59 ❘ Klamath Life ❘ Close to Home
Quintessentials Meet Denny Kalina
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By LEE JUILLERAT H&N Regional Editor
ustomers never know what’s in store when visiting with Denny Kalina at Kalina’s Hardware, his sell-almost-everything store in downtown Malin.
H&N photo by Lee Juillerat
About Quintessentials: This Klamath Life series takes a close-up look at one of the personalities from the region who helps shape and make the Basin a great place to live.
The store’s shelves are lined with everyday needs, including sporting goods, toys, cards, alcohol, paint, auto parts, anti-freeze, motor oil and, among his best sellers, ag-related items like nuts, bolts, screws, pipe fittings and, of course, all types of hardware. But the store is more than a store. It’s a community gathering place where folks come to chat, drink coffee and wax philosophically. The person overseeing the chatter is Kalina, the grandson of A and Marie Kalina, who were among the early Czechs who settled in Malin in 1909. “We’ve got a lot of family ties,” Kalina says. Store visitors buy necessities — and palaver. “The older you get the less people can say you’re wrong,” chuckles the 70-year-old Kalina. “You can always tell stories, good stories. Some of them are hilarious.” Kalina collects stories. He also tells stories, some hilarious, nearly all of them blending in tidbits of town history. Mention baseball and he recalls the original Klamath Falls Gems baseball team and, closer to home, teams from other Klamath Basin towns. “Malin played Beatty and Bly, and Bly doesn’t have enough people to field a team anymore,” he says, noting the fledgling Malin Historical Society, which is developing a museum, will display the old uniforms. “I’ve always been involved in history because I’ve been a part of it,” says Kalina, who serves as a director and treasurer of the historical society and, indeed, is living a life intertwined with the area’s history. His pickup truck, for example, is a 1967 model he bought in 1972 from the late Ralph Hill. Hill, who won a silver medal in the 1932 Summer Olympics in the 5,000-meter run, sold the pickup, a four-speed stick, because he was unable to shift after suffering a heart attack. “I drive it every day,” Kalina says, noting the odometer reading is only 80,000 miles. “I don’t go very far, but I drive it every day.” He remembers 1967 as the year he and other Malin High School buddies took a summer train trip, stopping in Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C., where they asked taxi drivers to “take us to see what you think is important.” Mostly he’s stayed close to Malin. He and his wife, Janis, have three sons, including Jared, whom he hopes will eventually take over the store. On this day, Kalina is collecting get-well signatures for Stan Pence. Because there isn’t enough space on the card, well-wishers sign their names on a spool of paper normally used for receipts. A table has the remnants of a chocolate cake, donated because, “A guy’s grandson had a birthday party and they had too much cake. Can you believe it?” Because it’s an afternoon when the Malin Country Diner is closed, people filter into the hardware store for coffee and conversation. Kalina is happy to chat, and wax philosophical in his own elfish style. Ruminating on technology, he muses, “We’re afraid of change. The older we get the more we’re afraid of change. We’ll change our socks every day, but that’s about all.”