POSTING # 25

Two Markets on the Niagara Parkway that We Like; Messenger from the Prime Minister; “Follow John”; Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)


Two Markets on the Niagara Parkway that We Like

Before we moved to Virgil, I tended to ignore the markets along the Niagara Parkway, assuming they were oriented mainly to tourists who wanted an ice cream cone, a small souvenir bottle of maple syrup, a handful of sweet cherries and a pit stop (not necessarily in that order).

I was wrong.

And I should have known better.

My maternal grandparents, Reuben and Maggie Lush, had what some people claim was Canada’s first roadside fruit and vegetable stand at their farm on Highway 2 in Clarkson, Ontario. It was 1917 and the first concrete highway in Canada---between Toronto and Hamilton--- had just been completed. My grandparents figured that they could make more money by selling their produce to weekend tourists out for a drive in their Model T’s than by shipping it to wholesalers in Toronto, Montreal or Chicago.

I should have realized that the markets along the Parkway are in a very real sense legitimate descendants of Reuben and Maggie’s stand.

This became clear to me after I overcame my prejudice and actually stopped at some of the markets.

There are two markets that we particularly like, each of which, incidentally, has links to Virgil. Both are just a few kilometres south of Niagara-on-the-Lake, on the way to the Falls.

One is the Kurtz Orchards Gourmet Marketplace. It was started by Mrs. Kurtz over half a century ago. Initially, she sold fruit and vegetables from a roadside stand on a farm that she and her husband (now deceased) operated but soon added some jams, jellies and pickles that she made in her basement. The family business now makes a wide range of preserves and sauces in a small-batch factory in Virgil.

Mrs. Kurtz is still going strong. When we dropped in at the market a few weeks ago, we were told that she had been in the market that morning but was now on her way to Poland to visit family and friends.

The market on the Parkway is only open during the ‘season’ but the family has a store on Queen St. in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Kurtz Culinary Creations, that sells the family’s products year-round.

The second market is Walker’s Country Market, which is even older than the Kurtz one, having been on the Parkway since the 1930s.

Jim, the third generation Walker to run the market, and his wife Donna live just up the street from us in Virgil.

The Walker market has many items similar to the Kurtz market but gives prominence to local fruit and vegetables. They have links with some of the best local producers and their cherries, peaches, tomatoes, and corn are wonderful (they even cook cobs of corn while you wait).

I am proud of the two markets. In a time when too many businesses seem intent on ‘skinning’ the tourists, these markets offer tourists (and residents) products of high quality at a fair price.

The service in both is friendly and professional.

And I just love the many tasting stations in each market.


Messenger from the Prime Minister

Looking back on my childhood in Arthur, Ontario, it seems to me that young people at that time inherited three things from their parents (in addition to hair and eye colour etc): choice of church, make of car and political party. In my case, respectively, it was the United Church, Ford cars and the Progressive Conservative Party.

The situation was not quite as clear cut in the case of Pat, at least as far as religion was concerned, since she was the child of a mixed marriage (Anglican and Presbyterian) but the rest held: GM (Buick) cars and the Liberal Party.

So, when I went to Queen’s it was natural for me to join the Progressive Conservative Club.

It was a bleak time, in 1955, to be a PC in Canada. The hated Liberals, the ‘Grits’, had been in power federally for 20 years. The leader of the Liberal Party, and the Prime Minister, Louis St. Laurent, was getting on in years but he had considerable appeal (he was known as Uncle Louis). The PCs hoped that St. Laurent might step down because of his age but some Liberals ministers were saying privately that in the next election, expected in 1957, they would run him stuffed if necessary.

And the PCs agreed that, stuffed or not, he would win.

In 1956, the PCs chose John Diefenbaker as leader after a fairly bitter leadership race. Many members of the party were lukewarm about John whom they saw as a loner and a maverick. He was widely seen as a caretaker leader.

Things picked up a little for the PCs in the summer of 1956 and early 1957. The Liberals were getting tired and arrogant. Both showed in the way they tried to push through legislation in what was called “The Pipeline Debate”, and in some relatively small scandals.

An election was called for June 10, 1957. Almost everyone, including many PCs, assumed that the Liberals would lose a few seats but would still have a comfortable majority.

I was working in Tulsequah, BC that summer (see Posting # 17, April 26, 2009). Just before going to bed on the 10th I tried to find some news on my radio. Reception was always terrible because of the remoteness of the mining camp and because of the mineral-laden mountains. I finally found a Juneau, Alaska radio station and through a lot of static heard the news announcer say, with a tone of disbelief, “There is a report that the Canadian Government has been defeated”.

I couldn’t believe it.

As news trickled in I learned that the PCs had won 111 seats to 104 for the Liberals. Louis St. Laurent had resigned both as Prime Minister and as leader of the Liberal Party. John Diefenbaker was our new Prime Minister.

Back at Queen’s in September, I found new life in the PC Club. We talked about ways of getting some speakers, perhaps a minister, from the national party. We also talked about how we could take the PC cause into the upcoming model parliament.

Then the President of the Club got a phone call saying that the Prime Minister was sending a special messenger. Could a meeting of the Club be arranged so the messenger could address us?

The messenger turned out to be a tall, skinny, young fellow with a brush cut, wearing a university jacket that I didn’t recognize.

I remember thinking that this special messenger is just a student like us. What gives, anyway?

The messenger started to talk about personal discussions he had had with the Prime Minister, and how the PM had asked him to visit university PC clubs. The PM expected that there would have to be a relatively early election and he wanted the university clubs to mobilize and help the party gain a majority.

One of the members, a Franco-Ontarian with a strong accent asked a question and the messenger responded in rapid, fluent French.

I was envious of this young fellow, with his self-confidence and his ability to talk not just about programs and policies, which was our strong suit, but about the practical strategies and tactics required to win an election.

And he was bilingual!

By now, you have probably guessed the identity of the messenger.

Martin Brian Mulroney,

Later on he was to demonstrate his mastery of the strategies and tactics of winning elections by being elected Canada’s 18th Prime Minister, in September 1984.

“Follow John”

The new Diefenbaker government enjoyed a honeymoon period during its first 6 months in office. The press and the public were surprised (and pleased) that someone who was not a Liberal could lead the country. We Progressive Conservatives at Queen’s were delighted.

But some despondency crept into the PC Club in January 1958 when the Liberals chose Nobel-Prize winner Lester Pearson as the new leader of their Party.

How could we win a majority against a popular person like Mike Pearson?

Then, the PC party convoked a national conference at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa at the end of January.

Party headquarters said the PM wanted a good showing from Queen’s and money was provided for hotel rooms and meals. I went to the conference along with a dozen or so members of our PC Club.

At noon Saturday, February 1, while the conference was still going on, the Prime Minister made a secret plane trip to Quebec City to meet the Governor General. He asked that Parliament be dissolved. Even though the PCs had only been in power for nine months, the Governor General agreed.

John Diefenbaker had decided to gamble everything on a snap election---before Lester Pearson could get organized as leader of the Liberals.

That evening I was in the lobby of the Chateau Laurier with the other Queen’s students waiting to greet Mr. Diefenbaker as he entered to give a speech to the party. He stopped to shake hands with us.

Now, I don’t recall the term ‘charisma’ being used at that time (it seems to me it came into the political vocabulary about the time of Pierre Trudeau) but looking back, Dief really had it that night. He seemed to glow.

As he shook hands, he said to us, “Can you feel the electricity?”

And we felt it.

He gave a tub-thumper of a speech. We returned to Kingston fired up to take on those Grits, and elect a PC in Kingston.

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We were fired up but the Kingston PC Association wasn’t. It couldn’t find a candidate to run for the party in Kingston. The seat had almost always gone Liberal and no prominent member of the party wanted to take a chance on a run.

Finally, the party found a candidate, Ben Allmark, who was a supervisor at the Aluminum Company of Canada plant in Kingston. He was an honest, hardworking, likable family person but he lacked the political experience necessary to be a strong federal candidate.

Ottawa wanted us to arrange a speech for him on the Queen’s campus. How could we give him a chance to speak without exposing him to almost certainly embarrassing questions from Liberal and CCF (the predecessor of the NDP) students?

We put together a strategy.

I wrote a short speech, heavy on platitudes and talking points from party headquarters.

Ben Allmark read the speech and just as he reached the end, one of our members, a tall burly Medical student, rushed up to the podium. He thanked the speaker, and said that unfortunately, Mr. Allmark couldn’t take any questions because he was already late for another meeting. Amid howls and shouts from the audience, the Med student and some other club members hustled Ben out a back door to a waiting car.

Our strategy had worked.

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Our PC club tried to promote the cause by papering the campus with cut-outs of a footprint with the words, “Follow John” (note, there was never any mention of candidate Allmark).

The campaign was effective, even if a cartoon in the Queen’s Journal showed a series of “Follow John’ footprints on a counter top disappearing down the sink.

A little side note. After the election, I ran for student office, and I shamelessly used the “Follow John” slogan.

The things one does in politics!

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On March 31, 1958, the Canadian people gave Diefenbaker a huge majority. The PC party surged from 111 seats to 208, while the Liberals under Lester Pearson dropped from 104 to 48.

To everyone’s surprise---including I am sure his own---Ben Allmark was elected. His moment in the sun came to an end four years later, in 1962, when he was defeated by a Liberal in the general election of that year.

Allmark handled himself well in Ottawa. He was not a spectacular MP but he didn’t embarrass himself or his home town.

After his defeat, he went back to Alcan to finish his career with the company. He died at the good age of 93, recalling I am sure those heady days from 1958 to 1962.


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My parents phoned during the evening of March 31st, a rare event because long distance calls were expensive. They were ecstatic but I felt unsettled. I was pleased that the PC party had won but I was uneasy at the size of the win. It was as though all the passengers on a ship had rushed to one side. I wasn’t sure that a victory that size was good for the party or the country.

After the call I felt badly that I hadn’t been able to match their enthusiasm. I am sure they must have wondered what was wrong with me.

Perhaps, they assumed it was the pressure of exams or a girlfriend problem.


Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

Our family dog, Cassidy, loved to try to catch flies. Whenever they buzzed around, he would strike at them with a large furry paw but the flies always dodged the blow.

One day when he was in the backyard he spotted a butterfly resting on the grass. He snuck over and brought both paws down on it.

Lying on his stomach, he slowly pulled his paws apart, looking to see what he had trapped.

As the paws separated, the butterfly fluttered up and away.

Cassidy turned to us with an embarrassed, Maxwell-Smart-kind-of-look that said, “Missed it by that much!”



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See you next Sunday for Posting #26 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.