Memories of Leamington south

RIB’S RAMBLINGS

Mark Ribble

Growing up in the rural area of Leamington, I didn’t spend a lot of time in town, but we did have to venture ‘uptown’ once or twice a week for shopping needs.

Living inside the Point, we usually had to travel for most everything we needed. There were a number of gas stations just outside the park, with the closest being Margie’s (or Margaret’s) right outside the gates. This location is now occupied by Ship Ahoy Restaurant. I don’t remember if there was gas at Two Sisters Variety (corner of D), or at Hornick’s Variety (current location of Freddy’s), but I do vaguely remember a gas station at the corner of Noble Side Road, where Paula’s Fish Place was.

Further up Point Pelee Drive, things were different too. At what is now Mersea Park, the big attraction was the Will- O-Freez. If you think of the Dairy Freeze in North Ridge, the Will-O-Freez was a very similar set-up.

You’d think the ice cream would be the main attraction for me, but I lived for their loose-meat chicken burgers and Boston Coolers. It was the perfect location for a drive-in style restaurant, with all of the tourist traffic heading into and out of Point Pelee.

Just north of the Will-O-Freez stood Casper’s Pavilion, which later became Starlite Gardens. My childhood school friend, Lee Jackson’s parents ran the Starlite for several years when I was a young teenager. The weekend roller skating there was lots of fun. You didn’t just skate in circles until you were tired. They had challenging games and gave away prizes if you won. The horse races were my favourite, along with shoot the duck.

When the old Sturgeon Creek Bridge was still there, it connected Robson Road with Point Pelee Drive and at the end of Robson Road sat a small restaurant that we called Tina’s. Being raised in a commercial fisherman’s household, you’d think our family would be tired of fish, but Tina had the best fish and chips around back then. Once they moved the bridge and re-designed the roadways, Tina's fizzled out.

We had to have Tina’s once a month back then, as well as a visit into town to get what my parents called La Poulette, which was Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Now, we weren’t French by any means, but I’ve since run into others, including my wife, who called it the same thing when they were kids. The KFC of those days was located about where the Quality Inn now stands on Erie South.

Of course, no trip to Erie South would be complete without getting groceries at the old A&P store, which was located where the Shoppers Drug Mart now stands. I thought I was really cool when I discovered that A&P stood for The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. I guess that was my first foray into trivia. I loved getting groceries there and then sitting in the back seat when my mom drove the car up to the rollers up front and Wayne Jeffery and the guys loaded up the car with our paper bags.

Times certainly have changed, haven’t they? Someone putting groceries in your car is a long-forgotten customer service and something we’ll never see again.