I confess I love the Akards, all of them. I love the way they do business and the way they do friendship. I am blessed to have known both.
An early memory is of about 40 years ago, when I was sorting through a bowl of items at the hardware store counter. Everything in the bowl was on sale for 50 cents. I found what I thought was a doughnut hole cutter. Actually, I had never seen one before, but I needed one for 12 years. That’s how long I had been making these cute tiny Christmas cookies called “Sheila’s cookies.” The recipe said they should be cut out with a doughnut hole cutter.
I paid my 50 cents for the cutter and used the thing for the next 38 years. At Year 50, I quit making the cookies and gave the recipe and the doughnut hole cutter to my children.
Another memory also involves Christmas. The year was 2001, when I bought my Christmas tree at Akard’s. It was silver aluminum and looked just like my grandma’s tree did.
A third memory is probably my favorite. One summer I was checking out a patio set. It was called the “Margaretta model,” and the umbrella read, “Margaritaville”.
As fate would have it, I was selling cars and trucks at the time, and the Akards, God bless them, were my customers. Steve Akard and I were haggling over the price of a truck when I said to him, “If he would throw in a margarita patio set, I would settle on his price,” and he agreed.
A few days later, he and a couple of employees showed up at the dealership. The truck was all cleaned up, and sitting in the truck bed was a margarita table all set up and the umbrella, which said “Margaritaville, was blowing in the wind. It was such fun.
I know it’s time for the Akard family to have time together without worry and all that is left to say is, goodbye, God bless, and thank you.
Donna Monday is a Zionsville resident and longtime friend of the Akard family.
