Shaun Newman Podcast - SNP Archives #34 - Richie & Linda Davies

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

They started Vee Tee Feeders in 1970, have been married 50 years, at 67 Linda won the World Title for Horse Cutting & both have been pillars of the community. Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 Like the podcast? Support here: https://www.patreon.com/ShaunNewmanPodcast

Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Wednesday. We've got another archive episode coming your way. Before we get there, let's get to today's episode sponsors. Jen Gilbert and team for over 45 years since 1976. The dedicated realtors of Colwell Banker, Cityside Realty, have served Lloyd Minster in the surrounding area, offering star power to their clients with seven-day-a-week access because they know big-life decisions. They're not made during office hours. And did you know when it comes to rental properties? They are the biggest licensed residential property management company in the city of Lloyd. They deal with over 250 rental units. We were talking houses, apartments, and condos.

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let them know you heard about them for the podcast, right? Now, let's get on to that T-Barr-1, tale of the tape. They started VT theaters in 1970, have been married for 50 years, and are both community pillars. I'm talking about Richie and Linda Davies. So buckle up, here we go.

I'm joined by Richie and Linda Davies. It is February 21st, 2021. So first off, thanks for hopping in. Thank you for having us after looking at some of the people that you've interviewed. We're kind of humbled to be invited into that group. Well, I hope I live up to that then. We hope we will. We hope we will.

Well, you were just regaling me of the Border King stories. I think that's what we'll get there at some point. Both of you born in the late 40s, what was your first memories maybe when you were? you first, when you look back, what are some of the first memories you have as a kid in the 50s? Oh, that's hard to say. First memories as a kid, just playing around the farm. Our farm life was good. We never had any money, kind of poorer, but. Any iPads, cell phones? Oh, yeah, a lot of iPads and cell phones, for sure. Lucky if you had running water. I can remember being excited to get a transistor radio when I was

about 14 years old. Or the first TV you got in your house. Yeah. First TV, black and white TV. That was a big deal. Now, I grew up in towns, you know, so it was different because he was on a farm, but still most of the things were, they maybe got some of the perks a bit sooner, you know, like, I don't remember they're not being light, you know, electricity and running water and bathrooms, but except when I visited my grandparents, then I can remember it, and we thought it was a

big adventure. Because they didn't have running water? Because they didn't have it, yeah. Isn't that silly? Yeah, we never had running water. It's like going camping, yeah. We didn't have running water in our house until I was in high school. We never had central heating until I'd left high school. And, but we always had electricity because dad had a power plant. One night the power plant, the exhaust got plugged off and everybody just about succumbed to carbon monoxide. I remember that being a big deal when I was a little kid then. What do you mean a power plant? He had a gas motor running a generator and also a wind charger. And so they supplemented each other outside. You were green back down really? That's what I'm thinking. Well, the motor wouldn't have been green. The wind charger was green.

And then I remember when the REA, the rural electrification, came into Alberta, and dad was the whatever director, the guy that organized it in our district. So that was exciting when we got power. One of those, you know, run around the house, all excited, we're going to flip the switch and no longer have to run the generator. But, yeah, it goes back a while to those two days. You know, you're funny, Rich, because you say, I don't really, you know, what do you say about the earliest memory?

And then you say for your first 14 years of your life, you had no running water, no, like the heat then would have been from a wood stove? Yeah, a big furnish in the basement, wooden coal. So that's interesting. I want to stick on that just for a second. So with no running water, what did you do for dishes, laundry, shower, while bath, I guess? A bathed in a tub, a galvanized tub in the basement once a week was a bath. We had a outhouse, of course, and then an indoor biffy downstairs with a honey pail that dad carried out.

Wash a machine. Why is it the honey pail? Why did they? Oh, yeah, isn't that something, honey pail? I talk about something that's a misnomer. That's definitely one of them. We had a cistern in the basement. and then a pump, a pressure pump.

So we had running water kind of from the cistern into a tap, which one would use for washing, but it wasn't plumbed into like the sink upstairs. We had no flush toilet. We had no septic tank, guess what I'm the money to do. So after doing the clothes, the water had to be carried out, throwing outside from the washing machine. So you did have a washing machine?

Yep, yeah. She had a ranger washing machine. When I was 13 months old, mom was washing clothes and she stepped away to do something, and I run my right arm into the ringer on the ringer washing machine. I got a great big scar on my elbow here from where it... What is a ringer washing machine? Oh, hey, you don't know what a... Ringer washing machine is two wooden rollers on someone on a crank.

Later they were motorized, but Mums was on... No, it must have been motorized because it brought... took my arm through. And you had pressure on them, took the clothes out of the agitator, wrung them a little bit, and then put them through the ringer. And these two rollers squosed the water out of them. The actual tub run off of something like a lever that you kind of manually made the agitator go? You know?

I'm just glad I didn't have to be a mother back then because they worked hard. One step up from the scrubboard. And they probably thought that way. Gee, this is pretty slick. Tremendous invention. And then I would imagine when she went from having to run it by hand to electric, that was a huge advantage. Yeah.

When it comes to heat, because I've had a lot of people talk in here about they remember the cold, just how cold it was, not outside, like inside, right? You had to constantly stock the wood in any time it burned low. Now you got, so did either of you or both you? Was that a big thing? I suppose you being in town, you didn't have to worry about it. It was a cold, like the week we just went through in our house, it would have been not cold enough to freeze the water, like in the water pills.

My mom and dad tell of the shack they were first married in. You woke up in the morning, the water pill was frozen solid. It would be cooled off when the last person to bed at night would go down and throw lots of coal into the furnace, turn the damper down so it was burning slow. But by morning, the first person up was to go down and light the furnace. So would you lay under the covers and go? I would have, yes. Covers up around your ears and wait. Raise you up yet?

No. No, I'm still sleeping. No, I was one of the younger ones, so I didn't have to. to and my mom did it. Like my dad died when we were young. So when my mom was the one that, poor lady, I mean the things she did for us are incredible. But she'd go down in the morning, get the furnace going,

get the wood burning, and then throw some coal on. Then you'll have the dampers open so it heated up. And it's surprising how quickly that, like it was about a 900 square foot house, how quickly it would heat up and then hear away. It's good. Then somebody's yelling that it's too hot in the hearing, and go down and put the damper back on the furnace,

which you could do from upstairs. A little chain turned it on or off. Yeah, but I remember the cold that way, but not the kind of cold of the generation before me would have faced because they wouldn't have had the insulation. They wouldn't have the same, like we had a stud-built house, double-walled with insulation in it. And they didn't have those type of things.

So it was very cold. They didn't know what cold was. You can imagine last week waking up in a hut, happened to build a fire. That would have been kind of like a pot-belly stove or something. I don't want to imagine it either. Pretty bitter. But they did it.

Your ancestors, mine, anybody that settled here did it? Yeah, it's what's cool. Dad has me reading the Fort Pitt history. What's that? That's probably 118. 50 to 1900 or 1870 to 1920 something like that and there's stories in there that make you go holy man yeah like I don't know that we could survive that right because I mean now minus I was drove the wife out to she teaches in Lashburn grade one and it is minus 47 now somebody goes yeah with a

windshield and I'm like since when you know back when I was a kid it was minus 47 you weren't allowed to go anywhere. I mean, us kids would still sneak down and play some pond hockey. But other than that, like, nobody's doing anything. Now, with cell phones and vehicles and... People just carry on. Just carry on? Yeah. Except the buses don't run. And if you're in Texas, it's a different story. I was going to bring up Texas because I'm thinking they're finding out what it's like right now without power and all those things. It's interesting you say it that way, though, because when I went to school, when we were bused into the Dernet School closed from grade four on,

we were bused into Lloydminster, I don't ever remember the bus not running. And now if the temperature drops, they shut them down, shut them down. Our bus ran all the time. I think some of it is lawsuit fear. Like they can't do it because some parent, if the bus quit and they're afraid. Have you noticed that across your lifespan, how everybody's worried about insurance and And who's liable? Who's going to get in trouble for whatever?

Well, I think so. I think part of our whole COVID response is that. Governments are afraid to, they get into bigger trouble doing too little than doing too much. So they do too much. You ever notice if there's any kind of a storm? The first thing you hear is road warnings. Don't go out on the highways.

Well, you and I both know that most of the time you just drive it. There's nothing wrong with it. It's fine. People went. They didn't worry. But they put out the warnings. You get a thunderstorm. come, you get a warning, you know, severe thunderstorms.

Well, yeah, the same thunderstorms we've seen for 60 years, but now they have to, they have to cover themselves by, yeah, we did announce that. So if that odd tornado shows up, well, we said you better watch out. I think that, maybe I'm pessimistic or anti-government. It's interesting because you can just see it as I get older. I'm only 35 here in a month. A month and a half. Hey, I appreciate that.

I, as the longer it goes, the more, just everybody's like nervous to do anything, right? I don't want anybody getting hurt over there, but we don't want that. Maybe we shouldn't do this. Maybe we should do that,

but we can't do really anything, so we're not going to do anything. We're just going to, everybody stay at home and shelter and put us in a bubble and close it down. Close it down. Close it down. Even an interview,

we might say something wrong, you know, Pick up on and. Oh, absolutely. Just a minute there. Yeah, yeah, well, that's what the lovely thing about a podcast is. You can edit. Well, I could do that, or I just go, I actually think the opposite.

Even if you said something poorly or something, you get to hear the whole thought instead of the snippet. Where we all know the sound bite is what gets everybody into trouble. And if you just hear the whole story, you're usually like, oh, that wasn't really much. Yeah, that wasn't really much. Yeah. You're right. Now, Vagerville back in the 50s. What was Vag back like in the 50s?

You know, I don't remember much because I was six years old when we moved away. Oh, so you moved here at six years old? No, we moved. My dad was a farmer, but he had a grain dust allergy, and so his dad was a farmer there. His dad settled in Vagerville. Not sure why Vagerville, exactly. Well, they homesteaded there. Yes, but I'm not sure why he chose there, you know.

But anyway, my dad was going to be... Can you get closer? You have a quiet voice. Okay. He was going to be a farmer. Okay. But he had a grain allergy. So he'd been an elevator agent for a while too.

And then we moved to La Ducke when I was six. And then to Edmonton when I was in grade two, I think. And then to Calgary after that. Oh, wow. So you have made a full... Mm-hmm. A loop through Alberta. And then we moved to Lloyd Minster in 61.

In all those moves, while you're moving to all the bigger... different centers. Is there anything that sticked out? Like when you got to Emmington or Calgary, you're like, wow, they're this. Oh, Calgary. I wanted to stay there. Yeah. I like, you know, I don't know, maybe it was the age I was, but I have better memories of Calgary. And we were only there two years, but I loved it. It was kind of, we got to go camping in the mountains and did all kinds of the things you do when you live close to the mountains, you know. And we weren't, we didn't have a lot, but we did a lot of family things. We did a lot of traveling into the mountains and doing,

and my dad did cattle sales and auction sales. So he would go all over the place to them, and he took us all with them, like all six of us went. Four kids and my mom and him, and usually a dog or two. When you did a camping trip to the mountains, now it's four lane, set the crews, hammer out there, hammer back. Oh, no, it was a tent. that leaked usually and air mattresses that we'd you know patched together oh yeah and you

pumped them up yeah and the tents were that horrible canvas that if you touched it it would leak you know yeah I do remember that and they smelled terror they had a terrible smell to them like kind of I don't know wet canvas smell they were awful you know so did you all six of us in one little tent but we thought it was just wonderful you know like just had a great time. And you could go to campsites anywhere. You didn't have to book it. You know, I mean, you just drove down the road and there was a campsite and you went in and put the tent up.

And there you were. And then there were those little cottages that they had near Banff that you used to be able to stay in, you know, kind of. Yeah, little cabins. Yeah, little cabins. Yeah. It was fun. It was a good time. Well, as time marches on, Banff is still Banff, isn't it?

It's a beautiful spot. It is a beautiful spot. That's a good way to put that. Yeah. It's still beautiful and it always will be, I think. So when do you move to Lloyd then? My dad got offered a job to be the manager of the Lloydminster Stockyards. It would have been Weiler and Williams back then.

Okay. And it was just an opportunity he took. Do you remember what year that was? 61. I was in grade seven, yes. Do you remember your first thoughts of Lloyd Minstead? back then. Oh, when we drove here, I shouldn't say, but it looked awful. We were kind of, I don't think mom and dad were okay with it because it was a good opportunity for him. But was it, I'm sure it was a hot,

hot summer, and we came in August to look and find, buy a house, I guess, and it looked terrible. It just, it was dusty and kind of, I don't know, it just, I remember thinking, I don't want to move there. Coming from Calgary to a little dust bowl town. And it wasn't even that. It just didn't look good that year. I mean, once we were here, it was fine. But I didn't.

Yeah, Lloyd Minster was pretty, it wasn't a lot here then. Yeah, well, back then it would have been, what, 3,000 people? Yeah, and before the oil boom, you know, so it was pretty. You knew everybody. I mean, you know, when you came, I mean, everywhere you went, you knew everyone. Now. You were leaving a lot of good friends, right? Oh, yeah, I liked.

I liked it. So, you know, it was a, I think for me it was a bad age to move to when you're 13. But it, it was fine once we were here. It turned out to be a pretty nice place. I'm still here. What did you guys do growing up for, were you active in sports? Were you into, you both got a background in cattle, obviously, but like, were you involved? Did you have a pastime you liked doing?

Well, for me, mine was always, uh, horses, you know. We always, even when we lived in town, we always had a place where we kept horses, usually just a pasture, but we all rode, and we belonged to, I don't know what it was called back then. I think it was called the Lloydminster Riding Club. And you used to load the horses on a roberst truck, which was around even then, like a cattle liner, and haul up to a pasture somewhere and somebody's place and unload and everybody went riding for a trail ride for the day and then load them up and go back. You do that in the back of a Roburge cattle liner.

The horses were loaded into the cattle liner. Yep. They were just single, you know, whatever they call them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it was, there was probably 40 people would go. We'd travel to Onion Lake or all different places.

It was fun, you know. my mom didn't ride but my dad always went and all four of us we didn't always have all have saddles so you'd go on a 15 mile trail ride bear back really we thought nothing of it because not everybody didn't have a saddle so it was fun there was good memories really I always enjoyed horses in yes is there something specific about a horse or just? I don't know. My dad.

Yeah? Loved horses. And he, in his, when he was well enough off to do it, he had race horses. Thurabreds first and then harness horses. So he was, and he raised them and read them and did very well. He's in Alberta. Like he was. And then get some guy to race them, obviously?

He trained them and then he had a guy that, a driver. he would hire until my nephew, my brother's son, was old enough. And then he became a harness driver. He did it for 30 years or 25 maybe. Yeah, so, yeah, the horse thing was kind of always there. My dad loved horses. But I think I like dogs as much, so. I was always a dog and horse person, right?

Yeah, no, I, yeah. He had a two-year-old, Barron Storm, then held a track record for, two-year-olds, I think, in Canada for a long time. Probably broken now, but... And he got lots of his starting horses, or his was through Brad Gunn. I don't know. You probably heard of Brad Gunn Home Farms? They were big in horse racing back then, too. Okay, okay. Yeah, so it was an interesting thing, time in our life, you know. How about you, Richie?

Sports. Were you a sports canon? Oh, I wasn't very athletic. I didn't get very far in any sports. You were a football player in high school. But being a football player, all you had to do is be kind of... A big man? Aggressive. I wasn't not big in high school.

No. But I was aggressive. But I wasn't even that good at that. But I love sports, following sports. And... But most of my childhood growing up was just farm stuff. Were you sticking with sports for a second? You said you love to follow it.

a hockey guy? Oh yeah, I love hockey. Who is your team back in the day? Oh, don't ask. Who wasn't? Back then, before the Edmonton Oilers, Montreal Canadiens. HAPS. It's so not anymore. And I get ridiculed for that. And, you know, the Bexon family, well, Phil Bexon works with us. He's a Habs fan now. And so it's just like this all the time and told him that he should grow up and move because we now have a team locally. You don't have to hope for winning. But, well, I got to bug him last night.

His abs lost in the oil. And the Oilers, absolutely. Yeah. Connor McDavid was on another level, wasn't he? Was he ever? I was reading a bit, and every time he'd say, he scored again, and I'd look up and watch the replay, but, yeah, he was playing. No, it's, I love following hockey and football, all areas of football, like U.S.

College, NFL, CFL. Well, I certainly hope we don't have to go too, too long in M. in Emmington here. Because you got to, you know, being an Oilers fan, you got to witness the glory. Yeah. The Gratzky days. Oh, my.

Yeah. They were great. I admire these guys now because I'm sure there is a connection between the crowd and the player in any of these sports. 100%. They feed off each other. And for those guys to go out and get themselves pumped up to play in an empty building, that's got to really be tough.

Right. Like David, didn't you get to? this 500th goal or something and 500 point point to me yeah and there was no yeah nobody there to celebrate nobody there no one can you imagine having being your your first year in the league right you're evan bouchard yeah um i think he might have had a game with fans but it doesn't matter your first game in the league you walk in and there's nobody nobody there you can't all of all my friends up even your family can't be there you know no it's it's tough on it it's got to be really hard on them and I think it's you know some of the lackluster play we might see is probably because of that

well they do expect later sport I think I think the lackluster play is always there in the regular season when they're playing 82 games I just think they can pan the crowd every once in a while and give somebody to funny to stare at now they're like well there's no turning this off no we're just going along um but you did did you do school sports I did you know but not There wasn't the... Just what everybody did. Extra sports that there was now. What did everybody do?

Like... In school, just the league sport. Are you talking track? Are you talking basketball, volleyball? Yeah. All those. Yeah. And track.

We had high school football we had. Yeah. That's the only one I did. Mm-hmm. Couldn't play basketball very good. Or volleyball. Never made those teams. Yeah.

So you're always drawn then both of you by the sounds with two livestock. Well, kind of. Yeah. Yeah. That's been my life. Yeah. I'm going to start to. to now farming, all aspects of it, the grain farming too.

But yeah, love it. You mentioned that your father passed away at a young age. How old were you when your father passed? Fifteen. Fifteen. And how did he pass? How did he pass? Yeah.

Oh, he, dad was, I don't remember my dad not being ill. And what I gather from, from what was said, he was kicked in the stomach. He was a horse guy. like he trained horses all his life he trained horses for neighbors like driving teams that was his thing as well as farming and he was kicked in the stomach by a horse in the barn

was hospitalized in Edmonton for a long time and then from that it just went down I don't ever remember him not having a tube out of his stomach into a bag on his leg probably kidney problems his kidneys were in the end his kidneys failed

and there was no dialysis in 1960, one, not that was readily available for the average person to go on dialysis. So his Gisney failed, and then his heart quit. But it was years and years and years, he wasn't, you know, when I think back, he was so admirable of how well he kept the farm going, looked after us,

given his fact that his health was never any good. Yeah, so he, He died when I was 15, David was 18, and I finished high school, tried a little bit of university, and then went back and we farm together, and then built that farm from where it was then to the ag enterprise it is today. What has tried a little university mean? He's going to be, he was, did very well in high school. He probably won just about every,

award there was in subjects and he went off to university and I think he kind of enjoyed it for a while and then I think he missed farm life and felt like he needed to be at home help and his brother you know but I think lots of people when they go to university they have that little bit of freedom maybe they don't we if anyone's got in university the first like three days you're like oh I like this yeah exactly nobody telling you what to do right Where did you go? I went to University in Saskatchewan for a little bit, and Quentin came back and farmed.

And then the next year I went to Simon Fraser, took a semester there, and kind of fafed that away. Vancouver was a fun place to be. And then came back and did one more semester, U of S, and then finally packed it in. I think I ran out of money because I was funding myself. Linda stole my line.

What was a seven? Late 60s, early 70s, yeah. Late 60s, Vancouver. Oh, yeah. You know, and I give so much credit, so much credit in my life to the Lord, but so much to my mom. My mom was a prayer warrior. And I can remember it's Simon Fraser.

Simon Fraser was kind of the lead, the lead in the LSD, the drug thing back in the late, early, or mid to late 60s. And the group I was with, we were going to do LSD. I mean, we were going to do it. but you know I never did it and I don't ever remember making a conscious decision not to it was always something we were going to do

but people that I were with fried their brains on LSD I know two guys one was institutionalized in the 60 and it hasn't been all his life another one was kind of basically non-functionable he kind of didn't have to be hospitalized

but he's ended up in in long-term care facility now from LSD. I don't know why I never did it. You know, for this day, I can't say I made a decision not to. It just never happened. And I just give credit to Mom just that has your protection, you know. Look after them and just, you know, the day never came when we were in a group or saying, oh, here it is, let's give it a shot.

That just never happened. It was just always something that was going to happen. It didn't happen to me either. And I think for me it was, or my brothers, my brother and sisters, we, I'm sure with us, we didn't want to let our parents down. They weren't strict. They were pretty easygoing parents, but they had what they expected of you. And you just, it wasn't even, it wasn't in our realm to do that, you know. It was easy to avoid that whole thing that it was around.

and big back then, I guess. LSD. Well, and just drugs. Yeah, the whole thing that started the marijuana, the whole, I don't think the hard drugs, heroin, cocaine weren't in to the realm. We'd have been, or I'd have been in, I'm not sure about Linda. There's probably ones that are legal. But the LSD, the marijuana, they were becoming available.

I just never was anywhere where it happened. Maybe I was really unpopular. I feel like this is going to be a really dumb question and probably the answer I already know. but when it comes to LSD and you particularly, Rishi, was it like you'd heard stories about it and you wanted to experience that? Or was it the complete unknown and there's this new hip drug and you're like, let's try LSD? The new hip drug thing, but the stories you heard were about it was taking you to a different level of awareness and, you know, the whole fantasy thing.

I mean, I think when you talk to people that had done it, it all. It just had this great exciting trips to know. never, never land in that, oh man, I want to experience that. And it wasn't until later, after it had been around a while, that the fallouts started to be evident, the people that were ruined on it. You know, and there were people, I'm quite sure, that did it, came through it, and they're the ones that tell the fantastic stories about a wonderful trip when they're flying over the mountains and stuff.

But you find out later. So fortunately, I never got... I just praise the Lord for that. Glad we missed all that. Now alcohol, different. I didn't know. I wasn't protected from that. And if there's one thing that I ever regret in life,

is that I'd advise anybody, don't ever use alcohol. There's one thing in my life I could say will benefit it from the use of alcohol. But I can, anything that I'm ashamed of doing, anything I regret doing. Always has alcohol related? Yeah. until I quit out drinking in 1986.

You quit drinking in 1986? Yeah. I haven't had a stitch since. Nothing. What was, first off, I always find something like that really fascinating. Hey, good for you. Like, that's very, like, I mean, for somebody to grab their life and go, you know, I just, what am I doing here? And just go the opposite way.

Yeah, and he just did it like that. He just said, I'm not drinking anymore and quit. I was just that much more fortunate than those that are addicted and can't quit that way. And that's, again, you know, praise God for that. And that's not to take anything from those that can't quit because it is a vicious, vicious thing. I was blessed with the fact that I had made the decision and I could make it stick. Many, many people have made the decision and can't make it stick. So I was just on the cusp of that.

Were you drinking? I got to ask a couple questions here. Were you like, I don't know. When I think of, I had to quit drinking, you think of the guy who goes home and drinks a case of beer or wakes up and has a shot or whatever and lives his entire days like that. Was it just that?

Or was it like, I just had a couple beers and you know what? I just, I don't know why I'm doing this anymore. No, I was a binge drinker. I go for a long time and not drink, but then when I drank, my gym is, I drank to get drunk. Until the bottle was empty. Then I was a foolish guy. Yeah.

But the main reason I quit is because I had a good friend that was an alcoholic. And he started to use me as a justification. I thought, like, I'll, you know, why do I have to worry about me drinking? Look at you, you're drunk. So that was the statement he made to me one day. The next day I quit. I thought, well, I'm not helping you. Say that one more time?

What did he say? He showed up at our place drunk. And I'd been drunk the night before and was hung over. And he came. He sold his calves at the market, showed up at the house drunk, and said, well, people criticize me for being a drunk, but look at you, you're as bad as I am. And I thought, well, I'm not helping my friend because I knew he had a serious problem. And that's the last drink I ever took.

Now, there's more to that. I mean, I don't want to get this to be a downer podcast, but after, before I quit, he would call me, twice he called me that he was contemplating suicide. He called me, I'd go visit him. And then after I quit drinking, he no longer called me, and he did commit suicide. So that's always been a, you know, where do you put that? I don't know where to put that. And I don't know, I can't say, I know, I shouldn't ever give me.

myself enough that I was enough of an influence to have made a difference because alcohol is a vicious thing if it hadn't been my influence in his life there was other people he could have called he was on he was on a destructive course

and there wasn't much going to stop that so I guess but anyway that's just yeah it's just the reason I dig is because that's what this is a for me that's what this is all about we can sit and we can talk about uh lloyd got pavement streets and this day and that kind of thing but it's all about getting in between the years as i like to say

and find out what makes a person tick and we're going to definitely hear about your lives but i mean that's that's it to just shut off drinking and be like no more uh is i think it is something that a lot of people wrestle with right right right when it comes to alcohol and probably what cigarettes those two are very tough. And very socially, well, not so much smoking anymore, but alcohol is very socially accepted. Oh, it's every. Yeah, it is.

And for, you know, and I hate to be a downer-un alcoholic for the people that use it socially and handle it well. Yeah. You know, I mean, that's good, great. But for the percent that fall out, you know, if any of my grandkids say, you know, do you think I should have a drink? Should I drink?

I would say, no. Why risk it? Because you can have a good social life without it. And there's people that would say that I've been abhor ever since 1986. You know, I had a few of my friends tell me that. One guy said, it used to be fun. Now you're just boring. When did you two meet?

Well, we knew each other in school. I can remember when their family came to the junior high school the first day because my buddy and I, we were. We were looking for guys in our sports. You know, the school was divided into four groups. And we were hoping to get this guy because he was wearing a hockey jacket. That was my brother. We knew that Chuck was a hockey bear.

Oh, we got to get that guy in our. So I remember very distinctly when they came in. And there was three, two girls, because Jana wasn't in junior high yet, was she? No. So we saw the family. But we never got romantically inclined until 1970. And I was finished. nursing then. Like I've been way to Edmonton and three years of nursing. So it was kind of after that.

Before we go on to nursing and meeting and romantic, you said you were split into four groups. You talking intermereals? Yeah. Houses, they called them. Yeah. Yeah. What were the, do you remember what the houses were? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter, Mars. We are aiming for the stars. I forgot how to that. Oh, that was silly. I remember it very well. I remember it very well. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Do you remember which house you were in? I was ineptive. Mars. Mars? And who was the top? Who won? Oh, we were good in a couple of things. Harold Myers was my buddy then.

He was in that. Harold Myers went on to play hockey with the Edmonton Oil Kings. He played some American hockey league. He was a good athlete. It varied. I don't know who. Different sports like badminton, volleyball, hockey, football, all over. Well, I remember that very well.

I can't remember what group I was put into. Was it the same names? I almost want to say it wasn't Hill one, but maybe I'm wrong on that. I remember the paintings on the wall. They had the four, maybe there was more than four. So did you go to the comp? I went to the comp later on. Grade 10, 310 to 12.

I went to the comp, and by then that was long gone. Oh, yeah. Was there a reason? Do you ever remember why they did that back in school? No. To encourage competitiveness is all I can think. I have no idea. We don't want that anymore.

No, heavens no. But it did encourage it. There was pretty, you know. No, now everybody gets. It was good. Participation battles. That's right. That's right.

Yeah. You didn't get anything if you didn't win. They got a lot of, you know, I got lots of kids involved. kids wouldn't be good enough to play in the hockey team. Yeah, you all became part of a house. Yes. Yeah.

And so I think, you know, even the Columbus kid could still play on a team doing something. Well, I was one of them. I do remember the draft. They used to have a draft in the grade six room, I think. Yeah. No, that's right. Pretty young when you got drafted.

You're going to be grade four in Helmont at one point in time. Isn't that funny? Be the last guy picked, yeah. I was usually in the middle. I was never the first. It's a second. Yeah. It's probably a popularity contest.

Totally. Yeah, absolutely. Right? Or family name. Well, there's that. Oh, must have athletic ability. That's right. Everybody knows his brothers or his sister.

Well, that's, yeah, that's right. Wait, I have two left. They'd be looking for the Newman's. Yeah, they're athletes. Get one of them. With graduation. Did you wear a big tuxedo? Did you have a,

Great dress? Oh, a long dress, yeah. But they weren't like they are now. No, I'm sure they were bought in a store and just, you know. Here you go. Yeah, and now it's like as big a deal as your wedding. A lot of grads are, you know, at least I find, I think, oh, you're just graduating high school. It's the start of your life, not the end, you know, like maybe.

Well, when you were high school age, did you ever get told these are the best things? days of your lives? That ever come across to you? Oh, I think so, yeah. Yeah, but I don't believe it. Oh, I don't believe it, but we're older now. Yeah. At the time you believe it.

At the time you believe it. Yeah, maybe. Don't agree? Oh, I don't, no, I don't look back on high school and junior high with great fondness. No, no. I think it was a stressful time in lots of ways. Yeah. How so?

I don't know. I just, maybe I was. Didn't feel like I fit. I don't know. I just don't remember it being one of those times. Oh, that was so much fun. I, you know, much better when I was finished school. Went on to other things, you know.

It just was, that's just me personally. But my brothers and sister, brother and sisters, they all seem to really quite enjoy high school. Yeah. I was kind of quiet, like to read. wasn't so much into parties and you know that kind of stuff so so it's a Friday night you get the weekend off to do whatever you want what were you two doing back in high school I was probably at home reading a book yeah what did you like to read back in or even know anything yeah no no no you can't

say anything well a lot of novels novels but history novels now is what I like so I guess I think I just read fiction mostly, you know, wasn't true stories. Yeah, but when you say fiction, like, what was your, what was your, what was your, what was your, what was your favorite book from back then? Is it like, I'm trying to, I'm trying to even trying to think right now. Like, all I can think of is Nancy Drew. That's the only one I can think of. I'm thinking of things like Wuthering Heights and just they were, the ones you took in

school that were well-known authors, you know, and they were good. Catcher in the Rye? Yeah, things like that. I like, I've never read Ketcher in the Rye. The joke in our family was when it's time to do dishes, I was off reading somewhere and they couldn't find me because I was. You enjoyed reading that much? Yeah, it was great.

How about you on a Friday night? No, get with my buddies and try and get in the bar. Was it drinking age? I thought the drinking age back then was 21. It was 21, yes. You always had a guy with you that looked old. I could get in, get a case of beer. You know, it's funny, though, we all think he looks old.

And now that you're older, do you think any 18-year-old looks like he's old? No, that doesn't look old enough. They look like they're 12. I think there's a lot of looking the other way. Oh, absolutely. But just the other day, we drove back from Saskatoon or North Balford and passed Delmas and you said, oh, we used to go to the bar in Delmas. Have you seen the bar in Delmas?

Don't want to get that poor guy in trouble. You probably passed away now, but you could buy beer in Delmas. I mean, didn't matter how old you. That's like, what's Delmas? That's got to be. There's nothing there, but the bar or the hotel. But how far away from Lloyd is that? That's like an hour drive.

It's almost. Yeah. Because you're almost in North Battleford. So you guys would drive there for. Don't know, no, coming back from Saskatoon. No, but why were you doing it back then is what he's saying? Why would you go all the way to Delmas to get? We were too young.

So you drive from Lloyd? No, we wouldn't drive to. It was coming, always coming back. Oh, coming back from Saskatoon. Oh, I thought you meant it was in. high school. Oh, no, no, no. University. We could, we could get it done here. There was the guys, the bootleakers. All that's foolish stuff. I can imagine waste your time looking for that. Bootleggers? Oh, yeah, but you all did it. I mean, oh, didn't you go to? Did you travel the

strip? Did you hop in a car and up and down the main road? Oh, up and down, up and down. My buddy Don Olson had a car. And so he, and he always had a car. So we were up and down. Well, what's the car? What was the car back then. Oh, he had a 57 Dodge and he had a convertible. Yeah, no, I had the convertible later on. He had about a 62 Pontiac, then a Ford before that, Black Ford. Well, two doors, you know, kind of spiffy cars for the day. Yeah. My friend had a studebaker. She did. You mentioned you graduate and then you go off to nurses college. Where did you go?

Edmonton General Hospital. Yeah. Were you excited to get Adelaide? I think I was excited for an adventure. I came home a lot, so maybe I wasn't that excited. Because at first we got every weekend off, and so I would get on the what was called the rail liner you could come home on the train

and go back on the bus. So you came on the... So you rode the train from Emmington to Lloyd hopped off? On Friday night, yeah, and then would go back Sunday night. On the bus? Greyhound, yeah.

Do you remember that single car trained? Sometimes two car. It was just one car with the motor on it. And it would go back and forth. He would never... No, that didn't last long, so... It was, yeah, and it was cheap, and people think.

travel that way all the time. I forgot about that. That is a long time ago. Yeah. No, I definitely do not remember the dayliner. No. I'm trying to think if I've ever wrote a train. You're half my age, so I'm pretty sure you don't remember.

That would be in this, well, you were in nursing, 68, 9, and 70, so back in that era, probably disappeared shortly after that. Well, you just think, how many people do you know tomorrow that are hopping on? on a train to go anywhere. No one. Yeah, nobody. Nobody. Unless you're on a LRT in a city, yeah.

Yeah, and like, that's the only place of a river train. Is it in New York or, uh, yeah, yeah, that's right, right? Like there's some big cities that got it where it makes complete sense. You hop on, boom, you're there. No. Yeah. And it just went the way of the dodo bird, I guess.

You know, it wasn't. When you were graduating and looking for an adventure, did you always want to be a nurse? Was that was kind of like, gee, I wanted to go do this, or was that one of the only options you had? It wasn't the only option I had, but I didn't want to be a teacher. I knew that. My mom was a nurse, and so maybe that had some influence because my dad thought the son rose and said on nurses, like, because he just did. And maybe I thought, well, yeah, that sounds all right. and as a younger person in school,

I went to did what was called candy striping. It's like volunteer at hospitals and you fed babies or helped old people that couldn't cut their food and, you know, couldn't. And I did it for five years. There was a whole group of us that were candy strippers and it was a good way to get into and I think I liked it.

So I thought it was a good career, you know. And it was. Plus, the fact, it wasn't expensive. Not that we couldn't have afford it. I don't know about that. But nursing back then, you didn't go to university. Very few did. It was a school of nursing, a diploma, three years. And they kind of used you as slaves after. I mean, you worked as well as got classes. You know, so your three years wasn't just learning,

going and sitting in a classroom. You were doing a lot. by the time you graduated, you were pretty much working full-time, days, nights, all the shifts, you know. But I think I graduated. I was 20, and I thought I'd seen everything. I mean, saw people die, saw babies born, you know, looked down. I just thought I was an old soul at 20, you know. maybe that's why I got married at 21 because I thought I'd seen and done it all I was ready for the next step in my life

kind of indicating that was a bit of a mistake isn't she no no no I meant I was very young is what I meant like 21 now sounds so young to get married to me yeah but like but I didn't think it was young at the time you were not that far removed from a generation that went off to war at 18

Like you think by the time I'm born in 86 You know we just were that much further removed We're another generation Yes couple generations And it's just different Now we look at an 18 year old or a 14 year old Or heck a 10 year old And some of the things that I hear and hear

That you were doing at your age as I go Can you imagine giving it? Like right now there's lots of parents That don't want their kid to move at 18 because how will they survive? It's like, well, they will or they will. Yeah, you're right. Yeah.

But, I mean, seeing all the different things, I mean, that would be eye opening, I bet. Oh, yeah. For a young person, because you hadn't seen that sort of thing before, you know, nursing was, it wasn't easy. Wasn't easy. Back then it wasn't. No, I don't think it is yet. It's a tough occupation.

It is. Yeah. It's not suited to everyone, you know, like it doesn't. Yeah. Like I still think nurses work very hard even in this day. Well, I don't know how they can't though, right? You have a sick person who... You've got to have some empathy. That's right. Yeah. Well, even, I just, we've been in there. I speak very highly of the maternity ward because we've had three children and, well, the oldest will be five here in April. So I guess in five. five years we've had three. All in Lloyd. All in Lloyd.

And they've been fantastic. Yes. But they still got a deal. Like, I'm always impressed, but they must be able to just, I should have a nurse on to tell me about it. The first time we had a kid, uh-oh, we had a kid, first time we had Shay, they must have checked on us like every hour. Just like banging in and making sure, because they could probably just see like, you didn't know what you were doing. And you got, and by the time you had your second, then they checked on you every four hours. And by the time we had our third, I don't even know if they came in the room.

Are you done yet? Yeah. Are you ready to go home? Bring the bell if you need me. We need to do a blood test. Oh, should go. But that must be a special talent that can just see that you're ridiculously comfortable and carry on with life. Yeah, they're very, it's a good career.

And the maternity nurses are a different, you know, I mean, it's specialized to each area you work in. It's hard in a Lloyd Hospital because they don't have the specialties that you'd have in bigger hospitals, you know. In saying that, in the maternity ward, when Casey was born, he was born and kind of had some serious complications. And I was saying we did the Health Foundation last December, which by the time this is released, we'll be closing in on this December and maybe we'll be doing it again. But when Wade Redden and Clark MacArthur and Holp. B. and McCross and all them, they had their golf tournaments. they raised a whole bunch of money for the health foundation. And they bought a whole bunch of new technology, and we used every last one piece in there,

which is, you're right, and the bigger centers you have it all there. But Lloyd's still come. It's pretty progressive. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. Especially in certain areas, you know.

And you can get surgery now that you couldn't back, you know. Yeah, no, it's good. I wouldn't want to work there right now with COVID, but. Yeah. Yeah, it would be a tough place to be, wouldn't it? I think so, yeah. You can imagine all the regulations and... Oh, yeah.

Because all you're doing is dealing with people and dealing with people who are probably vulnerable to contracting and if they get it ain't very good. Yeah, they're not in the hospital anymore unless they're very sick. Yeah. So that makes it harder. How many years were you a nurse for? Well, I worked probably three or four, three years maybe

after I graduated and then we had kids. So I quit for a few years. That slowed you down. Yeah, and then I went back part-time. Part-time. Part-time. Part-time at the hospital. And then I went to the long-term care

because it was easier to jump in and out of, you know, because when you take work part-time, you'd maybe have a week off and then work a week. Well, nothing much changed in a long-term care facility. So I always like pediatrics. And in a way, long-term care with seniors was sort of the same, but at a different age, if you know what I'm saying. People sort of regress a bit as you get older and looking after children. When they're 80, they're sort of like some of them, like children again.

I like how she gave you the head nod. When you're looking after children. I didn't know. I did that. He caught it. The video camera for sure got it. Oh no. I'm going to be your baby again.

And so then I just kind of decided that nursing was, it was time to quit. That's hilarious. I think the reason I'm telling you why I quit was because I decided that I was ready to be. be a patient more than a nurse. You know, like it was just became, I think your nursing is for young people to be a nurse. When you're 50, 60, nobody wants to have an old nurse looking after them. That's my theory. Careful, careful.

No. Some old nurse is going to hear this and be insulted, but that's okay. I've been a patient too, and I know I just as soon have somebody that. you want the right there yeah you want them in the middle of their life where they got enough experience they know what the hell they're doing

yeah not the first time they've ever no because we've all had the the newbie the newbie yeah yeah now you're right the newbie you always feel bad for because he's like you're just trying I know you're just trying

but you suck right now you're killing me yeah not true not literally killing me yeah so that was that was the end my nursing career and then we got busier on that feed lot. And I got into that and I had a good time.

Well, before we get into VT, because I want to hear the story of VT, let's stick with you two just for a second here because we got the big romantic here. You guys grow up, go to school together, you go away, you go to college, you come back and you're 20 and you just stumbled back into this guy and he just wooze you off your feet?

Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, it was quite interesting. It was like I'd nowhere, who she was and everything for a long time. But I used to hang out at the Stockyards lot. Don Olson worked there and he was my buddy and he did bookkeeping there for Russ Phillips Philip Livestock, which was a division of Wyern Williams, which Linda's dad ran. So I was around there a lot. And I mean one day in the summer, here's Linda.

I'd seen lots of times, but she's sitting there and off of her dad's office and we're all sitting there visiting and all of a sudden she's pretty nice looking girl and it's the first time i remember thinking oh hmm and then so then i made it a point to see if i could pursue that and it worked and i was actually living in edmonton then too so right yeah yeah caught you off guard mm-hmm no at 21 sure we should she'd wait two things I've learned today one she's sure she married too young and the other now she's going to have to look after the old guy well you're only two years older than me it's not like a big deal yeah but you gave it away no that's just my way of talking Sean caught that

I didn't think that you mentioned that you're closing in on 50 years 5-0 uh coming up later this year but at Valentine's day it was actually 50 years since you've been engaged yeah one of you What have you learned over 50 years other than being able to laugh with one another? Oh, I think that's the most important thing. If you can't do that, it's not going to work. And, I mean, we've had lots of ups and downs. But we've never had... Commitment, I think you always need.

Right? I interrupted you, but I was saying, commitment is something you need. But we never had the tragedy, which I think is really hard on marriages. like our three kids have been healthy. They've all been fine, and they've all been, well, what you want to say, good citizens, you know, no misfits, no one's been in jail or been an addict or anything.

And they've have wonderful spouses and wonderful grandkids. And I think that may not help a marriage, like our marriage, but it doesn't take away from it. Which I think, you know, families that have to live through tragedy, it's a lot harder because then you, you know, you start to defend yourself by attacking another. It usually draws people closer together or the opposite. Or the opposite. Yeah. So I guess what I'm saying, we've had maybe an easy life in that way.

You know, we've never had real tough financial difficulties or illness. either one of us. Linda's had some health issues of late, but not life-threatening ones. But then commitment and just deciding, like I don't think it ever would have entered my mind, no matter how upset or annoyed or angry of it yet, you know, let's end us.

You don't do that. And I think it comes from like both our families or, you know, we come from families that are, I don't think there's any, family, any that ended it in our ancestors. So it wasn't something you did. But yeah, there's no, it's another one of those things. There's so many things in life.

When you answer those questions, you put there, like your greatest accomplishment in that. So many of them are in spite of yourself. You know, you were blessed to be in an area that made the things worked well. and so to accomplish 50 years of marriage is a great thing but I think we were blessed to be in a situation always which it wasn't there wasn't alternatives there wasn't that hard to do something nagging at you to pull you apart

it just was the thing to do and we were blessed with you know and I mean I credit so much of that to the good Lord that we were just blessed because he answers prayers and when you pray for in different times you pray for things to be better then you get blessed with being able to carry on a marriage and you can't think of a specific thing he does to do that but it just happens just the way he unfolds the world so yeah i mean i we're i don't know about linda but maybe she did get

married too young but we she's going to want to punch do you only do you switch off the camera two seconds here we could have let's have an adela. But I'm very proud of the fact it would have been married 50 years. Now, it's left significant now because people live longer. You know, I know my mom and dad. Very few people may.

I don't know about that. People may live longer. I wouldn't say it's any... Now, this room has had a lot of people that have been married 40 plus years. But in saying that, there have been families that volunteer a lot or community supporters,

a couple other things, which I find very interesting, I think, when you can, hmm, geez, and another family that's married 60 years and they volunteer and they do, and find ways to have fun outings that maybe don't need, I don't know, X, Y, Z, whatever it is. But I would never go and say right now that 50 years is non-accomplishment because, I mean, longevity, sure,

but there's still a ton of people that, I mean, divorce is like 50% right now. Yeah. You're flipping a coin. I guess that is right. That's an awful statistic in a way, isn't it? It's an unbelievable statistic, yeah. I guess I was just thinking that, you know, our circle of people, there's a lot of them at 50.

Yeah. You know, I mean, you've had, like you say, in here, George and Maryland Man and Johnny and Bed Pickery will be 50 soon. My sister and her husband are 50. There's just quite a few that are coming at the same age that we are. But it's probably kind of, we're all coming out of that. same type of people, you know, rural type people that stick with things. I think a lot of it is just a lot, like fortunate, because some people end up divorced, but it isn't really that they lacked something. It just is how it happened. You know, maybe they

really, really weren't suited to each other. And I feel very fortunate that we've made it through. I don't think we were extra special, is what I guess I'd say. I don't think any less of people that end up divorced. That's fair. They tried hard, lots of them, you know, I think they, mostly on the whole people that got divorced, I think they tried all sorts of alternatives before they did that. I'm sure it was never easy for anybody. You said at 21 you were young, I met Mel when I was 21 in college. We didn't get married per. But yeah, but you... And you were in Minnesota? Is that right?

Went to school in Wisconsin. Wisconsin. Mel's from Minnesota. So we met and we've been married now seven years but now I'm trying to think I think it's... Oh God, I can't believe I'm doing this on the 14 years. Oh wow. You've known... Yeah, because I turn 35, so yeah, 14. And so we were really young and I always think, you know, when it comes to getting something right, if you could get one thing right,

in your life, it's at a very young age you usually meet, especially your generation. But I mean, even now, it's a very young age when you meet the person who's going to become your significant other. And I don't think you fully understand, I don't think you can, at that young age, how important that is. Yes. Because if you get that wrong, that's a long, full long life. If you get it right, you're like, well, I was doing something right.

I mean, it might be. How lucky were we, right? That's right. Yeah. No, you're right. I never like the luck thing because I'm like I know I don't believe luck that's I'm I make my own luck right like I work my bag off I do things that's luck I guess you call it blast then because that's but when you but when you do bring in being like 21 and now as you get older you see 21 year olds and you just go yeah there is a bit of luck in there isn't there because how can you possibly know somebody that well to know how they're going to react to having kids down the road and and and like the Where the kids up every three hours and you just, you know, I love you, but I want to, I hate you right now. Just get up with the kid, would you?

How can you possibly know that when they're 21? No, you can't. No, you don't know anything, really. But it works. How about kids? How old were you when you guys starting having kids? Married at 21? And then was it?

We married in 71 and Ted was born in 73. End of 73, December. Yeah. So we had married two and a half years. Almost three. What was adding children like to your family, to your family dynamic? Was that you just look back and want to go back to the young years or you're like, oh, not a chance? Oh, I don't know.

I don't know that I'd want to go back. I never want to go back. I don't have. Never want to go back? Not very often. No, I kind of like looking ahead. I don't want to. But it was a good.

time. Like our kids were close together. Seventy-three, 75, and 76. They were born. Yeah. Three and six. And so Ted was not even two when Dawn was born. And Dawn was 11 months when Jennifer was born. So they were all under three. Yeah, they were close together. Yeah. Eleven months. Yeah. Irish twins. Somebody, yeah. Someone joked that, well, it was our brother-in-law. Didn't they teach you birth control in nursing. We just thought if you're going to have kids, you might well have them. Get it going. Yeah. And then they're friends.

You know, like they can grow up together. And they kind of did. They did everything the same, you know, almost. We had to watch Don because you always stole Jennifer's bottle. It was a busy time. Yeah. Yeah.

Diapers or? It was mostly diapers, yeah. Not pamper's or whatever they. Like reusable, you're saying? No, no. Like di- Reusable. Yeah, like you had to wash.

In a diaper pail, wash it. Yeah. Why can't I think of what that's called right now? Yeah, I know. But they, yeah, that's basically all there was, except for a horrible brand, right, that they tried to come out with. It wasn't.

What was the horrible brand? Well, I don't remember, but it was kind of like wearing a big wad, you know, Did you ever use disposals? I think if we traveled sometimes, we would. But other than that, you didn't, eh? No. That would have been, what, 78?

And Jennifer wouldn't need a diaper after, what, 77? Yeah. A year? Right, a year and a half? Two years probably. So 78, and they still weren't that prevalent. Like, I don't ever remember. And now, I mean, it's odd if you use reusable.

Yeah. Yeah, could you even go buy cloth diapers? Cloth, thank you. Why can I spit that out? cloth. Yeah. They almost were trendy again for a while. They're trending and it won't because honestly,

recyclable, like reusable. That's right. It honestly, don't get me wrong, I don't want to clean a cloth diaper. But the amount of waste generated by children is, actually when you think about it is huge. Indisposables, yes. Yes. Yeah. I remember the horror stories at the time where the scary was the diaper pale.

you'd hear the story of a baby drowning in a diaper pill like a toddler. It had a lid. You always had a lid, but you always watch the diaper pill to make sure, because we had that stage of kids. You wanted to make sure no one drowned in the diaper pill by looking at it and tall.

I can't imagine them doing that, but I can remember that being something on your mind. Is the diaper pill looked at it? Is it covered? You got the lid on it? You watch the diaper pill. What's strange? What the heck is a diaper pill?

Well, you put the dirty diapers in a pail of water. They soaked in a solution. In a solution. Yeah, until you got four or five of them, and then you put them in the washing machine, but you didn't put one at a time in the washing machine. And it was sort of a solution that, you know, clean. Sounds like the old honey pails.

It sounds like. It was awful. It was like the honey pail, and then you rinse them out. And everything shook off them, and then they went in the washing machine and go wash. You threw the diaper pill. the water into the toilet bowl and flushed it. Yeah.

We'd talk about recyclable things. That makes me think, I always laugh because I could never have imagined that we'd have bottled water, like until we did, you know, and now I kind of don't imagine not having it. But if someone had said back, I mean, you got, you had pop, obviously, but until bottled water, it just was like, you have to bottle. your water, what's wrong with the tap, right? I mean, and now nobody drinks it out of the tap unless you got a special filter.

Oh yeah, RO system or something, yeah, filtered. And nobody worried. And I don't remember that we got sick either from it. We drank the water, well water, you know, like on the farm. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, that's another one that's landfill filling. It's bottled waters. Do you would, I know you don't want to go back, but if you parent or grandparent, what do you take?

Which would? Which you prefer? Oh, grandparent. Grandparent? Well, being a parent was great, but grandparent is wonderful. The cat's ass? Well, yeah, because you get to have them and, you know, send them home and, yeah, you're just, they're wonderful. What is your go-to for the kids?

What are you giving them way too early in the morning when you'd probably. I know you shouldn't be, but you're like, ah, I get to send them home. Oh, whatever they asked for. Yeah, there's no, no. I don't think there's a no. I mean, maybe there's instructed and get great discipline and lectures before they're dropped off at our place, but I don't know that they ask for anything they can't have if it's there. Well, yeah, apparently.

And we always make sure we stalk what we anticipate, like lots of ice cream, sandwiches, and buckets of ice cream. But of course, Grandpa likes that too, so I like an excuse to have one with them. Yeah, and apparently I say yes, you can have that before I check with the parents, you know, which you should do with a five or six-year-old before they eat three ice cream sandwiches with chocolate, and it's 8 o'clock at night, and they're going to go home on a chocolate high. Yeah, maybe not a good plan.

No, I'm sure you hear that from any grandparent, and as a parent, you'll wonder, how goofy these grandparents are, because you don't, something happens when you get them. Like I was surprised because I'd seen people think they're all goofy about being grandparents, like, don't give it a rest.

You know, like, how can you be so silly? Until you are one. And there's something clicks. They are so delightful and they're just the most wonderful things to have. And your heart will ache for them as much as your own kids. If there's an issue, if they're sick,

if they have a, I think the biggest heartache is when you hear of them being offended or bullied or, I mean, none of ours have been bullied. But if they've been offended or slighted in a way, that's just like stabbing a dagger. Like, how can you do that to my grandkids? Well, I always think of being a grandparent, your friend. He was quite elderly then in his 80s, but his grandson died of a tragic, an aneurysm. and he was 12 or 13, and he was devastated. And he'd seen lots of troubles in his life and had, you know, deaths and things.

But he told you that was the worst thing that's ever happened to me, was his grandson dying. Like, it was a devastation to him. I think that's how grandparents feel. Like, it's hard to even imagine that. And I'm sure your mom and dad would say the same thing. and your wife's parents. Like, it's just,

grandkids are great. Yeah, I always feel from Mel's parents because they live in Minnesota. Right. And COVID, as you know, is even worse.

You can't even go and visit. No, so it's been, it's been a year of Christmas, so it's been over a year. And with little kids, they change so much. So much.

Yeah. That's really hard. That's heartbreaking when you hear that because, I mean, we've got seven of them and they're all right here. Yeah. See them.

all as much as we want to. But yeah, that, you know, my Don's wife, her mom has had some cancer. They live south of Fasca Toon, where they haven't seen the grandkids for a while, and they don't want to travel and be out much because she's a higher risk. And it just is breaking her heart, you know. They've gone six months without seeing those kids. Well, when they're, you know, eight and seven and so on, they change them. much like Linda said. And I really feel bad for her that she doesn't get to see them.

And yours, yeah. Yeah, that is too far. You can't even go if you wanted to. We're hopeful this summer. Hopefully, hopefully over the summertime, Mel can take the kids. Some of these silly rules. That justifies breaking rules to get that done. Yeah, but... Yeah, that's so important. It's hard to... Because it's only once, they're only that age once. Yeah, they, and even at... in between like, well, obviously when they're first born to probably three. Well, actually, I shouldn't even say that because Shays' both turned five and his personality

just keeps constantly changing, right? And so I look forward to being a grandparent. I'm stocking up on ice cream sandwiches. Oh, yeah, you're going to have a good time. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you'll love it. You'll love every minute of it. But you got all those fun things, yeah, all the sports.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I always wonder what the treat of choice is, because I know when we're dropping the kids off, my mom always says cookies. And it's like cookies at like 8 in the morning. I'm like, you sure you want to do this? They're yours for the day.

You do what you got to do, right? Oh, yeah. Cookies are we eat. Great. Yep. Now, we haven't talked about VT feeders. I feel like if anyone's listening to us, they're wondering if we're ever going to get to it. And I think for you, for you.

guys like vt is a pretty big name around this area um curious about the story of how it gets going i know you you come back you work on the farm where does the feed lot like how does this evolve a lot of sitting down and business planning and planning design and all that don't believe that wasn't that way at all it's the silliest thing you can ever imagine david and I, we always had cattle around. And we were feeding 700 cattle, forking the silage and carrying the grain, like putting full-feed cattle on feed with five-gallon pails. And that, you know, we were young and full of ambition, but that was a lot of work. So if we could just have enough cattle around to justify a feed wagon, a mixer box, it would be a lot easier. So,

we decided to build the start of ET Featers. In 1973, we built enough pen space for 2,000 head. Just so we could justify a mixture box, so we didn't have to work so hard. It was poorly planned. When you look at it now, you think, oh, good grief, you should be slapped at the side of the head.

But that's what started, and then it just grew from there. But that was what was behind it, the sillies and might sound, it was to get out of work. and that's what it started so we fed our own cattle the amount we were feeding and more if we could afford them and then started bringing in custom cattle

and so we've been partially custom feed lot and partially our own for 40-some years well what's something you know it's funny that you're trying to get out of work and that's how you build something like that's that's

I thought It was the way you were going, I thought you were going to be, oh, they'd like strategically plan this. No, no, no, not definitely not. None at all. Just fell into it, right? Yeah, fell into it. When it started to grow in the first, I don't know, five years, 10 years? Yeah, well, the first major expansion was 79.

And what was the year you built it? 73, you said? 73, we had 2,000 head we added on there, which gave us about 2,500. And 79, we got up over 7,000. and then a few bigger outside pens in. So you went from 700 to 2,000 to over 7,000. Did I just hear those numbers right? Yeah, and 79.

We'd have been up over 7,000. That isn't like 700 to 820 to 940. That's a lot of cattle. Yeah, but the logistics are such that it's not that big of lead because once you're into the equipment, it's not a large jump to jump in those numbers. You have to have the facilities and the equipment and the men. And manpower has always been one of our greatest blessings.

We've gone through, you know, it's kind of, we're countercyclical to the oil industry. When Lloydminster booms in an oil cycle, we suffer because labor costs go up, lose all our good men to the oil patch. When the oil patch is in a downtime, you get all the good men back. We get the good men back.

And we get to keep the young guys that we train. Now, our wage levels have gone up significantly, and so it isn't that big a, you know, our wage levels is a way, way higher. It had to be to be competitive. And once you get there, you can't back up. You know, we could probably operate a way lower wage level and have guys because, you know,

your old patch isn't functioning that much, but you lose your good guys. And we've been blessed to have some permanent long-term people that have been, I mean, there's important our places many of the family has. So that's been a big part of being able to do it. So the quantum leaps aren't that big if you have those things. You have the equipment and the manpower. But surely at the start when you go from seven, 700, you went and built the infrastructure and purchased a bunch of equipment then?

Well, the one machine and the rest, the rest we kind of had around, I guess it was more than that. We had to put in a feed mill, but the first time we used Lloyd Co-op feed mill to process all our grain. And just hauled it out and dumped it into bin and then put it in the mixer. Then it wasn't until kind of the mid-70s we put up our own feed mill. and then that was up and functioning before the expansion in 79. So feed mill, just so I'm correct, is like the auger system trying to... Rolls the barley? Thank you.

Rolls the barley. Roll the barley. And then all the additives are there like the... You're adding protein. You're adding some additives like rumensin that reduces bloat and a few things like that. They're all in bins there at the mill. So when the truck pulls in, there's scales on the truck. So you weigh on your grain, you weigh on your other additives, and then you go to the

sideage pit and weigh on the silage you need. Let the mixer mix it together and go feed it. And then you're weighing it off. So it's pretty simple. What's some of the things then you've learned? What was it, 40 years? Yeah, 73 to now. What's that?

No, that's almost 50 years. 49 years, yeah. Two years to 50. What are over that? Jeez, that's almost as long as you guys have been married. Yeah. Yeah. Actually.

Yeah, we were married to 71 and we built in 73. It was 48 years. Well, what is some of the things over that time, starting from a little operation and just growing it exponentially, what are some of the things you've learned about whether it's business or whether it's about animals? There's certainly got to be a couple of a picture. Tiffany Monom is where you went, oh crap, we've been doing that wrong.

Or, wow, now I completely understand why this works. There's an awful lot of experience that you could rely on for the how-to. The feeding industry was fairly new in 73, but it had been around since the mid-60s, starting in Texas into southern Alberta. We were one of the earlier Alberta feedlots, but it was still there. So there was experience, there was information as far as the how-to, the feeding regime. Then the nutritionist came in onto the scene where you could hire a guy to do all your rations for you and make sure the rations are balanced. All that stuff was quite simple and you just grew as we grew.

The pitfalls would be in owning your own cattle, the risk management, because it's very volatile. You go along and you make money and you make money and you slowly grow, you can have one major downturn that will wipe out five years of profits. And those are things that we got, you know, we basically probably were broke about three times where we lost enough money feeding cattle that if it hadn't been for good bankers and some land equity that they'd, you know, take so you could keep going, that you were able to go again.

BSE was a major hit. Now, even with the amount of money, the government supported in BSE set us back, probably we'd be a lot wealthier today if we hadn't gone through BSE because BSE hit and then the volatility after BSE upset kind of the trends that we got used to. So we always operated on the cash system. If you owned cattle and the price dropped, all you had to do is make sure that we'd make sure you own that same inventory of the law because an extra rally you'd give it back to you. And that's how we grew that place until BSE.

After BSE, that cycle was convoluted. It would do things. It would have double drops. It would do all vicious things to you. And the very successful guys, and there are some tremendously successful cattle feeders in Western Canada, they learned to risk manage, got them through that. period in the last 15 to 18 years. We never, we haven't learned that until the last, well, the boys are learning that. I never did learn it. I guess what you might say. But that, that's the

biggest, you know, if you're going to be in that industry, you better learn how to risk manage. You can't take the big drops because you don't necessarily have the, the equity to own an inventory at the bottom after the drop, and you may not get the rally after it like we used to. You may have a double drop, you may have a flat place at the bottom where you never get it back. So you need to risk manage. I think that would be the single biggest change. And the other one is the lack of competitiveness in the slaughter industry. When we started, we had four packing plants in Edmonton, one in Red Deer, two in Calgary, one in Saskatoon. Now, some of them were related, so you didn't have a bid from every one of them. But we'd have as many as five bidders.

buying our fat cattle, now there's two, and they're not that competitive with each other. They don't have to be. They don't have to be in collusion to know what the other guy is doing. You just have to watch. And so it's way tougher. The margin is never there as big as it used to be because of that, because we've got two big international conglomerates on the packing industry in Western Canada. So it's a lot harder.

And consequently, our operation doesn't finish as many cattle as we used to. We do a lot of background in selling feeder cattle and buying and selling cattle for other people like your brothers. Because the advantage to the seller is the great big operations that can supply a packer with a lot of cattle at once so they can get the contracts, the guaranteed supply to the packer, they get a better sell price than we do.

So those are the major changes in the business, but it's still a good business. You just have to adjust to the changing times. You know, in any of those times where, he mentioned you had probably three different times where you're pretty much broke, did you guys have a conversation go, maybe we should just, I don't know, do something else?

No. No. Never didn't. Didn't know anything else to do. Well, I mean, you can always do something else. It might not be what you thought you'd do, but you can't. But you didn't want, you didn't want to. No, we just barrel back in and keep on going.

And it worked. It's good. Well, I hope it's good. All our kids are involved in it too now. Yeah. You know, all of them. Like all three. But we've had a lot of good people.

along the way, like your one question, greatest accomplishment, you could say that was a great accomplishment to build that operation, but it wasn't my accomplishment. I mean, my brother was a big, big part of that, and my friend Don Olson was, who was with us for years until he died, instrumental in that place going to where it is. And then now, like I said, employees that have been with us a long time that treat the place like this serious. as if they owned it. And then our family now treats it the same way. And your mom, when she was alive, she was very,

like she was widowed at the age of 50, I think. But she was always there, living in the yard, and supportive all the time, of everything. She didn't die until she was 95, so she was. She lived a good life. Yeah. And she did. Dad died at 50 and mom at 95.

So what's the longevity in your history? Well, take your pick. Yeah, no kidding. No kidding. But, yeah, and Linda and Diane, David's wife, they all was supportive, always there. So, yeah, it was, it's good. I got to ask about this world championship. You can ask.

Well, I'm trying to figure out what I call it. What was it? It's cattle sorting? No, it's cutting. Cutting. Yeah. Yeah. And.

So is this something you've done for a long time? No. I kind of started in the, I'm moving away, started when? In about 15 years before, just going to shows, because I had a nice horse that had worked cattle. And they require a fair bit of training because cutting, you put your hand down after you get the animal you want. And then the horse. stops the cow. Like you keep it away from the herd and you go back and forth and just make sure use your legs, but you can't pick your hand up until. So it's, it's the training of a cutting horse

is huge. It's not an easy sport to describe because it's got a lot of rules. So you can't move your hands once you pick the cat. Once you go and ride into the herd and you bring one out with your, and when you get it out. With you got a paddle? You got a, No, you just bring it out and get it away from the rest of the herd, and then it's like keep away. Your purpose is to not let that animal you picked get back to the herd, so you're in between. Okay. And you're holding it there. And usually you cut three in two and a half minutes, and that's what they sort of allow you.

And you get scored by a judge. And so it's a very judged event. You know, you've got to have eye appeal, and it looks good. And the horse is crucial. Okay, so then you cut it out and then once it's out, you can't use your hands? No, you put your hand down and you can't pick it up again until the cow turns away or stops moving or you decide you want to quit and then you can pick your hand up. Go back in and get another one.

And what your purpose is is to show the abilities of your horse at working a cow. So the horse is paramount. Absolutely. And how do you win then? Is it by having the best one or you have to cut the most cattle in a matter of two and a half minutes? You just usually do two or three in two and a half minutes. It's what looks the best to the judge, the horse that stops the best. Like they, it's all I appeal and.

So maybe the better question is, what horse did you take? Oh, that's the story is it? That's the biggest part of the story. The horse I found that took me to the world finals. was a story in itself because I found him in Black Labish on an internet ad. I've always looked and wanted a better horse, which horse people are always doing, apparently. And eye roll, yes. And he was there and he'd made a lot of money in the U.S.

How he ended up in La Clebeche. We never fully understood, but he was on the Indian Reserve. The natives there had a horse buying and selling thing going on where they were buying good horses and then reselling them up in Canada. And he was there, and we went up in freezing cold January Day, and I wrote him. And I don't think I could wipe the smile off my face because he was a good horse.

It's a real deal. Yeah. And we got him for a bargain price. And then I just started showing him. and winning and everywhere I went in Alberta I was you know always getting a check I might not win every time but I was good enough to get first second third you know make money and so then I just went further and further and then somehow I ended up through a friend with the trainer in Arizona and then we really were going and I

was kind of like couldn't stop because we just and they said you know you could go for the world and I was like ha ha ha you know and an old lady kind of you know but I just thought okay if you say so and they just led me along it was Mike Wood was his name he's still an amazing trainer and he they took me everywhere I was Texas not Colorado Texas New Mexico Arizona California Nevada five six states and we went to a lot of shows what was the horse's name well his barn name was chief and he was called Citas a Hoymate, which is an odd name I know, but he was a well-bred horse.

He was just good, you know. This is going to be my dumb question when it comes to horses. When you say you got on them and you couldn't wipe the smile off your face, what was it about the horse that you were just like, oh, this is something? Just the way he moved with the cow. I mean, it's like kind of watching something. run across and stop hard, you know. I don't know if you've worked, like seeing people work dogs that are really good.

And some of them are just extra good. They just know where to be and when stop and when to turn and just, you know, and he was good. Let me interrupt. We went up there this time of year on a cold day and night and found us, we got directions into the First Nations Reserve and come across this big horse facility. in the dark and talked to Morris

and yeah, we've got this horse for sale and he went out in the bush or set one of his guys out to get this horse out of the bush. That horse had not been handled. He had a blanket on but come out in the dark into the barn and saddled him up. His hooves were all kind of chipped and broken.

He looked a little bit neglected. He runs some cattle into this facility for Linda to work on. That horse had never been used until that day never got a chance to warm up, which you warm up these cutting horses all the time, lots of times for an hour. She got on him and went into this set of cattle.

That's how she knew. It was just so easy. Just from that with no, what you say, preconditioning or being alerted to the fact, hey, we're going cutting guy. He just instantly. Understood. He was a cow horse.

It just just moves. You could tell by the way he was watching those cattle. He knew exactly what he was doing. Oh, we're cutting, are we? I'm ready. And so that's how you know. You see lots of cutting horses that are laboring at their job, and they've been so well trained and ridden by such good horsemen,

they can make them really perform. But if you watch them and watch their ears, they're not into it. They'd sooner be anywhere else. Then you see the odd one that's into it, and their ears are ahead, and they're keen, they just love it. And that was that horse. and when you see him go into a set of cattle to cut like in a real show he's going in there like

he's half dead barely moving you bring that first cow out and it's just lights on and then he's just like a cat just chung chung and those are the ones that are beautiful to watch and there are lots of them you know but in Texas and Arizona and you know

kind of the cutting capital of the world but he he was good He just... Yeah, it was, we looked out. It was a gift. It was a gift. An answer to a prayer. I got that horse.

When that horse come out of the bush before you got on, or you're like, oh boy, what have we walked yourselves into? Oh, I felt sore, because he looked kind of sad, you know, he had a...

He'd have been treated like that and he'd like... Yeah, and then you... He never had been treated like that in his life. No, and it was so cold, and he'd obviously come there from Texas. I mean, he'd been there a while, six months, I think, but I think he,

I'm sure he was. But it just got caught in the, like that was the boom, I think in 2008. There was a down there. And you could sell anything. Like Morris imported bucking horses mostly. And quite a few team roping horses and team penners. And I think he bought this package of cutting horses because the market, the economy had got tough in the U.S. Right around then.

And there was this high fluting cutting horses that were cheap as heck. Oh, well, I can sell those in Alberta. they're selling like crazy. Well, the time he got him here, we were in the doldrums too, and he couldn't sell them. And when we went there, he had a pile of horses, like he had not just those handful of cutting horses, but he had some of the other types of horses he was importing, and he was just out of cash. He had to sell stuff.

Well, I think he'd overextend himself. We just ended up at the right place at the right time, it's all, and got a super-duber horse at a level we could afford, like to go now. and buy a horse like that in Texas, that's out of our league. Well, you could do it, but it wouldn't make sense. You don't make that much money doing it. No, you don't make anybody at that same. No, you just spend money.

Why aren't you in a horse discipline? Like the team ropers, they go to a jackpot and make $10,000. The Rainers, they go to make $40,000 if they win the world. Cutters, I think your check was $1,300 for winning the world. But you're married to a world champion. Oh, yeah, that's my bonus. Married to a World Champion. Who can say that?

No, and it wasn't easy to do either. Like, it took a lot of commitment. No, it's not just the horse. I traveled a lot, and I drove a truck and a trailer with a small living quarters. All across North America. All across the U.S., yeah. And Alberta in the summer. She could ride a horse, too.

But it was. You talk about riding the hair off a horse. she can ride a horse very well. No, it takes, not everybody can ride one of the reasons. I couldn't stay on a cutting horse. 67 when I won it, you know, so, I mean, there are lots of people showing at my age because it's an expensive sport,

so people can't afford it when they're younger, you know, so they wait until they've made their living and earn some money, and then they buy some good horses and go showing. But it's kind of an addicting sport because it's so much adrenaline to it, you know, because there's a speed and finesse involved. So it's fun.

That's cool. That's a cool story. It's a fun thing. Yeah, it is a good story. And it was a great two years to be down there in Arizona and then travel all over. It was really, richie came some of the time. Some good friends, really good people. Yeah, still have all these people that are awesome, you know.

I'd like to do it yet. But my horse, he's 18, and he's kind of past his best before. You know, like he needs to be retired. So he still, I ride him for ranch, riding and stuff, pasture. Yeah. But to buy another one, it's hard. You're not going to find one like that again, you know, that's going to fall out of the sky. Before I let you go, we've got to talk about the border kings.

Because we started off, before we started recording, we started talking. talking about the border kings now we've been going for we're closing in on two hours was it really don't see don't say you will have no trouble talking to Sean just easy yeah well I'm I'm glad we haven't been this hasn't been painful you mentioned your dad and brother were big into the border kings oh yeah well lay it on me I'd be curious to hear a couple stories about the border kings back and what would that have been the early 60s back in the max Bentley days Max and Lynn was his brother. It would have been late 60s.

I was out of high school. Chuck was at high school. No, he played when he was still in school. Yeah, I know, but when those teams, that team that went and played Powell River. Maybe late 60s. I was at a school. I was at a school. David and I were farming together then.

It would be late 60s. And the Border Kings were the show in town? Oh, yeah. Very much so. Yeah, they have big crowds, everybody. It was, yeah. And they won. They were good, you know.

I can't remember the years they won. And I sort of think it was called the Allen Cup, but I'm not sure. It may have been. It was that senior hockey. Yeah. I don't think it was called the Allen Cup. I think it was a Western Canada championship or something like that. Because the first Lloyd team never win the Allen Cup is the guys there.

There. But what I've learned from the Vic and, I think even Larry Sauer and guys like that, they've started to build a little bit of the history. I'm like, oh, didn't know that because those championships that they won those Canada were actually Allen Cup-ish. They just weren't called that. It wasn't called that, no.

But it was considered a whoop-de-do big deal. Yeah, big deal, that's right. I think that year they did so well, they played Paul River. They played Paul River more than once, but that was a really tough hockey team. I think they lost to them one year. They beat them one year, and then they played Fort Francis, Ontario, which would be the Allen Cup. Well, it was a national thing. Yeah.

And then they went to Fort Francis, I believe, didn't they? They went east and we listened to it on the radio. Listen to the championship on the radio? I'm pretty sure we did. Well, CKSA was broadcasting. That's true. That's true. That's fair.

And I think I might have my chronologically wrong, but they played in that league with KinnerSlee, Rosedown, Swipkirk. I think had a senior team then. Yeah, it was interesting. And Dad was the manager, so he, and Jim Hill was the coach. No, Byron McCrimman was a coach. Well, part of the time, but Jim was. Maybe earlier, but that championship years with Jim, or Byron McCriman was the, playing coach, I guess.

That's when Max Bentley and his son, what was his name? Lynn. Lynn. Lynn Bentley? Yeah. been in line with your brother. And then Vic Smith played. Bright and Mabletoff.

We said that, yeah. Owen Rogers, there was a lot of them, yeah. I guess lots of... Ellen Butts. I remember that. That was good, good hockey to watch. I always enjoy hearing the stories back then because all I ever hear about the Border Kings

from those early years was how full the rank was. And if you didn't get there early, it was packed. It was. Totally packed. Yeah. And it was sort of like the only game in town, you know. Yeah. There was no junior team or anything.

So anyone that was pretty talented played on. And they brought players from out of town too, you know. So it was kind of. It was good hockey. I mean, just the guys that we mentioned were WHL players. And some had played pro at some level. Of course, the Bantleys were old, but they were NHLers. Yeah.

Yeah. They were good hockey players. What is maybe the biggest thing you've seen change in Lloyd over your time? I mean, size is always the number one thing. Everybody can't believe how big it's got. But is there something else in there that has really changed, do you think? Over? I'm not, I can't think right now.

It's a small town rural size, of course, an attitude of, you know, you help your neighbor. You knew everyone. The familiarity. Yeah, you knew everybody. That's going. Kind of the rural thing that you grew up with and we grew up with. And then it changed when we become an oil boom town.

It was different. You sure didn't know everybody anymore. The attitude was different. You people, you go from, you know, saying hi to everybody to not looking to anybody in the eye because you don't want to make eye contact type of thing because you don't know them. That big town suspiciousness. Probably the oil industry changed it a lot.

Yeah. The upgradeer and all the, became quite affluent. It's been great for the area, but having come out of the rural area, you miss a few things. I miss a few things, yeah. Yeah. I think you just got to, you got to,

It'll be like this toothless guy and say hi to everybody and make people feel uncomfortable or welcome or whatever else because Yeah, no, you do a good job of that too Yeah Yeah, I think that's the biggest change I mean, it's just to become a big city atmosphere Even though it isn't a very big city I think it's still it's a good place to live

Oh, yeah, absolutely, yeah Yeah, yeah, there's not much you could say that's bad about it I don't think Here's your final one. In your lifetime, what is maybe one of the most memorable moments on a worldwide stage, not COVID-19, that has happened, that you remember where you were at the moment it happened? Did I say that right? I hope I said that right.

Hmm. That takes a bit of thought. Well, yeah, it probably wouldn't have affected worldwide people with the most significant thing in my life was the discovery of the Matt Cow in Alberta 2003. That was probably the biggest single, know exactly where you were, what you were doing, and then the fallout from it. What was the follow-up for you? Well, the border closed.

We export half of our beef and cattle to the U.S., and it just turned the... Overnight, gone. Canadian cattle industry upside down overnight. It just collapsed. I think mine was 9-11, because I remember, well, it affected someone from Lloyd Minster. Yeah. Betty, Weaver, Bailey, that I went to school with, and we were friends. And to think that he garnered, or ACE, was on that plane.

That really, for quite a long time, that really bothered, you know, it just was, I mean, I just remember seeing it on, I think Ted's saying, you got to watch TV, this is awful, you know, and then hearing later in the day, because Richie was at a sale, and Keith, Weaver, Betty's husband, had got the call that he'd been on the plane. And it was just like, whoa, you know, because we went to school together and he was here until he went off to play hockey. It was close to home kind of, and it was horrible. You know, I still think of it every year. Like it's just like what it was like for all those people, I guess. What do you think of this COVID-19 this past year? We're a year into it now. This is a year at this point in time. I mean, when this is released, people actually listen to it.

It'll be further along than that. But we're a full year in now. It was last February. Well, I'm a cynic. I think we're terribly overreacted. overkill and everything government is done. I like the approaches of jurisdictions like Sweden, South Dakota, that basically approached it as COVID-19 is a virus.

It's not going away. We will live with it. So let's prepare to live with it in a way that doesn't destroy our society. And I think so many other jurisdictions like Canada and Alberta and Saskatchewan of approach it as though we're going to eradicate it. So we're going to do everything until it disappears. And so we put that goal ahead of all the other things that we're damaging, like our economy. And to me, the biggest damage we're doing is to a generation of young people.

And that may be irreparable. And I think if we were someday down the road, we'd you can look back and weigh that, the incidence of infection and the incidence of serious infection and the incidence of death don't justify the damage we're doing to vast multitudes of people, especially young people, and businesses. And I think they're overreacting terribly. Yeah, you've got to treat it seriously. You've got to look after the high risk, the vulnerable people in society.

I think they've done a very poor job of looking after the elderly, the nursery homes, especially in some jurisdictions. and I've got carried away with like closing down all the schools, shutting down all the hockey rinks. Well, the rules don't make sense is I think what bothers me. Because it isn't the same for every thing that's happening. You know, like a little tiny restaurant somewhere that, you know, gets 10 people a day, has to shut down. But a big giant store with several hundred people in it all the time is fine.

or you can line up to go into Costco. I mean, not criticizing Costco, but I mean, you can. And like before Christmas, I saw a picture. I mean, it was packed with people. It doesn't make sense. And some poor little restaurant that probably followed all the rules and they're wearing the masks and wiping everything down. Can't serve food?

Or hairdressers. I went to a hairdresser in Marwain. one person, one chair, her and me, and she had to shut down. Does that make sense? No, not to me. So I'm a little cynical, too. I know some people that have been sick. I don't know anyone that's died, and I hope I don't,

but I kind of have the opinion that we're all going to die of something and just do your best. But living in fear while you're still alive. It sucks. Yeah, I'd rather be alive while I'm alive. I don't want to be dead already while I'm still alive, if that makes sense. This era we're going through, this cloud over our heads, how is that affecting five-year-old, six-year-old, eight-year-olds?

I mean, it's unfair. That's just totally unfair that they're living in this, you know, everybody's afraid of something. I haven't got a clue what it is. Yeah. It's, uh, uh,

it's, uh, how did he put it? There's dying and then there's fear of dying, right? Like, and right now, uh, I've never,

there was three, four months there once upon a time where you could feel, you could cut the fear with a knife. It was so just like evident. And now it's just, if you just turn that, but the problem is is the rest of the world isn't doing that. And the government certainly aren't doing that.

Yeah, it's a very unusual, like weird, all these words because nobody can put their finger on it. And they keep reporting cases. Oh, yeah, they're making the number. Well, I don't know. Like, I mean, don't, I have a sniffle so I get tested, so I'm a case. Really? That's not necessary. You don't need, I don't think you need a test to know if you're sick or not.

You pretty much know. And if you don't know, then you're sick. Right? You don't, I mean, you're either sick or you're not. Well, when you hear the incidence of heart disease and stroke deaths is lower in 2020 than the five years previous. Huh? Well, we ran out of heart attacks? No, they're called COVIDs. I mean, it's.

And it makes you so suspicious of their stats. Well, yeah, but you can read those stats in Alberta Health Statistics, Canadian Health Statistics, they're there. It's the first time in my life, maybe I feel like everybody in the world's paying attention to some of the strangeness of the government. I'm sure it's been going on a lot longer than the COVID-19. It is just so evident right now. Yes. But you still can't put your finger on it, right? And if you do, the moral high ground is we're saving everybody.

Yes. And if you don't, you're not a good citizen. And the crazy thing is, is they paint everything with one brush. And we just sit here in, you know, in rural Canada and we're going. This doesn't make sense. Man, just open the coffee shop back up so a guy can go have a coffee and carry on with life. Like it's... Yeah.

And if you get accusive about it or critical of it, then you're a conspiracy theorist. And, I mean, I am a conspiracy theorist in some regards. I think there's another agenda being played out here of totalitarian control. And this is a preamble to working their way into eating people used to be in controlled. Listen when we tell you. as we say. And I mean, history, if you've read lots of history, I've read lots of history, the Bolshevik history, the Nazi history, so much of it is being mirrored by the approach our governments are taking. Now, whether, I mean, that's a quantum leap to that kind of

conspiracy theories, but they're there. I mean... Well, I'd like to tell everybody that I discuss this with, is any time you bring up the Nazis are a specific one. You lose people because you just hear it and it's like it isn't there. Like you're going overboard, right? You're gone. But to not open your eyes up and see what is going on and see that there is some social conditioning happening.

And as we know, I mean, we've just been talking. You know, once upon a time in your life, you think a year is a long time. You really think a year or three years. Why would I ever make a five-year plan? And then all of a sudden, one day you wake up in 10 years is past. Well, the governments are there for a long time. And that social conditioning, that's an interesting thing.

Because you talk about the young kids, my kids will never, right now, if this never changes, will never know school without masks on. And it probably won't bother them. It'll bother me. And I'll be the old guy. And they'll be going, Dad, you're lived in a different time. We're okay with this now. Yeah.

You're like, yeah, sure, I guess. Yeah. I appreciate you guys coming in and doing this and having a little bit of fun and sharing a few laughs and talking a little bit about your life and everything else in between. One thing I wanted you to talk about, but you didn't. It was his gospel. Oh, sure. We got a couple minutes. Well, no, it just is important to Richie what he's doing with the natives and funding them.

So it was just a little thing, but he could even mention it. No, no, no. Yeah, it's a gospel for Samaria. a ministry that come out of when I first became a Christian in 2003 when I received Jesus Christ for real. Then shortly after that I read a book called Revolution and World Missions by K.B. Yohannan, and it described his building in a ministry that collected donations from Christians in North America to fund native pastors in what they call it the 2030 window across Africa and Asia, but mainly it was in India, but Southeast Asia as well in Burma. And he collected these funds

to fund a local Christian pastor to spread the gospel among his people. And his two main elements were, number one, it's better to fund those guys because they know the language, they've used to the living conditions, and they know the people. And they can be accepted to do that better than outside mission missionaries. And the second was, fund them, but don't tell them what to do. Because they know the Lord as well as you do, and they don't need your white Anglo-Saxon Western opinion on how to spread the gospel to a tribe somewhere in India or Burma.

And it hit me when I read that book. It was like the Lord spoke to me and said, that's what we need in First Nations Canada. There's Christian guys there trying to spread the word among Native people which is a very tough audience

because of the history residential schools all that, the Christianity that was tied to it and their cultural religion but they're there but they're totally unfunded so most of them have one or two jobs and then try and pastor

a little church and so I got a hold of a guy named Elwood McLean, which you may have heard of. He's a white minister, married to a native lady that preached the gospel in Onion Lake for years and years and years and years. He was old when I talked to him, and I asked him, Alwood, does this sound like something this needed?

Absolutely, he said, I've been praying for that for 30 years, and that was the start. And so then I started to put together a group of people, Pastor Ta-Tum, from, he was with First Baptist Church, same as I was then, and Ron Platt. and Lundell, local people, Glenda Hughes. And we put together a little group and then started to promote the idea. Donation to us. We've got CRA registry. We can receipt your donations so it's tax refundable

and we'll pay the salaries of the pastors. And we started about 15 years ago, we started to pay the full-time salary of Pastor Martinasis at Onion Lake. And then we added. We've supported six fellows in total. We're at four right now. Pastor Martin's Church at Onion Lake a year ago came to us and said, we are now at the point that we'll fund our pastor.

So you can use the salary give to him to give to somebody else. And that was always our goal to fund someone until they built a congregation of Christians in their community. And then they would take over funding their pastor. And then they would still be part of us, but we'd go on to do more. So in the 15 years, we funded Pastor Martin to the point itself sufficiently. Pastor Clifford Bird at Montreal Lake, which is North Prince Albert.

We funded him for quite a while, and he undertook a job from the band. They hired him to be suicide drug addiction counselor, still allowed him to pastor, which is really an awesome thing because that's a very cultural reserve. kind of anti-Christian. So we no longer had to fund him. And then so we still fund four guys. Alex de Saccamos at Shell Lake at Attackacup Reserve. And Ray Dumay, who's at Leoville, Chittock Reserve, or Pelican Lake.

And a fellow at Cumberland House, which is away east of Prince Albert. Pastor Bobby Chichu, he's from the hockey playing Chichu family out of northern Ontario. and Pastor Moses bird at South End, which is the southern tip of reindeer lake. And it's very interesting that our pastors are all in the Prince Albert area, except for Pastor Martin. And yet all our donors are mainly Lloydminster Albertans. And we have a tremendous solid group of people.

Most of you know if I said their names, which I can't, but that fund is in a huge way. And it's just been a little minute. that has success wise, if you said, how many people have converted to Christianity in those communities, it wouldn't be a huge number. No, but it's that same old thing. It made a difference to that one. You know, like, like, one is better than none, right?

How much good are those guys doing in those communities? Enormous. They are. They're the go-to guy for funerals. You know, in most cultural families, when somebody dies, they still call a Christian pastor to be part of the funeral, sometimes to be the only one at the funeral, but usually to be part of,

and then they have a kind of a cultural ceremony and a Christian ceremony. But our guys are there. They always go, even if they know their families that would be opposed to them, you know, in another sense. And then through this COVID, they've been instrumental, I mean, there's, well, as you know, most of those reserves have been locked down. The COVID rates have been high, and the death rates have been higher there. And our guys are there.

And they go do funerals. Like Pastor Alex said to me that day, he said, I got another funeral to do. He said, I know they won't follow the rules. I know they're going to pack the hall. I know it's going to be dangerous. But he said, what do I do? I'm asked to go. I have to go.

So he goes. And he was tested positive for COVID here, a week. ago but he never got the symptoms and so he's in quarantine right now the Pastor Moses at South End got COVID was arrested PA hospital was on a ventilator for a while he recovered he's back on his reserve and Pastor Martin actually right now is in serious shape in Edmonton with an infection you know hip into nothing to do with COVID well we don't know that yet well he don't know that but he's got a hip infection it became blood poisoning and shut his

kidneys down. And just before I came, I got a report from his daughter. He's improving, so praise God for that. But that's the ministry and something that, you know, I'm very thankful to be part of. I'm very thankful for the people that have helped do it and especially the people that fund it. They're just farmers, businessmen here in town, retired people, just guys that believe that. Natives need some help. And that's one way we can help on these native communities is by putting the love of Jesus Christ out there. They have a tough role. No, it's tough life they live because they're...

You know, the in-your-face anti-Christian thing that you'll see in our society once in a while is really prevalent there. There's the cultural a lot of the time. but then those walls break down when it comes to tragedy like the funerals and that's there in that's when the door opens so they can go in and just be there, be a gentle spirit, show love and kindness and oh like Pastor Martin says I always gauge it whether I take my Bible to the front or not

whether I open my Bible or not he said some audiences you can some don't you just do what you can and then strange things happen I was with him one day when the medicine man from Anya Lake came to him just in an absolute

fret had his daughter with him a granddaughter I guess it was she's possessed by a demon I've tried everything to get rid of the demon I can't you better ask your God to do it you know and he did it he didn't do it with me there

Martin said you take her home I'll come home and I said well can I come no you can't come but he he went and prayed over her and whenever it worked like those are the spirituality and the native community is way greater than here like the demonic activity is prevalent we don't see it they do but interesting stuff anyway that you know no I appreciate you sharing I appreciate you bringing it up yeah that's just one thing that I I won a world championship, but there's lots of other things that are more important. Hey, I tell you what, and I say this all the time, you think two hours is a long time, but when you get talking, you're talking about a lifetime, lifetime of memories and stories

and meaningful. That's right. There's no way to fit it in. Don said, he said, oh, you'll be fascinated the way Sean knows how to bring a conversation forward. and I pretty am impressed by the way you. Well, I appreciate that. Oh, yeah. It's been a really nice visit.

I was full of a lot of anxiety coming. Well, hopefully I took that away. No, it was, yeah. It was fun. It was effortless to talk to you. I like what you write on the top of that sheet. I can't remember. What did I write?

We wrote that, don't be nervous. People come here with a lot of trepidation. Oh, no. They leave with a light step. Lighter step, yeah. Lighter step. It was very well written. And that you're an optimist.

I like that, too. You know, because it's a lot of. because it's hard to be an optimist. I kind of forgot. I wrote that a long time ago with Lynn because people were coming in and were pretty tight. I'm saying.

Well, that's well written. Well, I've got to be honest. Yeah. All left with a smile and a bit more in their step. That is exactly bang on. And that you're an optimist you put and I like that too.

Well, I get bugged about that now on the podcast because I truly believe that you can either spread, you know, positivity spreads just as past as negativity. And if you're listening to the podcast, you've listened to this a thousand times that's that's the best way to approach you every single day absolutely because you just never know when a good smile or a joke can just send a person just for that one day off on a different

way than where they were ahead of difference you didn't even know about that's right yeah well thank you guys for coming in most people by now understand i certainly enjoy sitting on this side and hearing about some of the lessons and stories and experiences of the other side and and you guys are full of them so thanks again for coming in thank you Sean thank you for interviewing us hey folks thanks for joining us today if you just stumbled on the show please click subscribe then scroll the bottom and rate and leave a review I promise it helps remember every Monday and Wednesday we will have a new guest sitting down to share their story the Sean Newman podcast available for free on Apple Spotify YouTube and wherever else you get your podcast fix until next time

Thank you.