Plucer was one of several dozen passengers on a nostalgia-filled bus tour of Jewish Winnipeg August 4 - an optional event in the I.L. Peretz Folk School 90th Anniversary Reunion. Participants ranging from early middle age to their 80s climbed into the big motorcoach reunion organizers hired for that two-hour trip. More than half were from out of town.
And for Plucer, a former Peretz School student, like most of the passengers, it didn't take long for the memories to start flooding back.
"I lived on Hargrave, and walked five blocks to take the bus to Peretz School, even in 30 below weather," she recalled, as the bus headed down that street. "My face would just shake from the cold."
Passing by the site of the YMHA Jewish Community Centre on Hargrave, passengers uttered "awww" in unison, as they saw the big parking lot that's replaced it.
Everyone craned to look out the window as Barbara Hirt, tour guide with Brenda Yakir, pointed out the Mondragon Bookstore and Coffeehouse on Albert Street. An even older YMHA had been housed in that building, she said.
As the bus cruised down north Main Street, the sights triggered more memories for Plucer - this time, of the onetime Farmers' Market on Main and Flora.
"We used to go in there and buy sour pickles from the jar, and great newspaper cones full of chips," Plucer recalled of adventures with her sisters. "I'd say, 'Now I have to eat all these chips.'"
Travelling down Selkirk, Hirt pointed out Gunn's Bakery, closed for the long weekend. But Yakir strolled up and down the bus with a surprise treat: baskets full of rugelach, poppyseed cookies and other pastries, courtesy of Gunn's.
As the bus passed the site of the former Oretzki's department store, Plucer had another thought: "I remember going to Oretzki's, and getting my feet x-rayed for new shoes. Do you remember that?"
Passing by the site of the old Palace Theatre, she remembered how her mother used to go to the movies there, because "for 25 cents, you got a plate. She built up a whole collection." Within a few minutes, the bus had reached one of the "holy grails" of the trip: the site of the old Peretz School on Aberdeen Avenue.
"I remember sitting on top of those steps," said Plucer, pointing to the steep staircase leading to the main entrance. "Miriam Kaufman would sing Jewish songs. She had the most incredible voice."
Belva Boroditsky Thomas of Montreal asked a reporter to take her picture on that staircase, as she gazed lovingly at the school she attended more than 60 years ago.
"I have memories of people who affected me very deeply," Thomas, sister of the late Winnipeg Jewish choir conductor, Sarah Udow, said of that building. "I love Yiddish as a language, but I live in another world, now."
Looking at the low building next to the tall one, Thomas remembered Sunday afternoon arts and crafts lessons in that former Peretz School Hall. "Mrs. Shachter" was the instructor.
"The spirit we used to have in that hall!" Thomas gushed.
It inspired her to start her own arts program in Montreal, decades later. "I call it the Mrs. Shachter School. She was the one who started it all."
Cruising down another old North End street, Hirt asked the passengers: "What's the park we're coming to?"
"Peanut Park!" they exclaimed, in unison.
Pausing again at the later Peretz School on Aikins St., passengers gathered at the entrance for a videotaped moment, and burst into Lomer Zingen, a favorite school song.
Then, after a glimpse of the former Bnay Abraham Synagogue on Enniskillen Avenue, which a church group has bought, the tour passed the last Peretz School on Jefferson.
As the big bus pulled into the Asper Campus's Simkin Circle again, everyone clambered out. Layah Laks, a reunion participant in her 80s from California shared a parting thought about the tour:
"It brought back many wonderful memories of a great community and a wonderful school." Click here for more reunion coverage.