Declining Main Street

I stopped in to the Friendship Hardware Store on Main Street today. Suzie Simmons, who owns the store, tells me that she'll be closing the store in a couple months. It's a timely reminder of how bad things are on Main streets around the country. Things are bad.

The hardware store kept running, perhaps long after its time, by supplying some of the special needs of the lobstermen in Friendship. Reels of rope, all weather rubber jackets and pants, rollers, and a great supply of stainless steel hardware, hard to find even in the big box stores. Fall is usually the high demand season for the hardware store, because it's the big season for the fishermen. But not this year.

Friendship's last B&B

This year, the lobster buyers, mostly from Canada, have met all the demand and have stopped buying. The fishermen have stopped fishing. The price for lobster is incredibly low, $2 to $3 a pound wholesale, or less. At that price, you can't afford to fill the boat with fuel, or buy bait to bait the traps. So the fishermen are staying home, living on their savings, if they have any. And if the boats aren't running, they don't need any hardware.

There are other problems visible on Main Street in Friendship. One house is being gutted, a result of tear gas damage that occurred when the resident had some nasty hallucinations and stood off the police for several hours. Another house is being boarded up, after being destroyed by fire last weekend. There aren't that many houses on Maine Street to begin with. Losing two is a significant percentage.

Wallace's Store

At Wallace's store, gas is only $2.99 per gallon, far less than it was earlier this summer when the pump price had to be doubled because the pumps couldn't be set for over $4.00 per gallon. And the owner was found working both ends of the store, making sandwiches in the back then running to the front to ring them up on the cash register. His customers are patient, but he won't last long at this rate.

This is the latest in the year that we've stayed in town. The other summer folks are all gone, they left by Columbus Day. I expected that Friendship would be somewhat bleak during the off season. But this year, it seems downright depressing. Makes me wonder what will be left to come back to when we finally come back.