Going Uptown

One of my first recollections of going “uptown” as we called it when I was a child was when my parents brought us to see the Christmas Lights that were hung across the streets of Portage & Main. They seemed absolutely magical and made my young heart flutter when they met my eyes and I anticipated each upcoming strand, along with the decorated trees at the side of the boulevard with pure joy.

My sister and I tried to hold onto this experience by counting the houses decorated with lights, no matter how tiny and faint we saw them in the distance as we travelled back through the darkness to our home in the country. It was a contest, one which I won until my sister pointed out to my young mind that my counting system was flawed. I had over 200 decorated houses counted to her 20 something total…but then I learned that 100 does not come after 10. (If I think about it now, it may be that our totals were pretty close. Perhaps a rematch is in order.)

This also brings back memories of daylight trips to witness the Eaton’s Santa Claus Parade with its impressive marching bands, colorful clowns and floats, always with a grand finale of seeing Santa and his reindeer at the end. It was all so very exciting that we hardly minded the cold.

In the warmer months I recall spontaneous outings that added interest outside our regular routine by trips to the center of Winnipeg, sometimes ending with an unexpected treat. On one occasion this moment was built by the tightly winding of our vehicle into a underground parking lot that spiraled up at least seven levels which may have made our parents dizzy, but as children, we loved every moment, watching the bend with stretched necks as the wheels of the car hummed over the rippled pavement for grip and us wondering when it would finally come to an end, yet not wanting it to do so. Once we arrived at the top, my father left for some moments to go into what I now realize was Eaton’s delicatessen. At the time, we waited in quiet anticipation not knowing what to expect. He came back with something wrapped in brown paper held within his hand. What he then unfolded held an unusual and pungent flavour… salted Kipper. I can still recall the taste and can say that it is one not unpleasant to acquire, along with another delicacy, black licorice.

An addition to our most memorable stops within the city would be to a building with a large peppermint candy man painted on the side of its brick wall. From within this building my father would come back with a extra large bag of peppermint candies. We could often look forward to at least one or two of these each time we took a fairly long road trip, sometimes interchanged with either Juicy Fruit or Spearmint gum, favorites of my mother. These dainty treats would seemingly shorten the trip length as we as children would challenge each other to see who could keep the mint the longest within our mouths before it melted away.

Other than the buildings of the Bay or Eatons, most building structures of downtown Winnipeg appeared regular and uninteresting to me as a child, except of course when anticipating the appearance of a half-statue of a horse suspended at the front of the Burt Saddlery establishment that let us know we had almost arrived to our destination.

It’s rather sad to witness the present emptiness of these buildings, where when once you had to wait to joyfully push through the revolving doors because of the crowds, now you could go around and around to your heart’s content, fulfilling your childhood wish, without running into a soul. (In fact at my most recent visit, the security guard, which one never had need of in the past, was fast asleep.) The peeling wall paper and cracked floor tiling spread between thick pillars holding high ceilings barely echo the grandeur and bustle that once filled the spaces so much that your mother had to hold your hand for fear of losing you in the crowded throng of shoppers. Where women once fought and pulled at sale garments in large bins located at the basement level, now over-priced items barely have a hand brush over them. However I am happy to see the misguided idea of putting a change-lock on the bathroom doors disappear where they charged a nickel or dime to use the service. They probably found that plenty of children were sent scooting under the doors in an unsanitary way to open them for their elders This certainly would not fit in with the marbled décor, or message of service they probably wished to portray.

(I wonder as I pass the basement food court that used to serve the best Orange Juleps, if the senior woman I see sitting there sipping a chocolate malt, is silently swinging her childhood legs back and forth within her mind recalling trips to this store with her own mother when she was young. I am tempted to stop and join her, but then do not wish to interrupt her reverie if she is.)

Entirely gone now is the Eaton’s building where we all at least once while shopping agreed to meet at the statue of Mr. Eaton. With this loss went the fabulous window displays that especially held our attention while driving by at Christmas time. Perhaps it is the loss of Eatons and their catalogue that beckoned us to come to the center of the city, that was the first sign of the deterioration and diminishing strength in the throb of the heart of our, now called, downtown.