Growing up in Edmonton in the 1960’s several formative memories have guided many of my choices and feelings. Here’s a brief reminiscence of some of them.
We lived in Brentwood Homes, a neighborhood of 2-story row houses in a somewhat newer neighborhood called Woodcroft. My parents chose it because it was family-oriented, and affordable, and Dad’s commute to CFRN tv which was outside the then-city limits was manageable.
The courtyard at Brentwood homes in winter
Brentwood had a diverse range of families and was across from Coronation Park. While Brentwood was fairly sparse of trees, the park had curving walking paths and various trees, shrubs, and flowers. It was also the home of the Queen Elizabeth planetarium which started my life-long interest in the universe. At one time David Roger who had been an announcer at CFRN where my Dad worked, left to become the director of the planetarium, a position he kept until he was offered the job at the McMillan Planetarium in Vancouver in 1967. David was proud to have introduced many planetarium visitors to the solar system, galaxies, and also to classical music. I was introduced to Holst’s The Planets there, and first heard Also Sprach Zarathustra years before Kubrick immortalized its association with 2001:A Space Odyssey.
The Queen Elizabeth planetarium in Coronation Park, Edmonton
Once in a while, I would also hear the distant sound of bagpipes, as various sporting events were held at the track near Ross Shepherd High School, an early childhood memory that still makes me happy when I hear them.
The Woodcroft community was just northwest of Westmount Shopping Centre, built in 1955 and anchored at either end by Woodwards’ department store. The north side had clothing, notions, stationery, jewelry, perfume, and the famous Woodwards Food Floor, while the south side housed appliances and furniture. When I was old enough to remember, Mom and I would walk to Westmount with her shopping bag stroller and if the budget allowed have a treat at the restaurant on the second floor.
Westmount changed from being an open mall to being covered, which made a lot of sense when so much of the year was cold and snowy. The creation of an indoor mall in the late 60’s was innovative for its time. One of the new stores Johnstone Walker, an Edmonton-unique higher-end clothing store created a beautiful stairway constructed entirely of wood with broad, deep steps to take customers to a cafe on a mezzanine level which had at its centre a large gas fireplace in the round, surrounded by swiveling leather chairs – perfect to spin. It was the first place I heard the word “crumpet” which, while quite delicious with butter and strawberry jam, was impossible for me to say without breaking up into laughter.
One day Mom felt the fireplace was too hot and ask the manager to turn it down, and he reached into the fireplace under the flames and twisted a valve to reduce the gas. I thought he was very brave.
Westmount Shopping Centre c. 1955, Brentwood homes just above it in this picture
Near Westmount was the Sahara restaurant, a linen-tablecloth restaurant that was beyond our family’s budget, but it was in the same building as the nearest movie theatre, which somehow managed to house a couple of hundred energetic school-aged children for Saturday afternoon movies. We watched The Lone Ranger in black & white and recall seeing a powerful science fiction film called Crack in the World (1965), a misguided attempt to get clean energy by drawing heat from the earth’s core. It was my first foray into the search for sustainable energy, and the folly of scientists who become obsessed with a solution and can’t or won’t consider the risks.
The theatre had lights on the ceiling that twinkled like stars and while waiting for the movie we would make our own constellations. I went with the neighborhood kids and had to ask for 50 cents from Mom for admission and a box of popcorn.
Woodcroft was a new subdivision, built when the model was to remove all the trees, grassland, marsh, and streams from an area to “urbanize” it, and plant thin spindly trees that would one day be as big as the ones they cut down. I didn’t realize what I was missing until our weekend trips took us downtown, Strathcona, and Whyte Avenue.
One reason to go to the south side was for Edmonton’s amazing Moro Craft, a giant old hobby store with stacks of model trains, terrain, and tracks. Saturday afternoons there would a flurry of kids and Dads looking around the store. Behind the desk was a woman wearing overalls and the lined face I would later associate with heavy smokers, who bustled back and forth answering questions and working the cash register with a bell dinging when the cash drawer opened. She had short hair and was really the first person who I had to think as to whether she was a man or a woman, itself a fascinating question, and admire her cool professional demeanor as she dealt with us all.
The south side was also the home of the Varscona movie theatre, a lovely old art deco building from the 1940’s. My Mom loved musicals and we saw The Sound of Music and Oliver there, as we crunched on our popcorn and let the tears roll down our cheeks at the happy and sad moments.
Strathcona had its share of old trees, but the strongest memory for me of walking through fall’s coloured leaves was smunching through them on the way to synagogue when my Dad and I would go to Jewish New Year services at the old Beth Israel synagogue at 119 street and 102 avenue.
Going to High Holiday services with my Dad was a time rich in sensual memories. The sound of our dress shoes shuffling through fallen leaves, the feeling of a cold nip in the air as fall opens the door to old man winter, then inside – the smell of old buildings, old men, and old woolen talisim (prayer-shawls), the sound of prayer book pages turning, the creak of pews and bones when people rise and sit down, and the cantor singing the longing Ashkenazi prayers for forgiveness.
Downtown Edmonton also held other treasures. Mike’s newstand was also an amazing place, one that I would not have ventured into had it not made the clever business decision to be the ticket bureau for many Edmonton shows and concerts. As Lawrence Herzog wrote on the Edmonton Museum site,
Mike’s News Stand was a singular experience. The floors creaked under the coming and going of customers, and the tang of Cuban cigars and pipe tobacco hung in the air.
Around the same time as discovering Mike’s my parents brought me into The Java Shop. When you opened the door the smell of loose tea and coffee drew you into the wooden comfort of the store, and started my long love affair with espresso.
