My Little Town
This is a photo of Marilyn Lukas from Carleton Place, Ontario. Chances are you might not know Marilyn, but you know someone like her in your town or city. In 1976 Marilyn, a mother of three girls, volunteered for the job of seeing that the town would have things for children– i.e.: put on a theatre night, craft sales, a children’s circus, a parade, planting tulips, daffodils and hyacinths at the local schools. The Town Council was so astonished at someone appointing herself as chairman that they quickly accepted the offer, and sat back in amazement as Lukas reeled off event after event tuned to the town’s children.
Last night Jaslin Emm from our local town post office contacted me on Facebook to see if I knew Marilyn’s address. Someone had dropped off a card for her at Canada Post but didn’t have her address. I personally wanted to accomplish this mission as this is what we do in small towns– we care. Before I went to bed I posted on Facebook and by morning her daughter Michelle had contacted me with the address. I was thrilled- because it was an example that we have not really lost our close-knit community. Week after week I hear folks talking negatively about what things their town has lost—or what it used to be like. The expansion of a town is not the end of what Carleton Place once was, or Cowansville, Quebec– or anywhere else.
Once upon a time the neighbouring farmers ensured that the small towns would survive and the local banks and Main Street were a bee hive come Friday night. But for generations things have been changing, not only for Carleton Place- but for every other town. Some small towns don’t have much going for them except luck in historical things, but eventually that tends to run out with population decline, because once you’ve seen the cannon in the park there’s nothing else to do. Our small towns in Quebec and Ontario are changing.
Every Friday night as a young child, we would walk up Albert Street to make our way to the Main Street of Cowansville, Quebec. Everyone was there with smiles on their faces and you could hear the sounds of a jazz band playing from the Hotel. There were clothing stores filled to capacity with people purchasing things, and you could see men in haberdasheries standing on small stools being fitted with pants.
We would stop and look carefully at the store windows and then make our way down to the hat store. Their veranda was yellow and white with many gorgeous hats in the window. I watched my mother point at one and saw my father tell her to go buy it. The cookie store was next and I was allowed to buy three cookies covered in peppermint icing that had chocolate drizzle on them. I never touched them until I got home as I wanted to savour every bite.
After my mother died my father would take me up to Brault’s drugstore every Saturday night where I was allowed to purchase one magazine and a chocolate bar. He would never understand the teen magazines that I bought but figured it was useless to argue with me about considering another choice. Sometimes he brought me to the Blue Bird Restaurant where we would have a chocolate milkshake and my father would talk non stop to the owner. They would talk about the fire that happened years ago and destroyed most of the street and how chain stores were coming in and might possibly ruin the smaller businesses.
One of those chain stores was Canadian Tire, and when it opened there was a lineup that stretched down the street and around the corner. They had sent everyone catalogues beforehand and everyone wanted to see all the good deals they professed to have. The kids got a free sucker and balloons and I remember the man that owned the hardware store nearby standing in his doorway with a huge scowl on his face.
As I got older and moved away things changed. They erected a shopping centre and an A & P came to town shutting the Dominion store down quickly. People opted to go into the air conditioned mall rather than putter along the street. The Princess Theatre no longer had a full house, and it only held memories of watching Gone with the Wind and The Sound of Music with my grandmother. No longer did Bonneau’s grocery store stand on the corner and the street now held French bakeries and a cafe that sold exotic waffles with strawberries and cream. There was no family left to complain to about the changes, and no one really seemed to remember the old stores anyways- or care.
But here is something to remember: We know the magic is still there, you just have to remember that “small town-feel” evokes a community where we try to know each other and rely on others just like the Post Office did last night. It’s engagement and connection that is the beginning and the end of creating a “small-town feel.” Some of us are not fond of the changes and don’t care for the rows of barrack style homes developers build. But a lot of these properties were sold years ago, and there were plans that the council dealt with terms ago. Some changes were on 10-year plans, some are from current plans- but, if we keep looking only to the past, and present we miss our future.
In all honesty, you are the key to all of this. A small-town feel begins when you, the citizen, takes the time to get to know people. A lot of folks think they don’t matter anymore. That’s not true–learn your neighbours names,