A Tribute to the existence of Maurice Mersereau, identified to some as Mod to some others as Squeak and however to others as Moe.
CHARLIE MERSEREAU’S Wooden Store
It was a problem at times residing in Mount Dinky (Mt. Dennis). As younger boys, my older brother Alex and I were being frequently mocked and laughed at by the Protestants in the neighbourhood. As Catholics we were being outnumbered by them 10 to a person. It was not right until our proficiency at sports activities and avenue fighting became regarded that we have been really approved. In the earliest situations, on Victoria Boulevard daily life had its classes, we would have been pretty younger, 7 and 8 or thereabouts, how outdated are you in grades a single and two? It isn’t some thing you think about at any time. Perfectly I guess you really do not except if you are a instructor or mom or father or mentor.
A laneway ran among Victoria Boulevard and Ray Avenue called Bartonville Avenue east, we just referred to as it the Laneway. That’s where Charlie Mersereau and Aged Jimmy experienced their woodworking shop. The carpentry shop was positioned in the rickety garage that confronted the back lane we performed ball in. The garage was element of but individual from the brick triplex Charlie and his household lived in which fronted on Ray Avenue. The garage also acted as the carpenters lounge and social club from time to time, when points ended up gradual. There was a full pull up garage doorway and a facet entrance exactly where Jimmy and Charlie would come and go throughout the working day, I’d frequently see the two of them keeping stubby brown India Pale Ale (IPA) beer bottles and warming their hands by an aged oil burner stove that saved the place heat. Now and then Charlie’s more mature brother Gordon would fall by the garage to get tips, to share a six pack. Gordon was in the dwelling repairs business enterprise acquiring shoppers as a result of an insurance coverage gentleman he realized. A pair of worn and wobbly picket kitchen area chairs furnished seating for the clubhouse . Charlie was the father of my buddies Vern and Mod, the family members, alongside with the boys mother Hilda and sister Caroline moved to Toronto from St John New Brunswick, Hilda would not tolerate any ingesting or cussing in their 3rd floor flat as she was fairly spiritual.
Charlie and Previous Jim received a deal to make a pair of custom e-book cabinets for a attorney who practiced up the street in an office located beside the Baptist Church. He need to have been of some worth as his name was shown on a square brass plaque that was mounted at the entrance to his business office. The lawyer lived with his spouse in a swell household in the Avenue Road and Lawrence place. The two carpenters drove to the huge two storey property in Previous Jims creaky station wagon and measured the wall the cabinets were to be set up on. At the lumber retail store they bought the best products, thick mahogany veneered sheets of real plywood a few quarters of an inch thick. The trim was also mahogany, the finishing nails have been dark brown, the color of the stain was a wealthy dark colour. It was a huge enterprise and the men labored on it for a few of months. Every thing else stopped as the men utilized their combined techniques to the job, they employed finely sharpened chisels to imbed the shelving monitor so the cabinets could be adjusted. Each individual move was very carefully mentioned prior to getting undertaken. By viewing the two craftsmen I gained some awareness of the various strategies a carpenter utilizes to achieve their goal. At last the closing solution was stained then completed with a protective coat of crystal clear urethane and still left to dry. The bookcases had been fit for the grand residence.
A couple of problems stood in the way of shipping and delivery and set up of the handsome pair of cases. When the adult men opened the side garage doorway to get them out it was discovered that the bookcases were considerably to big to match as a result of the doorway. The steel garage door alone was barricaded in by bins of tools, table saws a jig cutter, a massive planer and an overhead mitre observed. As nicely there were being instances of vacant beer bottles lying amongst the heaps of sawdust. Relatively perplexed Charlie tinkered with the pencil that rested in his ideal ear lobe, when he received nervous Charlie would squint a bit via his dark framed eye glasses and I believed his black hair stood on conclusion. He scratched his cheek bone and stared at Jim who wore a sloppy pink plaid flannel shirt his tongue stuck out a bit the way a dogs tongue sticks out when it has been running, it rested on his bottom dentures there was not a prime plate. Then Jim twiddled with the pencil that was stored along with an assortment of carpenters aids, a steel 6 inch ruler a compass and some pens held in a plastic pen caddy that healthy in the function shirt pocket, it established the impression of a professional. Sooner or later the adult males partially disassembled the instances which solved the dilemma. Whilst resolving the situation a beer was drank to assist the imagining system. There was an audible sigh of reduction and a emotion of accomplishment when the e-book situations were being loaded.
The subsequent action was to transport the instances to the home. For this I was expected to furnish my black Dodge half ton truck to supply the concluded product or service. On Sunday morning a day late because of to the dimensions setback we carefully wrapped the two cases, now in four sections in outdated shifting blankets. The gents compensated me a honest wage for my efforts. The delivery and set up went effectively and the older distinguished lady at the dwelling who reminded me of the ‘Old Lady’ in the Babar books was fairly happy.
I don’t know why they identified as Mod Mod, his actual identify is Maurice, he was 4 or five yrs young than Vern and I was a 12 months or so more mature than Mod, so that can make Vern the oldest by a couple of decades or so. They have been equally outstanding pool gamers, we shot upstairs at Glenvalley Bowling and Billiards operate by John Shura a swarthy Hungarian who wore those black rimmed glasses as thick as coke bottles that were being modern at the time. But I’m getting a very little ahead of myself in this article. Allows go again 5 or so years.
Beside Charlie and Jim’s shop there was a auto dealership operate by smart men, absolutely everyone explained it was a front, Sal was in the joint (jail) for a little something and the more mature brother Vince who wore tinted eyeglasses and a snazzy fedora and looked shifty ran the utilized car or truck dealership. Perfectly dressed adult males were often coming and going, obtaining hushed discussions in the little utilised car or truck office environment, they in no way stayed extensive, just extensive more than enough for a cup of coffee then they’d acquire off in their sharp polished two door autos. Vehicles were being a status back again then, I guess they nonetheless are.
Just before the vehicle men purchased the residence and paved the large amount, the Floods lived there and it was rumoured that for a quarter the Flood female would perform with your dinky. She wore individuals black rubber boots with the pink trimmed toes the tops rolled down an inch or so. At situations when a bunch of us youngsters would go strolling down the tracks and past the new factories on Ray Avenue we’d stop up like generally playing at the creek, Black Creek. The h2o was not ever black, but I utilized to listen to grownups say it was polluted and us little ones, we did not know what that meant.
As soon as around by the aged Tuberculosis healthcare facility on Buttonwood Ave. I observed a blood like material oozing from a rusting pipe buried in the hill underneath the many stately pre war clinic properties and properly that appeared polluted. Then 1 time I was down there under the clinic, enjoying pirates, developing rafts in the vicinity of the Humber River, in a pond immediately after a tough rain and I noticed a bunch of surgical things, leftovers from medical procedures or a little something, the offer experienced damaged and this things was strewn all about the hillside, there ended up no guts or nothing, just blood and guck, and I took a stick and swished it around, it smelled, and I knew, that was air pollution.
Freds Lunch is an exerpt from the first title which is The Previous Neighburhood, this is Mod enjoying pinball, back again in the late 50s early 60s…
Freds Lunch
At the major of Rutherford, on the other side of Weston Rd the west side, there was a cafe named Fred’s Lunch in which Fred, his wife Mabel who had dyed dim crimson hair and their son Fred Jr. and daughter Gina served up real greasy foodstuff in a state and western environment with picket booths and a jukebox with songs from the fifties that hadn’t been transformed in years, an outdated Marty Robbins music performed around and around lamenting the streets of El Paso. Close to the entrance there was a handful of dirty leatherette topped chrome stools that were being wobbly and squeaked when they spun and toward the again of the setting up a row of wooden booths with constructed in coat hooks lined the wall and there was an opening exactly where the food items could be placed by the cook dinner who experienced just gotten out of jail and he was putting on a stained white apron, a cigarette with a 50 % inch of ash dangled from his mouth. Mabel would decide on up the oblong french fry plates yellowed from age at the opening and serve them to prospects, the spot was never hectic.
The odd time mom (Gisele) would deliver me there to decide on up a box of fish and chips for meal and the foods was terrible. If it wasn’t for Gina hunting so fairly with her mane of golden hair I would hardly ever have long gone, ever. Fred Jr. could have been the character they established Woody from in a Disney cartoon, his overall body was very long and elastic on the lookout, I in no way noticed him without the need of a cowboy hat, tan ornately tooled cowboy boots and a leather-based belt with a huge buckle that experienced a miniature steer head engraved on it. The engraving on the belt buckle looked a lot like the set of Bulls horns that were mounted on the wall above the kitchen serving window, along with a indicator that study, ‘Hamburgers 30 cents’ beside the hamburger indicator there was an inexpensively framed picture of a debutante from the midsection up savoring a bottle of coca cola that experienced been provided by the pop organization.
In the corner of the dimly lit spot in the place that led to the washrooms on the right hand aspect there ended up a pair of pinball devices wherever a youthful child appeared to be constantly present, enthusiastically pressing the facet buttons and flippers anxiously viewing the large chrome ball as it spun its way past various bonuses noting when the ‘free game’ signal was on as the ball caromed from side to facet toward an eventual sewer, at which stage the massive device would nearly grunt and rumble and there would be a boys faint sigh and a reduced head when the rating tallied to the audio and the kid would grin when the ‘free game’ signal flashed and flashed, you could practically listen to the carney like voice shout out, “we obtained a winnah”.
I later on uncovered out that Fred and Hazel owned the new plaza at Lawrence and Keele, effectively at minimum the land the plaza was built on. It was kinda like possessing Dale Evans and Roy Rogers in the neighbourhood, bring about that’s how they dressed, like cowboys and cowgirls. Once a year there was a parade in the space, almost certainly a Canada Day Parade and from the back again of Fred’s Lunch, out of a very low slung garage all these existence size western collectible figurines would emerge on a flat mattress wagon connected to a shiny purple Massey farm tractor. Then, a major Palomino horse cautiously stepped out of a a single horse trailer with Gina sitting down on a wonderfully tooled brown leather saddle with ornate silvery accents. Much more parade things would show up from within the storage space, there was that unmistakable scent of clean dropped horse turds and then the group of them, the whole family members would continue north down Weston Rd earlier Dutch Johns Suncrisp Fish and Chips shop, earlier Bannerman’s American Motors Rambler and Jeep dealership then convert suitable at Jane Avenue past Helen’s Assortment and slowly and gradually travel about the new Jane Avenue bridge which had just been constructed to the large plaza, in which the parade was to start off, plazas were new again then.
Posted by selrahcyrogerg on 2013-03-23 14:18:52
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