St. Jacobs streetscape

The outlet mall at the far end of the downtown in St. Jacobs has closed and reborn with a completely new use and no retail is involved. None.

Today St. Jacobs, once possibly the biggest, best known outlet mall destination for southern Ontario shop-a-holics, is settling back into its old groove: an artsy, colourful, Mennonite community: a place to buy unique products and enjoy Mennonite sausage on a bun.

Thanks to COVID-19 the main street in St. Jacobs was exceptionally quiet last Sunday. The loss of the town's two outlet malls has not helped. But the province wide shutdowns are nearing their end and with luck St. Jacobs will again be a popular, quaint destination for weekend excursions and short vacation visits.

Don't count St. Jacobs out

 

Once passenger-packed buses would bring literally hundreds of visitors to St. Jacobs in search of the perfect shopping experience. The little village smack dab in the middle of Mennonite country seems an odd place to become a veritable temple to capitalism but that is what it was in the not too distant past.

Dansk, Paderno, Corning, Nike and many other big name brands had outlet stores in St. Jacobs. Local artists, and even artists from outside the little town, opened shops in St. Jacobs to take advantage of the intense shopper traffic there to immerse themselves in a shop-till-you-drop experience.

Today, St. Jacobs is but a shadow of its former self. Dansk is no longer a stand alone company. It has closed most, if not all, its stores. Paderno still exists but it too has closed stores and now sells mainly at the stores run by the big retailers like Canadian Tire and Walmart. Corningware too has slashed its number of stores. The one in St. Jacobs is gone. The old outlet malls are either closed or mere shadows of their former selves. 

Then came COVID-19 and the lock-downs. St. Jacobs was given a one-two punch from which it may never totally recover but it may be too early to count the town out. A visit to St. Jacobs early Sunday morning confirmed that many of the art stores, antique shops and fine craft outlets are still there and open for business.

The parking spots for the buses are empty now and may soon be painted over. Facing the reality that the buses filled with shoppers may never return may mark the official end to an era. But no matter, when COVID-19 is licked, it is quite possible that St. Jacobs will get its second wind and come back reincarnated in a form that may actually, in the end, benefit the residents of St. Jacobs more than all the big names did by bringing product in and moving cash out.

When does it end?

When does it end? The mazes go up and the mazes come down and then up they go again. Stores are open in London but getting into those open stores is time consuming and patience destroying. The line-ups are long, wrapping around quickly improvised barriers such as these shopping carts flipped upside down.

It is hard to believe that at well run society wouldn't have delegated a lot of this stuff to the past by this point. Canada is reportedly one of the world leaders when it comes the vaccinating its people. But, sadly, shockingly, Canada's world leading numbers are not all that impressive. Only 24.5% of Canadians are fully vaccinated. The U.S. is doing almost twice as well as Canada with 45.3% fully vaccinated. The U.S. hasn't passed even the halfway point. Globally, only 22.6% of the population has received the first vaccination and in the poorest regions of the world that number drops to 0.9%.

With numbers like that, Covid-19 may be with us for a long time yet. And, with so many folk resisting getting vaccinated, there may be more severe strains of the virus in our future.

Carol Johnston was a force in London

Carol Johnston was a force in London

Posted by The London Free Press celebrating the late Carol Johnston and the wonderful changes she made on the city thanks to the creation of the local children's museum.

Some are still proud of the flag

It has been a hard year for the Canadian flag, the red maple leaf. Indigenous communities across Canada have hundreds of reasons to flying the flag at half staff and many are. But many have simply taken their Canadian flags down. If you don't know why, please google "Canada, indigenous and residential schools." You will be shocked.

With more and more stories related to the residential school system coming to light, I was a little surprised to see that this home had dozens of small flags waving in the wind in anticipation of Canada Day this coming July 1.

We still have sunsets.

Things are opening up in Ontario and as restaurants open and movie theatres and other activities are again available, I expect the evening crowds that gather on Lookout Court to view the sunset will dissipate. The usually quiet little court is often lined with cars and sometimes the court even has vehicles parked in the middle of the circle. Before  COVID-19 it was never this way. Never. Viewing a sunset is the new family outing.

Bubbles were smaller at one time

When I was a boy the fluid for making bubbles came in small, glass jars with small, plastic bubble-making wands attached, usually with a strong elastic. The entire package usually originated in Toronto. The bubbles we made were possibly as large as four inches, but that would be pushing it.

Today bubble making fluid is big business and the bottles are huge, the wands large and sometimes even gigantic and the bubble these kits make are at least a foot in diameter and often much, much larger. The kits come from China.

Trade, we are told, is good. It is the life blood of our economies. Still, I cannot help but wonder why bubble-making kits cannot be made anywhere. Why it is necessary to ship the stuff literally halfway around the world so little kids can make bubbles? Why?