Edna

Best summer job ever

Edna in the White Spot

My father was, at heart, a hardware man. But Bowers Hardware in North Battleford burnt to the ground in 1953 and my father had to scramble to keep milk on the table. There were other hardware jobs around but he decided an educated profession would be smarter and he studied and got three journeyman tickets including plumbing, sheet metal and gas fitting. He also needed more cash and so a second job was an opportunity, not a burden. He loved his second job. My dad worked for the first drive-in burger joint in that town. The White Spot.

We lived on Main Street in North Battleford next door to the Krakes. Percy Krake owned the Royalite gas station across the street. His son Skippy was like a big brother to me and would stick me feet first into the oversized paper boy bike rack on his CCM ballon-tired bike. Skip made the NHL and scored his first NHL goal with the Boston Bruins in 1967, the year I got married. Skip also played with Dale Hogenson, (LA Kings 1969) who lived a few blocks over. We all played on the King Street School ice rink till late at night.

Skip

I was sweet on the local minister’s daughter, Aileen Logie. Her big sister Anne was the best friend of Joan Anderson (but you all know her as Joni Mitchell).

Anne and Joni

It was an interesting neighbourhood in those days. You can bet that this talented bunch of kids and many of us ordinary ones, at one time sidled up to the White Spot for the new sensation of soft ice cream or a bag of penny candies. Dad probably served them.

Next door to the Royalite station was the iconic White Spot drive-in. The White Spot had no affiliation the now well-known BC Chain. In fact, it had no affiliation with any corporate burger. It was the classic “Buy Local” burger and would remain so till the end. It was owned and operated by Edna Clifford, a lady who should have a street named after her in that town.

So, Dad needed a second job and Edna gave him one. He still spoke fondly and with great affection of her until his passing. It was a time when a small business would see their existence as part of their neighbourhood. My dad was a good neighbour and she hired him on the spot.

Now for the cool part.

Well, cool tinged with a splash of shame, I suppose.

I was in grade three, feeling a lot better after a bad grade two with the wretched Pearl Millar who broke my plastic ruler over another kid’s head, but this story isn’t about evil teachers, my apologies.

One day I ambled over to the White Spot with a big hankering for jawbreakers. Edna called me in and asked me if I would like a job.

Are you kidding?!!

She wanted me to come around after school and sell penny candy to the kids who were always jonesing for sweets after a day with the likes of the evil Pearl Millar.

It was my first job and I was into it. I loved the marketing, the financing and the customer service, even though it never got beyond pennies.

So, the not so proud part.

I was also, even at such a tender age, running with some pretty street wise boys. The LeGreca brothers were exciting, tough and out to give this little Pentecostal boy a proper bad boy education. Anyway, they smoked and I didn’t. So, one day Mickey suggested that he would teach me how to smoke. All I had to do was pretend to sell them a pack after school. I did so. Pack of Sportsmen I believe.

Worse, I was invited to share the smokes with him. We chose a big old doghouse to hide in and smoke our ashes off. I went home stinking to high heaven on the road to hell.

Were you smoking? asks my mother. No, says I, with fumes still rising. I was to smoke hard for the next dozen years.

Joni says her first smoke was by the fishpond in the United Church Park at age nine. Mine was in the doghouse at age nine. It was a fine conversation when we shared this low spot in our North Battleford lives later on a flight from Toronto to Saskatoon.

I am so sorry Edna.

Fast forward to the summer I was sixteen with a driver’s licence and my dad’s handoff to me, a 1953 Plymouth Savoy.

So, I am at the White Spot and Edna invites me in again. She offers me a summer job.

I am over the moon. Best summer ever.

So let me tell you why the White Spot was so unique in the history of drive-in burger joints. It would be a while before the corporate A&W chain burgers came to our town so we were the only game on the strip.

Edna for some reason only hired men and boys, no girl carhops with their marketing allure. It was really just a little shack with a large pull down wooden flapped window. Cars parked on the paved front lot. The customer left their car and came to the window. They were then served by a polite young man, like myself, who:

· Took their order.

· Cooked their order

· Packaged their order

· Called them back

· Took their money

· Tilled the money

· Thanked them

· Took the next customer

Years later I studied the writings of Fredrick Taylor, the godfather of Scientific Management and the assembly line, who basically perfected the art of breaking jobs down into single categories for the modern veneration of efficiency.

Edna would not have hired him. She was not interested in the concept of having cooks, waiters, till operators and managers. We each had to learn and perform all those duties. We led the country however in cross training!

Let me tell you a bit about the food. The burgers were not made from cows; they were made from calves. She would support the 4-H and buy the winning calves and then turn them into hamburger. Yes, the hamburger in a White Spot burger contained sirloin, ribs, and top line roasts. Like her staff, the meat was not broken down. It was expected to do the whole job not just the good parts.

To this day, I dream of those burgers made from all of those good parts, not just the leavings.

We all took our turns in the basement where fresh potatoes from Chatfield’s farm at Jackfish Lake or Gubbes in Battleford, were immersed in buckets of cold water ready for us to peel and then run through the hand cranked press turning them into natural, never frozen French fries. There was only one oil she would use for the deep fryer, peanut oil. I still insist on it when I make fries for grandkids.

Milk shakes were made of milk and they were truly shaken and wonderfully foamy. There were a few scoops of ice cream but not a glass full of blended soft ice cream like today.

Oh yeah, like any vintage, cool space, there was a back room.

Around an old Formica table sat the insiders, the inner circle of characters in a small city and Skippy the dog. If you had a special calling or connection, you went around to the back door and took your seat at the table.

Eldon Elliot was such a sort. Drove a Thunderbird, was the sports announcer on CJNB and was the inventor of the Eldon Elliot burger. One night he was goofing off and decided to toss a couple of sliced hot dogs into the peanut oil. They looked fine and he slipped them inside a regular beef burger and the Eldon Elliot burger was born.

There were local entrepreneurs, lawyers, sports personalities, artists and cowboys. She was part of the infamous Finlayson cowboy family whose wild-ass sons roped and tied a wild black bear in their yard one day.

Edna was generous.

I know she overlooked a few bills from folks falling on hard times. She fed us on her dime. My daughter and grandson had first jobs at the evil MacDonald’s empire, where the humble hamburger goes to die. These kids had to and still have to pay for their own lunch in a joint full of food.

Oh, by the way, the burger I would make for myself, with her blessing, was always three beef patties, cheese, onions and mustard on grill toasted buns. No salad parts or ketchup. Still my signature hamburger, but now down to one patty.

One of my favorite co-workers was Carmen Keller, who I looked up to for many reasons especially baseball, but mostly to try to one day meet his sister Carol, the gorgeous drum majorette in the Kinsmen Band.

Did not happen.

R.I.P. Carmen.

I was somewhere out of connection in Canada when Edna passed. She asked for the boys to carry her out and I was very blue that they couldn’t find me. Always regretted that.

They say your first job is a big determinant in how one sees work for the rest of your life. I hope that is not always true, but I feel such gratitude that Edna set me up.

Some of us work for bosses.

Some of us work for mentors.

I was one of the lucky ones. May your children and grandchildren be blessed with an Edna in their first job.

Thank you, Edna.