There’s a line in a song by Canadian duo Bowser & Blue about being nostalgic.
At one point in the song, the singer remarks: “See that spot, above that lot? I used to live right there….” That will probably be me one day.
I make this assumption by the fact that I don’t adapt to new things very quickly.
A prime example of this would be, that even after all these years, I clearly separate the two Home Hardware stores. Not by the addition of ‘Home Building’ as I probably should, but by ‘Home Hardware’ and ‘Beaver Lumber’.
I think this is probably a small town thing.
I’ve seen it before.
A few years back, someone referred to 51st Ave. as Railway Avenue. By this time, I’d learned about the old names of some of our streets, and got quite a kick out of it; however I imagine some people would have no real idea of where he was referring to.
I’ve had this a few times.
Not that I have a lot of hardware store conversations, but when I do my answer to, “Where can I get this?” is usually, “Beaver or maybe Home.”
I can usually tell the age gap when people look at me curiously. I feel less dorky when they just nod knowingly.
One photo I’ve posted this week is Beaver Lumber when it was on the southwest corner of Main Street. It’s a parking lot space now, but it’s the corner directly south of the Sobey’s Liquor Store (speaking of what used-to-be formerly Petro Canada.)
I don’t remember as confidently as I used to if it was Beaver Lumber and then NAPA, or the other way around but if feel it was Beaver then NAPA.
Neither store I remember ever actually being in. Which I do regret.
I do remember being in the large building near the west end of Railway Avenue.
I rather liked the store. When I’m unable to think of what it’s called, I often refer to the church that is in that building now as, “The church in the old Beaver Building.”
At one point, the store was owned/operated by Dave Hagen.
I do remember when Beaver Lumber moved into the store it currently sits in now.
My dad had been operating out of the bay next to it for a few years, so I was lucky enough to have been in OK Economy on days where we’d have a lunch at dad’s office with stuff bought from the adjoining grocery store.
I sadly don’t have any pictures from the OK days.
One day, perhaps.
When I heard Beaver was moving into that building, I was curious how they were going to operate a hardware store in a grocery store. I was fairly young at the time, and didn’t comprehend the extent you could gut and refit a building so I was quite interested to see how they’d pull it off.
Carson Ellis writes a regular local history column for The Stettler Independent.