Transcript

Location: 1834 George St.

Howard Fredricks (interviewer): Do you remember the taverns? Did you ever have to go and get a pail of beer?

Edwin Dohlby: Ohhh, yeah. I always remember goin’ out to get a pail of beer, sure. Christ sake, I used to go to Pete Weber’s there, at tavern at George Street across the street, where the oil station is, there was a big building there. It was a bowling alley and a tavern and a dance hall upstairs. There was a wood sidewalk out in the front of that thing set up on shingle blocks. 

The saloons used to close at twelve o’clock and the guys—they used to dance until two, three o’clock in the morning in them days. And the morning after the dance time, my brother—we’d—they’d—as soon as they closed at twelve, the guys would go and get bottles of beer and bottles of brandy and whisky and stuff and they’d hide it under that sidewalk. Well, Sunday morning come, my brother George and I—we’d crawl underneath. You’d be surprised at all the bottles we brought home out of there. 

Yeah, sure, tavern keepers in them days bought their whiskey by the keg and they’d buy these whiskey bottles from us—these pint and half-pint bottles. They gave us two cents for a half-pint and three cents for a pint bottle. They’d refill them, see, from these kegs. We picked up quite a bit of change that way….Yeah.