SMALL TOWN CHRISTMAS
Now that the semi-dreaded Christmas season is upon us
and we’re assaulted constantly by shrill advertisements and egregiously
wretched versions of famous carols, perhaps it’s a good time to look back a few
years to a time when Christmas was different – not necessarily better, but
different.
Everybody has their favorite Christmas Story and this
is mine. I’m telling it not
because there was a religious significance, not because of some personal
epiphany, and not because some memorable gifts changed hands. I’m telling it simply because of the
joy and energy an entire town seemed to bring to one specific Christmas and the
unique spin a small Alberta town put on the celebration. Sure I was young and could be
accused of wearing rose-coloured glasses but, hey, maybe that’s the good
fortune of being born in an arguably more innocent time and growing up in a
more unworldly part of the continent.
I always thought everyone should have a Christmas like this one.
Did I say a ‘few’ years? Actually, I meant 56. 1958. The
town was Wainwright Alberta and I was 17 years of age. I suspect my happy memories of this
Christmas had something to do with the transition from a slack-jawed kid
salivating in expectation of all that was good at that time of year to a soon-to-be
sophisticated man of the world (in my mind anyway) about to jettison all this
seasonal fooforaw for the endless bounty of a huge and welcoming world. What surprised me was the intensity of
goodwill with which the month unfolded.
Life was certainly full then. In addition to school, my best friend,
Don, and I both worked part-time at Patterson’s Groceteria. We both played hockey for the Dukes,
the town’s senior team. We both
played for the High School basketball team. And we both had girl friends to whom we pledged the kind of
devotion that somehow mysteriously disappeared soon after graduation.
I can’t speak for Don (I lost track of him some years
ago) but I’d like to think he’d agree that the last Christmas we spent as high
school seniors was one of the best, due in no small measure to those part-time jobs at the
grocery store.. If there was
a Patterson who founded the store, I never knew the man. We worked for Bill Riome, a RCAF
veteran who might have been the straightest, most honest man either of us ever
met. The store was a tightly-run
ship and we were expected to know almost everything there was to know about
running a grocery store and to move quickly and smartly to see that the right
things were done when they were supposed to be done. I can’t remember what we were paid. It wouldn’t have
been much but whatever it was, we never complained. What the job did do was put us in close contact with many of
our neighbors. And that was special.
Christmas season began around December 1 . The town strung lights across five
blocks of Main Street and every one waited for the arrival of Mandarin Oranges,
the true harbinger of Christmas season.
The oranges made it official and stores began to decorate. The pace of life in the town
accelerated. People walked more
briskly. If there was a second harbinger at Patterson’s, it was the outsized
Coca-Cola poster taped up in one of the frnt windows. It showed Santa kicking back with a Coke in some posh highrise
in New York, a tableau about a million miles from Wainwright. The marketing
genius who designed that poster has likely gone to that big idea room in the
sky but his descendants need to know this poster was, for Don and I, the most
evocative sign of good things to come that we ever encountered. The idea of soaking up Christmas
in the opulence of the world’s most exciting city was as alluring, not to
mention remote, as a beautiful girl offering us money to dance with her.
Patterson’s was one of three good-sized grocery
stores in this small town of ours and competition was stiff. Luring customers
with price had its place but after years of battling with each other to stay
alive the three stores settled back to let service take precedence over
price. For the staff this meant
staying on those proverbial toes. We were expected to keep a smile on our faces
and do whatever it took to keep customers happy and eager to return. This meant that if Farmer Joe decided
to stock up on 50 pound bags of flour and his dilapidated and rancid
International was parked six blocks away, we had to smile cheerfully and say, “Sure, Mr. Joe, I’d be happy to carry these
six bags out to your truck, even if you’re 40 years young, 240 pounds and an
ex-steer-wrestling champion” (Okay,
I didn’t say that last part). Along with, “No
sir, we didn’t expect any tip.”
All this goodwill was intensified around Christmas. Even the well-known churls and
cheapskates got appropriate retail deference.
Anyway, it wasn’t long into December before the store
began to smell of oranges and chocolates and fresh baking special to the
season. Decorations and streamers
were strung from the ceiling and walls.
Mr. Riome installed a tape machine that played carols, carols that people
generally liked to hear. None of
that ‘All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” stuff warbled by some
mediocrity who probably lost those two front teeth trying to entertain a surly nightclub
audience armed with ripe tomatoes.
The aisles were crowded with Christmas specialties,
chocolates, gift packages of cigarettes, candies of astonishing variety and
nuts. The store’s warehouse was
in the cellar of the store. It was re-stocked once a week by a semi-trailer
from Edmonton, twice a week in December. When shelves needed re-stocking, we
had to rush downstairs, grab a case of whatever was needed and shlep it back
upstairs, stamp the cans with the ink-pricer and while it was important to work
fast, it was just as important to not get in the way of browsing shoppers (A
nicety that seems to have been forgotten these days). Produce re-stocking required a keen eye for
freshness. Bill had no tolerance
for scruffy perishables wilting on his shelves.
We soon knew to keep an eye out for those items that
moved quickly, regardless of the season, items like Lipton’s Chicken Noodle
Soup, Campbell’s Mushroom Soup, Niblets, and Tiny Teddy peas. (Tangent
Alert! Tiny Teddy peas
were just what they advertised, small sweet as honey peas in 16 ounce cans that
simply flew off the shelves. You
could not believe a canned vegetable could be so popular. I can’t recall who marketed them but I
have this vision of events taking place at the company HQ sometime in the early
1960’s. An efficiency expert
rises to announce. “Enough! I don’t care how popular Tiny Teddy’s
are. They’re hurting the sale of
adult-sized peas. We can’t have
that. Henceforth, TT’s are no more
and we blend the peas, big and small.
Better yet, let’s put the lab boys to work and make all those peas the
same size, big. What we lose in
taste we make up for in fewer peas to fill a can. Sounds like win-win to me!”)
The store had 2 check-out counters with two check-out
girls. When line-ups started to form, we were expected to help with bagging. There were no plastic bags in those
days so everything went into paper bags or cardboard boxes freed up through
re-stocking. We were expected to help all customers take their groceries to
their cars, especially when the streets were snowy and hard to navigate OR muddy
and hard to navigate OR dusty and hard to see OR . . well, all
the time actually.
Many customers either phoned in their orders or asked
the store to deliver their orders to their homes. That meant either Don or I, when the demand was sufficient, filled
the store’s VW delivery van and raced out from behind the store to deliver
groceries to houses throughout town.
If there was a pure fun part of our jobs with Patterson’s, it was the
delivering of grocery orders. I
wish I could say we were careful with that cranky old VW but with its stick
shift and easy handling, we thought we were Tony Curtis as Johnny Dark out on
the town. I regret to say we went
through 3 transmissions in 2 years but Bill, outside of shaking his head at how
fast we made the deliveries, never complained. Besides the regular deliveries, Bill had a list of people
for whom some gifts of food were required. I don’t know how he uncovered the poverty that usually laid
well hidden in small towns (actually it wasn’t so much that it was hidden. It was more a case of most of the
townspeople having little wealth and detecting the really needy from the
not-so-well-off wasn’t easy), but he did and we made numerous stops as
Christmas approached and made deliveries to some very happy and surprised
townfolk – and some not so happy. I’m
afraid Don and I were too dense to understand.
Christmas deliveries were special in that as
Christmas eve approached (the store tried to close at 4 but was flexible), the
customers became more appreciative of the service, sometimes offering a tip,
but more often a small gift of candy or chocolate.
Soon, the days were flying by. Social activities, concerts, choral
presentations, parties were everywhere for young and old. But for some reason, there were few events
for high school students, perhaps
because, as teenagers, they chose to willfully eschew all those other
events. That didn’t mean they
stayed at home. On weekends there
was the regular Saturday night dance in Kinsella, 30 miles away. And somewhere within reachable distance
there would always be a wedding or celebration of some sort that dictated a
dance be held in one of the countless rural community halls. If the youths promised to behave, not
start any fights, and refrain from getting sick anywhere near the hall, they
were generally welcome to join the dance. Don and I were playing hockey twice a
week and Bill was gracious enough to work around our absences. And we had to study for exams in
January.
Sometime in early December, Lyle Hainsworth decided
to regale the town with Christmas music. Lyle, an easy-going – his father would say indolent –
young man from a farm 20 miles northeast of town spent his free time –all his
free time - driving his pickup truck up and down Main Street, hoping, everyone
thought, a girl would eventually run out onto the street, jump into his
International and swear her undying love.
That dream began back in 1950 and after a thousand miles of ambling up
and down Main Street Lyle saw no reason to quit pursuing that dream. Lyle, his International pickup, his
Sweet Caporal cigarettes, and his shy smile were as close to an institution in
Wainwright as any living thing. It
was just Lyle. This Christmas, he
decided to treat the town by turning up his radio and opening both door windows
in order to grace Main Street with CJCA’s Christmas carols. Thus presented, he drifted his
way slowly from one end of town to the other and back again, over and over,
turning the radio down when news and commercials were on and turning it back up
for the music It was a
measure of the town’s goodwill toward Lyle that no one attempted to rip off his
truck aerial to stifle yet another rendition of ‘Jingle Bell Rock’.
On the evening of December 16, a heavy snowfall
brought the town to a standstill.
The town awoke to enough snow and cold to make any attempt to leave
one’s house a matter requiring some planning. What do I wear?
How little shoveling can I get away with? Will my car handle this snow? Will my car start?
How much time do I need if I’m going to make that meeting? The school buses are likely to be
grounded so the farm kids will be staying home. Do I let my kids do the same? Given that everyone was, more or less, going through the
same routine, different times of the year delivered different responses.
November: Jeez, not already! January: Grrr, I hate this! I really, really hate
this! March: If some a-hole tells me to have a nice day,
I’m up on an assault charge! So help
me! But on December 19, 1958: A
few people are going to need help today!
Soon, it seemed as if half the town was out
shoveling, pushing, scraping, and joking with each other about car qualities,
tire qualities, and shovel qualities.
Housebound seniors were looked in on. Older homes had their wood supplies checked. Mrs. Zoom-Zoom, so named for her habit
of darting about her home like a demented pinball, had so many people dropping
in to see if she was okay that she ran out of cookies. Old man Mills ran out of his
chronically short supply of patience and asked his would-be benefactors to quit
bothering him.
Those on the move worked their way toward Main Street
where the town’s lone grader was trying to work its way north from the train
station. Front end loaders were
still a luxury for the future, so the operator had no place to put the snow
except on the curb. Stores
struggled to create paths to their doors and waited with skeleton staffs for
customers they knew weren’t coming.
Tomorrow. The town was a giant white mess but people were moving. Around eleven people began gathering at
the beanery and the restaurants and with steaming mugs of coffee toasted each
other’s efforts and rating each other’s car models for startability and
driveability. Tomorrow it
would be business as usual but today they would pause to bask in their
community effort to bring the town back to life.
By two, Lyle Hainsworth and his Christmas carols were
back on the street and people marveled at his dedication during such trying
times.
Schools remained open but most students were exempted
by their parents and soon Bushey Hill on the edge of town was swarming with
sleighs and toboggans.
Sloughs were quickly shoveled and shinny games begun.
Both the hill and the sloughs heard their share of whining about it being too
cold. Yet no one quit.
A young engineer, new to the town, lost his wife to
cancer at the end of November and my dad asked Don and I and our girlfriends if
we wouldn’t mind slipping into his house while he was at work and decorating a
tree. We were proud of
ourselves for this gesture of goodwill but the widower never said a word and
left town shortly before New Year’s. Now that I look back on it, I can’t blame
him. There was a time, I guess,
when we thought that the joy of Christmas could overcome any adversity. Not so.
The town curmudgeon was actually a dog, a gray-muzzled
old Labrador named Bruno. As was
the custom with most dogs in those days, Bruno had the run of the town and he
was a familiar sight striding purposefully about town looking for whatever and
eschewing any public contact. He
wasn’t vicious and never attacked anyone as far as anyone knew but he liked his
distance and would growl ever so softly when anyone pushed their attention too
far. Like Lyle, he was a bit of an institution about town. Hs perambulations took place day and
night and finished when he returned to his home in the far east end of town
where a dish of food was waiting.
On the freezing night of December 22, Bruno decided
to explore the north end of town. Around
11 P.M., he stopped at a small one-room shack, home to Ed Marshall and his two
sons, Eugene, age 20, and Terry, age 18.
Ed was one of those tough luck men who had a weakness for booze. Consequently, he was often out of
work in spite of being a skilled handyman. Bruno began barking at the front door of the shack, even
though no lights were on. The
barking continued, insistently and loud.
Neighbors were wakened.
Eventually, Terry Marshall rose and went to the door. When he saw the dog barking at him, his
curiosity compelled him to move out into the freezing night to see what all the
fuss was about and immediately saw the smoke and sparks from the electrical
service box. Terry yelled at his
father and brother just as the flames began spreading from the box. A neighbor quickly phoned the fire
department and the town’s air raid siren began wailing to summon the volunteer
fire brigade. And to waken the
entire town. By the time the
town’s two fire trucks arrived the shack was gone, settling into a large
bonfire that never suggested a house had ever been there. Ed and his boys were left shivering
in their underwear. But not for long.
That’s the unhappy part of that story. The happier part is that several people
offered their homes to the Marshalls and the Bison Motel made a two-bedroom
suite available to them until they could get re-settled. Clothing and household goods soon
swamped the Fire Hall and, best of all perhaps, Ed was offered a job with the
town to help him get back on his feet.
Bruno got his picture in the local paper and a t-bone
steak for Christmas.
On Christmas Eve, Don and I took some time to drop in
on Nels Carlson, a Danish electrician who invited us for a Christmas
drink. He was lonely for his
family back in Denmark, he said, and told us how Christmas Eve was actually Christmas at home
and how special the dinner would be – roast goose, sweet potatoes, and
cabbage. He poured us each a
glass of Aquavit, a drink we had never heard of. We sipped until Nels got tired
of watching us try to finish the searing liquid and excused himself to head to
the beer parlor. We went home.
Both Don and I paid close attention to our families
that Christmas, perhaps realizing it might be a long time before gathering with
them again at this time of year.
But what stood out for that three plus weeks was the
overall goodwill shown by the people of a small town. The old song lyric ’Seldom
was heard a discouraging word’ was the order of the day. After all these years and all the
good Yule seasons I’ve experienced, it’s funny that that rather ordinary
experience in a rather ordinary place should remain so vivid. I guess it was because of the
people.
Robert Alan Davidson
December 2014
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