Shaun Newman Podcast - SNP Archives #37 - Des McMillan

Episode Date: January 5, 2022

Farmer, Husband, Father & Community Pillar. Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 Support here: https://www.patreon.com/ShaunNewmanPodcast

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Now, auto clearing Jeep and RAM, the Prairie's trusted source for Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Fiat, and all other things, automotive for 110 years brings you the RAM truck rundown. Farmer, husband, father, community pillar. I'm talking about Des McMillan.

So buckle up. Here we go. It is March 14th, 2021. I'm sitting with Des McMillan. So first off, thanks for coming in. You're welcome. Now, what I do with everybody that comes in here is I want to know what you remember when you're, like your first memories as a kid, Maidstone and, you know, you're born in 47.

So, you know, I assume early 50s, and if you can kind of take us back there and just kind of paint a picture of what life was like and we'll start there. Okay, well, I don't remember anything really about Maitestone. I was born there, but in those days we never went to town, so town trips were very seldom. Mostly I remember as I pretty much grew up in the horse days. We rode school on horseback all the time, country school. The roads weren't plowed in the winter, so everywhere we went was horse and sleigh. Summertime we got around a little bit with a vehicle. Hockey on outdoor sluze.

That was about our only entertainment. Where did you get your sticks from, your skates from? Well, most of our sticks came out of the Willow Bush, and our skates were hand-downs from, I had a cousin that was playing hockey in Michigan State at that time. He got a pair or two from him, and I probably, my father managed to get enough money somewhere to buy us a pair of skates. Take me back to the Willow bush. Explain this to me. Oh, you'd go find an old willow. With a big. in it and carve out something that looked like a stick, I guess, and that was be it. You were saying you as kids would chop down a stick from a willow bush, and that's what

became your hockey stick? Well, when we played out on the sluze, by the time we were, I don't know, 10 years old, we probably started getting to go to town, and we probably would have had a bought stick by then. What was the flex like on a willow stick? You have to be a real man to get a whip in it. I just think of how far we've come in our hockey world with the one piece 300 and change odd dollar stick from the willow bush. Yeah, that's been quite a revolution in my life.

Yeah, I mean, hockey was a big thing in your life. The questionnaire kind of paints that. You're a border king through and through, never sweats. You know, you played hockey a lot of years of your life. Yeah, I played all my life. I went to Weyburn when I was 16, and from there on, I played pretty much every year since. Playing for the Red Wigs?

A little bit, mostly junior B. At that time, there was only 16. and all of Saskatchewan. So junior B then might have been closer to A now, but there was only six major

junior teams in Saskatchewan at that time. What did you think ahead into Weyburn at 16? Well, my older brother, he had gone two years ahead of me. He played for the Red Wings for three years. Then he had a little stint with Detroit.

But that, That's one of my things out of the little town of Lashburn of 200 people in my day. We had a little four-team league right in Lashburn. We never traveled. And out of my group growing up, six of us played junior hockey at one time, and two of them went to the NHL for a stint. So I don't think you have to be traveling all over the country to play hockey. No, it's more probably about just getting the reps and getting on the ice and skating around and playing.

man. Well, that's my idea. You know, Lashburn's, uh, that's an interesting spot of the world because, you know, you mentioned, um, the, the guys going in the NHL. I, I think of, uh, you know, when I was young, it was the Spurs winning national championships. When before that, now I know of the bluebirds, um, going to nationals and, and the list just goes on and on and on, it seems. And I don't know what it was about Lashburn. What was it about Lashburn that had something in the water? Yeah, I don't know whether it was water or not, but we also won quite a few baseball championships back then. And later years, the rugby team won Saskatchewan a few times. Well, I've actually had Murray on here, Murray McDonnell. And there's another one, right?

So is it just like leadership in there? Like, was it the right groups of people got together and boom, now you have success? I don't really know really what the success was, whether hard work, luck, maybe a little talent, I don't know. Let's talk about the Border Kings. Border Kings, well, kind of like folklore now because, I mean, they're not playing anymore. But, you know, they won two Island Cups here in my time. when I was watching, but I mean, going back, Shep has regaled me with stories of the old Border Kings.

I'm sure he's done that for a lot of us. But you getting to play with them, what year did you start playing with the Border Kings? Probably in 1969 was when I started, maybe 70, right in that era. And what, like, is that before or after Max Bentley? Oh, that was after Max Bentley. He was, what, late 50s? He must have been, yeah.

Well, what was it about, like, the Border Kings, even back then, I've heard all the stories about how fans just came pouring in, and it was packed, and it was the place to be, and everything else. When you came back to play for the Border Kings, was there 100 guys lined up to, like, hey, I want to play for the Kings, and we're going to go at it, or was it? it not so much? They had tryouts.

There was enough people for tryouts in the fall. I don't know exactly what the numbers would have been, but there was a few guys around. And maybe just, I don't know, tell me a bit more, because you're the guy who got to suit up for the Kings back in the day and got to travel around. I don't know if you guys had a bus or if you were hopping in vehicles and, and, uh, carpooling? We're pretty much always in cars. The bus came along after us, but we,

JRJ noises were great, and the townspeople and the business people in town supplied us with cars and drivers generally. Sometimes we have to drive ourselves, but most of the time it was drivers. Do you look at kids today and go, like everybody with their big giant bus rolling down the road?

Yeah. Yeah, my first bus was Never Sweets. Well, I tell you what, the Never Sweets is a story in its own. Like the group of guys that have turned an old-timers hockey team into, I don't know, certainly more than an old-timers hockey team. I mean, you have, how many years you've been playing with the Never Sweets? About 34. 34 years.

Never thought of hanging the skates up? Well, I seriously thought about it this fall when all the new regulations and all that I was thinking about it, but I don't know, the guys kind of talked me into coming out for another year or two. Well, what is it about the Never Sweets? Well, I think there are a great bunch of guys. We have a lot of fun. Some pretty good hockey players on it or quite a few good hockey players on it, I guess.

And we seem to be able to hold our own on most teams around here. but mostly it's the guys I think it's a fun bunch I really like them I'm gonna rewind us back to being on the farm you were on the you were on the farm and you said you didn't really get to town that much was that because there was just nothing to go into town for or the distance at the time was too far or well I grew up in here there wasn't even power in the country when I grew up I was 10 years old before power came to our place. We didn't even have a telephone until I was 12 probably.

And vehicles, there was hardly any roads. Vehicles, I don't know, probably money was a stumbling block in our family. There wasn't much of that neither. But nobody traveled much in them days. So no power in a little house. That little house is right. It was about 14 by 24 and four boys and mom and dad. It was a little house, sorry.

When you think back to those days, what comes to mind? Oh, I really don't know. Kids had a terrible amount of freedom in those days. Parents were too busy trying to eke out a living to worry much about the kids. We roamed the hills and... could get lost for the day and parents had no idea where we went or wouldn't we'd be back and nobody really cared i don't think or they didn't have time to care i think it was a great time to grow up we had all kinds of freedom we did what we wanted and how do you compare that to today well before i

had grandchildren i said it took six people to raise a kid and since i've been have granddaughters i've learned that I guess it does take six people nowadays, mom and dad and four grandparents to raise a kid. You said eke out of life. There wasn't a whole honor opportunity back then? Oh, not in our district. There wasn't. It was my dad and all the neighbors.

They'd returned from overseas after the war and tried to start a little farm. My dad, for the first few years, I was even remember, we had a total of 20 acres. broke. That's what we're trying to make a living on. And I mean, the neighbors were no different. We were all pretty much in the same boat out in our neck of the woods. Did you ever talk to your neighbors or family about the wars, like those years? No, not really. All the servicemen I knew were very quiet about it. No, I don't remember that ever really being. a big conversation at all, no. How have you seen from no power, no running water, I assume?

No running water, no. Actually, we're going to stick here for a second. Because I've been reading the Fort Pitt Trail stories, which are, you know, the generation before even that, right? So the settlers and coming over and everything else. but with no running water then, what were some of the duties that you boys had around the farm? Well, in our area, we didn't even have wells. We had to go a mile and a half to get drinking water.

Our cattle, we had to take them three quarters of a mile every day all winter to a slew to water them. So that was one of our duties was to move the cattle down there and water them every day. My dad hauled hay with four horses and a hay rack eight miles every day to feed our cattle. So it was a full-time job, just getting by. Yeah, just getting by. You didn't have time to worry about anything else? No, not really, no, no. No, I don't remember ever worry and be a big part of any of our life in them days.

It just was, was, it was, and that was it. You know, one of the things, though, I read is, is like, yeah, it was tough. It probably wasn't ideal, some of the things, and it wasn't glamorous by any stretch of imagination. But it sounds like there was a ton of happy days back then. Yeah, I was always very happy, and I think that the neighbors were always very happy. I'm sure that older folks had some real worries, and they're, I think, about trying to feed us and stuff, but the neighbors came just about every night when it wasn't busy and played cards. Kids fought and run and did our thing.

How is, from those days to now, how much, no, what or how has farming changed? Like, what's been some of the biggest changes that you've seen? Oh, technology has just outstripped us old guys. That's the biggest change and size. The biggest I ever really got was a couple thousand acres. Now my son isn't a big farmer at all, and I think he's got 12,000 or something like that. So that's a difference.

It takes a lot more acres to make a living now, I guess. Do you ever think that you'd have to have something that big in order to make a go of it? No, I couldn't even dream that big. No The money and stuff involved now It's just outstripped us old guys When you look back

On your years Of farming What was the funest stage? Like what days did you Man those were some fun days? Well I always really liked harvest Harvest was always a good time Busy time but I liked harvest

But I'd go back to when I was a real young guy, my area even thrashed yet. And I worked on thrash crews. You did thrash crews? Yeah. Well, let's talk about that. Okay. Honestly, I don't even know the questions to ask.

I've just, I've seen the old thrashing unit, but that had to have been hard work. Yes, it was very hard work. As a young person myself, I probably wasn't working all that hard as shoveling grain or maybe a few bundles and stuff. It was more of a fun time, but it was a lot of camaraderie and togetherness. And if you're having fun, work doesn't really, is never hard. You do raise a good point there. that's a yeah if you get the right with the right people anything can be turned into something uh of

well can be made fun is exactly what you said exactly yeah that's what i think what's one of the what's one of the then using that thought when you look back at all the different jobs and tasks and things you've probably built or had to work on or crappy jobs you've done what's what's one that you look back where it was a crappy job. We knew that going in. But the group of us decided to have a little bit of fun with it, and we had a good time doing it. Well, I can never remember any job.

Every job has some element that maybe you don't like, but I can't think any job I ever had that I really disliked it. I didn't want to go to work. I think I enjoyed just about every job, and I've done a lot of them. If you were going to pass along some advice to a 20-year-old, a young guy, what's something from your life that you would try and pass along to? Well, I think that if you're a positive person and can see the good side of everything instead of the bad side,

that's a step up. Yeah, that's a talent. You've got to work on that. because I mean it is extremely easy to uh it's extremely easy and sometimes it just feels good like just uh well if you're going to do much complaining about move on to do something else i i would think you had said that betty richardson was the most influential person in your life and that was a school teacher well We went to a country school up until grade six.

And teachers in them days were probably undereducated, overworked. We had nine grades in our school. They didn't have the time to give us slow learners, I'll say, the time we probably need it. And halfway through grade six at Christmas time, my parents moved us into Lashburn on the bus, and Betty Richardson was a teacher of grade six. and she took me under her wing and treated me like royalty and give me the attention that I craved, I guess. And if I owe anything in life to anybody, it would be to Betty Richardson.

She was the first real teacher that had the time or the patients or whatever to pay some attention to it. I always find it fascinating that, you know, you've been alive a long time and the most influential person in your life, you know, how old are you in grade six? Like 11? Yeah, something like that. At 11 years old,

or 12 maybe. Somebody, somebody, just by giving you the attention you need, has that big an impact. We went to town school and we're country bumpkins. There was no doubt about that. And she treated us just like we're royal. the same as all the rest of the kids.

And that was quite a step up, I guess, or made us feel good anyhow. But why was that so influential on you then? I don't know. Maybe she seen that this country kids could be a success. I really don't know. But before, just to stay with that thought for a second. So then what you're saying is before you were in her class, you maybe thought you were kind of going nowhere?

Well, probably. Probably were going nowhere. Well, once again, I just, you know, I guess I think of like business partner or your wife or your parents or, I don't know, some friend of whatever. For a teacher to be the most influential person all these years later. And for that to be like, you still, I'm trying to think if I can. remember my grade six teacher. I just can't. And so I hate to stick on it, but I find it very intriguing, I guess. Well, there's teachers before and after that I don't remember neither, but Betty certainly stands out in my mind. Is there an instance that you can think of then?

No, I just think that the upbeat attitude she always had just made us all better people. Hmm How many years you've been married now? 52. 52. Well, congratulations on that. That is a feat. That's a lot.

That's a well, I say it over and over and over again on these. But like, in a world that is finding ways for people to get out of marriage faster and faster

and easier and easier, I find it very encouraging to see people that have been married 50 plus years. How do you? did you meet your wife? Probably in our time.

Social dances and school dances and stuff were a big thing, and that's probably where we met. Was it love at first sight? Oh, I don't know whether about that, but she was definitely attractive. I got to ask, maybe you're a huge romantic desk. Oh, I'm a romantic, oh, yeah. What 50 years. is a long time.

I mean, in the grand scope of the world, it's a very short time. But for a person's lifetime, 50 years of the law. What is 50 years of marriage taught you? You're lucky if you got an understanding wife, I guess, mostly. She's had to be pretty understanding of you. Well, I imagine. No, I don't know.

Treat the people the way you want to be treated. I don't know really what. I have no magic bullet there, I don't think. But we've been happy all 52 of them. Well, what truths have you learned over your life? I assume in, well, 1947, what is that? 53, 74? 74, yeah.

Hey, my math is on today. I'm not some days it's been spotty. In 74 years, when, you know, when COVID comes down the pipe, when lots of things are going on around the world, what are things you lean back on that you know for certain? Well, I guess the sun comes up tomorrow. Nothing is ever that bad that there won't be yet tomorrow. How about kids?

When you had your boys, right? Right. Two boys. Two boys. What were the years that, I'm smiling, because I'm thinking right now, we've got three under five while he turns five years short-like. And everybody tells me, enjoy those years because they won't last forever,

and certain things will happen as they get older and whatever. When you look back at the two boys, what were the best years? I don't really know if there was best years or worst years. or everything's pretty much moved along with always got along. There's never been any real upsets of any kind. No, I really don't know if there's any best or worse. How did having kids change you, though? I really can't answer that.

Didn't. I should have brought my wife and she might have been able to. You didn't worry about anything? Not as far as the kids. school. I had lots of worries in my life, or some worries, but I don't think I ever let them get me down too much. What has been maybe then the, what has been your proudest moment so far, thus far? I'm just throwing you up softballs and stuff in death. Oh, I don't know. My proudest moments, maybe when the boys are married, maybe he's just. Maybe he's, you know,

some of my hockey or ball things that I've had a few marriage maybe my wedding was a proud day in my life when you're playing uh over your years of hockey what's the game of hockey taught you that you've enjoyed so much because in order to keep playing for all the years you've played um i certainly love a lot of different things about hockey but i find it very uh well I'll just think of dad. Dad didn't play hockey from, I think we were talking about it one day. He had like 10 years, like a decade

where he didn't strap on the skates. And that happens to a lot of people, like a lot. What kept, like what, what's it that's kept bringing you back and wanting you to toss on the blades? Probably the camaraderie of the guys I really enjoy it, but like your dad,

when my boys were in hockey in the later years and stuff, I probably took 10 years off, never put the blades on, chased them around, took them to hockey, coached hockey, stuff like that. So I took at least 10 years off. I never played organized hockey. But then once they got a driver's license and left home, then I started again. It's a tough time coming back, I can tell you that after 10 years and not playing. If you ever get back, I don't know.

I guess I haven't really thought of it that way. When your kids get extremely busy into all that they do, you probably don't have the time to... Well, that was me anyhow. I don't know. We're trying to make a living and chasing two boys around. It was a full-time job. Did you always want to be a farmer? Probably, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I've probably always wanted to. to be a farmer. Never, I don't know, graduated from high school and went, gee, I just want to, I don't know, I want to go to the other side of the world and see what's there? Well, I think I was farming three or four quarters of land while I took my grade 12, so I was farming well before I got out of school. So, no, that option wasn't there. I didn't have the money the time or the whatever to travel after our school. So probably went right straight from school of a tractor every night. So, yeah, no, that wasn't an option in my day.

Went from school to farming, like you were running the farm or you were just working on the farm? No, I owned some land and had some cattle and stuff and rented land when I was still in grade 12. Really? In grade 12, you owned land and had Cali your own and everything. A very small amount of owning, but I had rented some land and stuff, yeah. Was that under like mentorship from your dad that you were doing that? Or was that something that you were just like, no, I'm going to go, here we go. Probably here I go, I guess.

Well, the reason I ask is, what? I don't know what I was thinking, grade 12. well, it certainly wasn't, hey, let's go buy some land and get some cattle and that type of thing. And I think majority would say that, that they're not too worried about getting, rushing into the working world. Oh, I think probably my generation are thinking about it. Unless you're boring to money, you're starting to look at something, I would think. Hmm. That's interesting, because that is how much times of obviously.

changed then because although when I graduated I wanted to get a job and I worked at a job partially through high school and certainly loved having money in my pocket as listeners probably know about me I was I was more interested in what was on the other side of the planet for the most of the time or chasing hockey or or going where that led me I was very far away We're just, it's just, but I never worried about, I guess I always was like, even if I got 10 cents in my pocket, we'll just carry on. We didn't have 10 cents in our pocket. Didn't have 10 cents in your pocket? I wouldn't think so.

We worked summer jobs, even when we went to high school, had jobs. I started working for other farmers probably when I was 12 years old in the summers. What would you do with your money? though it was damn little. I was making 50 cents a day, I think, when I was 12 years old. So there wasn't much if there was any. It would have been a new pair of skates or a pair of hockey gloves or something like that. The newest Willow branch?

Yeah, we probably could step up a little bit if we had a good summer. But, I mean, so you're working at 12. Fine. Fair. But when, like you're saying after the war years, I mean, that's a long stretch from then. I mean, 1950, 19, I keep thinking 1950, I keep thinking 1950, 1947. So by the time you're out of high school, it's like 65, there's no money around then? There was damn little in our farm, I can tell you. But when I was 12, though, that was eight years before that, so I was back in 55 or something like that. No, it'd be 58, 59.

When I was 15, we started working in town. I had a construction. I was shoveling gravel, two basements a day, and then worked at night after that. You dug basements by a... No, we poured smit, but in those days it was all with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. We pour two basements a day. Three of us in the gravel pile with a shovel, and we shoveled gravel all day long.

It wasn't been in a fantastic shape. Yeah, I think so. I tell everybody when I started with the Border Kings, I was 20 years old, and I weighed just about 200, pounds and had a 29-inch waist, so I was in shape then. Did you wear a helmet when you played? Not, well, I think helmets came the second year I was at the Border Kings, but I can't say that for sure. I can't remember that was about the era they came in.

When we played junior hockey, we had helmets, but I don't think seniors used helmets. I know when I was a Helmut All-Star, I don't think. I think I had an helmet. Okay, wait. So I'm going to stick with it. We're going to get to the All-Stars here in a second. Were helmets like, were you like wanting to rock the flow?

Like, I don't want a helmet on. Like I'm, or were you like, nah, I'm wearing a helmet. It is insanity not to play without a helmet on. I don't know. I've either really crossed my mind of everybody else wearing a helmet. I wore a helmet too.

I didn't. I had no strong feeling one way or the other. It was just something that came. What years did you play for the Hillmont All-Stars? 1968 and maybe 66. I played the last year I was in grade 12. I played the winter there. Then I spent a year playing for the Fort St. John Flyers

in the North Peace League. Then I got married in 68, and I played that winter with Hillman again. Three good years Hillmont had. the back to back to back yeah you won one of the years one or two of the years yeah I don't know exactly which year it was

but I was there for one or two of them tell me about Vern Priest oh he was a natural no burn was a very good hockey player very good like pick the puck up go end to end natural or like Brett Hall

blast at top shelf natural or like Eric Lindross big mean can do it all well I think he'd probably fit the first one Vern was never mean he was too good a guy for ever being mean and I don't remember him blasting it but he was a good all round hockey player I think could you say did you get lots of people in the old Silver Dome

in Helmont? Oh we packed her every night. Those must have been fun years. Yeah. I played a lot of hockey and I can't remember ever having a down year with. I've always played with teams that were pretty competitive. Yeah, the reason I say it that way though is like I played I think it was nine seasons for the Hitman in Helmand, right? We weren't the All-Stars anymore. And, well, I mean, in that time the Porter Kings go away. You have teams that come and teams that go. But, I mean, for 92% of your games in a season, you didn't have that much fanfare, right?

Like, you did it because you love playing and love being around the guys and still love to compete. But then for the other 8% of the games, if you made it far enough and had the right team come through the building, the crowd was just awesome. Like, I can't imagine playing in the NHL and having, like, 20,000 fans just going nuts. Or playing Division I hockey and having the fans just go nuts. Or in the WHL and PA when they get the milk crates out because it's so packed and it's going nuts. Like, you get 800 people in the new rink at Helmand, and it feels like it's going nuts. You get 200 people in the old Dewberry Barn, and it feels like it's nuts. So when you say you're packing the rink all the time, to me,

You played in a very good time for senior hockey. Yeah, I wouldn't argue with that. No, I enjoyed every game. If you could go back and suit up for any team, and now I'm going to have all the teams that you've suited up for going, you better say us. But if you could strap on the jersey of any team and go back to a season or a game, where would you go?

I'd probably go to the border kings. I enjoyed them a lot, but not to put any other team down. I enjoyed every one of them. I'm still very close friends with just about every team I ever played with if they're still alive. Why did you play for all the different teams? Was that just guys coming and going, or did you always like kind of, I've spent four years with the Kings now I'm going to, I got asked to go out here and well some of it was farming wasn't very lucrative in them days and some places paid you a few dollars to play there and got you good job.

Oh you're a hired gun. Yeah. Did Hillmont pay you? No, but I was kind of in between there where I was still in grade 12 and the next time I went there we were dismarried that fall and I had a bunch of tough grain that I was drying every day so I couldn't leave to go somewhere else. And I enjoyed Hillmont. Hillmont was great and still got all my friends up there. Who was the best paying team? Who paid the most? And what were you getting paid? Well, I made a whole $100 and room and board when I played Junior B and Weyburn a month. That was quite a bit of money in them days back in 63.

It wasn't big money, but it was for a 16-year-old kid, it was spending money. When you played after you played your junior B in Weyburn, did you think of like trying to go further with hockey? Was there avenues to go further with hockey? Not for me. It wasn't good enough. But there was for other people. My brother and Dwight Cuthersham Lashburn, they went up to Detroit for a little bit and stuff like that. But there was only six teams in the NHL in them days. too. So there wasn't a whole lot of openings. But like I said, I was never a good enough hockey

player to go anywhere. That's another thing that's changed then over the years because I mean, if you do the math of where you were kind of sitting, the fact you were playing there puts you, you know, in the upper echelon of hockey players in Saskatchew. And in today's world, Well, I'll just look at my career. I wasn't an NHL material, but I still managed to play a handful of years in Junior A and another handful of years in Division III. And I found myself over to the other side of the world and played a little bit there. And I just think that that obviously has been a huge change then since when you played 10. Yeah, probably.

I really don't know. maybe there was the opportunities there. Maybe I didn't look hard enough, but like I said, I probably wasn't that caliber to go very far. Tell you one interesting thing, when I was 16. In those days, the NHL owned all the junior teams in Saskatchewan. And at their hockey camps, their whole scouting crew would come. And the head scout for Detroit called me under the room,

and he said, Des, if you knew anything about skating at all, you'd be in the NHL and I never did learn to skate. You didn't, my brain goes, man, I've been working all my skating so hard. Yeah, I don't know. I just, yeah. You have, well, no, who's your favorite NHL team then? If you're in the Detroit Red Wings organization, are you a Detroit Red Wings fan? I probably still like them the best, yeah. Yeah.

I'm not a big hockey fan. I like baseball far better than hockey, but... Really? I'm not a big hockey fan. I watch the playoffs, but that's about it. What is it about baseball? Well, I've played some pretty good baseball. I've been on two or three provincial championship teams,

silver medalist in Canada. I got my name in the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame. So I enjoyed baseball. I really enjoyed baseball. What position do you play? Well, I was a catcher or else a fielder, one or the other. Man with the golden arm, then. Gunning guys out on second?

Oh, I don't know. How did you, you mentioned silver medalist in Canada, like you were talking nationals? Yep. Who were you playing with? With North Battleford. They picked me up to, well, I spent two years playing with North Battle of, Ford. And sports has made up a big chunk of your life, hasn't it? Yeah, it's been really good to me.

Sports has been really good to me. Just in the friendships and the lessons and everything else? Yeah, and the friendships that I've made. And yeah, no, I thought it was pretty much my life, I guess, was baseball and hockey until I got married. I never played baseball after I got married. I never had time. I was too busy making any living. But up. until that point. It was big in my life. Hockey was in the wintertime when it was kind of a down time, so had time for hockey. I've lost my train of thought.

I've really lost it. What do you think of this COVID? What do you think of right now, everything going on, you've seen a lot of different things over the span of a lifetime? What do you think of what's currently going on with the worldwide pandemic? I don't really know. I know that it's serious, but I think it was way overplayed by the media and maybe even the health people. It was tragic in the old folks' homes. Really tragic, but I don't think that it was the pandemic that it was made out to be. It's very serious, but I hear a lot more. I didn't I wasn't around for the Spanish flu in 18 and 19, but I knew more families that lost people in our district then, and there is now.

Well, you just think the progression in technology and running water and power and all the medicines and like the sanitization and the ability to, like all these things, just all the progressions across everything. and you go back to the Spanish flu life was a little different back then and you just weren't available to the modern things that could help slow it down so to speak or help figure it out

dad told me a story once that you told them I'm curious about this is it true the North Saskatchewan River has went dry before Well, that's what an old-timer told me when he was a kid that they took their cattle up there and there was just potholes in the river to water them. That was the only water. And your dad would know the old timer was Frank Spence.

He probably died before you came along, but he moved, I bought his land, and he moved to a little house in Hillmont. He was born in the late 1800s, so I don't know. Can you imagine there being no water in the North Saskatchewan River? Doesn't that hurt your brain? a little bit? Think what I would do to Lloyd Minister.

Or Eminton? Or every city that grabs or oil producer that grabs its water from there? Exactly, yep. I think your dad didn't believe me, and he looked it up in the annals of history, and he tells me it's gone dry three times in the last 200 years. So then what do you think about, like, can you imagine the environment? I got nothing. the environmentalist. But can you imagine

if that thing goes dry, the stories it'll be told? I can imagine a lot worse things than the stories it'll go on. There'll be mayhem in the cities. Your son was in politics. Right. Where do you, what are your thoughts on, I don't know, the political

landscape or having seen him take a foray into it, into the jungle, so to speak. What are your thoughts after, I don't know, help this young guy along, because I look at it and it confuses me. But media plays a big part in everything, and I understand that. Media pretty much nowadays can get you elected or get you unelected, one or the other, I think. It's a media game now. Everything has got to pander to the lowest denominator who just of the most folks.

So does any of that worry? Like, do you... Oh, I guess if I was a worry, it would worry me, but there's very little I can do about it, so I try and tend to not worry much about anything I can't change. But don't you think you could change it? Like, you're a guy who said, there's jobs that, you know, aren't that much fun,

but if you get the right group of guys together, or people together and take the right attitude towards it, it can be a lot of fun and you can change things. When I look at politics, that's a job nobody wants to do. Yet if you took the right group of people towards it and had some fun doing it,

you could probably do a lot of good things. Well, I think the right people can do a lot of good things. I think there's been lots of good things, is done by the right people in politics. But the way it is right now, anybody with a professional career is not going to step down and go into politics for the wages I get paid.

So I just... That's one thing. I don't know. The voting public are... They believe more what some movie star says than what a politician says. So I think our voters are very uneducated, but I'm just a farm boy.

I don't have the answers to very many questions. Yeah, but in saying that, that's a wise statement. I know you don't probably want the word wise associated with you, or maybe you never thought I would say that word, but uneducated people. are probably easy to convince of just about anything. No? No, I don't.

I think probably maybe the uneducated have a better balance in their mind right and what's wrong. They don't get caught up too much in fads or in propaganda or seeing as believing is maybe what I'm trying to say. I know Oprah Winfield wouldn't win many fans. in my group. You didn't tune into the, well, I don't even know their names.

I don't know. That's the only one that I know. The big interview with Oprah and I'm like, I don't know why anyone have won't watch that, but that, I'm sure it broke records because that's, well, that's where a lot of people are, nowadays they like fluff them or they're better than facts or something i don't know that everything is a 22nd news bite now but i'm the last person to talk deep about any subject

well i'm not going to hold you to the flame much longer i i uh i like deep deep uh deep uh thoughts i look at i look at you anyone older than me, especially when they've lived, and I'm not trying to call you an old man by any stretch, but you've just lived so many more years than I have. You've seen a lot more. Hell, you've talked to a guy that he says in his lifetime, the North Saskatchewan River has gone dry. So I go, okay, so in your years, what are some things that you've seen that made seeing, you know, seeing as believing? I really can't answer that. I'm kind of from the old school.

If it ain't black and white in front of me, you have to prove it to me. Well, that's fair. I appreciate you coming and sitting in and doing this. And letting me poke and prod you a little bit. Oh, you're welcome. Okay. Well, thanks again, Des. Okay.

We are back here for two seconds because we got a, we got to say that. Say that again. The worst time in your life. Probably the worst time in my life for worrying was I just bought nine quarters of land and my father, my uncle, and my father-in-law all mortgaged everything they had for me to borrow enough money to buy it. And the interest rates went to 20 and 22%. And that was a struggle.

I really had some worries and work to try and work out of that mess, but we survived it. That was the tough years. You know, when I said, seeing is believing, 22%, that's believing, isn't it? That's something like I can't even fathom right now. Well, it was 20% anyhow. I think that it topped out at 22%, but I think I was paying at least 20% on my loans to try and make payments on this nine quarters of land. Man, you must have had to work your butt off and put every cent into that.

Yeah, well, I worked off the farm full-time and farmed 1,200 acres and played a little hockey for a little bit of money and did a lot of different things to try and pay for it. I struggled through. I got very, very lucky. I got a couple of oil wells towards the end of it and that helped out. And the rest is history, I guess. Hmm. I'm glad we got that. Hey, thanks for tuning in today, folks.

Hope you enjoyed a little flashback from the past. Make sure to like and subscribe to the podcast. Believe me, it helps. And I want you fine folks to reach out. If you're enjoying it, check out the phone number in the show notes. You can get a hold of me that way. Shoot me a text. Text is usually best.

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