Columnists
The five & dime
I recently did a video session about how the County has changed over the years. Usually I defer things like this to my local historians, who know way more than me. They were my ‘go-to-guys’ who could remember all the way back to when they stopped breastfeeding. Then I realized that all of these great friends were dead, and I was now the ancient ‘go-to’ guy.
I’m not a normal person (big surprise!) or I would have taken up pipe smoking, and donned tweed jackets which, for some reason, had leather patches on the elbows (as if smart people tended to overuse their elbows), and a silly ‘flat cap’, which looked like I had a cow turd on my head. Because that’s what unexpected ‘experts’ like me would do.
But it did get me thinking.
THE PAST AND THE FUTURE
There’s lots of us out there who yearn for the past, and moan about the fact that Bloomfield no longer has a grocery store, and restaurants have burgers that sell for $25, which would buy an entire cow in 1960. Times have indeed changed, but no one seems to realize that we did that!
The small grocery stores died when supermarkets, like IGA (early in the game), became the place to shop. They had volume suppliers and lower prices. And more people were driving, so the ‘trip to Picton’ was not as intimidating as it was before. So yes, we killed small businesses, so we could spend gas money (which was cheap) to get a better price. We did that. If you feel guilt about that, kneel and say: “Hail Mary, Amazon and Wal-Mart” and burn in hell.
The past is great for those of us who remember it. But longing for a time that has long passed is a fool’s game. Everything changes (except for me—I’m as crazy now as I was then).
So it’s okay, but incredibly frustrating, to expect you can go to Picton in the summer and park on the Main Street anytime before 9 p.m. We still do the ‘come on in wave’, since we’re at a red light and not going anywhere anyway. This freaks out city people, which is why cars purchased in the city have horns, and the people who drive them have fingers, and not the one-finger wave.
BEFORE THE FUTURE
A lot of us old-timers talk about ‘Remember when …’ Funny thing is, I remember the smells of Picton. (You might pause to remember I am not normal.) This is a Country Mouse/City Mouse thing. It is also the reason I don’t wear a cow pie on my head, though I had plenty at hand.
To me, I remember the smell of the Royal Hotel. The smell of stale beer and urine. I liked the feeling of walking across the floor and your feet would make a kind of ripping sound as you moved. I remember when I worked at the Gazette, and joined the back shop guys for a liquid lunch at the Royal. We asked if they had sandwiches, and we got a pickled egg smashed onto a piece of bread. Didn’t take more than one bite, but laughed about it forever.
I remember the smell of Lipson’s, where I bought my first set of 99¢ Golden Horse jeans, which shrank to be shorts after three washings. Can’t quite describe the smell, but it would be like really cheap Chinese fabric.
My best smell is from Bailey’s pool room. I went there because they had a great collection of comic books, and I was an avid Marvel comics fan. I must have spent a thousand pennies in there and, when I re-read my purchases today, they smell like cheap hair tonic and cigar smoke, and it takes me back to the very day I bought it.
And then there was Stedman’s. Like Woolworth’s, it was the classic five and dime. I used to laugh at their store windows, and say, “If it’s not in our window, we don’t got it.” This was a place where you could pick up a pile of useless plastic products you don’t need, and pay with the change in your pocket.
I have a lot of great memories of ‘Back Then County’. They are mostly ridiculous, by current standards, but I look back on them fondly. As a teen, I remember a waitress at the Rickarton (I believe), who carried a mini-baseball bat on her belt. If trouble broke out, she would just wade in, swinging the bat, removing trouble. Something to see, for sure, but now just a memory.
MEMORY VS. NOSTALGIA
These are two different things. I have lots of memories, but they don’t need to be relived. I lived them once, and I smile when I recall them.
Nostalgia is a different thing. It makes you yearn for the days when bread cost 5¢ a loaf, and I would pull up at a gas station and say: “Five bucks, if it will take it.” When a full roast beef meal would be outrageously priced at $2.50, and you could buy a pack of gum for 5¢.
The problem is: The yearning. There is no point in hoping for a past that can never return. Changes happen. Slowly, but inexorably. Prices creep up, and sometimes blow up. Longing for the past to return is a fruitless exercise. Still, we take what we can get.
The Five & Dime is now Dollarama and their like. Second Time Around is still the first stop, because we throw out good things when we decide to get better things.
IN THE NOT-SO-OLD DAYS
My mother used to save buttons in a jar. I’ll bet your mom or grandma did too. This was inherited from the Depression days, and later during WW2: Never throw anything out, because it may be useful someday. I was born into this mentality, which is why I have shirts I wore in high school, but can’t part with them.
Weird thing is: Use, reuse and recycle was not a thing then, but is now. Back then, it was just what you needed to do. Make the best of what you’ve got.
We used to have TV and appliance repairmen. They all died away, and probably actually died as well. There’s no ‘fixing’ now. We just discard our big screen TVs, because we just bought a new one that covers one wall and has HD, and almost makes your eyes bleed with its intensity. Buy it; throw it out; buy another. This is what we do.
LIVING IN THE FIVE & DIME WORLD
That world held a charm for me. Good stuff at a good price. Inflation freaks me out. Grocery store super sales are double regular price; 50 per cent off doesn’t even bring it down to what I used to pay at regular price.
I have enough money to keep myself alive, but I still scan the flyers for the best price. Mostly I shout at the flyers: “Are you kidding me?! $5.99 a pound (or maybe a kilogram … haven’t got used to that yet.)”
The days when I could fill my gas tank for five bucks are long gone. Now I check my credit limit to make sure I can pay for a fill.
It isn’t only the County that has changed. The economy is a roller-coaster ride, and the downside of the run never quite goes back to the starting point.
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