Oh, we had one but it wasn't very often. I don't know where it come from or- I remember occasionally if they were (inc) by a block of ice but the time you got back home it would be probably pretty well melted anyways.

Interviewer: T-- tell us a bit about, ah, that too, ah- Interviewer 2: Yeah, the ancestors. ... Yeah, like, was it Scots or Irish or-? Speaker 2: Scottish pretty well, I think.Speaker: Yeah, pretty well Scottish.

Ah yes, church- church was a- a huge staple, yeah. So Saturday mornings, you did your chores, whatever needed doing um in the way of pulling weeds or-whatever. Saturday afternoon you pretty well had to yourself to play and then Sunday morning was church and um there weren't- there weren't a lot of extra church things when we were growing up.

But we- we memorized- we memorized math- and they would stand us up, was about twice a week and do oral arithmetic and make you give the right answer. ... And- and spelling was the same. ... And you would ah- you pretty well knew when you stood up which one was going to be up there the longest. ... Wouldn't be me, it would be probably my buddy.

Oh, we never got into very much trouble going to school and back, yeah. Guess the parents had kept it- kept- kept us in hand pretty well.

Interviewer: What kind of things would you do to- to make trouble? Speaker: Oh dear. When we ah, when we got to be in grade eight, and Misses-Donna-Arbour came to teach us in- in September and there was eight of us lads in grade-eight. Well we pretty well took the school over ...

... so dad would just draw them back through that way, instead of coming out towards Lanark. ... That would be it, yeah pretty well.

Speaker: No, that was days it was called primer class, it wasn't called the grades then. Interviewer: Oh, explain that. Speaker: Well I don't know if I can explain that. (laughs) Or not. Ah, I know I was in- just in primer classes, you-know. I started to school before I was quite six.

Somebody I-guess, maybe, he was maybe prying on somebody else's girlfriend or-something, I-don't-know

So when I came home then from nursing ah at that time ah (inc) were there and they were looking for help for ba-- they made ah wartime um- the puttees they wore and the ah- ah- ah the underwear and-so-on for ah- for the army.

There was the- we had what they called a Quebec heater, they were supposed to be really good stoves. They were- they stood up high but they were round.

Speaker: I can't remember the reason why he took that fence down, but he took it down for some reason, whether he made the field bigger or- there was some reason. But he had me go back to- to rebuild it. Interviewer: My goodness. Speaker: And it was a five-rail-fence and that was a heavy fen-- it was hard to get that fifth rail down when you're all by yourself.

... he had met this woman from the States through some horse club down at- down at the club fair. And she come up and she seen all his fences and all the other old rail fences and she just had to have them. So I ended up going down there. Interviewer: So, did she have the rails? Or did you- Speaker: No they were shipped from here down. Interviewer: (gasps)

... so- we- you-know made sure everybody got dropped off at the right house. Ah, all- along that way- oh, 'cause that washouts, the road was completely covered in water in- in a couple of spots so we had got on to the rail fence and- and everybody hung on to the fence and you- unless you wanted to wade the water in the road but most of us didn't.

Speaker: Barn fires and-stuff as well too. So um- Interviewer: So your dad always took you along. Speaker: Well most of the time we got to go. Yeah, so- and it wasn't that you were able to do a whole lot but you-know sometimes when the rail fence was on fire, that's the least of their worries but somebody still needed to look after that or- you-know I remember being down at Ben-Harpering the night that their burn- burnt down there and they had dairy cattle.

But some of the other trees um grew right along the fence-line between the- the bush and the field so you could get up on the fence- on the rail fence and get up into the tree from there.

It had to be passed by council for hydro to come in. ... Well, I did hear that there was one gentlemen was opposed to it and somebody else had a tendency to vote the same way as he did. ... And when (laughs) the reeve brought up the question and somebody said vote- "Stick up your hand George."

Speaker: And planting potatoes um that was always the twenty-fourth of May. There was always a boat regatta in Almonte on the twenty-fourth of May. Interviewer: Oh! Speaker: So we had to get the potatoes planted in the morning so that we could go into the regatta in the afternoon. Interviewer: So explain to us- tell us what the regatta was like.

Speaker: She just keeps on rolling over. Humongous chunks of ice and snow out to the side. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Mighty rig.

Well then they'd- they'd bring the- the heavier rig in out of Perth-County and just open the road.