Every possession has a story.
Some are treasured keepsakes.
Others, not so much.
The stories of other possessions are unknown or have been largely forgotten.
Nowhere, will you find more stories of things and people that at a pawnshop.
For our Montana Moment, we spent a morning at Downtown Pawn and Gun in Missoula.
It’s a typical day at the shop, which means nothing is typical.
Owner/operator Cody Cowart stands behind the counter.
“I know everybody from lawyers down to the homeless people that we deal with every day.” he said. “It’s a very intriguing world.”
Cody has owned the shop for 13-years.
He’s a Missoula native with college degrees in accounting and business.
But running a pawnshop is much more than transactions.
“This is the only job I have ever had where it hasn’t bored me to death after about five-years,” he said. “You get to see a different piece of life every day.”
“Missoula has so much uniqueness, just from the variety of people who live here,” he said, “especially downtown Missoula. Missoula is soul.”
Cody’s colleague, pawnbroker James Newstrom comes from Troy, Montana.
James has been working at the shop for three-years.
He’s been a tattoo artist and a bartender, which means he’s used to dealing with the public.
He likes people.
“You are the shoulder to cry on,” he said of his position, “and you’re the wallet they don’t have.”
“You’re in a job where you’re a therapist,” he said. “You talk to people. You let people unload on you,” he said. “I get to help people.”
Lee Busby is a frequent customer.
He buys and sells stuff here all the time.
Lee said with his health problems money is always tight.
“They’re like my family,” he said. “They’re someone that actually gives a damn.”
Cody’s friend Dawna Kluesner has been coming into the shop for years.
Dawna’s been staying at a local shelter.
“My brother and I wound up at the shelter,” she said,” because he got massive frostbite on his foot.”
Dawna knows just about everyone in the shop.
She comes in at least once a month, and sometimes buys merchandise.
She said she bought a couple rings and a couple backpacks.
Backpacks are essential for people without a place to live.
“I know the homeless people on a different level from most people,” said Cody. “I know a lot of them by first-name basis.”
One of them was Lee Nelson, a man who was murdered last year.
Behind the desk hangs a helmet that Lee used to wear.
“He was just a happy-go-lucky nice guy,” said Cody.
He said the helmet will stay on the wall in Lee’s memory.
A young woman named Nena and her brother James came into the shop.
Nena wanted to sell items so that she could get enough money for gas so she could get to her job.
She said she was “running on a lot of nothing and trying to do a lot of staying alive.”
Referring to COVID-19 Nena said “you can’t go anywhere you know.”
The pandemic has certainly left many people unemployed and struggling financially.
But through the pandemic, Cody said he saw people with expendable income because they weren’t going out.
He said,” the shop has “actually kept pretty busy.”
“Everybody wanted bikes, kayaks, any sort of outdoor gear,” he said, because everybody had more free time.”
And, he said, pointing to the guitars hanging on the wall, everybody seems to want musical instruments.
“We’ve got the wall of guitars,” he said, “which is pretty thin right now.”
“Picking up guitar was one of those things that they decided to do,” he said. “If you’re not going to stick with something why buy an expensive guitar? Come to the pawnshop and give it a try.”
In the corner sits a jukebox.
“This is a 1974 Rock-Ola 54 loaded with nothing but good records from the 60’s up through the 80’s,” he said. “You can go all the way from ‘Sea of Love’ up to ‘Bad’ From Michael Jackson.”
There are songs of love won and love lost.
How many songs have been written about pawnshop wedding rings?
“People come in and buy their wedding rings here,” said James,” and yet sometimes that love fades away and we end up with gold bands here.”
There’s even a mothers ring with her children’s birthstones.
Customers here are always buying and selling guns.
“At the beginning of COVID,” said James, “people seemed to need a gun like they needed toilet paper.”
“We have everything from shotguns to an AR,” he said. “We have hunting rifles. A James style (pistol) a Walther.”
On the wall is a collector’s Winchester rifle.
It was only made from 1911 to 1925 because it was so dangerous.
They called it “The Widowmaker.”
Cody showed us an old phonograph.
“Stuff like that is why you come to a pawnshop,” he said. “It’s like a live museum.”
Every item is part of somebody’s life, whether old owners are letting go of it, or new owners are claiming it as their own.
See full story: https://nbcmontana.com/news/montana-moment/pawnshop-offers-different-piece-of-life-every-day
