T206 Wagner in Canada

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by dealme

Well…I went down that rabbit hole. Pretty disturbing stuff.

Originally Posted by todeen

no, we are all interested in this rabbit hole!

That rabbit hole is chock full of memories for me. The first thing that drew my eye was the sign advertising Silverwood's cones, milk shakes and sundaes. Signs like this one were common outside London's variety stores when I was a kid:

(Not mine.)

Silverwood's was London's own mega dairy. Silverwood's horse drawn delivery carts and Divco trucks were a common sight on London's leafy streets providing home delivery of milk in glass bottles in the 1950's and 1960's:







My sister worked at the Silverwood ice cream plant on Bathurst Street a scant kilometre away from our house in the summer of 1963 and she brought a complete set of the SICLE Air Force cards home for me!



She also worked at Silverwood's in the summer of 1968(?) and I worked at the Silverwood's ice cream plant in the spring of 1972 after it had relocated to the southern edge of London just east of Wellington Road.

Silverwood's grew by acquisition to spread nationally and become Canada's largest dairy by the late 1960's.



John Labatt Limited's Ault Foods subsidiary acquired Silverwood's in 1984 and after several more corporate transactions/amalgamations even the Silverwood name brand had disappeared by the turn of the century.

I passed by the Stanley Variety hundreds of times growing up since it was on the route of the Ridout bus I used to take to my high school downtown from 1966 to 1970. But Stanley Street was the northern boundary of my elementary school district and the Stanley Variety was almost a kilometre away from my house. There was actually no reason for me to trek all the way to the Stanley Variety because every corner store carried the same bubble gum cards like these Hockey cards that I collected in grade two:





But Joe S. who was my age lived right across the street from the Stanley Variety with his mother and grandparents. His grandfather and my dad were both Lithuanian and fishing buddies. In fact in 1969 my father bought their 1961 Mercury Comet for our family (for me actually because I was the one who got a driver's licence). Joe and I therefore hung out sometimes when we were in grade school.

I still clearly remember the time Joe had bought a pair of black Jolly Roger flags at Canadian Tire for his bike. Spotting these his grandfather started berating him for the hideous banners he'd put on his bike. "Now is that nice?" were his exact words in Lithuanian. Joe's immediate defence was that I was going to do the same. And I certainly would have but I didn't have the money!

Just like my own father confiscated my T-shirt to use as a rag after I'd lovingly ironed a Brother Rat Fink transfer upon it:





Somehow the old guys had completely forgotten the desires that lurk within the hearts of young boys.

Joe used to constantly tout the coolness of his neighbourhood Stanley Variety, e.g. how that was where the best value in pea shooters could be found and how great the milk shakes were. I don't remember whether the Stanley Variety actually had a sit-down counter at the time.

But Joe and I actually didn't share too many interests. He collected neither cards nor comics and he didn't have any cool toys like an Eagle Hockey game, Lionel train set or Dinky Toys. I do need to give him credit though for being the runner up Duncan Spin Top champion in our corner of the city in 1963(?) and going on to the southwestern Ontario regional finals in Chatham!



So Joe was never among my very closest buddies.

Neither was he exactly a scholar. Nonetheless after some trouble in his teens, Joe straightened out and went on to win the Mr. London bodybuilding contest in the early 1980's! Being entrepreneurially inclined he now owns and operates his own gym in the northwest corner of London.

Those though are the pleasant memories. The rabbit hole goes deeper, much deeper and darker.