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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,…)

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.

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).

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.

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)

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)

Dad was a farmer who quit farming when he was 50 because he hurt his back. To go from farming to being an hourly paid employee took a lot of courage. With some help from his friends he pulled it off. 

One of dads sayings was “If you can’t say anything good about somebody don’t say anything at all” .

Dad was a past master of the Mattawa Masonic Lodge 268.

Much of what dad did was because he was a Mason. I know they helped many people that were in trouble.

Dad was a supporter of the United church , did some road work for the Town Ship of Bonfield and drove a school bus.

Another saying of dad’s was “Damn the Luck”. I heard him say this when the baler (or something)  broke down and when he found out he had leukemia. I miss him.

(Originally posted by Wayne in Storyworth, 2023)

Helmcken Falls, in Wells Grey Provincial Park in BC. 

Desolation Sound Marine Park , Lund , BC.

I’ve been to Europe , Australia , Arizona  all over Canada but the two above are pretty unbelievable.

To see Wells Grey properly you need a canoe and tent . You can see the falls with a car but not the volcanoes and true wilderness of the park . 

Candle Lake Sask .. Northern Lights

Candle Lake Sask .. 50 teenage Canada Geese with 5 mothers all in one flock on the beach. The mothers were watching me very carefully but they did not run away. I just backed away slowly.

The Grand Canyon .. hard to believe.

Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick. watch the tide go out or in.

Lake Elsbeth on the Gibson Lake road in Timmins.

(Originally written by Wayne in Storyworth, 2023)

What was my mom like? My mom was awesome.

She always had my back . Even made my sisters angry because she spoiled me so much.  She was a city girl who had to become a farmers wife and she did most things better than the farm girls like. Knitting , CREWEL EMBROIDERY, CROCHET, QUILTING , SMOCKING , she made shirts and pants too. I learned knitting , embroidery and sewing from her. She was into many crafts too like copper tooling, paint by numbers.

Mom was a leader / member of the 4H , UCW(United Church Women) and WI(Women’s Institute) .

Mom taught me a lot about making preservers , pickles and cooking in general. As a kid I was her helper in the kitchen. She was an unreal cook. When I went to university I did the cooking and the other guys did the cleaning , there was four of us. After I got married Rita banned me from the kitchen.

Moms love of flowers and things that grow is still with me today. We had a big garden on the farm .

Mom won a lot of prizes at the fall fair in Bonfield and used the money to buy her cherished china that Amy and Meghan now has.

Some farm things she did but wasn’t that great at like milking cows, shoveling manure, driving tractors .  She always sang out of key.

(Originally posted to Storyworth in 2023)

A drink of iced water. When doing hard work like loading and unloading wagons full of hay-bales on a hot summers day there’s nothing better.

Camping . watching the fire burn and tending it. Going for a bike ride through the camp ground. Meeting different people at the camp ground. They all seem to have interesting stories about why they are at the camp ground. Like: just got divorced. Looking for a job in Alberta (They were from New Brunswick). Installing wind turbines in the summer and living in Florida in the winter.

Watching the wild life .  The rabbits and prairie dogs hide in the camp ground to avoid the coyotes. Teasing the squirrels. Making poogy pies on the fire. Fishing at Carson Pegasus Park in Alberta.

Hiking when Rita was able. She drives around on her scooter now.

Driving across Canada  and finding interesting places to feast like “Bills sticky fingers” in Portage La Praire Manitoba. (Best ribs in Canada). 

Trans Canada Motel in Dryden Ontario. Fried Baloney and Corn Chowder (was owned by two new-fees but I think it burned down. I miss it).

“The Sub Place” in North Bay Ontario (the best roast chicken subs in Canada).

Andrea’s in Bracebridge Ontario (real Spanish coffee and beef tenderloin stroganoff)

“The Green Gables” in Whitecourt Alberta (best prime rib in Canada, owner was a butcher )

The Granada in Powell River BC (Baked spaghetti )

The White Fox Inn, Thunderbay (spent our anniversary there)

Saskatoon has many great restaurants too like The Granary, Mano’s , Arby’s,  to name a few.

(Originally written and posted to Wayne’s Storyworth in 2023)