Interviewer: So how do you check that there's no bees in the- that'll be a little scary, wouldn't it (laughs)? ... Speaker: Once they gets a couple of frosts, they're pretty well gone.

Interviewer: You just work all the time? Speaker: Pretty well, yeah, I work ah, during the winter from four in the morning 'til six at night.

Well this winter, yeah, when I was on propane, I started at four in the morning and worked 'til two in the afternoon on propane truck and then got on the other truck and worked 'til five or six. Then I come home and you were done- ... You were pretty well beat.

... I've never really heard stories about the Wilno ghost. Ah we didn't have a Barry's-Bay ghost. Ah any- any crazy spirits, they were pretty well alive in Barry's-Bay, they weren't dead.

... he read about fiddleheads which are the fern before it grows- goes up so then we got on to picking fiddleheads. So- and they come the same time as the leeks pretty well so you're out battling the mosquitoes again, and they were delicious too. They're sort of a cross between like an asparagus and- and the- the stalk of broccoli and yeah.

... I think kids generally were given more independence and more responsibilities, you-know when they got to be fifteen or sixteen. I mean s-- now kids work and they've got jobs and things, you-know? But ah I think at that time when you were sixteen you were pretty well considered an adult and you-know if you hadn't learned what you needed to learn by then well good luck to you, as the Kiwis say.

... like I say we went to Toronto to see the windows in Eaton's and Simpson's because it was, you-know, people didn't decorate now like they do. And we thought pretty well magic had landed. Christmas lights were on and they were all different colours. There was none of these, you-know, designer Christmas decorations. It was literally magic.

Speaker: I was born there but we moved to Combermere I don't know just when but- Interviewer: But you got your first memories in Combermere? Speaker: Yeah, pretty well.

Interviewer: So going back to- so when you were a bit younger, um, did you have any friends in the town? ... Speaker: Oh yeah. ... I knew pretty well everybody- ... There then, you-know? Now I don't know anybody that lives in Combermere. They're all new people.

My- my grandmother lived close to where we lived there, right beside the river so that was like a second home to me. I pretty well spent the whole summer there with my cousins.

Interviewer: Did you ever go out too early when the ice wasn't thick enough? Speaker: Ah, no. ... We, ah, pretty well listened when the older ones, you-know, said it wasn't safe. ... Nobody ever fell in anyway. (laughs)

She was ninety-one when she died, yeah. So I had her with me, to look after her, and- but she most-- she- ah, up to eighty-nine she was pretty-well at home, winter time I'd bring her to Renfrew to wherever I was because she- after my dad died, um, he- he was- he was going to be eighty-four when he died, and, ah- so I have a long history.

Yeah, we had about thirty to forty head of cattle. So that was a lot of cattle and ah we used to- the boys used to milk them once in the morning, used to get in the bush and bring the cattle home and then at night it was pretty-well, the girls would help with the- yeah but um yeah why my hands are so big, my hands are bigger from milking cows, yeah.

... after I left um Barry's-Bay and left school, I went to work in the city, I went to Kitchener and I worked there at different numerous places, ah pretty-well all factory jobs. And I had a job as- working at the first Swiss-Chalet in Waterloo. First ever, yes. I remember when I- they- I got called and ah and ah they said that after I'd learned you-know pretty-well all the- everything and all that I had to learn and ah that I would be a good candidate for management.

Interviewer: Are there any big snakes? Speaker: Um- some of them, not really big snakes pretty well all garter-snakes and we've had milk-snakes and copper-snakes, we find copper-snakes and they actually are poisonous.

Yeah and the weather is pretty well the same as what it was in Ottawa and- or Kitchener and ah- yeah, and even my siblings, they're all moving back like Martin lived in Kitchener, Robert lived in Kitchener, we all lived in Kitchener pretty well. And we've all pr-- well there's only two that are still in Kitchener ... Now everybody else moved back so (laughs) we're all coming back.

They're putting in so many preservatives and different garbage in our bread and our food. And it's so addictable. So I'd like to start making my own, yeah. Yeah and I do a lot of baking, ask Tymmerah. We pretty well have everything homemade unless I don't have time to bake it, then we usually-

... I can remember is how my mom when she put it all on the table, how she had cooked it to the browning part of it, that's what I went by so I knew that it wasn't burnt and I knew that it wasn't raw. So I just pretty well went by memory. And that's where I basically learned a lot of stuff is by memory, I remember the way she did it so I just- she just passed it on to me, she didn't even realize.

In- in like grade-nine, and- and we're- sor-- and when we were in elementary school, we would go there for like, our end-of-the-year field trip pretty well every year. ... Just go to- I-don't-know, few museums, or-something.

... if I phone, say a government agency, and I need some forms or-something, they'll say, "Well, just go to our website," like everything nowadays is so Web- Web-based, that you pretty well have to have access to it. And a lot of the areas here, we don't even have it in the outlying areas.