... that's when I realized that maybe I shouldn 't have joined the Air-Force.... Well when we were flying in here, you'd always see the lights, and out West you would see- you wouldn't have to fly very far be-- you could see Regina, we could see Edmonton, and you-know and Winnipeg, like that. Over there there's no lights at all. They turn 'em all out. Complete darkness.

And Kevin, his boy, is out West. He ah, went to um, ah, college or university I guess it is in Barrie. And went through for a ah, ah, what you call it? To cook, I guess a cook.

Actually it's cool because a friend of mine's band is touring out west, but they're leaving on the third, they asked me if I wanted to go with them, like, to play with them, and I'm like, "Yeah I can't. I have a gig on the fifth,"

Interviewer: Uh-huh. And the streetcar, did it go all the way out to Queen-Street? Speaker:: All the way out to Neville-Park, yeah. And that was fun to take too, because it was ah- it was safe and you could go all the way out west and you could see the different buildings and, you-know, it was like Nine-Ninety-Nine-Queen.

I went to that part of the world where I was in basically a sari, at all times even inside. When I wasn't I had the whole hijab and a- basically this gigantic, overcoat that looked like a potato-sack.

Interviewer: They are moving. Um, I think it 's like a five year plan so they 'll be there in fifteen. Speaker: In fif-- yeah, twenty-fifteen oh great yeah. No that 's peachy. Um, U-of-T I would say it 's not changed much.

Speaker: I probably says good idea, good concept. Interviewer: Mm. Speaker: That 's petered out but ah I was great, it was a- it was a good thing back then, real community spirit and w-- ah worked to fulfill the mandate but the mandate got clouded

There was still a feste-di- la-Madonna ah held at Monarch-Park and um just you-know in the last couple years no one really ante-d up with the money and the time and that 's kind-of petered out but um still in my mother's- in my mother's side they have a picnic which is kind-of the- the core of the people from that particular town, they get together once a year and that 's it.

I came later, I started in seventy-six, uh first couple years were horrible. Oh I hated it. But then I was depressed and drugging it up way too much (laughs) (inc) once that petered out university got a lot better, so may not have been entirely their fault.

So naturally that 's what you prefer. And um, so that 's when- Mr. and Mrs.-Price were pretty good stuff to take in a nineteen-year-old. But, but some dentist told her that, "You 're crazy to take in someone that age." So, so phooey to him. That 's all he needed to say to me, make me a good person.

Speaker: Yeah. So you always knew who was- yes, you-know kids are kind-of cruel sometimes, and they called pogie kids, you-know. Interviewer: Do you know why that- the word is pogie? Do you know what that comes from? Speaker: I was trying- the other day I was trying- why did they call it pogie, you-know 'cause it was welfare?

Yeah, you-know, and it was kind of- one of the unfortunate things then was you knew who was on welfare, be-- the kids had what they called pogie clothes, and uh, they wore black stockings...

Washers and dryers. Well they're now on- you-know, if they're under water, they- they pooch, then- oh they're yours. I mean, okay fine, be- it' s not my- not my problem. Right? It- you-know, um, because as soon as- what ha-- what happened is- it's one electrical you-know, type-of-thing.

Yeah. There are lot of Armenian people. There are a lot of Hungarian people. These are pretty well professional people. Some of them have gone from their country to the- then you-know when the Communism went across they um, ran ahead of it. And there was lots of stories to tell about how hard it was to get from country to country.

But the hotels had their own bands. I 've forgotten who played there now. I think it was Mark- Kenny from out west, from Banff. And um, so they pretty well played there. That was a hotel band. Like a resident band.

... the other hotels we were staying in were only twenty-dollars a night each. And um, the boat ride there, instead of taking the slow ferry, they wanted to take the high-speed ferry which was twice as much and all that kind of stuff. And I was- I was pretty well out of money at that point.

Yeah. My dad does my taxes. I- I don 't know, applying for a bursary doesn 't- doesn 't take that much. It 's like, you-know, five minute application for pretty well guaranteed five-hundred dollars. So, I 'm hoping I 'll get some financial aid this year, 'cause I have like a twenty-five-thousand dollar line of credit right now.

Interviewer: Is that, when you went to- for those nine-months, is that the bulk of your travelling- experience or-? Speaker: Pretty well yeah. I, I, I guess it 's one of those things got out of my system. I wouldn 't mind going again.

... at Sears, the department store, doing all sorts of weird and wonderful things, um systems analysis and-stuff-like-that. They were putting in appointed-sales-systems and- things-like-that. So he was commuting down to well Simpson's at that time, um ... so while we were in that area, pretty well exclusively that 's what he did, he was with Simpson's for a long, long time.

Interviewer: Did you have language problems when you were going around? Like, I-mean was it easy? Speaker: No, um but only because she spoke German so that carried us through you-know Switzerland and Germany, and I spoke Spanish and French and she had a bit of French as well, so that pretty well covered us but it was funny because we would make our attempts to speak the language and read the signs and things-like-that and try and have conversations with people and their language and they would immediately switch over to English.