The Grand Theatre

The Grand Theatre opened about 1916 as the Province Theatre offering vaudeville and films.
The Province closed in 1937. The interior was remodeled in the art deco style and included a new marquee and signage outlined in neon. The newly renovated theatre was renamed the Rio, reopening in 1938. Sub run double features were the normal fare until it closed once again in 1950.
A further minor remodeling, mostly to the marquee and signage was carried out and it reopened in the same year with yet another (and final) name change to the Grand. I grew very familiar with this theatre in the winter of 1960-61.

I had just turned eighteen in November and that was about the time work for me at the CNR came to an almost complete halt. I worked a shift a week, sometimes two, if I was lucky, and on a rare occasion I got in a third shift. Usually that came when I would have to double through from the afternoon shift which started at four o'clock and ended at midnight. A late book-off would result in me getting a jump on some of my "older spare board members, seniority wise" and I would "double" through. That meant sixteen consecutive hours with no overtime because the midnight shift was the start of a new day and thus didn't qualify as over-time in the CNR books.

This meant I had a lot of spare time on my hands. The few friends I had in Winnipeg were working low paying jobs working for minimum wages during the normal working days. There were just no decent paying jobs available for us young ones! I couldn't meet with therm in the evenings because most of us were broke, lived far apart, and because I had to hang around home waiting for a possible call to work. Oh, to have had a cell phone back then.

My shifts were almost always afternoons with the occasional midnight shift and these fell mostly on weekends.This meant I had almost no social life. I was now living with my parents on Maryland Street in a suite on the top floor(3rd) of a large house near Misericordia Hospital. My dad managed to secure a day job delivering kosher meat for a Jewish butcher in the north end whose customers mostly lived in River Heights. We pooled our salaries. My folks had seen the writing on the wall as to the long range success of a small mixed farm in Saskatchewan. They auctioned off most of their belongings, and all their machinery and livestock, rented their land to a neighboring farmer, and followed their two sons to the beckoning glare of the neon lights of Winnipeg.

After checking with my spare board supervisor to see if there was even a remote possibility of working an afternoon shift -  and most often there was no such possibility - I would walk to the Grand Theatre which was located a half-block north of Portage Avenue and Fort Street at 209 Notre Dame Avenue where currently the space it occupied in 1960 is an open space, part of a bank plaza/park. This was a distance of a little over two kilometres or about a 30 minute walk. I would pay my admission fee of 25 cents and go in and buy a large ten cent bag of popcorn and settle in for a triple feature of second run movies.

There were many people there in similar straits and we could spend the time from one p.m. to six p.m. being temporarily released from our boredom. The movies were good B movies and they certainly beat out the viewing on the local  channels. Prior to November 12, CBWT was the only English channel available.  On November 12 CJAY TV (now CKY TV) and KCND started televising. One needed an antenna to pull in KCND which was located in Pembina in North Dakota.
With the exception of some programming on the hard-to-get KCND, the daytime fares on the local channels were unappealing to me.

When the movie was over I would walk home and wait for a possible phone call for a midnight shift. By walking to and from the Grand, I saved 30 cents, which defrayed the cost of my admission and half of the cost of my popcorn. So I paid 35 cents for a whole afternoon of entertainment.

I averaged 2 or 3 trips during the week to the Grand that winter. When spring started to near, more workers started scheduling holidays and more trains were also being run by the CNR. My number of shifts started to go up and my Grand Theatre attendance correspondingly dropped.

The Grand operated in it’s last years as a "grind house" leaning heavily on double and triple features consisting of westerns and ‘B’ movies. The Grand closed in 1961 and was demolished along with surrounding buildings to make way for the new high rise bank tower. With its demise I felt like I had lost a true friend.

The Long Walk and the Salisbury House Reward!

I stamp the snow off my boots as I enter the CNR yard office in Transcona. I have just come back from about a two mile walk checking three tracks in the main yard for my chief clerk. I know he didn't really need them checked but he hated to see me sitting in the yard office just because I had efficiently and quickly completed my checking assignments for the whole shift. He had sent me out into the snowy night because he could. I suspected that he didn't like me but I couldn't figure out why. All the other chief clerks thought I was a great worker and often specifically asked for me.

For those of you who don't know, checking means walking beside a railway track from one end of the yard where there is a switch to the opposite end of the yard where there is another switch. It is these switches which the switchmen (unique choice of name) throw open when they are "breaking"up a newly arrived train by shunting cars into assigned tracks. It is a car checker's job - that would be me on this night - to then at different times throughout the day record the cars on a specific track. In this way the chief yard agent will know where any particular car is at any particular time.

With a board clutched in my left arm and a checking sheet  - basically a long manila tag sheet with ruled lines on it with dimensions of 30 cm by 10 cm - bound to the board with elastic bands, and a switchman's lamp clamped tightly under my left armpit, I walk between the adjoining tracks and check the cars on my left side. I record the car's origin e.g CNR, CPR, B&O, ATSF, etc. and its identifying number. By looking at the first three numbers, one can identify whether a car is a box car, an automobile carrier, a gondola car, a flat car, a cattle stock car, a horse stock car, a hopper car, a tank car, a caboose, or a work train car. I also record whether it has any Bad Order tags on it - these are B/O tags signifying that there is a problem with the car and that it should be taken to the car repair shop in the yard. I also register whether it is loaded. Boxcars have special metal seals on the doors if they are loaded. Other cars you simply bang on the side or check the car to see if it is loaded with any material with any raw materials or any load on a flat car. Sometimes I will check two tracks at a time making sure I enter the car numbers on the right corresponding sheet.

I had done this all evening and now I was looking anxiously at the clock. I had asked my chief clerk if he could let me go fifteen minutes early so I could catch the last black and white bus back to Winnipeg. It left at midnight and from where I was in the yard office, it was at least a ten minute walk to the small shack where the bus sat idling.

My boss was being a complete "dick-head" because he said if he let me go early, he would have to let everyone go early. I had told him everyone else here lived in Transcona. I was the only one who needed to catch that bus. He smiled without humor and told me, "Tough!"

As I sat there fuming, he noticed that other staff members were giving him the evil eye. Finally with a great show of largess  at eight minutes to twelve midnight, he said that I could go.

I ran out of the building and with my parka flapping, my switchman's lamp bouncing on my arm, and my boots slipping and sliding on the packed snow, I ran for the bus. As I neared the bus shack I could see that the bus had already left. Great! I was stranded. I could walk back to the yard office and spend the night sleeping on a chair in the brightly lit office or I could "suck-it-up" and walk the thirteen plus kilometres back to Maryland Street in Winnipeg.

Afraid I might do something rash if I went back to the yard office and the chief clerk was still there, I chose to walk home. I followed Pandora Street to Plessis Road and then followed Plessis south to Dugald Road. The cold started to set in but the snow had stopped falling. I followed Dugald Road until it merged into Marion Street.  All the walking kept me warm inside my WWII army surplus parka. It was heavy but not very warm. It was the exertion of the fast walking that was keeping me warm.

There was little or no traffic. Because most of the area was industrial there were no city buses running at this hour. Marion Street got me through St. Boniface and across the Red River on Main Street to Broadway. I followed Broadway Avenue up to Langside Street. I was now only a handful of blocks from home.

But I was starving from all the exertions of the day plus the long hike from Transcona. I must have walked thirty miles that day and my "supper" had been skimpy and hastily thrown together. I had almost enough money for a Salisbury House Big breakfast. I knew the three employees who worked the midnight shift and I knew that they would give me credit until I could pay them back.

I walked in and made for a space at the counter. The three employees I knew were working. I called them Larry, Curly, and Moe because they were a lot of fun and were always pulling pranks on each other or on steady customers they knew. The place was almost full. There were people who had stopped in for coffee or a late or early breakfast or for simply a Mr. Big Salisbury nip; policemen - no policewomen on the street back then - some cab drivers, the usual number of late party-goers who were "putting a lid" on their night of drinking, plus a few "street people". Street people back then were the social outcasts of the time.  Some were gay, some were transvestites, some obviously had some mental incapacity. But at the Sal's House after midnight all were welcome and all were accepted for what they were and no judgements were made or questions asked.

Occasionally some forgot the unwritten rules for behavior and were reminded. If they didn't want to mind the unwritten rule, they were asked to leave. Refusal meant that the police would be called or often the police were right there and the problem was quickly solved and everyone could enjoy the warmth and the good food of the House.

I ordered my breakfast, wrote out my IOU, and fell to with a very ravenous appetite that only a teenager can conjure up. Eventually warmed up from the food and several cups of coffee and after being "picked on" several times by either Larry or Curly or Moe, I left the warmth and security of the Sal's House and made my way home to my bed. it was 4:30 a.m. It had  been a full and interesting day.

Am I Feeling "Blue"?

I was only 17 when I discovered that life in the "big city" was not all I had envisioned it to be while I was growing up on our farm in Saskatchewan. Granted life was exciting during Monday through Saturday. But come Sunday it seemed that the city literally shut down.It was at this same time that I learned about the "blue laws"!

These were provincial or municipal(read city) laws which prohibited certain activities, particularly entertainment, sports, shopping, or drinking alcohol on Sunday. They were originally enacted across Canada  to encourage church attendance and to restrict activity only to that worthy (at least according to some)of observation on the Sabbath. These laws transformed over time from a religious proscription to simply reflecting the values of a given community.

Winnipeg had its fair share of blue laws. Now you can argue that they did do a lot of good for the family person if he or she could not work on Sunday. It made for a family day.  But when you are a young adult you feel the restriction of these laws as they limited the range of exciting things to do, exciting for a young person. You could do many outdoor things on Sunday but parks and the zoo soon lost their glamor. In summer you could head to the beach or go cycling or hang out in a friend's yard. In winter you could, if the weather was decent, go skating outdoors. You could  swim in the one indoor pool but that only permitted a small amount of people at any one time. You could watch the one channel of television, CBWT, the CBC affiliate, or the French version of CBC, which was CBWFT. So one's options were limited.

On long weekends in the warm months, there were massive lineups at the drive-in theatres on Sunday night for the quadruple features that started at one minute past midnight, or on Monday morning. These would run for about 5 hours and were to us young people a real "hoot" or hit! Occasional an epic film like Ben Hur or The Ten Commandments would be shown at one of the downtown theatres on Sunday at midnight. Drive-ins were popular places for "under-age" adults to be able to imbibe in some illicit drinks - legal drinking age was 21 - as well for some serious necking. As emigres from small towns across Manitoba and Saskatchewan, few of us owned any kind of vehicle and all of us lived mostly in rented one - room bachelor suites in private houses. Groups of noisy teenagers were not made very welcome by the landlords. A fortunate few got decent jobs and were able to share the rent of an two or three bedroom apartment. These could accommodate larger groups of kids but noise restrictions were severely enforced.Thus we had few places to congregate - pre-7/11 stores days!

Some other blue laws in passing:
- a trip to the liquor store: just 40 years ago, buying liquor meant lining up at a counter so a clerk could retrieve the bottles from the back room. Every time you ordered, you had to fill out a form with all sorts of personal information so your purchases could be tracked. Plus they had limited hours and were closed on Sundays and holidays.

- all male beer parlors. Women and aboriginals were not allowed entry.

- want a cocktail at a restaurant? You need to order some food first.

- eventually movies and  some sporting events were allowed on Sunday provided they started in the afternoon.

- no businesses were allowed to open on a Sunday and only businesses that were self-owned or essential such as a pharmacy or a gas station could open with the owners providing the labor.e.g. Mom And Pop corner stores.

- only essential workers like police, fire-fighters, hospital employees, and transportation workers were exempt from Sunday laws prohibiting labor.

Again some of these laws did force people to slow down and actually relax on Sunday with family and/or friends. But it sure made for "Dog Day Sunday Afternoons"!

Hunger!

Hunger!
Have you ever been hungry? I mean really really hungry? Most of us in our daily lives seldom experience true hunger. Oh, sure, we get hunger pangs when we are late for or skip a meal. But to experience real hunger is something most of us have not had to do and hope not to ever have to do!
The definition of hunger according to Merriam-Webster dictionary:
a : a craving or urgent need for food or a specific nutrient b : an uneasy sensation occasioned by the lack of food c : a weakened condition brought about by prolonged lack of food.
The only time I truly experienced hunger was when I first arrived in the city of Winnipeg, a callow recently graduated-from-twelfth-grade youth. I arrived in the city in late July at the height of a recession. Jobs were scarce, especially for 17 year old children with no practical skills that people looking to hire someone would consider as assets. Sure I had a lot of skills and smarts that working on a farm instill in a person. But none of these were very obvious and though many of them would have been transferable to on the job training, no one was willing to take the chance. No one, that is, except for the CNR - also known as Canadian National Railways.
The CNR took me in because I could read and write and speak fluently in 2 languages with English being the main criteria. They hired me because I had completed my high school education, which at that time was a standing equivalent to a university degree today. I had all my body parts, excellent vision, and excellent hearing( this was before my phys-ed teaching days in poorly constructed non-acoustic gyms)and I showed up sober for my interview without any mad dog characteristics. I was hired on the spot to work out of the Fort Rouge, Transcona, East Yard, CNR Union Staion, and Paddington rail yards as a yard staff employee.
My first shift would come off the spare board where I was placed among 30 other recently and newly hired employees. I was the lowest man - there were no women on the yard staff - with the lowest seniority possible. I was inexperienced and my seniority number was lower than a snake's belly! Spare boards were designed to help fill immediate vacancies arising as a result of some one "booking off", that is calling in sick or because of some other emergency. Then the first person - the one with the greatest seniority - would be called with about 2 hours notice to fill in for the absentee at whatever yard the job took place.
My first week, I worked one shift as a callboy, a position dating back to pre-telephone days, when callboys were dispatched to the homes of train crew members to let them know that they were officially called to crew an outgoing freight or passenger train. With the advent of telephones, callboys were in less need and new duties were added to their job descriptions such as delivering inter-departmental mail and serving as general "joe-boys" for the chief clerk for whom they were working that shift. The pay was the minimum wage of the time as we were unionized wage earners. My salary for an eight hour shift was a dollar an hour or eight bucks. This wasn't as bad then as it seems now because bus fares were 15 cents, burgers were between 15 and 25 cents, bread was about 20 cents a loaf, a 6-pack of beer was a $1.25, and movie admissions were about 25 cents.
The second week I worked another shift as a callboy but in Transcona which was hard to get to if you didn't own a car. You had to catch a bus which ran once every hour from Portage and Main to Transcona. The fare was 20 cents plus the last bus from Transcona was at midnight. If the chief clerk didn't give you an early quit, that is let you go early, you would miss your bus, and for me it would have been 13 km walk or about 3 hours to get home.
So after two weeks I had accrued 16 hours or $16 in wages. As we were being paid every 2 weeks, I looked forward to receiving my first paycheck minus the usual deductions. When on payday I went to the pay office to pick up my scant pay, I discovered to my horror that because I was a new employee, my first check would come in the next pay period, a practice for better and more accurate accounting. Our pay checks were always for the two weeks previous to the last two weeks.
I was broke and I was now alone in the small 3 room suite that I shared with my brother and my cousin. I could have hit them up for a few bucks but my brother had just left to engineer some work on one of the airports in northern Manitoba and my cousin Merv had just gone home for a couple of weeks to help his dad with the haying and harvest season. The fridge and the cupboards were almost bare. To top it off I had only a dollar in cash and I needed it for bus fare so I could get to and from work. My shifts were in yards which were usually an hour or more of walking away from where I lived and because sometimes my spare-board assignments came at the last moment leaving me with very little wiggle time to get to work, I needed bus fare money.
I was okay for about a week and then all the food was gone. I ate the last of my ketchup sandwiches and drank the last of my Kool-Aid. There was no more food! I guess I could have begged some food from the neighbors but I was young and proud, so I "sucked it up" and lived on glasses of water. This went on for about 3 days ...no food, only water.
I was called to work once that week in Fort Rouge where I did my first shift as a car checker with an increase of my wage to $2 an hour but with a greater expenditure of energy as I would have to walk the tracks checking or writing down the numbers of rail cars on the track in their sequential order. Some of the tracks were a mile in length in the yard and that meant that I could walk up to 20 miles in a shift. Add to this some hunger pangs and my life did not have many positives in it.
Back then I lived just off off of Maryland Street south of Broadway. On Honeyman Street just west of Broadway was a small hole-in-the-wall grocery run by an older Jewish couple. Their store was the Ches-way Grocery and I think it was about 10 metres deep and about 4 metres wide and about 4 metres high and packed to to the brim with foods and household needs. They had a small meat counter and a fridge for dairy and frozen foods. We used to buy our groceries here because of convenience and closeness to home- the prices were higher than in the large supermarkets.
On the start of my fourth day of no food I was so hungry that I went to the store. Why? I don't know because when I walked into the store the smell of food almost drove me crazy. I wandered the store taking in all the wonderful aromas and tantalizing displays of foods and fresh fruits and veggies. I started salivating and I started contemplating for the first time in my life the act of shop lifting.
"They wouldn't miss a can of beans or maybe a package of biscuits if I was quick and quiet and unobtrusive, " I said to myself. But the Jewish couple were experienced in what they were doing and they probably sensed what I was contemplating, so there was always one of them nearby, ostensibly re-arranging cans or packages but probably to keep an eye on me so I wouldn't do anything rash.
Finally the woman said in a heavy accented English, "You are hungry, no?"
I nodded that I was. She then smiled and said, "You have no money, no?"
"No, " I replied, thinking now that I would be asked to leave the store. But no. She called her husband and they conferred for a minute in what I think was Yiddish. Then she smiled at me, and spoke the sweetest words a hungry person could hope to hear. "You take what you need and we will write it down and when you have money you will come and pay us, no?"
"Yes," I answered with tears of gratitude and joy . They asked me my name but they never asked me for my address or a phone number. It was complete trust and kindness.
Gratefully I loaded up 2 bags of groceries and quickly headed back to my place before they could change their minds. I feasted and I ate and I feasted. No, actually I was only able to eat some small amounts because my stomach had managed to shrink quite a bit in the previous weeks.
The next pay day, I cashed my check at a bank and the first order of business was to repay the trust of the beautiful Jewish couple who had done such a wonderful kindness for me. In the future I bought all my necessities there and I was always grateful for what they had done for me.
I really hope I never have to experience that kind of hunger again even though it was very mild compared to what so many people on our planet suffer through every day.