Favourite Childhood Memories

Lets see.

Getting my Electric Train.

Getting my Mold Master.

Using Wendy’s Easy Bake Oven.

Getting my Red Tractor when I was two(That I still have)

Christmas in General

Phillip coming for a visit in the summer (we built the tree house together)

The sound of rain on the roof (I could sleep in, didn’t have to work)

Hiding in my tree house (having a smoke).

Building the tree house.

Learning to drive the tractor ( I was about 5 )

Going swimming at Joe and Jake’s

Going swimming at Edna and Cliff’s

Going swimming at Champlain park and a picnic too.

Going swimming at Pimsey Bay and a picnic too.

Going swimming at Lake Talon Dock

Going swimming at Greens camp on Lake Talon 

Going swimming at the Mawhiney’s cottage

Uncle Cliff passing out fire crackers at Mawhiney’s cottage

Uncle Jake marching out of the bush blowing his bag pipes at  Mawhiney’s cottage (bag pipes make me cry)

Going fishing in the Blue Sea Creek.

Watching Grandpa Smith carve a stock for a .22 rife barrel I found in the milk house loft. He convinced dad I was old enough to have the rifle when he was finished. Guess I was around 10.

Buster was with me every where I went on the farm. Our favorite past time was hunting ground hogs before and after I got the gun. (I miss Buster)

Some explanations.

Dad worked from sun up to sun down. So to get any time with him you had to work with him or for him. That is unless he was forced to take some time off for a picnic.

Bath day was on the week end. I was the dirtiest  so I got the bath water after all the girls had used it. If you went swimming at the lake you got to use nice clean fresh smelling water all of your own. Emmett had no bath tub so swimming was the only way to wash the chaff off.

The memory of the smell of Lilacs coming through my bed room window still makes me go out and steal some branches from somewhere every spring. This year it was the Kinsman’s park down town Saskatoon.

I had two little flocks of banty hens (around 10 each). One outside and one inside the hen house.For some real excitement I would put them all together and watch the roosters fight it out.

Favourite Meals

I guess it has to be Christmas dinner. When I lived in Rutherglen  dads brothers and sisters would invite us to their house and mom and dad would invite them to our house. Our cousins would be there too so it was pretty much the same gang but at different homes. It was pretty normal to have three or four Christmas dinners every year. The normal places too eat where our house , Aunt Joe and Uncle Jake’s house on Fisher Street in North Bay, Hazel and Chester’s farm next door and Edna and Cliff’s place on Lake Talon . As the years went by the gatherings became less frequent . When we moved to Timmins they became very different. They turned into crazy drives through snow storms between Timmins and North Bay . 

The meals were similar but different. Like Uncle cliff would make Swedish meat balls at Edna’s. The turkey was pretty much the same at all homes but the desserts , pickles , vegetables where all different. I don’t remeber them all but Rita makes a version of my mom’s Christmas dinner mixed with her mom’s Christmas dinner even now.  The turkey is the same, the pineapple Velveeta cheese salad is like my moms, mashed potatoes , gravy, carrots, turnips, cranberry sauce, stuffing, meat pie (tourtiere Rita’s moms), butter tarts, short bread, sugar cookies, ginger snaps, , . My mom used to make steam pudding (carrot pudding),pumpkin pie and apple pie .  Rita’s mom would sometimes have dinner rolls with hamburger in them or sugar pie.  Rita still uses Aunt Joes trick of grating the carrots for the beef barley soup so her barley soup is part her moms and part Aunt Joe’s but mostly Rita’s . Aunt Edna used to make this brown bread that was awesome. Aunt Hazel had home made mayonnaise with was awesome too. 

Besides Christmas dinner Rita makes home made beans just like my mom’s which I love (we had to get mom to make them while we watched and made notes). Rita’s corn chowder  started out like my moms but she changed it so its better than my moms. I love it.

Rita’s peas soup is awesome and she made up with her own recipe. I wrote down all these soup recipes for Joey, Darren and Amy.  Joey also wanted Rita’s Sicilian Meat Roll recipe. Rita’s cabbage rolls are really good too . Rita’s baked spaghetti is loved by the kids because its like what they used to have at the Granada in Powell River.

When we have turkey there is a whole series of meals that follow the turkey dinner. Day 2 is hot turkey sandwiches . Day 3 is turkey fried rice (like Rita’s moms). Day 4 is turkey/rice soup.

I guess my very favorite meal is meat loaf .

I will also drive a long way to get an Arby’s burger .

My mom used to cook for the threshing gang every year which was a big production . You had to feed 20 men with big appetites.  

I can remember helping her by adding hot chilly peppers to the stew . There was a lot of men coughing and clearing their throats before mom figured out what was going on.

The prize for best home made pickles goes to Doris Rose and her icicle pickles. I made her recipe once and boy was it a lot of work. 

So meat loaf with icicle pickles would make my day.

My Childhood Bedroom

My bedroom from when I can remember till we moved away from Rutherglen when I was 13 in 1967. It was on the second floor north-east corner of the old farm house. Part of the ceiling was slanted to match the roof of the house. It had one window facing east. Had bunk beds with wagon wheels on them on the North side. Had a tall dresser on the south-west corner. Book shelf on north-east corner. Closet with a door north-west corner. 

I can remember catching fire flies and letting them go in my room at night. I could go to sleep with flashing lights on the ceiling. The room had a steel grate in the floor that you could remove and look into the dining room below. Even hang your head down and look around. I had a stash in this hole for my tobacco , papers etc. Wendy ratted me out. 

The window was above a huge lilac bush and close to our two crab apple trees. In the spring the wind would blow the scent of the flowers into my room . I still love that smell , lilac mixed with apple blossoms. The sound of the bees collecting pollen on the lilacs and apple trees would wake me up in the morning.  

Most nights my stuffed dog Buster and his little friend Beary Wary would talk me and Wendy to sleep. Beary was always telling Buster what he should be doing. Buster was big but not that smart. 

In the winter I would wait for dad to light the wood stove before I got out of bed.

The rest of the year I couldn’t wait to get up, find my real dog Buster outside and go exploring. So much to do. Check the garden and flower beds to see how much the plants had grown over night. Try and find where the cats were hiding their kittens. See if there were any new calves born last night. Feed the chickens . See if any eggs hatched. Feed the pig. Feed the calves . Feed the cows. Make sure all the animals had clean water. Shovel shit. Many different types of shit. Some of if used in the garden. All of it used for something. When all of that was done we would head into the bush to chase rabbits and ground hogs. Maybe spy on the fox den to try and see the fox kittens. Maybe bring the gun with us. Watch out for skunks and porcupines. Buster had a deep hatred for these two animals. He always wanted to take revenge on them. He always lost the battle however.

My Hospital Adventures

Oh yes . I was there several times. I can remember four.  It was a 20 mile drive from Rutherglen to the Civic Hospital in North Bay Ontario.

Once for stitches on my right knee. Caused by a peace of glass on the ground and wearing short pants . 

Once to get a sliver ( it was very large ) removed from beside my right eye. Caused by following Buster under a spruce tree without paying attention.

Once to get a burn on my back bandaged up. Caused by reaching across the kitchen table and bumping moms arm that was carrying a pot of hot pea soup above me. I think she was passing it to dad. She had to change the bandage every day for a week or so. It hurt like hell.

The last time was for a month or so in 1959. I was 5 years old an very nearly died from this accident. The “hay track” in the cow barn came off its track and hit me on the top of my head. The hay track is a complicated bit of machinery that carries around 10 bales of hay up off the wagon to the top of the ceiling in the barn and then south along a track to the hay loft in the cow barn. You pull a rope on it to release its load when it gets over where you want it dropped.  The cable attached to it is pulled by the tractor and hand signals are used to tell the tractor driver when to stop. The day before it hit me. Mom had been the tractor driver and had been day dreaming while driving . She missed the hand signal from Emmett and ripped the hay track off the end of its rail. Emmett put me on the tractor instead of mom after that. Dad patched of the hay track to get it running again but didn’t put the two wooden end stops back on because he was in a hurry. He told me to stay out of the hay loft but as usual didn’t tell me why. This was pretty normal on the farm . I just knew that something up there could likely kill me and dad didn’t have time to explain it to me.  Grandpa, Emmett, Dad, Chester where all the same that way. To not obey them was foolish.

My cousin from the city came to visit me the next day and wanted to play in the hay loft . We had previously swing on a rope hanging from the hay track and coasted across the loft.

I tried  to tell my cousin that dad had said not to go up there but he was from the city and didn’t under stand that a farm is a dangerous place and you need to do what your told. He also was two years older then me so I thought he knew more than me. We went up into the loft and he climbed the ladder and pulled the hay track toward him. It came off the track and nearly hit him and fell past him and hit me. There was blood every where. My cousin asked me if I wanted him to stay with me or go and get my dad. I told him to go get dad. He left me there. After he left I started to get scared and decided to try and get to the house myself. My right arm was parallelized but my legs and left arm where working. The hardest part was climbing down the logs from the loft to the ground wirh one arm. I almost fell but managed to do it and ran to the house . Carol and Wendy were in the kitchen when I walked in.  (see their comments)

Mom , Dad and me all loaded into the International School Bus. Mom held my head together to help stop the bleeding. Dad had to stop for gas at Corbeil . I remember the

guy that filled it up wouldn’t take any money he just waved dad on. He phoned the police for us. They met us at the North Bay Hwy 11/17 intersection. We had an escort with sirens all the way to the Civic Hospital. Once we got there they pricked my finger to get a blood sample and I can remember dad asking why they did that since there was blood all over the place. I don’t remember much  until I woke up after the surgery. I can remember a nurse saying there was two doctors and one wanted to just sew me up but the other wanted to open the wound and clean it out. The second doctor won. Thank goodness. We kept me in the hallway close to the nurses station . I got three shots of antibiotic every day for a week or so. After that they moved me into a room with Robbie Fisher (can’t believe I remember his name). Robbie had a broken leg with a cast on it. He had some neat toys so I climbed into bed with him. Next thing I know me, Robbie and the toys are all on the floor. They sent me home the next day . I was too much trouble.

Found the bill for when I was born in the hospital.

Also the bills for my hernia operation when I was three years old. The hernia operation worked for 60 years . Just had the same thing done over in Jan 29 2024. Hope it holds for another 60 years.

WENDY’S ADDITION TO THIS MEMORY…

When this happened, I was 3.  This is likely my earliest memory. 

Our electric washer and dryer were in the kitchen, and over these were cupboards. Mom had mirrors on the inside doors so you could do the back of your hair, and see the back of your head in the opposite mirror.  I was sitting on the washer/dryer, looking in a mirror, towards the entry door to the kitchen, while Carol was doing my hair. 

Wayne came in the door crying and covered in blood.  I repeat – I was 3!  In my mind, Wayne’s head was falling off.  My memory was Wayne’s head to one side and he was trying to flop his head back on his neck.  There was blood everywhere.  It was traumatic.

CAROL’S ADDITION TO THIS MEMORY…

I remember this well.   I was in the kitchen with Wendy when Wayne came in with blood on his face.  He wanted to look in the mirrors and wondered if he would die.  I, being older and wiser, left him looking at himself and ran out the door to find help.  Mom was in the garden and I screamed for her to come quick.  Wayne says Randy went for Dad but I don’t really remember Dad coming in,  just them getting in the car to go to North Bay.  Mom had on a redish dress I think that had blood on it when they returned.  

I think Dad was low on gas for the trip to North Bay and had to go to McLarens store for gas and I believe they called the police who escorted them into town.  

I think this is true.

Music in My Life

In the beginning I tried to take piano lessons from Aunt Edna. This didn’t work out. I couldn’t sit still long enough. Music was all around me however when I was little. 

Uncle Emmett was an excellent fiddle player . He competed in fiddle contests in Mattawa and won a few. He also played at square dances . Its a shame he didn’t make use of this skill when he retired. I think he tried giving some lessons .I guess living in Rutherglen wasn’t a great place for a music teacher.

Elmo’s wife Marie was a fiddle player too. I heard her play in Alberta. She sounded a lot like Emmett , maybe they played together once upon a time. Elmo’s son Roy sang and played guitar (Roy sang a special song for his mom Marie, really well). Roy’s son Michael also sings and plays guitar. My Sister Wendy sings and plays guitar too. We all got together with Elmo’s children at Helgi’s farm close to Rimby in Alberta and made lots of noise.

Aunt Jo played the organ. She had two of them one at her cottage and one in North Bay. Uncle Jake played both the fiddle and the bag pipes . I heard them play together at their house in North Bay. They did  “A bicycle built for two” for me. It was beautiful.

We had a reunion once at the Mawhiney’s cottage. I saw Jake head into the bush with his gear not really paying much attention. Ten minutes latter this god awful noise came out of the bush and Jake marched out blowing his bag pipes. My kids had not experienced bag pipes before. Joey latched on to one of my legs and was hanging on for dear life. Not sure where Amy and Darren ran to. I had a good laugh. I still love the sound of bagpipes.

Aunt Edna played and taught piano.

Amy took piano lessons for a long time and got quite good at it.

For punishment we would send Joey to his room . It didn’t really work because he would happily play on his keyboard for hours. Joe can listen to an Eric Clapton rift and then play it on the guitar or mandolin. He tried the piano but got stage fright and froze up at his recital. He has a gift but doesn’t use it.

Me, I got my first guitar when I was ten . I now own six of them . I keep one at Amy’s and another at Joeys so I don’t have to fly with a guitar . I just have to bring my Harmonicas . I have a full set of harps and can play a lot of cover songs. Mostly Dylan, Petty, Neil, The Band, Ozark …Since my ears have been failing I haven’t been playing to much. Maybe I’ll figure something out and start playing again. I need some electronic ears that sound real.

Darren played lead guitar and was the song writer for the band “Oldbury” . Their music has all original . They played many gigs in Alberta. They opened for the Trews in front of 10,000 fans.

They also opened for Wide Mouth Mason, 54/40 , Trooper, Our Lady Peace. They tried real hard but didn’t quite make it. Darren has more guitars than me. Darren also played harp for Sonny Rhodes

My brother-in-law Tony Moeller , his son Mike  and I played a lot of guitar in Bracebridge and Baysville . Sometimes all night long. Drank many beers too. 

For Rita’s 60th birthday we got together in Bracebridge at my house (40 Kevin Cres.) . On guitars we had me, Tony, Mike, Wendy, On fake-drums we had Wendy’s husband Lorne ( Lorne Grossman is a professional percussionist. he played for Cats, Phantom of the Opera)  

So music has had a huge impact on my life and I hope it continues to. 

I suspect my granny Smith played piano but I never heard her . Somebody had to teach dads sisters to play.

I seem to member my sister Carol taking piano lessons from Aunt Edna.

I believe Uncle Jake’s sons , Keith and Dave Buchanan both play the bagpipes and I suspect they have passed the tradition of scaring little children on to their own children (Andrew, Jorden,…)

Childhood Moves

Yes we moved in 1968. I Was 13 and living in Rutherglen ,Ontario GPS co-ordinates 46.256409, -79.080538.

Dad and his brother Emmett ran 400 acres as partners . Dad also drove school bus to make ends meet.

Dad slipped a disk in his back throwing hay ,around the summer of 1966. The building they where putting the hay into was an old brick school house. It was never intended to store hay in . The windows where too small and too high off the ground. They should have knocked a bigger hole in the school house. It was difficult to throw a 50lb bale up and through the little window. I was watching dad when it happened. Emmett was on the inside where it was hotter .

Dad managed to get a job  as a custodian at a hospital in North Bay. Mom ,Emmett and me tried to keep the farm going but dad hadn’t taught me everything and Mom and Emmett where poor teachers. I was missing plowing and mowing , two of the more dangerous tasks. Mom never really wanted to be a farmer and Emmett would rather play the fiddle.

Dad got a better job in Porcupine as a 4th class stationary engineer. It was at the mental hospital there.

The farm was sold but all the animals were sold first. The horses had been sold already and Buster the dog got sick and had to be put down. I can remember the cows and calves being loaded into a big truck and taken off to auction.  These animals had all been my friends for 13 years so it was sad to see them all go. I remember how silent it was when they were gone. 

Dad sold his half of the equipment to Emmett.  

A Two furrow plough, disc harrow, tooth harrow, haymower, new holland rake, new holland baler, Otaco wagon, binder, Renfrew Scale, 2 Tractors(Cockshutt 20, Massey Harris 22)  . (Otaco Orillia Tudhope Anderson Company, a lot of the equipment was Otaco). Dad sold the manure spreader to somebody else because Emmett had no animals.

I remember dad sold the piano for $50 . After it was loaded the guy that bought it came over to dad and asked him what was really wrong with it . Dad didn’t know what to say, he just said nothings wrong with it.

Dad had rented a house at 226 Duke street in Porcupine ,where we stayed for a year while our house at 220 Queen street was being built.

Dad had sold the farm for $14,000 . The new house was $25,000.

I was with dad when he went to the bank to get a loan for  the $6000 .  I stayed outside in the car. He came out of the bank very angry . He said they wanted him to put up his car as collateral too. He said they weren’t going to take his car too. Dad went back to Rutherglen and borrowed the money from his Mason friends there. The mason’s helped dad a lot through this whole mess.

To me Porcupine was the big city. I missed all the animals and a lot of other things. The freedom to build what ever you want with out a bunch of inspectors telling you what to do. You could park your truck and trailer where ever you wanted. Room for a dog to run free and case rabbits. Go for a walk without getting into a fight. See the milky way at night . Smell new mowed hay. Catch fire flys at night. Here the sounds of silence. Wave at everybody that you meet on the road. Go hunting deer in your own back yard (without a license). Try out all the excellent home cooking at the neighbors homes during trashing or haying (I still make my own pickles).

Emmett gave up farming after dad moved away, he couldn’t do it by himself.

I almost forgot. Part of the move was 5 gallons of Potato Champagne that I had made and buried behind the play house. I dug it up and hid it in the trunk of the 1962 Pontiac for the trip to Porcupine. Half way to Porcupine the Pontiac hit a pot hole and I heard a cork pop in the trunk. Shortly there after the interior of the car filled with the wonderful smell of a gallon of Potato Champagne. Dad pulled the car over and found most of my stash in the trunk. He wasn’t too impressed. Dad didn’t find the six bottles I had hidden my suit case.

Christmases

The best Christmas we had was when I rented the chalet on Sylvan Lake in Alberta. But I already told that story.

Most Christmas’s we managed to get together some where.

Red Deer , Bentwood Bay, Saskatoon . It depends a lot on the weather . Last year 2023 was great there was no snow believe it or not. We drove to Red Deer no problem. I can remember when we lived in Blind River we would load the kids into the car and head for Timmins then load them up again and head from Timmins to North Bay.  I did not look forward to this drive because the weather was always bad. We stopped doing this in Blind River and stayed home and had a wonderful Christmas with who ever was brave enough to make the trip to Blind River to see us.

When I was a kid in the 60’s we would go to Dads brother/sisters houses Aunt Edna or Aunt Joe or Aunt Hazel or mom would have them all over to our house. Emmett, Chester, Jake, Cliff too  . Elmo’s kids where usually there too Roy and Marian Smith , Alice and Kenny Mclaren . Grandpa would be there too. The Mawhineys. The Buchanans. It was possible to have four Christmas dinners every year.

Christmas was a big deal and a lot of fun. The house was full 

of relatives . Some we hadn’t seen since last Christmas. The food was unreal . Rita still makes moms pineapple,Velveeta cheese salad at Christmas. Uncle Cliff would make his Swedish meatballs.

If you went to see the Christmas parade in North Bay you could see Uncle Jake go marching by blowing his bag pipes. Dressed in his Buchanan plaid Kilt.

Uncle Jake worked for Boart Long Year drilling. Aunt Jo and him  would take Wendy and I to the Longyear Christmas party instead of Keith and David when they got too old.  (Aunt Jo always had my back. She sent me $50 every month I was in University. I still love the sound of Bagpipes but they make see cry now).

Pets I Had

I grew up on a farm so my world was full of animals.

Not many were considered pets however ,even my dog Buster had a job to do . We had 1 dog, 13 cats , 20 cows , 1 bull, 2 horses , 50 chickens , 1 rooster, 20 sheep and  1 pig.

Busters was the same age as me and was sort of my brother. He was a white and orange border coley(Heinz 57) .His job was to bark like crazy if any wild animals came around . He saved my life once by attacking the bull so I could run away. I cried a lot when he died. He  died of old age when we were 13 years old.

The cats job was to kill the mice and rats that were eating our grain and vegetables. We never fed them so they were always hungry. They might get a dish of milk when we milked the cows.

I had around 20 banty chickens that I looked after . You could eat the eggs but they where really just pets I guess.

With all these animals around I was never lonely and could always find something to do .

Trying to find where the kittens were hidden every spring was fun. 

Looking after the calves has a big job but was fun too.

Watching the city people mooing at the cows was funny too.

You never made friends with the pig cause he only lived for one year.

Favourite Scouting Memory

With out a doubt it was CJ97.

Thanks to the support from companies like Esso , Flint , etc. in Whitecourt we raised $30,000 selling sand bags to the oil patch. We rented a grey hound bus and sold the empty seats to other scout troops (Kitscotty , Marthorp ) . We took 30 kids from Whitecourt.

The Jamboree went off without a hitch thanks to the premium planning by scouters and Thunder Bay city officials, and countless helping citizens. Over 13,000 scouts, parents, volunteers, and leaders made this event into one that is still remembered fondly today, and showed why Scouting is the largest youth movement in the world.

see the video.

Darren went to CJ93 too. Not many scouts get to go to two CJ’s.

CJ93 was in Kananaskis Alberta . I took my cub troop there for a day visit. A scout troop from NewfoundLand was our host.

12,000 attended . Darren had a great time there. video.

(Originally posted by Wayne in Storyworth, 2023)

My Children

Start with Amy .. watching her  and her friends jumping around in the wreck room dancing to “Girls Just Want to have Fun”.

Joey .. Having the doctor wrap his whole head in a bandage after he burned his face with gun powder in Powell River. Thank god he had his glasses on. He went trick or treating with the bandage on that night. He didn’t really need the bandage. It was a joke between me and the doctor. 

Darren .. tracking him down at CJ93 in Kananaskis Alberta. It took me a while to find him. He was having so much fun there. He just asked me for some money and turned around and went back to the activities.

We had many great times together. Mostly camping , scouting , hiking etc.

(Originally posted by Wayne in Storyworth, 2023)

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