Black Mac (by John Dowson)

The most unforgettable character I ever met.
By John Dowson October 23, 2006


The most unforgettable character I ever met was “Black Mac”. His real name was Donald MacDonald and he lived on Burndale Ave. in a part of Willowdale that was once known as Lansing.  Where he got the nick name “Black Mac” from I’ll never know, everyone just called him “Black Mac”. Having a nickname in the 1950’s wasn’t unusual; most of the crowd I hung out with had a nickname. There was Fuzz, Wink, Cookie, Fats, Diamond, Goober, Giggi Boo, The Preacher, Bono, Peanut, Cue Ball and my brother Bill who was called “Bull”. The closest I got to a nickname was “Dowse”.

Black Mac marched to a different drummer, in fact he marched to several different drummers all of his own choosing. One day he chopped down his father’s treasured cherry tree, because his pet monkey had climbed the tree and wouldn’t come down. He worked at an assortment of odd jobs and for a short time he was employed by the Township of North York which we all called the Twp. At one time he and his older brother operated a Septic Tank truck dubbed “the honey wagon”. One Saturday afternoon he and his brother John strode into the Canadian Legion on Spring Garden Ave. They were spattered with mud from head to toe. Black Mac ordered a beer and a bowl of vegetable soup and sat down at a table full of regulars. I made the mistake of asking him where he had been all day.  “We’ve been cleaning out septic tanks”, he said “the pump hose came loose and before we could shut it down it sprayed us with human shit, do you see that mud “he said as he pointed to his sleeve “that’s human shit”. At that I and the regulars slowly got up and left the table, and the customers in Black Mac’s proximity moved to the far end of the room. Black Mac just looked at us all and smiled as he ate his soup and finished off his beer at the empty table in the now vacant side of the room. I never did find if that was really human excrement, I didn’t want to ask. 

Another time Black Mac was involved in a punch up at the Prince Nova restaurant. The fight got out of hand and the big plate glass window in the restaurant was broken. The police were called and when they arrived Black Mac was no where to be found, he had slipped away. Later that night someone saw him and told him the police were looking for him. Knowing the police would just show up at his door, as they had in the past, he decided he would confront the issue head on. He drove to the police station walked in, hoisted himself up to and sat on the counter top; and to the two police officers sitting there he said, “I’m Black Mac and I understand you’re looking for me?” “Yes” said one of the  officers “we want to talk to you about the broken plate glass window in the Prince Nova Restaurant”  “Oh that” he said “let me explain, I went into the restaurant for a quiet cup of coffee and when I got inside three huge guys jumped me, I was so scared that I turned around and ran, I was going so fast that I missed the front door and ran right through the plate glass window and that’s how it got broken”  The two police officers sat there dumbfounded for what must have been a minute with their mouths agape. Then suddenly one of them got up and said “get out of here and don’t let me see you around here anymore” and with that Black Mac hopped down and sauntered out the door.  That’s just one of a thousand stories one can hear about “Black Mac”. Sadly he’s not with us anymore. On his passing the Toronto Sun newspaper columnist Paul Rimstad wrote an obituary about Black Mac, but to those who lived in Willowdale in the 1950’s Black Mac was and is a legend.

The Old Algoon (by Don Brown)

The  Old  Algoon

We barged thru’ the doors of the old Algoon
And found a place to set down our moon.
A wave of the hand and a wink of the eye
Was all it took to summon the guy.

Our throats were dry and parched like the sand,
The Red Caps he banged on the table were grand.
For a swig of the suds, the cool of the ale
The old Algoon;  it never did fail.

Sometimes we consumed pickled eggs, one or two.
Quiet yolks were yellow, the grey ones you knew ….
With hootin’ and hollerin’ we farted and laughed
And the quench of our thirst took many a draught.

This is the place where boys became men;
A Willowdale shrine again and again.
Just come whet your whistle, come play your tune
‘Cause we are the gang from the old Algoon.


Don Brown

Working at the Willow Theatre (by Richard Dowson)

By Richard Dowson, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

Many of us male Willowdale types had the joy and pleasure of working at the Willow Theatre for Mister Allen, a very nice man. Mr. Allen was Jewish and had changed his name to “Allen” to avoid any discrimination in the community. In a stroke of irony, the old ‘Capitol Theatre’ in Moose Jaw was also run by a Mister Allen and his name still appears in plaster on the ceiling art work. My assumption is that ‘Allen’ was a common ‘conversion’ name with Jewish people in the movie business years ago.

If Mister Allen has a short-coming it was paranoia. He seemed always worried someone would damage his beautiful 1954 black Oldsmobile, or that Ushers would open the side doors and let people in for free. He parked his car close to the front of the theatre on the north side and was always out watching the side doors on Saturdays when there were lots of kids at the movies. When the movies were over on Saturdays kids ‘exploded’ out the side doors and Mister Allen would go nuts trying to stop them. There were no ‘shows’ on Sunday. There was nothing to do on Sunday, in those days, except go ‘back to the Don.’

When I worked there over the winter of 1955-56 it cost fifteen cents to get in to a Saturday matinee. Since a cup of coffee at the Northway Restaurant was ten cents, the admission to the ‘show’ was pretty cheap. (ASIDE – here in Saskatchewan people still go to ‘the show’. In Alberta, as long as I can remember, people there go to a ‘movie’.)

I was paid forty cents ($0.40) an hour and considered myself fortunate. I got to work about fifteen hours a week which included all day Saturday and some evenings. My previous job had been a ‘bag-boy’ at the Dominion Store up at Northgate Plaza. It was a good job and I enjoyed it. Before working at the Dominion grocery store I delivered the Globe and Mail where I made eight cents a paper. Delivering the Globe was an old family tradition.

I delivered the Globe from Yonge Street back to Bayview on Parkview and Kingsdale. The paper route was in the family from the time my brother John Dowson stated it. I took over after my sister Mary quit the route. I sold it to someone. I had the route up to 97 papers that included several houses back in the “bush” – at the top end of Norton and McKee Avenues. When I increased the number of customers I won a Timex wrist watch; my first watch. The watch was waterproof but died when I got the stem caught on a lily-pad up in Muskoka, popped the stem and water seeped in killing the time-piece.

The Willow Theatre was on the south-east corner of Yonge Street and Norton Avenue, just across from Stevenson’s Shell Gas Station. It was a great location. Immediately behind the Willow was a parking lot; then the access road into the Township shop and then the Ryan’s house – home to George, Nora, Jimmy and Johnny Ryan and their parents. George died in late March 2009 and Nora was killed in an auto accident many years ago. Some will remember her, she was married to Jimmy McCarthy.

It is a little known fact that the Township Shop was supposed to have two entrances so vehicles could drive straight through. One entrance was to be on the Norton Avenue side and one on the Parkview side. Doors were installed during construction on both sides of the shop and an access entrance was also built on the Parkview side. The entrance on the Parkview side was on the east side of Waddell’s big house. (The big brick house with the huge front veranda where Doug Waddell and Doug Burnell and Doug Macateer and others could be found playing table tennis.) The Parkview side was never used. People on the Parkview side complained to the Township Board and were successful in having the Parkview entrance closed.

The movies at the Willow Theatre in those days were almost all double features. There were many musicals which no one liked. The only time I can remember when there wasn’t a double feature was when the King and I played. The reason for that was the movie was too long. I got to work ‘The King and I’ and saw it thirteen times.

The Saturday Matinees were pure bedlam. The place filled to over-flowing with kids paying fifteen cents to see a double feature, and usually not knowing what was playing. Kids never cared about what was playing. Going to the Show on Saturday was what it was all about. And once there, if the movie was boring you could screw around and chase girls or bothered others. There were never adults at the Saturday Matinees. Never!

Popcorn was sold in small cardboard boxes. Fun was pushing in the end, making the box flat and then throwing it like a Frisbee at the screen. This drove Mister Allen crazy! In addition to that kids put their feet on the seat in front and pushed, shaking whoever was in the seat; causing a fight at the most or damaging the seat at the least. This also drove Mister Allen crazy!

Teenagers and older guys loved to come to the show with a girl friend so they could neck in the back row. When I was the usher the guys who sat in the back three rows were all bigger than me. They didn’t cause trouble – they were too busy looking after the girls they came with. I stayed away from them. The back three rows were where it all happened – where the ‘Fonzes’ of the day sat.

If the people in the back row contributed anything to the show it was their comments. One time when the “Revenge of the Crab Monster” was playing some guy stood up and shouted, “Those crabs aren’t big! You want big crabs! You should see mine!”  Mr. Allen demanded to know who shouted but he got no help from me.

As an usher I had to wear dress pants. I bought two pair of custom ‘strides’ from Jack Fraser who had a store on the west side of Yonge Street just below the city limits. My favorite pair was dark blue with a dropped waist, tunnel loops; cuffs pegged at sixteen inches and the knee ballooned at twenty six inches. And when you went to see Jack he treated you like a king. And his prices were right at just sixteen dollars for a pair of strides

Being an usher was a ticket to meet girls. That part of the job was worth all the down sides. As was typical then, as now, is that the girls you didn’t go to school with were the ones you found the most charming. My favorite group were the girls from the catholic school on Shepherd and Bayview. (St. Gabriels.) They were fun and I met the charming and gorgeous Lynda Hurst from that group and we dated for some time. I actually spoke to her in 1974 when I was in Toronto on a visit. We went out many times and I went to CYO dances at her church. Her dad and brother worked in Toronto for the railroad and they lived on Empress back near Bayview. When we went out it was to the show – but not the Willow. We’d go to the Bedford just south of the City Limits.

One important job of a Willow Theatre Usher was to raise and lower the screen “legs”. The legs were heavy flat black cloth strips that hung down on both sides of the front of the projection screen. They were left down for normal narrow movies and had to be raised up and dropped onto the catwalk on the back of the screen when the movie was cinema scope. If they weren’t in place the movie did not show well.

To get to the legs the usher – usually me, would have to climb to the top of the screen at he back and haul them up. It was difficult and somewhat dangerous climbing up the back of the movie screen on the small scaffolding but hey – it was show business.

Other jobs as an usher included changing the marquee, and carrying the big steel cans of film down to the front of the Willow and taking new ones up stairs. I was never allowed into the projection booth. Not sure if anyone was.

A major event while I worked at the Willow was meeting Wally Koster. Wally lived on Elerslie and was the co-star on the CBC TV show Cross Canada Hit Parade. The show featured songs from the hit parade that Wally sang along with Joyce Hahn. We were thunder struck when he came to the Willow. (It was a week day evening – not a Saturday matinee.)

If you didn’t go to the Willow you rode the bus down to the City Limits Bus Station – where the Mt. Pleasant trolley bus terminated at the loop –  and went to the Bedford just south of the ‘Limits’ or walked over to Avenue Road and went to the Glendale.

There was entertainment in Willowdale before television – it was called ‘going to the show at the Willow. And can you imagine sitting through a double feature today?

Richard Dowson

Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

January 7, 2012

Remember our "fast food" Drive In? - Kenny P. Does...

Some younger people may not believe that back in the 50s we went to a Drive In restaurant where we could enjoy from the comfort of our car: a coke, a burger, some fries or just meet friends. The waitress would come to your car on roller skates and hook a tray onto your cranked down window.

It looked something like this. 

Here's a video about a place in USA that still does this.

http://www.detnews.com/section/videonetwork?bctid=558135520001

In Willowdale, we had a Drive In on the East side of Yonge Street, and I think it was just North of Steeles, but I could not recall it's name.


One of our pals from those days explains it this way:

 Just watched the Video. Really neat. I remember the roller skates at the Willcox and the waitress would put a card under your windshield to show your order had been taken.

Windshield washers were a brand new thing at that time. The waitress name was Erma and I was good friends with her so I gave her a little spritz with the washer when she put the card under my wiper. It scared her more than getting her wet and she was not amused, not super angry but not amused. My order was a very long time coming that night and the joke was never repeated. It was called the Willcox not because of the lake but the owner's name was Bob Willcox. I'm  sure it was called the Wilcox Drive In. Later it was called the Golden Star.

 - Kenny Pittam

Well, I thought this was so important, I played around with addresses on Yonge Street using Google Maps and it turns out that 7121 Yonge St., Thornhill, Ontario is for a place called The Golden Star, just as Kenny said...

But I don't see any chicks coming out of there on roller skates. Do you? Maybe this is not in their job description any more.

what musicians in the 1950's and 60's - J.Dowson

This is what musicians in the 1950's and 60's did to earn money between jobs...

It was better than working at Eaton's or what Lenny Wright did working in the "cage" at a Domion security trades'. Wally Dean a fiddle player in a country band use to be a dealer when the Big Card Games came to town he was called to deal. He always got a cut of the pot. I use to go after the gig and watch the game, in 1957 the pots were $1,500 to $5,000 big money when a beer was a buck at the bar.

In October 1961 Alex Lazaroff hired me as a bass player at the Edison house band called "Alex and the Rebels" 

Tommy Danton and the Echoes were in Europe doing shows at the US army bases USO clubs. I chose not to go and you had to pay your own way. The tour went bust after only four weeks and the guys were broke and stranded in London England fortunately Tommy was a Londoner and he got relatives and friends to put them up. They played a few gigs locally but wanted to return.

I remember the musicians on Yonge street started a collection to pay for the fares for Gordy Glass, Lenny Wright and Johnny Stockfish who all took a long boat trip back home to Toronto. We had a celebration when they got back. I believe Gordy Glass left a drum he hocked in London. Tommy and the piano player Frank Cilochi had relatives to help them out.

I met Vic Costantino in the Edison just before Christmas 1960 and he hired me as a insurance agent to go out to Vancouver with him Vic; was the sales Manager. I left Toronto on March 31 1961 50 years ago and I didn't return until August 1974, with a wife and seven year old child.

I have been in the insurance business since then all up and down financially. This is my 50th year in the insurance business. And now you know the rest of the story.

Entertainers and musicians I met and talked with during my musical career - Johnny (James) Dowson

At the colonial Tavern on Yonge street Toronto

Earl Fatha Hines

Earl Bostic

Gene Krupa

Trummy Young

Jack Teagarden

Muggys Spanier

Bill Goddard

On the road

Louis Armstrong and his band

Stan Kenton

Wayne King the “Waltz King”

Wes Montgomery

Bobby Lord

Teddy Wilson

Maynard Ferguson

Don Francks

Dave Broadfoot

Jerry Lee Lewis

Ronnie Hawkins

Conway Twitty

Al Bruno

At The Edison Hotel Yonge and Gould street Toronto

Dwayne Eddy

Bill Haley and the Comets

Woody Herman

Dizzy Gillespie

More Rick Carson...

Here are a couple of nice photos of Rick.

1957- the mysterious Rick Carson taken at the Circle M Riding Stable. He and brother John Dowson had been out goofing around.

The above photo comes to us from Karen Cronk Druchock Sept.2011. - Thanks, Karen!