Welcome to The Club Spring 2024

Welcome to...
Established in 1978,
Lambton Pharmacy continues to
provide caring, professional pharmacy
services to residents of the beautiful
town of Petrolia and Lambton County.
4130 Glenview Rd, Unit 2, Petrolia
519-882-0650
Danielle Edgar, B.Sc., PharmD
Pharmacist
Monday–Friday 9–6
Saturday 9–12
THE Club
THE WALK
OF DOWNTOWN PETROLIA
SHOP FRESH • SHOP LOCAL
Vendors
Welcome
Just Ask Your
Friendly Travel Agent ...
Petrolia’s
Luxury
Downtown
Development
The Walk is Petrolia’s only luxury
apartment project in the downtown
core. Within walking distance to the
grocery store, hospital, pharmacies and
more, the location is ideal for adopting
Petrolia’s trendy downtown lifestyle. 519-882-3157
www.albanyretirementvillage.com/the-walk
Special
Events
MAY 18 TO OCTOBER 19
Saturday Mornings 7:30am-Noon
Fletcher St. (behind Library) 519-882-2350
• A woman called to make reservations from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New
York. I was at a loss for words. Finally, I asked “Are you sure that’s the name of
the town?” She replied, “Yes, what flights do you have?” After some searching, I
said “I’m sorry ma’am, I’ve looked up every airport code in the country can’t find a
Hippopotamus anywhere.” She replied, “Oh don’t be silly, everyone knows where it
is, check your map!” I scoured a map of New York state and finally offered, “You don’t
mean Buffalo, do you?” She said, “That’s it! I knew it was a big animal!”
• A woman called and said, “I need to fly to pepsi-cola on one of those computer planes.”
I asked if she meant Pensacola on a commuter plane. She said, “Yeah, whatever.”
• A woman called to ask, “Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they
know who’s luggage belongs to who?” I said, “No, why do you ask?” She replied, “Well,
when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my bag that said FAT, and I’m
overweight, is there any connection?” After putting her on hold so I could ‘look into it’ (I
was actually laughing), I came back and explained that the city code for Fresno is FAT,
and the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.
Don’t let old age get you down - it’s too hard to get back up!
Oil Field History... in Action.
1860s Working Oil Field Historic Site
Antique &
Unique Sale
Saturday June 15th
9:00 am to 2:00 pm
4281 Discovery Line, PETROLIA • www.PetroliaDiscovery.org
Please use entrance off Petrolia Line through Bridgeview Park north.
Planting A Garden of Memories
by Alice Gibb, London • from Daytripping May-June 2007 issue
All gardeners know winter
can be endured because it is
the precursor of spring. And
springtime, for the garden lover,
has a host of special attractions.
There is the moist, sun-warmed
smell when you turn over the first
shovelful of earth. Or the rush of
emotion when you let a handful
of that warm, sweet-smelling soil
first trickle through your fingers.
Finally, there's the sense of expectation
when you drop the first seeds into a thin
line etched in the soil - even if that soil is
only a balcony windowbox!
Admittedly, when I was a youngster, I
didn't feel any great rush of affection for
either the good earth or my father at garden
planting time.
My father, who had been raised on a farm
but worked in one of Sarnia's petrochemical
industries, threw his zeal into a half-acre
vegetable plot at the back of our property.
Gardening, for my father, was a welcome
adventure. Every spring he would try at
least one or two new crops ranging from
deep blue garden huckleberries to pale
green kohlrabi.
The spring ritual my brother and I followed
religiously was trying to avoid the gardenplanting
marathon. The annual routine of
moving a stake and string at a snail's pace
across the plowed field and bending over to
drop miniscule seeds into the ruler-straight
lines my father favoured, held little appeal.
I would try to disappear into the farthest
reaches of the house with a good mystery
- my brother just plain disappeared!
During the Depression, my father had
headed west in search of cheap land and
the opportunity to test his independence.
He had settled on a quarter section of land
outside Peace River, Alberta and eked out
subsistence living until war was declared.
Perhaps it was those sparse years that
inspired him to produce a bonanza of
vegetables that was far too great for the
needs of our four-member family. Even
with my mother frantically canning and
freezing, we could not keep up to the
garden's yields. The solution was for my
hardworking father to wash and bag up
the extra produce. Then my brother and
Open for Tours:
JUNE: Sat and Sun 10-4
JULY & AUG: Wed to Sun 10-4
Other tour times available
by appointment - 519-882-0897
petroliadiscovery@outlook.com
I were sent out on Saturday mornings
to knock on doors around our village.
Really, all we had to do was go to
about three or four homes, sell the 10
and 25 cent bags of carrots, onions,
and tomatoes, and the proceeds
were ours to spend at the local
general store. Our task was
made even easier by the fact
that we had several families
with eight and ten children in
our neighborhood - so the cooks in those
families would take any vegetables we had
to market.
Despite that fact, and the reality that my
brother and myself rarely did any of the
hard hoeing and weeding and cultivating
that made the garden thrive, we considered
it a great hardship to have to peddle
produce door-to-door. Even as youngsters,
we liked to consider ourselves gentry, who
should spend afternoons on the banks
of the St. Clair, or swinging gently in a
backyard hammock.
Perhaps I should have realized, however,
that gardeners beget gardeners. For years
now, I've rented various little patches of
land in and around London. My rows are
always crooked, because I lack my father's
patience with life's challenges. Since I don't
own an old hand-cranked Farmall tractor or
a cranky cultivator, weeds and couch grass
win out by season's end. I should spend
more time in the summer with hoe in hand
and less time at a computer terminal.
But I do feel that special rush experienced
by all gardeners when the seed catalogues
start to arrive during the dark winter
months. By April, there's a physical ache in
my bones, wanting to feel the warm earth
between my fingers again. It's not much
different than the ache you feel when you
first fall madly in love.
There's another more personal reason
why I still plant huckleberries and strange
new tomato varieties every spring. Some
nights, just as the sun sets, I half expect to
see my father just a few rows over, wearing
his battered old straw hat and leaning on
his hoe, smoking a pipe. A garden is many
things to many people. But for this gardener,
planting memories is even more important
than planting seeds.
P A G E
10
(Family Feud Answers) Something Russia is famous for. – Russians
SPRING 2024