Shaun Newman Podcast - SNP Archives #11 - Author Ann Campbell

Episode Date: January 6, 2021

Breast cancer survivor, battled depression & anxitety, author (4 childrens books), musician , wife & mother of 3. Oh and community pillar! What did you think? Text me! 587-217-8500

Hi, this is Braden Holby. Hey, this is Tanner, the Bulldozer Bozer. Hi, this is Brian Burke from Toronto, Ontario. This is Daryl Sutterin. Hello, everyone. I'm Carlyagro from SportsNet Central. This is Jay On Right. This is quick dick, quick dick coming to you from Tuffman, Saskatchew. Hey, everybody, my name is Theo Fleary.

This is Kelly Rudy. This is Corey Krause. This is Wade Redden. This is Jordan Tutu. My name is Jim Patterson. Hey, it's Ron McLean, Hockeynet in Canada and Rogers' Hometown Hockey. And welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks.

We got SMP archive episodes back running for 2021. Every second Wednesday is going to be a local community member, their story, their life story here in Lloydminster, the surrounding area. And we're going to have them coming out every second Wednesday here for all of 2021. Really excited, you know, to hear your guys' take on some of the stories that are going to be. slowly shared. Today's is a while back. You know, in the beginning when we first started this, I wasn't sure where this was going. And we picked 10 and went from there. And now with the success

in 2020, what we've done is we're going to do them chronologically. So Anne Campbell today was the first one we did back in April. And we're just going to release them as they were recorded so you guys can kind of listen along to the archive episodes and I'm excited this is going back that you know April isn't that long ago but geez in this year it certainly feels like a lifetime ago and excited for you guys to hear this and hear what your thoughts are but before we get to that let's get to today's episode sponsors Jen Gilbert and team want you know for over 40 years since 1976, the dedicated realtors of Coldwell Bankers, Cityside Realty, have served Lloyd Minster in the surrounding area.

They're passionate about our community, and they pride themselves on giving back through volunteer opportunities and partnerships as often as they can. They know that home is truly where awesomeness happens. Coldwell Bankers, Cityside Realty for everything real estate, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Give Ms. Jan a call 780-875-33443. HSI group, they are the local oil field burners and combustion experts that can help make sure you have a compliance system working for you. The team also offers security, surveillance, and automation products for residential, commercial, livestock, and agricultural applications.

They use technology to give you peace of mind so you can focus on the things that truly matter. Stop in today, 3902.502nd Street, or give them a call 306-825-6310. Have you seen the SMP billboard across from the UFA? I got to give a huge shout out to read and write and amazing work of Deanna Wander. I always text her at random times and I'm like, hey, I got this idea for X. And then boom, they make it happen. And the billboard is a shining example of that. My quote from Joe Rogan on the wall is another and they do amazing work.

If you're looking for some outdoor signage, make sure you give Deanna Wander or Read and Write a call today. And if you're wanting to get on this train and sign up for 2020, your business, go to the shan Newman podcast.com in the top right corner, hit the contact button, send me your info, and let's see if we can get hooked up for something here for 2021. A new feature in the episode link, so in the details of each episode, I've got my phone number. If you like what I'm doing, or you got some suggestions, maybe you've got a guest suggestion. You're like, hey, this guy would be awesome. Shoot me a text, and it comes right to me.

I'll get back to you. I look forward to hearing what you guys have. have to say about the show and maybe a guest suggestion you have. Now, as I ramble on, let's get to that T-Barr-1 tale of the tape. Originally from Lloyd Minster, she taught for 23 years, author of four children's books, wife, mother of three, community pillar. I'm talking about Anne Campbell. So buckle up, here we go.

It is April 9th, 2020. I'm joined by Anne Campbell. I first want to point out that you got all dolled up for this, and I'm wearing a backwards hat, and that was probably very unprofessional with me, but I'd like to point out I just helped putting three kids under four down. So I'd like to take some moments to say, you may look better than me, but I'm trying.

Hey, you look great, and when you've got three kids under four, you have my sympathy. Well, thank you very much for joining me. This is, we're going to see how this goes. It's the first in, hopefully, a long run of doing some Lloydminster Archives interviews for them. And so we thought we'd start with you. And so what we're going to do is we're going to take a stroll down memory lane,

talk a little bit about your life, your parents, your husband, your kids, some things you've learned over life, your career, et cetera. And so what I want to do is I want to go back all the way to the, the beginning. And let's talk about your parents a little bit. I know your dad was in the war and he met your mother just before he left for war, but obviously you know the story and maybe we could start there. Well, he came over from England to Canada. He was 18 or 19 years old and was distantly related to J.G. Willard, who was the original owner of the Lloydminster Times and they brought him over to Lloyd Minster to work in the newspaper office.

So he came over when he was young. Did he ever talk about the trip coming over? What he had to take? Anything like that? I have a tiny diary that he kept of that week on the ship. and his brother had taken him to the train from their home, and then he had gone to the ship. The first day, I think he was quite excited,

and after that, sea sickness set in, and it sounded like it was a pretty miserable trip for most of it. Then he got to the East Coast, and he sometimes talked about his train trip out to Lloyd Minster from the East Coast, and when he got to Lloydminster, J.G. Willard met him. And he stayed with them for several years. The first year, he had no salary except his room and board

and a stamp to send a letter back home every week. So that was his salary. He got a job as janitor in the Baptist Church, starting the fires for, you know, services and whatever to warm it up and clean it. That was his spending money. That was the first year that he was here. After a few years, he met my mother.

They were attending the same church together. And in the, I guess, youth group or young adult group, he met my mother. And they went together for five years before they got married. he had gone to Winnipeg to take officers training in the Army and realized that he could he could be called up any any day and so they decided within two weeks to get married they got married and went back to Winnipeg to wait until he was called up it was actually about two or three months before he was called overseas but when he did go, she was expecting my brother.

Didn't know it at the time, but I was expecting my brother. So my brother was born while dad was overseas, and he was three and a half before dad saw him or even heard his voice because during the war there was, there was, of course, no internet. They didn't even phone long distance like that. The only communication was to send a picture. or a letter, which wouldn't be censored because he was in intelligence and they wouldn't want the enemy to get any information about where he was or what he was doing.

If they intercepted it. Right. So, yeah, they met actually within the church, but went together a long time before they got married, but deciding to get married was in a hurry because they knew that any day he could be leaving. Did he ever talk about his training or, because like he went from being working for a printing press or a paper to being on the front lines of the war. Did he ever talk about the lead-up to that? Well, he went, he left the times. I suppose when the war was declared, he must have left and he went to Winnipeg to take the officer's training course, and I don't know how long that

was. He, when he went overseas, he was posted first in England, on the south coast of England and did several years of intelligence work there. He wasn't in France at first. And then in 1944, he went to France. He wasn't in the Dieppe raid. Thank goodness. I'm not sure exactly the date that he went to France, but he went to France and then started working their way inward.

and it was that felly that he was shot. And this being shot, I was talking to your son, Danny, about it. And it sounded like, well, I'm going to let you recount the story, but it sounded pretty incredible. Well, it was really amazing that he lived. He was in charge of a battalion. I'm not sure how many men. I think it was a couple hundred men that were in his, his battalion.

Unit, yeah. Unit, I guess, yeah. And he went out to sort of scope out what they were going to do and what was safe to, where it was safe to go. And he was walking down a road, and it was either, a bombed out castle or a bombed out church that was at the end of the road and there was a sniper in one of the turrets there that shot him and the bullet went in the corner of his eye came out behind his ear uh you could see the black mark behind his ear and a bit of a hole there

amazingly he didn't lose his sight in that eye but he did of course lose his his hearing and he He lost, he had a lot of damage done to like the nasal passages and face, of course he had facial paralysis after that, which was very severe at first. After he finally got home, they sent him back to Winnipeg every couple months for physio and they did some surgery to tie the nerves from under the tongue to his face, which helped to give him a bit of movement in it. And really was amazing the recovery he made. You know, he eventually went back to work,

but lived all the rest of his life with those injuries. And always had a bit of facial paralysis and a lot of nasal problems because of it. We talked a little bit about your father and going over to the war and then being shot through the guy back out the ear, which is amazing he survived that. Probably what gets overlooked in that, you know, is so he's off at war

and your mom has a newborn child. Well, and, you know, for kids today, they, well, where's the FaceTime? Where's the computer? Like, none of that's even remotely close to being invented. No. So how did they stay in touch? And how did your mom,

I mean it had to have been tough, right? To have the person you just married gone, you don't know if they're coming back. No. On top of that, to have a newborn, maybe what did your mom say about those times? Well, it was obviously a really top three and a half years. She spent some of that time out at the farm in Greenwood

with her parents. They had a farm move there. And some of that time she spent with them, at least until after my brother Dennis was born and was a little bit older. And then she moved in to Lloyd. But she really struggled with depression during those times. Of course, I'm sure many women did.

It was very difficult time. fortunately because he was in the army I think she had a bit of financial assistance I think their wives were provided for that way I don't think she had a huge financial burden but the stress of not being able to be in touch with him not knowing what was happening to him I don't think she even really knew that he had been wounded until a couple of weeks afterwards because it came by telegram, but it was quite a while before she knew about it. And she said she knew when she saw the minister driving up in the driveway. She was out at the farm with your parents, and she knew when she saw the minister,

minister's car coming down the driveway that something was those bad news she just felt it but she gained a lot of strength from her friends from her the church the congregation in the church I know that the minister and his wife at the time were very good to her but it was really tough and she at one point she went through a very deep depression which was very hard on her and I'm sure it was very hard on my brother. And he has talked about the night when Dad came back. He was in bed. Of course, he'd never seen Dad before. And, you know, Dad came in and I think they woke him up,

but he said he was, of course, his face was disfigured from the injury. from the injury and he had to wear a leather strap around his head with a hook in his mouth some of the time to help so that he wouldn't lose so much of the so he wouldn't get so much paralysis in his face or at least to help at first so it was a pretty traumatic experience he he still remembers it uh that meeting dad for the first time was he the meeting the meeting was he like excited or when he saw him and this disfigurement was he scared? I think he was more scared really. I think it was pretty traumatic.

I mean, you know, over time, they developed a very close relationship. But I think that first meeting to a three-year-old would be traumatic. Yeah. And he had never, he had never even talked to. him yet, really. I mean, you talk about your mom's depression. Did she ever say, talk about that at all? Well, she did a bit. Depression, you know, I think war obviously brings on a lot of that. She struggled with that. When dad came back from the war, you know, they didn't call it PTSD at the time, but certainly he had it. She said, you know, she had to be careful that,

for a while his nerves were really bad. She had to make sure Dennis didn't shut the door loudly or anything because it would trigger them. Trigger it. Yeah, trigger. Trigger the trauma with him. So he, from time to time, he struggled with that. He never led on.

But as I got older and, and sort of understood that better, I could see from the date that he was wounded or shot, August 16th, 1944, it seemed as though every year, especially when he got really old, like into his 80s and 90s, from that August 16th on to Remembrance Day, there was a bit of a shadow in his emotions. and I think that was a bit of a difficult time for him always.

It seemed as though after Remembrance Day, he would sort of come out of it again. And not that probably nobody noticed it really, but I think it was always a little bit of a difficult time for him. Which would make absolute sense. Yes. Yeah, I mean, well, and now you are turning to. 71 yeah and in your 70 years 71 years we've had nothing even remotely close specifically as Canadians that's even come close to what your father went through and your mother for that matter yeah yeah yeah the women you know the women

that were back here and the families that were back here but especially the the wives really are sort of the unsung heroes. Absolutely. And we really don't give them enough attention. I mean, they're gone now, most of them, but they went through a lot. Yeah, it's, you know, I really wish I would have stumbled upon this 10 years ago because when my grandma Dora was alive, all of us kids just begged her to write a book.

just write a book about your stories because they went through some things that you know just like you're talking about right not the war but they were lived through the war and they were farming and everything else and uh if i would have known what i know now i would have went back to my 20 year old cell told them to buy a couple mics go around and interview some of those people because you know the thing about right now is is a lot of them are just gone they can't tell the stories No. And so I hear what you're saying. What was, oh, sorry.

An interesting thing about, one more thing about the war, that's an interesting thing about Lloyd Minster is Bill Skinner, Bill and John Skinner were two brothers that had Ford dealership in Lloyd Minster. And they were very good friends of my mom and dads. and Bill Skinner was the one that actually took her to the hospital when she went into labor to have my brother because, of course, there was nobody else.

But the other interesting thing that he always did was, there was a train that came in to Lloyd every morning. I think Mom said it was around 2.30 in the morning. And he went and met that train every night because he had a car and he went and met the train every night and would, like a taxi, would take the people that got off there to wherever they needed to go. And that was just, you know, one little thing that he couldn't go to war because I think he had a medical condition that he couldn't go or maybe because of the dealership that they didn't

want him to go. But that was one of the things that he did for all those years. As his way to contribute. As his way to contribute, yeah. What was growing up in a house with a war veteran and your mother having to go through what she had to go through? What was your childhood like? Well, I was, you know, Dennis and I were fortunate to grow up in a great, with great parents, loving parents. And certainly we were provided for emotionally as well as any other way.

But we were really taught to have respect for our country, for the flag. we were taught that we weren't to take for granted our freedom. However, you know, when you're young, that doesn't really, you don't really understand that until you get older, but Remembrance Day, there was absolutely no way that you would miss going to Remembrance Day service. And Dad always impressed. upon us that

Remembrance Day was not to remember people like him who went to war or even were wounded. It was to remember the people that gave their lives. And he used to be very strong about that. It was not to honor people like my dad. It was to honor the people that didn't get to come back.

And he was very emphatic. about that. But of course he was always very involved in Remembrance Day services. The other thing, after the war, there was a militia group in Lloydminster, a unit that he was commander of. I don't know. Maybe it was captain at that point. But when I was growing up, Every Thursday night, it might have been two nights a week, actually, that they would go down to the armories on 49th Street and, you know, train and have drills. And once in a while, they would have a national drill that would come down. He would get a phone call that, you know, it would have some cold blue or Operation Purple or something was going on. And it was for them to practice getting in their uniforms and getting down to the armory

and being in a position to direct our community in safety, I guess, if there was an attack of some sort. And those would happen, you know, maybe twice a year. And we sort of all had our own, or I sort of had my own job to do, you know, I had to get the weights for his to put in the bottom of his pants. And I knew what drawer they were in. And when that came through, that was my job was to go and get those weights to put in the bottom of his pants. And mom had things she had to do.

And it was to get him out the door as fast as he could and to get him down to the, you know. So he could get to the armory and they could organize if there was going to be some kind of emergency. I got to ask, weights in his pants? Well, his army pants, they, they wore, I think they were called putties that they would wind around the bottom of their legs. And then their pants came halfway legs. and they were sort of balloon, you know, they weren't straight. They were ballooned out or bloused out. And so these weights would be in there to make them way down.

I don't know. You know, I guess I never really asked him. I just knew that I had to get the weights and he put them in the bottom of his pant lakes to make them stay down. Yeah. That was my job. is it interesting to you or you know you can remember things like that and you know as a kid i can remember uh standing and singing old canada at the start of school and things like that um to where we are now where yeah yeah you know like just it isn't a 180 it's just as time goes on

you kind of forget and you have less of the older generation that can't sit there and go like listen this isn't right we just went through this you know now now it's you know the first world war is over 100 years ago and the second world war is you know what does that now 65 75 years ago right in that ballpark um and time as time marches on uh it's so distant people have almost forgotten what they were fighting for and that kind of thing but you would have were young enough to have seen some of the ramifications of what we went through. Yeah. Like I say that it was really instilled in us the respect for what had been done to retain our freedom

and respect for the flag and respect for those authority over us. you know an interesting thing and I think this was probably true of many of the veterans it was very difficult for them when we changed from the red enzyme flag to the maple leaf flight because they had fought under the red enzyme flag oh really

and that was that was for many of them at least for my dad it was a very sad day. And, you know, looking back, I mean, I, I think it's great that we have our own flag. But they went through so much fighting under that flag. And they really struggled with that. It'd be no different than, I mean, we haven't gone through a war. but tomorrow we changed the flag after a lifetime of saluting that flag and standing up for that

flag, that would be very tough. Yeah, it was very tough. It was very hard on them. And not to say that it wasn't the right thing to do, but it was emotionally very difficult for, I know from my dad, and I'm sure for many of his army friends. How about going to school? Where did you go to school? Well, I was born in Lloydminster. I've lived here all my life. So I went to school in Lloydminster,

started out in a little kindergarten in a lady's basement. Her name was Mrs. Graham. And kindergarten wasn't in the schools then. So it was in her basement. Then I started in the old reading school. Went to... How big was the school? How many students? Well, I'm not sure how many students we had, so that's where the city hall is now. Oh, okay, yeah. And the front of the city hall that faces the park there was retained so that it looked the same as what the old Meridian school was. I think we had, there were four classrooms on each floor and there were three floors. So I guess there were 12 classrooms.

And it went from grade one to grade six. then I went to what was the junior high, which is the ES Laird now, and then to the high school, but not to the high school in the building where it is now. I was the last class to spend the full year in the old high school, which then became the Nevelyos School, which I eventually went and taught at as the Nevegois School. So I had been in high school there and then ended up teaching grade one there. How about discipline? What happened if you got in trouble back in the day?

Oh, well, it was a lot different than now. I mean, the parents absolutely supported the teacher. If you got into trouble and your parents found out you weren't, it wasn't going to be soft-pedaled at home. I never really got into a lot. I was too scared to ever get into any trouble, so I never really did that. But, yeah, discipline was much more strict.

Classrooms were much more, well, more old-fashioned, but not to say that the ones aren't great now, it was just was it was different and there was a lot more respect for people that were in authority over you yeah well and that's slowly slowly it feels quickly but that's slowly changed yeah as once again as time marches on slowly things have just i never got disciplined like my father got disciplined but my kids won't even be remotely close to how i got disciplined no and every year you go on, it gets a little more, shall we say, liberal? Yeah.

What did you do for fun back then? Well, you know, we played outside lots. I don't, I only remember one park in the city. And that was, I believe it's the, I don't know if it's a lion's. are the kinsman park that's across from the mall now um that was the only park that i remember where there was you know swings and and something like that we we spent a lot of time in the winter in the old arena it was across the street from the saskatchewan courthouse and it was cold and natural ice but we spent hours there um skating on saturday afternoon afternoon

or skating in the evenings, had the old pot-bellied stoves in the skate rooms, and the janitor would keep fire going in there so that you could go in and get warm because it was, I mean, you got cold out there. But it wasn't an enclosed drink, right? It wasn't an enclosed drink. And that's where, you know,

we had all the community hockey games. And I used to go, my brother and I would go with dad to the hockey games. Dad at the time was working for the Lloydminster Times, so he would report the hockey games for them. And so he'd be up in the press box and I'd be, I don't know, with my girlfriends. You know, you didn't worry about your kids then. I mean, as long as you brought them to the arena and he took them home, nobody worried about what was going to happen in the middle. My brother, he would always sit behind the player's box so that if they broke a stick, he could could get a broken stick that might be able to be fixed. So he had one. So that's what he always

did. And we lived not too far from there. So we always walked, walked to the hockey game, walked home at night. And something odd that I remember after coming home from a hockey game, mom would always make us a hot dog. You know, it would be late at night. We would have these hot dogs. And the other thing that was special about that rink was the concession. And the lady's name that ran it was Mrs. Ferguson. And man, she just was the awesome baker and you could get the most delicious things in her concession there. Did you ever ask your mom, why a hot dog? Well, I guess it was easy for her to just boil up on the stove and gave us something that she, I guess she thought we needed something substantial to go to sleep on.

But I always remember having a hot dog after the hockey games. And as for the concession, you mentioned fresh baking. Was it fresh baking then in the concession? Oh, yes. What stuck out to you from back then? She made raisin squares that were just to die for. And I could still picture them. I can still taste them.

Yeah, it was, it was a great place. to go. We spent a lot of time there. In the summertime, we had a cabin at Sandy Beach. Dad bought that when I was seven years old, and so we spent every summer up there, which we were very fortunate to do. So we would move out there after school finished and moving back to Lloyd and time to start school. My brother taught swimming lessons out there and was a lifeguard for several years and it was a great place to spend the summer i'm going to guess that place has changed just a wee bit yeah it you know it's it's funny how concessions in the old like talk about the olden days in those days were were special places there was the concession out at sandy beach was

was a gathering place you know you went there sometimes in the evening to have coffee or us kids would go there you'd get you know 10 cents a day to spend maybe and we'd go there to buy a pot I mean you could buy I don't know you could buy a pot for less than 10 cents I think then and we spent it was just a place where you you sort of met your friends or you went to get a treat and and when you were down on the beach you you went there in the afternoon to get a little special something and and it also had a dance hall attached to it and it was an old really old log building but man people used to dozens of people used to come there to have dances in that old dance hall i wasn't old

enough to go to them but um we used to go and look in the windows talking about your childhood and Knowing with the kind of stories I've heard from your children and then yourself, it seemed like music, specifically piano, was a huge part of maybe your life and your childhood. Yes. Music has always been a big part of my life and still is. It brings me a lot of pleasure. So I started taking piano lessons when I was seven. from a man that lived in Lloyd at the time. His name was Lee Broder. And he moved to Edmonton after a few years. And I really didn't want to change teachers.

And my parents were willing to take me to Edmonton for the piano lessons. So every second Saturday, my mother drove me to Edmonton for piano lessons. At first, there was a few of us that carpooled. but eventually it was just me that went. And I took piano from him right through until I finished my grade 10, and then I worked on my ARCT with another lady. But I've used my piano in so many ways, lots of it in the church. I played in the church for years for choirs.

and now I accompany the seniors choir in Lloyd Minster. I also do a sing-along time at the Hempstock residence every week with them, just sort of whole-time singing, which is really good for them. I play for one of the churches in Lloyd for Sunday services. and, you know, I get to play for some other occasions, but I spent a lot of time playing the piano and I love it. Well, I don't think you could have picked a better instrument. I was just actually coming back from your house after I dropped the mic off,

and I told my daughter, as we were driving back, that you played the piano. And then I played just a song. off YouTube that was piano and grandma, Grandma Newman used to be, have a player piano that she was just absolutely in love with. Yeah. And as kids, she would sit and play the piano for us and there has never been a better instrument than that. Yeah. Danny was telling me a story that, uh, you wrote a piece of music for Queen Elizabeth the first. Oh. Second? No, for the Queen mother. Oh, Queen Mother. Okay. Yeah. When the queen mother died, I wrote a song, sort of a tribute to her. And it's called the primrose of the aisle. Because of course, primroses are sort of a typical flower in England. And it just talks about this field of flowers, but this special primrose was always sort of admired by everyone and how kind and

and lovely it was. She always wore such lovely colors. Like she always had coats on that were pretty yellow or pretty green. So, yeah, you know, imagination went wild. But yeah, I wrote that song when she died a sort of a tribute to her. And I think I had it performed once at the Lloydminster Music Festival. Okay. And I actually sent it a copy and the CD of it over to the queen and received a reply back.

I mean, supposedly she listened to it. I don't know. Still interesting nonetheless. You know, my generation, I would say, and maybe I'm wrong on this, but I would say right around my generation, and I'm 30, turn 34 here very shortly. the royal family doesn't nearly mean nearly as much as what it used to um what are your thoughts on the royal family or you know you had a dad who fought in the world war and the tied to britain was very tight and as time has gone on that relationship has changed right uh well because both my

dad and my mother came from Britain. Ashley, mom had come over from England with her family when she was three to start farming. So, I mean, our ties to England were close. We still have some relatives back there. But there's a picture of dad in England. I'm not sure what year it is, but the South Saskatchezer regiment that he was with had had their flag. They called it their colors made. and he was presenting it to the queen mother, and there's a picture of him explaining the symbolism of things in the flag to her. So the royal family was, yeah,

it was very, very important to him. And he certainly, he certainly imparted that to us. I think I especially took up on that. I really enjoy watching the royal family. Like, I've always gotten up in the middle of the night to watch everybody's weddings. And I used to even get my kids up in the middle of the night to watch their weddings. Not that I made them, but I'm sure they wonder now why they bothered.

But I just really enjoy it. And I know they're just an ordinary family. And man, they have. tons of problems in their family like everybody else does but yeah just just interesting to me that you'd write a piece of music so obviously it mean meant means a lot to you uh and because not everybody's writing a piece of music like i can guarantee 99% of Canada didn't write a piece of music so that's interesting that's all yeah i've written i've written music for different different times in my life, actually quite a few times. I wrote a song for our wedding,

wrote a song for our two oldest boys' weddings. I used to write songs when I was teaching school if we put on a musical and we needed a song to fill in somewhere. I did, I particularly did two for um you've got to think of it that the Christmas what's that Christmas movie about the Grinch oh the Grinch yeah so we did that musical once at Nevillevilleville School when I was teaching there and I wrote two songs for that and yeah you know I thought they were pretty good well you you got that over me any day of the week I'm not sitting down and if there was one instrument, I wish, well, there's a couple, but the piano I tried sitting down once upon a time. I just, I have no, I hope some of my children can figure out how to play the piano because it's,

it's a lovely instrument. It's a lovely instrument and it's so versatile. You can use it. Like I've used it in teaching and I've used it in the church. I just, I will spend off in an hour every evening just enjoying it myself, just playing. Did your mom, did I, did I remember the correct your mom used to play the piano for mentally challenged children is that correct yes yes she did she she eventually taught in the school for mentally challenged children it was called parkland school she taught there for i think 11 years and i might oops i might add that for nine of those 11 years she did it by her she had 11 children in her class and no teacher assistant. It was a tough job. But she got interested in that by going and

playing for them once or twice a week. She would go and play for them and do singing with them, just for them in their school. And then the school got so many kids in it, they needed two classrooms. And so they ended up hiring her to teach in that school. She never really had teacher training. They, they, I think every year they had to advertise for her job. And for 11 years, nobody applied for it. And so they would give it to her. And she just was, she had a real knack for, for working with special needs children.

And just was excellent at it. Yeah. She gave those children. and a lot of years of pleasure. You know, if there's two things I hear now, a common thread coming from you, I don't know if you had a choice in the matter if you're going to be a teacher or not.

Because, I mean, between your father being a part of the, was it the school board? Not school board. Yes, after he left the times, he was Secretary-Treasurer for the school division. Thank you. And then your mom working there. Yep.

And then... My brother is a teacher. Your brother is a teacher. When you end up going to school, did you have any other thoughts? Yeah. Actually, I thought I wanted to be a nurse when I was growing up. And when I was about 15 or 16, they brought in a, it was called the candy striping program in Lloydminster, where we used to go and volunteer in the hospitals and the nursing homes and help.

help with the babies and help feed nursing home patients and that. But I saw enough of the nursing world that I knew I didn't want to do that. And when I was 16, I had my own Sunday school class and really enjoyed teaching that and realized that's really what I wanted to do. So I ended up teaching kindergarten and grade 1 kids for about 23 years. Well, my wife teaches grade one. Oh. And I can safely say that it takes a special type of person to sit around young kids like that day after day after day.

Was that something you were interested in right from the get-go or had you wanted to teach, I don't know, high school? No. No. No. No, I was just interested in the little kids. I loved teaching them. It was a very rewarding career. You did it for how many years?

23? 23 years I taught. And then I had to quit teaching for medical reasons. And that was when I started getting interested in writing children's stories. Yes, I'm curious. What books have you written? We, on this side of the, we read to our children every night. I'm always looking for new children's books.

So I'm curious. There'll be one common. Well, in 2010, I brought out my first book. And so this goes back to the story of dad. When he came over from England, he brought his old teddy bear, which had been given to him when he was three. years old and he was in the hospital. He had been scalded. And this teddy bear, scalded. Sorry, he'd been what? Scalded. He was sitting on a stool and going to have a bath.

And of course, it would be a little tub on the floor. And his mother had put the hot water in and gone back to get the cold water. And somehow he had fallen in and burnt himself. So he was in the hospital and she she was it was either from somebody that she worked for but this teddy bear had been thrown out they didn't want it anymore and so she cleaned it up and took it to him in the hospital and so I wrote so this teddy bear that he had it's over a hundred years old now but when the school was opened the Jack Camp school was opened it he gave it to the school to go in the showcase with his pictures and things. And I felt that the children in that school needed to know the story behind that bear, because it really is a story of

going from trash to being a treasure in a, you know, in a cabinet of honor sort of thing. So I wrote the story and called it just a bear. First of all, I wrote it actually first in poetry. And then And it's funny. Publishers are, not that it ever was published by a big publisher, but they're not interested in poetry. It's really hard to get a publisher to pick up any kind of poetry. And so I decided I'd try to write it in prose instead, so I rewrote it.

And then I ended up publishing it in 2010 as the Just A Bear book. and I got hooked on writing and publishing. Publishing is a very exciting thing to do. It's expensive, but it's very exciting to do and so rewarding. So then I did another book called Just a Party, and then I did Just a Friend, and then I did one called, it's sort of a takeoff on the Three Billy Goats Crafts called Snots.

It's called Snots Snails and Salamander Tales. And the last one I did last summer, I brought it out, and it's a revision of the original Just a Bear. Because it was my first book, there were things about it that I wanted to change in the way I had written it. I thought it was too long, and there were things that I thought were redundant

that could be taken out. So I redid it. And so it's basically the same story, but it's called Just a Bear and His Forever Friend. And it's the story about my dad and his teddy bear. So is the bear sitting in Jack Kemp's school then? The real bear is sitting in Jack Kemp's school. And, I mean, it's thread bear. It had lost its leg.

And before they put it in the school, they had a new leg made for it, literally, like mom and dad had a new leg made for it. And yeah, it's. It's, you know, and obviously before the time of when they would be manufactured, it was obviously homemade because, you know, its ears, two ears are sort of different. And one male arm is longer than the other. And it's pretty threadbare, but he's got quite a story behind him. And it's a great place for him to be. That is, it kind of makes me want to go to, next time I'm going through Jack Camp

School, heck, next time I drive by it, I'm probably going to have to poke my head. walk up to the it's right inside the door yeah that's cool that's really cool i'll look for uh i'll have to bug you about a book after this yeah for sure aside from school the other thing i hear a lot is your family uh religion played a huge part um around the church um kim had said how involved with music at the church he recalled one Sunday morning, mom playing the piano, grandma and grandpa camp in the congregation singing, grandma Campbell singing in the quartet at the podium, dad in the choir, and grandpa Campbell beside me in the congregation with Uncle Harley, and grandpa Campbell was singing along with tears running down his cheeks, seeing his family. It must have been a pretty special moment for

him. And I read that and I was like, holy man, right? Like that's, the entire family tied into, you know, something that obviously has played a very big part in your guys' family. Right. Yeah. And it actually goes back to, to my grandparents, Charlie and Annie White, who lived in Louis Minster. He worked for Nelson Lombard. Well, he was a farmer out at Greenwood until he retired and then he spent a bit of time working at Nassal Lumber, but they had a very strong faith. My grandma White had something happened to her when she was about 30 years old. They had done some kind of a test to do with x-rays, but of course it was very old-fashioned in those days and it had burnt her throat and her throat and her

chest so that she had something blocking her throat. And from that time on, she was never able to eat anything that hadn't been put through a strain or so that it was just like a very fine mush. And she lived to be 83 like that. Wow. Yeah. They had a very strong faith. And, you know, came over from England and started a farm and really, I don't think he knew much about, farming had to sort of learn at trial on air and faith played a very huge part in their lives and was passed on of course to my mom and and my parents passed it on to us church was a big part of our lives and also of my my husband's life so our kids grew up with with both sets of grandparents in the same church and being very involved my Rob's

mother was the organist for, I don't know, about 40 years. I played the piano for years. Yeah, we sang in the choir and music was a big part of it. And, yeah, our faith is, we've had some ups and downs in our lives, and I wouldn't have wanted to go through them without my faith. in God and Jesus Christ and and the strength that that has brought us. We always talk about the good parts of life. You mentioned some of the downs. In your time, would have been some of the toughest moments in life that you've had to work your way through. Well, not being able to continue my teaching career was a tough one.

for a while, but, you know, I've come to realize that however difficult things are, there's always something good that comes out of it. And it's hard to see at the time, and sometimes you don't see it until years later. But I wouldn't have gotten into writing children's book. had I kept teaching all those years because I just wouldn't have had time. And that has brought me a lot of pleasure and has been a very rewarding, not rewarding financially, but rewarding in other ways. I have really enjoyed doing it.

But we've had other struggles. I had breast cancer. Both of my daughters-in-law have had breast cancer. at a young age they were and those times you sort of pull together and but but I find I really draw in my faith in those times and like I say it's hard to see with these things happen but somewhere down the line you see something good that happened because of it doesn't mean that it was a good thing to go through but and doesn't mean that life is rosy afterwards but there is something it's a friend that you made or or a change

that made a change in your life somehow that has turned out good you mentioned not being able to teach because of a condition may I ask what the condition is that took you away from teaching Yeah, it was mental depression and anxiety disorder that had developed. And I had to step out of teaching. It was very difficult to do. But as I said before, when I look back on it now, there are good things that have come out of my life, of that. And so I have to look at that and take it that way. And I did go back to teaching for a short

time and then I got breast cancer. And that sort of put me back into another depression. And it took me a while to get out of that. And I just decided I was, was best not to try to go back to that. And it was soon after that that I thought I would try writing children's stories. Well, I appreciate you, Sharon. I just, as you talk about it, I just, I found myself curious on what had taken you away from something you obviously love. And now you've found children's books. but I was curious what the gap was there.

So I appreciate you really sharing that. I think it definitely fills in the story a little bit. I've talked a lot about your family, your parents. I haven't mentioned your husband yet. And, you know, I got to sit down with my father and do some of this. And, you know, I was talking with once again, Danny. And he goes, you know, I don't know if I ever really know how they met. met. And I think it's as children, we just, I don't know if it's whether or not we don't care or we

don't listen or maybe a little bit of both at times. But how did you meet your husband? Well, our parents sort of, sort of knew each other way back when we were really young, but they lived down in southern Saskatchewan on a farm. When he was eight years old, they moved to Lloydminster from the farm. And they became involved in the Baptist Church, the same as my mom and dad were. So we were family friends and often spent, say, had Easter dinner together or spent times together like that

as two families. And we grew up in the church, both of us singing in the choir. I'm sure it's hard for people to imagine Rob singing in the choir. but he did. He's got a nice bass voice. Of course, I was involved with the piano a lot. So we grew up in the church together and actually started going out together when we were 16.

So you can't poo-poo the idea of puppy love too much because 55 years later, we're still in love. How did he ask you to go on your first day? Where did you take you on your first day? It was after church one Sunday morning. And he asked me if I wanted to go for a car ride that afternoon in his brother's Volkswagen. So we went out to Sandy Beach to our, to Mom and Dad's cabin. Well, in the beach came back into town.

And then, of course, there was church Sunday night too. So we went to church Sunday night and came in and hand in and sat together. And well, that was the talk of the church that night, I guess. So we went together for five years and married. How did you ask you to marry him? Well, you know, it was just one of those things that sort of, it's sort of, we both knew that that's what we wanted to do. But it is kind of a funny story that,

I mean, my dad was kind of old fashioned in that way, and Rob knew that dad wouldn't think much of it if he gave me a diamond ring without him going and asking him if it was okay. So the first night, he went to the door, and Mom and I were out at the cabin at Sandy Beach, and he went to the door, and he went to the door, and he knocked on the door, and there was no answer. and he said he was so relieved. He could just walk away. The next day he went to the door and knocked, and then he heard the dog bark, and Dad's footsteps coming to the door. He said he nearly died, but anyway, he talked to Dad,

and it was fine. So we went to Saskatoon and got bought a diamond and got engaged by the Besboro Hotel. And then in 1970, we were married. So, wait, he took, he took you with to by the dime so that the did he come out to sandy beach after and say i talked to your dad we're getting married yeah he came out to sandy beach and said he talked to dad and dad said yes that was okay and he with our bless with his blessing so so so in so a few days after that we went to saskatoon

together we yeah we went and picked it out together in saskatoon and then we had to wait while the guy sized it and I remember going to a store and Rob was so worried that the guy would change it for a cheaper diamond while we were waiting to get it sized. What did you do for, where did you get married? We got married in the Baptist Church in Lloyd Minster, not the Baptist Church now, but the old Baptist Church, which is over across from the men's shelter. We got married there and Rob was working for Shortel's auto body. At the time, and I was teaching school out at Kids Scotty. I started teaching school out at Kids Scotty, taught there for 13 years before I started teaching in Lloyd Minster.

Yeah. What did you do for your honeymoon? Oh, we went to Los Angeles. We were young enough. We were both 21, had just turned 21. which, you know, nowadays seems young to get married, but I would do it all over again exactly the same way. We flew to Los Angeles and we could fly standby because we were young enough.

So we went there and Rob had an aunt and uncle that lived in Los Angeles in a lovely house. And so we stayed with them and we had our own bedroom. We had our own his and hers bathroom. And it was it was lovely. They gave us their capital. a lot of car to drive around did. We had a great honeymoon, and it was pretty cheap because we really didn't have much money to spend on it, but it was a great time.

What did you do in L.A.? Well, we went to, you know, Disneyland, and we went to Gotsbury Farm and went to the beach and got terribly sunburned. Oh, just terrible. One of the worst sunburns we've ever had. Yeah, just, you know, the touristy things. We, neither of us had ever been there before. So does that mean you're coming up on 50 years of being married together?

Yeah, this year. Summer. This summer. Well, first off, congratulations. That early congratulations. Thank you. That is an accomplishment. It is.

How have you guys, you know, once you're married if there's one thing you learn very quick or you know whether that's very quick as two months or two years or whatever it is marriage isn't easy it takes work how have you guys made marriage work for you how have you lasted 50 years because i mean you're in a day and age now and i mean maybe you've seen it go through i'm sure friends and um colleagues but divorce is all over the place. How have you guys made coming up on 50 years work? Well, I think there's a few things.

I think one thing that both of us have always been very careful. We never, we are never critical of each other in other people's presence. and if we ever say anything to each other that would be along that line, it would be done lovingly and gently. And I think a lot of people are just so quick to be harsh in a relationship. And that hurts. the other thing that I think is really important is that you thank each other for everything. Like we thank each other for everything.

If he's a great cook and he makes a lot of our suppers, I would never get up from the table without thanking him for that. And if he helps him with the dishes, I thank him for it. Like it doesn't matter how small it is, but I think in our civilization, we take so many things for granted like that. And the other thing is marriage is one thing where math doesn't work. If you're both giving 50%, it should equal 100%, but it doesn't. You both have to give 100% to a marriage, or it will not work.

And there are times when I have not been well enough physically or mentally to do my share and Rob has had to give far more than me. There are times when you have to be willing to give everything you've got and not be looking to get an even amount back. And I think that's one thing in marriage that's so important, but I don't think very many couples see it that way. That's very good advice. Well, I don't know.

I think those are some of the things that have worked for us. And, you know, we've had a wonderful, we've had a wonderful life together. And I would do it all exactly the same. I would get married that young. I would have our kids that young. because I think, you know, you've got the energy for them and then you're not so old when you go to be grandparents. It's grandchildren are wonderful,

and I'm glad we were as young as we were when they were born, and we still have little grandchildren in our family. But we've enjoyed having our older grandchildren, grew up, we had lots to do with them and looked after them lots and loved them all dearly. Let's talk, children. How did you adjust to raising children? Because I don't care who you are, nothing ever can prepare you for having children of your own. Right. Yeah, children are, are wonderful to have. But it takes a lot of work, as you are, obviously,

finding out to have children. And especially when they're young, and the physical work becomes less, maybe once they get older, but you'll never stop worrying about your kids, you know, about, you always want life to go, well for your kids. And I mean, it just doesn't always go. It's not a perfect world. So

life doesn't always go perfectly for our kids or our grandkids. And it's just hard as a grandparent and as a parent, you just want the best for them all. But we were very fortunate when we, when our kids were young, because we lived in the same city as both of our parents. So we had the support of both my mom and dad and Rob's mom and dad in helping to care for the kids and run them around because I was very busy. I was teaching and I'm involved in a lot of music stuff and I've always been involved in a lot of committees and boards and stuff which I really enjoy. So we really benefited a lot from being near our parents. What were some of the lessons you tried to instill in your kids?

Well, I think one of the things that our kids learned, they were often around their grandparents. We spent a lot of time with them. And my mother had tinnitus very badly ringing in her ears and to the point where it made her very deaf. but it was to her it was like having a phone ringing in your head all the time and sometimes it was almost that loud so the kids had to really learn when they were with them uh to be quiet because she just could not handle any kind of rambunctious noise and they were they got very good at it they were very good about about being uh quiet and only speaking you know one person at a time or not being silly around her because she just she

couldn't handle the the stress of the noise in her head with with a lot of noise on that kids would be making so they were very good about it I think I think we try to teach them to be very respectful of elderly people and people in authority over them and you know we always they always attended church with us and we're involved in youth groups and kids clubs and stuff like that. How about I talk about it all the time now because, you know, in the last, what has it been in the last year, weed has become, or marijuana has become legal. You know, back then it would have been a little different.

But at the same time, as a young parent now, I worry for the choices down the road I won't be there to make for them, if that makes sense, right? So you're going to have to instill things in them. So when that choice comes, they make the right choice, essentially. As a parent in your early years, maybe even into their teens, was there something you worried about? Like, how can I, I don't know, not stop this because that's, you know, impossible to do.

But were there things you worried about? Well, you know, I guess we did worry. about them, well, you know, we didn't have to worry a lot about them getting involved with the wrong crowd. They had some great friends that are still their friends till today. But I think one of the, a couple things. Their friends came to our place a lot. So it was a place where they hung out with their friends a lot. And so we got to know them. And in getting to know them,

their friends developed an amount of respect for us. And I think because of that, sort of respected our rules. And we tried to be pretty reasonable with the boys. I don't think we were, we certainly weren't the most, strict people in the world. We tried to leave them to use their own judgment to a point. And I think they respected that. And I found that when I was growing up, I remember asking to go to a high school party, a bush party when I was in high school. And no, sorry, it wasn't a bush party,

But it was a party somewhere. And mom knew that there would be alcohol involved in it. And she said, well, she really didn't want me to go, but it was up to me. Well, there was no way I was going to go. Like, I mean, I had enough respect for her to know that that's what she felt. I wasn't going to go. And I think we sort of instilled that in the boys. The other thing is you really need to communicate with them.

And, I mean, we would try to spend lots of time just sitting around the kitchen. You know, you might be sitting on the counter and just chatting about their friends and what their day was, I think, to keep those channels of communication open with them. And beyond that, and you know, you can teach them morals. And beyond that, you have to trust them to make the decisions. Talking about Lloyd, switching from kids. over to the city of Lloyd. What has been some of the biggest things you've noticed in the city over the last 50 years, 60 years?

Well, I think the biggest change is it has just grown so much. I remember I was about 10 years old when it became a city and I remember that that time, I think it grew to a size of 10,000 and then we were able to call ourselves a city. But it has grown so incredibly since then. I mean, just for example, the west, the end of town on the west side was where the Dairy Queen is now. That was sort of, that was a shell station. And other than Husky truck stop,

but I mean, there was, there was not much out there. Past there. And the other thing that I read, a childhood memory of mine is we had no cement sidewalks. They were all the boardwalks, made of boards. And if you rode your bike on it made that ticking sound. I gotta be honest, until you just said that, I didn't clue into that.

Boardwalk. Geez. It's like a light bulb just went off my head. Okay, carry on. That's... So every street was a boardwalk then? Or only certain streets at it? Oh, I think all of them.

You know, maybe we had... Maybe downtown, right downtown, like by the old co-op building would have been cement sidewalks, but like from my house, which was just... east of the old co-op building. I mean, the residential sidewalks were all made of boards.

They weren't cement. They were all boardwalks. But it was really neat when you rode your bike down because it just made that ratat-tat-tat sound. However, in those days, you weren't supposed to ride your bike on the sidewalk. I mean, you could get in trouble for doing that. That was for people to walk on it because people walked every, you know,

You walked to work, you walked to school, you walked everywhere a lot of the time. And I remember getting into trouble for riding my bike on the sidewalk instead of on the road. Do you remember when they switched out the boardwalks? And was that a glorious day or a sad day? Well, you know, it just, I guess it happened gradually as, I guess it happened gradually. By the time I was in junior high, I think the ones by our, my house was, were cement then. So, you know, I guess they would switch them out as they kind of, yeah, as they sort of could or needed to repair them or whatever. They wouldn't, they would start putting the cement ones in.

But when I was a child, they were mostly boardwalks. How about one of your sons, and I'm forgetting which. one now, said you used to meet with your mother and your husband, your mother-in-law for coffee every morning. And he said he almost went all the time or sometimes and he had jello, as what are your remembers. What is it about the co-op? And I assume that must have been a very special time for you. Well, it was actually in the afternoon. It wasn't the co-op. At one, At one time, they were both working in the mall. Oh, okay.

That was when Smitty's was in the mall. And so I was never very good at staying home all day. So I would take whichever little one I had and go and meet both of them when they went for their coffee break and we'd go to Smitties for coffee. Or after they retired, we went up to the Fisher store. I don't know if you remember Fisher's store at all. Where would Fisher's store be? Well, that's where service credit union is now, the Atrium Center. Okay.

That was, well, Fisher's had a store before, I mean, they had a store before that, but that was their last location. And they built that store. It was huge, and it was, you know, two floors, a beautiful department store. And they had a great cafeteria in there. And I forget the name of the lady now, but she made the most wonderful cinnamon buns. And everybody sort of always remembered the cinnamon buns up at Fisher's cafeteria. But I would meet the two grandmas up there with, it was probably Danny that you were thinking of that was little at that time. At that time.

And we would. So, you know, that was a big influence on their, you know, spending some time every day with their grandma, It rubs off on kids. How about after your mom passed away, you and your husband, along with your dad, traveled a fair bit? Yes, we did. Whereabouts did you go?

And I assume that was another special time. It was. We had a couple of years of really nice traveling with him. He liked, he enjoyed traveling and wasn't, able to for several years because mom's health wasn't good enough. So after mom passed away, then he was in really good health and he was about 89 years old but still in really good shape and he took us on a couple of cruises in the Caribbean. We went to Jim a couple cruises in the Caribbean. We went to the

the Alaska. Okay. And but then one of the very, really special trips we went on with him was to England. Rob and I went with him back to see his family. And we saw a place where he was born and the schools that he went to. We also spent some time up in Scotland and we went over to France to Dieppe. and that was very interesting to go and see D.P. With him, interestingly enough, on the way back from DEP to the Channel, we came across,

well, we also stopped at a couple of war cemeteries, where men from his division had been buried. And he found one of his close friends that had been buried there. He'd never found his grave before. But we found that. But on the way back, we came across a World War II museum in France. And we stopped at it thinking, what a great time to go through this museum

when we've got Dad there with us. to explain this, but the mannequins dressed in the Nazi uniforms and things were so upsetting to him. We just had to get him out of there. He, it was, it was, it was, it brought back too many memories and what we thought would be very interesting for him and us proved very, completely opposite. Completely opposite. How about, um, volunteering around Lloyd? I see a, mile on your face, so I assume there's some memories there. Yeah, I love to volunteer. I really enjoy being involved with boards and associations,

but I also really enjoy volunteering a lot with my music. I've been involved with the Music Festival Association and the Cancer Board and And, well, the Archives Board, I'm very involved now with the Legacy Association. And I volunteer as a pianist for the choir that we have there, which is really, really fun to do. We have a great choir and we have a great leader, Eva Miller, who directs us. I also really enjoy times that I spend over at the Hanstock residence playing for for the seniors over there to sing. It's just really fun to listen to them do that.

And one thing that stands out in my mind there is there's one lady there. Of course, lots of them are using their walkers, and she'll come down part way through. And just the, you know, it might be a dance rhythm or something. And before she sits down at the table to join us, she just sort of dances around with her walkers. it just it brings them a lot of pleasure it brings me a lot of pressure pleasure to to do that with them that's pretty cool well where do i want to go here i want to know about politics if you followed

it if you've seen a lot of people come and go through this country um did you guys pay any attention to politics? I sort of like to pay attention to it. My husband's not very interested in it, but I do. Yeah, my dad influenced me a lot that way too. He was always very worried about us going too far down a liberal path. And I don't mean liberal by the liberal. party so much as as just relaxing our ideals and goals and goals and standards for what we believe in

and how we want our country to go and how we want our kids to be raised. And I sort of feel the same way. you know and because he's told me about and and since he's died actually i've done a lot of some reading about about the war and i realized now how how the people say in france during the occupation um they had their privacy was so hard to to to keep and if somebody knew what they were doing that didn't go along with what the rules were, how they were persecuted or killed. And, you know, I see what we do with technology today and how, you know, for example,

I mean, my one son can see where Danny is, just on his, phone, you know, like, we can, we can track people. It's very easy, it would be very easy to lose our privacy in this world. And I've been involved a little, I was involved a little bit with the conservative sort of board for a few years. I enjoyed that, but, you know, I don't know a lot about it. but I enjoy following politics. And I can get pretty riled up about it.

What do you think of what we're currently going through? You know, my brother and I have started a weekly, this, exactly this. Just sit down to talk about it. It's kind of like instead of having a journal like your father did on the boat, we have a conversation we record it because I feel like, 20 years, 30 years down the road, my children are going to go, well, I wonder what was that like? And they can go back and hear it firsthand. And one of the reasons I've been so passionate about trying to get these recordings done is in my lifetime.

And my father is now turning 64. And he says in his lifetime, this is the most unique time he's ever been a part of. And for me, it certainly is that. And I don't mean unique in the sense of a fun time. It's very different. I don't know if hard is the right word because it's not like we're going to war or anything. You know, we're stuck in our houses, isolated, but people are, you know, worried about financial security at this point. Lots of people out of work.

everybody is a little bit stressed, you know, about this COVID-19 and how it could possibly affect their loved ones and stuff like that. I thought maybe it would be interesting to hear from your perspective how you view what's going on right now. Well, I don't know. It's hard to, it's hard to know what to think about this. when this first started coming down about a month ago and we were going to be going into staying in our homes except to go out for essentials, I just thought it was nuts. But I don't think I understood the importance of it at first. I think I do now, but I am really worried about

the effect this is going to have on our country economically. There are so many businesses that I'm afraid may not come back from this. And we're, I mean, can we really hand out money to everybody? It's going to take, our kids and our grandkids are going to be burdened with this. And I really worry about the economic part of it. It's taught us to, or it certainly taught me anyway, to value friendships and the freedom of being able to get together with a friend and to get together with friends.

I meet, I have a group of ladies that I meet for coffee almost every morning. And that is one of the things I miss the most. is just getting together with my friends. But I, you know, and I think people in our generation and older, I think we tend to allow ourselves to take more of a risk than what younger generations do. You know, we've driven around with our kids not in seatbelts or car seats or you know when you went to slow down you stuck your arm across them to keep them from which was not good but but we've especially our parents lived through riskier time you know risky situations

and i think they they were used to having to live more at risk than what younger generations are now and i i think i i maybe shouldn't look at it that way but i kind of do that that I, we can't, we don't live in a perfect world and we can't keep it perfect. But I don't want to come across as sounding as though we've done the wrong thing. So I don't think we have, but I really worry that if this goes on for very much longer, our country won't be able to come back economically. Yeah, the repercussions of how far we keep going. And I mean.

Yeah. Right now the COVID-19 is one thing. The oil price is a different thing. Yeah. Right. Like it's very... Out here we're dealing with more than the COVID-19. Yeah.

And my friends down east don't seem to know that or understand it. If you could go back to your 20-year-old self and give her one piece of advice, what would it be? Oh, boy. Boy, I think to spend as much time as you can with your family and your kids and your grandkids and your parents that you love. But also to ask them things. I mean, there are things now I wish I could ask mom and dad. You know, and I, we often say, oh, I wonder. wonder about something or other we wish we had would had asked them more but i think that's you know

spend time with the people that you love and um ask them about their past because even though you're young and you don't you're not really interested in it right now you will you you may be one day when you're older you might wish you knew more about it and yeah i think just that kind of is really important. What are one of the questions you wish you could ask your parents? I would like to ask dad more about his time from when he was wounded until he got back in his recuperation time. That was just something we never really talked.

about much you know what I do know I know from mom but I wish I had asked him more about that that now we do we do have a as I mentioned to you in that email we we do have a three-hour interview of him video interview of him that I need to get updated so it doesn't get locked Absolutely, you should. Yeah. Looking back, what was your favorite decade so far? Oh, I think probably our first 10 years of marriage.

So the 70s. The 70s. Okay. You know, it was a very busy time in our lives, but we had both our, our, our two oldest sons. No, Danny wasn't born in that decade, but we had great, great times as family. We also built a house during that time.

And that was exciting to build your own house and move into it. And I was teaching kindergarten kids and involved with music and the church. and grandparents. Those are great, great years. And, you know, our parents were all healthy at that time. We weren't seeing them suffer with any illnesses or anything. Those were great years. Who is the biggest star could be movies, music, you name it, sports,

that when they came about, you remember being like wow like whatever it is um you know i never was one to watch a lot of movies but um and i don't even remember the guy's name that played in it but it was a movie called to serve with love i can't remember the guy's name to serve with love no to serve to serve with love, S-I-R. And it was about a high school teacher teaching in the Bronx in New York with kids that were really from tough. Sydney Pouche and Christian Roberts, Judy Gieson, Susie Kendall.

Sydney Portier. Okay. And I had just gone to teachers' college, just started teachers college. And I remember going with Rob, because we were going together then, I remember going with Rob to that movie. And that just solidified in my mind that I wanted to be a teacher. How much those kids needed him.

That movie was brought out in 1967, it says. Oh, yeah, that's the year I went. Oh, there you go. Yeah. What was your favorite book? As a writer, I assume you have one or, Or you may list a couple if you prefer. You know, it's funny.

As a writer, you think that I had, you think that I would have read lots of books on my life. And as a kid, I didn't. I was so busy practicing piano, basically, with my schoolwork and practicing, and I used to teach a little bit of piano, that I really didn't have time to read much. So, but I've really gotten to enjoy reading.

by the last 20 years, I guess. I think one of my, I think the book that I think is my favorite is called The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah. It's a story of two sisters in France during the occupation and how one stayed at home because she had a son or daughter. Son, I can't remember. But the other sister was kind of a rebellious kind of a person and she got involved with the underground. It's an amazing book. And I know it's not really a true story,

but I know that it's based on a lot of historical fact. Yeah, historical fiction. Yeah. And I really came to appreciate more what the people went through during the war that lived in those countries. and man, how they suffered to come through that and how they fought underground to help the allies and the risk they put themselves at and how they suffered and lots of them died because they tried to help out. That book, to me, that is the best book

I think I have ever read. Speaking of piano, what's your favorite, what it be piece, work? What is the one piano song? Well, I guess over the years I've had lots. There was one when I was doing about grade eight piano called Introduction and Fug. And I, that was one of my favorite songs that I did. I won some awards with that. but recently that song called the prayer uh seline dion sings it that's one of my favorite songs in fact the

seniors group that i that i play for at the legacy center we just did that this last year in our program how about the biggest advancement you've seen in your in your lifetime so far. So that could be color TV or man on the moon or cell phone, internet, JFK. I'm just spitballing here, but you tell me. Well, you know, the fact that you brought up up the man on the moon, I have to tell you a little bit of trivia because the day that that we got engaged was the day before they landed on the moon for the first time. Really? It was the same weekend. And so we used to joke that I had a moon rock.

But I really think that the internet technology is just amazing. you know 30 years ago I mean obviously there were some sorts of computers then but I had I can't believe the way that that they have developed and and just keep getting better and better you know I mean I when I was a teenager you know the only thing we had was the phone on the wall and

with about a two foot cord and you didn't go any further than two feet away from the phone because that's as long as the cord was and you didn't phone long distance that's another thing you didn't phone long distance those days unless it was really important or you know

an emergency because it was expensive to phone long distance like my grandmother came out from England when she was in her 30s and she never, she lived to be 83 and she never ever got to talk again to her mother or father. And she only, she only once had a phone call with her one sister.

And that was because my dad organized it. And they had to talk to each other for about 40 years. And when they heard each other's voices, they couldn't talk anyway. They just cried through the whole thing. Imagine that. And now, if you want to talk to somebody, on the opposite side of the earth. It's as simple as a quick Zoom meeting.

Yeah. Yeah. What do you think if you were to say is your biggest accomplishment so far? Well, I think, I guess raising your kids, raising our kids was probably the biggest accomplishment, you know. That's not a bad answer. We didn't do a perfect job by any means, but they're three great guys and we love them dearly. And they've got great families. And they're all good guys.

But other than that, I suppose my books is what I really have got a lot of reward out of, not financial, but satisfaction out of. I love doing that. I love writing. Two more. Biggest world event that ever happened. And are we living in it? Oh, you know, I guess we are.

I think we are living in it. When you first said that, like a big world event, the first thing that falls to my mind is John Kennedy, JFK being shot. That was a big day? Yeah. I mean, obviously it was a big day, but... I remember that.

I had come to my... I'd come with my girlfriend, to her place for lunch. And when we got there, her mom told us that JFK had been shot. And he wasn't dead yet, but while we were having our lunch, they pronounced him dead. And I guess the other one is when Princess Diana was killed. The car crash. Yeah.

Okay, your final one, a fun one. If you could take a time machine and go anywhere, where would you go? Oh. boy I would I think I would go back to when I was six, seven years old, eight years old, summers out at Sandy Beach. They were just awesome. You know, there was just, I'm sure there was lots of stress in the world and maybe stress to my parents, but I sure didn't have any stress.

You know, you just got up every morning and went down to the beach and hung out with your friends. and we just had a, it was just a wonderful place with a sense of community and lots of friends. And, you know, our mom had her friends that she would meet on the beach. Dad drove back and forth to work every day. And yeah, probably that would be the time I would like to go back to. Well, we'll leave it there. I've really enjoyed this. I hope you have as well.

I've really enjoyed it, Sean. Well, I appreciate you sitting down. I've kept you now for a little over two hours. So I appreciate you doing this again. And just thanks. Thank you, Sean. It's been enjoyable. I've enjoyed it.

Hey, folks, thanks again for joining us today. If you just stumble on the show and like what you hear, please click subscribe. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday a new guest will be sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube and wherever else you find your podcast fix. Until next time. Welcome to the podcast.

Gotta love that I'm posting this at the end of every episode now. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Be honest. You're hoping for a couple more slips. I aced it today. No F-bombs. No ear, Enjoy your Wednesday, folks, or whenever you get to this episode, enjoy the day, and we'll catch you next episode.

Make sure you tune in at the end. If you want to hear me slip up more than once, I'm sure in the future. All right, I'm off.