Interviewer: Are there any other Northern-Ontario or just particular things you can think of? Speaker: Ah, what did I always use to say that used to make them laugh? Ah, well, we used to say whiskey a lot and they'd say rye. That's a United-States thing too. But ah, there was something. I can't remember what I used to say all the time they used to- they could never understand. Maybe it might pop into me after. I-don't-know.

... I had two beers and that's it for me, I can't drink anymore. ... I can't drink the beer I just can't do it. I'll drink rye whatever but-

Only one person can quit, that's you. I got up one morning here and b-- my breakfast used to be that much rye in a water-glass. Besides the job I- s-- stuff I had at the job. Got up one morning and I said- poured a drink and I said "What the hell's the matter with you?" Opened the bottle, poured it back in, never touched it from that day to this.

... it was a special occasion that you got a case of beer, which probably was about eight or nine dollars in those days. And ah- or you'd have a- s-- mickey of rye and then when we got a little more affluent we switched to scotch. And now I don't like rye, it gives me a headache.

Speaker: The best ginger-ale ever made in Canada. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. They put a little bit of mix with it- Speaker: Yeah, damn. And especially when mixed with some rye. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, yeah.

That was- one of the Thickssons' main corn roasts was on the long weekend in September. So me and another guy cooked fifty-two dozen cobs of corn and drank a bit of rye.

And ah it depends, what booze I was drinking. You-know, if I was just drinking beer and you-know I'd be having a good time or if I was just drinking rum it'd be a good time, but if I switched to rye or scotch, and then it's just like Jekyll-and-Hyde, kind of fact, right?

... and Ryerson, most people called it Rye-High, because it was- well it just- it was very much a mixture of- you-know, it wasn't quite a university, it wasn't quite high-school. You had all this makeshift sort-of- you could find yourself in weird buildings taking a class and the only really modern thing was Jorgensen-Hall and it was- it was kind-of neat because it had amenities like lounges and things like that, that we just weren't used to.

So after, about- right after that s-- sun-- Sunday parade with all the bands, I have me- put an ad in the paper, "Are there any Highlanders in Haliburton?" And come- "If there are, come to the Legion." ... Saint-Andrew's-Day (laughs), November the thirtieth. ... That was in nineteen-seventy.

Interviewer: You could play bagpipes? Speaker: Mm I've been playing them for about sixty years (laughs). ... Speaker 2: You started the pipe band in Haliburton. Speaker: There's a band in Haliburton and nineteen-forty I- on Saint-Andrew's-Day which is fairly appropriate day- ... I started teaching eleven people.

Interviewer: Do you remember any of those picnics? Speaker: Oh, my father- oh, here I go again! My father was- they had sand-baked beans- Interviewer: They had what? Speaker: Sand. Baked. Beans. ... You know, you dig a hole, put the pot in the ground, heat up the s-- s-- heat up the s-- ... Heat- heat up the sand. You'd cover the whole pot right up

... the picnic was held on a Sunday. You'd have to start on Friday night to heat this thing up. And then, ah, by, ah, Sunday, the beans were baked, and lovely. That's the bag- sand-baked beans! He used to do that.

And then his brother took over and, ah, he used to travel all the way to Belleville and all over that and show people- you-know, people wanted baked- sand-baked beans, he'd go and do it for them. But the picnics, there would be the- they'd set up little stalls, and I remember the ice-cream truck would come in from Pembroke.

Were- were- were in trouble, so, I wasn't- I- I was- I was worried and I couldn't figure out which one it would be that would sauce the teacher back, or be bold or (laughs).

But you-know and like they were referred to- like you-know when you think about it, they would refer to somebody that passed, "Well he's wearing a sawed vest." So if somebody was passing on or they went to the- "Oh, well he's wearing a sawed vest." (Laughs) You-know, um, another expression is

... he would go about the neighbours and he would say, "Now we will have a sawing bee on such a date" and there'd probably be, oh maybe eight men and uh, mother would uh, be cooking maybe two or three days ahead making pies and cakes and etcetera for these men that would come, they'd be there for dinner and supper and uh-

Speaker 2: Building bees, building bees. They also had bees for other things too. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Oh they used to have threshing bees- Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker: Corn-cutting bees, wood-sawing bees. Speaker 2: So n-- everybody just came and did the work and ah- I- I- I admired that you-know? But maybe ah- maybe I'm wrong, maybe it was (inc)- Speaker 3: They had to get along or they wouldn't have survived.

And after you fed the cattle and did the chores in the morning, you went to the woodlot and took the team of horses and the axe and the saw and you cut a load of wood. ... Or two or three, whatever you had time for and you hauled that home and you piled it up and you had a big pile o-- of logs or trees, timber. And then in the spring you had a wood-sawing bee, and the neighbours all came in and helped you saw the wood up. 'Cause basically everybody heated either with wood or coal. Nobody heated with oil back then. There was no hydro heating or-any-of-that.

So- so that ah made it more difficult- you-know and- you lost the ah- like the old farmers use to all work together at bees. You'd have your sawing bee where there'd be twenty-eight people come to your house and you'd- you'd saw up a pile of wood into-into stove-wood length and then you had to split it by hand, of course. Then the next bee was the corn cutting where you'd- when they started building silos you-you'd have twenty-five or twenty-eight men come again ah- they'd just changed hands of course with- with ah the neighbours. And ah the women- there might be two or three women that would help ...

Interviewer: He said he became a very proficient sawyer. Speaker: Ah, that's what they call somebody that runs a sawmill. Guy that runs the the carriage they call it on the sawmill, eh? They call him the sawyer.