Q. O.K. What is your full name?

A. My full name is Malcolm Keith Dakin.

Q. O.K. And who were your parents?

A. Ah…Nora….Nora and Albert….Albert Llewellyn Dakin.

Q. Right.

A. Can you spell Llewellyn? L-l-e-w-e-l-l-y-n. That’s his middle name.

Q. O.K. And what was your mother’s maiden name?

A. Denton. Mary…..a…..Nora Muriel Denton.

Q. And who were your grandparents?

A. George Denton…..a famous navigator and Mary Denton was his wife, my grandmother.

Q. And when were you born?

A. 1911. A…..2 o’clock in the morning. A very difficult birth. When I came in the world it wasn’t difficult.

Q. And your….the day that you were born?

A. That….I can’t……look up.

Q. Oh…I mean the month and the day?

A. It was the sixteenth of February when I got the first notice that I was on earth.

Q. O.K. And where were you born?

A. Ah…in Westport.

Q. And how large was your family?

A. Well one died……Albert. He never…..come to and Wilfred, Mary. Well, there was five of us, I guess. All together, one died, with my brother died. They’re all dead, all but One.

Q. And where did you fit in, in the family?

A. I was the second. Albert was…..Albert was born, his name would have been Albert, But he died, in birth, yup. And then Wilfred, was two years older than me, my brother. He was born in 1908. I was born in ’11.

Q. O.K. And what did your father do for a living?

A. Well he…..he thought he was a fisherman, but he wasn’t a very good one. I did the Fishing mostly for him. But….he was just a little man, five feet two, I guess, weighed A hundred eighteen, but he thought he weighed a ton, I think. He was a nice man.

Q. And I hear your father painted Joshua Slocum’s boat.

A. Oh, yeah.

Q. Can you tell me about that.

A. Yeah, well that was 1894, that was. He was…..dad was sixteen then, seventeen. He was born in, at ’78 (1878) my father. And not….he was sixteen….he and another fellow Painted copper heads…..They had to put copper on the boat then before they sailed….. ‘Cause to keep them from grassing up on the bottom, so….They put the copper paint on fer him yup….for he sailed. That was in 1894. And he sailed out of Westport harbor by the….1894…..the first trip. He went around the earth too.

Q. I heard that.

A. And he come back after two and a half years. The second time he didn’t come back. He made…he went to the second trip but he never heard tell of after that one. But he did Go the first one. He come back, which is a rare thing, with nothing but a sail boat. (laughter) No engine. Can you image that? I can’t.

Q. No.

A. But he made it.

Q. Do you know how big the boat was?

A. Thirty-two feet. I had a picture somewhere, of him standing on the side………back Of the boat. I don’t know where it is though. Yup. He didn’t live in Westport. But he Came there to get his boat ready to go.

Q. Right.

A. And he had a little house he lived in there and later…they moved the house down off On the breakwater, and he had a fish house out of it, but that was Josh Slocum’s little House. Yup. That was only two houses away from where I lived. “Course I don’t remember him.

Q. Right.

A. Naturally, it was 1894, he took the first trip. That’s for sure!

Q. O.K. And what do you remember about your mother’s work day?

A. My mother’s what?

Q. Her…her work day?

A. Work day. (laughter) It was endless. The endless work day, yeah. No end. See, we had There was no bathrooms then, it was unheard of. There was no water. We carried it. Oh…I carried the most of it, from here, way down to those trees. Two buckets to a time. My Lord, you can’t image what work…..in the snow and in the ice, whatever. So alive, We had to do it. That’s all the water we had…is what I carried. And a….I know I used To help mama, I was the only one did. Ringing out the clothes. I’ll never forget it. ‘Cause I should be shot for that, what I used….the way I used her, I was teasing her, you know? She’d get on the end of a quilt, you know, and we had no rinse water, just that on the lot… and I’d twist mine on the roll, you roll that way mom and I’ll roll this way. “Come On mom you can do better than this.” And I twist her off her feet, which I shouldn’t have Done. But soapsuds come that high on the quilt, that’s all. And carry some more. In the end they was soapsuds that high. You couldn’t ring it out. And I’d help her put them on the line. And they must have weighed a half a ton. I know. My Lord. In the winter. Then The clothes pins would stick and freeze. And oh My Lord. I had to do all that ‘cause she Couldn’t. All the rest of them were helpless. They all died.

Q. O.K. So what was a typical school day like?

A. A typical school day?

Q. Ummm.

A. (laughter) Well, it depends on whether you mean summer or winter. But in the winter, We a…I’d often jump off the breastwork and go down to low water. To the water’s edge, It was warmer there, and go up the beach way, crawl up through the hole there by the store was and cross the beach and get up through the field and get to school that way. Same way. But sometimes you had to go the other way on the northeast gale we had to Go in the woods way, (?) that’s the way we had to get there. There’s nobody ta…..there was no cars, that was unheard of. There was no ferryboat.

Q. So roughly, how long would it have been from your house to the school?

A. Oh….quarter, three thirds of an mile, or more. It was quite a ways.

Q. Right. O.K. Who was your best friend at school?

A. Oh Max Cousins, Maxwell. We got expelled, the pair of us once. Not for sauce and Sassin’ the teacher, for wrestling. We were wrestling up there…..I remember now (laughter) And one of us wouldn’t give up and we went out. The railing was up that high With spokes, crash, we went into that and broke the railing, landed down on the next Step, that far, still into it, and rolled all the ways downs stairs, still nobody would give Up. We landed at the bottom. Didn’t kill us ‘cause we was young, I suppose. Rolled all The ways down the stairs and we was still wrestling. We got expel…..We got expelled.

Q. For how long?

A. The rest of the season.

Q. Uhoh.

A. But she did let me…..let me write. And I got through. Can you image that?

Q. Do you remember how old you were?

A. Yeah…fifteen. I was through.

Q. So what types of things would you do with your friends?

A. What we…….what we’d do in the summer we’d (laughter) play hooky if I could . Well, from lookin’ in the summertime, for instance, lookin’ out a school window, was Way up high, up and down there, there was a fishing weir full of fish, and hake and Pollock jumpin’. Boy, my eyes were big as that. I wanted to get there. That’s where I… What’s the good of me studying. I….my mind was down there. ‘Cause that’s where we wanted to get. I played hooky once in a while. I got expelled. We didn’t sauce the teacher Though. We never did that to her. She was only four feet eleven, if she was that. And we Felt like giants. But we didn’t sauce the teacher, no! Once in a while, one of us would get By. We never missed. ‘Cause the bell….the rope from the bell, was way up there, hangin’ Down here, and once in a while I’d do it or Max, just take one more turn, one more notch. She couldn’t reach it. Oh we’d go out ….oh, a torch stickin’ up. We’d untie it for her. Be just as nice. But we’d tied it up for her, so she couldn’t reach it. ‘Cause she was Only (laughter) that high. But we never sauced her, no. Never!

Q. Well that was good.

A. I thought the world of her, tell you the truth.

Q. Do you have a favorite memory of school?

A. Yeah….par, lookin’ at Mrs. Jazz’s garters. I sit rate here. ‘Cause she…’cause those stubby legs of her and with those jazz garters, they used to wear around here.

Q. Jazz garters?

A. Yeah, they would call them jazz garters. Bald around here. Had it all. Yeah, fancy Things. Jazz garters, we called them. Pull ‘em up there and they had elastic. And she (laughter) she’d see us starin’ at her legs…..’cause that’s what we was doin’. Tease the devil out of her. We didn’t sass her back though, no. She hit me over the head with the speller. I’d just smile.

Q. So what subjects were you taught in school?

A. Ah….trigonometry. I don’t….I hated it. But we had one year of that. That’s all. Geography and history and…. My subject was always ancient history. I’ll be….I’d Of been good at that.

Q. So what did you like about that? You just wanted to know about what was going on In the world?

A. Exactly…years ago.

Q. I see.

A. Before I….every book I ever read was the same. I al….I’m that way yet. I go to the Ancient. I know what’s going on today. I want to know what went on then. I still do. So Does everybody else.

Q. Yeah, that’s true.

A. It’s called religion.

Q. What kinds of things did you have to memorize in school?

A. Well….they used to have spelling bees and I was….I called myself a sandwich, because Helen Coggins and Myrna Garrons, one was five days younger than me, and the other was ten days older, which made me a sandwich between them. So…And they were clever girls. I realized that. Spell…. The whole spelling bee was suppose to keep up with Them. I had to study. Words? I could spell most anything. I still kin spell a lot of words That you’d never believe that I could, but…..They were clever girls. And they still are. They’re still alive, both of them. So I know their age. (laughter)

Q. So how were you disciplined in school?

A. Disciplined? Well, we got a crack across…..strap across there but, we’d pull our hands Away and she’d hit her own knee, half the time. And get mad at us. That didn’t bother us Any. We never sassed her back. No, no.

Q. So how were you disciplined at home?

A. Disciplined at home, we weren’t. We were busy try to keep alive…..believe it. We grew up very young. You had too. Survival…yup. There was no bathrooms and there…I Remember, my Uncle Floyd, he was a …big man, but he wouldn’t eat. The doctor said “Floyd, you’ll die if you don’t eat.” He did. He died when he was fifty-two, from starva- tion. But he was a big fellow and strong and he only had one eye. But Lordy…he was quick and everything. (laughter) Hadn’t been for Uncle Floyd, I’d have been dead many times.

Q. So what were your daily chores at home?

A. Everything. Chop wood…..split wood on a cross-cut saw. And I you’re dad only little I’d crawl on the brisket and when my other brother, you know, I whisp…..Come on I’m Haulin’ you and the whole works ‘cause the saw….saw that with a cross-cut saw. And that was dull. I had to split all that. And…he….mama had her hen house in the wood House. Heaven forbid. And I’d get my wood….get a nice pile of wood, after awhile. Over there and then I’d go get wood and the hens have been out and done their dung in My…you can image that mess. Hen manure, you want a lot of that. Didn’t I hate hens. And dad….I drove one, one time, I don’t think it’s come down yet. Get an arm load of That…and oh my Lord. Isn’t it awful? That’s what we had to live. And the…the…. Toilet was out doors, a hundred feet up, the north-east wind, and the toilet paper was a Sheet of the slippery kind off of a …off of a….a T. Eaton Catalogue. The slippery page. That was the toilet paper. This is true…and anybody can tell you that. Jack or any of Them.

Q. Amazing.

A. The windows had never been puttied. They just…little nails, like that. And stuck ‘em up there. If it hadn’t been for the snow we would have paralyzed, that’s all. The snow Kept us from freezing to death. Once the snow come, it was way up there, and stayed There. We’d have our house dug under the snow after (?) We Had a fort under there. Stay all winter. Warm in there. Yup, if you want….There was no Where to go.

Q. So, O.K. After your chores were done, what would you do with your free time?

A. (laughter) What didn’t we do? I don’t know. When I got a little bigger I’d go take my Gun and go down…and see if I could get a duck, like that. I’d chase them. I’d often walk Twelve miles a day, wasn’t anything. You had to do something. I’d walk twelve miles Lots of days.

Q. Were you a good hunter?

A. D’oh. I didn’t want to kill anything, any ways. My Uncle Floyd…. They wouldn’t Eat…my Uncle Floyd and them, they would shoot fly and never a good shot, so I was. And I had an old gun there, but…they wouldn’t eat sea ducks, or oil squad, they’d call them. I would. So they’d bring me some. I’d take ‘em. And I’d…I’d pick ‘em, of course. I’d eat ‘em all right. Clean ‘em and….I didn’t shoot the ducks at all. (laughter) They Shot ‘em for me. I was never much of a gunner. I just like the walk.

Q. What was your favorite holiday when you were a child?

A. Christmas, I suppose. However, I knew who old Santie was when I was five years old. I peeked down and saw mom and dad doing it so I….lost all interest in Christmas. ‘Cause I knew who Old Santie was, when I was five years old. I saw him. There was no, nothing. Then there was a (laughter) I remember a little later, a few years later than that, Dr. Best, the optometrist, from Yarmouth, he came up. Some how, he got a car across, I don’t know how, ‘cause they didn’t have any ferry then, he got it across on the island. It was a Franklin….. Car, and he was an optometrist, he had money, I suppose. It had no doors There, a hollow place, and the big hollow…it was , squeeze that for a horn. Emergency brake out here, hard rubber tires and a….gravel roads. Image the rod, all Thumping mad. Uncle Floyd let me drive it. Oh I was happy. And I was doing fifteen Miles an hour, riding up….Grrrrrrrr. (He is making the noise of a car) Hard rubber tires. Air-cold engine. That engine stayed around there for years. It was a Franklin Car. Air Cold. How they got it on the island, I don’t remember. But they got it.

Q. What pets do you remember having?

A. Pets?

Q. Ummm.

A. Oh we always had a couple of cats. We had….we had a she cat that was worth a dozen Ordinary cats. My brother was a cat man. I….I wouldn’t hurt cats. I love to tease them. They hate water so bad I just love to. I’d sit with a water pistol and wait and spray. And That was goin’ out. I could aim that…..had a big (?) Hit ‘im between the eyes. That Would turn handsprings. “What’s the matter with that cat?” “I don’t know what’s the matter with the damn thing.” And after awhile it checked its’ distance from me. It didn’t Catch me but it stayed right there. I had a big water pistol, that long. My…..my sister got A hold of it, destroyed it on me, ‘cause, my cat repellant…..I love to tease cats. It doesn’t Hurt ‘em, it just hurts their feelings.

Q. Right.

A. Water will not hurt a cat. Don’t they hate water. They sure do. (laughter) No….we had A trained cat, believe me.

Q. O.K. What was it like, at your house, when the catalogue arrived?

A. T. Eaton Catalogue?

Q. The Eatons’s or the Sears Catalogue, either one.

A. The…the T. Eaton, then.

Q. Yeah.

A. Robert Simpson and there’s one and then the T. Eaton one. What was it like? Well…..that’s where we ordered what we got for Christmas, but most…mostly we didn’t get anything for Christmas. I was against that because I still am Because if you’ve got a kid, a month before Christmas, well its cold one thing and cold Weather and no shoes, you’ll get one. Christmas, I said that kid could be dead before Christmas. Which I disagree. I still do.

Q. If they need it, give it to them.

A. No, they wouldn’t.

Q. No.

A. Rather wait for Christmas. Wait for Christmas. Well you could have been dead before that. I’m against it…..I still am. ‘Cause I knew there was no old Santie. (laughter) At a Very early age.

Q. Where else did you get things that you needed? Like clothes and material that kind of thing?

A. Well I…… I was older now, I’d be seventeen, sixteen. First tailor made suit cost me a Seventeen dollar and fifty cents. That was a beautiful suit of clothes too. A beautiful suit Of clothes.

Q. And where did you get it from?

A. I…..we had a tailor come there. He took my measurements…and beautiful clothes. I Got another suit up there, you’d never believe it. You wanna look at it, I’ll show it to you. It’s brand new, its never been a mark on it. I don’t what….didn’t cost very much. You’d Swear that was a hun…..a two hundred dollar suit. It is too.

Q. So how old were you, when you got your first suit?

A. About sixteen.

Q. And what did you buy it for?

A. Well you had to court the girls in something. You couldn’t go in your bare backside. C’mon, you gotta have clothes. You’re very proud at that age. I had….

Q. How much spending money did you have as a child?

A. Ah….Christmas, we had one dollar. One dollar. I was very vane. I shouldn’t tell you This but I told Jack this the other night, he was snickin’. I said “That’s me every time.” So one dollar. That was your Christmas. And we’d have a stockin’. We’d have a lump of Coal, whatever. I went up to Mr. John Churchill’s Store. My brother, he’s two years older Than me, he should have known. And I saw this beautiful toy there. I thought I was always financially ahead of the team. I wanted that, awful bad. And Mr. Churchill says, A….”It’s a wonderful toy.” I…..he’d sell it to me for a dollar. That’s what I had. And I Bought it. I bought it! (laughter) Got home it had…all it needed was a winder. I got a Whiff…I thought he died he…..I settled for a three cent Jews Harp. In the end, I went Down happy playin’ the Jews Harp. I couldn’t…never did get that thing wound up. The Key wind. What’s the good of a toy when you couldn’t wind it up. I couldn’t think that Far ahead. I wanted it…but I couldn’t…..I couldn’t wind her up. So I sold it back to Wilfred for a Jews Harp. That’s what I did. Wrrrrrrrrrrr (He is making the sound of the Jews Harp) (laughter) Three cents. That’s the kind of a…..money maker I was. I lost Ninety-seven cents. (laughter) They said no wonder I never got along any better financially. I gave everything I had away. I still do.

Q. O.K. So what was your religion?

A. None. Was yours? Well you put Protestant, if you wish. Our erring daughter the Catholics call you. I think it’s a mess of bologna.

Q. O.K. So what were Sundays like in your household, when you were growing up?

A. Sundays? Oh you had to go to Sunday School…..oh yeah. And we had Miss a …… Mrs. Louis Poole, Miss Louis Poole she was. And a….you’d sit there, and click your heels on the…..after she’d show…teach about Satan…..with a great big tail, horns, you know, that’s the way Satan was shown to us. Imagine….such foolishness. Can you? I can’t. Even I knew better than that. Anyway….she put her ten cents in, oh yeah. She taught us what we know in Sunday School. All we do is snicker. What the hell did that Mean to us! Phew.

Q. What was your favorite hymn?

A. Favorite hymn? Uncle Gerald…I think it was Uncle Gerald, he was a wonderful voice. That’s my Uncle Gerald, he had a lovely voice. Was it….The Prodical Son or….? Out on the wilderness Wild and drear Sadly I wonder For many a…… He could sing really. Everybody thought so. I did. What a voice he had. I’d like to have that voice. Tenor. He was a good singer. A beautiful singer. Then I decided….. course I I run….(laughter) I run into, ridin’ down, coastin down hill I run into the… down in the valley she was called and there was a post there and I….damn fool that I was….so she Went like this, she went around the post like that….but what happened to me….I don’t Know…I don’t know how much blood they took from me….it nearly killed me, knocked my face all to pieces. (laughter) I hit the post. Face on. I’ll never forget that. I can see that basin full of blood, yet. (laughter) God. How dumb can you be? That’s what happened.

Q. Did anybody else live in the house, with your family, when you were a child?

A. Yeah. We took boarders.

Q. Oh, did ya?

A. The Band Master. I try never was in. He….he stayed there. Not much money involved. (laughter) My brother was in the band, I was too young. I didn’t get in or nothin’. ‘Course I did….I had an old trombone. I don’t know….they…they always wondered how I did that. I don’t know myself. I….’cause my face was all knocked to Pieces. I had no teeth, just…..how in the Devil could anybody could play a trombone, Now I don’t know, but….I think we was up to there, tradin’ for fish stuff….to Weymouth And a…..Donald Barkhouse’s wife had a….a valve trombone…..a little nickel colored One. Oh, I got my eye on that. Dad bought it fer me with fifteen dollars, back then. Oh…. I felt I could play a valve. I could play that. I don’t know how I did it, though. I could… Well, I played that. And then I got a slide trombone afterwards. I could play that. No Problem. They asked me, “Well, how do you transpose music?” I said “I don’t transpose. I don’t know.” Well, they said “You’re transposing it.” I said “I don’t know how I’m Doing it. Don’t ask me. Just give it to me and I’ll play it.” I could too. Transpose that and Play with…..I remember I got up one time (laughter) playin’ up here….it was quite a ways down to the door, and I had a plug for the spit valve, well that it…I had a plug in There. I blew the plug out and that went down and hit the door. That little ………like The eye of a needle. I never spread a word of it. Walked down and picked up the plug And went back and shoved it in and played the piece. The plug for the spit valve, you Had to go slow. I had a wooden plug in there. I played in public a lot. I played on the Digby bandstand for the princess, once. Can you believe it?

Q. Well yes. Tell me about that.

A. Well, I played “The Old Home On The Farm” and variations. Now I’m tellin’ ya. I Don’t know how I did it, really. I did it.

Q. So was that when the Princess was coming to Dibgy….?

A. Oh, she was in there, yeah, but, this was on the bandstand. It was me on the bandstand. I played that. Tatatatatatatat (he is imitating the sound of the trumpet on the bandstand) I could stutter. Everything but triple. I couldn’t triple. Couldn’t because I had no teeth. I Had teeth but not good….not anything wrong. You have to put a…..well I say, a trumpet, You have to push sixty pounds here, before your cheeks puff out. You had….but I could Play the darn thing. I would have loved to have been a player but I had no teeth. What are You gonna do.

Q. Well, you said you went to Weymouth. You used to go to Weymouth and trade things?

A. Yeah.

Q. So how…..

A. We traded fish fer winter vegetables, otherwise we would of starved. We had all kinds Of nice fish. We’d take ‘em up and we’d barter with…..farmers. They’d come out. And we’d have salt herrin’, salt everything. Fresh….a slack Pollock. Mackerel, all salted out. There was all kinds of fish.

Q. So how often would you have gone to Weymouth?

A. Just once.

Q. Just like once a…….?

A. Once a year.

Q. Once a year.

A. October. We had to be back……and we…we…had eleven barrels of potatoes, for our Crowd, at least. And so many heads of cabbage and so many turnips. Turnips were eighty cents a barrel.

Q. So how would you have got to Weymouth?

A. Oh, we had a boat. We had to go on boat.

Q. Oh, you just sailed over?

A. Yup, it was eighteen miles. Oh, they made a week out of that. That was a great week. We traded for everything.

Q. So you didn’t raise vegetables, yourselves then?

A. No, we traded fish fer ‘em. Yeah, we had a whole boatload, all winter, and we had Apples coming, during season. Yup. Real apples. You can’t get them today like that.

Q. O.K. So how did electricity change things for you?

A. Oh well. That didn’t come to 1930, odd. The first one was failure. They got a little, But….They tried to get their own, but…..It didn’t work. I don’t know just what year Electricity came there. When we….we had to study our lessons with a….Aladdin lamp In the middle of a…..mantle.

Q. Right.

A. Beautiful light. And then we’d get studying, then we’d turn it out. First thing you know, it kept getting’ darker. And then you’d get down like this and look. The mantle was all black. So you had to turn it down and it would free itself, again. To get a bright Light it would turn the mantle black. And we’d study with our nose way down here. That’s all we had. We had nothing. Fact, I never got ta…….I never even got ‘cross to Freeport, ‘til I was twenty odd. A mile across the bay. Soon as I got big enough to off In the harbor fishing, I’d go pertin’ near over there, but, we…what was the good of goin’ To Freeport? No where to go. You couldn’t walk to Tiverton. It was all snow. And oh my Lord. You wouldn’t know.

Q. So there wouldn’t have been….when you went….over…when you were twenty years old, before you got to Freeport…

A. Yeah.

Q. There still wasn’t a ferry then?

A. No. Yeah, they had a….after awhile…well, Arthur Sullivan got a…a boat and an engine. And he took…..six o’clock….. he’d bring the mail over, at five. And at six, He’d go back and that was the end. You can’t get over to Freeport, after that. If you Got back there, you stayed there. (laughter) I used to go down and pick ‘em up after I Got married down there where they got caught over. Yup.

Q. So when did you get running water?

A. Well…..It was quite a long time before we got running water. We got a….pack of us Up on the hill, there’s a big reservoir, a big place made….made the well up there too. And they run the pipe, oh quite a long ways, down over the hill to all the houses, scratched off that, supplied all the water. That one place up there. It was forced feed, You know, no electricities or all there. That was a long time. I was quite old when that… Yeah.

Q. What was bath night like at your house?

A. Bath night. (laughter) Well I….I managed all right, but the rest, I don’t know. I never Could stand being dirty. But I carried the water. But Wilfie wouldn’t, my brother, he couldn’t. He couldn’t. (laughter) Most amazing man, Wilf. I called ‘im Wilf. You know, He was the exact opposite. I remember Bill Franklin. You’d never think that two people Come out of the same womb as those two. Exact opposite and we were the best of friends, Wilf and I were. Hermie and Lawrence would have murdered each other, but Wilf and I was great friends. “C’mon Dennis,” I’d call ‘im. Left-handed Jack. You don’t Put boxing gloves on with ‘im, ‘cause one hand’s as good as the other. I could show you If I has it…..his work, we got….we got him to Acadia University. I don’t know what it Was. We paid it some how….got it. He took mathematics, which he should never have Done. That would have been my line. Just a….but look his…his a…..examination papers, Where they gave him something to copy freehand, you can’t tell that….from the original. With me, I go all over the place. And he could do it with either hand. I know a girl down There, either hand. Look out. That’s rare. I…..John Franklin, thinks he can do this. Get up and paint, the little bugger…strong. He goes along this way. You can’t. You try right- Handed man. He can’t over there. He’d have himself killed. And she can really paint a house. Twice as fast as anybody else.

Q. How did you take care of your teeth?

A. I didn’t have any. I knocked ‘em out.

Q. What happened to the other members of your family, how would they have taken care of their teeth?

A. (laughter) Same way we all lost them. Unless you happened to have good teeth, which we never did. I went down to a…….to Yarmouth, to have mine out. I took laughing gas. I didn’t call it laughing gas. I went up to Taylor’s. I had to walk, in the wintertime, to his Office. He through that over my head and knocked me out with laughing gas. And I can Never forget those hydro poles hitting me side of the head. ‘Cause I wasn’t quite out. Every time, bang, I hit every one side of my head. When I come to, I had him pertin’ near Killed. I had him down on it. He was trying to get a tooth and I didn’t…..I felt them, in Other words. But, the hydro poles, hitting me side of the head, believe me I haven’t forgotten it, yet. Had no teeth. I had nothin’.

Q. Who delivered the babies in your community?

A. Dr. Weir…..when you could get across, or else, the mid-wives did it.

Q. So where was Dr. Weir located?

A. Freeport. Right up….that was like going to Egypt.

Q. Right.

A. In the winter. (laughter) I had to go fer ‘im many… quite a few times.

Q. And you had mid-wives, you say?

A. Oh yeah. Cora Thompson , Anne Beals, they’s just as good as a doctor. Oh yeah. That’s the only doctor you had.

Q. O.K. When someone died, what happened to the body?

A. Well, you buried it, after three or four days, that’s all.

Q. Would you have wakes, back then?

A. Not wakes, just funerals. The minister would preach and the merits of a disease, I’d call it, deceased. (laughter) And……

Q. So you had a funeral home that the body rested at, or would…?

A. Oh yeah. And the big hearse. I remember somebody singing: Did you ever think When the hearse rolled by That someday You are gonna dieeeeeeeee? The kids would sing that. I can see that yet. That big black…….. I carried a good many people out. I seem to be the only strong man on earth. They come to me every time.

Q. O.K. So what were some home remedies, that would have been common, when you were growing up?

A. A cold? Mustard poultice right across there. A bowl over it. Covers you up and you sweat your heart out. (laughter) But it….it would cure the cold. There comes that cat. (His cat has just come into the room) Look at that Jack! Well gracious sakes.

Q. Would you put mustard, plain mustard, on your chest?

A. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Q. And it hurt?

A. That’s why…that’s why I’ve got no hair on my chest. (laughter)

Q. And then you would cover it with a piece of cloth?

A. Yes sir. Oh yeah, you would perspire. That’s why I got no hair on my chest, it come Out on the thing. (He is now speaking to his cat) Well, that cat was gonna make friends. She’s got the whitest belly, I ever saw. She’s beautiful, eh? Yeah.

Q. So how often did you leave town? Did you leave Westport?

A. We didn’t. How was I gonna git across the harbour? You couldn’t….there was no where to go. Jack Tinker wasn’t alive then. It was before he was born.

Mr. Dakin loses one of the mics, that are attached to his shirt. The next few lines Have nothing to do with the interview.

Q. O.K. A…What were you….what were the roads like?

A. What were they like? Mud. Gravel. No. No. (Again he his talking to his cat.)

Q. So, in the wintertime, who would look after the roads?

A. Well……..they ….we all had to get out and shovel snow, once you were big enough. You shoveled for nothing, you didn’t get any money for this. We had to shovel….or die.

Q. So how far would you have to shovel…..what?

A. Shovel the road out, so we could git up the road. There was nothin’….no cars or any- Thing. We’d get a road out. Fact a….we were buried under snow. Stayed there. If it hadn’t been for the snow we would have frozen.

Q. Yeah, you were saying that.

A. When it got up high, it stopped the wind. Yup.

Q. What do you remember about your teenage years?

A. Teenage? Ohhhh. There wasn’t much for us. We used to keep house with the girls, you know. We didn’t bother the girls, we’d just keep house. They’d love us to keep house with them. Give us something to do. We played Post Office, with the girls.

Other voice: Tell her about the pants, your mother made, to go to school in.

A. My mother, she had to make my pants, I remember that. And down here, stiffer….. Zipper, you had a….a flap, like a rudder. And….and, in fact, (?) Come on. Just like a rudder, out here. ‘Cause that went in there. I had to go…..In fact, a Rudder. I can see. They…they had to do everything. Make our clothes out of anything You…..you could. Oh…what a life.

Q. Did you have underwear made out of flour bags?

A. We had…we made our boat sails, later, out of flour bags. I eat..….I knew everybody’s boat. Scott Perry’s was Cream of the West. You could read it for miles off. Robin Hood. Flour was another one. You could tell by the…who it was by the…you could see the Writing through the package label. They’d stick ‘em on there. On the sewing machine. Yup.

Q. What kind of music did you like?

A. Opera.

Q. Opera?

A. I still do. Provided the right singer’s on it. This new one a… Perchellie there, Andre Perchellie, he’s the best I ever heard. Did you hear him?

Q. Yes I have.

A. He’s the best. There’s nothing can equal him. No effort! Did you ever hear tell of ‘em? He can go just like a bird and never perspire and never seem to be breathing. He’s got all The rest of them beat a mile there. They look so they’re gonna explode. Pavorrotti, they’re wiping their head off and there’s no effort for him. He’s a wonderful singer. I’d Like to hear him again. I know….when he came on this last one, tour of the United States, his father had just died, and they wanted him to sing up against the Statue of Liberty. I’ll never forget it because he sang and a….I listened, all the way through. They Showed a picture. I went over. There tears was runnin’ down on my face, and every person there, the ten thousand were all cryin’. That’s what kind of a voice he’s got. I wasn’t the only one that was cryin’. It was such a voice. And he’s blind. He has no eyes At all. He really is blind. What a gift.

Q. That’s true. What a gift.

A. He was, he’s wonderful. How he knows when to come in, exactly right, I don’t know. It’s the gift of the Gods. It’s a shame. He’s such a nice lookin’ fellow, too. The girls all Love him. He just can’t see them, and……

Q. What kind of sports did you enjoy?

A. Sports. Oh, we played ball, anything in the summer. Anything we could do. Football. We’d kick each other in the chins and that….No science to it. We had to work too much, to play. We had to chop….alders. Eighty cents a day. Chop all day. That’s all we ever got paid. I was readin’ there, and a ….in the Hannels Of Freeport, just…just lately, that…that Crocker’s Store was there, in the books there, in the 1890’s. Scale of wages, twenty-five Dollars. But you didn’t gain it. You didn’t get any money, of course. Twenty-five dollars Was what you earned for a month. And…eggs, four cents a dozen or somethin’. Milk, I Forget. Beans, two or three cents a pound, all this. Rubber boots, a dollar a pair. But you Didn’t get any money. You just…lived out of the store. Your wages for the month was twenty-five dollars. Then it went to thirty. Heavens. Could take me an hour to tell you what I did for thirty dollars. You couldn’t believe it. It’d take all day to tell it. (laughter)

Q. What do you remember about dating?

A. Dating?

Q. Dating.

A. Oh, I only had one girl, Dorma, I never forgot her. She’s dead. She died last year. It’s a shame. I wish she hadn’t of. She was eighty-seven. Just my age. A year younger than me. She had little freckles on her face. She was awful cute. (laughter) Oh, we darnen’t… We knew what girls were different that we were, but we didn’t bother the girls.

Q. What did you expect to do when you grew up?

A. Well, I don’t remember growing up. I worked so gal darn hard, I was old before I knew it. C’mon. You don’t know what tough was. You don’t know what tough life was. Gee.

Q. O.K. How far did you go in school?

A. Ah, grade eleven. That’s as far as you could go.

Q. So that would been why you left school then?

A. Oh I …..yeah….I…..passed with…..my exams and I was only fifteen years old when I Was out of school, through with what you could get there. You had to go to college after That. My brother, we got him to college, for two years. I got there, not at all. He was a Wonderful painter, Wilf. He died with Sarcoma.

Q. Which is what?

A. Well it’s not Carcinoma. Carcinoma is….is cancer, but, Sarcoma is cancer of the lymph glands. Yeah.

Q. Oh yeah.

A. Wacketly fatal. He lasted sixty days….after he’d been diagnosed. He was sixty-six When he died.

Q. O.K. Once you left school, what did you do?

A. Fish.

Q. Did you?

A. Nothing else to do.

Q. I hear you have a Charles Lindbergh story to tell me.

A. Oh yeah. Well it’s not a story. He flew over my head. He’s the one….I’m the one that he saw. He doesn’t know that. I was fishing in the….It was a fine day in May…1928, that was….in May. And a….I was seventeen years old. I was in the bow of my boat. It was fine. I went to save gas, which was eighteen cents a gallon then. So, we couldn’t afford… (laughter) The engine was stopped and it was so fine. I was in the bow, of a tub, down between my leg, haulin’ over the roller, and what not. And I heard up, a buzzin’ sound, you know like…..I didn’t know what…I’d never seen an airplane in my life. (He is making the sound of any airplane.) I happen to look, in the back of me, and I saw this thing, comin’ up in the air. Looked like a hornet or something. ‘Course he saw me from the air, before I did him. He come down, right down, close. It was “The Spirit of St. Louis”, on the side. Charles Lindbergh, little white by-plane. He come down….he wasn’t fifty feet from me, any more. He went over my head and he waved. I waved back at him. He mentioned in his memoirs, but he doesn’t know who it was. I never did tell ‘im.

Q. So when he flew down over you, did you know that was Charles Lindbergh?

A. Yes.

Q. At that time?

A. Why yes.

Q. You would have read stories that……?

A. Oh yes, why no. I knew who it was. You couldn’t miss, ‘cause it was “The Spirit of St. Louis” right on the side of her. A white by-plane…..oh yes, she was. They didn’t go Very fast, then. “Bout ninety miles an hour, I’d say. I don’t know how they ever got there, but he got around the world, just the same. He made it.

Q. Amazing.

A. But he must had to come down by places, to gas up because he could never get around The world at that speed, my Lord.

Q. Right.

A. He made it. And then there was long….

Q. Could…could you see his face, when he went by?

A. Oh yeah. He’s only young. Nice-lookin’ fella. I could see ‘im. He just waved, like that. He wanted me to see him, that’s why he come down, so they’d know where he landed. I don’t know how he come over that way, but he was goin’ north-west, west-north-west, I could see…He got there. And then, along the other guy tried to immulate Him. Wrong-way Corrigan, he was called. He got more…he got more honor than the other because he flew backwards. They called him Wrong-way Corrigan. He landed in Ireland, out of gas. “Where am I?” Oh my God. He didn’t know where he was. He’d be Goin’ backwards. So they called him Wrong-way Corrigan. They made a lot of him. He was a daffier. Landed in Ireland…..out of gas. ‘Course they gassed him up and give ‘Im a great hand. He got back alive. And what a funny thing. And then they was the other one, a….Amelia Airheart, she went to (?) just a year or two later. She and Fred Noonan.

Q. Right.

A. That was her co-pilot. They never made it. Yeah. They talk…they heard ‘em talkin’ But they…..They were close but they didn’t make it. Something happened. Nobody knows what. They didn’t get there.

Q. O.K. SO how old were you, when you got married?

A. Twenty-five, exactly.

Q. How did you meet your wife?

A. Oh…she used to come over…..Westport, the girls did, you know. That’s the only place they had. She was only a….seventeen.

Q. And where was she from?

A. Freeport, right along side.

Q. O.K.

A. That’s her. Little one up here. If she had been down here today, she’s here. She was four feet half long. She was cute. Believe me she was. (Mac is referring to his wife’s picture hanging on the wall.)

Q. So once you were married, where did you live?

A. I had to move over and take the old house. They gave it to me. I wished they hadn’t of. Hadn’t been for my neighbors, I’d would have gladly burnt it up.

Q. So….so you…you were in Freeport with her?

A. Yeah.

Q. Right.

A. Workin’ night and day, tryin’ to get in that bloody old house with no bathroom. Oh my God, you’ve got no idea. (laughter) I don’t know how I ever did it. I remember fallin’ off the house and ruptured myself. I went for years with two trusses on here. Pertin’ near Killed me.

Q. O.K. What year did you start your first job?

A. Always…since I was ten. I’ve been workin’ like a dog. Who else? In our house, they were all sick, c’mon. Everyone.

Q. What kind of work did you do?

A. Oh, fishin’, work on the road and…then I took a job with dad and I both, when I got older. We run the fish firm of Barkhouses there, two of us together, was seventy dollars A month. He got forty dollars and I got thirty….’course I didn’t do much. The two of us for that. But I saved my thirty. I didn’t draw it ‘til I bought a boat with it. The whole boat complete was two hundred and eighty dollars, I remember, including pump. And we fished that fer years afterwards. God what a haunt. Never saw a cent, didn’t know. You Couldn’t make anything. You know the price of fish? Four tenths of one cent, a pound. Not four cents a pound. Four tenths. A hundred pounds of hake for forty cents. How could you make any money? Over five thousand pounds of fish for twenty-one dollars, Stock and you had to pay your gas out of it and your bait. How could you make any thing! You couldn’t. You couldn’t make thirty dollars in a week, to save your soul. Couldn’t. That’s the way it went for years too. Hmmmm.

Q. O.K. What role did the fish buyers play in your life?

A. Fish buyers? They put us in the poor house. Here, let me tell you somethin’. You wanted to know somethin’. I’m gonna see if you can remember that’s what I put down. See if you can remember this. Oh yeah, Josh Slocum, yeah. He went out in 1894, first time, yeah. He was lost on the second, yeah. Yup, and we….I was comin’ in, my brother and I. It was a fine morning. No wind. Comin’ up the bay and I saw him, comin’ aside me, somethin’ that looked like a little boat there. So I sheared off and went into it. And it was a…it was a…life boat. Oh, what a beautiful boat. Over twenty feet…twenty feet long. The most beautiful engine in it. So we got aboard of it. What a lovely boat it was. We towed it in, actually. It belonged to the Navy, of course. So they took it. They never said thank you. (?) I found out later…..forty years later, to be exact, that that boat was lost. Forty-two men were lost in that boat. She had been torpedoed. I suppose she’s on bottom there, I don’t know. But that was the boat. Or where it come from but we towed it in. It never had a mark on it. It had never been stirred. But that’s how it got there. Now….

Q. You don’t know the name of that boat?

A. Nope. I can’t remember the name of it. I had it in. And then, Raymond Thurber and I, We trawled down there, we was there, after the war and airplanes. We hauled up two airplane wings….half wings. Boy, Raymond got another one out in the gully. That’s three I know of…..that we hauled up….. the insignia right on it that must have been lost. We Didn’t hear a thing. We were fishin’ right amongst fish. But I never hear anything like it but they must have been tore…they must have been shot down. Three I know of. On the wings……you don’t know what was goin’ on there. We knew we were being looked at, Through a periscope. But we were to small fer ‘im…..they didn’t want I to see ‘em….so We didn’t see ‘em.

Q. Right.

A. No, they didn’t bother us. Ahhhhhh…..forty-two men left, I’ve got to …..

Q. O.K. Getting back to the question I asked you about the fish buyers, you used to sell your fish to…..?

A. Oh yeah. Well…..they, fish farm….where we got our groceries. That one was a fish farm. Just for groceries. It was a grocery store besides. They bought the fish. We didn’t Get any money, we took ours in groceries. That’s as far….(laughter)

Q. So that was like the “Company Store”?

A. Exactly. That’s the way we got that one but……Money…..no, we salted our own after a while. You got a little bit more, but we didn’t get any money, much. No.

Q. So can…… (The noise you hear in the background is something falling) So can you tell me the name of the place that you sold the fish to?

A. Yeah. We sold to Fred Barkhouse’s. I worked there fer two or three years, splitin’ fish. Besides that, we sold our fish to ‘im. And E. C. Bowers Company. That’s Raymond Robicheau’s today. Yup. No money involved. We got no money. The audacity of me getting married is what I can’t believe that I was that silly. Nothin’ the matter with my wife. Otherwise I’d take her. You can’t take her in the house with another…. mother-in-law. The wife would never get along with it. You try that. You wouldn’t be long. So I moved to Freeport.

Q. What do you remember about wartime?

A. Well, this was wartime….. a lot of it. Well….we spent an awful lot of time pullin’ Lumber in. We’d go up and get whole boatloads of lumber, the prettiest lumber you ever seen. We knew something had been destroyed because the place was loaded with wood. We’d pick up a boatload and take it in, go pick up another one and take it in.

Q. Take it in where?

A. Well…..pile it up in there. I think they gave us twenty dollars a load or somethin’ ‘cause……specially big loads of wood, but we…..that’s what they built their wharves out of. Today you can’t get a good piece of wood.

Q. That’s true.

A. Oh, they was….planks….two inch plank, long…..great long, two by four. Not a mark On ‘em. They’d bring the boat up, whatever, and that. Lumber all over the place. We had To stop fishin’ to bring the lumber in. That’s all. We got twenty dollars for bringin’ it in... Whole boatload. We couldn’t go fishin’ for lumber. Daren’t go out at night. My Lord, The place was loaded and the streets were full. We used to get ‘em sunk and you had to Pick it up and bring it in. Load the boat.

Q. So how did the Second World War affect your family?

A. 1940. Well…..we were fishin’. I was fishin’. I….I was just one. When they come to me….I was thirty years old and I was ruptured. I was just thirty years old and I was ruptured. They just come to my age, or I would have had to go. But they wouldn’t take Me ‘cause I was ruptured, on account they’d had to operate. They took Donnie and operated on him. He was younger. But he got ruptured there so they operated on him. But they wouldn’t take me ruptured. So I didn’t have to go at all. But…just clear at Night. I’m glad of that. I don’t like to kill people. So I escaped that. That’s when that happened. Hmmmm. I didn’t have to go.

Q. What do you remember about the Depression?

A. It was all depression. (laughter) I don’t remember anything but depression. No. We didn’t get any money. When I went West I got fed up after awhile on all this work I was doin’ and I had….I got ulcers, stomach ulcers. Lord, I’ll never forget ‘em. I got in Yarmouth. “Well” he says….I got sick an awful lot but I could still keep goin’. Doctor… is a…..”You are” way took it….an x-ray. “You have one monstrous ulcer. Have to operate.” “Well,” I said “Doctor” I talked to ‘im. I can’t think of his name, but I will. “If you think I’m strong enough, I’ve also ruptured.” I had been operated four times for this and….and it breaks right out. Well, I don’t know. “If you think I’m strong enough would you do both at once?” Oh….Any ways, when I come to I said “Well, when you gonna…..” He said “It’s all done Mac.” It was some slick how they got to me. He said “I’ll guarantee you had one month or so ‘till you were blocked off.” “ But” he said “you have had nineteen besides that….that healed.” I’d throw-up and take soda and this time he…he took that out. Took my stomach out. Two-thirds of it…out! Threw it down back of the hospital. I got one-third. That’s what I got. And he (?) “You’re a little ruptured Yes I noticed….it’s a big one. He says “I did what I could but I won’t guarantee that.” He may as well, ‘cause that’s the best job I ever had. I’ve lifted everything (?) I can’t break it up. The other guys they would just stiff me. Instead of puttin’ a patch under it, which he probably did, and then…it…it worked. I never had it again. I’m all… I’ve only got one third of a stomach. They wonder why I can’t eat fourteen eggs. I said I can’t. I’ll eat one at a time. But I can’t eat….two.

Q. So how did your parents pass on their possessions?

A. We didn’t have any possessions. My a…..they had nothing. How could they. They were both sick. Dad was sick all his life. I had to tow him, my brother and everybody else. Wonder I hadn’t killed myself. I’m tellin’ yeah. Fact, I think I did. I did some work. I can’t imagine it was me did that. I did it.

Q. O.K. So how did people help each other out, in days gone by, that’s different from today?

A. Well……it snowed forever. Good thing it did. We all had to turn out and shovel snow. Women….everybody shoveled snow, from Tiverton right down to Freeport. The whole Islands were out shovelin’, all day long. It..it never stopped snowin’ that way. I remember the doctor had an old car, he’d keep it down to the ferry, which you couldn’t see from our…….The snow was so high you couldn’t see the car if you come down….. Oh my Lord what snow. Snow to the top of the hydro poles. I walked right over the hydro pole. Stay all winter. If it hadn’t been for that we’d of froze to death. Yes we would. Tell me I don’t know when we………Oh Lord….

Q. Do you remember anything about the Poor Farm?

A. Poor House?

Q. Yeah, the Poor House.

A. Oh…I remember it was there. That was in Freeport. Ah….

Q. Marshalltown.

A. Marshalltown, yeah, that’s right. Oh, I know, yeah. It was in Marshalltown. Yes it was there when…..I remember it all right. Thank heavens I didn’t have to go in it, but…

Q. Where you ever…..did you ever…go to the…..Poor House?

A. Oh….we’d go by it every day.

Q. Right.

A. When I’d go there.

Q. O.K.

A. That was there…..well……it’s been quite a while since they tore it down. But it was there.

Q. What were elections like?

A. Maud Lewis. Remember her?

Q. Yeah. Do you remember Maud Lewis?

A. Yeah….and her man. They stole his money and killed ‘im. What a useless piece of crap he was.

Q. Yeah. So, did you ever stop at Maud’s House?

A. No, but I……Well we….we….well seen her. Just a little tiny woman.

Q. Yeah.

A. These cattle with the eye lashes. She was cute.

Q. Yup.

A. You buy one of her……one of her cards today, you’ll pay for it.

Q. That’s right.

A. Yeah. They’ve got a little place built the same size there.

Q. Ummm

A. You’ve probably noticed it. Oh yes, my Lord. She was cute. Just a little thing.

Q. Yup. She was very tiny.

A. Oh yeah.

Q. O.K. What do you remember about elections?

A. Elections?

Q. Yeah.

A. Oh that was a big day. Oh yeah. My father and Ed Junior they were ranked Tories. And then there was the Liberals. But dad and my Ed too, were always ranked Conservative. Tories, we called ‘em. Oh, they would fight all day over that. That was a big day, election day. If they wasn’t careful, most all of them get drunk too. You got treated. Oh they was right there tryin’ to votes fer ‘em.

Q. What do you remember about the first time you voted?

A. Oh I didn’t care anything, which side. I didn’t care which side was in. I was to busy tryin’ to keep alive to care anything about elections. Didn’t mean anything. Whether it was Tory or Liberal. Hmmmm.

Q. What is the worst weather you can remember?

A. Well….the worst storm was…..that we had, was a……D-Day we called it. There was A….a sea come up the big meadow, home, in, Freeport….Westport I was in and my sister had a store, Raymond Rob….or Easy Barr’s Store. The whole works went. One sea caught the big meadow, and took everything. I can see my sister’s store yet, it went right up like that and took it. Goin’ up by the shore, well it hadn’t sunk yet, it went up to the northern. Up through the northern it was, just a store, (?) and it went right out through (laughter) and everything else went with it. There was nothing.

Q. Do you remember when that was?

A. Well yes. That was….they got pictures of that down Hall, I guess they have. That’s the worse storm I ever heard tell of.

Q. Do you remember what year it was?

Q. O.K. I need to know about any shipwrecks in your area and specifically do you know Anything about a Greek ship that exploded during World War 11?

A. Well I’ve heard tell of it when I was up off Tiverton, eh.

Q. Right.

A. Somewhere off there, they don’t know where. They’ve never discovered her. I know There was one there, but not now. It’s off….off of Tiverton somewhere. They know approximately but….. Water so deep…..

Q. Do you remember about when it happened?

A. Yeah. The….they couldn’t get a diver to go that deep. Deep water out there.

Q. Right.

A. And that’s where they think it is. Could be ninety fathoms of water. ( one fathom equals six feet of water) That’s deep. Awful pressure. Then, they didn’t know how to Dive that deep. I dare say they could discover a lot if their bathoscopes today, if they Wanted to. No they never did, no. We heard of it. But nobody knows just where she went down. Off of Tiverton….somewhere.

Q. Do you know anything about the Robert Cann?

A. Oh yeah. Keith Cann and Robert Cann were sister ships. Keith Cann was one that worked for us for years. That was our way of getting stuff from Saint John….once a Week and go down to Yarmouth and come back and wait in Yarmouth. We got every-thing that way….on the boats. My father was auxiliary cook on the Keith Cann. So I got Sailed once in a while. I got to go sail. They were good to me. I’d go….I’d go to Yarmouth. That’s the only way I’d ever go. Yeah.

Q. Do you know anything abut The Columbo?

A. No. I never heard of that one.

Q. O.K.

A. Montecello, Cobequid, that one. The Aurora went to shore on Brier Island, down in Pea Jack. That was her name the Aurora. There was wood……Herbie Shaw made some- Thing out of the wood from the Aurora…I think. She went to shore…..early 1900’s or There. And Montecello off of Yarmouth I think it was and there was one that went down On the Trinity. The west…..The Westway went a shore off Pond Cove. She was there for years.

Q. So what was the Trinity, a…a…?

A. Yeah…it’s….it’s a rock that comes out….and she….she..she went on it. We’ve been…I’ve been up along side the Trinity many times. You could sit on it. It just come Out on a dead low water. It was smooth, awfully rotten. She hit that sort of missed her. (laughter) It wrecked. Oh my Lord….all over the place.

Q. O.K. So how did your community police itself?

A. Police?

Q. Yeah.

A. There wasn’t any police.

Q. O.K.

A. Might have been in Digby but they couldn’t get down home.

Q. So how was the law enforced in Westport?

A. Well…ask Jack. How was the law enforced in Westport? Fist-a-cuffs, I guess.

Q. Fist-a-cuff….what’s that?

A. Hit each other in the nose and knock the brains out of ‘em. There was no law.

Q. Who was the largest employer in Westport?

A. That’d be E. C. Bowers.

Q. That was a fish plant?

A. Yeah and a store. That was the main store of all.

Q. So the people…..so that would have been another “Company Store”?

A. Yup. Surly was. They kept….he had loads of coal come and he stored it in “pour house” off the end of the wharf. And all kinds of lumber, anything you wanted, he had There. And we’d have to take it on “tick paper”. Later you had to pay in the end. But… He let us by ‘er or we’d starve to death all together. But boy, they didn’t pay us much. We….but they remained rich and we got…The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Simple as all that.

Q. Yes.

A. That’s the way it was.

Q. So then, you would take your fish to this….?

A. Oh yeah. Sell her. Take no money.

Q. And then you just take out in…in goods?

A. Yup. Yeah. In the…..in the fall we would spread a lot and drown and take ‘em over and trade with him. Buy what we had to. You had to live some way.

Q. Right.

A. In fact, we had better food than they got today.

Q. I believe that.

A. And better fish. Oh yes…..we had the finest kind.

Q. Ummmm.

A. And we knew how to handle it too.

Q. So, did you belong to any organizations? You know, like “The Knights of Columbus”?

A. Na. Oh, I joined the …the….The Odd Fellows and I joined The Masons and I didn’t Go very much. They went and sunk my…..I said if this is quick masonry I don’t want Any. So I quit right there. I didn’t see as they used me any better….Christ. That foolishness. Yeah I joined The Odd Hall.

Q. So what was the a…object of The Odd Fellows?

A. Well it just….they meet there certain nights, you know, and they had a good time. I had nothing against it but….I….I had a…a ring made, in Yarmouth, a double emblem. And it had both the Masonic and The Odd Fellows insignia on the one ring. Your’re going west….when I went west I…..fellow was lookin’ at it. “Nice ring you got there” I said “Well what-a-yeah mean”? “You have a double emblem. You belong to the Masons and The Odd Fellows.” Yeah. He noticed that. I didn’t think any more of that. It was a tailor-made one. They…they didn’t made ‘em that way. I had both emblems on One ring. I gave it to somebody after a while.

Q. So were….was this strictly men or could women join?

A. Ah…women had Rebeccahs and that type….

Q. I see.

A. Same thing, but….oh no. There was no…no women Odd Fellows. They were Rebeccahs. And that’s that.

Q. O.K. What do you remember about tourists coming to your area?

A. They…some came there, but not like that. They used to bring their tent there. They used to bring a….a tent, put it up and have a whole week of that. Once in a while…. Called the Chatauqua, I think. I remember one guy called it the Chekewa but it’s Chatauqu. He didn’t know. But they come and they pitch their tents. Stayed a week.

Q. So how would they have got there?

A. Oh, I don’t know, but they got there. They tent and they had ‘em up there. I forget how they did. It was a long time ago.

Q. Right.

A. They must have had a boat but….they…….The first ferry I remember only traveled Six o’clock at night. She’d come over and get……But there were no scows or no….or no No cars then. There weren’t.

Q. O.K.

A. You wanted to get the old doctor to take a tooth out. The big……oh, great big giant of a man. He’d take your tooth out. No problem at all. Wame, he was goin’ like that. He was so slick. Yeah, painless dentistry all right.

Q. O.K. When would people get together for a good time?

A. Well that was a good time when that came. Well a week……that was a week of revelry, I’ll tell yeah. Oh yeah. There was lots of alcohol runnin’ around there one….a Few years. There’s a boat. The Proper and Arthur went ashore and no points of alcohol. Holy Belgium hand brand alcohol. A hundred ninety-two proof. Good Lord, everybody Was drunk. You couldn’t mix anything with it….only seven-up. I was to young to drink. And it’s just as well. That was a good long time ago. The place was lousy with alcohol. Everybody was drunk. All the men…most of ‘em. Only took a couple ounces to knock Your head off. Belgium hand brand….cross…..skull and cross bones. (laughter) And then….the Corinthian went ashore, off Batsons, and a…..they had to wreck her. We had some of the men home for a week….off her. They sent my mother a handkerchief forty Years later. We kept them a week home, before somebody come and got ‘em. The ship went on Batsons Buoy, or shoal, and Bill Brennan was with Ira on her. Man, you can’t believe what went on there. What robbers. She was loaded with everything. What a mess But…alkaline was on everything and everybody’s house. We had all this stuff come ashore. And these…..tin cans of cigarettes, I remember. I was only a kid. Tin cans about That big. Skull and cross bones on it. They were cigarettes. And were they strong. But they were floatin’ over the dock, everywhere. And us kids, you know we smoked….we get ‘em. Here they are….absolutely dry. Well we all went to kill ourselves. Suckin’ on these cigarettes, down on the wharf. My Lord you…..They were awful strong. So that’s where we learned to smoke….the hard way. Weren’t they strong those cigarettes. But they were dry. What were you gonna do….they were gonna. We’d pick up the can, my Lord, we’d look….cigarettes. We soon learned to smoke. Geepeers.

Q. O.K. Mr. Dakin, How does Westport look now, compared to when you were growing up?

A. Well, it’s much nicer now.

Q. Much nicer?

A. Oh yeah. Well, they got money to Westport. Quite a lot of money, some of ‘em. They’ve done well lobster fishin’ in the last few years. But they also inherited a lot ‘cause the government took a hold and gave ‘em back three times…..I said you shouldn’t worry about the government, you fellows over here, they gave you….a boat….the boat that sunk they gave ‘em three hundred and fifty thousand dollars for one. They built them New wharves and everything. I said what are you growling about? Plus now they ….. It’s not fair but you can’t get in lobstering anymore. I….I had a…..The other day, I went for fun, and got my lobster license out. Twenty-five cents, I paid for it. I should of kept It. If I’d of kept it and just set a few traps, no matter what it’d of cost me, I would of made money. I could of sold it for a hundred and twenty-five thousand. Yeah. Just the License. I paid twenty-five cents.

Q. So you had to pay twenty-five cents, that was for the license?

A. Yup.

Q. Amazing.

A. But I had my license and I showed it to somebody, see? And I was getting’ to old and I couldn’t handle it. I was worn out. I was sixty odd years old when they first commenced to make money. We got…what….lobsters for twenty-five cents a pound. All we did is take the jinx home and cook ‘em. I….put up seventy-five cans. I had a little canner there. We…we had plenty of good lobsters to eat. More than you get now. Get a lobster now, Cost you fifteen dollars for one small lobster, you see. Twenty-five cents a pound. Thirty cents was top….a pound. Yeah. We didn’t have anything. That’s what we had. And that’s the truth.

Q. Mr. Dakin, this is my last question. How would you compare family values today, with those in days gone by.

A. Well, there’s no comparison. They have everything now…most people.