When I Used To Work
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
I was browsing through Orillia Matters on the 19th of May and read a letter to the editor written by Bob Bruton. Bob was a long-time editor and reporter for the Barrie Examiner until the Examiner, the Orillia Packet and Times, and a host of other newspapers, disappeared one fateful day in November 2017 courtesy of a band of scoundrels whose names will live on in Infamy.
Bob was writing about his days working part time in the Dominion Store grocery chain in a little northern town in Ontario. My mind instantly dropped back 70 years when four or five of us bozos from the collegiate also donned the white shirt and maroon bow ties and toiled away at Dominion, only our store was on the south side of the main street of Orillia.
During the school year we worked from 4:00 to 9:00 on Fridays and 8:00 to 6:00 on Saturdays, plus we would come in Monday at 6:00 in the morning to unload a transport before plodding up West Street to school.
In the summers, we worked every day and I made a fortune, $1.95 an hour with no deductions, can you imagine? I had money coming out the ying-yang.
“What?”
Mary said John won’t let me say ying-yang. I said, yes he will. I’ve read what he says on Facebook. But as I was saying, I was rich. What in hell happened?
When I think back the part-time guys were a real boon to that store. For one thing we worked hard. We really did. Try lifting a hundred of sugar or flour off a skid, carrying it up a flight of stair, out the front door, and up the street to a customer’s car.
I remember once carrying a hundred of sugar down Mississaga Street to West, and over to the parking lot beside the Opera House only to have the lady remember she parked her car in the municipal lot behind Loblaws on Coldwater Street. Over we plodded back across West and up the lane-way running by Tudhope Shoes. Today if I even tried to walk that far someone will be dialing 911.
We knew all the customers and they knew us too since we bagged their groceries once a week and often carried them to their cars, eagerly if their teenage daughters were with them. It wasn’t bad in the summer, a little hot, but if it was pouring rain, or in the middle of a blizzard in the winter, it was brutal. And Posties think they have it tough.
Saturdays were the big days. Many of our customers were farm folks and shopped once a week and that was usually on Saturday. They had big orders and for the most part were the people who bought the hundreds of flour and sugar.
There was no such thing as a bar-code in the 50s remember, and every can in the store had to be price-stamped. Not only that, when there was a price change we had to take methyl hydrate, wipe off the old price and stamp on the new. An interesting sidebar was we knew every price in the store. I can still remember Campbell’s Tomato Soup was 2/29. The vegetable-beef soup was 2/35. Kraft Dinner was 2/29 and once in a while 2/21 when it was on special. I believe today’s prices may be up a penny or two.
One summer I worked behind the meat counter. I remember I priced cooked ham at so much a pound. Somewhere around the end of the summer I realized that price was supposed to be for a half-pound. I wondered why the customers all wanted me. I thought it was my good looks.
One summer the assistant manager was promoted to Manager of the Gravenhurst store and I went with him to help run the produce department. I lived with him and his wife and son in an apartment over the store. It wasn’t air-conditioned and one night it was so hot we slept on a mattress outside on the balcony. The sleeping arrangement that night was the manager on one side, his wife, me in the middle and the little guy on the outside. We were all hip to hip. I stayed awake all night. I was afraid to fall asleep in case I rolled up against her. It dawned on me many years later – maybe it was her idea.
She should have been so lucky!
(Image Supplied)
