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What I Miss About Toronto In 60's

lrookies

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This is a list of things that have changed from the 1960's in Toronto that I miss from my childhood (in no particular order). Am I being ridiculously sentimental? Did I miss anything|?

-The Eaton’s Window at Christmas
-The Simpson’s Window at Christmas
-The Eaton’s Santa Claus Parade
-Winston Churchill Park and my Dad taking us tobogganing on Sundays in winter
-Sam The Record Man on Yonge Street and Gould…69 cent singles (45 rpm vinyl singles)
-Sam The Record Man selling Beatle wigs for 1 shiny penny (circa 1964)
-Midtown Theatre Bloor and Bathurst (North East side)
-Alhambra Theatre Bloor and Bathurst (North West side)
-Kresge’s Lunch Counter, Bloor and Bathurst or Yonge and College
-Maple Leaf Gardens and my first NHL game there (Nov. 27, 1965; Boston 2 Leafs 1)
-Doug Laurie’s Sports where I bought my first hockey stick…fibre glass wrapped….$10
-Tamblyn’s Drug Store, N & N Supermarket, Varsity Restaurant and Meyers Cigar store, Bloor Street between Madison and Spadina
-The Barber Shop in the back of Meyers Cigar Store, Bloor and Madison
-The TV tube tester, Meyers Cigar Store
-1 cent candy at Meyers Cigar Store
-Bazooka Joe bubble gum for 1 cent, Bonamo Turkish Taffee (3 flavours), sponge toffee, and my brother’s love of “Black Balls” and Thrills Gum (my Mom used to describe as smelling like soap), red wax lips. Pixie Stix, Lickamaid, black pipe and cigar licorice, Popeye Candy Cigarettes, all sold at Meyers Cigar Store
-Old style Pepsi Cooler in Meyers Cigar Store
-Street washer/sprayer trucks on Huron Street
-Fire hydrants that filled the washer trucks; the kids used to line up in front of the hydrant at Huron near Lowther Ave on hot days and when the crew finished they would spray the kids from the water in the hydrants;
-PCC Street Cars rumbling across Bloor St till 1966 when Subway opened
-Soda shop on Bloor Street at Spadina
-A & W Drive in; Waitresses (that's what they were called) on roller skates hanging trays of food on car windows
-Canadian Tire Flagship Store on Yonge Street...clerks on roller skates, parking lot so steeply hilled, it was recommended you use your emergency brakes to keep your car from rolling downhill
-The CNE from the 1960’s
-CHUM booth at the CNE
-CHUM radio (Jay Nelson, Larry Solway, Bob McAdory etc.)
-CHUM Charts
-Bloor Street between Huron and Spadina Avenue
-Bloor Street United Church, 300 Bloor Street West (my Dad worked there 1959-1992)
-478 Huron Street…the home I grew up in (Now a United Church Observer office)
-Sundays at home in the 60’s…especially Sunday night TV…Ed Sullivan
-Most TV shows from the 1960’s
-2 Cent deposit on 10 ounce Pepsi bottles, long before championing the environment before it became fashionable to do so
-Philosophers Walk; tobogganing in the winter
-Huron Street Park Huron and Lowther in the winter; the city built an informal natural ice rink every winter (can't do that anymore; liabilities)

Anything else???
 
The city playgrounds, pools, theatres, and sports were all closed on Sundays in the 1960's, unfortunately. My family had to go out of town to use the playgrounds or swim on Sundays.

That's all true. However, the bi product of Sunday shopping and Sunday business is that for some it changed the dynamics of the "weekend". Business is open 7 days a week and requires employees to work for them 7 days a week. For example, my son works on Saturday and Sunday. His "weekends" are Wednesday Thursday. His wife's are sometimes Monday Tuesday. So often the idea of families doing things together on weekends, often doesn't happen in the traditional 60's sense either.
 
As a UK-born, university-educated, healthy, able-bodied, white, male, heterosexual, married (to white woman) with kids, church-going, middle class home-owning, credit eschewing office guy who loves vintage motorcycles, I think the 1960s would have been idyllic for me. Not so much for everyone else.
 
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More people used fans (not the fanatical enthusiast or supporter type) to circulate any kind of breeze, back then.

on.jpg


And blow a few fuses when doing so at the same time with other electrical things.
 
I always sleep with a fan on because the white noise is soothing and aids in a better night's sleep.
 
I remember growing up in the 80's (no, it's not the 60's but that's the extent of my experience!) and our family definitely survived without A/C. I remember my Dad having to roll down (literally) the windows to the car and let it cool off for what seemed like an eternity before we were allowed to go in. All windows in the house were open (sometimes we'd need a stick to prop that heavy wooden window up!) . Oscillating fans were running everywhere. Interestingly, if I did this today, I think I would be drenched in sweat. I actually don't recall being all that sweaty growing up. o_O
 
When we moved to Canada in the mid-1970s, we lived at Derry Rd. and Winston Churchill in a new subdivision, and it was right under the Pearson flight path. We didn't have A/C, so windows were always open, and the racket from the planes was immense.
 
In the 1950's, our family moved on up from the ice box to a brand new refrigerator.

140702171943-zil-refrigerator-1950s-horizontal-large-gallery.jpg


It even made ice cubes!!

The bad news was that once a month, the refrigerator had to be defrosted manually. Take all the food out, leave the door open to melt the ice build up, and catch all the melting water.

By the 1960's, we heard on the news about kids getting stuck inside of refrigerators, usually discarded ones. They kept telling us to take the doors off because the doors actually locked when you closed them.
 
Looks like Canada was very laxed relative to the US in the 60s. I grew up as a kid in the early-mid 80s in Toronto North west of Bloor and Bathurst (Seaton Village). And I still vividly remember Sundays and everything being closed. Very few cars on the road. It's like time stood still. And there was nothing on TV for a kid to watch on Sunday afternoons. Although I remember being bored, but as an adult now, I vividly remember the appreciate the calm and moments with family. Dad just lying back, reading his book, taking a nap on the couch, mom in the kitchen, my sister and I just playing around, or going downstairs and walking around in the silence (felt like a Twilight Zone episode when everybody disappears),

I definitely long for those types of moments and days now. Actually, it felt like what a long weekend day feels like today when everything is closed today. Peaceful.
 

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