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Back at least 20 years ago, when Adams & Houser Hardware was diagonally across the street from our shop on State St., they put lawn mowers, wheel barrows and fertilizer spreaders out on the sidewalk every morning, chained together. I assume they did that both to advertise that they sold these items, and also to get them out of the aisles inside the store.

Every evening they would be taken back inside. When he was a high school student, Eddie (I won't divulge his last name) worked at Adams & Houser after school and at night it was his duty to take "the animals" inside at closing time. One night Eddie forgot his duty, and as we were getting ready to head home, we noticed that "the animals" had been left outside.We went over and unchained them and brought them across to our shop but we put them in our window so when the folks opened up the next morning they could, hopefully, see that we had their equipment.

Just as a joke Pete put a sign on the merchandise stating: "For Sale, Cheap". But, the laugh was on us because they didn't even miss them! After we opened we walked over to ask if we could buy a wheel barrow and then they finally realized what we'd done, so they decided to leave them in our window until Eddie came to work after school.When he was asked if he knew where "the animals" were he remembered that he'd forgotten to bring them in and he hit the panic button. They didn't make him stew too long though because he was really upset.  Needless to say he never forgot "the animals" again. Life is good...