ship in Toronto in 1953. "The government paid me only $15 for the course and I had to pay $12 for the room and board. Boyce still paid me my wages even though I was away the whole time." With him, the staff at Boyce's consisted of eight full-time mechanics, two foremen and one service manager aside from the two others at the front desk arid in the stockroom. "It was a big garage. There were two floors in the building. We had body shop, general repairs etc." The garage serviced cars, pickup trucks and tractors brought in by farmers. There were no replacement parts for automobile engines those days, he said. It was the mechanic's job to rebuild them. The business enjoyed many loyal customers over the years, he said, for one reason. "I remember those days we would never let a customer's car out of our garage unless it was first road-tested by one of our foremen. He would drive it out and make sure everything that needed to be fixed was done. That was the kind of service we offered up to the time the business changed hands. I think people much appreciated that kind of service that we had." Reflecting on the cars of the day, Cannon recalled that the dealership responded to the popular demand for big, flashy cars. "The Boyce dealership sold the Chrysler De Sotos and Cadillacs. They were as big as they could get at the time," recalled Cannon. Sports cars, he added, were not big in demand then and so were not seen on the streets of Belleville. "The cars all had standard transmissions. They were all the same. Nowadays, there are so many varieties you wouldn't know what you are getting." At the North Front location, the business changed hands once more when Kennedy sold it to a person by the name of Patterson. The dealership changed ownership some more time following Cannon's retirement from his job under Patterson in 1971. Mclntosh bought it from Patterson and later sold it to Bruce and Al Lyons. The business no longer exists today. Contact Benzie Sangma at: bsangma@cogeco.ca