By Philip Rushton
Whitecourt Star Reporter
Driving down to Arizona for the winter in a Greyhound Bus converted into a camper, Canada Geese still painted on the sides, Darlene and her husband Gary Pearce, known by their CB radio call signs, Nana and Poppa Goose, have always been meeting new people.
“I've always been a real people person,” said Darlene Pearce.
When they moved to Whitecourt in 1970, the Pearce couple didn't know anyone on windfall Drive, so they launched a block party the next summer.
“The town dropped off some barricades and we rolled out the barbecue,” said Pearce.
Having planned parties and get-togethers since the couple moved away from their hometown of Sundre Pearce led by example.
“Guess what, I’m your new neighbour and I want to come over for a cup of coffee,” Pearce told people next door.
When they moved in 1961, the couple first came up with the idea of block parties. The neighbourhood made its own barricades out of sawhorses.
When the couple moved to Whitecourt years later, everyone loved the idea as well and more than 50 people gathered on Windfall Drive.
“We even played a baseball game in the street,” said Pearce. “It was close, but none of us were very good so we didn't break windows.”
There was a potluck, and as people chatted around the barbeque, friendship formed.
Someone pulled out a fiddle during the evening and after the children went to bed at 10 p.m., the dancing continued with vinyl records.
Those three years of these block parties built bonds that endure as people were transferred and moved away.
Pearce decided to have a reunion 25 years later and made some phone calls to meet in a local restaurant in the autumn.
“It's really neat at the restaurant because waiters asked if we were all neighbours or what? They said, Really? People don't do that anymore.”
In the 1970s in a small town where everybody knew everybody, stay-at-home moms could watch over each others' goslings running through the backyards.
“We never worried about our children being out,” said Pearce. “It was a lot different world from nowadays, a very special time in our lives.”
Having celebrated their 50th anniversary this May, Gary and Darlene Pearce naturally had a huge flock gathering for an entire week.
“People came from B.C. and up from the States where we follow the Canadian geese.”
Throughout the years others have kept up the tradition of block parties in Whitecourt with in the '80s on the Athabasca and in the '90s in a park square.
“It's a great way to meet your neighbours.”
Nana Goose out.
Photograph: Lake County Museum
No comments:
Post a Comment