Kimberley B.C. has had its share of characters throughout the years, and certainly Fred "Nuttsie" Walker fit the bill in more ways than one.

Fred and Ruth Walker ran the corner store uptown in Kimberley on Spokane Street and Deer Park Ave.

"Fred's Place" was the official name, where you could buy all of the out of town newspapers and an endless supply of candy, chocolate bars and magazines ; When you were a kid, Fred would have his eye on you the entire time you were in the store, following you around to make sure there were no five-fingered discounts going down or keeping an eye on you through a maze of peep holes Nuttsie had drilled in the walls.

A really funny story was told me by the late Johnny Jenkins. Now every kid who seemed the least bit suspicious to Nuttsie would be asked ''got a chocolate bar in your pocket Johnny?"

Fred called every boy in Kimberley Johnny and he would spit out the words very quickly while looking at you (not unlike Ebenezer Scrooge). So one day, for the only time in his life, 10 year old Johnny Jenkins actually grabbed a chocolate bar seemingly out of the sight of Ruth and Nuttsie.

J. J. was strolling up the side aisle of the store, about to make his get away when Nuttsie suddenly appeared, blurting out in his his rapid fire way of speaking, "got a chocolate bar in your pocket there Johnny?" which thoroughly spooked young Mr. Jenkins, who figured Fred Walker must be psychic or something. Johnny burnt back to the chocolate bar section and put the Kit Kat back in its proper place, and ran out the door.

Johnny Jenkins told me that experience cured him of ever stealing anything again in his whole life!

Now Fred "Nuttsie" Walker fancied himself quite the stylish skier up on North Star Mountain. He would ski most afternoons, adorned in a fancy striped sweater and a black French beret. While most of the other skiers would wear a a touque to keep the ears warm, Nuttsie had shall we say quite an unusual style. Shoulders back, ski poles dragging behind him and boots locked together. He would only ever ski on the main run, where he would pounce on unsuspecting out-of-towners, usually Albertans, and give them a "ski lesson", free of charge, whether they wanted one or not. For all of us who remember Nuttsie's skiing you would not wish to emulate his style.

Harold Leinweber once told me that Fred had a "flawed technique". Mr. Leinweber was a wonderful skier and pro up at the mountain, and had one of the most beautiful skiing styles you would ever see. So when Harrold put the kibosh on Nuttsie's skiing style (of course in a very nice way) that reinforced my opinion that Fred's skiing sucked.

Harold L. was dad to Lonnie and Judi who were pretty amazing skiers in their own right. Lonnie teaches skiing in Japan and Canada and certainly looks like his dad on the mountain, sister Judi was a Canadian national Team racer during the 60s and 70s A pure natural talent, I remember watching Judi blaze down the moguls on tower 4 with her best pal Antoinette Sevensma and not being able to decide who was better. Both girls skiied with no fear and styles that took your breath away. Johnny Jenkins was in that elite level with Lonnie, Antoinette, and Judi. If Fred Walker could have followed one of those kids around the mountain for a weekend, he might have got the hang of real skiing. There is an old saying in life - You can't teach an old dog new tricks, that goes for senior citizen skiers as well I guess,

Once Fred Walker cornered my own dad Tony, up at the ski hill and said ''someone just told me I ski like a soaring eagle". My dad said to Fred, "you remind me more of a buzzard," at which Nuttsie stormed off and didn't speak to dad for a year or two.

I liked to go to Fred's Place singly because they had a vast array of newspapers and even carried, " The Sporting News," a baseball paper that came out weekly.

Alan Fabro had the first copy I saw in Kimberley, when he returned from playing pro baseball in Gastonia Georgia, after signing with the Pittsburgh Pirates as a catcher, (and what a catcher he was.) A rocket launcher for an arm, he threw out would be base stealers at second base, from his knees. (Try it sometime.)

I think Alan got Fred's Place to start bringing in the Sporting News, a baseball bible. Fred Walker would always be helpful in trying to special order during the 1960s, especially sporting periodicals, this was before cable TV came to town.

In all of the years Fred and Ruth Walker ran their store, I never remember seeing either of them out at a Kimberley Dynamiter hockey game, or at our Orpheum Movie Theatre which was located where the Credit Union now sits at the corner of Wallinger and Spokane Street in uptown Kimberley.

Nuttsie and Ruth were however, avid golfers. Old Nuttsie had a history at the Kimberley Golf Club of plunking fellow golfers on different fairways with his errant golf shots. The only way to be safe was to include him in your foursome. Fred and Ruth never had any children and Fred passed away many years before his wife Ruthie, who was a really nice lady.

In all fairness to Nuttsie, he was basically a good guy, just a bit paranoid. He and his wife were kind of the "good cop, bad cop" duo, at their store, Fred's Place. Most everyone called it Nuttsie's Place.

Whenever anyone would slip up and call Fred "Nuttsie" in his store by mistake, he would get red in the face and chase the perpetrator out. I made the mistake of going into Fred's Place once with Bobby Dixon, who said, "Hi ya' Nuttsie!" and I laughed. We were both banished for a month. Dixie being Dixie, he went back to the store almost the next day, when he knew that Nuttsie would be skiing. It was hard to get anything past the late Bobby Dixon.

When I write about growing up in Kimberley, I always call my good friend Craig Lytle who was a Daily Bulletin delivery boy while he was growing up in townsite. Craig's dad Russ was a Kimberley City Councilman for many years. Craig, by the way, is Gordie Howe's neiphew Craig came through for me again when he gave me some tidbits about Nuttsie Walker I had forgotten about.

Back in the day, Kimberley had a contest every so often. An airplane would fly over town dropping 100 ping pong balls with a prize inscribed on each ball. Some of the prizes were hokey, but every once in a while, a ping pong ball would have a prize of a T.V, or something cool from Hudson's Bay Company. (Yes, we really did have "The Bay" in uptown Kimberley.)

As Craig Lytle reminded me, the ping poll balls were dropped on a Saturday from the plane and once, inexplicably, just about all of them dropped into Nuttsie's yard , his house being next door to Fred's Place. So here was Nuttsie running around his lawn, brandishing a rake, as over 100 kids "invaded'' his turf.

Fred being more than a bit paranoid this sunny day, ran off all of the children, and then had to deal with their irriitated parents who came down to find out why their kids came home bawling. Nuttsie actually found one of the ping pong balls and had his wife Ruth exchange it for a stereo when all of the hullabaloo quieted down, after a few weeks.

Fred Walker would only get his Lincoln Continental Town Car gassed up at Red's Esso, and only by Billy McKim, a town character in his own right. Bill has been running Reds Gas Station for pretty much 50 years Fred Nuttsie Walker passed away in the 1990s.

The last time I saw Ruth Walker was in 2001. When she was going into the Bank of Monteal with a shopping bag literally full of bank account books. Old school banking I guess you would call that. Ruth was a very sweet person, I never remember her being in a bad mood , even when Fred was having one of his curmudgeon days at the store , a thankless job really keeping your eye on little kids all day.

Kimberley B.C. was a fun place to grow up in back then, a much different way of life than we know today: a world of cell phones, text messaging and not very much social interaction. Back in the day seeing a Kimberley Dynamiter hockey player up buying a paper at Freds Place was a big deal, especially when they said hi to you , and you knew you would be watching them later at the rink playing Spokane or the Trail Smoke Eaters that evening.