Do you remember Roco gas stations?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/04/2021 (794 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Readers continue to email me their memories and many are posting on the Norberry School Facebook page, which now has over 400 members. Lots of fun…  

A few questions and recollections have tested my memory, so I have had to ask for help on occasion from my elders. Yes, my brother, Garry, is older than me, even if he has not admitted it for 30 years.

One reader asked what the name of the grocery store was at the junction of St. Anne’s Road and St. Mary’s Road?

It had underground parking which was so cool back then. The answer is …Safeway. The building later became CKND television studios.

Where was Pinky’s Laundromat? At the southwest corner of St. Mary’s Road and St. Vital Road. Pinky’s moved in some time after Safeway closed its corner stores.

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The Roco was a very popular garage when I was growing up. We moved to Winnipeg in 1955 in the middle of a gas-price war and Roco (which was an abbreviation for Radio Oil Company) was selling gas at five gallons for $1, which hat equates to 4.5 cents per litre. Garry told me Dad was really impressed with gas prices at our new home.

Paul Dorval also remembered Roco. The station located north of St. Vital Road and south of Shop Easy (currently MPI) was owned by Mark Ridler, who had drag race cars. More than one person told me dragsters could be found on St. Mary’s Road in front of the Roco on weekends. Paul met Gary Beck, a two-time world champion drag racer, at this Roco and was allowed to sit in his dragster… a memory still etched in his mind.

Paul’s dad was the ice maker at Norberry Community Club for many years. Paul worked there, too, blowing snow, dragging around their homemade T- bar (a poor man’s Zamboni) and floating baseball diamonds in the summer.

And how could Penny Webber forget Roco? In April 1976, labour pains woke her in the middle of the night. They called a neighbour to look after their other two daughters and Penny and her husband, Terry, headed to the hospital. They only made it as far as the Roco station at Greendell Avenue and St. Mary’s Road, where their daughter, Tori, was born in the parking lot. Happy 45th birthday, Tori!

Penny regretted not getting a picture of the station before it was demolished.

Could anyone help by sending me a photo of either of the Roco stations in St. Vital? They are a part of our heritage.

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Last month I wrote about Norberry Shoe Repair and some of the memories of Lindsay Nowosad. Since then, I dropped in to the shop and visited with current owners, Ron and Lillian Kozussek, who have been there since the ’80s. This could well be the oldest continually operating business in St. Vital.

John Hindle is a community correspondent for St. Vital. Email him at john@johnhindle.com