Pumping Gas

His name was Ken Elliot and he asked permission from my father if I could work at his gas station. I was only 12 years old but he had seen me working in my dad's grocery store and I suppose he saw that I was a responsible type and he was looking for cheap help. I was in charge of his bulk oil and fuel division when he was absent from the premises, which was quite often, because he delivered fuel to the local farmers. My biggest fear was that I would pour diesel fuel into a gas tractor or sell 'marked gas' to someone who did not qualify. The easiest part of the selling was when a farmer would come in and ask for a case of Havoline 20-30 engine oil and let me put it on his tab. That was like selling groceries.
I remember one lazy hot summer day, Ken and I were sitting in the shade of a big tree out front, sipping Cokes and waiting for customers. He told me that he was so grateful to be alive. And then he told me the story of when he had been a rear gunner on a Lancaster Bomber in the Second World War. They had just dropped their bombs somewhere over Germany and were heading back to Britain when they were swarmed by fighter planes. Their bombers were strafed again and again but somehow they all managed to limp back home, some with small fires on board and many pieces missing. He had been concerned for his best friend when he saw his plane lagging behind, with smoke trailing from one engine. They got back and waited for the all the stragglers to land. When his friends plane landed, it was with great relief that Ken ran to the tarmac. The plane looked like a piece of Swiss cheese with all the holes punched in it. The fire was out by now and as Ken raced to the rear of the Lancaster where his friend was also a tail gunner, his heart fell as he saw the hatch down and blood pouring out. His friend was unrecognisable and then he said, "they removed his body with a shovel."
I never forgot it and I can still see the look on his face as he told the story. Maybe he had never shared that with anyone before, but somehow I knew the importance of what I had just witnessed and I felt a closeness to him that I had never even felt toward my Dad.
He was a very kind and compassionate man to work for , and even though it was only for a summer, he and I always had a knowing smile for each other after that day under the shade tree, sipping cokes.

Group Photo

A trip to Shady Grove cannot happen unless you get together a group of 10 or more people. Here is the rag-tag gang we threw together in order to pull this off. They are an independent lot and even getting them to co-operate for a group photo is difficult. Note that very few of them are paying attention to the photographer ......... until.....

I called out the magic word to get everybody's attention. "Faspa!" *

And no group photo would be complete without every single member on the picture, so yours truly snuck into the back row for this shot.

These fine looking people are our Care Group, a collection of like minded folks who get together semi regularly because of shared values, interests, and primarily, our shared faith. Wonderful friends, each and every one of them and they mean the world to us.

Standing, left to right: Terry, Lis, Jan, Elma, Frank, Ella, and Bill.

Sitting, left to right: Ken, Heidi, Henry, Delores, and our fearless leader, Erv.

*Faspa: An ethnic traditional late afternoon Sunday meal typically consisting of cold cut meats, various salads including green, fruit, or Jello, home made buns, preferably the two decker ones called zwiebach, Strawberry and/or Raspberry freezer jam, a veggie platter, home made dill pickles, coffee and tea, and a multitude of very sweet desserts, home baked and in ample supply.

These Guys are Dummies

Shady Grove has more than cars. Here is a one room school with those desks that some of us used to sit at. Slates, pot belly stove, wooden floor, and a pump organ for music appreciation classes round out this institution of learning.

The whole museum is populated by mannequins of various sizes and shapes, but beautiful people all.

My mother had one of these and my job was to run the clothes through that wringer on top. She put the fear in me when she told me to keep my fingers out of the rollers or it would eat them up. There was a wooden spoon handy to get the clothes started, thank goodness. I still have all ten fingers, but I still see that contraption as a big mouth waiting to eat a small child's hands.

What 50's museum would be complete without a pink (I believe it was called Coral back then) bathroom. Actually, there is a whole house in the upper barn area complete with this bathroom, a kitchen, living room, dining room, and bedroom, all filled with stuff your grandma had, or if you are a pack rat and do not do garage sales, you still have. Remember the sleek black panther table ornaments, lamp stands, and book ends? They have an a abundance of them there.

This Place Gave me the Willys

As I said yesterday, there is whole barn full of Willys Automobiles. Here is a sampling. This Blue Beauty would shorten your commute considerably.

Restored and customized interior.

A photo of the exterior of the previous car. Wonderful paint job and highly visible, as it should be.

Here was a unique and interesting display. The owner of this collection has travelled far and wide to find all these Willys and he says that this is the way he usually finds them, on the back forty and covered in bush and debris. So he set up a portion of the building to simulated a bush full of undiscovered Willys. He plans to eventually restore all of them, but time is a limitation.

And this is a 'head on' of a Willys only painted Matte Black for the time being. Besides all of the intact but derelict Willys in the building, there are racks of parts such as fenders, doors and just about anything that go into restoring one of these quaint automobiles from the past.

Yellow Willys

Back to Shady Grove and the amazing Willys section of the museum. These are rare cars and yet here is a collection of both old unrestored Willys and Willys rods, many of which have had a career at the drag strips. These are unique automobiles and have a funky charm about them. With only two seats, they cry for a Friday night date, cruising the strip and stopping at the local A&W drive-in. Is that the Beach Boys I hear singing in the background? More Willys tomorrow.

The heat continues with no immediate relief in sight. I could not hold the steering wheel in my truck after work today for fear of burning myself. I poured some ice water from my jug onto a napkin and had a small hand hold. It was so hot I was shivering and about half way home I experienced a not so pleasant bout of heart palpitations. I had visions of passing out and waiting for the ambulance to rescue me but it was only a desperate plan to get a ride in an air-conditioned vehicle to an air-conditioned hospital where they would naturally have to keep me overnight for observation. Oh, when will it end? (The heat, I mean.)

Getting Pumped

This pump at Shady Grove brought me back to my boyhood years. Growing up in Saskatchewan meant there was always a problem with water. In our small town of 500 souls there were only two public pumps. Some folks had their own pump, depending on which part of town they lived, and the rest of us had to fetch our drinking water from the town pump, whichever one had water. Water for washing came from the cisterns we had in our basements, which caught rainwater off the roof in the spring and summer and which we filled with snow in the winter, hoping it would melt fast enough to meet our needs. We were always conserving water.
Getting water from the pump was an art and a hard physical job. I would take a big metal cream can in my little red wagon and haul it to the nearest well, also taking with me a small amount of precious water. I would place the big can under the spout and then pump like crazy. You could feel if the water was drawing upward or not, and if it did not, then priming was necessary. A little of the precious water down the pump shaft would wet the bushings and provide a better vacuum. Depending on how deep the water was, it could take several minutes to get the water up to the surface. When it finally started pouring, you did not dare stop or you would have to start over. I would often pump to exhaustion and certainly when I had a friend along, and we would take turns, the job was much easier.
How little we realise the value of simply turning a tap.

In General

I thought I was a day ahead with my blog posts, but I inadvertently post dated two blogs for one day. I can't very well take it back now, can I?
Here is the interior of the general store at Shady Grove. Note the well stocked shelves of vintage items. Just out of the photo is a fully stocked bakery shelf with bread, buns and other goodies from the ovens. The old scales and cash registers were in excellent shape and condition for their age. Both my father and grandfather had retail food goods businesses so this was right up my alley

We drove into Vancouver yesterday morning, and then Surrey in the evening, so we did not have another trip in us to take in the Symphony of Fire fireworks displays in English Bay last night. The reports said that there were record numbers of people out and only a few incidents of alcohol confiscation. There are those who say that Vancouver's alcohol laws are archaic and not in keeping with modern times. Not being much of drinking man myself, I will not comment on that, but there is something I will say that relates to the rule that says you cannot have a glass of wine with your picnic on the beach. Compare this to the policy of handing out free drugs (heroin) to addicts on the downtown east side. There is a huge disconnect here.

This morning I had the first of two procedures to replace one of my ancient teeth with a gold crown. This is my fifth one and my mouth is beginning to look like Fort Knox and is worth almost as much. I must say that my young Dentist is excellent. There was zero pain from either the freezing needle or the grinding down of the old tooth. There was so little discomfort during the 45 minute procedure that I was actually able to think of something other than my mouth while they were working away in there with their jack hammers and grinders. The only time I got a little concerned was when the backhoe arrived to clear away all the debris.

And now for the information you have been waiting to hear. There may be breaking news on my hip. Stay tuned. (there is no pun there)

Back to Shady Grove

The owner of Shady Grove, a converted chicken farm, grew up on the property. The main part of the museum is two converted chicken barns. In the bottom photo you can see that the front of the barn was renovated to create a show room look, similar to an auto dealership of the 50's, complete with a bright, shiny car displayed in the window. There is a sales office with old office equipment, and a parts department stocked with oil cans and many new and used auto parts, some still in their original packaging. As you marvel at the old coke machines and automotive posters on the wall, you suddenly notice that there is a small entry into the back area of the converted barn, what in a real auto dealership would be the service bays where the repairs and maintenance would be done. When I stepped through that small door I was greeted by a sight that quite simply amazed me. Remember that I had never been here before and did not really know what all was here. Tomorrow I will show you what was in the 'back room'.

I am writing this on Wednesday, and in a few hours we are going to the airport to pick up and bring home the lost remnant of our family tribe. It has been three weeks since last we saw them and I am quite excited, to say the least. According to their last communication with us, they were ready to come home after having had a wonderful time in Ireland. They now need some routine in their lives, and of course the boys really need a big hug from their Grand Dad, or is it the other way around?

What Was Behind The Door

This was once a two story chicken barn, but now it houses a magnificent row of 50' and 60' vehicles all in mint condition and totally road worthy. If you notice on the right side of the photo, there is a row of overhead garage doors. He had to install one of these for each vehicle because he could not move the posts that held up the upper floor of the barn. Every weekend he has to decide which vehicle to drive, and he does drive them all. The beautiful baby blue T-Bird in the foreground is the car his wife drives every day.

Lining the walls opposite the cars are rows of Juke boxes and this Soda Fountain, complete with mannequin waitresses, coke coolers, and fake food.

They cranked on some oldie goldies for us as we admired the cars, and even got to sit in them. Most of these Juke Boxes were in perfect working order and loaded with Elvis and his contemporaries.

Here are three of the gals sitting down to order their hamburgers, french fries and milk shakes. This little diner was incredibly authentic down to the minutest detail and certainly brought back memories for me. Me and my buddies used to hang out in a place just like this when I was a kid.

Shady Grove

You probably did not notice, but I put this post under the tag 'Travel'. That is because normally, one would have to travel to see such a thing as this. But right here in our fair little city in the country, is the most amazing private museum you will likely see anywhere. The owners are a middle aged childless couple who like to collect things and display them. They take small groups, by appointment, through their Shady Grove museum and follow them around, unlocking and locking doors. Apart from the $5 per person, their reward is to see the looks on the faces of their guests. I had no idea there was such a thing only a few minutes drive from our own house. In the next little while I will be posting some photos of this most amazing place.

My friends in England, who frequently travel about in their own country, always have amazing photos of the history of their country. That is REAL history, and this, because it is all relatively new, is only memorabilia, but certainly conjured up some terrific memories for us 'fifty somethings' who were in the group. I suppose this post really does belong in the 'Travel' category because this what is known as Time Travel.