“Hello, it’s a beautiful day; thank you for calling Durfee’s, how can I help you?”

He knows it’s an unconventional way to answer the phone, but sitting behind his desk Friday morning, Ray Durfee says it’s a good way to make an impression.

“I think as a store, we’re one of the few left where it’s friendly and you know the management,” he said.

Durfee Hardware is a fixture in Cranston, and Ray Durfee is the face of that fixture. He turned 88 years old on Sunday, but said things haven’t changed much in the store’s 80-year history.

Clarence Lester “C.L.” Durfee opened the business in 1929 on Rolfe Square, where it remains today.

“My father was one of the smartest men I ever knew,” Ray said.

Back when C.L. ran the store, and through until today, Durfee’s has a classic feel about it. The hardwood floors creak in certain spots, and there are traces of history running throughout the building, like the black and white picture of C.L. that hangs in the front.

In the cash register, there is a constantly refreshed stack of $2 bills.

“When someone gets a two-dollar bill and they spend it, the people say, ‘Oh, you’ve been to Durfee’s.’ What better free publicity can you get?” Ray said, laughing.

Alzheimer’s Disease ultimately prompted C.L. to pass the business on to his son in 1960, but at that point Ray had already built up his resume. He had worked at the store as soon as he could walk, and in 1944 graduated from Brown University with a degree in economics. From there, he served two tours in the United States Army, one in World War II and the other in Korea, just as his wife Elizabeth was about to have their first child.

During his second tour, Ray became an exchange officer in Jacksonville, Fla. and manned the Army Navy store there. It was experience that would serve him well in the business world.

“We sold millions of dollars worth of stuff; it was an enormous operation,” he said.

Ray eventually resigned from the military, but soon took up another kind of public service. He served an eight-year term in the Rhode Island House of Representatives and another eight years in the state Senate.

Elected office wasn’t easy for Ray, a Republican with strong opinions. He was a vocal opponent of the government spending anything without putting it to the voters, an issue he also addressed while serving with the Constitutional Convention.

When former Governor Bruce Sundlun was toying with the idea of building T.F. Green Airport, Ray supported the plan but believed it was a mistake not to put it on the ballot.

“Basically I was there the whole time and I never got a bill out of committee,” said Ray, who was also the Senate Chaplain. “I enjoyed my time in the legislature even though I said ‘no’ I think more than any other legislator in history.”

Looking at the state of the state today, he quips he may have been more right than his colleagues realized.

Growing up on Glenwood Avenue in Cranston, Ray lived next door to a mortgage lender. He recalls families hitting tough times during the Depression, and struggling to make ends meet. Back then, though, the lenders did what they could to keep people in their homes.

Seeing his customers in similar straits now, Ray is concerned that those in power are not looking out for their own.

“Do we really want to drive people who have worked all their life out?” he asked.

It hasn’t been easy for the hardware store to survive, either. As big box stores cropped up around Rhode Island, Durfee’s was no longer the only show in town.

“If we didn’t have a lot of loyal customers, we wouldn’t be around,” Ray said.

He can name those customers, and waves to them from his perch in the front where he makes keys and points shoppers in the direction of the rake or hammer they’re looking for. Not far away, Paul Durfee – one of Ray’s three sons – is busy with customers as well.

“We’ve been here a long time and we go out of our way to help people,” Paul said, adding that at Durfee’s, they’re more concerned with helping customers do home improvement the right way and the affordable way than making the big sell.

That’s an approach Ray taught Paul – as well as sons Peter and David – when they helped him out around the store.

“I’ve been doing this since I could carry a package up the stairs,” Paul said, recalling his early days working in the store. He and his brothers would work in the morning, then go out to lunch with their dad before getting their “wages;” just enough to pay for a double feature at the Park Theatre.

“My father thought it was a good idea for us to learn the value of a dollar,” Paul said. “He’d allow you to make mistakes so you’d learn a little quicker.”

Paul took over the store about 30 years ago, but Ray is far from retired.

“I’m here for 10 hours a day, six days a week. Some people think 60 hours a week is a lot of work; for me it’s like a vacation,” he said.

Besides, he says, he’s not much of a golfer, and the television shows he enjoys, like MASH and All in the Family, aren’t on anymore.

Ray is an avid Red Sox fan, however, as evident by the baseball bow tie he donned last week. Sports have always been a part of his family. His wife coached little league for many years, and at one time was a semi-professional basketball player.

When he’s not in the store or watching the Sox, Ray teaches Sunday School at St. David’s and spends time with his children and nine grandchildren, who live in the same neighborhood in Scituate.

“Very few people are fortunate enough to still have their families close,” he said.

With all that on his plate, Ray says he has few complaints. He likes work, he loves his family, and he didn’t even mind the surprise birthday party planned for him over the weekend – which he wasn’t supposed to know about.

And if anyone’s looking for him?

“They know where to find me.”