Lost Together - Shawn's Sense with Shawn Loughlin

Last Thursday, I watched a building come down that held a lot of history within its walls. Now, the majority of that history happened before I was a Huron County resident, but hearing some people talk about their experiences with Bainton’s, it just seems like it was one of those places, because of how long it was up and running, that everyone has a story about. Maybe they worked there when they were young. Maybe it was their first job. Maybe they bought a memorable outfit there, for a prom, a wedding or a first day on the job.

 

Every community has these kinds of places. When I was speaking with Betty Graber-Watson once about my familial connection to Hallville, where she had family, I told her that my Loughlin is one and the same as the Loughlin of Loughlin’s Country Store there. She said that one of her granddaughters (I believe - it was a long time ago) used to work there. I thought it was a neat connection, but then she said that, at one time or another, most of the young people of that community had jockeyed a register or worked an oven there.

 

Growing up in Pickering, we all had those places as well. However, because it was more spread out, there was a lot more variety. There were those of us who had toiled at the local Swiss Chalet. At a time, there was a whole group of us who had baked buns, washed dishes or doled out chicken at that very spot. Then there was the significantly cleaner (not that Swiss Chalet was dirty, but it was a restaurant, which is dirty work when compared to a retail shop) class of folks who worked at the Pickering Town Centre in one capacity or another. On any given night, a walk through the local mall would yield a number of run-intos or shout-outs as we all looked to earn a bit of change in our pockets. 

 

The Pickering Town Centre is thriving and has since expanded. It is likely full of stores I won’t recognize worked by kids I don’t know (but maybe I know their parents). While there is a Swiss Chalet in Pickering now, it is not my Swiss Chalet. That location closed some time ago, it seems. Google Street View still shows the building with a fading Swiss Chalet logo.

 

My elementary school, where my friends and I had so many good times and formative memories, has long been demolished. St. Anthony Daniel on Duberry Drive was slated for closure in 2013 due to declining enrollment which I guess is a problem for urban schools as well as rural ones. There are now new houses there that look like all of the houses in newly-popped-up subdivisions in Toronto suburbs all over the place. Grey, nice, boring.

 

For a time, the school was there, but left mostly intact. My friends and I emailed each other videos of people touring through the school, finding old textbooks, school work and writing on chalk boards. Something like that can’t help but make you sad. A building that gave us such a shared experience - Christmas concerts, parent-teacher nights, shopping at the book fair and the plain-old learning of it all - now reduced to fodder for thrill-seekers with relatively low goals, hopes and dreams.

 

So, watching the Bainton’s building be demolished, I couldn’t help but think of all the stories it held. The lives it contained over the years and the hurt feelings that would no doubt abound in the community with another landmark lost.

 

As a passerby said that day, they certainly come down a lot faster than it takes to build them up. It’s always a shame to lose a building like that, but progress needs to be made at the same time.