The International Barber’s Union membership drive in July 1963 wasn’t cutting it with most local barbers, including the owner of the Capitol Shop in downtown Cornwall.
The union was attempting to sign up at least 90% of the city’s 56 barbers but was struggling with just a handful on board.
To put some heat on barbers not signed up, the out-of-town kingpins set up rotating pickets outside shops of the unwashed.
“They can picket all they want, I’m not signing up,” said a defiant Capitol haircutter Wilfred Rochon, who said the union would not make life better for him, and he didn’t want a union telling him how to run his business.
The union’s pitch included better wages – minimum $50 a week – and “higher standards”. The union would set prices and hours of operation.
It urged union workers in the city to boycott non-union shops. “Spend your union money at union shops,” it said.
For the most part, the “suggestion” fell on deaf ears.
Rochon said his business was not affected. In fact, he noted that business had increased.
The barber union drive fizzled never to re-emerge.
ALSO IN JULY 1963: Two knife-wielding thugs robbed the Starlite Drive-in on Purcell Road of the night’s receipts. … Mayor Nick Kaneb was upset that the new Stormont Registry office on Sydney Street would be heated by electricity and not fuel oil. …Gordon Refrigeration landed a contract to supply construction of a dyke for Expo 67 with 10-to-20 tons of ice each day. The ice was needed to cool water during concrete pouring. All of the ice came from the Gordon ice plant at Water and Adolphus streets. Owner Byron Gordon said the plant would operate 24-7 to supply the ice. … Ontario’s lieutenant-governor signed a bill that created the Raisin Region Conservation Authority (RRCA), replacing the work of the regional lands and forest office. Municipalities within the RCAA would share the cost. … The city’s 100 hourly-paid workers with the National Public Employees Union signed a two-year contract that provided a base pay of $1.83 cents an hour, an 11-cent-an-hour increase. Employees also received two days a month for sick leave, a $1,000 life insurance policy and enrolment in the OMERS pension plan. … Metropolitan home builders had 1,300-foot split-level homes on the market for $13,950 with a $650 down payment. … Hank Greggain had five singles as Cornwall Huskies took down J. C. Towers 6-3 in a Massena Softball League playoff game. The game went 12 innings. Larry Keen was the winning pitcher, giving up seven hits in 12-innings of work. … St. Regis edged Ottawa Meloche 9-8 in Ottawa District Lacrosse League play. Pete Burns, three, Frank Benedict and Rob Delormier, two each, Gib Wilson and Ed Thomas also scored. … Lloyd-George Wharfmen’s Ted Smith notched his third no-hitter of the North End Fastball League season, a 1-0 win over Miller-Hughes. He struck out nine. Losing hurler Doug Taillon had 12 strike-outs. … Winners in the parks and recreation Little Olympics included Larry Gauthier, Kerry Pilgrim, Valerie Ayrton, Norma Kyte, Brian Carrara, Pete Tessier, Gail Renaud and Sheila Silmser.
REMEMBERING BILLY: Back in the pre-expansion era, when players were “owned” by one of the six family-operated teams, many times talent wasn’t enough to make it to the big show; an untold number of players were denied an opportunity to take part in the big dance by the draconian system that tied them to one team.
One such wonderful piece of hockey talent was Cornwall’s Billy Carter who passed away June 26, 2024 .
Signed by Montreal Canadiens as a 16-year-old, he left Cornwall to play for the Junior Canadiens, a team stocked with some of the best juniors in the county. The line-up included future Montreal stars Ralph Backstrom, J. C. Tremblay, Gilles Tremblay and Bobby Rosseau. The Baby Habs were coached and managed by the legendary Sam Pollock. Scotty Bowman was his understudy.
Carter was a key piece of the Habs 1958 Memorial Cup win over Regina Pats. The Toronto Star noted that in the series Carter was a bigger offensive threat than Backstrom and that he “carried the mail” for the club, skating miles every night and was a threat every time he was on the ice.
Pollock called Carter one of the four best hockey players outside the NHL, an “effortless skater with hockey brains.”
A strong case can be made that if NHL expansion had come earlier, when Carter was in his prime, he would have had an NHL career, instead of the handful of games he played.
When Carter reached the end of his pro career – with stops in Rochester, Ottawa-Hull, Seattle, Buffalo and Denver – he returned to Cornwall and broke into the investment biz.
Punch Imlach, manager/coach of the Buffalo Sabres, tried to talk Carter into joining the NHL team’s first training camp in the fall of 1970.
Retired The Sports Network (TSN) managing editor Steve Dryden (aka The Quiz Master), who worked in the S-F sports department for three years, recalled Carter as “one of the nicest, most humble ex-pro players I got to know while working in Cornwall.”
AROUND AND ABOUT: At the next debate a question from the panel (assuming it isn’t made up of Fox News talking heads) should be: “Mr. Trump, at the June debate you said illegal immigrants are stealing jobs from Blacks. What are Black jobs?”
TRIVIA: In 1930, Cornwall Kiwanis Club received approval for this project: 1) Pavilion at St. Lawrence Park, 2) Ice-making equipment for Victoria Arena, 3) Swimming pool at Central Park, 4) Cornwall Canal canoe races on Dominion Day, 5) New fire truck.
TRIVIA ANSWER: Canadian actor Donald Sutherland was once married to Tommy Douglas’s daughter, Shirley. A son, Kiefer, followed in his father’s acting footsteps. Douglas, a Baptist minister, became leader of the federal NDP and father of Canada’s universal medical plan.
QUOTED: Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. – Winston Churchill.
