Interviewer: Oh! 'Kay, let's say you're walking to school, right? And there's like a puddle but it's got some ice overtop of it and you think the ice can support you but you walk over it but you're foot goes right through and your foot sinks right into the water. You would say- Speaker: "I got a soaker."

Interviewer: Um okay 'cause my generation would say we got a soaker. That was- that was what we said. Speaker: Yeah. I hear my son say that too. Yeah. Interviewer: Yeah and even- Speaker: A soaker.

Speaker: What would I have got? A wet foot. Soaked. Interviewer: Soaked? 'Cause my generation, I know older generations as well, soaker was ah- was a- was a common term for that. Speaker: Yeah, if you got- Interviewer: Say I got a- "I've got a soaker." Speaker: Yeah. Interviewer: Do your generation have that? Speaker: What? Using the word soaker? Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Well you- you said you got soaked.

Interviewer: Another one too there is, um- let's say that you were walking around town and you didn't see a puddle there and you accidentally stepped right into the puddle and- and- and water just completely seeped through your sock and your- your shoe and- and got your foot all wet, what would you say you got? Speaker: Oh, that one I know, the soaker.

Interviewer: Um okay so then what about this with- I- I know for sure, you'll know this one, but like you-know, let's say you'd be ah, in the school ground ah during recess and you accidentally stepped into a puddle and water just like seeped through your sock and shoe, you would say-? Speaker: I've got a soaker.

I think there probably could be because like, you're not familiar with the way- well again with the social networking, that's still true, but with the local slang like, someone in Iroquois-Falls could've made up, instead of 'soaker' it could have been something else, and then that could've spread out throughout the community, but half-way through it could've stopped and it turned into a 'soaker', again when it reach T-- near Timmins, 'cause like- just 'cause of the- since they're close it doesn't mean...

Interviewer: Okay, and another thing that's common here in Timmins too is if- if someone um, you know accidentally steps in a puddle and- and a lot of water gets into their sock and shoe and-stuff, what do you call that up here? Speaker: Well, we would call that a soaker.

Speaker: I got a soaker or soaked. Yeah, yeah. Interviewer: A soaker, right? Soaker is a- is a Northern-Ontario word as well, so- Speaker: Really? (laughs) I never- I had- Interviewer: They don't have that down south. Speaker: I had no idea, really. Interviewer: There's- there's a few- few words that (inc)- Speaker: That's strange. I- I never would have thought. I-mean, you soaked your foot, you got a soaker it's- you-know?

Interviewer: Ah you're walking to school one day, you-know there's maybe a puddle with a thin layer of ice on top of it. You step on it, you go through and you- your foot like look you got a- Speaker: Soaker.

... of course that applies to an awful lot of places, where they used to be real good factories and things where hundreds of men worked. Then they especially if they worked with timber or wood and then it was all used up and then they had to go someplace else.

Us young fellers used to go visiting nights, you know, so you never know when somebody was coming. You didn't have to wait for a visit for an invitation then to go. You just felt like going someplace, you just up and went.

Uh, every Tuesday night, for over eleven years, I've been in this office for- unless I'm ah doing emergency measures work someplace. Um so, this is the kind of routine I- uh- we've set up. Ah at no time do- is my secretary or myself uh- uh- on holidays or away.

Yes, ah I think the ah radio certainly has been a help in my case because the- the only way you could hear some of this beautiful music would be to go someplace else from Belleville, 'cause after-all, Belleville isn't a large city. You could probably go to Toronto and hear some ah beautiful music and I went to Toronto a good many times just to hear some music.

The people that had no heat in their houses, they had to get out and go with friends or relatives or some places.

... oh I guess she was, I guess she was- it seems to me she was down around in- way down in the States anyway, around Mexico or someplace and she came back home and she had her two children with her.

Interviewer: Did he actually own a carriage making place or was he just a worker? Speaker: He- he wo-- worked at it and then he started his own out around Madoc someplace and then went in to farming after that because just at that time they started making ah ah buggies and-that in Oshawa you-know with the General-Motors.

Interviewer: Where was the furnace room then? Speaker: I don't know, I didn't see the furnace room. It must have been near the back someplace. You see across from you go into that Mrs-Smith's kitchen. Across there is a room isn't there. Maybe that is the furnace room. I know the maid slept down there in the winter time.

And we'd draw big box- big loads of them home and pile them some place that you could just throw them in the stove, like boys if they ever make a fire (laughs).

Interviewer: No he lived ah further north than that. Speaker: Oh. ... Up in Campbell's-Bay or someplace?

The first schoolteacher was a man. And he was an old man. And he didn't- he came from some place down below Ottawa. He was quite an old man. He had grey hair, I remember that. But we all liked him very much.