By Staff
Years ago, August of 1951 to be exact, was when I went to work in the state liquor store, which was on the north side of the old Elks Temple on S. Front.
Sidney Mosher was my boss.
We used to park our cars in the vacant lot between the Elks building and the building just to the north owned by Joe Spadafore.
Now in our part of the Elks building is the Wounded Minnow bar. I noticed this summer where we used to park our cars, I could now sit and eat a Minnow lunch, even under an umbrella if I wanted.
Also during our 12-year tenure in the building, termites were discovered in the basement. And they had to place the biggest and longest wooden beams I'd ever seen under our floor to stabilize it.
I can't recall if it was Raymond Phillips or Earl Keyser, two well-known Dowagiac contractors back then, who did the job, but I can't check with Sid now can I?
How many remember when there was a Lindley Lumber Co. at 201 E. Division St., where there is now a parking lot next to Behnke's paint store?
Another thing that comes to my mind were those old canvas roll-down awnings that used to be in front of most downtown stores years ago.
I recall a lot of them had wide stripes.
I can still see some of the old merchants cranking the awning down to protect the merchandise in the windows from the sun. Something else were those old wooden lawn chairs covered with canvas and folded up to store after you were done lying under one of those famous Dowagiac shade trees of which we had so many.
These old heavy chairs have now been replaced with modern aluminum and plastics and are so much lighter than those old wooden ones.
Remember a few years back when they came out with those artificial aluminum Christmas trees?
You could buy a little electric motor gadget that revolved, a red-and-green light that shimmered on the aluminum tree.
These aluminum trees were just a fad and really didn't last very long.
A lot of the artificial trees these days look quite real and you can even spray them with a pine scent to make them more realistic.