Blue plate special
Every town had a spot where locals gathered. With the proliferation of options in recent years, those fixtures have waned.
In Fergus that used to be the Black and White Chinese Restaurant downtown. For $3.95 back in the day, a guest could have chicken balls, chicken fried rice and chicken chow mein. An egg roll and fortune cookie completed the plate.
Elora had a spot called Yings. Rockwood had Dotties’ Diner, Drayton the Drift-Inn, Clifford the Four Aces and so on.
These particular eateries of local repute are now long gone, replaced by some other business and in the case of the Four Aces, it was never rebuilt after a catastrophic fire.
The blue plate special spoke to the frugality of the times. When we think back on some of the personalities of that era, they would be aghast at the price of things today.
Those old haunts provided much more than a bargain meal. They were where local leaders and businesspeople met.
As a very young lad we spent a fair bit of time at work with Dad and that always included lunch out at one of these spots. On any given day, the clerk treasurer George Woods, Mayor Gibbons, Bernie Burns the police chief or Doug Russell from across the way would be in for lunch.
It was a time of awareness and communication where the right hand seemed to know what the left was doing.
Frugality and common sense ruled the day, and unnecessary expenses or mistakes were viewed as absolute failures. Everything wasn’t perfect, but the effort was there to treat taxpayers’ money with the fiduciary care it deserved.
Collaboration, best-interests of the public trust and working knowledge. Along with a fresh-cooked meal, how much better could it be?