Well you see, there was no such thing as lawn-mowers. ... You know, it was a novelty to see a lawn-mower some place.

... we had a pretty good time. Right up until, oh about the second week of October or some place. And she left. And she left, went elsewhere.

The time is so long. ... There's nothing really to do when you go to someplace like, eh? Even when I go to my daughter's there, eh? Now- and you're so glad to get home, you hate to leave, but you're so glad to leave. Because you're used to your own bed-

Interviewer: So did you learn how to drive? Speaker: No. ... Interviewer: Yeah. Do you wish you did? Speaker: Ah in a way yeah, in a way no. Because now if I want to get someplace, well there's the home support you can get, eh? ... Yes so you can always just get somebody like, you-know?

So even when- excuse me, even when my, um, children were born, I would take my grandmother for a ride, and we would go out from here to Combermere and then take the old Barry's-Bay road back, stop some place for an icecream-cone or some treat, you-know. So she loved to just get out and see the countryside, see the changes. I mean, those were roads that she would have travelled, by horse and buggy. Those were roads that she would have walked.

So we may- we may have an outage. Um, we have a generator now that if we're going to be out for longer than, say, eight hours, or if we need to be someplace that we need to be showering, or if we're concerned about our food then, not being able to keep it from spoiling, then we'll run the generator.

That was our summer holiday. We'd go to Perth for one day. ... And, we'd go in there and dad would park the twenty-nine Durant, up near Bain's there some place on a side street, and ah he'd go and do his shopping or whatever he had to do, and we would kind of be on our own, but we'd be expected to be back at that car by such a time, and here we were, country bumpkins running ...

And in nineteen-forty-one or two in there someplace, ah I was five years old so it had to be forty-one, I started school in the Moss-School which was a mile north of our place.

He wanted us to be successful and so we have our little patch of carrots and- and-whatever. And we had our own little bush and there be some rocky knoll in a field someplace that wasn't any good for fields and just a rocky island in a field, and each of us would kind of mark off our little bush.

Interviewer: Do you ever fly? Speaker: Oh yeah. Mm-hm. Couple of years ago, the first year I retired I went with Herman. We went for two weeks, he was planning, he likes to go ever summer someplace, and my dad liked to do that too um, and that was back in the day when people didn't go up to Povungnituk and you-know Kugluktuk or-wherever.

But people stayed here. If you went away it was you went away because you were working in Kitchener or you were working someplace else and- but most people stayed here. When- when my- when I was growing up in Barry's-Bay, yeah you stayed here.

Interviewer: Did- were- did the- were there a lot of school trips? Speaker: No. ... One time they had some kind of a- what they called a king or queen jubilee.... And it was up in Boulter or some place, I remember.

Interviewer: ... it must have been tough here, eh? Speaker: It was. They first came to- down there around Eganville some place. ... They even- some of them had to live in- in sod shanties.

Interviewer: So what do you do at the park? Speaker: Oh, sometimes we went there some place for- just for a picnic or- ... Or just to the place there, the museum or-whatever they have there to look at that.

So I stayed with my cousin 'til I got a job. ... And then once I got a job I stayed there and came home for two, three weeks. Home for the summer. The first summer I came for a few months because they went away some place. My l-- my, ah- people that I worked for. ... But then after that I only came home for holidays.

... once he went to Kingston on his honeymoon and ah, he was in the States once I think in his lifetime so that's, that was typical travel then. You just didn't have the- you didn't go off to Florida for ten days and then someplace else and someplace else.

...my father's farm. Been out there once or twice, but- ah- (clears throat) he- he left the farm way back in, oh, nineteen- roughly nineteen-eighteen, someplace in that area. And then my father, who was a very interesting man, he ah, worked in a- in a lumber camp, he was the chef, eh, and he did all that, he did it for a few years ...

And then they would do the sawing and everything else in there, they had a planing mill, and- it was a very very big operation. And, ah, it eventually didn't- they- the companies moved someplace out of that, after that. And ah, they also... before the hydro came in here, they had the, ah- they had their own electricity here in town.

... he took a huge swap with his paw right on the grate and just scared the heck out of me. And then the- and it's, ah- it's quite a thing to see a- a b-- an angry bear, ah, ah, who would prefer to be someplace else other than in that culvert trap. (laughs)

Speaker: Well, there was no police anyway in town, just the- Interviewer: Yeah, I guess not. Speaker: If the town cop, he'd be busy someplace, or- Interviewer: Yeah.