 |
| Winnipeg author and historian Allan Levine fondly remembers simpler times at Kildonan Park |
By: Allan Levine
If my memory serves me correctly, it was September 1969 and I had started a new school year, Grade 8, at Edmund Partridge Collegiate. A good friend, Jack Pollick, who died far too young, was attending Jefferson Junior High. He had invited me to join him to hear the quintessential Winnipeg band, the Guess Who, play a free concert at Rainbow Stage, the open air theatre at Kildonan Park. Somehow, Jack had acquired two tickets. Though it was a weekday night, my parents had no objections to me attending and Jack and I walked from my home on Royal Crescent to the park.
Things were buzzing by the time we found our seats and for the next two hours, we were treated to the best Burton Cummings, Randy Bachman and the boys had to offer. I recall Cummings at his most melodic when he sang These Eyes, and introduced a new song, Laughing, which was also a big hit with the delirious audience.
The evening air was warm and the band was hot; within less than a year, the Guess Who would release American Woman and nothing would be the same for them again. It was the perfect night, one of many occasions in my life when music, culture, friendship and fun came together amid the tall trees and green space of Kildonan Park.
Nestled along the Red River in the north part of the city, Kildonan Park was established in 1910. In those early days, it was beyond the city limits and you needed a car to visit it. With its rolling hills and winding roadway, it was and remains a great place for a leisurely drive.
In the 1970s, when I spent many evenings in the large space located behind the park's Chief Peguis Pavilion -- the chief landmark then was a large oak tree with two limbs easy to climb on -- it was "cool" to park your car on the side of the road next to the golf course and blast your car radio as loud as possible.
The park holds many great memories for me: It was the place we snuck away to in high school when we skipped a science or English class on a Friday afternoon; the spot when I first eyed my wife, Angie (she was a grade ahead of me and therefore technically off limits, but I might have said hello to her once), it's where I played football and learned to golf. Mostly, though, I remember laughing with good friends and enjoying the lazy spring and summer days when life was a lot less complicated.
Allan Levine is a Winnipeg historian and writer. His most recent book is William Lyon Mackenzie King: A Life Guided By The Hand Of Destiny. His three Sam Klein historical mysteries are now available as print-on-demand books at McNally-Robinson, Grant Park.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 12, 2012 A8
