So I bring it up to the teacher and said "Miss, look what I found." And the teacher flipped out! And she told me I was going to die, pretty much. Or at least that's the way it felt like 'cause she was flipping shit. So here I was thinking I was going to die. Then just turns out I was okay.

Racoon-tail hat? Like it was either Eatons or The- Bay but it sold two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand of these flipping hats.

So I'm flipping through, and I'm always looking for stuff.

It came in on the phone lines and it blew the flipping phone completely off the wall and then w-- wet the ground under the old cistern pump.

Speaker: Well I never- never went up the river at all, see much about it, but I used to draw wood from the edge of it. I just had to pull off of the- do-you-see? And that's where they couldn't get a carter for, and I could make good money out of it. They weren't stinging at all. Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: Sticking. Interviewer: How did they get the wood there? Speaker: Ah- w-- h-- well, it floated down, do-you-see. Interviewer: Uh-huh, from where? Speaker: Ah, all up along the river, do-you-see, where they were cutting wood and-everything. There were all full of woodlands up there. Interviewer: Uh-huh. Speaker: Big mills and-everything. Interviewer: How would they get it down the river? How would they float it down? Speaker: It would float down itself with the high water. Interviewer: Just- did they tie them up? Or- Speaker: No no, ju-- just- just floatwood. And they got it for nothing. Interviewer: Oh yeah. Speaker: Float in there at the shore, do-you-see, and come d-- down an awful lot of a- stuff between logs, do-you-see, coming down. And then when they took the logs out of the water, they were all free. Oh, you know, when there's- when they were in Arnprior.

Interviewer: ...we still manage pretty well with the two people on the on the cleaning end. Speaker: Yes, it is surprising. I wouldn’t just taking a look at it I was a bit floored at first. Interviewer: I guess that the thing it’s a very large house but it doesn’t have that many rooms when you get inside it.

So anyway I was getting so pissed after a while so I went back to the guy who was like, the serious drug-dealer at Earl-Haig at the time who was friends with us, which is awesome, and I was like, "Listen this is not cool. It 's like prom-night you-know. I have to be fucked. It 's not even cool." So- and he was messed by that time so he 's like, "Ah, sure whatever," and he gave me another one. So I took half of that. So now this is the equivalent of taking like three caps of E. And I took half of that. So I 'm wandering around and I think I stepped over onto the balcony like maybe half-an-hour later and it hit me like a double-barrel-shotgun to the face. Okay? It was like "Blam! Holy-fuck!" And I was floored after that.

Yeah, 'cause there were like fighter-jets flying over New-York-City, you-know, and that, it shows you just the scope of what happened. One of the things that floored me most was they made every flight all around the world land.

I started to question myself thinking, "How do you know? You- these people apparently were normal decent ever-- and all of a sudden they turned on their neighbour," which totally floored me, "and today sometimes-" Oh I believe it would be no different. We 're- we 're very complicated.

Speaker: But when you go with somebody else, they have all these other foibles that are strange. Interviewer: (Laughs) I know. We didn't know each other before we came on this trip. And there's four of us in one hotel room

Wasn’t it, slow trip, she was the first converted, she had been a towbard and was converted to a diesel vessel called a cross. The only steam she had on her was a little small boiler for to use for to operate the steering gear. The rest of it was all diesel, not just electric.

Well we didn’t have the tools that we have today cause we didn’t have the ceramic stuff to work with that we have today, like plastics and one thing and another, like that. We just had, all we had was more or less chisels and some bits, brace, framing square, hand saw, rib saw, key hole saw, level, that just about covered our tools that we had. Other than our shops. In our shop we had all wooden planes for to make moulds out of, wooden moulding planes.

The cement jobs that you speak of, wasn’t cement at all, it was lime that we used. They dug a hole in the fall of the year and a man would slack the stone lime and pile it into the pit and then when he got the pit full, cover it up and that was our mortar for the next year for to build our stone walls with.

Well the slacking, you piled the limestone after it’s burnt into a big box and cover it with water and let it boil and let it boil until it uses up all the water and then in the morning it will be nothing but just a whole bed of cream in the bottom of the box. And that’s shoveled from there into the pit and then for to make our mortar for our plaster that had to be mixed with sand and then take hair and mix it in it for a bond before it was plaster, use it for plaster.

Some worked as just as labourers but I kind of struck out on a different angle. I went out for to do everything, brickwork, and cement finishing, fitting the forms for myself and doing curbs and sidewalks.

Both times, they were all wooden jams to begin with and then they came out with aluminum. Put the wood jams in and then the aluminum casings went in for to, for the glass to set against.

You had three dials instead of one dial, and you had to set the three dials for to get the frequency to come properly on the radio. But it was good music. You never was without company in those days when you got a radio.

Interviewer: What would you have with you when you came to a job then in a tool box? Speaker: Well you'd have your saws and you'd have your planes, you'd have your drills, see. Brace and bits and you'd have your squares and your hand axe, see. And ah your claw-bar of course, see. And ah- it depend upon the ah you'd have a plugging chisel maybe if you were going onto a job where you were going to have to strap a wall and ah- for to put the wallboard on or-anything-like-that see.

I remember R.J. Graham. We rented from him you see, he owned the building down there. And I said, "I guess we came to Belleville at the wrong, started at the wrong time." He said "no," he said, "this is going to be a long, long depression," he says, "and it’s a good time to start in because you're taught, and you know how to save for to get along." But I didn’t agree with him. I thought still it was foolishness, but there was nothing to do we had to go on. So I had to cut down expenses.

But, it's a beautiful old bible and I told him I'd give him the little ah food chopper. I use it just for to grind nuts now.