Back in the early 1960’s I worked for a Vancouver postcard company, located in the basement of an old building on W. Eighth Ave.. My job was to fill postcard racks downtown, take some pictures and do some selling too. That building still exists but the company, sadly, long gone. Every time I walk past, those fond memories return!
When Stanley Park had a zoo and driving downtown wasn’t, for our parents it was still ‘howdy do’. Today, to penguins and otters at the park, good gracious, that’s something one simply mustn’t do! Yet downtown Granville we could park for free or for a very reasonable fee, the Vauxhall, Austin or Chrysler. And pray tell yonder hark, the pace was slower and the view perhaps a tad nicer. Until “concrete proposals” were made and ‘progress’ developed. Towers and penthouses, elevated. Everything constructed with a legal ease as the movers and shakers on Richards and Howe…oh, how they celebrated!
Back in the early 1960’s I worked for a Vancouver postcard company, located in the basement of an old building on W. Eighth Ave.. My job was to fill postcard racks downtown, take some pictures and do some selling too. That building still exists but the company, sadly, long gone. Every time I walk past, those fond memories return!
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There was a postcard company at 1445 W. 8th Ave., down in the bowels of the basement, called Gowen And Sutton. Oh, my, the feel of our past, the experience of working there did do! Postcards of everything from the Nanaimo Bastion to handsaw cuttin’ cedar and fir, somewhere in ‘the sticks’, the B.C. bush. Pictures of the new Lion’s Gate Bridge to the north shore went across. Images of neighborly folk, a Model-T Ford pushed, back to a time when a farm tractor was still a threat to using a plow horse.
There were negatives and positives, with 8 by 10 black and white glossies all over the place and Canadian Pacific Railway postcards glued into booklets. What breathtaking scenes! All this together with 5 by 7 glass plates, Kodak developer, stop bath, fixer darkroom fumes. Down there, history had stopped, frozen in time, it seemed. Folks, today, if you see a Canadian postcard with someone’s handwriting, cherish it, almost like a painting at the Louvre. Every one of them is an original, inviting you to delve into our history and perhaps be both humbled and moved. Stores of the past, their slogans, events (like The British Empire Games in Vancouver) and personalities can have quite an impact to triggering memories. Vehicles for yesterday’s engines are standard gears to clutch. A few B.C. words can rev. up our nostalgia so much. Bow Mac On Broadway, Clark Simpkins, and Fred Deeley, ‘rambled’ along and drove away. Did you ever think that really--the city of Detroit would go ‘belly-up’ and Windsor, on our side, hanging on? Now it looks like a bit of luck. We’re both singing a bit of a happier song. GM and Ford are getting stronger and returning too. The assembly lines idle less longer and our domestic automotive economy fueled to renew. Wow, have you looked at the high rises in downtown Vancouver lately? Like, what ever happened to the modern B.C. Electric Building that made our mouths hang open with wonder?! So did the introduction of pancakes with whipped butter, back in the 1960s. That was about the time this twenty-year old kid competed with the big shots on Howe Street, trying to sell all kinds of goodies to the retail trade. Sometimes I made up to $180 a month, counting salary and commission! Do you remember the Black Cat Coffee Shop, at Broadway and Granville? The café is simply one traditional sample how some of the old families manage to stay in the food business. How about McGavins Bread, on Arbutus? They are still in the city with their McGavins Bread Basket stores. Like the Pulos Brothers roots that started the Old Spaghetti Factory , they give Vancouver much of that same warm city family feeling that’s still awfully nice. The York Theatre has new curtains open and Nick’s Spaghetti, continues next door on Commercial Drive. All those roots keep Vancouver really ‘cookin’, thriving, sprouting and alive! While the original Pulos family ran The Black Cat Coffee Shop, it was their children many years later who opened the Old Spaghetti Factory in Gastown. If you look at today’s Vancouver telephone book you’ll see that the McGavins Bakery name also continues, not so, however, when many car dealerships are concerned. Names like Clark Simpkins, Fred Deeley, and Bow Mac On Broadway. How do we remember a city? How do we recall our youth? When it comes to Vancouver, the names of Streets can be very powerful for example, Seymour. Actually some of us tend to see more from a senior’s perspective. And Hastings? How about on your Dad’s shoulders, watching the P.N. E. parade not far from Victory Square or Woodwords (“Dollar-forty-nine day, Tuesday”). Food can also be a powerful component when it comes to nostalgia. How about McGavins Bread (“Don’t say Bread, say McGavins”) and their huge bakery on the corner of Arbutus and Broadway? There was the Black Cat Café at Granville and Broadway, owned by the Pulos family. "Yabadabadoo"...hey wasn’t that the Flintstones? "Your Money Or Your Life?"...that brings back Jack Benny. Red Skelton (us kids always thought it was Skeleton)) really hit our ‘funny bones.’ Fred Alan, Carol Burnett, Wayne and Schuster…oh, my, there were so many! ‘You Bet Your Life’ who else could that be but Groucho. Bob Hope always thanked us for the memories. It almost sometimes feels like a couple years ago. On our fourteen, seventeen and huge twenty-one inch TV’s Mel Blank who did all the amazing voices, everything from Bugs Bunny to perpetual thirty-nine year old Jack’s poor suffering violin teacher. Wow, with roof top antennas, sometimes we could pull in up to five channels that really gave us choices! It is rumored that children of today think of me as a prehistoric analog creature. Do you remember watching Phil Silvers as Sargeant Bilko and Jack Webb, who played Dragnet’s Detective Joe Friday? How about that ‘Really big shoe’ every Sunday night on an Admiral, Westinghouse, Sylvania or Philco. Those were the days of the modern life style Swanson TV Dinners and three jawbreakers for one penny is all you had to pay.* Can you imagine today if three jawbreakers cost a penny at the local convenience store? What would they do in Ottawa? Just a penny for the thought because I don’t make cents anymore at the mint! Something else we should perhaps ponder about from a senior’s perspective. Why on one hand, a tube radio made in the 1930’s or a 1950’s transistor both today pull in radio stations perfectly right out of the air. Yet television sets made much later that depended on rabbit ears or aerials signals now pick up absolutely nothing unless they are connected to a cable service. . Some of our older cell phone working perfectly today apparently in a few months will also have their service cancelled necessitating the purchase of new, appropriate and sanctioned one. Of course, this manages to tell us that the future is unquestionably friendly. ‘It is what it is,’ gee whiz, that expression drives me crazy! I like ‘what goes round, comes round’; makes sense in the past, present and future tense. That saying contains some logic, not simply a neat sound. But, ‘It Is What It Is? Compared to that, one can almost tolerate “like….”like”….”like”…you hear it on the bus, on the Canada Line and on the street. Still it’s still almost the same pain when these young ‘adults’ repeat’…”like”, “like, “like”…insane…’heaven’s to Pete! Even worse, the ultimate curse, that 1960’s ‘groovy’ expression, “Hey man, stay cool, keep doing your stuff.” ‘Stuff’, isn’t that what did to a sofa or a chesterfield? Hey, do you still remember when a chesterfield slogan was “and it’s mild.” Holy smokes, you do? Oh, well, guess it’s just what it is, eh? |
AuthorDan Propp's books are available on Amazon, Kindle, and other E-Book retailers' sites. To contact Dan please click HERE. Archives
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