Shaun Newman Podcast - SNP Archives #5 - Wayne & Barb Russell

Episode Date: October 2, 2020

Wayne & Barb were both born in the 40's on rural farms, they have been married 52 & have navigated owning Rusway Construction since 1986. We discuss walking to rural school, hauling pails of water, the wind literally blowing through the walls of their homes, sleeping 9 people in one room, saving Junior A hockey in Lloyd, helping to build the back 9 on the Lloyd golf course and a WHOLE bunch more. Let me know what you think     Text me! 587-217-8500

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

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We got another great one on tap for you today, but before we get there, let's hop on to our episode sponsors. Foremost, they're offering smooth walled grain bins, hopper bottoms, and fuel tanks. They're in stock and manufactured locally. They want to ensure you know they are constructed with the highest quality and engineered for a long life. Delivery is free within 300 kilometers of Lloydminster. You can buy at any of their co-op locations, Lloyd Minster, Lashburn, or Nealberg. For more information, you can check them out on their website, foremost.com. Jen Gilbert and team want you to know for over 40 years since 1976,

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give them a call, 780-875, 33, 40, 40. Clay Smiley and Profit River. Profit River is a retailer of firearms, optics, and accessories serving all of Canada. They specialize in importing firearms from the United States, hard-to-find calibers, rare firearms, special editions. Check them out at Profitriver.com today. Special thanks to Lloydminster Archives for these episodes being released every second Friday currently for the rest of 2020. Shout out to Lynn Smith, who helps tirelessly behind the scenes help line up these guests. so they can get them in and get their stories recorded and out to you guys.

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We've got lots of different options, and I want to find something that can work for the both of us. Now, let's get on to your T-Barr-1, Tale of the Tape. Wayne was born in 1942 near Punicay, Saskatchew, Barbara was born in 1948 near Glasgow, Saskatchewan. Together they've been married for 52 years with five children. They moved to Lloyd Minster in 1978, and in 1986, Rustway Construction was formed.

Together they've been a huge, huge community supporter with projects such as the Rustway. Arena, keeping the Bobcats and Lloyd Minster, Chuck Wagon's, Border Kings, I think you get the picture. I'm talking about Wayne and Barbara Russell. So buckle up. Here we go.

It is September 24th, 2020. I'm sitting with Wayne and Barbara Russell. So first off, thanks for allowing me the opportunity to sit down with you and talk a little bit about your life. You're welcome. You're welcome. I guess where I want to start is when you look back at your life so far, what is maybe one of the earliest memories you have?

With Wayne you being 78, Barb you being 72, you've both lived a lot longer than I have, and I was mentioning that before we started recording. And so I'm curious on what maybe your first memories back, when you were young, were, and maybe a little bit about what life was like, where you grew up, and talk maybe a little bit about that. We'll start there. Yeah.

Yeah, well, I was brought up in a rural area farm. My dad had only, I think it was a half section of land, and we were half a mile from school, the rural school. and so we used to walk there every day and mum was the janitor of the school and it didn't matter whether it was 30 we had to light the fire like there was no the fire never stayed on overnight it was all wood or coal and it was cold in that place some mornings

and then we had to go down another half a mile to get a pail of water drinking water because there was no drinking water at the school. And so mom had that for quite a few years, and my brother and I, I got a brother younger of me, one year younger. We used to take turns walking down there to get this pail of water and stuff, eh? But it was, I remember dad and a bunch of the guys,

they flooded the rink outside by a team of horses and water barrels, eh? And they flood the ice, eh, for us to skate. because there was nothing indoor out there sometimes. So we give us an opportunity to do a little skating and stuff like that. When the ponds were froze over, we did a lot of skating on them and stuff, but it was, yeah, crazy times. When you talk about your mom being the caretaker and you having to stoke the fire every more,

morning and go get this pail of water. So, you know, my brother and I were talking about this actually the other day. There had to have been days where, you know, it was a nice summer day like this and you're going to get water and it ain't so bad and you're kind of happy and whatever, you got a little bit of water and you walk back. But there had to have been days where it was like minus 30 and you're rolling down there to try and get a pail of water. And that couldn't have been that much fun. No, that's for sure. It was to even walk that, you know, that extra half a mile from when come from school and there was no heat on the school and we got there. So we grabbed a pail and away to go down to the neighbors and get a pail of water because they had good drinking water.

And a matter of fact, we used to use the water at home the same well. And yeah. As your neighbors? Yeah. So you and your neighbors shared a well. Yeah. Well, we got the water right from the neighbors. Yeah.

Yeah. What type of well was it? Was it like a hand pump? Yeah, hand pump. And we had one at home where we watered the cows, and it was a hand pump too. And I tell you, I can still remember them old Holstein cows, they'd take one slurp and the pail was gone, eh? You know, it was, but yeah, that was good drinking water. This one at home was alkali, and we couldn't use it for drinking, eh?

So it is pretty precious there that you save the water when you go down and get this stuff. Did the pale have a lid on it? No, just a straight... So now I've got to even take it one step further. A minus 30. Yeah. How old are you at this time? Now?

No, at the time of hauling these pails, how old are you? We would be, I don't know, probably 12, 13, you know, in that age? Okay, so you're a 12-year-old kid walking an extra mile, half mile there, half mile back. Yeah. And on the half mile back, you have to balance an open pail of water and not splash it everywhere. Yeah, that's right. You were pretty careful of how you carried it because you wanted to get back there with a little water in it. You probably learned that lesson early on, I bet.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, and, you know, Mom, she couldn't do it. And dad, he had other things to do. So it was good exercise for us, and that's for sure, yeah. How about Stoke in the light and the fire? So that's the first thing you did when you walked in the school? Yeah, that was it. We got into trouble a few times.

We brought in some gasoline or from pops we took, eh, and we get the fire going real good, eh? Used oil or whatever, eh, we threw in there. One of the neighbors, they lived about two miles away. The way we figured the school was burning out one day. Because of the black smoke or whatever coming out of the chimney. Yeah. Yeah, she was smoking pretty good, eh?

In those days, if you got in trouble for putting sad things in the fire, what was the repercussion? Oh, they made you stand in the corner sometimes, the teacher, or whatever, eh? You know, one time we were, I think we ran, and at recess time, we went to the neighbors and at a straw pile. We never got back to school in time, eh? and I remember standing in the corner and writing out a 200 lines of something, eh? I will not do this again.

I will not do this again or whatever, eh? Yeah. So. Did you ever have a day where you just went in and you're like, you know what? I don't feel like light in the fire. Or I don't feel like going to get the pail of water because it's a blizzard outside

and nobody means we're going to just, no, I'm not doing it. Yeah, well, there, yeah, and, well, at least there was two of us, eh? We could, in the bad days I used to tell my brother, if it was too cold, it's your turn, eh? He was younger than me. No, I think we, because you had to have water, you know, you had to get the water there and stuff, eh? So.

You bring this pail of water, does it just, did you have something you put it in? Yeah, we had a, oh, a, suspic. what do you call them with a tap on it, eh, you know? See, there wasn't very many kids. I think there would be maybe 15, 16 kids, say. Yeah. So you didn't need a great amount of water, but you had to have water.

And, yeah, we put it in that, what a, what did you call it? It was a, yeah, a two-gallon thing with a... A little pump. on it kind of thing. Well, I would a tap on it. Yeah. People right now are listening to this laughing at me for sticking so long on the pale water. I just, I find it interesting, you know, fast forward to today and, you know, kids get their backpack on and go to school and play on tablets and read and, you know, I don't even know what punishment is anymore for a student

and parents, you know, my kids are too young. They're about to be in school, but It's very interesting to hear the differences from 70 years ago to now. Yeah, that's right. And a pail of water, now you, I mean, think of how much water people waste by just flicking on the kitchen sink and letting it heat up or cool down or whatever it is. And back then you think just to go get a pail of water for school every day. And I can relate to the water business. Growing up on the farm north of Glosselin here, my mom and dad,

boarded a couple of my cousins that lived further south and the one cousin dad sent him out to get a pail of water to from the well to because that's what we did to have drinking water in the house before the power too and he let the whole pale rope everything go down into the well so my dad was not very impressed because then you had to somehow retrieve the pail and the rope that was supposed to bring the water out of there to come to the house. So your guys as well was an actual drop down a pail and then pull it back up? The original one, yeah. Yeah, we didn't have running water in our house at the farm till, well, very late, 65 or somewhere around there. Then we had running water in the house. So what did you do for, let's start with something we all take for,

granted off the top of my head is every morning you get up and have a shower. Maybe you're like my parents and they enjoy a good bath at night. But what did you guys do for a shower, well, a bath, I assume? Well, we never had a bath every night. I remember when the kids, and we all used the same water. We'd heat that water up in a little, you know, the tub. And we would take turns. getting in and get your bath and but it wasn't every night either it was we went you know maybe two or three days without having a bath you know just kind of wipe yourself off or with some water or whatever but yeah it was the same yeah like we had the big round tub and and like I don't even know I can't even think about my older brother who is 86 and my sister and brother who will be um

will be 82 their next birthdays. But like I don't know how they bath because I was quite a bit younger than them, but I remember bathing in that little round tub. That's how we bathed. I'm just, my brain immediately goes to so multiple people using the same water. Yep.

Did it ever, at any point, bother any of you? No. We didn't know any different. There wasn't any other choice. How did you heat up the water? On the cook stove. Cook stove, yeah. In pots or whatever.

I feel like this process must have taken a little bit of time. Oh, yeah. Well, you get the water heated up before you, the first one goes to bath and, you know. Add a little bit warmer for the next guy down the way or whatever. Well, just think of it with Wayne with seven of them home all at once. That must have been quite the experience for sure. And don't pee in the bathtub, eh? Was there an order to who went?

I think the girls had to go first, eh? And then at home, I had two brothers and four sisters. So they, I think it was girls first and then. Yeah. Yeah, mom would have that all arranged kind of. How about your parents? When did they bat? You know, I think probably every week, eh, or something.

I don't know. I can't remember that part much, but... I don't remember mom and dad bathing either. That was probably after we went to bed or whatever. I don't know. What did you guys grow up in for a house? How, you know, we're sitting in your absolutely gorgeous log house. Like, this is a beautiful spot.

Growing up, maybe paint a picture of what the houses looked like or what you grew up in. Well, the house that we had, I don't know how many square feet it was, but it was just two rooms and one bedroom. And there was seven kids and two parents. Yeah, my dad, like, there was a hole in the floor, and the furnace was down just in a little, no concrete deal, but dug out by hand, like, you know, where the furnace was, eh?

And we get that going, you put a chunk of coal on there, which some days it lasted until, you know, whatever, eh? Yeah, it was a cold old house. Well, matter of fact, you could almost look through it. What do you call it? Ship, you know, like... Yeah, there was seams in it and let the air through. Yeah.

And you'd look, you know, and it would... We'd go out and we'd mud them up. We'd put a lath on them. And the lath that we used was willows, eh? Put it so you could put the mud in there and hold the thing up. but oh, it was cold. Mum used to put irons in our bed, eh? You know the old iron, hand iron,

and put it in a paper bag or something like that. And we left our socks on and most of that, you know, like, but, oh, it was a cold building. I think yours was the same way. Yeah, it wasn't. We had, ours was a little two-story. Well, your later home was a bit different, too, like when you left home.

But our little home that I grew up in seems little now when we, it's still kind of standing at the farm. But there were two bedrooms upstairs and then mom and dad had a bedroom downstairs. And it was, yeah, not that big. And mom would, at Christmas time or Thanksgiving when all of us kids would go home with our little ones, the 23 people eating around a kitchen table that was half the size of this one. Do you ever miss those times? they were good time. Yeah, we had some good times for sure. And I know that we have good times here when our kids come, but it's certainly a different thing altogether now than it would have been then. I just think you guys have seen this transformation. In our area, I mean, it definitely doesn't translate to the entire world by any stress imagination. But just think of our area, or North America.

A house now is, well, is a big unit. Everybody has their own bedroom and it's almost odd to have children in the same bedrooms. No, yeah. I don't know that there's hardly any little like families growing up now that don't all have their own space. It seems to be a requirement to have your own space, yeah. What was seven children and two parents, multiple beds, one giant bed? One, well, I know the kids all had giant bed, eh? And everybody slept in there and trying to keep warm.

That was the biggest thing. And Jay, I remember some. And you know what? We got a lot colder nights and days back then than what we do now. It seemed like, eh? You know, like them, Jesus, the wind would blow. It was, yeah, I was. quite an experience. But we often talked about that and what the parents, you know, had to do.

We had to sometimes go into the barn in the wintertime. We had to milk the cows, eh, and it was dark, and the snow would be blowing. You had to have a line, and all we had was a coal lantern, eh? And we had one of the lamps that had two mantles on it and hang it up with us whole of lights we had, you know, in the house, eh? And yeah, so you went to bed fairly early. I guess that's, but it was quite an experience anyway. What did you both do for entertainment growing up? Well, myself, we, like I said, we used to flood the rink at the school, small rink with boards on it, and we played a lot of hockey.

and we were right close to an Indian reserve there, and they used to come over and play hockey with us and do whatever too, eh? We had to flood the ice, go down to a slew and caught a hole in the ice and by water barrels and hauled to put it on a stoneboat they called, eh? And dad and a lot of the parents would come

and flood the ice, and good for another week, eh? What is a stoneboat? Stoneboat is what the hauled manure. on, hey, you know, like whatever, it had little skis on it or just on a pole, eh? And then you'd nail the thing up and hook two horses to it, eh? That's what we used to haul the manure. And then that's how you'd flood the ice. Yeah, put the barrels in on there, and way we'd go down to the slew and back.

Would the horses pull it down and back? Oh, yeah. Would they pull it along the ice? Yeah, to the ice. To the ice, and then you'd unhook them and... Yeah, well, we just... leave them there and watch they didn't run away, eh? Yeah.

How would you, Barb? What did you do growing up for fun? Well, it was, I remember quite often my mom's sister and her husband coming down and cold winter nights like we would, they'd play cards a lot and pull taffy. We'd make pull taffy in the wintertime and pull taffy. Yeah, my aunt Hazel was a great person for making homemade candy and whatever. And, yeah, you'd make this taffy and pull it, and then you'd cut it with the scissors. And then just like the taffy that the McIntosh cafe, the taffy that you get now, but it was homemade. Right.

And, yeah, families got together. My mom was one of 11, so there were a few families around to visit with and cousins to play with. and then my dad too, he was the oldest of five, and his one sister, her kids, and like their daughter and I and a cousin in town were close and we'd got together quite a bit. Did you ever ask your parents why they had such large families? Did you ever discuss such things?

No, not much. I think we used to say that the lights were out there. It was dark too much, eh? Like, you had no power. you had to do something. You had to do something. You had to do something. You're trying to stay warm.

Yeah. Yeah. It was quite an experience anyway, that's for sure. We just have to, we didn't have no inside toilet. We had to go out to the, it didn't matter whether it was 30 below or 10 below or whatever. We went out there with the Eaton's catalog, eh? Yeah, because it was toilet paper was scarce as well. I heard maybe that what the oranges, the tissue paper,

the Paines talked about that on, when I sat down with them, it was quite a delight. If you were lucky enough to get a box of oranges at Christmas time to have that paper. Like I remember my mom getting, in the fall, getting the big box of McIntosh apples. Yeah. Because like Northern Saskatchewan, like we're thinking, this is a little bit different now

because you didn't always have this stuff available in the stores. when it came you were pretty happy to get something like that. What do you two think of what's going on currently then? Right? Like there was pandemonium because there wasn't enough toilet paper. You remember a time where... There wasn't such a thing. Exactly.

Yeah, that's right. And there wasn't, you know, like somebody that was a school, that was one thing, you know, to keep toilet paper in there. and kids take it at home and whatever else and the janitor is burning it in the fire to try to get it going. Actual toilet paper? Yeah.

You know what? I can't remember. I know there was some toilet paper, but I don't know whether that's all. I don't remember toilet paper when you think of it now. I really don't. Like until later years.

And like you talk about, we've discussed this over getting to town, Like he was 12 miles from town. I was only a half a mile from town. But they didn't get to town very often to do any shopping. Like that was the... The only time we got to town, maybe if we talked to Dad, and it was a nice day, like they used to take a team of horses

in a wagon box, eh? Yeah, the old wagon box. Yeah, absolutely. And what you did was phone all the neighbors right in that area after what they wanted, and then they'd tell you what they wanted. Because half of the time we didn't have phones or not. nothing either, like power lines would be down or telephone poles and stuff like that. But we'd go to town once in a while, but I can't even remember that we went to town

because it was a long ride by the time you went to town 12 miles. You had to put the horses away in the livery barn or what are they called? Livery stable. Livery stable. And, yeah, Dad used to go, and then they had delivered a stuff. after he got back home, like you delivered it to the neighbors and whatever. And if you wanted a bag of flour here and whatever, eh? So when you went to town, it was a special event and you told your neighbors so that if they needed something you'd pick it up for?

Yeah. Because it was an event to go. Yeah, because some of the neighbors getting older and whatever too, eh? But I remember Dad going quite a few times for the neighbors and delivering it. but we didn't we didn't know what town was hardly you know it's in the early goans did you have community events then like where you get together for a dance or yeah we used to have that pie supper or oh pie social okay yep box what do they call box social what's a box social well what's a box social well just the same thing like uh it's a box that they wrapped up and whatever

was in it that you got. What did you get, do you remember? Oh, yeah, we, you get it usually food or something, eh? Yeah, it was quite the deal. You didn't know who's you were getting or whatever, but, and I don't know what they paid for them, but they bid them off, or they kind of auctioned them off, eh? Talk about Mrs. Roselle? Yeah, Mrs. Roselle, our neighbor.

I shouldn't talk about the Great Old Soul, but she had hockey pucks we used to call them when she made them bunzee. Closer to. So you probably missed that, did you? No, no, no, carry on. Sorry. But we, she was quite the cook, eh? You know, like she, and they had a bunch of kids, and they had turkeys and they had chickens and they had everything else. house, sitting beside you, saddles, sitting beside you.

Well, you talk about they would go there, nice lady, but not a, not the normal, his mother and a lot of the, well, women back then, that's all they did was bake and cook and whatever, but poor Winnie, she just was not, not inclined to be that way, and they would go down to their place for a meal and they end up bringing the buns home to play hockey with because they were so hard they couldn't eat them or whatever. Yeah, and we used to talking about... So you used the buns as hockey pucks. Hockey pucks, yeah.

Oh, man. But they, we used to go down there, they were great friends of ours. The boys, like, we used to go down, and they had a, what do you call it, a bunkhouse. And they'd light that thing up, and we'd play cards there to, what hour of the morning, eh? And then I can still remember that walk. You go walking in that home, that half a mile or whatever it was, that crunk, crutch, crutch, you know. And that was my brother and I, and we weren't very old at the time either, you know, like,

but, you know, the parents did not worry about kids as much as they do now. I remember we used to go trapping rats, eh, musk rats, eh? but one horse on a on a buggy that we had made a kind of a sleigh eh and god would be all over and fell through the ice a few times a brother was chasing a rat in the middle of the deal and fell down you know it's stuff like that eh but uh mom and dad didn't seem to ever worry about us but did uh i assume when you're walking home late at night like that was there a candle in the window then? Is that something you guys did? No, no candle, just, we knew where we're going, eh? And a matter of fact, we never had a flashlight or anything, so

kind of knew where we're going. Well, we didn't know where we're going, but yeah, we had, oh, we had winter roads. Sometimes the roads are completely drift in on the, like, say, a grid road, not a grid, but just kind of an old trail. And then they cut in the bush, they'd cut a road where we used it for horses and whatever else in the wintertime. Because you go down this other road, it was up to the telephone lines, eh, pretty well, eh? There was that much snow? Yeah, it would drift, eh, you know? Yeah.

Yeah, we used to go down there and when then us crazy kids, we tunnel into these things, you know, like. As only a good kid would. Yeah. You know, we go in there and we tunnel. We had tunnels all the way through these big drifts say. Oh, geez, the kids did that nowadays. You'd be pretty upset about things that they gave. You know, we could have got buried, and you never knew where you were.

Yeah. How about you, Barb, growing up, you know, you have a little different story because you grew up so close to Glasgow. And so I don't know. What was in town? There was a school? What else? The school and the grocery store, and I remember, I have a very fond memory of a drugstore.

Like the lady was not a pharmacist, as we know now. But it was, she was, it was the telephone office, and she had the neatest little store with gifty things. And my cousin's wife was the telephone operator. I remember way back when, and she, like, because there were no telephone. telephone, so like around, she would answer the and give messages here, there, and everywhere. But this little telephone office in the corner and then the little gift store, and so that was one thing, and butcher shop. Another, my brother's buddy in school, his mom and dad had the butcher

shop. And I used to go in there and watch this lady cut meat and you could go in there and buy buy meat and yeah so there was there were two nice grocery stores and and the butcher shop and the little telephone office with the little gift store and um obviously post office cafe it was always a cafe and a theater a movie theater yeah town hall with a with teeth theater like as i got a bit older like as a teenager you could go to movies what was the first movie ever saw oh boy i don't even remember. I couldn't tell you. This little telephone office, you said that your cousin would work there? My cousin's wife, yeah. But there was no, it wasn't like a switchboard where she's switching. It was like they call into her and leave a message for you. Yeah, well, there were some people that had phones that she

could connect to. But like I remember my mom when my brother had his first boy, 50 years ago, Tim turned 50 in May, but they lived in Kindersly, and dad phoned to Glassland to the telephone office and then gave the message for Mom and Dad because they didn't have a phone. And then Mom came down to the, to town and phoned us from that telephone office to let us know about this little guy that had arrived, my nephew. And that's only 50 years ago. Yeah, we had one of the one that hung on the wall, eh? Telephone. And our ring was six short rings, eh?

And we used to get a kick out of my dad. He'd be talking to his buds sometimes at night or whatever. And he would say that this one girl, she always rubberneck. They called it her rubberneck. she'd be listening on the line, eh? And when the boys were finished, they said good night to each other. And she speaks up and says,

good night, guys. So she was listening on the phone all the time, you know. Yeah, they were. On the party line. But whatever. Six, six, so if the phone rang, rang in everybody's house? Yes.

So everybody had their amount of rings for what? Like if it rang that many times, that was Wilf Russell's getting a phone call. But if it ran, had another ring, then that would be another farmer down the way. How many people on the group line? Oh, there must have been, I don't know, 15 maybe. So somebody was getting 15 rings? No, like there'd be too long or one long, too short. You know, you had to know your number or how they, how you knew.

You had to pay attention. Yeah, you had to pay attention. How many rings was that? But given that, I'm sure that, like, we know how much we use phones right now. I would venture a guess that that phone didn't ring very often, you know, because they phoned when it was necessary to phone somebody, usually, right? They didn't just phone just because, not like we're always on our phones. Yeah, you bring up the phone.

In your guys' lifetime, what is maybe one of the biggest things that sticks out, to you, technology-wise. That it's just, you know, you talk about the cold nights. You don't got any cold nights anymore. No, it doesn't seem that way anyway. Yeah, we used to get some... You talk about the distance of traveling to town, and that being you had to pick the right day,

and now, I mean, we drive through pretty much anything out here, right? Like, I mean, it's got to be really bad. And those days do come, but they're few and far between. And you just hop in the vehicle, and it's warm, and it drives, and you can go pretty much anywhere. You got roads everywhere that are, you know, I'm assuming back then, and the horse and the team,

you didn't have a nice paved road taking you to town. No, no, it was just a built-up trail. Like the car is just to run on it in the summertime, but dad, he never, after a certain length or a certain time, he would park the car and he wouldn't use it, eh? And just the horses in the wintertime, because he couldn't start him, no block heaters and stuff like that, eh?

Yeah. It was a little bit different for me because I lived just, what are we, not even an eighth of a mile from our farmhouse to the highway number four. So there was always like a good grid highway very close to me. I wasn't in those days of being back in the boonies that you couldn't get out. Yeah, it was a, you know, the 12 miles seemed like a long time. I know I think I only went like with dad maybe once or twice, maybe not even that. And holy man, you get in there sticking your tongue on the, you know, we used to have a steel railing.

I don't know, I guess it was for to protect the boards, eh, you know, when you put the stuff in. Us kids used to put our tongues on there and then try to get it off after, eh? Like it took skin and everything. Oh, boy. So it was quite that. But, you know, it was, we all seemed to get along, uh, had a lot of fun, I guess, as kids growing up too, eh? And we made it.

Here we are. Well, I'll go, and I'll go back to the original question then. So what over your, when you look back over the past seven decades, what is, what is maybe one of the things that you just go, I remember when? Yeah. I, uh, well, there was quite a few things, I guess. The guy, it's like trapping. We used to do it like my brother and I were very young.

And dad showed us how to skin musk rats. Mom, she would even let us skin right in the house, eh? They had a, we'd hammer a nail in the ceiling, put a string down. And then, because the lighting was no good either. When we came back, it could be late, you know, in dark. And we'd bring these rats in and we had to skin them. So we'd hammer a nail there Or was a nail there

And mom never said nothing She said oh go ahead You know like that What would you get for a muskrat? Oh at them times I think it was about Two to three bucks somewhere in there That was pretty good money then

That would be pretty good I don't know in the earlier But I know what we were getting And then it went I remember getting $5 some of the muskrats Hey but Maybe it wasn't that much eh But it was

something that another thing we had Seneca root dad you showed us how to pick that stuff and bag it Pick what Seneca root It was a root A medicine that they used They were kind of a

They dug it out of the ground And then you'd take it into town With We used to get so much money for Crows, eh? Legs? For a crow's leg? Yeah

You would because if you kill these There was so much of them Gopher legs and tails too, eh? Okay. And we used to put them in a bag and then let them heat up a little bit so the guy didn't count them on us, eh? And we'd say, well, there's a 50 or 75 in there, eh? Yeah.

Go back to this plant. So you would pick this plant. The crow thing is funny. But I've heard about all of them. Crow was new. But this plant, this root, I've never heard of this one before. So you dig it up and then take it into the... Yeah, and dry it.

You had to dry it and then take it into town, and they used to buy it a certain amount of money, eh? I know that in my... I remember Joe Mocasson. Joe Mockeeson and his wife lived up at Birch Lake Indian Reserve, and he worked, he picks stones and whatever for my dad. But Seneca Root was something that they... they made like a herbal, like a medicine.

And they did actually, like they boil it up or whatever and make kind of a medicine tea out of it or whatever. So if I have a cold, I go get some Seneca root. Yeah. And you go to the store and buy it, and then you put it in a tea and drink it? Or was it, is that kind of the idea? Didn't we have to ship it away somewhere?

You know. I don't think anybody, like I know that. I don't know what they did with it, but I think mom used to put something in the rat root. That's another one. There's a gal up here just north of Glastland. I had some cattle there on the land, and she made, she said, Wayne, I got this stuff for you.

I had a cold one day, and I got the real stuff for you. I said, what is it? Rat root. I never seen it yet, but she said she'll get me some, eh? But I don't know what that would be like either. But there was a lot of people couldn't get to a doctor or a lot of places, eh? You had to be self-sufficient. Yeah. I know that if you were real sick, the bombardier used to come.

I got one of the old bombardiers here. Bought it at Beauvel, Saskatchewan. And I fixed it all up and everything. But that's what they had back then. The telephone guy had it. Like if there was a problem with the telephones or people got sick, they'd come out and get you and take you to a hospital or whatever. Bombadier?

Bombadier. It's got tracks on it and two skis on the front. Okay. So like a skidoo? Yeah. But big. It's like it's a caboose with skis on it is what it is. Oh, okay.

And the motor in the back. And, uh... Jeez. You know, the more of these I do, I just sit here and I go, man, we got a good. good now. Like I don't think we realize how good we have it. No, that's, that is right. It was well there was so much more so there I think in Wayne's plate where he lived too because there was a lot of midwifery like and and doctors would get a call and they would go in the, in the,

in that bombardere out to a pregnant lady who was delivering a child and then quite often they didn't get there and the midwife would be there before. And so in this one two-room house with nine people sleeping in one room house with nine people sleeping in one room, if there was a baby coming, let's say it's your seventh sibling, everybody's in the opposite side and they're delivering a baby on the one side? Yeah, they usually took, well, if they could, there was a, I remember there was, took it up to the Dad took, see that when the last one was born,

I think, Dale, I think he was born in the hospital. Yeah, well, so was Marlene, I'm pretty sure. But, like myself and my brother, and your two sisters. Two sisters were born right at, at home, was it?

In Wishart. Huh? In Wishart, maybe? No, no, no, right at, just on a farm yard, eh? Like we... No, but at the farm in Wishart, because that was before you moved to where you are. It was just a little ways from where we were, not that far, eh?

But they got, they were midwife or whatever. Did you ever ask your parents about that? No. I should have, oh, I think we talked about her, but, you know, like them never took it serious enough. The big thing, I guess we lived in it, I tell you what, in them, some of them winters, like I was born in April, but there was some born in, you know, early,

cold and whatever and mom had to ride I don't know this gale that we used to go to she was a midway for what do they call kind of a nurse or whatever she would we take it up there and she had stayed and dad would come back home with the horses and whatever in the wagon box they then when the baby was born and didn't want to be too long at all in the on the road hey yeah but yeah what did you what did your parents do for work growing up uh well dad came out of trondor when he was just a young kid eh he was well i should show you that picture i got a picture back there of him he uh was uh he lived right beside the the old trana maple leaf gardens

And when he come out here, he was only probably five or six years old, would his parents say. And then they farmed all their life, hey? They come out here and broke land and did whatever. Yeah. But isn't that something to come from Toronto? And a lot of them couldn't hack it hardly because of, you know, living in Toronto. and that is your father? Yeah.

That's Wayne's dad, yeah. And that's an outfit that I think he had in Toronto, eh? Yeah. But that's how old he was, I guess, when they come out or whatever, eh? But, yeah, it was a big difference in the countries, eh? Absolutely. You know, they used to, I guess they came by train, eh? I know they used to stop in Punachai

and some of them Easterners where they'd get off the train and they were scared because of the, there was a lot of natives hanging around the, you know, the trains, say, and stuff like that. But I don't know how long it took to come from there. I never, it'd be nice, but we left it too long.

Both are gone now, the parents. Yeah. Yeah, my parents were both, dad was born. North Bottleford and I'm my mum, North Bottleford as well, and both came like they were raised here. So that's a little different story there. They didn't travel. They were kind of pioneers here. My dad's family, his mom, was a Hoskins. And the whole village of Glastlin is originally, I think there were six Hoskin brothers and one sister that had homesteads around here and the name of glaslin is named from the place where they came from in wales in wales when they moved from wales yeah and my my dad was actually my grandma was expecting my dad she was

pregnant when she made the trip across the atlantic from wales to to halifax to uh can you imagine can you imagine that yeah and she survived that trip and then the trip out here yeah And then getting dumped off, you know, like, or not dumped off, but I guess going to a place that there's nothing there hardly. Yeah. I remember that first house we had was a dinger two of that one. Like, what did, Wayne, you only graduated with grade nine, correct? Yeah. It's part of your grade 10.

I guess part of the grade 10. And Barb, did you go all the way to grade 10? I have my grade 12, and then I was, when I met Wayne, I was. going to, aspiring to be a nurse, as Lana said, but ended up being a secretary instead. Well, and that's the years, that's the years I'm interested. After you get out of school, did you both end up in Saskatoon or was there something between there? You obviously are a few years older. Yeah, I, uh, after school, I tried my luck at, uh, I thought I, I like baseball, and I played baseball in Punachai for two years

when I was going there to high school. Loved it, was good at it, I thought, hey, you know, and everything. So I said, I'm going to check out Notre Dame, eh? Just to see. So I went down there with another friend of mine and he stayed on or last that there. My resume was put into the fire pretty quick because of my marks, eh?

You had to have certain marks and the father there, he wouldn't have anything to do with that, so he threw the old thing into the garbage. So what did you do? I come home. And my buddy stayed there, and I think he spent a couple years there in Notre Dame. At what point in all this do you end up going out to Manitoba? Because you end up going to Thompson, Manitoba, to work in a nickel mine, don't you? Yeah.

when I came back from Notre Dame, my dad bought me a ticket to well, we had to go to Malville. I think you'd probably know where Melville is. Yeah, yeah.

And got on the train there and went to La Pau, Manitola because we had to stop in La Pau to get a medical. And my buddy that was with me, he did not pass his medical because he had is some missing

and they turn them back so here I'm on this train going to Thompson by myself well not by myself but there's other people there but the only ones I knew yeah I get what you mean and yeah they give you a strict medical there like

if you had any cuts or bruises or whatever hey you know they wouldn't take you hey and my dad he bought the ticket for me and give you 50 bucks that's all I had at the time to go up there and wait for the first payday. And I never did cash a check there.

You know that 50 bucks lasted me the whole time I was there. And I was there for probably three quarters of a year, eh, you know, or somewhere in there. I forget the months or whatever, eh? I was so glad I used to cry myself to sleep at nights, I think, you know, just a young kid. And how old were you? I think it was about 18 probably. Just turned 18, eh? You know, and you get turned out there.

Holy man, this nickel of mine. Didn't he give you a watch and then it got stolen? Oh, yeah, my watch. He gave me a watch. And we were all in a tent at one time when I first went up. There would be about eight or ten of us in this tent, eh? And there was some cold nights there. too. And these guys would get drinking. I was too young. I couldn't get in the bar or anything, eh?

And it was supposed to be a dry camp, but these guys would go and bring it into camp. And they punch holes in the tents and whatever else. I said, that's just about a... You had a number to go to eat. I still remember the name of that Crawley McCrackers. That was the name of the kitchen. And, oh, they used to get into fights there. And it was quite a time of this thing. So I don't know, you know, in Thompson, now it's, what is it?

I don't know, 60,000 people or whatever it is. Maybe not that big, but at that time it was only 400 people in Thompson. And it was going like crazy, but it was a good job. I went right through the whole. I tried it to underground but you had to be a certain weight to get underground? I think it was 150 pounds, but I

was not 150 pounds that, eh? Why did you have to be a certain weight? I guess for lifting and stuff like that, I don't know what the deal was or that's just a rule they had, I guess. So anyway, they sent me up and went to the refinery which was a smelter, I guess, eh? And that

was a dirty job, eh? Like it was hot in there and so I lasted there and the turnover in the mines at that time where I went from where they put me and went right to the top

just about in probably six months you know running a forklift which is good eh you know like and stuff like that so but it was no place it was quite the place

eh and really but I what was it about Thompson Manitoba was that like seen as like big opportunity yeah and I don't even know I was thinking about that the other day and I

I don't know where that all come from because dad he got the ticket so maybe he knew that I wasn't going to make it where I was coming from from down there so he had to have something there going when he got because there was not there was no no, like it just had to do something, eh,

because there was too many on the farm, and only a half section of land, that's not very much land, eh? What were you, what were both your options back then? You think of kids these days, myself included, and I'm not that far remote. When I graduated, I just had brothers coming back from touring the world,

and, you know, I ended up going and playing hockey across in Ontario and doing that kind of thing. Back when you both graduated high school, what were your options? Did you have, you know, like you both end up at one point in Saskatoon, I believe that's how you met. Yeah.

What were the options? Was there an opportunity to go south, north, west? Not very much. You know, like when I got my first job, when I came back, when they were building a high school in Pondon Chai, and I worked it as a bricklayer, right? so I went and I stuck with them for probably four years maybe three four years eh and you took any job that there was because I always told the boys in the water and sewer business when you had a shovel in your hand don't drop it because there's somebody picking it's going to pick it up eh you haven't got a job like there's young people were looking for work but it was it was

hard to get a job. But I worked for a bricklayer and I was apprenticing as a bricklayer. But they never usually didn't work in the wintertime or late fall. You know you were laid off and game home. That's one place. We worked at the steel plant. This guy got Hank Hensred. He was the owner of this bricklay. And he got the steel plant. in Regina. So we went to work there, and there was a lot of people that were working with us

that couldn't understand English or anything, eh? And now I'm mixing mud for all these. I don't know how many brick layers. I think there was that one time, 17 or 18, I'd be batching up mud. And if I didn't have nothing to do, I'd be picking these blocks up, you know,

them cinder blocks? Yeah. And the guy's, I said, you got it? Yeah, he got it, and he reached down and take it off the prongs, like there are two prongs. Take it off. Then he hauled his back, and I looked up, and this block hit me right on the head. So that sent me for a loop. I was off work for, I don't know how long.

The old boss thought I was dead. I was kicking like a chicken kick, eh? You know, and cut his head off. But, oh, man, I had a sore neck for I don't know how long. So that was kind of... It was the end of your bricklay. Well, yeah, that was... What did you guys...

What did you both think of Saskatoon? Like, had you been there? Was that something you'd gone to before? How did you end up in Saskatoon? Well, I can tell you about Saskatoon. I had never been to Saskatoon in my life until I was in grade 11. And I, Mom and I had milked cows and sold cream,

and she paid for my piano lessons. So I went to Saskatoon on the bus to write my piano examination. And so I had never even seen Saskatoon before that. I stayed with my sister-in-law overnight, and I guess I don't remember, but I think they took me to where I had to take my test and then back again. But honestly, that was my experience with Saskatoon. And so when I graduated from grade 12 and went to Saskatoon into university,

like I was like a duck out of water for sure, at least dumb little kid from small town in Saskatchewan and never been, well, I'd been to Battleford a few times, but only for dental appointments or dad took me to a baseball game once when the beavers were playing baseball. I think maybe a dozen times I'd been in North Balthalford before I ever went to Saskatoon. So it was an eye-opening experience for sure. You know, you mentioned being a duck out of water. What's one of the things that was a learning lesson? You didn't, you'd never seen it before or had no clue about the big city life and sticks out your mind?

Well, I don't know if it was because I was the youngest in the family. and I don't know, I found school pretty easy, probably didn't work as hard as I should, but going to university, you know, that was quite the eye-opener because you had to be independent, and I guess I wasn't, and you had to be disciplined, and I guess I wasn't there either, because I didn't do my classes very well. So anyway, that's why I then ended up going into secretarial school, business college. Yeah, me, I was, like I was in Saskatoon quite a bit because I worked with a, after I came back from Thompson, there was a guy, a contractor that was working right at mom and dads doing a grid road. So do give a couple days, and I was trotting over there to see if you get a job.

My brother was working with him, running pushcat, eh? It's a cat behind his scrapers, eh? So I went over and got a job with them running scraper and Pushcat, whatever because my brother, he wasn't going anywhere and I didn't matter to me.

I wanted to get out and go away. So I worked with them guys. The name of the company was Saskatoon contractors and they were originally right out of Saskatoon. So I got working with him and it was

I worked for them. for five years. And we were doing a job in Hayward in Saskatchewan and they went bankrupt. Well, I never got half of my overtime hours. I never got

my mom, I said, Mom, I'll give you this here, the amount that it is, and if you can get it, you got it, eh? But she never did you end up getting it, eh? It was some money that they owed me from back

pay and all this stuff. And I did, I run scraper for them for, I don't know how many, well, we were talking, I think it was five years that I was with them.

And that's when we quit them in the fall or I got laid off and they were pretty well done anyway. And I said, I'm going to Saskatoon and so I went up there and hooked up with Rand's construction

out of. And that was a very, good turn of events. Yes. That, well, always said that Joe Rans,

the guy that had owned it, was my second dad, eh? Like he treated me very good. And I did a lot of, he,

you know, I did a lot of stuff for him. We, oh, I don't know, we, we got along good and he was a great guy, so,

I ended up working for him for 23 years. And then that was in Lloyd. Even in Lloyd, I worked for him. They got a contract in Lloyd. And, yeah, it was a good move. What's maybe one of the things when you talk about him that he taught you working under him for that many years? Oh, he just, you know, I went from a whole operator.

one of the biggest machines that were around at that time in Saskatoon. We did a lot of work in Saskatoon, and I guess, I don't know, like, I wasn't a guy that didn't show up for work. Well, in them days, you didn't, you know, if he didn't show up for work, you were, that was it. And I think he taught me how to be responsible of, you know, my job and whatever else, you know. and we ended up being the best of friends, I guess, and that was just from walking into a place.

But he gave me the chance, and he knew that I wanted to work, eh? And they were a company that went all over Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and B.C. And he used to bid jobs all the time, all, you know, all over the place. And I was one of the guys that always seemed to be on that ticket, eh? So you got to travel all over.

Yeah, we were in LaPaw, Manitoba, we were in Russell, Manitoba. Oh, and then PA, Mooseja, you know, big places in Saskatchewan, and did a lot of work in Saskatchewan, most, you know, being local, and did a lot of work right in Saskatoon. Yeah. And then one day he told me, he says, Wayne, we got some work in BC. I guess you are the guy.

So I went out there and looked after the jobs for him. And we were in Creston, Revelstoke, I don't know, Prince George. Living in a hotel or did you have a? Yeah, we were a hotel. And Barb used to come there when the kids were small, Lana and Tanya. He used to sleep on the back of the old car we had

in the by the window, you know, they'd crawl up there. You talk about memories. That would have been in June of 1971, I think. We packed up everything that we had that we could put in the car like of belonging, like our clothes and everything that would, would keep us going for the summer. We left my mom and dad's house here at six o'clock in the morning and drove all the way to north of Prince George to a place called Summit Lake with Lana and Tanya

in the vehicle. Like we had so much stuff packed in there. They slept up in the back window of our car like Wayne said. I remember we were going through the mountains and we had a flat tire. Well, here we are with the flat tire. We've got all this stuff in the trunk and we're And just throw half the stuff in the car out to find the jack and the tire. And oh, gee. But after being on the road for all that day, tired, two little kids, and we came upon a guy, well, he passed us on the road in BC. They're not that, like it was probably two or three hours from Prince George.

He passed us going so fast. And then we came upon this same guy who had smashed his vehicle. and there was nothing left of him. The vehicle was all in parts on the road, and it's kind of starting to rain a little bit, and we're tired, and we see this, and Wayne went and looked at him, and there was nothing left of the guy,

and, of course, like, I'm just in a state of shock. But that, you know, like... But anyway, there was another guy coming, so we just kept going, and we ended up at Summit Lake. At that time, we lived in a little trailer that summer. there was a little trailer there at the park or whatever at Summit Lake.

And it rained for the first two weeks we were there. I thought that I was probably not going to make it. Like I was just like here I am, little farm girl from Saskatchewan with these two little girls. And I'm up in this place at Summit Lake, a half a mile from where he was, because they were working right in Prince George. So every morning he'd go into Prince George and work and left me at that lake. But it ended up being probably a good experience, a growing experience for us. And the crew, the other girls, we had, you know, had fun because we all lived there.

And the guys would come home at night and we'd swim in the lake and whatever. But I remember how devastating it was to just like take off and be gone so far away from everything. And I was familiar with at the age of 22, I guess I might have been then. Yeah, her mom was out there. Mom was crying. I was crying. Holy days. Yeah.

You guys have been married now 52. 52 years. I want to get into the Lloyd and construction and all that stuff. But 52 years is 52 years. That's impressive. Yeah, it's nowadays anyway, it's quite a length of time, isn't it? I think at any point, it's quite a length of time. 52 years is impressive. And the fun thing about doing this is I get to meet a lot of couples that have

been married 52 years. It's kind of, you know, it seems to be a testament to whether it's your generation or maybe just people that are viewed as community pillars have values that are, that allow couples to be together for such a time. Well, I think that was instill in us, though, as we were, like my parents, I know that there were times maybe that it wasn't like 100, percent but like they were always it was like if I wanted to go somewhere I had to ask dad like mom wouldn't just give me the permission to go and do something or whatever like it was a that was our family was built on on those kind of like you didn't just take off you had to do had to answer to somebody or whatever and and I think wains was the same way and we've tried to raise our kids

the same way like you you don't just fly off and go do something. something. You have to justify what you're doing and you have to be, well, committed or conscious of what you're doing, you know? Do you remember the first time you two met? That's a crazy question. I was boarding in a boarding house in Saskatoon going to university. The lady that was in the same boarding house worked in a dry cleaning shop. with Wayne's landlady. And the lady that I was living with was getting married. So Wayne's landlady took her for drinks.

I was not old enough to be going anywhere for drinks, but to the Windsor Hotel in Saskatoon. And Wayne came in there, and of course he came over and talked to his landlady, and they introduced us. Here we are. he swept you off your feet that quick so with that must have been that pretty quick yeah yeah we were married within well a couple years couple years I guess uh yeah that was in 1966 and yeah we were married

in 68 and yeah end of story what what uh what wisdom and maybe you've already talked a little bit about it over a span of 52 years can you impart on on on couples on people that are in maybe year one, or maybe they're thinking about getting married, or maybe they're in year 18. Is there anything that sticks out of being, you've seen a lot, raised five kids, dealt with a lot. You know, and the money wasn't there.

You know, when I first started in construction, I was getting 90 cents an hour, I think it was. 90 cents an hour? 90 cents an hour. I was figuring it out, you know, for eight, We only work eight hours a day. You know, that's not very much money, is it? We started off in a very small house on Second Avenue in Saskatoon,

and I remember paying $90 a month for the rent. And we had one of Wayne's, the guys that worked with Wayne, was like he lived at our place too. So here we are another two-bedroom house story with Lana and us in the one bedroom and Ken and his buddy in the other and you could throw a stone from the one end of the house to the other. Like if the house was as long as from here out to the other side of my car, it was not a very big place.

So small beginnings, but there again, you did what you had to do. We had a paycheck every two weeks. You got your groceries and, yeah. But I was always, you. There was always enough that I didn't need to work, so I was always home. And that worked out pretty good for when he was traveling on all the jobs that he did end up going on, because somebody has to be the person that stays home and kind of stabilizing figure or whatever. The school was, like when Lana was going to school, we had to get, somebody had to stay home.

So Barb, she stayed home with Tanya, and then you had Tanya and Bart. And Bart, yeah. Well, Bart arrived down in 73, and Lana went to school in 73, so there was no me chasing him around B.C., Alberta, wherever, after that. Yeah, once we were in, when we were in B.C.C. There, we finished them jobs up, and then we came back to Saskatoon, because Barb had the kids had to go to school, or Lana had to go to school. Well, and then that was when you did, there was more work right in Saskatoon.

and then like you say northern Saskatchewan, whatever, we kind of had that stabilizing thing in Saskatoon, but then it ended up that Lloydminster started booming. We got a job, we bit a job in Lloydminster with Rands, and they got it, eh? So I went, I was there in 19, that was in 1975. That's where we, when we started,

and that was what Rans, construction yet, eh? And so we, I stayed, I used to come just on back on weekends, eh, for I don't know, it had to be what, two, maybe two? No, 75, 76, 77, and then we moved in March of 78.

So three years, I just moved back in Porto on Saskatoon, because we had built a brand new house in Saskatoon, or had, through Karen's homes. And we never got to get in it much, we had to move out. So when we went to Lloyd, like we built or got the house and we, what would we build it?

No, we didn't build the house in Lloyd. It was built. For the listeners, I'm getting a fill-up of coffee and barf being a great host. So we went back to Lloyd. What was your first, before you guys moved, what was your first thought? You bid the job, you get the job, now you're moving there and back and forth. What was your first thoughts of moving in, coming into Lloyd?

What was Lloyd like when you first rolled in in 75? Really? It was kind of a deal we liked pretty good. Got to know the engineering company, you know, the city engineers and whatever else. And it was good. The only thing, we did a lot of work with ASI, cell paving and stuff like that. They had moved in about the same time and a few guys, but it was...

Well, they're writing notes back and forth now. Well, I was just saying, wasn't, I think, in 75 when you first started, wasn't Lloydminster only about 9,000 people? Or was it even then? Yeah, I think it says in that one of the... In the book, it says between 9,000 and 10,000 people. Yeah. So it was, I mean, comparatively now, you're at 30...

Yeah. Five maybe, 30. Yeah, it might have dropped. I don't know whether it has dropped. It probably has from where it was in a few years there when it was booming, eh? Yeah. I notice that now when we go in there, it seems like there's the traffic's less and whatever else. But.

Well, I remember when we first, we stayed that little motel that's on the east side of Saskatoon, we went there to look at a house in Saskatoon. In Lloyd, I mean. Oh, okay. We went there to look at a house around Christmas time of 77. And that's when there were these three, that's all we could, like three houses available. That was what it was like. In Lloyd?

Yeah. There was just like, because we wanted, we kind of wanted in the area and a new home or whatever. But there wasn't very much in Lloyd on the Alberta side. We wanted to be on the Alberta side. So where we ended up buying was on 41st. street, which is where our grandson Kagan is living now. And that's where we were from the time we went in, moved in 78 in March, and yeah, the house is still there. How much did that house cost you back then? Do you remember? Can you remember that figure? I think it was $75,000.

Yeah, I was going to say 80, but I think it was in that range, 75 or 80,000. Now, how hard, now, I asked this as a parent, and we were talking about it before we started. But how hard was it to move your two daughters at the time to Lloyd Minster? Because you were saying they would have been 10, 11 years old, somewhere in that ballpark? Yeah. Tanya was in, well, let's see, 78. She was eight. So she was in grade three. Grade three? Grade three, grade two. She wouldn't know she turned eight when we, after we got there. So she was only in grade two, I believe, and where the old Winston Churchill school that has just been demolished there, that's where she went to school. But the school system was a little bit different, like

from moving from the Saskatoon to Lloyd, the classes, like the teachings were a bit different and whatever. I remember she, for the first couple of years with math and things, we had to work pretty hard and she had to catch up on some things. Lana seemed to adjust better. And then of course, Bart didn't start school until that fall when we were there. So it was all, he was brand new, going to a new place. But I remember that Tanya struggled a little bit with that kind of thing. And like I said, she really wanted to play ball. So got together with some people that I met through curling or whatever early in the time where we were there. and we got a little team together.

They were called the Rans Racers. I remember these little t-shirts that they had. But, yeah, it was an adjustment for the girls, I think, a bit. And they just moved out of a nice, like, they just got settled in a nice little home in Saskatoon. And, yeah. So which leads me to my next question is, what was it about Lloyd Minster then? Because you, Wayne, you've been pretty much from Manitoba all across Saskatchewan to BC. Barb, you're right along with that for a big chunk.

But what cements it about Lloyd Minster for the next huge chunk of your lives that you're like, this is home? Yeah, well, I think we're probably the work was there. Like when we moved in, when we got that job, we finished that job that year. and then we did a few more. We went to Tabor and a few other places and bit another job and got it in Lloyd, eh? And from there on, they were looking for a contractor that, and you know what, they liked our work, I think, that we did.

And so we said, this is it. And a guy gets tired of bouncing around. Bouncing around, you know, like... Especially with children, I would suspect. We used to go up north. We did a lot of work in the north, like in La Lash and Bovel, Isle-A-Lacross, and then the latter part. So it was a lot of work in the north. And we used to go up there three weeks at a time.

And no phones. There was phones up there, but the wall phones, eh? But half the time they weren't there when you went to use them, you know. And pretty soon it works on a guy, especially with the kids at home and ma at home. Missing everybody, being disconnected. Yeah, so yeah, and you never knew when I was coming home. And it was starting to work on a guy, yeah.

I could tell you a story early in Tanya's life about Wayne coming home. This is when she was just a baby in still back in Saskatoon. and he was working in the paw. Well, he decided to grow a beard that summer that he was working in Nepal. He came home one weekend, and she didn't know who he was. She screamed at him the whole weekend that he was home. He said, maybe you should not be growing a beard. But that's how, like, he was gone for three weeks.

Yeah. And she was only, what, five, six months ago? A lifetime in a young, young kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then I think it was a couple of weeks or three weeks after that, I figured I'd soften them up. I'd bring them a Christmas tree from up north. Hey, you remember that tree?

I got... Charlie Brown. Back to Saskatoon. There wasn't a needle on it, eh? All the way from the pub. Beautiful tree when I took off at Wind, eh, you know? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a hall to get back from there. Here I was going to build on the girls, you know. I know moving to Lloyd yeah definitely was well like Wayne said Mr. Rans treated us like his kids

and gave Wayne every opportunity and obviously Wayne I guess did well enough that that worked out but Lloyd was like starting to boom and there were so many we had so many friends like we curled and I we golfed and Bart played hockey and and the girls figure skated, and Tanya played her ball. And they had music, and everything was all, yeah. And things, financially, we were, like, starting to get on our feet, and you could afford to do some of these things. So I think those things all fit into it being a great experience.

And, like, the friends that we've built over the years, working in Lloyd and being in Lloyd, we've had some wonderful, friendships that we've developed and kept to this day. So curious. Over those first, call it 10, 15 years of living in Lloyd, I just think of some of the things have been built lately and I always go to sports because I'm a hockey guy. So the multiplex when it was built was a big deal. Now the vault for indoor ball and that kind of thing was a big deal.

What was a big deal when you first, you know, you got 9, 10,000 people living in Lloyd. what was the first building back then when it got built or maybe it was a baseball diamond? I'm not sure. Was there a community project back then that, you know, I can't even think. Maybe. Well, yeah, like the golf course went to 18 holes in 83. And we did a lot of the work there. Like we, that was 83, 84.

83. It started. I think, yeah, it took a while. And matter of fact, we did all. all the ponds, you know, that they're there today. We dug them all out. Which is a gorgeous golf course. It is, yeah. And we did all that, and that was one of the biggest projects that we, well, we donated most of our time, eh? And machinery.

To building the golf course. Yeah, to expand it to eight from nine to 18 holes. Yeah, and then that, like the, well, the golf people appreciated that because we were Wayne and Merv and Don all were given lifetime memberships to the course. I was just going to say that would be an incentive enough for you, wouldn't it? I'll donate everything. Give me a lifetime membership. Here you go.

Yeah, they did. They had for the wives and the two partners that I ended up with in Merv Krause and Don Herzog. Don's wife and Murs' wife, they give them a membership too. Yeah. There were the partners that ended up being when we moved from Rans, when we bought Rans out to R Usway. Well, and that's a nice little spot there. What pushes you over the hump, I'm assuming,

like what pushes you to buy Rans out? Well, you know, we thought about that. That was, at first of all, Barb and I had Russway. and the amount of work that we were going to do, we needed some help in the office and people that do get out, eh? You know, it was too much for one guy to handle, eh? I was, when I was with Rands there, I was looking after sometimes up to 40 people, eh?

We had three crews going, four crews going in the good times. And I'm looking after all this of ordering pipe and blah, blah, blo, blah, blah, and whatever else, eh, you know. So we said, you know, like maybe we should buy it out. And Joe, he was, Joe Rans, he was ready to retire. He was going to retire. He was going to keep Saskatoon yet and just let the branch office so we could have the branch office. Which was a good deal because he, we had a bunch of work on hand with Rand, say,

and he just let us continue on, eh, you know? Like he was Oh, you'll never find a better guy On something like that Like that's what I said He treated me like Like the second dad I called him all the time

And he was You worked there a lot of years Yeah Like how many years did you work for Rantz? 22 or 23 years I think it was yeah Like that's That's a career in itself

Yeah And you know what? I went all over the place for them and like them jobs in B.C. Well, it just sounds like it was a very, very good relationship. The way you guys talk about them, it was a very, very good relationship. To me, once you're living in Lloyd and you're a branch of Rans and he's gone, you know, here you go. Yeah, and that's kind of what it was. Like he helped us with our, when we purchased our house in Lloyd.

It was $75,000. but like a good year and there was a bonus at Christmas time like we paid I think we paid it off in three or four years

just lump sums from the money that they had made with their jobs and the so we never had this 20 year mortgage or whatever

like everybody does anymore you know and yeah so those all those breaks were yeah it was good for us yeah

you worked hard and you got rewarded for it Yeah, that's, you know, like, and he appreciated that, eh? You know, like, there was one, two, three, I think there was three rands altogether, but the other two of them never showed up and with the company, the very seldom ever see him.

It was just mostly Joe, and he'd come out and look things over and buy a few pop for us, eh, and stuff like that, eh? Buy a supper. We looked forward to his visits to Lloyd because we always got to go out for supper. In those days it was, oh, what is it now? The Tropical Inn, but what was it a long time ago? The Wayside Inn? No, beside the Wayside Inn.

But anyway, we always used to get... I don't know. It used to be, what did it used to be? Now you got me curious. God, I can't remember, but we used to go. I remember great experience going up and going upstairs into that dining room up above there. and having our ribs and steak or whatever we would have. But I can't remember the name of the place now.

But anyway, there was lots of good times when he would come. And he always, he'd grab Lana and Tanya. He knew them better, and he'd sit them on her knee and tease them. And, yeah. Why the name Russway? Well, I tried, like, I wanted to get it registered in, Alberta and Saskatchewan, eh? And now you've got to go through a legal deal, like, to get this name, make sure nobody else has got it, eh? I tried two or three names before that, and

couldn't get it, eh? So, I tried, I took my first name, W-A-Y, and my last name, R-U-S-E, and tried that, boom, it worked, eh, so we registered it in Saskatchewan and Alberta. So that's why I, I guess, named it that, eh, so. But, yeah, it was good. And Russ Way comes from your name then? Yeah. Yeah. Did you have a second pick?

Or was it always Russ Way? No, it was some. else I had it and I figured if we get bounced again because we got bounced out of there two or three times that, you know, it has to be that, what was it? Well, you were going to try barger way too, like for Bart, Jared, and Wayne. He was going to try that one time too, but that didn't work. How about running a business? You ran a business now since 86 then. You've been, you've owned Russway construction. Yeah. And, you know, before it has. It kind of, when you were running the jobs where we were going, you know, it was, I got used to, you know, bidding jobs and it was under Rands. But yeah, no, we had, we ended up with two good guys like Merv, Krause.

I don't know whether you know Merv, them guys. Okay. And Don Herzog came as partners in 86. That's when we had Russway, eh? Yeah. And like Barb and I had her before, so Barb give up her shares and whatever else. And we kind of booted her out, eh? In other words, but the work was so, I'm out.

You need somebody in the office. You need somebody looking after these jobs, you know, going bang. And I was doing a lot of that, but you can't, you know, it don't work. Like we were, in the first few years there, we were carting a lot of men around. you know, like a... It really helped. Merv was, when Wayne brought him over to Rustley, he was already an assistant engineer or whatever,

with the city of Lloyd. So, like, he knew the workings or whatever. And plus he had the office kind of, like the... Doing all the bidding and all that kind of stuff, the paperwork kind of thing. Like, he kind of liked doing that. Wayne preferred to be out. And Donnie had a lot of water and sewer.

experience from Saskatoon and he preferred to be out to he didn't want to be out in the or in the stuck in the office either so so it worked out good that Murr was the office manager kind of so yeah we ended up i guess in the 90s there we went to black lake stony rapids we took all the equipment in that we needed for the jobs from fort murray barged them to stony rapids they out of Fortman Murray, eh? And all the pipe and everything else for them jobs came by barge, eh? And we ended up being there for, I think, six years altogether between the two jobs, Stony Rapids, and we got Black Lake first. We were a low bidder on that, and then we ended up getting Stony Rapids, eh? They were only 13 miles apart there, eh? So that was the two biggest jobs that we,

you know, there were good jobs, but there was a lot of who made you think sometimes when you get all this, you know, paying for, first thing about ours, we got to pay for the material first and before we even get it into the ground, eh, you know, and then the equipment, eh, you know, and going across, and the wrist you had of going across. Lake Athabasca, wasn't it? Yeah, right across Lake Athabasca. One time one of our loads got cut loose from the barge, like you got one main barge,

and then you tie them different on, eh? Okay. We're going across, and I guess none of us could go on it for insurance-wise, eh? But anyway, this Andy Frame from Portman Murray, he was doing the, said, Wayne, Jesus, got the, and you woke up, and she checked,

there's one barge loose, and he says, we just let her float. It's on the southern shores of Lake Alabama. Alaska right now, a little bit off the tour, but they went and got it after it. Yeah. What about your winter road experience? Oh, yeah, the winter road. And then the following, well, the next time we went into Stoney, we went out of points north.

And they built a winter road now. They called it a winter road, but they use a summer road to the natives come out of there for bingo, heaven. in Prince Albert or wherever they go Saskatoon, eh? But they were taking this winter road and going, and it was quite an experience going on that road, I'll tell you. We had two hose, two big hose. And I forget it was about five or six semis right altogether, eh? But we slept one night in the woods up there.

and it was a two-day deal from Stoney. Got stuck with the hose on and oh, Jesus. Some of those little bridges that you had to go across and they were hardly clearing the tracks because we were wider than what the bridge was, A. Yeah. Yeah, one morning I was sleeping. I was a pilot car.

I woke up something holding my head back. And here I was leaning up against the window and my hair froze right to the, I shut the truck off because the diesel running in, you know, like a lot of the trucks, it was coming in the air intake. What the heck's going on here? Here my hair was froze right to the windshield, eh?

Coyotes, wolves, and everything else up there. But that was a long trip, and that was for the Stony Rapids job, eh? But. I can't stop. thinking about this you buy out and become rustway construction in 1986 the more I think about this the 80s are notorious for being this terrible time interest interest rates through the roof and all the other stuff that goes along with it actually I've had a couple of local guys on

Spiro coquanus was one that comes to mind Larry Olenick talking about the 80s being this dark devastating time do you guys not have that same experience? No, because we had work in Lloyd and, you know, there was some, it wasn't the greatest because of, that's why we moved to Stony Rapids or had that big job up there and Black Lake. Yeah. And that was in the 90s only. I think we got that job in Black Lake at 91. That was the tough years in Lloyd too, eh? We ended up in Fort Monroe. I was up running a job in Fort Murray, Don was over in Black Lake, so we were spread out pretty good there for a while.

But Fort McMurray was, we had a bunch of work there, water replacement, eh, and stuff, eh? So we were up there most of the summer, but rain, oh my, it just. Wouldn't stop rain? No, it wouldn't stop raining, eh? You know, the river attracts it, I guess, eh? You know, in Fort Monroe there where you come,

I said, oh, then we'd say, well, we better go home. staying here, we go home in about 20 miles south of Fort Monroe's sun is shining, eh? You went through that same thing when he was working in Lloyd before, when I was still living in South Catoon with the kids,

and he'd come to Lloyd to work, and they'd get rained out. So he'd get home for about three days, and then he'd go back to Lloyd again, work another few, and then the same story as happens to Lloyd now. We still, every once in a while,

you get those blasts where water and sewer contracting work is not very good in those times. Well, you know, you need the compaction and in the trenches, and if your dirt gets wet, and oh, you've got to dry it dirt. But we, go ahead. I was just going to say, going back to this 80s thing, and maybe I'm sticking on something that that isn't there. I just, the 80s, people talk about what we're going through now, and when they look back, they talk about World War II and the 80s.

Oh, yeah. As being tough times. And earlier, Barb was talking about you guys getting your house paid off real fast. Did that help in the 80s? Or were the 80s, you found ways to have work, and that allowed you to get through that time unscathed, so to speak? Yeah, I think we did a lot of moving. Like, we were in Red there.

Tabor? Tabor. No, Tabor was earlier. Red Deer is one of the jobs, Fort Bermory, you know, and so we kind of went out. We did a lot of work right around Lloyd even, eh? You know, like we've got some jobs, worked there. So it wasn't the best of times, but it was we pulled through it better than a lot of companies. Yeah.

Well, I just look at today and you look around Lloyd and how many shops are closed. closing up and how many people are going out of business or selling or, you know, it's dire times, it feels like. Yeah, it is. It's a long time, eh? Like, you know, it has been, like some of that stuff we went through in the 80s, it wasn't as, I didn't think it was as tough as it is now, eh? You know, like it didn't last that long, eh?

But there was some tough times. We had to go through. But we always, when we went to Black Lake in the 90s, and. Stony Rapids, we went in there and we had to go. We had to get some work, eh? Yeah. But it's tough work up there. We had to blast all our, every trench that we dug in Black Lake had to be blasted, eh?

You get an engineer there to stake out, the elevations and whatever, and you get a later up, boy. But that was tough work, eh? tough on the equipment. I could, when I was, we were working in Black Lake, no, in Stoney, I could hear the hose going that 12 miles. I could hear them banging on rocks, eh? You know, the poor, like the first time we took, we didn't bring the hose out even.

They were bashed up so bad. We sold them right there, eh? When we got done? Yeah. Just left them. They like the, uh, local boys. Yeah. You know, there's guys that would.

Now you got. Like Black Lake never had any water and sewer. Stoney never had any water and sewer. So now you've got maintenance, eh, and stuff like that. You'll run into, like that intake we're putting in there, you know, in the river. That's a fast-flowing river, that one that's Stoney, eh? Yeah, the old guys in there, they had rope. We had rope around them so they wouldn't leave us, eh, in the river, eh?

The skin dyers, eh? The guys diving in. You're talking about putting in a water intake at the river. Yeah. And having to have scuba guys go in. Yep. And tying them off so they don't get sucked away by the river. Yeah.

Like it moves fast, boy. Yeah. I know we used to go fishing in it after we got the intake in. It was not deep. You had hip weighters odd. But holy man, that water, boy, you turn some certain angles, certain angles. And, oh. You know, how many, how many, 86?

Well, that's 34 years I can do the math on that. Duh, I was born in 86. Jeez. What have you, you know, you're not actively running Russway anymore. No. What's one of the lessons that you went, listen, guys, this is something you got to know in business. Was there something you passed on? I'm assuming you passed on many a thing. Oh, yeah, there was a few things.

I think you've got to take it by, well, day by day, but you have to put the coveralls on once in a while too, eh? I tell my son-in-law's and son that, eh? You know, it just doesn't come that easy sometimes, eh? You know, and some of the guys out in the field need help, eh? you know, that's running the jobs and stuff, eh? But like when I was there, running the thing, I was, I went all the time kind of a circle, eh?

Merv was a good guy in the office. Don, I didn't have to do much with him because he was a partner. But, you know, the other guys needed, you know, if they needed help, order material, whatever else, eh? And I, oh, six o'clock in the morning, I was, oh, I should tell you about the experience I had in Lloyd.

We're doing a big job on 49th. You know where the tracks and the old co-op building there? Yeah. We're coming up 49th. I'm looking to see if I can drop this load of pipe with piper coming in, big concrete

pipe. Okay. So I had to get it off just right on 40-9th. We had 49th close down between 50th, no, between 52nd and 50th, I guess, 51st, So anyway, I'm looking there. I never heard the train whistle or nothing,

and all of a sudden, boom. You got hit by the train? Train, yeah, this wall hit right behind my ear, eh? The big knuckle on the train, eh? And it shared my truck right off from the frame, like, eh? I'm looking. I asked one, oh, Ted Gus is

he was a fire chief, and his office was just up the road there a little ways, hey, on the east side of the road. He come trotting over there, you know, Ted, big guy. I said, Ted, slow down. We don't want you to die here, eh? But, yeah, I'd never seen it, eh? That's all, you know, concentrating on where to put this pipe.

A couple of my buddies were behind me, Monty Armstrong says, Wayne, if I would have had a chain or something to throw around your truck, I would have pulled you out of there, eh? But it wasn't a fast moving train. It was they were moving, you know, cars,

and there was local guys that were, that hit me. But that was big enough. Holy jib. It shot my truck over onto the next track. And I went into the Rio View mirror, broke that off. And I was saying, what are them tools doing there on the street down by the quap?

That's where they came out of my toolbox thing. Well, dad's brother, older brother, Tommy, was killed in Lloyd by a train. Oh, is that right? Yeah. And so, you know, it's just, you think of all the safety. I mean, you go out in the rural parts of Canada. You can find unmarked spots where you got to pay attention where they don't have flashing lights. but you think now in Lloyd, I mean, anywhere that comes to mind right now,

they got big arms, they got flashing lights, they got absolutely everything to, but that's crazy that you were hit by a train. Yeah. Yeah, and I, you know, like we had, just wasn't paying attention, that's all, you know, like more worried about where I'm going to put this pipe, eh, because it's tight in there, eh, with the tracks. And we were, what happened, we were tunneling the tracks too, eh? we'd go underneath

and get a big borough machine in like this pipe was about a I don't know it had to be a 54 inch or more concrete pipe so we need a little room for that eh and just wasn't paying attention lucky

if it would have hit a little further up on my door I might not have been here you guys you guys have been in Lloyd a long time Why? And have been actively involved in the community for a long time. Why have they never put an underpass, an overpass, something pass over that railway track?

Oh, yeah. You know, when we first come to town, like that space out there by the upgradeer, or not the upgrade, the Ripsey plant, thing? Okay, yeah. You know, there's a space in there that they were going to do something there. But, like Vermilion got that. Yeah, got an overpass. Nice little overpass.

There's a lot of traffic on that. now they shut 50-fth. Yeah, the crossing, yeah, they've got it blocked off, so you can't go where West End girls used to be. Yeah, that's right. You had to go all the way down to 50th or on 60s second, the truck route, even. Yeah, I don't know what the hold up, whether it's,

boy, it's bad for us. Like, we used to try to race that thing and train coming here. We were working down over there. We tried to get it. Well, I think everybody does, right? Yeah. If you live in Lloyd for a year, you realize that... Oh, Jesus.

Yeah, it's... And then you get tied up there. You're like, you know, you're just... Just where to go because of the boys wanted some... Especially with it, you know, we need pipe and whatever else, eh? Helps with the road rage. That's right. But anyway, yeah, it slowed me down for a while, anyway.

You guys have been, I was saying, active in the community. volunteered a lot just what was it was that something right from the beginning that you always did was that something you actively pursued

whether it was donating money donating equipment time yeah it's yeah we did a and I think you guy you know we were taking the money

auto Lloyd I think you got to do something for That's what I get on the town council right now. I said, you know, boys, a lot of these guys, other contractors coming in, now it's tight, eh? And the boys are suffering the way it is now, eh? And I said, you got to look after the local contractors too, eh, you know? And the city over the years have been pretty good with us,

but I don't know, we've done a lot of, a lot of what do you call advertising I guess and sponsorship through the ears like we well like the Bobcats

hey well let's talk about the Bobcats what was it you know for most of us I mean if they're younger than me they don't remember but used to be the Lloyd Minster Junior A Blazers and before that the Lancers but the Blazers in 2005 you guys take over by the

team have the competition for the name and they become what is now known as the bobcats and you know what was it about the bobcats that you were like you know what we need to we need to do this oh yeah you know like the size of lloyd really needs something like that a junior hockey team i think and at the time they were going to lose it uh to i think it was somebody out of the duke was could have buy it, eh? I don't know. I remember White Court. Am I wrong on that? Yeah, there was one...

White Court, too, but... Yeah, there was Leduc, too, at first, and then we stepped in, and then the guy in Ladook kind of backed off, and then it was White Court, because he's still a little mad at me yet, for he... He's a pretty wealthy oil guy out in White Court, eh? Okay. And White Court didn't have a team at that time. So, anyway, we bought the team, and...

And tried to get it going, but you know, the guy's busy in construction and whatever else going on. When we took over, we didn't even have a coach until about, I think it was about 10 days before the season started, eh? So you know how that works. Yeah. And we got, who the heck was our first? Norm Johnstone. And he was old type coach. Good guy, I liked him, but he had a pretty hard temper on him,

I don't know what all happened in the dressing rooms, but he did a lot of coaching in Ballard. And he won a lot in Ballard too, eh, in the league, or in the division there. But it was a good experience, but we just spent, you know, we couldn't get. get it off the, you know, you have to sell a lot of tickets, you know, a $10 a ticket to make this thing go. Some of our budget say, holy man, we're around $700,000, eh?

So we lost a lot of money and donated a lot of money to the deal there. What was maybe one of the fondest moments of owning the bobcats in town? I just, you know, I guess that we saved the hockey team, right? Yeah. And we won a playoff. Only one playoff we won, the first game. First round, yeah. First round was in Grand Prairie.

Yeah, that would be a highlight for sure. We had quite a, quite a few. We had some good followers when we got into the playoffs, but we didn't make the playoffs or, you know, like, Lloyd is a funny town that way. I think every time is like that, though. Yeah. But you do need the support for the,

and I think they're having trouble right now. Yeah. Well, they're playing out of kids, Scotty, right now. No. Yeah. So, I don't know what the, like, you know, an owner can only, you can only lose so much. money in before you get a little growly eh you're talking about hundreds of

thousands of dollars yeah most of us are growly when we lose 20 bucks on the the oilers not pulling off a win yeah oh that's another case yeah don't go there we well you guys were a season ticket holders for a long you know what we were probably the longest just about one of the longest season ticket holders in emminton and that was the 19 we had our first set in 1981 or something. I think so, yeah. And we had them until last year.

And what finally, what was it then? Well, I don't know. We went to a lot of hockey games. We had some good, we seen Gretzky, we seen, you know, the Curries and all of them guys. And there was some good hockey when Gretzky was there. And we just enjoyed it,

But that trip to Edmonton every, you know, like you go in the snow and your blizzards and whatever else, hey? It gets kind of tires from a while. But got to know some of the oil is real good, like Kevin Lowe and a few of the guys there, Craig McTavish. But they just, I don't know whether they relied too much on these older guys to pull them out or what happened there, but they just couldn't get anybody to run the ship. Yeah.

Was that a tough conversation to finally say, I think we're done with the season tickets? Yeah, we're done. I think Bart had a bit of trouble because he, Bart went to a lot of games. He and Lori and Nevin

enjoyed going in. And like, for them, it was, Nevin doesn't play team sports in the winter. so but like tanya has Darby playing hockey and Shelby

Lana's Shelby was playing hockey and so a lot of the times when there was a hockey game to go to in Edmonton they were busy with their own and so Bart went to a lot of the games in the last couple of years but it like it got to the point when the Oilers weren't winning like you you couldn't even give the tickets away

never mind selling somebody a block of tickets to help you pay for them. Yeah, there was a lot of wasted tickets or couldn't. And we went through that twice with the Oilers the last time and time before it or I don't know what year it was, but they had a downfall there too.

But I think now if you want to go to the admin and oilers and if they do come well they'll come back if the economy comes back at all but I don't know it's going to be tough to getting the people back again

for us right now though like you turn on your TV and you can watch any game 100% yeah and so like for old timers like us like Wayne when they were in the playoffs the last time he left here

at I don't know in the morning he met the kids in in Lloyd and went on to this playoff game and the silly old fool came and got back here at three o'clock in the morning. And this is since cancer, since he was sick. And like you sit here and you worry sick. I said, just stay in Lloyd.

Oh, no. God, near at three o'clock in the morning. He arrives back here. Yeah. But, you know, we did have a lot of good hockey come out of there one time. But, yeah, I just don't know. what's going to happen to him?

I was just checking through my notes because I'm a guy. I said this before at the start. I don't know where the rabbit hole is going to lead us, and it's been a very healthy dialogue here. But I just ran across something that I wanted to make sure I asked about because Atlanta kind of fed me a few things. And one of them is going back to the Lloyd community, community unrest with the union strike in the 1980s,

getting death threats and rocks thrown at the house windows. in 1982. Yeah, it was a it was kind of a nasty deal there and like we were

we did all the work fixing the leaks and you just can't let but they were turning hydrants on and you know and stuff but I guess most of the guys

are gone from there now but it was a pretty nasty I'm unfamiliar Could you give me the general of what was going on in 1982? What was the Oh, I just, I think wages and stuff like that, eh? So, Coupy went on strike or whatever.

I think we were doing some of the work too, eh? You know, like, and they didn't like that too much, eh? Who didn't like that? The employees of the city. Like the union. The unionized people. City of Lloyd. Yeah.

But we're still doing the work yet. You know, like we do all the maintenance on the water sewer in Lloyd yet. Yeah. The boys are doing that. But at that time, oh, you get a group of people that need one or two that kind of... What would you think the first time a rock went through your window? Like, certainly you weren't like, oh, well, that's... Yeah, that was at the house, eh?

Yeah, right in our living room window. but and like you know it's here we are with these little kids that we had at that time and and and and then all of a sudden this is this is happening and you get a phone call well if you don't stay out of our job like you know better watch out here and like goodness that's that's a scary situation for for sure so what did you do well i think we reported to some of the They had guys in the city or whatever, like the mayor. I don't even know who was the mayor. We went through a couple of them strikes.

Well, Russ Robertson would have been the mayor then. I'm thinking. But, you know, like... You put a baseball bat, we said the batterer. Well, it made, yeah, it made for nervous because then you're nervous about the kids going to school. Like, what if some of these fools decide that they're going to do something with one of your kids? Well, especially, like,

little girls you worry about little girls more than you do the boys. Especially when you get that going people get pretty silly sometimes. Yeah. Be like the states, hey, you know, like

man, but good thing it was not bad. Yeah, we went through a couple of them there but you just can't leave the city can you? Well, that's what Wayne said. Like, you know, they said well, don't fix the water break. Well, what are you going to do?

Like, if it's one of their houses that has a water break and they've got no water, I'm sure they might change their mind a little bit. Yeah. How about you ran a cable excavator? Yeah. Yeah, I ran that cable excavator for 14, somewhere like 14 years, eh? That was in Saskatoon.

And here. And here. No, I didn't run a little bit here. We retired it and we had it on a hill over there and Finally sold it to To a guy that wanted it for a crane, eh? Yeah, that was different boy, you worked when you worked eight to ten hours or ten or twelve hours on them boy I used to come home at night and turn a TV up as loud as you could go and still couldn't hear it

In those days we had no hearing protection and Oh That hasn't changed Yeah, that was But one of the, you know what, when I first started, that would be with Rans in 64, that was one of the bigger machinery, the machines in the city of Saskatoon

and probably in the province, like, you know. And it was a squealing old baby, I said the harder you pulled on it, it the harder to dig, yeah. Left his wedding ring on the tracks of the Sid machine in Outlook two days after our wedding when he was greasing the machine.

She hasn't forgotten that one. Oh, I think she did until I went to when we were in Summit Lake. We're going for a swim. And I had greased the machine that night and stuff. And I guess the wedding ring got pretty slippery

like that. I went down there. Oh, no. where's my wedding rings but that was the second one and now we've had my ring stolen out of here bought another one so they got no luck with the wedding rings you had you've had it stolen out of here yeah we had a break in here once

and we were in Maui in 2018 February we had a break in and stole my jewelry box and and a few other things yeah we're a little stupid leaving that stuff there but uh never expected that i have them on camera too eh yeah i got the cameras all set up and uh heaven not a sniff they said well cops they say well just you know put it through insurance hey but if you keep putting this insurance all the time where is they going to go eh you

know but i know they got a tough job but gee we uh yeah i guess that's my compared to somebody shooting somebody or whatever. Yeah. When you look back at your lives, we'll start, well, to go with Barb first. Well, whoever hops at first, maybe. What is, what is, what do you think your biggest achievement is when you look back? Like, what sticks out? I would have to say for me, a mother and a, and just like, in,

enjoying my life I've had as being a mom of five wonderful children. I look back and I think we have a lot to be grateful for, and I think maybe take some credit for raising some really very wonderful people who have become adults and now have their own kids they're raising. That would be one of my biggest satisfactions in life, I think. And how much fun is it being a grandma? Well, that's, yeah, that really, yeah. Grandpa can even atone to how much fun that being the grandparent is for sure.

Yeah, watching them kids grow up is something, eh? Now we enjoy them more than what, you know, I never spend much time with the kids, eh? Our kids, eh? Yeah. You know, it's always outworking. And so now I got lots of time and they come over here fishing. and the girls on like the girls come and on the water in the summer and like playing cards when they come for Christmas or whatever well hopefully this COVID bloody thing goes over so that we can enjoy that

kind of thing again here soon but when we all get together and they get all around the table here and they're playing games and and things it it warms your heart for sure and then we've have like I'm very much into music, and we've got a few that are interested in that, too, and so it's fun to listen to them, play and sing. We get up and do the jig at Christmas time. Barb's mom, she was quite dead. She gets the fiddle going, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, and running that old fiddle boy, she could get her going pretty good.

How about you, Wayne? When you look back over what you've done, amassed, work. through. What's maybe the biggest achievement you've had? Well I guess biggest achievement. Our most memorable achievement? Like what sticks out? Well, you know, like it's that we were pretty successful in the business that we had. And that you have to be happy with that, eh? So, and what we accomplished there from starting out with one hoe to going, I think we had the tops of backhose. talking about, to 14 of them at one time I think we had. So, you know, and the people that has worked with us, I guess,

we've had some great employees. And some of the guys are still working with the boys yet. You know, they worked with us. They're going on 40 years, I guess, some of them. And that's a great thing to have people work that long with you. your final one if you could go back to your 20 year old self and impart a piece of wisdom not that you'd probably listen but let's say you did what piece of wisdom would you put back to your 20 year old self don't don't marry a construction worker i guess hey well there's a lot of things i i wouldn't change and i i am of the belief that that these things that what happens happens for a reason you like I probably if I knew now what I thought I knew then or if I mean if I knew then what I

know now I probably would have not tried to go to university to be a nurse I probably would have gone right into hospital and training and I'd probably be a nurse now like our our youngest daughter's a nurse and and she shares stories and Wayne with his battle with cancer the last few years like I I think I think I could have been a good nurse had I had I done that but the life that we've had the great experiences we've had a couple of hardships like with Jared with his cancer in 80 and now Bart with his health issues you like we have we've had worries but we've had a lot of good things and yeah I don't know that I would change a whole lot. I certainly I think would choose the same guy again.

Who? Yeah, it's quite a life. I would do the same thing in business and Mary Jay. You know, if you can be happy, I guess that's the main thing and make a dollar once in a while and whatever, eh? But, you know.

Well, I really, really appreciate you sitting down. This has been a lot of fun. I hope you've enjoyed yourselves because I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about a boat about your lives and a time prior to my life, that's for sure. Oh, I never did tell you about the gold hard hat, did I? You never did, no. It's a good thing you remember.

You got sharp as a tack. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, we're in the old days in Saskatoon, we were unloading a semi-of-pipe bag, and it was all by hand and rope. We put a rope and then put a two-by-ten or two-ton or something up, you know, in two sides. And they were sitting on these pipes, 16-inch pipe.

They were sitting on, oh, there were about four by six, eh? And then all of a sudden we're unloading and let one down. And then you go up and hook another one up and let them roll them down. Two guys up there holding onto this pipe so they don't get away. But they never noticed the one pipe was rolling. the semi where he parked was a little bit uneven like, eh? And it comes, like these

four by fours are sitting here are four by sixes. And they're over about a little ways, eh? And this pipe rolled down and it lifted that four by four up. And boom. It came down right on top of my head, eh? Right on top.

You've had a tough go with the old head, haven't you? Yeah. Took my ear off. Well, it. there. Cut it there. Yeah. And the truck driver was there.

And he was sat in there and that old thing. It missed him. Like one, like both, eh? Yeah. But it hit me dead on and knocked the snot right out of me. So I ended up going to the hospital. And yeah, I had a couple bad experiences with that. But anyway, the compensation board said,

Wayne, you were wearing a hard hat, saved your life, eh? Yeah, because he did have a hard hat. hat on and it smashed the hard hat and yeah yeah yeah and so that's why well she drove that whole liner you know the liner you know the liner's inside yeah yeah yeah yeah all up in there and then came down and oof and uh god i had a sore neck for a while i couldn't you know the second time he's had second or third time he's had yeah yeah the the the uh the brick on the head the the train well no the gold heart hat and then the train wreck. Yeah. So then you guys

awarded the gold hard hat to you after that? They come down, yeah, right to the office in Saskatoon and brought this box, say it, and shiny and pulled it out the compensation board from Regina. Yeah. He said, if you wouldn't have that on, you wouldn't be living

today. Because it hit me square, boy, I'll tell you, and that, you know, six by six, I guess, I. Yeah. And it's kind of like the wedge and that end came over, the one that came over and it came, both of them went down, eh? Yeah. But we never had no cranes at that time either, eh?

We used to unload that all by hand, eh? 16 inch AC, which is an asbestos pipe, eh? Yeah. And you could hardly lift one end of it, 16 inch, eh? Ooh, still sweat over that. but that's how I got the hard hat one final question then is Lana had mentioned

you have a story about taking the bombardier across Cree Lake yeah this is another good one yeah that's there was about what was there three

I say one two three of us in the Bommadeer And Dawn had this skidoo. Anyway, we went to Boval. Never headed the bombardier before we took off. So went in there and there was a guy who had a bombardier for sale or we were checking around. So we bought the bombardier from this guy and never checked nothing out.

We headed up to Key Creek, no, Key Lake. That's at the mine there, eh? Okay. And right there there's a some of the planes come in there. There's a strip there. So anyway, we unloaded the bombardier there, left the truck there and the trailer and then took off for Crystal Lodge, which is right across Cree Lake. But it was in the middle of the night now. And it was cold.

It was Easter time, I guess. March, end of March. So anyway, we're going along, and Don, he's out there. This Crystal Lodge guy, he had, they had plowed a road, but the road was not visible anymore. It was drifted in, like, and whatever. He's out there circling with the machine, and he'd find it and then give us the blink, eh, or whatever we'd head there.

And this bombardier, they're a pretty big machine, and we had a tank of gas in the barrel of gas. in there for to make sure we had enough gas, eh? And then we went to this, oh, we're going across the lake, and all of a sudden we find there's some people out here. They were stuck in the snowy natives. So, we said, oh, as I was driving, I said, oh, no problem there. I'll drive over there and give my hand and see what's happening, hey?

So we went over there, and they're stuck in floodwater. So I stepped out and, holy God, it was right to my knees. pretty well this floodwater, eh? Now, we were stuck because we were pushing all this snow away. So we had to lay down, we had a couple long-handed shovels, and we had to dig it out, to get her to the bottom, and finally got her going and headed her over to Cree, which is, I don't know how far it'd be. I think it's about 60 miles across Cree Lake, eh? It's a big lake. And there's so many bloody islands up there, one island. I think there's 663 islands on Cree Lake. So anyway, we finally ended up going, we never had a GPS.

So we got to the camp of Crystal Lodge, and there's nobody there now, so we checked the doors. There's one door open on camp there. Boy, we didn't take long to get a fire going. Now you're wet, you know, from driving. The heater in that bombardier was, it's an old machine. I still got it up here, right? and so that was quite an experience

and then we stayed there fish for a while I'm in well Russ Way was in partnership with two or three guys in Lloyd eh okay we got a camp at England Lake and

Colros boys Musgrave well I should have mentioned musgrave too on all of them sewer and water like we did all their work in the sewer and water too and they were great would us hey But anyway, we stayed there, and we're heading back to Crystal Lodge, or we wanted to get back to Crystal Lodge, but couldn't get a hold of the plane

that took us in there from Buffalo Narrows. And now our phone is getting weak, and whatever in here, we find out that you don't work on Easter, Monday or Sunday it was, or whatever. So we had to stay another night at Crystal Lodge. Geez. Yeah, and the native boys said, white men pretty silly. It's like you got about nine or 50 lives.

Yeah. Yeah, we had the, we took the girls on a, when we were up at Black Lake, we came down the river there to Thompson Lake. And it's, I don't know how many miles, but, oh man, there was, Don and I, the full plane dropped us off in our, yeah, was it no, Jim dropped us off with our plane.

We had her own plane, eh? And he dropped us off in Black Lake. And then we got, found the boat. The native is they stole this boat on us and took it up the river or took it up in the wintertime, eh? They take it out in the wintertime. So we got an old truck there to load her up on a truck and took us down the Black Lake. and then we threw her in the lake there and took off for the...

What the hell of what river is? Hunter Creek or Hunter River or something in there? No, there's the main river. I forget what the main river is, but... Anyway, we got a couple days there. We had to let the girls off. The girls come with us, A, Dawn and Dawn's wife and Barb. And we had all this GPS day that we flew over with our plane

and GPS the curves in the river. But some were going along, and Christ, and Christ's supposed to be way up in the bush there. You know, from the plane, it's hard to... But that's what the native said. Crazy, crazy white man. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you guys sitting and doing this.

We've talked for well over two hours now, so... Is it? Yeah, it's been fantastic. I appreciate all the stories and everything. else. It's been really enjoyable. Well, that's good. Hey folks, thanks again for joining us today. If you just stumble on the show and like what you hear,

please click subscribe. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday a new guest will be sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you find your podcast fix. Until next time.