Interviewer: Did you motorcycle a lot? Did you travel that way as well? Speaker: Yes. We went to the east coast two or three times. Went down into The-States, not too far down into The-States. We went to Newfoundland on a motorcycle and-that. Yeah we traveled every- every summer.

... and I don't think that- I don't think leaving Belleville makes much sense. It's a beautiful city, it's- it's well located, as far as being in-between major centres. You're talking Toronto, or Ottawa or Montreal even. You-know, if you need to go into The-States, it's fairly close to The-States. And it's ah- it's growing up on its own rite with ah- you-know, we've just got a theatre downtown called the Empire-Theatre, and it affords a lot of cultural opportunities for- for those that live in Belleville ...

And now she's back in Belleville, like we're all living together again, and um, I used to do a lot of traveling, like down to the States, but nothing so much inside of Canada more so Ontario.

Ah Mick's in- He was- he was born actually in Canada, but he lived in The-States because his father- brother James all went down to Los-Angeles, he was a contractor- I think he did a lot of the work in the- on the- in the ah- ah the airport down there, but Mick was Canadian he came up and joined the forces up here ...

We would bring in ah small appliances by the car-load, train-load from The-States. You-know Dormar-Food-Mixers and-all-that-kind-of-thing and swing away can-openers and- it was interesting, but it wasn't really what I wanted to do.

Well, I took his job and we worked, I worked at the gas company for twenty-seven years, working on street lighting, house lighting, cooking. That's all, there was no electricity in them days, no even not for domestic use nor lighting.

They found it would be better for me not to take any chances then so I was pensioned off, old-age pensions, it was no unemployment insurance no nothing in them days. You just took what was offered and what you got for it, you got for it. However, I must say I put in twenty-five years, not in the gas company, but in the water-works.

Well, all I got was ten dollars a week. you remember ten dollars a week. Not a month, not a day, not an hour. Of-course everything was quite cheap then. You could go and get potatoes and everything almost, you could barter your own price in them days. But, the rent, you'd have to add that on or out you go.

They were different boats, hired for the occasion and they used to take us up to the twelve o'clock point. That used to be a great picnics ground in them days. They had an old steel merry-go-round and lots of old-fashioned amusements 'cause we had always been used to where we came from everything was modern. Electric merry-go-rounds, and lights.

But I was telling you the amusing part this was they didn't know what to shut the gas off, where they could smell it and of-course he had been done before and the basement was full of cowbells and not having flashlight in them days he showed me the way to go where the meter was and there was a big flash that's all I ever saw and I didn't see that man for a week afterward.

Well we went right through and we had the same trouble there. We didn't have no flashlights in them days. Well, I said, "I better not strike a match," well anyway he lit the match and we fell over and as he got under the other place the pockets up in between the rafters had got a lot of gas and I wonder we weren't both blinded ...

One Scots-fellow answered him in French, that's how they got up, when he got up close to him he just grabbed him and chucked him over. You-know a Scots them days spoke French and still you-know, them wealthier class in Scotland speak French. It seems to be a rule over there, girls used to go over to France for to spend six months learning French.

I don't know what the reason for because when a Scotsman get old enough he strikes out for somewhere else so he's got to figure out where he's going. Either Africa, and awful lot used to go to Africa, the British colonies and them days and India. But they used to get in the civil service in Africa you-see.

He had a cold storage and he made the money in the first war. When dies they said he was worth six-and-a-half million dollars, that was a lot in them days. He died in the nineteen-thirties when I went here, shortly before I went there. And his sons you-see, they were lawyers you-know, (inc) was a farmer. But they were very long-headed people.

Interviewer: And did you have to pay your room and board out of that? Speaker: You got a house and milk and things like that. A hundred was the highest it went at the (inc)'s and we had to pay income tax out of that too you-know. Them days you-see, income tax started very early now you get about sixty dollars a week.

We went to the McCarthy-Theatre in Belleville a lot and the Belle. They were the town main theatres in Belleville. They're shut now I think you-know. We used to always go down there and watch all them shows. There was good shows put on in Belleville theatre them days.

And then the older people started to go too and they began to like it. Charlie-Chaplin came on then. Oh and the older women went too and they were, the first thing you-know they were all going. It was cheap them days. You could get, kids could get in for six cents and the older people could get in for a dime you-know. Oh it was very reasonable them days, that was a-way back you-know in olden times.

Speaker 2: If people didn't have twenty cents they had a nickel and they could buy five cigarettes anyways. Most farmers of the day chewed tobacco and a lot of factory workers. Chewing tobacco was a big- Speaker: In them days Speaker 2: Like Napoleon. Used to buy that in five-pound wooden boxes. packed all in that, sealed up in wooden cases, five pounds to a package, all in plugs of-course. I think in those days it sold for ten cents a plug you-see. Interviewer: How long would a plug last

Cause it's so wonderful y-- you-know you're going to pick something up and you run into someone and you have a little chit-chat find out how things are going in their life and you round the next aisle and oh there's somebody else that you know and you talk to them for a little bit and then you get to the cash register and you know the lady behind the till and- you-know it's just- I think it's- ah the- it's very- I- I feel from my perspective that it's a very connected community, from my perspective.

Speaker: And I got in kaka one day because it was in the wintertime and we were horsing around and we got throwing snowballs, and I was throwing snowballs over at the girls. And I got- Interviewer: So how bad was the kaka? Speaker: Oh not bad, I ah- I never did get the strap. This was back in the strap days. Interviewer: All of those years. Speaker: I went to school in the strap days, I never got the strap so I wasn't that bad a guy really. (laughs) I never got the strap but I did- that w-- I can remember that ah I can remember that.