Interviewer: So you didn't have hydro? Speaker: No. We didn't have hydro for, I-don't-know, sometime in the fifties I-guess.

... about nineteen-fifty, I went to Ottawa and I worked with the R-C-M-P in the supply stores. ... I was there for sixteen years and two months and ah at that time the Hydro was- was buying land off us down there and ah we flood the damn in- in Arnprior here and they wanted to- so I quit Ottawa and started farming again.

Speaker: And so- and I had it up to a chair exhibit in the Middleville-Museum. Interviewer: Good for you. Speaker: And there was a couple of experts there to tell you the history of your chair and I says, "Knowing history goes back to eighteen-eighteen." And he said, "Are you sure?" And I said, "You ever read the Carlton-saga?" And he said, "Yes." Well I said, "This is the Duke-of-Richmond chair" so-

And they all opened a chocolate-bar and-this-and-that and threw the stuff on the floor on the- out in front of the yard, eh? And they went to take off. And I says "Just a minute, you guys. This yard was clean when yous come in, clean it up now." The teacher said "Yes," she said "You can't do that. Pick it up. The garbage can there, pick it up, clean it." And there were two young lads who wouldn't.

You-know-what-I-mean, they'd done something that displeased me so I said "You- you go and do that." And L-- and Landon-Morris is still there. Landon said "Well they didn't do that." I says "I don't care whether he did or not, because there's lots of things you did do that I didn't catch you at, so (laughing) this way evens it out."

Speaker: So she put him down in the field as far as you go and he- he- then he turned on her. Interviewer: Oh! Speaker: And ah, she come back up to where I was. So I says "Go ahe-- get him. Put him right to the barn." She went down and she didn't even know that he's hid behind a tree.

Speaker: We found the bar-- found the sheep in the barn about forty-some sheep waiting on the guy to come, eh? He didn't come in, we were waiting on him something, finally he did show up. I says to the guy, "Looks like we've got a problem here." Interviewer: (Laughs) Speaker: He goes, "What do you mean?" Well I said, "Our equipment runs on hydro and there isn't a hydro pole to be seen." (Laughs)

So I kind-of wondered "What on earth are them things?" So this kid says, "Pigeons". So I- we don't eat pigeon around home so I wondered to them, "What are you going to do with them?" This other kid says, "Eat them." "Oh," I says, "If I was hungry and had to eat pigeon, I'd eat them ones that flew out of here." And this other little guy speaks up and says, "You can't eat them, they're tough." So how in the devil is mummy going to cook that thing.

Where am I from from the down under? Where am I from from the down under. And I cannot think twice what he's talking about. So I was sitting at the time I say "Under the table" (laughs) or what it was, eh? And he says, "No," so then I says, "I think you and I got the same problem." To this guy. Didn't know him at all. "What do you mean?" I says "You got an accent, people think I've got an accent too that we must come from the same place."

Speaker: "So where you from?" "Oh I'm from Southern Australia and you come from the northern part and him and I just never met." Which I though that was kind-of funny. "No no" I says "I'm just fifty miles west of Ottawa."

Well she said, "I'm a- I'm a farm girl." And she says, "I hate the city." She says, "I just can't take it." She say, "I like the country." I say, "Well at least you know where food and-stuff come from." Yeah, I says lots of student have no clue. Ah- how can you do that? You can't do anything about it. But this- this girl says- and she's no trouble getting work 'cause they know she work.

Remember Sam-Derice, he had a store right at Joe's-Lake and he'd go out on the lake in the winter and he'd get ice for the ice-house to sell to customers.

Interviewer: ... how did you keep your food cold? Speaker: There was an old well out here, well it's no longer used but they used to lower it down and help keep it cool and they cut ice in the winter-time, there was an ice-house just out here. ... Interviewer: So just- Kurt tell me how an ice-house works? What's- what's that mean? (Laughs) Speaker: You'd- you'd cut the ice- and it was like a saw that was similar to the cross-cut saw that you use for cutting trees but only it was made for cutting ice. But you'd cut it in blocks and you put it in the ice-house and you packed it with sawdust. And believe it or not but that sawdust would keep the ice all summer. Now coming near the- the end it would be getting pretty skinny but it would- it would keep the ice.

Oh just ah, cookies or pies or just whatever she was in the humour to do and she just did the kids- the community kids, like the local ones.

Speaker: I have no idea what I was wearing, it would be something homemade of course, but- Interviewer: That would be a traumatic experience. Speaker: Yeah, that would really raise the ire of my mother I'm sure. Interviewer: Ah, how would you keep warm in the wintertime?

Speaker: Fa-- my older f-- fe-- my- my great-great-grandfather helped build that school out there. They were masons and they come from Scotland. Interviewer: Do you know whereabouts in Scotland they came from? Speaker: Jeepers, I don't know much a-- Interviewer: But somewhere in Scotland. Speaker: Yeah they come from Scotl-- they come from Edinburgh I-think, from Edinburgh directly here, but-

With a broken wrist. So then that kind-of jiggered me up so- two hours of chores before you go to the work and two hours to come back and I can't do nothing.

So I goes out, grabbed the broom, went out underneath the car. Oh, there was a kerfuffle, the big- the fuzzy- the long-haired cat, eh? Big, black, long-haired cat, was outside, the short-haired cat was in here.

Which we were not suppose to go into and- and ah- and in the front he sold tobacco, all kinds of tobacco and other things-like-that. And then across the street, kitty-corner was the O-Brian-Theatre where we would occasionally go to- for a treat to see a movie.

...as I told you, some of the lads I hunted with s-- about four of them are gone. Five of them are gone.