Wearin’ the brand

His badge read Swinton’s Hardware, Swinton, Texas.

So I asked.

“How big is Swinton?”

“Well…. I can take my hat off without bumpin’ anyone,” he said in a thick, rich cowpoke drawl.

The “he” is Tom Bowerman, who stood with me just outside the entrance to the recent True Value Reunion show in Houston, framed by a neon sign behind him exclaiming their 75th Anniversary.

I had to know if he was a real cowboy or a Hollywood version, all duded-up.

“Both,” he said with a wide grin. “I’ve been in ads and commercials and done shows,” he said. “But I was a cowboy workin’ a ranch for 20 years, I’m done with all that.”

Bowerman came to the show to help his friend, the new owner of Swinton’s, who bought the hardware business earlier this year.

“I help him out whenever he asks me,” said Tall Tom. “Otherwise I keep busy at my own business, I make shoes and boots and repair them, anything in leather.”

He told me the hardware business seemed to be the right move for his friend in the small rural town of Swinton, with a population of about 1,000.

“It’s a great store because even though the town is small,” he said, “there are other small towns all around us and we serve all those communities too. They all come to us.”

He said business is up and down this year but they’re hangin’ in, and expect better times a-comin’.

“Our high school graduates 50 students a year,” he said. “So you can see our size isn’t big.”

I thanked him for his time as I could see he was itching to be amblin’ inside the show hall.

Cowboy Tom – as I called him, which made him crack-up – is just one person in our hardware industry. But I couldn’t help feel he represented all of us: Hard working, true to himself; and friendly.

He tipped his cowboy hat to me as I left, and if I had one, I would have tipped it back.