You had no clue. You had to go by what you were told right. And a lot of people would call up and say "oh on the corner of such-and-such by the general store". Well, where exactly? You-know? So.

Interviewer: Like how do they reach everybody? Speaker: Um through a pager now. Before it used to be by a phone and we used to have one in our house and it would ring a different ring and somebody would be on the other end going, "there's a fire in such-and-such a place" and half the time you wouldn't know exactly where that was 'cause- like now you have numbers, you have a specific place where to go and back then you didn't. You had no clue. You had to go by what you were told right.

... and the worst part is I'm getting old enough now sometimes you- you even- you don't even recognise the name now. It's sad to say. Didn't think that'd ever happen but. There's a few times that people have mentioned such and such and you're just like "Who?" Half of the time you start to get to that point where ah I'll have to take the yearbook (INC) (laughs).

And it was always amazing, 'cause we were still working you-know on word-families, and putting a sentence together, and- and-so-on, and ah but I always thought that was funny. "Why isn't my child reading such and such yet?" "Well you-know they're- they will but" so, anyway, that's ah- I always thought grade-one was the- a huge responsibility. But I al-- I loved it. And it was the grade of the greatest growth.

Um, until recently he worked as a program supervisor. So when the government would implement new programs and policies and-whatever, he would be in charge of seeing where the money goes and that is being used to do such-and-such. Um, since then, the last couple of years, he's been a senior-policy-advisor. He works in Toronto.

... I don't know whether you're county western or not but she's strictly Nashville, one of the top ones, and since she was coming to Watertown on such-and-such a date, so we got home and got thinking about it, and we got the phone number and-everything, so we phoned and we got tickets for it, and you-know I don't know how many years we were down there ...

Speaker: So he died of asphyxiation and suffocation through drowning. Interviewer: And that's what it says on the certificate. Speaker: That's what it says. And he was forty-four years old. We didn't realized he was that young. I mean you put down dates you-know, he was born such and such year, he died such and such year, a lot of the times you really don't kick in on what that involve ...

And ah you could put a coat of paint on a- on a table and he could kno-- knock on the table and say, ah "That's a piece of maple." Or, "That's a piece of oak." Or such-and-such. He just had that knowledge of the sounds of wood and-so-on that he- he could ah mostly identify pretty-well any piece of painted furniture.

And you hear- you heard stories about kids that are- are a little rebel-- bellious I'd call it, and having one of the teachers at the school two months later tell ya, "You-know, you remember giving a terrific kids award to such-and-such. You-know this ah child doesn't swear anymore, he's brought me homework in for the first time in a year-and-a-half, he's the first one to help me in- in the classroom and in the playground."

Speaker: ... to knit something, she waited until she got married and moved over to Perry-Sound, and then she'd call me on the telephone, long-distance and say "Mom, it says um-" Well how am I suppose to explain this long-distance, over telephone line. (laughs) How you suppose to do such-and-such. Why- Interviewer: Especially (inc). Speaker: Why- why did you wait until now to find out that you wanted to knit something? Why didn't you do it when you were here where I could have showed you what to do here, you-know. Um (laughs)

Exactly, would have brought more of the ah- yeah, that's it, you-know like the enrichment that you guys needed and deserved- (laughs) your hands are tied when they give you all that stuff that you've got to cover by the end of such and such. You have no chance of diverting and making minds open even further than what they possibly could.

... they would be questions or they would be whatever and it would have inverted clauses in them and we would have to pick out- and for every word we would have to tell exactly what it was like um, 'the' is the definite article marking the noun such-and-such, you-know. We'd have to write it out so it would take a long time to do, right? It would keep us busy for ages. But I loved it, like I loved that type-of-thing.

Speaker: She kept ah- she was very um- she was very good because she- she kept like a- Interviewer: A diary. Speaker: A diary. She would know, okay, so so-and-so really likes such-and-such a meal or they like- Interviewer: Wow. Speaker: This or they don't like that. Like she was really ah, very good um at- at hosting these co-- you-know, people.

I have a car but I-mean I walk mostly and they- they say, "Oh June when you're going out if you see anybody's got such-and-such out, give me a call." And I do it. And you-know like it's because you can and you and you- that's what it's all about. Um when y-- something goes wrong, the people in Kirkland-Lake are really good about supporting you too.

... candle I'd put it in the drawer and- and have it so that I would take it out at special times. And I never got to take it out because you-know you were too busy or-whatever you- "Oh I should have used that. I should've used that such-and-such time" or a sweater, anything that was just special. I would have it for a whole year before I would use it. I don't do that anymore. I've come- come to that realization that you're not gonna live forever. So you'd better use what you have.

... an incentive to stay here to be a doctor. This is from what I've heard so I'm not going to say it's a concrete number but just more of an incentive to say like "Okay if you come out to this area, we're going to give you such and such money to stay in this area and build and grow your demographics and-"

Um, we got a magazine and ah it was called ah Countrymen, Canadian-Countrymen, it was a farm magazine, and they had ah a ladies' section in it, and people wrote in and say, "Have you got a recipe for such and such?" or "I read this really good book," or- or whatever, and it was a letter from this lady an she was looking for people to write to her, a young farm woman who would write to her, so I wrote to her.

... they made me kneel in front of the- the statue of the blessed mother there and cross myself and I was not Catholic and they warned me all of these things, "If you don't do this, you're going to die before you're such and such an age" and- ... They used to put the fear of the Lord in his (laughs)-

Speaker: W-- were grabbing the fire-clothes and so they were- and so if they found- if they found that- like they all had their name-tags and badge on it, right? And so they'd all have two or three suits, right? Interviewer: Right. Speaker: And so they were notifying family members that such-and-such p-- passed in the- in the- in the rescue efforts but it wouldn't be them (laughs).

You- like you have to have a suit. And if you get- sometimes (laughs) if you forget what suit your partner has, you can lose. And that's what I'd- I'd get- I'd get to- Interviewer: (Laughs) Speaker: I get to- I get thinking, "Oh he's such and such-" Interviewer: (inc) trump. Speaker: Yeah for it's trump and then you'd get- yeah, and you'd lose. But my father was terrible at- because he played it in the woods. He would play Rummy with us and he um ah he would beat us ...