you remember Buster Brown shoes? I see the name used but I don’t know if the shoes are still around.

Anyway, we purchased a wheelbarrow and I would really like to remember if we bought it at Tom Brown’s or Lowes or Hechinger’s or Builder’s Square, but I can’t remember. I do know that we didn’t buy it from a shoe store selling Buster Brown shoes.