How I Learned to Love Lowes

As a boy, I was obsessed with the world of men. Blue collar, hard-scrabble Pennsylvania. Trucks and warehouses. The barn outside the farmhouse where we lived -- filled with shelving and lumber. Tools and building a house.

Every week or two, my dad would go to Lowes. And by 5 or 6 years old, I knew that Lowes had all sorts of man things. Lawnmowers. Tools. Lumber.

My dad could fix things. My dad could build things. That was out of necessity. Because when you don't have any money, you learn to do it yourself. And it was a different world back then.

So, when my dad would go to Lowes, I would ask to go with him. Because going to Lowes was big. And because, at least for a short while early in life, all little boys look up to their fathers. By 6 years old, I was big enough that my father would let me go with him.

At first, I was excited. It felt like a right of passage. To go to Lowes. With all the men. And all the tools and lawnmowers and things for building. But I quickly realized that my dad did not want me there. I was an annoyance. I was a burden. He took me along out of a sense of obligation. At my mother's urging that he should let me go along.

So I was there with him, but it was a lonely time. My father was a strange and complicated man. He struggled with depression. He struggled with the weight of his own massive ego. His sense of unfulfilled potential. He would often say that he would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven. He would have gotten along just fine with one child, maybe even two. But four was too many. He was overwhelmed by everything. And he would have preferred that his 6-year-old son did not bother him and intrude on his trips to Lowes.

But I had asked. My mother had encouraged it. And, at last, he had relented. We would get in my dad's work truck. He would turn on the radio. I remember my dad singing along to Money for Nothing by the Dire Straits. For all intents and purposes, I was not there. We would get to Lowes and park the truck. My dad would say, "Come along, son." I would want to stop and check out the riding lawnmowers parked out front. Again, he would tell me to come along. Hurry up. There's no time for that. I didn't bring you along so you could play. There was no time for questions or curiosity. I was merely a tag along.

At first I had wanted to go with my dad. After a couple times, I no longer asked to go. But in this strange dance, if my dad would grudgingly extend me the invitation to go along with him, I felt obligated to accept. And it went that way for some time. Until I was 7 or 8 years old, fully disabused of any grand notions of my father, and already aware of who and what he was.

Then I grew up. And for a long time, I hated Lowes. I hated that place. It was deeply unnerving to me. This lasted well into my 30's. I was a grown man. But whenever I had occasion to go to Lowes, I would walk into the store and feel this overwhelming sense of gloom. I could never get out of there fast enough. There are ghosts in the ether and time goes by but some things linger.

And then I became a father. To a son. A son who reminds me so much of me when I was very young (but who is so much better and stronger than me). By 2 and 1/2 years old, my son was talking up a storm. Telling you the make and model of different cars. Obsessed with motors and engines and things that go fast. By 4, he was obsessed with lawnmowers and could tell you different brands and which type of engine was the best.

We would be standing outside of Lowes, with him playing on the riding mowers. And some fresh-faced young dad would approach us and ask if we know anything about the different mower types. Because I guess we look like we know lawnmowers. Maybe it's the mustache. And my son would say, "The best engine is the Kawasaki, so you should get one of the big Toro's. It's a zero turn." And I can't really argue with that. The kid knows his mowers.

My son and I go to Lowes all the time. For all sorts of things. We'll be in the garden center buying soil for raised flower beds. Or in the lawn tools section, looking at attachments for a Husqvarna string trimmer. Or buying the supplies we need to rebuild the food boxes for churches in our town. Back in November, we were at Lowes looking at Christmas decorations. There was a massive, blow-up Christmas Snoopy. My son wanted to get it. Some grandfatherly older gentleman standing next to us said, "They're really easy. You just plug it in and it blows up itself. They're great. We got some for the grandkids." And, with that, I was sold. We got the big Christmas Snoopy.

My son skips when he's overjoyed, so happy he's bursting at the seams. And as we left Lowes that day, on a cold, blue-grey day in November, my son was skipping as he went beside me holding my hand. We load up the things we had bought from Lowes into the back of the Highlander. As we pull out of the parking lot, my son says to me, "Dad, I love going to Lowes!" And I tell him, "Me, too buddy!".

And I do. I really do.