And they said (coughs)- one lad asked the other, "You got any butter?" He said, "Yes." "Give Missus-so-and-so a pound and tell her to grease her arse and get off the line."

Speaker: My mom says funny sayings. Interviewer: Yeah? Speaker: That would- yeah. Like "Ass over tea kettle." Or something old-person-ish.

Speaker: A saucer. And it was made out of metal. Interviewer: Oh. Speaker: Now they make them out of plastic. Interviewer: Oh. Speaker: And this one was made out of stainless steel, eh. Interviewer: Oh my gosh. Speaker: And I went down the hill, went backwards and went "(non-lexical sound: pew!)" (laughs). (inc) ass over kettle. It just went- it ended up in the bush (laughs).

Speaker: The pontoon scraped the ice when we were taking off, if we had been another six inches lower- Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: We'd have been ass over tea kettle into the- (laughs) into the strait.

My parents were born in Northern-Ontario and ah they came to South-Porcupine in ninteen-thirty-six. Ah and um dad had a job in a ah assay office at the Panmore-Mine. And ah the Panmore-Mine at that time was ah ah mining very low grade ore, he was told not to bother buying a house because they expectancy of the mine was only about fourteen months.

Interviewer: Lead was also a big issue. Speaker: Yeah, I'm not sure ah what kind of fumes of- I guess lead gets burned off in the ah- Interviewer: Fire assay. Speaker: That- yeah and that's what he did first, was fire-assaying. Interviewer: Okay. Speaker: Well that's all he did then. And then ah he went back to ah Haileybury School of Mines and took a- a course in ah atomic absorption.

Speaker: Oh he was very proud of it. And he was very very clean, um and that was something that ah didn't meet with a lot of approval but he wa-- but by the way he was the first man to hire a women in the assay office. Interviewer: Oh really? Speaker: Yup. So she was the first gal- besides office work, but he was the- he was- he hired the first female.

Interviewer: So then ah you said that your- well your father was- I- I'm assuming was working at the- he- where did you say he was working? Speaker: He was assayer. Interviewer: Okay. He was- he was an assayer at the mine? Speaker: Yeah. Interviewer: Okay. I work in the assay lab actually. Speaker: Oh do you? Oh well he was the chief assayer at Panmore. Interviewer: Okay. Speaker: He'd gone to ah the Haileybury School of Mines.

Interviewer: ... but ah were you ever worried for your father and his work and the job that he did? Speaker: Just the year that um ah they tried to form unions. Interviewer: Oh okay. Speaker: And ah ah he wasn't management, he was the assistant assayer at the time. And ah they were two unions that were trying to organize. And one was known as, a red one, I think they called it. Um and it- it was a chance time and then there was the year of the strikes.

Speaker: Do you know when I first started working for the O-N-R, ah in fifty- nineteen (inc) I guess it would be about fifty-four, I was making more money than my father. Interviewer: Okay. Speaker: You-know? And he was the chief-assayer? Interviewer: Wow. Speaker: You-know when you think of comparisons. Interviewer: Right. Speaker: And I didn't know that until he did my income tax that year (laughs). And ah and you-know- and I was a high-school drop-out.

Interviewer: We still do use atomic-absorption machines though. Speaker: Mm-hm. But you're mainly doing fire-assaying. Interviewer: I don't do fire-assaying. Speaker: No no. But I meant is that the ah- Interviewer: Yes. Speaker: They (inc) Interviewer: It's- it's- it's one of the second last steps I think, actually.

Interviewer: Mm-hm. What kind of tools would be on a farm to do the kinds of jobs a farmer needed to do? Speaker: Mm, wire-pinchers, saws, handsaws, bucksaws, they got, and then- now there's swede-saws, I think, and cross-cut saws, and um, what else? Augers for digging po-- post holes for fencing. And um wire-stretchers and um-

Cleaning up, they put whatever they want- put a box on it, and they could clean up around the yard in the spring, any extra things were lying around. Or put in fencing material, and they'd go fencing. The auger for boring the post-holes, the s-- wire, a stretch of the wire itself. The hammers and everything-like-that.

And it was a half-a-dozen apartment type apartment building with some unusual architecture to it. It had a little uh cone-shaped section built out on one corner of it and it was a three level apartment building. It was kind-of fun. It had the old ah, ah auger electric power system, coal fire, hot water system and the- had a coal bin in- in the basement where ah they brought the fuel in and dumped it in the window and filled up this coal bin and- and then the heating had to be stoked and shoveled ...

Interviewer: So ice-fishing, that means you? Speaker: Make a hole in the ice. Interviewer: How would you do that? Speaker: With an auger. It's- it's a- it's a big thing that like this and it- you make it go around and it- it makes a hole in the ice.

Speaker: Yeah you see, especially with ambulance, you see some- some injuries of what other people are doing and that makes you think twice about some of the things you do. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Auger- Auger injuries are pretty- Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Pretty darn good- Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Degloving where it rips the skin right off and it wraps around an auger. That's-- Interviewer: A what? Speaker: Pretty much enough to keep you sober to not do something stupid- Interviewer: What's an auger? Interviewer: It's where they use like (inc) from the- the (inc). Interviewer: Oh no- Speaker: Yeah. Interviewer: And it like spins and- Speaker: So it wraps around there.

So usually it's easy at the time because you adrelenine is rushing and you're there helping the person, but it really sets in afterwards, like "Wow, geez, I- you know, I use an auger like that everyday on the farm. Geez, that could have been me." Or I think about times where "Oh geez, I've went underneath a ladder like that" or driven that stretch of highway or mooses jumped out on me before.

Speaker: And ah we had an auger there for drilling- well, they used to build fences. You see these- these fences with the pickets up them? Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Well they drilled the holes in them. Interviewer: Okay. Speaker: And we had a big machine there to drill them.

Yeah, the- the plate mill takes out some but not near as much. We l-- we always took out- weight out a pound less per hundred than took in and what moisture did go out the plate grinds for the plates got awfully hot. But yet they couldn't get out of the elevator so moisture pretty well but still it dries out some.

It took them a long time and many cups of tea. We had to provide a little kettle and tea pot so everything stops for tea you-know in England. They were awfully nice fellows, one of them sang in the choir for a while, while he was here.