Memoirs of a Worldly Guy
[Gr. kinema, movement, < kineo, to move]
Years later, when we were all going to Central High School, a block due north of the terrace home on Fourteenth Avenue, Kredentser's store became a hangout for Lloyd and his cronies, presumably because they could smoke cigarettes there without the critical interference of 'Pop' Weir, the schol principal. They referred to their hangout as 'Krad's' and nearly all of the frequenters had nicknames. Lloyd became 'Pinkie'; Ian Gunn was 'Flat'; George Cowan was 'Duke'; Art Howard was 'Horse'; Gord Swann was 'Peg'; Gordon McInnes was "McGunk' and so on. I didn't have a nickname for obvious reasons (I didn't hang out there). 'Pop' Weir made no secret of the fact that he thought most of 'Krad's' habitues were second-rate academic prospects and should be kept away as much as possible from his 'star' prospects.
The 'home room' for 'star' prospects when I was in Grade 12 was supervised by Mr. Robinson, affectionately known by all as 'Robbie'. He was a diminutive balding man with an English accent. There was a door at the front corner of the room and another in the back corner; both had windows and both led out into the common hallway. Fraternities and sororities were still legal and initiates were subjected to ridiculous behaviour during classes with the advantage for fraternity members to peer through the glass panels in the doors to confirm that the initiates were performing as instructed.
One day an initiate raised his hand when Robbie had finished the morning Bible reading.
'Yes, Green,' Robbie said.
Green rose and stepped out into the aisle. 'I'm sorry, sir, but someone slipped birdseed into my porridge this morning and I have an uncontrollable urge to sing.'
'Go ahead the, if you must!' When I got to know Robbie better in later years I realized that he probably enjoyed these hijinks as much as anyone as long as they didn't get out of hand. He didn't interrupt Green until he was into his second verse.
'The waiter bellowed down the hall, "You get no bread with one meatbaaalll!"'
'Thank you, Green, that was very nice, but I think we've had enough for now!' Green sat down with a look of relief on his face. Meanwhile, senior members of the fraternity were standing outside looking through the glass panes to see that Green had fulfilled his assignment.
On another occasion my brother Lloyd and Gord McInnes showed more than their usual interest in academics when they decided to conduct an experiment in what they referred to as 'Erroneous Information Transmission Velocity'.
'Have you heard about Robbie?' Gord would ask one of the early arrivals after the lunch break.
'No! What about him?'
'He fell and broke his leg getting off the streetcar!' Lloyd would say. Then they stood around waiting for the reaction. Within ten minutes the first tale-bearer arrived with the 'news'. Half an hour later everybody in the school knew about Robbie's 'accident'. When Robbie bustled into the school in his usual manner a few minutes before classes started he was puzzled by the incredulous looks he was getting from the students. 'Pop' Weir had his suspicions about the perpetrators of the scenario but lacked the proof he craved to take action. As a result nothing happened to the mischievous pair and they were able to 'dine out' on the story for weeks.
I realize now that much of our social activity during the late thirties and early forties was focused around the intersection of Seventeenth Avenue and Fourteenth Street West. The Kinema Theatre was opened sometime during the thirties and was managed by a young couple (was their name Golden?) who seemed to need very little if any assistance. The Kinema Lunch also began operations in the late thirties and drew on youths from all of the area for many blocks around. Smack in the middle at the northwest corner of the intersection was 'Jimmie's' southwest Calgary restaurant.
James Yorkondondis (Jimmie) had immigrated from his native country of Greece years previously and was the owner of two profitable restaurants. His first restaurant was called 'The Palace of Eats', cynically called 'The Palace of Greeks' and we went in there after dining downtown, which was rare, or after having gone to a movie in the downtown area. Dad's billiard parlour was just across Eighth Avenue to the north and Jimmie and Dad were good friends. We always had a scoop of ice cream served in a cone of waterproof paper in a metal stem dish; an ice cream wafer was considered to be mandatory. Meanwhile, someone in the back of the store had been turning out tons of candy served in inch-sized cubes of nougat of every kind filled with nuts of every description. I don't recall eating any of this candy. Jimmie's younger brother Ernie came to Canada a few years later and I always suspected that Jimmie opened the southwest store to provide an occupation for his young brother.
You may recall that my first and only venture into a life of crime took place only a hundred feet east of the Fourteenth Street corner when my pal masterminded the theft of a pocketful of flypaper rolls. As a result I was able to see the occasionally arrested growth of the district for nearly twenty years from the end of the twenties to the end of the forties. The collision of the runaway streetcar with Crook's drug store on the northeast corner of the intersection was the only event I seemed to have missed but I think it took place before my arrival.
Beaver's Barber Shop and Hill the Tailor were probably there long before and long after most of the other shopkeepers. A series of milliners came and went out of business during the thirties and to my knowledge never recovered when hats were no longer in style during the war years. Skimpy church attendance might have had something to do with it.
There was a meat market a few doors east of Bull's grocery on the south side at the second level of Seventeenth Avenue in the early thirties but I don't remember who ran it. I do remember that weiners cost a cent apiece. Fairley's Meat Market was located on the same side of the street north of Jimmie's and next door on the south side of Hall's Hardware. In those days the meat purchases were delivered by a young man called 'Snick' Pitt (speaking of useless trivia). Fairley's finally moved up to the top of Fourteenth Street near Twenty Sixth Avenue. I remember going into the butcher store next to Hall's in the early forties when Jack Tempest was given meat bones for his dog, free of charge. These days you pay for dog bones.
The Koffee Kounter across from the Tivoli Theatre near Twenty-Second Avenue was the hottest place in town during the thirties and forties and I've always assumed it was the inspiration for the Kinema Lunch although I've never had the impression it was under the same ownership. The 'K.L' as it became familiarly known was modern to the extent that it had a horseshoe-shaped counter with simulated red leather covered stools arranged along it. In front of every third stool was a remote Wurlitzer station with a list of the day's most popular hits and a coin slot for the convenience of the music lovers. This usually proved to be an embarrassment for me. I was regularly hectored by others to 'stick a nickel in the Wurlitzer'. In most cases I didn't have a nickel; if I'd had one I doubt if I'd have been willing to waste it on anything as frivolous as two minutes of popular music. And I wondered why I wasn't popular with the young ladies.
Bei mir bist du schoen,
I'll say it again,
Bei mir bist du schoen
Means I love you!...
...When the deep purple falls
Over sleepy garden walls
Dum de dum de dum
De dum de dum de dum...,etcetera.
...Mairzy doats and doazy doats
And lttle lambsy divey
A kiddley eat ivy too,
Wouldn't you?...
It's fifty years ago but Al still fantasizes about two or three of the young females he used to drool over at the 'K.L'. The marginally older of the twins who lived in my neighborhood used to render him speechless just at the time he craved a witty, highly articulate quip. A well-built young lady with a freckled face from the top of Fourteenth Street also drew a lot of his attention.
'I can't think of the name of that girl with the big tits who lived across the street from Jake!' he regularly complains. I'm not surprised; after all, it's more than fifty years ago! Besides, any babe who had tits that big fifty years ago would probably have them down around her waist now looking like a bloodhound's ears! (Al admits that she probably 'has nipples on her knees by now!'). Assertions of that nature do not deter his lusty youthful reminiscences, however.
There were rarely more than eight or ten customers in the Kinema Lunch and most of them spent little more than fifty cents, if that much. The popular combination was a date square and a milkshake; a date square and a scoop of ice cream if we felt like splurging! I never saw a menu but I assume there was one; it would have featured bacon and eggs and a variety of sandwiches including hamburgers, but I never saw any of these items served. I had a mental image of a little old lady in a greasy white uniform filling double-sized cooking pans with rolled oats, brown sugar, melted butter and dates and cooking them in the oven in anticipation of the afternoon and evening juveniles. Oh, what the hell! I may as well give you the complete recipe!
DATE-FILLED OATMEAL SQUARES
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup butter, melted
Mix all ingredients well in order given. Pat half the mixture on the bottom of a greased 9 by 13 inch pan. Spread with date filling.
FILLING
Boil one pound pitted dates, cut fine, with 1 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of water until smooth. Add grated rind of 1 lemon and 1 orange. Cool.
Pat remaining dough over this filling. Bake in a moderately slow oven, 325 degrees F., for 30 minutes. Cut while warm. Dust with confectioner's sugar, or top with Confectioner's Sugar Glaze. (I don't remember any of this nonsense about topping it with sugar!)
Try it! It's easy to make and it's delicious. I think the brown sugar and butter made the crisp glaze around the edges and we used to importune the waitresses to give us the corner cuts because they had two sides that were extra crunchy.
We would frequently secrete ourselves in one of the booths which were aligned along each side of the middle of Jimmie's restaurant and exchange gossip while sipping on cherry cokes, the popular potation of the day. In addition to the paper straws we received with our drinks there was a box of them in each booth. Our preferred recreation was chewing several of the straws until they became a pulpy mass in our mouths. Once the coast was clear we would hurl the mass upward with a quick surreptitious thrust and listen for the wet smack as it contacted the ceiling. After two or three months the missiles, by then as hard as concrete, would be stuck to the ceiling like incipient wasps' nests.
Without previous warning, Ernie, white apron and all, would come hustling back to stand at the grill by the back door and fill an order for a toasted bacon and tomato sandwich, or whatever had been ordered. If he had caught a pulpy paper straw hurler 'en flagrante delicto' there is every possibility that we would all have been required to participate in the semi-annual cleanup of the ceiling, standing, no doubt, on lofty scaffolding, paint scraping knives in hand.
A couple of brothers in their teens had moved into Scarboro in the thirties. The older of the two had a definite mean streak; he was the one who had shunted me off the umpire's seat at the tennis court one day causing me a bruised hip that kept me limping for several days. His bellicose behaviour had resulted in his ejection from Jimmie's on a couple of occasions. One day he decided he was not going to leave the premises and openly challenged Ernie on the matter. To our amazement it was decided the matter would be solved on the sidewalk outside the back door of the restaurant. Needless to say, our curious group followed the putative brawlers outdoors. I don't recall anyone trying to settle the dispute amicably.
The fight started, as most do, with a bit of name calling and shoving but soon degenerated into wild boxer-like swings that were mostly fended off. Then they closed in and wrestled with each other while both were still standing up. The next thing I remember clearly was seeing Ernie flying through the air and landing heavily on his back on the sidewalk. He was obviously the loser but after lying stunned on the pavement for a few moments Ernie struggled to his feet and told his opponent in no uncertain terms to 'bugger off'. The latter had obviously come to his senses and realized what he was doing and shuffled off toward the corner without another word. Ernie dusted off his apron and returned to the store as if this had been a routine daily duty he had to perform. His transgressor seemed to have lost all further interest in visiting the premises.
There was another sick joke that Al claims I participated in but which I fervently deny. In light of my strong objections he allowed that perhaps it was another of his cronies who had participated with him. Their ploy was to remove four or five of the serviettes in the automatic stainless steel dispenser in a selected booth and place an unwrapped condom in the dispenser before replacing the covering serviettes. They would then adjourn to the booth opposite and await the screams of horror from the young ladies when the condom popped out.
'No goddam way I would be involved in a sick prank like that!' I averred. 'that was the kind of disgraceful caper committed by some guy (Al and his Navy buddies) who gave gift-wrapped boxes of Kotex to bar girls for their birthday!' Al blushed at this remark because he knew I was referring to one of his previous acts while in the Canadian Navy. My vigorous denial of the condom caper had made him rethink his statement about his cohort.
'I guess maybe you weren't there after all; maybe it was Creepy or some other type. It was good clean fun though, we always rinsed off the 'safes' first, of course!' Yuck! I don't want to talk about it any more.
The fire at the southwest Jimmie's store in the mid-thirties caused great excitement. At the retirement banquet for Jimmie Condon at the Westgate Hotel sometime in the sixties Kenny was a key speaker and reminisced about 'the good old days'. I was moderately pleased when he mentioned my name but moderately displeased when he claimed that I was the first one at the scene, stuffing my pockets with the candies being shovelled out by the firemen. Stuffing candies from Jimmie's into my pockets would be only slightly less messy than filling them with shelled soft-boiled eggs. I assumed he was suffering from a bout of psychoanalytical transference; it was probably someone else, Al for instance, maybe even the judge himself!
There was a red brick apartment block on the southwest corner of the intersection, built and owned by the Nimmons family who had homesteaded a section or so of ranchland in the area many years before. The descendants of the old patriarch ('Dally' and Terry McCloy) were still living in a red brick house at the top of the hill south of the apartment block. The Kinema Theatre was just south of the apartment block and had single level seating and probably a maximum seating capacity of three hundred. I think admission on Saturday was ten cents and we rarely missed seeing our favourites. I preferred Flash Gordon to Buck Rogers and although the relationship was 'kiss free' we always speculated about the tantalizing relationship between Flash Gordon and his girl friend (was her name Dale 'something'?). Dale Arden?
Mr. Hoover, a Grade Nine teacher at Sunalta advised us all to see the 'Dead End Kids' as a redemptive measure. As a result Lloyd and I spent a week or so attempting to copy the behaviour of 'Spit', a lead character in the movie.
'Aw, I'll hit ya like dat!' I'd say with a Booklyn accent.
'Oh yeah! I'll hit ya like dat!' he'd reply. Mom banned the demonstrations after one week.
I was bewildered one week when the stage coach in the movie failed to negotiate the corner at the bend in the trail hundreds of feet up on the side of the cliff only to see it safely negotiate the corner a week later. I had agonized all week over the horrible fate of the passengers. The Hollywood tycoons toyed with our emotions ruthlessly. My bewilderment only lasted until the next crisis arose, however.
During the Flash Gordon serial episodes Flash was constantly at risk from the nefarious manipulations of Ming of Mongo. Fortunately Doctor Zharkov was ready at hand and always managed to devise a scheme for turning the tables on the wicked ruler. I don't have a clear recollection of the transportation used by Flash but the rocket ship used by Buck Rogers was outdated even sixty years ago. Now that we have real rocket ships flying to the moon and back the shortcomings are even more obvious. For example, how come the jet blast at the rear of Buck's space ship was curling out like the smoke from a Mississippi river boat? A few high-powered air blowers in front of the ship would have made it more believable. But no one else complained, so what was my problem?
We anticipated the Laurel and Hardy movies weeks if not months in advance. Was it 'The Bohemian Girl' in which Oliver left Stan alone to bottle the wine in the cellar? When Stan got confused with the bottles he simply stuck the siphon tube in his mouth. Instead of biting the tube he just drank the overflow. By the time Oliver returned Stan was full and the wine was squirting out of his ears (we shrewdly suspected that this could have been some sort of trick) and he was pissed out of his mind! We all found that extremely risible and howled with laughter. Al thought Oliver's habit of twirling up his tie and then snapping it forward was hilarious and adopted it as his own, resulting in him being expelled from Bible Class. "It's a fine pickle you got yourself in that time, Ollie!" I would say. Everyone but Al thought it was shameful to have been banished for such a minor transgression. He thought it was great.
I can still see the two-foot by three-foot coloured poster advertising Eddie Cantor in 'Roman Scandals'. The posters of coming attractions were displayed at the front of the theatre framed in a sturdy box-like casement with chicken wire and glass covering it for safety. I'm not sure why this particular movie has stuck in my memory for so long. At any rate, I recall that Eddie was drafted, much against his will, to be the food taster for the emperor. On his first assignment he casually tossed a piece of the emperor's food to a pet alligator. The unfortunate beast immediately suffered from spectacular convulsions and subsequently died. Sorry! That's all I remember! The result of some sort of batrachophobia, no doubt!
When my son Geoffrey was in the movie business he was contracted to take movies of a celebration at the Roman Catholic Palace. The Bishop of Calgary was the same fellow we used to call 'Peewee'. Later in the evening my son was talking to Kenneth Moore, now Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench. He blithely told Geoffrey of how our gang was influenced by 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', Walt Disney's first full-length animated cartoon initially shown in 1937. I was twelve years old at the time and would have been acutely embarrassed if I'd found out I had been nineteen or twenty years old when it was first shown. The thought of mature young men parading down Scarboro Avenue singing "Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to work we go....! and 'Whistle while you work' would have been humiliating to say the least. Kenneth even remembered what names we had chosen.
'You were 'Grumpy', Dad,' Geoffrey stated happily. 'Al was 'Doc'!
'That figures, he uses lots of sugar in his tea!'
'Whatta you mean?'
'I mean I think he was the one who examined his cup after Snow White had washed it and said 'Cup's been washed--sugar's gone!' That's when he knew there was an intruder; Kenny was probably 'Happy', God knows he isn't 'Bashful'!'
'I'll take your word for it,' Geoff said.
Kenny was a great instigator of neighborhood reunions. 'You and Al should really go and see 'Peewee' at the 'Palace' some time, he would say to me. The 'Palace' was the residence of the Roman Catholic bishop.
'So what would we talk about? Religious viewpoints? Life after death? The Northern Ireland problem?'
'Don't be silly--just talk about the old days! He'd really love to see you guys.'
One day I was in my downtown office when I had a phone call from Al, who was living in Edmonton at the time.
'Where are you, anyway?' I asked.
'I'm in Calgary; I'm phoning from a hotel somewhere south of town on the Macleod Trail. Why?'
I told him about Kenny's comments and we agreed to meet at the 'Palace'. Getting to the 'Palace'was much easier than getting in to see the Bishop. When we entered we were confronted by two elderly women we later referred to as the 'Keepers of the Gate'.
'Whom shall I tell him is calling?' one of them said.
'I think that should be 'Who shall I tell him,' I whispered to Al.
'Picky, picky,' he whispered. 'Just tell him it's a couple of old Scarboro Rookies,' he said to the lady. She gave her companion a serious frown.
'I think he'll need to know your names,' she said apprehensively.
'Don't worry,' I said, 'mentioning the Rookie ought to do it.'
She left the reception room shaking her grey head, improbability writtten clearly on her face.
'You can just go on in,' she said to everyone's surprise when she returned. 'It's the first door on your right.'
He was standing behind his desk when we entered, dressed in the black garb of a priest. He had gained weight since the last time I'd seen him many years before; none of us seemed to have learned to say 'No!'. I reckoned that he would have been in perfect shape if he'd only been about two feet taller. We all laughed when he realized who the secret visitors from the Scarboro Rookie were revealed. He was amazed when I told him I had walked all the way from the hospital to the downtown church looking for him when he was still a priest in Banff.
'But I was actually living at the hopital at the time.' he said
'That's what they told me at the church!' I said dryly.
'I think Al and I may have chosen the wrong religion after all,' I said after we had exchanged life stories.
'Why do you say that?'asked the Bishop.
'Well, Al and I have just plugged along, making a living as ordinary citizens; but you and Kenneth have achieved eminent status in the community. You are the next best thing to a cardinal and Kenneth is a Judge on the Court of Queen's Bench. Al and I have been wondering if it's too late to change!' Nobody cracked a smile. 'Peewee' seemed to grasp the irony of the question, fortunately, and after a long serious pause he replied.
'I think that most men, even ones of your age, would have a chance to make it. You two, however, were too late many years ago!' Then we all laughed.
-o-
The life of the comic book medium had a definite evolution. There was a colour comic section in The Herald newspaper but we always hoped Dad would remember to buy a copy of the Chicago Tribune. It had the regulars; Maggie and Jiggs, Alley Oop, Tarzan of the Apes, Little Orphan Annie, the Gumps, Skeezix, Tim Tyler, the Katzenjammer Kids, Joe Palooka (his manager was Knobby Walsh), Dinglehoofer and his dog, Major Hoople and some others I haven't thought of yet.
The Chicago Tribune had most of these but also had Smokey Stover, and our all-time favourite Boob McNutt! Some were clones of the other syndicated strips e.g. The Captain and the Kids (a takeoff of The Katzenjammer Kids).
The parents of other kids were still buying the English Mail and we became familiar with characters like Billy Bunter and the fat kid in 'Champion' who always had some toffees and and other goodies which he and his mates would 'tuck into' (Translation-- 'eat') following lights out. One of his mates was regularly programmed to cry 'Crumbs! It's the head!' (Translation-- 'Look out! It's the headmaster!'). There was usually an item that featured running gear with short clothing and vicious-looking shoe spikes with the silhouette of the runner in the distance. Sometimes he was playing 'Hare and Hounds' (Translation--'Paper chase!'); other times he was evading the authorities.
Al and I customarily walked up the lane between Scarboro Avenue and Superior Avenue. The residence of the Freemans was across the alley from Dempsey McCauley's at the west end of the block. Their son, Art, five or six years older than we, was obviously permitted to buy and read Bullseye, the horror magazine with the blue cover which arrived monthly at the same time as the rest of the British Mail. Someone, presumably his mother, had set the old copies of the magazine temptingly close to the open door of the garage at the back of the house. Naturally we 'borrowed' them and between the spooky drawing on the front cover and the gruesome tales within, managed to scare the 'bejeezuz' out of ourselves.
I remember half a dozen of the neighborhood kids sprawled out on the front porch of Tiny's house in the midst of several dozen comic booklets. There was no sound except that of the booklets being shuffled about; we were in 'comics heaven'!
'Big Little Books' became popular for a while in the thirties and it became the present of choice for 'birthday boys' as we continued our summer 'scam' for birthday parties at the houses of every legitimate member of the community. I managed to have a birthday party in August and my birthday was on December 28th! Tables at Kresge's and Woolworth's were piled high with books featuring the same characters and more than I have referred to already. They cost thirty-five cents then and sell for multi-bucks if found in mint condition now.
A few years later we were reading 'pulp fiction' books. There were undoubtedly many of them available but I seem to have a clear memory of only two of them---'Doc' Savage' and 'G-8 and his Battle Aces'! 'Doc' was an ordinary guy who did extraordinary things with the help of the anthropomorphic 'Monk'. G-8 featured the air battles between the Brirish and the Germans in the early days of air battles above the trenches of WWI. Fokkers, Spads and other famous airplanes were featured and were surrounded by unbelievable fantasies (believable to us!). In one story the British pilots were being spooked by German aircraft flown by skeletons. G-8 (the hero) was shot down and parachuted into heavy woods. (I don't think they had parachutes at that time, but bear with me!). G-8 became conscious of a strange smell and, following his nose, discovered a hidden operation comprising a number of huge tanks from which steamy vapours arose. Unhindered by guards of any sort (that would spoil the plot!) he responded to his natural curiousity and climbed the ladder on the side of one of the tanks. Looking over the edge he spied (horror of horrors) missing British pilots with their flesh being boiled off of them so they could be rigged up as skeleton pilots. Yuck! The spooky German fighter planes actually had pilots lying hidden in the fuselage of the death planes in order to spook the superstitious British pilots. G-8 returned to lead his squadron to victory! Da dah!
New Year's Eve was a big event for the neighborhood lads during the middle thirties. The Kinema Theatre always had a special showing of movies that lasted on through midnight. There was a New Year countdown on the big screen and lots of shouting and whistling and I presume an assortment of traditional silly hats and streamers. Our main preoccupation was drinking Big Orange, Big Lemon and Big Lime through nail holes in the caps in the manner instituted by the Four Bananas. The latter were present, of course, and Dawse Lindsay, Bill Stemp, Freddie McKay, Harold Gugins and a gaggle of others. If there were girls they must have been sitting in another section of the theatre. This was a 'Guy' event!
Like so many other things we did in our youth we thought this great get-together was going to go on forever. But it didn't! It just sort of faded away! The war came along, and guys got jobs or signed up and moved away. I would have to think it was the war that was the main factor, however. Boys volunteered and were shipped off, some never to return. Have you ever wondered how many times you did some important or special thing in your life without realizing it would be the last time? We always think it's going to happen as usual but the next time never comes. By the time we think of it, it's too late! When I discussed this with my daugher she compared life to a bag of popcorn.
'You can sit there shoving it into your mouth without ever thinking it's going to run out. Suddenly you've eaten the last piece and all you've got left are a bunch of unpopped kernels, some crumbs and some salt. It's not fair! If you'd known it was the last piece of popcorn you definitely would have savoured it more than you did!'
— The End —