Don Day: Memories of Woolworth’s. At City Market. Really

Published September 17, 2022

A little over 60 years ago I entered the wonderful world of working. The most wonderful part…OK, maybe the only wonderful part…was the day that each and every week, Mr. O’Leary, aka Chief, would walk around with these little brown envelopes that were perfectly sized to hold what we called sawbucks and fins that were decorated with pictures of HRH, her majesty the queen.

On those wonderful days, there was no brown bag beside me on the bus. On paydays, I tucked that brown envelope into the inside pocket of my loden green corduroy jacket and walked the few blocks to the middle of my hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada to do two things.

First I dropped off my shirts (always white…”it’s company policy”, always button-down collar, box pleat and hanger loop) at Fotheringham’s to be one-hour martinized (still don’t know what martinizing is though The Urban Dictionary defines it as “the act of making a complete ass of oneself due to heavy intoxication”).

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