Through the recent establishment of "remember groups" on Facebook I have been amazed at the level of participation and interest. In many ways what has emerged is an oral history for our hometown for a period in time between the late 1950s and late 70s.
Many people have posted pictures of Bronte and shared their memories, which became the motivation to put my own to pen, in the form of this blog which is titled "Parading the Streets".
There is always a debate as to the true boundaries of Bronte. Legally there is the former "Village of Bronte" that was merged into Trafalgar Township and Oakville around 1957. For me the boundaries were defined by how far you walked, rode your bike, where your friends lived and where you went to school.
My Bronte, was the Cities Services fountain on the west, the Athletic Field on the east and Rebecca on the north. Being a bit of a Bronte snob, anyone outside of that area was a wannabe. There were also two Brontes, east of the Bronte Creek and west. You could always figure out which side of the creek someone live, by a simple phase. If you talked about going "overtown to Allan's" then you lived on the west side. My daughter was raised on the west side and she and her friends adopted the same phase.
The title of this blog, "Parading the Streets" is taken a bit from this geography, but also a term my mom used when we headed out on our bikes after dinner on those warm summer nights. As I left, it was always punctuated by "where are you going? who are you meeting? And, I don't want you Parading the Streets". This is an old english phase which meant I don't want you hanging around and getting into trouble. Imagine, a kid growing up in Bronte and getting in trouble! You can hear that phase in a Hard Days Night when Ringo leaves the theatre to go out and explore the world.
Most people think of Bronte as an old fishing village, which it was, but there was also farming. Cudmore's farm and road side market was the largest. But there was also the Zebricki farm on the north side of Lakeshore, on what is now part of Shell Park. On Cudmore Road, were we lived, the Watson family owned and operated an apple orchard and there was a large barn at the lake.
On West Street there was an abandoned chicken farm to the rear of the Brown's house and beside them, Cliff Gilliam had, of all things, a mink farm. Outside were pens and the basement of his house was used to skin, rack and dry the pelts. Money in our family was always tight so my mom worked outside the house at Cudmore's road side stand, skinning mink for "Gilly", taking orders for delivery at Lakeside and as a short order cook for Dan and Ann McLeod at the Riverside restaurant.
To this day I can remember these long pins (like a cut off rolling pin) bolted to the wall in Gilliam's basement. The mink where turned inside out and two handed knives where used to remove the guts. The pelts were then pinned to boards to dry. After a day or so they were removed and placed into a pile. My mom took me to work with her and to this day I can remember the smell and the feel of having naps in that pile of pelts.
At the corner of Lakeshore and West Street you found Highfield's mushroom farm and their small corner store. By the mid 60s, the first Pioneer Pools outlet located on this property. Mrs. Highfield operated the corner store which had an excellent selection of penny candy. With 25 cents you could get a really cold bottle of coke, a bag of chips and have money left over for a small brown bag of carefully selected candy.
Traveling north on Mississauga Street, the Struther family operated a small market garden and on Radial Road, just west of Mississauga, was the Watt farm with a very large barn.
The very early 60s saw two gas stations open at Mississauga and Lakeshore. The Shell station on the southeast corner was converted around 1964 to Engine Sales and Service, which became the first Suzuki dealer in the area. This business gave birth to Bronte's motorcycle culture, which I am sure added to its image as the rough side of Oakville.
For me and many of my contemporaries our home away from home was the Riverside Restaurant. It was where you went to buy candy, and in your teen years hang out after school and on weekends. It was our "Arnold's" and the cast of players were not that far different than those found in American Graffiti and on Happy Day's. The grand sum of 25 cents would buy you a large plate of fresh cut fries and a cold bottle of pepsi and a reason to hang out for a few hours. There was a long sit up counter with a row of red leather and chrome swivel stools, raised up about a foot above the floor to give you an excellent view of the comings and goings. Along the windows overlooking Lakeshore Road and the parking lot, were the classic four person booths, reserved for the "dating" couples. Some of those are still together to this day! At the east end was the juke box and windows with a view to the creek. Outside,there was a set of wooden stairs leading to a small dock where we used to swim and boats docked.
I read somewhere the music tastes you carry through life are established in your teen years. The juke box at the Riverside contained our sound track. Whoever racked that juke box, either had great taste in music or was just lucky. Sure there were the British Invasion groups and the Beach Boys, but I always remember the garage bands and one hit wonders, like the Beau Brummels, Knickerbockers, the Nazz, Syndicate of Sound and the Electric Prunes. At one point in time, there was also a pinball machine, lean on it and it would tilt.
The gravel parking lot was home to our bicycles, then motorcycles and cars as we turned 16 and got our licenses.
As I mentioned, Bronte had an early "bike culture" with the opening of Engine Sales and Service. Bronte did also have some "biker legends" from the 50's I can remember stories of Red Devils from the Beach Strip and the "BDR's" Black Diamond Riders, from Toronto supposedly meeting at Bronte and Lakeshore Road for a so called rumble. To this day, I can remember the name of the leader of the BDR's; Johnny Sombraro. What a great name! A few years ago I came across an article on him in the Toronto Star. He was still alive and as colorful as ever.
Bronte was home to two refineries, Cities Service and Shell. During the summer, on Sunday's Cities Service offered tours. They had one of those small trains that you would find at the CNE which would take you around to the various sections of the refinery. The highlight was a large freshwater aquarium containing fish from Lake Ontario. Supposedly the water used in the refining process was cleaned up afterwards to a degree it could support the fish.
Bronte Creek, Sandy Beach, the bluffs and harbour all played a role in our youth. Smelt fishing in the spring, swiming in the summer and skating in the winter.
By early June it was warm enough to swim at the abutments located where the old radial railway (on what is now Rebecca Street) used to cross the creek. By the end of June we had moved our swimming to the "Bend". It wasn't till July that it was warm enough to swim across the creek from the beach to Lakeside. If you were particularly brave, a jump off the diving board on the west pier into the Lake was usually met with a wake up call of very cold water.
At one point in time there was a large square building in the parking lot at the beach which housed a concession stand and pin ball machines. This building disappeared in the early 60s along with the last of the remaining cottages. One of the pictures which has been posted on Facebook is of the hydroplane races at Bronte Beach. To the best of my memory this was around 64-65-66. I believe they only ran for 2 or 3 years before noise complaints brought them to an end. In one of the posted pictures, I can see my brother and I remember staking out a spot on the bluffs; aka the Flats which provided the best views.
It was not uncommon for the boys to swim in the jeans or cut offs and stacking picnic tables to get some decent height to cannonball boats coming back into the harbour. This was considered time well spent.
Hockey started out on the streets or Craddock's driveway in the fall with a broken stick and tennis ball. The old marsh beside the Walton was the first to freeze and was a favourite place to skate after school in early to mid-December. By early January the Bronte Creek was safe and as with summer we, progressively moved our games further up the river to the lake. I can remember, playing opposite with Metro Marine building during the coldest part of the winter.
One December, just before Christmas, my friend Bob Welch and I play near the boat ramp at the beach in the morning. It was a mild morning, and the ice was smooth. Going back after lunch the ice surface for the morning shinny was now open water.
Bronte really didn't have any toboggan hills. The best was located at Postma's and many a winter afternoon was spent taken runs in those old sleds where you laid down face first.
Bronte proper had a few more hangouts, the laundrymat on Bronte Road, Kourey's and the Crossroads. Civilization came with the construction of the A&W, which is worth a whole blog on its role in our youth.
For kids on the westside of the creek we all went to Centriller and moved to Westbrook which was built sometime around 60-61. It was small with no gym or lunch room. At both schools there was a boys and girls side of the playground, demarkated by some imaginary line, the penalty for crossing was never really clear. There were scrub baseball games, flipping cards and playing marbles for something to do at recess.
Riding your bike to school and racing down Mississauga Street (it has a small grade down to Lakeshore which allowed you to approach "breakneck" speed") brought an end to the school day. Our bikes allowed us to dream about being or becoming bikers, particularly when the first generation of "ape hangers" appeared at Canadian Tire.
Beatlemania struck when we were in Grade 7 and I brought my small transistor radio to school to hear our favourite songs. About that time girls were becoming more important than scrub baseball and we spent many a recess at the boy/girl boundary line talking about the songs on the radio.
Graduation from Grade 8 was on a warm late June evening. I remember arriving in a pair of new TeeKays my mom ordered from the Sears catalogue along with a powder blue collarless sport jacket. On my finger was a gold ring given to me for passing. It is still on my finger to this day. On one side were the boys, opposite the girls, neither side crossed the floor to dance. Rather we talked between ourselves making plans for the summer vacation ahead. By 9pm, it was over and time to leave Westbrook behind, to start a new life in high school.
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