LINCOLN THEATRE & CHRISTMAS

Theatre still stands but it’s closed

My dad worked for Anthes Imperial, a furnace manufacturer. He was one of hundreds of assembly line workers. Salaries were meagre yet one of the employee bonuses Anthes Execs offered for families was an annual Christmas Party, a December invitation to Lincoln Theatre on St. Paul Street. There we would watch a Christmas flick and then every employee's child's name was read out and an age appropriate gift given on stage by none other than the fattest Anthes Santa they could find. Murray had beautiful curly white-blond hair and sitting on Santa's knee he was asked his name. In his sweet boy voice he replied, "Murray." Santa and his helper misheard the name and gave Murray a present. We didn't open the gifts until we got home. When Murray opened his, he found a dainty toy Tea Set, cups & saucers & teapot. He was not pleased.

Queenstown Heights Restaurant & Brock’s Monument

The other Anthes gimme was the annual Factory Summer Picnic held at Queenston Heights. Races and other contests were organized for children, three legged races, and wheel-barrow races (dads holding their kids legs and the kids scrabbling with their hands to a finish line), and sack hops. I loved it because I was fast and competitive enough to come home with prizes. The Factory also provided drinks and foods, ice cream and watermelon.  

boyhood sketch 20. BUM IN THE BOX

Behind the buildings that front along St. Paul Street, were messy looking lots for parking and garbage bins and storage. Further behind, the forested hillsides led down to the old canal. Vagrants, hobos we called them, street people as we know them today, lived back there, among the bushes, under the stilt building additions, and anywhere else that provided shelter. On one of our foraging, exploration days, we came behind a store where there was a large rectangular wooden box with a wooden cover. It measured approximately eight feet long by four feet high and three feet deep. Much like a casket but larger. More ominous. We heard sounds inside the box. That fascinated us. We were talking to each other as kids do, excited and scared. An animal might be inside, but what kind of animal. We wanted to find out. I approached, ready to open the lid. Suddenly the lid " went up and a man sat up inside the box. We could see that he was sitting on blankets and clothing. He had an open can of beans in one hand and a spoon in the other. He said, "Do you want some beans." We were startled and said, "no thanks." We asked, "Do you live in there?” Dressed in a heavy wool overcoat and toque, he said, "Yep. It's cozy.” We used to refer to these guys as bums, hobos, rubbydubs. Never after that. I had a new respect for these people. Survivors they were. 

boyhood sketch 19. LEATHER MOUNTAIN

Bicycles got us anywhere and everywhere. We explored everything. Life for a kid on a bike was fantastic. St. Catharines is known for the canal systems that for the past two hundred years have joined Lakes Erie and Ontario and provided arteries for the shipment of goods. Four distinct canal systems operated during those years, each larger and more sophisticated than the previous ones. A very old and unused version once ran behind St. Paul Street, the main

artery in downtown St. Catharines. The stores, apartments and factories that fronted on St. Paul Street all had rear accesses, storage and garbage and parking areas. One of the businesses was a leather goods store. All manner of leather products were made in the rear section, jackets, belts, bags, shoes. Behind the building over the years, a discard of leather scraps had grown into a hill twenty feet tall. We found it. We, meaning my friends and me. We climbed it, rolled down it, picked through it, covered ourselves with it and scared the rats from underneath it. From it we made our own leather bracelets, badges, knife sheaths, and leather pads for sling shots. We wet home wearing the scent of leather.

boyhood sketch 6. I OWNED THE CITY

Diana Sweets Restaurant 

old downtown St. Paul Street

At age nine and ten I owned the streets of St. Catharines, Ontario. I knew them. I rode them on my one speed bicycle. Alleys, lanes, quiet treed streets, and heavy traffic lanes presented no challenge. I would peddle uptown to St. Paul Street. It was really downtown St. Catharines but I called it uptown for no acceptable reason. It seemed uptown because I peddled uphill to Church Street from our home on Clark Street. Coy Bros. Hardware was one of my favourite places. Entering the main doors from James Street we headed to the rear of the store where there was a counter with glass top and front face. Inside the case were tiny metal farm animals carefully painted. Each purchase was a mere ten cents when I was ten years old. Nearby Diana Sweets was the best place to eat. Our family seldom ate out but unknown to anyone, I could slip into the restaurant and for twenty-five cents (two-bits we called it) I had a huge high slice of Boston Cream Pie. There I would be, a small boy in a large dining booth, alone with a pie slice as large as my face.