A Saturday Afternoon Downtown

I wrote a poem about going downtown with my Auntie Mable, the poem was published in A Private Mythology (Ekstasis Editions, 2015). 

Downtown Montreal, around 1955; Morgan's in the background, 
Christ Church Cathedral behind the streetcar on the left

A Saturday Afternoon

 

Outside the main doors

of Morgan’s Department Store

facing Phillip’s Square, an organ grinder

played music that Saturday afternoon downtown

with Aunt Mable. I was a child in the late 1950s

with my aunt, walking beside her, window shopping, 

eating turkey and mashed potato dinner

at Woolworth’s basement lunch counter

then buying pastries upstairs as we left to walk along             

Ste. Catherine Street. You could list the beggars you

saw in Montreal back then, the woman with one

shoe off, the shoe hidden behind her,

and the chauffeur-driven black car

that would pick her up,

or so we heard… or the old woman,

scarf tied under her chin

and the tin can of yellow pencils she sold.

Then, Eaton’s, Simpson’s and Morgan’s

were the big department stores,

now it's boutiques, restaurants, crowded streets,

strip joints and bright lights.

At Eaton's Department Store

Stephen Morrissey at Eaton's Department Store around 1960

Here I am around 1960, at Eaton`s Department Store on Ste. Catherine Street in Montreal with my Auntie Mable not visible but looking on from the side, at a boat show on one of the upper floors of the store. Polaroid photos were a new invention at the time and one of the store employees took my photo in front of a boat, I think anyone who was there could get a free photograph of themselves. Of course, the first thing I did was smudge the photo with my finger since the photo was still wet and I was told to wait to let it dry. In fact, I still have this photograph. I guess the rolled-up papers were brochures from the boat show. What was the boat show? Probably a few boats with Evinrude motors attached to the rear of the boats, nothing like the monster luxury boats that you would find at a boat show today, for instance at the boat shows held at Place Bonaventure.

Many years later my wife and I ate at the famous ninth floor restaurant at this Eaton`s branch. Eaton's went bankrupt in 1999 and many of us got some good deals on clothes; the clothes are worn out and the store is gone. Even in 1999 the big department stores were closing, and with them a part of a way of life and an important institution in Canadian life.