It's really scary. Yeah to- to- for- for anybody even with a right mind to- to suggest that's a good idea is- is scary. But that's pretty typical all over the States. And I have friends that lived in Sacramento and they lived in- in this neighbourhood that was um the- the suburbs and so it was all white, or ninety-nine percent white. Um and I asked "Why do you live there?" "Well, it's safer. It's cleaner."

And then you ge-- ah it 's- my kids when they moved to the States the first time, we lived Colorado, um, they were too young to really understand. Then we moved to Europe and they went ah to private British schools, where everybody glorified in their differences. Kids came from around the world and they're going to this school.

And David-L used to live up the street (inc) he was a writer for the Star and he certainly grew up in Toronto, uh so there's a number of people who 've come here from the-States live here, academics. You-know I think, it was quite an onrush of sh-- academics from the-States in the sixties, because- I mentioned before that big expansion that took place, I mean- and the small numbers of people who were in Canadian graduate schools (...) uh meant that they had to recruit outside of Canada, uh for the staffing.

Speaker: he said "To hell with this country" (big intake of breath)- Interviewer: uh-oh Speaker: and went to the States Interviewer: went to the States Speaker: and he did well. He had his own business in the States. Interviewer: and he s-- continued to- Speaker: He could do much better in the States- Interviewer: support your mother? Speaker: Oh he- I- always sent his pension-cheque that he got for fighting in the war, to my mother.

Five-dollars-a- week. That's all he gave me. That's all she gave me really. It was okay. I didn't mind that. I have a sister Mary who lived in the States and she had four or five kids, and- and that was okay but I got homesick for Toronto. I- my American cousins always had a lot more. There's no question they had a lot more.

Anyhow, eventually two of her- my mother's sisters married Americans and my brother was out in the States, my sister went to the States, and ah got all kinds of relatives in the States. Florida, California, Illinois, Michigan, but um a-- at some point-in-time, my grandfather and my grandmother went to Detroit to live with their eldest daughter and my grandmother died. I never knew her.

But he lived with us. But the grandmother, she's buried in the States. My father's father, I never knew. And ah, there's another aspect to that family.

Well, you used to have to have tokens and pay, like, pay like, little- little wee small little tokens. Like it wouldn-- maybe ten cents or something. Wasn't expensive. Not the way you pay- pay for in The-States you-know.

But it's amazing how quickly people do panic and how that- how that changes things really quickly sort-of the head- the mind-space. People you-know, the kind of talk that was going on in The-States. I have friends in The-States and they were just like- their vision of what was going on up here from the media was amazing. You-know it was like they thought we were all hiding in our houses with- you-know in some sort of suits.

Um, so yeah we did a lot of travelling and to The-States a little bit. Now more with my husband. He goes to see music in The-States and um, things that he can't see here, and I 've been to Europe quite a few times and-

Um, so Bob I think we 've been to- I mean he's been- and he was a Dead-Head before that you-know when- in high-school so he's been everywhere in The- States. Um, the bluegrass festival's in New-York state, we 've been down to Kentucky and Tennessee, around there to see Bob. Um, been to Oregon- when I was in Vancouver I went down there to- just to Seattle yeah.

There's so much better music festivals- so many better music festivals in the States than here. Although there's a bluegrass festival in Guelph that we're thinking this year we 'll go.

Oh yeah they're like anthemic here. I mean I have friends who 've seen them a long time ago so I don't know what they would be like now, in Buffalo and you-know, in the States in tiny little bars and you-know, people love them and they pack the bars but it's not even like, the size of the Horseshoe, you- know? So it's like crazy to see them here.

I mean I know bluegrass was a little bit alive in Toronto but it's not- like you go to the States. It's nothing, nothing.

Those poor Nova-Scotians, those poor Newfies walking into this city. (makes sounds) But overall, Toronto's a very electric place for the reason that because everybody in their head thinks "Okay here 's-". I mean, why go to The-States because of the overrun- problem with, you-know, poverty and, I mean, it's here too. It's just not exemplified. It's not amplified. It' s not magnified like it is in The-States because they're under a lot of scrutiny. The-States is not a bad place. They're not bad people. ... They 've just- you-know, their government has made a lot of wrong decisions and they're under scrutiny for it. But come on, walking in The-States, nobody there is nice?

... now the nob-- nobility- 'cause this guy um spoke- he spoke American or Canadian with no accent whatsoever, he had come- he had been living in the-States, this Count-so-and-so and they came back and actually were- he's been um able to recoup the castles that his family has owned- had owned, and the artwork. They're actually starting to get that back from the Communists and that.

Yeah, I have no desire to visit the States at all. Um, I 've been to New-York on three occasions in the last few years with a dear friend. He was actually my best-friend and he died of a heart-attack and he was only fourty-four

... I 've never looked up the family ah history very much. Now dad did get a book done one time, ah a family-tree thing. Um, some outfit in the-States I think was putting it together and it was- I don't know, he spent some reasonable money on getting them to assemble this information about our family and there was a book about so big, paperback book put together ...

... you-know if you go to a small airport for customs you book ahead and the guy wants to know who all's in the plane, the registration of it and they're interested in social-insurance-numbers, you must have your passport, they wanna know what your business is in the-States and how long you're gonna be t-- they ask you about the same questions as crossing the border, but they are ah wanting to make sure that- that ah some terrorist type people would be not slipping through their fingers right?

I, I like Toronto in many ways. I fucking hate the-States. I hate the U-S, especially after Fahrenheit nine-eleven. If you haven't seen it go see it.