09/16/2024
Mason’s Store
Memories from Sally Davies
You could tell the time of day by who was seated at the lunch counter at Mason’s Patio. A veritable “Who’s Who” of Shawnigan history, perched on stools around the horseshoe lunch counter or at the tables that slanted on the sloping floor, upon which an earlier generation of teenagers learned to jive, back in the day when sock hops were held there.
When we arrived in 1975, the locals were bemoaning the days past, when Eileen and Pat Mason ran the place. The food was so good and so cheap, we were told, that families didn’t bother to cook at home. When daughter Midge and her husband Norm Carey assumed the helm, it continued to be the hub of the community.
Thick round pieces of sourdough bread, that Midge baked in peanut butter tins, were slathered with Cheez Whiz or peanut butter. Coffee was “coffee” - no politically correct oven roasted beans, no cappuccinos, and no one looked askance at eggs liberally doused with ketchup or HP sauce. Coffee, for the “regulars” was spiked with Kahlua the day before Christmas.
The store had three incarnations, and three successive generations ran the place, making it the longest continuously operating business in Shawnigan Lake owned by the same family (by the time Jim Carey took over from his parents). This was the place for all of the news and the gossip in the days before cell phones, when all the houses were on telephone party lines.
Assuming a place at the lunch counter was your entrance to the community conversation, ci******es and coffee fuelling the chatter. Logging trucks rumbled past the windows (which at that time faced the road and the beach), loaded with massive timbers, much to the delight of my infant son who sat in a high chair facing the window. The previous night’s hockey game was replayed and analyzed by the sports fans and all the births, deaths, and marriages in the village were discussed and the circle of connections to the subject of the conversation were defined.
Bernie Falconberg, the postmaster, might complain that Victoria sent up another bag of mail that should have gone to Cobble Hill, forcing him to take time away to throw it in his car and drive it to our neighbouring community. The notion of sending it back to Victoria would have defied his good-neighbour logic. The boys, before it was co-ed, from Shawnigan School would do a daily slow march in twos and threes down Renfrew Road to stock up on chips and pop at Mason’s. In the summer, sandy-footed children crossed the road from the beach, for their requisite popsicles or ice cream or to agonize over which penny candy to choose.
clanging of the bell at the village railway crossing announced the passing of the day liner twice a day and the same children scrambled up from the beach to wave to the passengers when the Dayliner passed.
Dylan Thomas could have done justice to a day in the village life of Shawnigan Lake as seen from the window of “Mason’s Patio Store”.
Addendum
Steve Watchin would bring his own eggs from his chickens to the coffee shop and Midge would cook them. He once asked if he would get a reduced rate for bringing his own and she gave him a resounding ‘no’.
Sally Davies would bring her baby to the coffee shop with her, prop him in a high chair that was faced toward Renfrew Road. He was more than content to watch the logging trucks and other traffic flow past the store.
When the Mason’s bought the store, there was very little beyond it... Renfrew wasn’t much of a road at the time.
