WEBVTT
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I've been dead once for 15 minutes and that's the truth.
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I had a heart attack.
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Everything was going just friend, fine.
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And uh I was really just getting good.
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That's heart surgery.
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Everything was good.
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Well one night something happened.
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I had a little boom, boom here.
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I can remember this.
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And I said, What's that?
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And I go, Doc, oh nothing, nothing, nothing.
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Well, I guess they I guess I went to sleep and they phoned the kids and said, Come and see your.
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Your dad isn't gonna make it.
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Of course I don't know nothing, I'm out.
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So I guess I did die for for about up to 15 minutes, they said.
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Most people would die.
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Welcome to Airdrie Inside.
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My name is Britton Lettingham.
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Tonight we are in Robert DeWitt's garage, and we are doing a bit of a family history of Airdrie episode across from the table from me.
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I have Albert DeWitt, Robert's dad.
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And Albert, help help me know a bit about yourself.
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Where are you from?
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I was born in Calgary, I guess.
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Born and lived in all my life in Airdrie.
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I am I'm pretty sure I am the oldest person in Airdrie right now that started school in 1949.
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I went as I I didn't finish 1949 because I had a appendicitis attack.
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So I went back to school in 1950, and that's when I actually finished grade one.
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I don't know whether there was anybody else at that time in the school that I is around today, but in 1949 there was only a one-room classroom, and I know I'm the only one left.
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Now I don't say they're past, but they're gone.
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Most are past.
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Yeah, moved elsewhere, sadly past.
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That's right.
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What where was that one room classroom?
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Right where the Edris School now is, just over in the parking lot.
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And you're talking like the tri-school area, or isn't Edwards on the west side of Edras School?
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Yeah.
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There was a little single-wheel school.
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We stayed there for only one year.
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Then they had a two-room school beside it.
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I moved to the two-room school, stayed there until I'll guess grade six or seven.
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Then they built a new school, what we used to call the high school, and I'm pretty sure it's it would originally started right where the Edress School is now.
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Yeah.
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And that's as far as I went.
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Never got too far in school, grade nine.
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Okay.
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Grade nine.
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And then went to work.
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What'd you get into?
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Dad told me I had to go to work, so we went to work.
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And so were you on the farm at that point, or what yeah.
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Let me know, like where was the farm?
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West Eirdry.
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Five miles west of Eirdrie.
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Okay.
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Which is still out of city limits at this point, yeah.
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Yeah, it's still outside city about three miles.
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Yeah.
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So I spent my life there farming, did nuts uh with my dad until I was about 3940.
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Dad passed.
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Well that was a kick in the arse because I did not realize how much dad was needed.
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I thought I was doing all the work.
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But young guy wouldn't.
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But when he passed, and I didn't have him around, I didn't realize all the things he did.
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And he was well into his 70 about or how old?
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He was only 65.
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65 in a few days.
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He got one pension.
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Too young.
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And when dad gone, I mean I run the farm.
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We farmed together all our life.
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But when we everything, if the piece of equipment was broke down, I'd say to dad, go pick up this part.
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And I'd go take the piece of equipment apart.
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And he'd go for the part.
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And he was very smart at bringing back the right part.
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So we'd put the equipment back together, usually we're back running in half a day.
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So when Dad passed away, it all changed.
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Equipment breaks down.
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So we gotta, what are we gonna do?
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If I go to the fix the take the equipment apart, it all stops.
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So I send the wife for the part, never comes with the right part.
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So the so if I if I left the man to fix the equipment, when I come back, we couldn't put he couldn't put it back together.
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So it meant shutting it all down, take it apart, drive and get the part yourself because you got the right part, drove back and then put it together.
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You lost the whole day.
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That was the first thing I found out.
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And this is into the 70s.
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Yeah, I started farming when I was uh yeah, 70s.
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Yeah.
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Let's back up.
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You were five miles out of town, come to school.
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How'd you get to school?
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Well, I started on a little old one-ton bus.
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I drove, we probably it only held about eight, nine, ten kids just down each side.
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So we did it was a shorter route.
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We did graduate to a bigger bus like they have now, but that bus drove all over the country.
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It went west, it went east.
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It even went easier.
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We're an hour and a half before I got to school.
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That was some apple salt, but we made it.
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Um you were 14 or so when you quit school and went with 16.
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16, yeah.
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What yeah, this is grain and cattle?
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Help me understand a bit about that for you.
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I had I was my farm and was considered a a mixed farmer, I guess.
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I like to call myself a rancher because I love I'd rather chase cattle than shovel grain any day.
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But I did both.
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We had about 250 to 300 cattle between cows and feeder cattle.
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I fit I put in about 1200, 1300 acres of crop.
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I called myself a mixed farmer.
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When you you thought at the time, if if one didn't make money, the other would at least do better than the other.
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As I think back, that was probably a mistake.
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You should have specialized in one thing.
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But that's hindsight.
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I get my dad talking a bit about hindsight lately too, and like you just make your best choice and go with it.
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Yeah, you had to, you didn't know.
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Yeah.
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Dad had left me, I wasn't very old.
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Let's see, what was I when when I was 19, not even 20, dad bought land in my name, and I and the next year he said, You farm, I'm going to a Phoenix.
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And he did.
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So you learned to farm, or that was it.
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So I stayed home.
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I never left the farm.
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I worked all my life.
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I never missed a Christmas day for 25 years.
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Being home and feeding cattle.
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Now, yeah, I I I always had things done up.
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You could do them up the day before, so it didn't take long, but I still had to feed those cattle.
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They don't feed themselves.
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Yeah.
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And that was one of the things where you would have specialized in grain farming.
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You could have gone curl it all winter.
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I love to curl.
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Could have gone to Phoenix.
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Could have gone to Phoenix.
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I was a curla fan sports fan.
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I would have preferred to curl all winter.
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I would have been, I was close to a professional curler at those days.
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We come very close to winning.
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We were at a team that went to Southern Alberta three years.
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We never won down there, but we went there three times, which is out of Little Town of Airdrie is amazing.
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Yeah.
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I would have loved to have been that.
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So it was close.
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If they would have been paying money like now, we would have been really close to making money.
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And would have made an incentive to keep going.
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Exactly.
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But what I crawled a lot of years too many, played too much, too.
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So only playing I did was that well, and tell me a bit about that.
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Like that was your only downtime, your only play?
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Is that what you're saying?
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Yeah.
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Yeah, well, the winner, we had a good team.
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We had a good old skip that really knew the game.
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Like I played third all my life for him, and we we won a lot.
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We're lucky, lucky, but still.
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When you win, if you don't drink and party, you go to curl, not drink and party, you can get to win.
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Most of the old guys love to party first.
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Have a drink before they went on the ice.
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They're very easily beat.
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If you stayed sober, you had a better chance.
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That helped.
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What did you learn curling that you didn't learn farming?
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Good question.
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Good question.
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He got me there.
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You know, I can't really answer that one.
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I had to learn everything on the basically on the farm.
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I wasn't told much of my bat about my dad.
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He just kind of said, go at it, kid.
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The curlin, I taught myself.
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I had good people with me.
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Not much.
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Yeah.
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And I loved, that was the only sport I had.
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I didn't have time to play hockey much.
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I played hockey when I was young.
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But curling took over quit.
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Because, oh, yeah, now I know why.
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We could get artificial ice to curlin.
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The old hockey ice was on natural ice, and you about every time the game came up, there was no ice.
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It was chinook come over the hole.
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We didn't get to play.
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So as soon as you got to where you could play inside, where was that artificial ice?
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That's where you went to.
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Yeah.
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And Jensen.
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Not Jensen, sorry, town and country center.
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That's a mid-70s era build.
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Yeah, that was built.
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We built we there was a curl rink right beside the old post office.
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Two sheets.
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Played there for about at least 10 years, maybe then moved up to the town and country.
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Yeah, yeah.
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That makes sense.
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And were you involved with any of those like the the Plainsman kind of group of building committee and stuff?
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Or like tell them did you know any of those guys?
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Or no.
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Yeah.
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All I really knew was the curlin committee.
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When the when uh town of country first opened up, it was only four sheets.
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And we failed it in the first year.
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Boom.
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We went from two to four.
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Curling really came popular.
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So we we played for about I'd say four or five years, but they expanded to eight sheets.
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And it's always been it went up to Crossfield or curl little and not town.
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Just the curlin died.
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I don't know why.
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So when would have been the last time you curled?
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Well, I went in, I requit for a while, and then I went in and tried this new curlin called Stick Curlin.
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Yes.
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I played that for 10 years and I loved that too.
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Good on you.
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I played with an old fellow by the name of Elmer.
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He played on a scooter.
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Okay.
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Amazing how good he was.
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Yeah.
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He sat on a scooter, he played on a scooter, he shot off from a scooter, and he went to represent Alberta to Manitoba when he was, I'll guess, 60 years old.
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So when I walked into the rink, I showed him my I already showed him my curl.
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Bang, we just clicked like that, and I curled it together with him until he passed away two years ago.
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And then I got sick, so I would like to try it again, but I don't think I can handle it.
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But you played that last 10 years was up until just a couple of years ago?
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Yes.
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That's good.
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What did that do for you, being able to curl again?
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Great.
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Yeah.
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You went to the curlin rink, and it was full of old people that couldn't had stiff legs and stiff backs, and they just loved it.
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They just were in their glory.
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And most of them weren't too bad.
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Right?
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Yeah, actually.
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Yeah.
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Still the same.
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Some of the women were as good as the men because they learned to push the stick just as easy.
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Yeah.
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Good on you.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:48.799
And so now you don't have that outlet, but what do you what do you look forward to now?
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What's what's an outlet that you keep going?
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Well, staying alive, I guess.
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I'm in a senior's home there now.
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The poor old people I I f I f do feel.
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I think I'm hard done by you see.
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But when you start looking around in that home, my goodness the people.
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They're just from most of them got don't even know where they are.
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The ones that do are if they they remember something one day, they forget the next day.
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Some are honory, some cause fights until they get locked in their rooms.
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Attempt to basically hit other people.
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And the food in there and what they're fed is I just won't even talk about it.
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What the government does is terrible.
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But I'm lucky.
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I feel good.
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I'm diabetic.
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I'm not too bad.
00:16:07.039 --> 00:16:10.480
It's uh good.
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I uh got a couple, I got a good friend in there.
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We I've learned to play pool again.
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Yeah, that's good.
00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:24.399
And we're pretty good pool players.
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We're not no pros, but we have a lot of fun together.
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We play eight ball and uh we can come close to running the ball tables, not quite.
00:16:37.039 --> 00:16:40.480
But we've same eight five, six, seven shots without a miss.
00:16:42.559 --> 00:16:46.879
If we had smaller tables, I think we could run a set of balls.
00:16:47.120 --> 00:16:47.679
Yeah, yeah.
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And it's really even he wins, I win, he wins, so we have good competition.
00:16:53.519 --> 00:17:08.480
And he's a determined, he has to go at 1015 every morning, 1015, and I don't mean 1016, I mean 1015, and I'm sitting there chewing on my whatever.
00:17:09.839 --> 00:17:10.960
He wants you there.
00:17:11.599 --> 00:17:13.599
No, but that was good.
00:17:13.680 --> 00:17:14.240
It was good.
00:17:14.319 --> 00:17:17.759
It it makes me get the lead out of my ass and go, you know.
00:17:19.039 --> 00:17:23.119
Um, speaking of lead, you got this truck behind you.
00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:25.440
You were telling me a story about it earlier.
00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:26.720
Whose truck is this?
00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:30.240
And let's let's learn about this truck from your perspective a little bit, please.
00:17:30.559 --> 00:17:38.000
Well, this old truck behind me is a 1946 GMC.
00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:41.599
It was owned by my dad.
00:17:43.440 --> 00:17:44.720
We bought it.
00:17:45.119 --> 00:17:51.119
I'll say we bought it new, I don't know for sure, but we had it to 1954.
00:17:52.319 --> 00:17:53.680
Then we traded it off.
00:17:53.759 --> 00:17:59.279
We it just had a little wee box on it, and we're grain farmers and and cattle far.
00:17:59.759 --> 00:18:02.559
It was more for cattle because you could get more in the box.
00:18:02.799 --> 00:18:09.279
Traded it for another neighbor for a 1954 long box.
00:18:10.640 --> 00:18:13.839
So that's the last I seen in 1954.
00:18:15.359 --> 00:18:21.359
Three years ago, my brother-in-law was looking in the paper and he says, Isn't that your old truck?
00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:26.240
So I looked in the paper and I said, Yeah, I think it is.
00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:30.160
So we jumped in his truck and was at Red Deer.
00:18:30.799 --> 00:18:32.640
25 below zero again.
00:18:32.720 --> 00:18:34.559
We always pick the beautiful days.
00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:41.359
We're going up the highway with his diesel truck, and boom, boom, she starts to quit.
00:18:42.640 --> 00:18:46.720
Here's an old guy cannot want, not much better one driving.
00:18:47.200 --> 00:18:50.960
The old dog for chugging.
00:18:51.279 --> 00:18:54.720
But we made her up there, and I don't know why we're lucky.
00:18:55.680 --> 00:19:01.680
So he finds his truck in the back alley of a street in Red Deer, snow all over.
00:19:02.480 --> 00:19:14.799
And I looked at this truck, and I knew instantly it was Mars, because it had the name on the side, but it had the little nook in the hood where the dad had hit it with a rifle.
00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:19.759
So I looked at it, I knew instantly it was ours.
00:19:20.960 --> 00:19:24.480
So then we start the process of buying it.
00:19:25.039 --> 00:19:26.640
Well, this is pretty good.
00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:28.880
Me being I owned it.
00:19:30.400 --> 00:19:34.480
I would have paid anything to have it, but keep your mouth shut.
00:19:35.920 --> 00:19:38.400
So he he goes to tell me the history.
00:19:38.720 --> 00:19:40.319
No, we made a deal.
00:19:40.480 --> 00:19:41.759
He wanted 5,000.
00:19:41.839 --> 00:19:43.519
I offered him 2,000.
00:19:43.759 --> 00:19:47.759
Ended up at 2,500, which I was very happy with.
00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:49.200
So the deal was made.
00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:51.279
Then he goes to tell me the history.
00:19:51.519 --> 00:19:52.960
I says, Hold it.
00:19:53.279 --> 00:19:54.799
See that sun on there?
00:19:54.960 --> 00:19:55.599
That's me.
00:19:55.759 --> 00:19:57.599
You should have seen that guy's face.
00:19:57.759 --> 00:19:58.799
He just went.
00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:02.000
You didn't tell him that first.
00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:03.759
No, didn't tell him first.
00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:06.079
That's part of the dealing.
00:20:06.319 --> 00:20:07.680
No bit it's part of the deal.
00:20:08.720 --> 00:20:14.400
So we drove the old truck home, pulled the old truck home on a trailer, and it went from there.
00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:16.319
And you can see what Robert's done to it.
00:20:16.799 --> 00:20:19.759
Yeah, yeah, we'll have some talk about this shortly.
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:22.960
That's um yeah.
00:20:23.119 --> 00:20:27.599
Well, and there's work that you guys did and that your family name is known for.
00:20:27.759 --> 00:20:31.119
You still got land in the name or the pond in the name.
00:20:31.599 --> 00:20:36.720
Well, we don't have much land in the DeWitt name.
00:20:37.839 --> 00:20:40.720
It's but my sister still owns somewhere.
00:20:40.960 --> 00:20:41.599
Yeah.
00:20:42.160 --> 00:20:46.400
And she's a becker, and I tried to get her to come today just to help me talk a little.
00:20:46.480 --> 00:20:49.039
Because she knows the damn, but she wouldn't come.
00:20:49.759 --> 00:20:51.279
We'll try her again, maybe.
00:20:53.359 --> 00:20:57.599
She could answer a lot of questions I can, but I can answer pretty anything you want to know.
00:20:57.759 --> 00:20:58.240
Yeah.
00:20:58.559 --> 00:21:03.039
What I understand you got your hands in building that pond.
00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:05.200
Could you catch me up on that?
00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:07.200
Let's go back.
00:21:07.279 --> 00:21:08.799
We'll try and remember.
00:21:09.839 --> 00:21:10.559
19.
00:21:14.319 --> 00:21:16.000
Say 65.
00:21:17.920 --> 00:21:18.559
Yeah.
00:21:19.119 --> 00:21:27.119
Um Uncle George built that pond for the what's it called?
00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:27.680
I forget.
00:21:27.839 --> 00:21:40.319
Anyways, what it was built for, the in case there was ever a shortage of water down the creek, you could open the dam and give some water down the creek to cattle like and stuff, eh?
00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:45.599
So they built it when we were all kids.
00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:46.880
I can remember being there.
00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:48.000
My cousin worked on it.
00:21:48.079 --> 00:21:59.759
I can't say I worked on it, but my cousins want so then when the it never was never used with like the the house and still.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:05.599
The road they went and opened the gates one time and it lost all the water down because they couldn't close it.
00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:07.920
The water gate up and not down.
00:22:08.079 --> 00:22:08.160
Yeah.
00:22:08.799 --> 00:22:09.279
Oh no.
00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:11.359
So they finally got it reclosed.
00:22:11.599 --> 00:22:16.720
It built up again because there was it was spring loaded from the from from DeWitt's pond.
00:22:17.039 --> 00:22:18.720
Little pond up at the house.
00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:22.720
So not much more.
00:22:22.799 --> 00:22:22.960
Oh.
00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:25.599
It was darn near killed in that pond.
00:22:25.759 --> 00:22:27.440
I mean, darn near killed.
00:22:28.640 --> 00:22:31.519
Big Denver, my cousin and I were ducking.
00:22:32.160 --> 00:22:36.160
And we were sneaking up over the both of the shotguns.
00:22:37.359 --> 00:22:43.279
He stumbled, and we put a hole in the ground right there, right in front of me.
00:22:43.599 --> 00:22:44.960
I won't forget that.
00:22:45.119 --> 00:22:47.599
I could see this boom, and there's a hole.
00:22:47.759 --> 00:22:48.799
He could have killed me.
00:22:48.880 --> 00:22:51.359
He was I was that far from being shot.
00:22:53.680 --> 00:22:53.920
Yeah.
00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:56.079
Never fished in the pond.
00:22:56.319 --> 00:22:56.880
No, eh?
00:22:57.200 --> 00:22:59.279
No, I never threw a rod in it.
00:22:59.519 --> 00:23:00.240
How come?
00:23:02.480 --> 00:23:05.519
I honestly don't know because I like to fish a little bit.
00:23:05.839 --> 00:23:07.200
Okay, I'll tell you why.
00:23:07.440 --> 00:23:12.319
They had a little pond up at the buildings, which was about a half a mile up where it started.
00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:14.319
So we always fished there.
00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:18.480
Because we had it stocked, stocked fish, it was easier to catch them.
00:23:19.119 --> 00:23:22.960
But there's quite a few people went fishing out there.
00:23:25.519 --> 00:23:31.440
But when they stole the land, Uncle George stole the land.
00:23:32.240 --> 00:23:36.640
So the Fish and Game Association wanted to keep this pond.
00:23:38.079 --> 00:23:41.119
So he says, okay, I will give you the land.
00:23:42.079 --> 00:23:44.880
This little four-acre fish pond.
00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:47.839
And that's why it got named Dewey's Pond.
00:23:48.400 --> 00:23:51.839
Because really it's it's DeWitt's property.
00:23:52.079 --> 00:23:52.640
Yeah.
00:23:52.960 --> 00:24:00.559
But it was pulled out of the title, which was very hard to do, but because it was fishing aim, it was approved.
00:24:02.079 --> 00:24:09.519
So you needed it for watering cattle and having or what did yeah, what was the that was the idea, but it was never used, it was just built.
00:24:09.680 --> 00:24:10.000
Yeah.
00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:11.519
Was supposed to be.
00:24:13.039 --> 00:24:20.079
So if the down creek there was no, there was, say, there was not a water, there was pasture cattle at that time, and they needed water.
00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:22.240
Never was used for that.
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:23.200
Yeah.
00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:26.400
There's did you guys ever suffer for water?
00:24:26.720 --> 00:24:27.279
Yeah.
00:24:27.599 --> 00:24:28.000
Good.
00:24:28.240 --> 00:24:29.359
That was good years.
00:24:29.519 --> 00:24:31.119
No, there's lots of water.
00:24:31.279 --> 00:24:33.519
I don't know whose idea that was.
00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:38.400
And Uncle George was good enough to let to build a dam on his property.
00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:40.240
That's because he was a sportsman.
00:24:40.319 --> 00:24:45.200
He loved to hunt and he liked animals, so I could see why.
00:24:47.039 --> 00:24:58.480
Dad and Uncle George both owned the lama one time, but a few years before that, Dad came up um two miles north and they bought some land there and they separated.
00:24:58.559 --> 00:24:59.839
That's all I know.
00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:00.880
Yeah.
00:25:01.359 --> 00:25:03.839
I even personally I'm trying to figure out.
00:25:04.079 --> 00:25:07.359
It's like I told you I'm from Saskatchewan, South Regina.
00:25:09.519 --> 00:25:11.200
Pennington is the name of the town.
00:25:14.480 --> 00:25:15.119
I know Wavern.
00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:15.359
Yeah.
00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:16.400
I'm just teasing it.
00:25:17.119 --> 00:25:18.400
We're Saskatchewan, right?
00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:20.000
You messed with me earlier about that.
00:25:20.079 --> 00:25:20.240
Yeah.
00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:20.559
Yeah.
00:25:20.720 --> 00:25:21.920
We're all from Saskatchewan.
00:25:23.839 --> 00:25:31.519
Um trying to figure out the same thing about yeah, there's not a lot of land left in our name anymore, which I have to come to terms with.
00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:33.039
But yeah, for yourself.
00:25:33.839 --> 00:25:35.839
Does it mean anything having the pond in the name?
00:25:35.920 --> 00:25:38.480
Or like, yeah, what goes through your mind nowadays?
00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:39.759
Not really.
00:25:40.799 --> 00:25:41.359
Honestly.
00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:45.039
Because I wasn't really involved in it.
00:25:45.519 --> 00:25:45.920
Yeah.
00:25:46.160 --> 00:25:49.119
More other people seem to talk about it, I think, than I do.
00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:50.079
Yeah.
00:25:50.960 --> 00:25:52.960
What does legacy look like at this point?
00:25:53.039 --> 00:25:54.960
Like, where do you where do you look for that?
00:25:57.039 --> 00:25:57.839
Good question.
00:25:57.920 --> 00:25:58.319
I don't know.
00:25:58.559 --> 00:25:59.039
Reek.
00:26:01.599 --> 00:26:03.440
Well, what do you really mean by that?
00:26:03.680 --> 00:26:04.240
Legacy.
00:26:04.799 --> 00:26:05.039
Ah.
00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:10.799
Well, I think there's even like you talked about you call your grandson Ducky.
00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:11.599
Well, yeah.
00:26:11.839 --> 00:26:12.240
Yeah.
00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:14.880
Tell me a bit about your family here.
00:26:15.119 --> 00:26:15.440
Oh.
00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:19.759
Look into the next generations that you got you raised up.
00:26:20.559 --> 00:26:22.720
Well, I've got a son.
00:26:23.680 --> 00:26:25.599
I have two daughters.
00:26:26.319 --> 00:26:28.799
They all have their own families.
00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:36.640
My oldest daughter has a daughter, Juliana.
00:26:36.880 --> 00:26:38.400
She's about 25.
00:26:39.119 --> 00:26:40.240
27, 28.
00:26:40.640 --> 00:26:41.440
Oh God.
00:26:42.400 --> 00:26:43.839
I've lost a few years then.
00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:51.359
And anyways, her son, and he's 20, he's 25 then.
00:26:52.559 --> 00:27:00.160
He's just finishing his last big exam for his accounting.
00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:03.039
Yeah, but he what's the math called?
00:27:04.880 --> 00:27:05.440
CA?
00:27:05.759 --> 00:27:06.319
Yeah.
00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:09.359
Which is a chartered accountant.
00:27:09.839 --> 00:27:11.119
Chartered accountant, I guess.
00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:18.559
And that's that's about a five or six hour exam next Thursday.
00:27:20.400 --> 00:27:22.799
So we gotta believe for him to make it.
00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:26.640
It'll be tough because it's a fantastic job.
00:27:28.079 --> 00:27:32.160
Now we'll go down to my next girl, Marnie, her name is.
00:27:33.440 --> 00:27:42.960
She's got a boy through university in his second year working with Price Waterhouse Cooper.
00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:57.839
The little herd girl is in I think she's in her fourth year, third year in Montreal's uh what university is that Guelph?
00:27:59.440 --> 00:28:00.720
I don't know for sure.
00:28:01.279 --> 00:28:01.839
University?
00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:02.319
Yeah.
00:28:02.559 --> 00:28:03.759
I think it's Guelph.
00:28:04.799 --> 00:28:06.720
She's in Montreal, anyways.
00:28:07.519 --> 00:28:09.359
Doing her last year.
00:28:12.319 --> 00:28:18.559
And her math, her husband, is Price Waterhouse's Coosburg's vice president.
00:28:19.119 --> 00:28:19.839
Very cool.
00:28:20.079 --> 00:28:22.319
He's got a whale of a job, too.
00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:23.200
Yeah.
00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:24.640
It's a hard job.
00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:26.880
He's never home, the poor guy.
00:28:27.119 --> 00:28:29.920
He's always flying around the world doing something.
00:28:30.160 --> 00:28:32.720
But he's about ready to retire, I think.
00:28:33.759 --> 00:28:34.720
Who knows?
00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:38.319
He's got a lot of work.
00:28:39.440 --> 00:28:41.759
Then I'm down to my third.
00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:43.279
He's sitting over here.
00:28:43.519 --> 00:28:44.400
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:44.880 --> 00:28:47.519
He's got two little guys.
00:28:49.839 --> 00:28:54.319
Maverick, Dawkins, Ducklin, Daclin, I call him a ducky.
00:28:55.759 --> 00:28:56.960
And they're off.
00:28:58.480 --> 00:28:59.759
Oh brother.
00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:05.440
Thirteen and eleven am I right?
00:29:05.839 --> 00:29:06.640
Mom and Dad.
00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:08.559
Pretty good guess from the old guy.
00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:09.359
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:12.720 --> 00:29:15.119
And there's there are my DeWits.
00:29:15.599 --> 00:29:16.240
Yeah.
00:29:17.839 --> 00:29:19.519
They're the only DeWits.
00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:22.559
Common.
00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:30.720
I had DeWit brother, two DeWit cousins, and there's no boys, come on.
00:29:30.960 --> 00:29:31.519
None.
00:29:32.240 --> 00:29:33.519
And he had two.
00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:38.480
That means a lot to me.
00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:45.839
Because I remember when I my dad passed.
00:29:47.119 --> 00:29:51.920
And I had a I was having my family and I had one girl.
00:29:52.720 --> 00:29:55.279
And of course dad wanted a boy.
00:29:56.400 --> 00:30:00.319
Of course, along come the third girl, second girl.
00:30:02.400 --> 00:30:03.359
That hurt dad.
00:30:03.440 --> 00:30:04.480
That hurt him beyond.
00:30:06.799 --> 00:30:10.160
When he passed away, a year or two later.
00:30:10.559 --> 00:30:12.960
And along come the whoops, Robert.
00:30:14.160 --> 00:30:15.279
Guess what?
00:30:15.599 --> 00:30:16.240
Boy.
00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:23.440
Dad would have given anything to heaven.
00:30:24.079 --> 00:30:25.039
Anything.
00:30:26.880 --> 00:30:29.359
So how could I not name him Robert?
00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:31.759
A dad's name.
00:30:32.960 --> 00:30:35.519
So the name became Robert Oliver.
00:30:35.839 --> 00:30:39.119
My dad and my wife's dad was Oliver.
00:30:39.519 --> 00:30:40.480
No question.
00:30:40.799 --> 00:30:41.440
Yeah.
00:30:42.079 --> 00:30:43.200
In honor of them.
00:30:43.359 --> 00:30:43.680
Yeah.
00:30:43.759 --> 00:30:46.079
How could you how could you possibly?
00:30:48.240 --> 00:30:51.680
So we went from him and he gone through gone through school.
00:30:51.920 --> 00:30:56.720
He's got a good job, he's doing fantastic.
00:30:56.960 --> 00:30:58.960
So I'm pretty proud, old man.
00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:00.079
Yeah.
00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:11.759
And I'm proud of all my grandkids, but my boys are if I hate to say this, but I've had to choose, it's my boys.
00:31:14.079 --> 00:31:14.799
You love them.
00:31:14.960 --> 00:31:16.880
They're my boys, they're the wit boys.
00:31:17.039 --> 00:31:17.680
Yeah.
00:31:18.880 --> 00:31:25.039
What goes through your mind when thinking about getting to live your whole life here within these five miles?
00:31:25.359 --> 00:31:25.920
Lucky.
00:31:26.079 --> 00:31:27.599
Very, very lucky.
00:31:29.279 --> 00:31:39.119
To uh to sit in that home I'm in and see the condition of so many people.
00:31:39.839 --> 00:31:44.240
I know some of those people that they the family don't even come in and see them.
00:31:45.039 --> 00:31:46.319
You you wonder.
00:31:47.440 --> 00:31:49.200
But you can't blame them.
00:31:49.279 --> 00:31:58.960
There's this one guy that's just all he does is holler out in the hall and run up and down the one hall or swings at everybody.
00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:05.279
And his poor little wife comes in there and says with him, I don't well I'd leave her.
00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:08.960
So I'm I'm very happy.
00:32:10.559 --> 00:32:13.359
Could be a lot, lot, a lot worse.
00:32:14.640 --> 00:32:15.279
Yeah.
00:32:15.839 --> 00:32:17.839
And I thank God for that.
00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:25.759
But I'm a good I'm I'm happy.
00:32:27.440 --> 00:32:28.160
That's good.
00:32:28.319 --> 00:32:28.960
That's good.
00:32:29.119 --> 00:32:32.079
Not bad for having grown up here.
00:32:33.279 --> 00:32:38.400
Rode Bronx, rode steers, raised a bunch of cattle, raised some kids.
00:32:39.279 --> 00:32:40.079
It's a good life.
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:41.519
Good life.
00:32:43.920 --> 00:32:46.079
Farmed land here.
00:32:46.480 --> 00:32:48.720
Farmed land at Drayton Valley.
00:32:48.960 --> 00:32:49.440
Oh wow.
00:32:49.680 --> 00:32:53.519
Had cattle in Dray Teeth Valley for 17 years.
00:32:55.039 --> 00:33:00.480
Dad and I went up there when he was about the last four or five years of his life.
00:33:00.799 --> 00:33:03.359
He was the one that found it, so went and bought it.
00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:06.480
And he loved it up there.
00:33:06.640 --> 00:33:14.720
I would I really like that country, but I never would have moved because the wife just didn't want to move out of this.
00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:16.400
She was a nurse.
00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:17.440
Yeah.
00:33:17.759 --> 00:33:19.119
So she wasn't going nowhere.
00:33:19.359 --> 00:33:20.000
Mine too.
00:33:21.119 --> 00:33:22.240
Good pick.
00:33:24.640 --> 00:33:26.880
Lost her six years ago.
00:33:28.960 --> 00:33:30.960
It shouldn't have happened, but it did.
00:33:31.119 --> 00:33:33.759
I don't know what I'm left for, but I'm here.
00:33:34.319 --> 00:33:35.839
I'm sorry that you lost her.
00:33:37.039 --> 00:33:42.240
What's a message that you want the next generation here in Airdrie to hear?
00:33:47.279 --> 00:33:57.119
I guess that I was raised here, my family was raised here, and we're proud to be Airby people.
00:34:00.319 --> 00:34:20.559
It was um very it's a good a good town, a good that the town expanded probably too fast, but it grew up beside a city, so we live in one of the best provinces in the Canada.
00:34:20.960 --> 00:34:25.599
Maybe the best in Canada, maybe the best in the world, just about.
00:34:44.960 --> 00:34:48.800
So I do it over again.
00:34:52.239 --> 00:34:54.159
That's all we all want to say at the end.
00:34:54.320 --> 00:34:54.480
Yeah.
00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:56.719
Like in the last chapter of the book.
00:34:56.880 --> 00:35:06.480
And that's I you can call me a little whenever you need to, but like what's the right way to talk about being 83?
00:35:06.880 --> 00:35:09.440
What should I be saying instead of calling it the last chapter?
00:35:09.599 --> 00:35:11.760
Because that's maybe that's not kind.
00:35:14.960 --> 00:35:17.039
I'm gonna live a lot longer, don't worry.
00:35:17.199 --> 00:35:17.760
Yeah, yeah.
00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:22.960
I keep telling everybody that I've been dead once for 15 minutes, and that's the truth.
00:35:23.119 --> 00:35:24.719
I had a heart attack.
00:35:24.960 --> 00:35:27.519
Everything was going just friend, fine.
00:35:28.079 --> 00:35:31.440
And uh I was really just getting good.
00:35:31.599 --> 00:35:34.480
That's heart surgery, everything was good.
00:35:35.519 --> 00:35:37.199
Albert was so called.
00:35:38.400 --> 00:35:40.239
Well, one night something happened.
00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:41.840
I had a little boom, boom here.
00:35:41.920 --> 00:35:42.960
I can remember this.
00:35:43.679 --> 00:35:45.280
And I said, What's that?
00:35:45.360 --> 00:35:47.920
And I go, Doc, oh nothing, nothing, nothing.
00:35:48.159 --> 00:35:59.599
Well, I guess they I guess I went to sleep and they phoned the the kids and said, Come and see your dad isn't gonna make it.
00:36:01.440 --> 00:36:03.679
Of course, I don't know nothing, I'm out.
00:36:04.800 --> 00:36:09.519
So I guess I did die for for about up to 15 minutes, they said.
00:36:09.760 --> 00:36:10.800
Most people would die.
00:36:11.599 --> 00:36:12.800
I was alive.
00:36:13.440 --> 00:36:18.639
But my mark, my son-in-law said the nurse just pushed on me gradually.
00:36:19.760 --> 00:36:23.440
And that hurt for a long time, that thing.
00:36:23.679 --> 00:36:26.239
Anyways, the morning came.
00:36:26.719 --> 00:36:29.840
My daughter had flown in, Marnie from Toronto.
00:36:30.079 --> 00:36:31.519
She was standing there.
00:36:32.960 --> 00:36:37.119
I wakes up, I looks over, I says, Marne, what are you doing here?
00:36:37.519 --> 00:36:40.400
And you can still see the grin on her face.
00:36:40.880 --> 00:36:45.199
Dad was supposed to be dead, and he was asking her what she's supposed to do.
00:36:45.440 --> 00:36:48.000
It didn't affect my mind, it didn't do nothing.
00:36:48.159 --> 00:36:51.199
I'm sharper than just about everybody my age.
00:36:52.559 --> 00:36:56.719
So lucky, God willing, I'm lucky, whatever.
00:36:56.960 --> 00:36:59.840
So that's why I'm here.
00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:02.480
I don't know why I'm here, but I'm still here.
00:37:02.800 --> 00:37:09.519
And I'm I got good family, good everything.
00:37:09.760 --> 00:37:10.320
Yeah.
00:37:10.559 --> 00:37:12.320
Well, and let's push on that.
00:37:13.119 --> 00:37:15.760
Do you think do you actually not know why you're here?
00:37:18.320 --> 00:37:21.119
I'm here because God allowed me to be here.
00:37:21.440 --> 00:37:22.719
Because I should have died.
00:37:22.800 --> 00:37:24.239
I should never have lived.
00:37:24.880 --> 00:37:31.360
Most people that ever die for up to 50.
00:37:31.679 --> 00:37:33.840
It's just they're brain dead.
00:37:34.639 --> 00:37:37.760
They maybe come out of it, but they're they're damaged.
00:37:38.800 --> 00:37:40.719
It didn't seem to fizz me at all.
00:37:40.880 --> 00:37:42.639
I think I'm smarter now than I was.
00:37:44.239 --> 00:37:45.360
Something got back in place.
00:37:45.679 --> 00:37:47.039
Something got twisted.
00:37:49.119 --> 00:37:51.119
But that's I guess that's why.
00:37:51.360 --> 00:37:52.000
Yeah.
00:37:52.320 --> 00:37:57.039
And I and last thing, I I jumped around the question about your wife.
00:37:57.199 --> 00:37:59.679
But like, tell me a bit about your wife.
00:38:00.800 --> 00:38:16.480
I only had her for brother, let's say 42 years, she passed away of Parkinson's, which was a horrible thing to live with.
00:38:16.960 --> 00:38:22.320
On her situation for 10 or 15 years, very hard on me to handle it.
00:38:23.440 --> 00:38:27.440
And she was all see, Parkinson's is a terrible thing.
00:38:27.920 --> 00:38:38.320
But one of the things we find out afterwards, all her intestines all were plugged up, and that's normal for Parkinson's, but we're never told that.
00:38:38.719 --> 00:38:42.480
So she got so plugged up, she just was solid.
00:38:43.360 --> 00:38:46.559
So we she was in all this pain.
00:38:47.679 --> 00:38:57.599
I got a friend that I met saw today who lost a friend very young, um, in her early mid-40s.
00:38:58.239 --> 00:39:04.800
That was too short, but like, do you have any comfort or what words do you say to those that lose someone too young?
00:39:07.840 --> 00:39:08.719
Not really.
00:39:10.079 --> 00:39:11.440
That's tough.
00:39:11.920 --> 00:39:13.280
It's tough.
00:39:14.880 --> 00:39:23.199
It's maybe the I think the the worst possible thing you can have is to lose a child young.
00:39:23.440 --> 00:39:27.840
And the next worst thing to have would be to lose a partner, young.
00:39:28.159 --> 00:39:32.719
I think, or I've been k and it happened to me.
00:39:35.280 --> 00:39:39.679
So I guess that's about all I can say.
00:39:41.679 --> 00:39:46.559
Recognizing it's tough and just saying that is that's okay, that's enough.
00:39:49.039 --> 00:40:10.960
Being able to uh empathize with their grief is um young people count your days, look after days they could be short all the rest to it.
00:40:11.199 --> 00:40:12.239
You don't know.
00:40:12.960 --> 00:40:18.079
You could live to a hundred, you could live to 40.
00:40:21.920 --> 00:40:28.639
But that's about all I can say.
00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:30.320
Okay.
00:40:30.800 --> 00:40:32.719
Yeah, that's that's really good.
00:40:32.880 --> 00:40:33.199
Thanks.
00:40:33.519 --> 00:40:35.360
Telling us to count our days is perfect.
00:40:35.760 --> 00:40:36.480
Thank you.
00:40:36.719 --> 00:40:37.840
Thanks so much.
00:40:38.159 --> 00:40:40.000
A little bit different way to wrap up.
00:40:40.159 --> 00:40:41.360
Thank you so much, Albert.
00:40:41.519 --> 00:40:42.079
Thanks for your time.
00:40:42.639 --> 00:40:44.320
Thanks for enjoying it.
00:40:44.480 --> 00:40:45.599
Yeah, me too.
00:40:45.840 --> 00:40:46.320
Me too.
00:40:46.559 --> 00:40:48.320
Thanks for joining us on Airdrean Summit.
00:40:48.480 --> 00:40:55.039
I've just been sitting here in Albert's son's garage here in Airdrie, learning a little bit about his life, about Airdrie.
00:40:55.360 --> 00:41:01.840
Glad that I can sit in for Chris Glass today, and we'll be back again with you for more great episodes of Airdrie and Summit soon.
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.959
I've been dead once for 15 minutes and that's the truth.
00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:04.559
I had a heart attack.
00:00:04.799 --> 00:00:07.360
Everything was going just friend, fine.
00:00:07.919 --> 00:00:11.279
And uh I was really just getting good.
00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:12.960
That's heart surgery.
00:00:13.199 --> 00:00:14.320
Everything was good.
00:00:14.720 --> 00:00:16.480
Well one night something happened.
00:00:16.559 --> 00:00:18.000
I had a little boom, boom here.
00:00:18.079 --> 00:00:19.199
I can remember this.
00:00:19.839 --> 00:00:21.519
And I said, What's that?
00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:24.160
And I go, Doc, oh nothing, nothing, nothing.
00:00:24.399 --> 00:00:32.880
Well, I guess they I guess I went to sleep and they phoned the kids and said, Come and see your.
00:00:33.759 --> 00:00:35.759
Your dad isn't gonna make it.
00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:39.840
Of course I don't know nothing, I'm out.
00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:45.759
So I guess I did die for for about up to 15 minutes, they said.
00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:47.359
Most people would die.
00:00:50.399 --> 00:00:52.159
Welcome to Airdrie Inside.
00:00:52.240 --> 00:00:53.679
My name is Britton Lettingham.
00:00:53.759 --> 00:01:02.000
Tonight we are in Robert DeWitt's garage, and we are doing a bit of a family history of Airdrie episode across from the table from me.
00:01:02.159 --> 00:01:04.560
I have Albert DeWitt, Robert's dad.
00:01:04.719 --> 00:01:07.920
And Albert, help help me know a bit about yourself.
00:01:08.079 --> 00:01:09.120
Where are you from?
00:01:11.359 --> 00:01:13.439
I was born in Calgary, I guess.
00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:15.920
Born and lived in all my life in Airdrie.
00:01:17.439 --> 00:01:28.159
I am I'm pretty sure I am the oldest person in Airdrie right now that started school in 1949.
00:01:29.760 --> 00:01:37.359
I went as I I didn't finish 1949 because I had a appendicitis attack.
00:01:37.599 --> 00:01:44.079
So I went back to school in 1950, and that's when I actually finished grade one.
00:01:44.319 --> 00:01:58.799
I don't know whether there was anybody else at that time in the school that I is around today, but in 1949 there was only a one-room classroom, and I know I'm the only one left.
00:01:59.439 --> 00:02:02.079
Now I don't say they're past, but they're gone.
00:02:02.319 --> 00:02:03.359
Most are past.
00:02:03.760 --> 00:02:06.719
Yeah, moved elsewhere, sadly past.
00:02:07.040 --> 00:02:07.760
That's right.
00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:11.199
What where was that one room classroom?
00:02:11.439 --> 00:02:15.439
Right where the Edris School now is, just over in the parking lot.
00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:22.879
And you're talking like the tri-school area, or isn't Edwards on the west side of Edras School?
00:02:22.960 --> 00:02:23.039
Yeah.
00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:25.439
There was a little single-wheel school.
00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:28.400
We stayed there for only one year.
00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:31.599
Then they had a two-room school beside it.
00:02:32.319 --> 00:02:44.240
I moved to the two-room school, stayed there until I'll guess grade six or seven.
00:02:45.360 --> 00:02:56.800
Then they built a new school, what we used to call the high school, and I'm pretty sure it's it would originally started right where the Edress School is now.
00:02:57.039 --> 00:02:57.520
Yeah.
00:02:57.759 --> 00:02:59.599
And that's as far as I went.
00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:02.479
Never got too far in school, grade nine.
00:03:02.879 --> 00:03:03.120
Okay.
00:03:03.599 --> 00:03:04.319
Grade nine.
00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:05.599
And then went to work.
00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:06.400
What'd you get into?
00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:09.680
Dad told me I had to go to work, so we went to work.
00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:13.360
And so were you on the farm at that point, or what yeah.
00:03:13.680 --> 00:03:15.759
Let me know, like where was the farm?
00:03:16.080 --> 00:03:17.199
West Eirdry.
00:03:17.759 --> 00:03:19.439
Five miles west of Eirdrie.
00:03:19.759 --> 00:03:20.080
Okay.
00:03:20.319 --> 00:03:23.759
Which is still out of city limits at this point, yeah.
00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:26.879
Yeah, it's still outside city about three miles.
00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:27.680
Yeah.
00:03:28.800 --> 00:03:43.039
So I spent my life there farming, did nuts uh with my dad until I was about 3940.
00:03:43.199 --> 00:03:44.240
Dad passed.
00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:52.159
Well that was a kick in the arse because I did not realize how much dad was needed.
00:03:53.039 --> 00:03:55.199
I thought I was doing all the work.
00:03:55.840 --> 00:03:58.080
But young guy wouldn't.
00:03:58.879 --> 00:04:04.719
But when he passed, and I didn't have him around, I didn't realize all the things he did.
00:04:05.840 --> 00:04:09.520
And he was well into his 70 about or how old?
00:04:09.919 --> 00:04:11.919
He was only 65.
00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:13.919
65 in a few days.
00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:15.680
He got one pension.
00:04:17.120 --> 00:04:18.399
Too young.
00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:22.720
And when dad gone, I mean I run the farm.
00:04:22.959 --> 00:04:25.279
We farmed together all our life.
00:04:25.680 --> 00:04:35.199
But when we everything, if the piece of equipment was broke down, I'd say to dad, go pick up this part.
00:04:35.839 --> 00:04:39.040
And I'd go take the piece of equipment apart.
00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:41.360
And he'd go for the part.
00:04:41.519 --> 00:04:44.480
And he was very smart at bringing back the right part.
00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:52.079
So we'd put the equipment back together, usually we're back running in half a day.
00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:57.360
So when Dad passed away, it all changed.
00:04:58.079 --> 00:04:59.680
Equipment breaks down.
00:05:00.959 --> 00:05:03.439
So we gotta, what are we gonna do?
00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:10.639
If I go to the fix the take the equipment apart, it all stops.
00:05:11.120 --> 00:05:15.199
So I send the wife for the part, never comes with the right part.
00:05:16.319 --> 00:05:26.160
So the so if I if I left the man to fix the equipment, when I come back, we couldn't put he couldn't put it back together.
00:05:26.399 --> 00:05:36.399
So it meant shutting it all down, take it apart, drive and get the part yourself because you got the right part, drove back and then put it together.
00:05:36.480 --> 00:05:38.160
You lost the whole day.
00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:40.639
That was the first thing I found out.
00:05:40.879 --> 00:05:43.600
And this is into the 70s.
00:05:43.839 --> 00:05:49.839
Yeah, I started farming when I was uh yeah, 70s.
00:05:50.079 --> 00:05:50.560
Yeah.
00:05:50.959 --> 00:05:51.839
Let's back up.
00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:54.560
You were five miles out of town, come to school.
00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:56.079
How'd you get to school?
00:05:56.879 --> 00:06:00.319
Well, I started on a little old one-ton bus.
00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:08.879
I drove, we probably it only held about eight, nine, ten kids just down each side.
00:06:09.759 --> 00:06:14.720
So we did it was a shorter route.
00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:20.800
We did graduate to a bigger bus like they have now, but that bus drove all over the country.
00:06:20.879 --> 00:06:22.399
It went west, it went east.
00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:23.360
It even went easier.
00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:27.040
We're an hour and a half before I got to school.
00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:30.399
That was some apple salt, but we made it.
00:06:32.079 --> 00:06:41.680
Um you were 14 or so when you quit school and went with 16.
00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:42.959
16, yeah.
00:06:43.279 --> 00:06:46.160
What yeah, this is grain and cattle?
00:06:46.399 --> 00:06:48.480
Help me understand a bit about that for you.
00:06:49.600 --> 00:06:55.279
I had I was my farm and was considered a a mixed farmer, I guess.
00:06:55.439 --> 00:07:02.480
I like to call myself a rancher because I love I'd rather chase cattle than shovel grain any day.
00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:04.160
But I did both.
00:07:04.480 --> 00:07:11.519
We had about 250 to 300 cattle between cows and feeder cattle.
00:07:12.079 --> 00:07:18.319
I fit I put in about 1200, 1300 acres of crop.
00:07:18.879 --> 00:07:21.279
I called myself a mixed farmer.
00:07:22.639 --> 00:07:28.720
When you you thought at the time, if if one didn't make money, the other would at least do better than the other.
00:07:29.360 --> 00:07:31.759
As I think back, that was probably a mistake.
00:07:31.839 --> 00:07:34.319
You should have specialized in one thing.
00:07:34.879 --> 00:07:36.480
But that's hindsight.
00:07:38.079 --> 00:07:45.600
I get my dad talking a bit about hindsight lately too, and like you just make your best choice and go with it.
00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:47.519
Yeah, you had to, you didn't know.
00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:48.000
Yeah.
00:07:48.480 --> 00:07:51.360
Dad had left me, I wasn't very old.
00:07:51.680 --> 00:08:06.000
Let's see, what was I when when I was 19, not even 20, dad bought land in my name, and I and the next year he said, You farm, I'm going to a Phoenix.
00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:07.040
And he did.
00:08:08.079 --> 00:08:12.000
So you learned to farm, or that was it.
00:08:13.279 --> 00:08:16.160
So I stayed home.
00:08:16.319 --> 00:08:18.399
I never left the farm.
00:08:19.839 --> 00:08:21.519
I worked all my life.
00:08:22.079 --> 00:08:25.920
I never missed a Christmas day for 25 years.
00:08:27.600 --> 00:08:29.680
Being home and feeding cattle.
00:08:29.920 --> 00:08:33.600
Now, yeah, I I I always had things done up.
00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:39.200
You could do them up the day before, so it didn't take long, but I still had to feed those cattle.
00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:41.440
They don't feed themselves.
00:08:41.759 --> 00:08:42.080
Yeah.
00:08:42.320 --> 00:08:46.799
And that was one of the things where you would have specialized in grain farming.
00:08:47.279 --> 00:08:49.360
You could have gone curl it all winter.
00:08:49.519 --> 00:08:50.399
I love to curl.
00:08:50.639 --> 00:08:51.600
Could have gone to Phoenix.
00:08:51.919 --> 00:08:53.200
Could have gone to Phoenix.
00:08:54.080 --> 00:08:56.559
I was a curla fan sports fan.
00:08:56.720 --> 00:08:58.480
I would have preferred to curl all winter.
00:08:58.639 --> 00:09:03.039
I would have been, I was close to a professional curler at those days.
00:09:03.519 --> 00:09:05.840
We come very close to winning.
00:09:06.559 --> 00:09:10.320
We were at a team that went to Southern Alberta three years.
00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:15.759
We never won down there, but we went there three times, which is out of Little Town of Airdrie is amazing.
00:09:15.919 --> 00:09:16.559
Yeah.
00:09:16.960 --> 00:09:18.799
I would have loved to have been that.
00:09:19.200 --> 00:09:20.399
So it was close.
00:09:20.559 --> 00:09:25.519
If they would have been paying money like now, we would have been really close to making money.
00:09:26.240 --> 00:09:28.399
And would have made an incentive to keep going.
00:09:28.639 --> 00:09:29.600
Exactly.
00:09:30.639 --> 00:09:35.759
But what I crawled a lot of years too many, played too much, too.
00:09:35.919 --> 00:09:41.840
So only playing I did was that well, and tell me a bit about that.
00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:44.240
Like that was your only downtime, your only play?
00:09:44.320 --> 00:09:45.360
Is that what you're saying?
00:09:45.600 --> 00:09:46.240
Yeah.
00:09:47.679 --> 00:09:52.080
Yeah, well, the winner, we had a good team.
00:09:52.320 --> 00:09:55.120
We had a good old skip that really knew the game.
00:09:55.279 --> 00:09:59.679
Like I played third all my life for him, and we we won a lot.
00:10:00.399 --> 00:10:03.039
We're lucky, lucky, but still.
00:10:05.039 --> 00:10:15.360
When you win, if you don't drink and party, you go to curl, not drink and party, you can get to win.
00:10:16.240 --> 00:10:19.519
Most of the old guys love to party first.
00:10:20.159 --> 00:10:22.639
Have a drink before they went on the ice.
00:10:23.759 --> 00:10:25.440
They're very easily beat.
00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:29.919
If you stayed sober, you had a better chance.
00:10:30.240 --> 00:10:31.360
That helped.
00:10:32.159 --> 00:10:35.279
What did you learn curling that you didn't learn farming?
00:10:36.879 --> 00:10:37.759
Good question.
00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:39.120
Good question.
00:10:42.879 --> 00:10:44.159
He got me there.
00:10:48.559 --> 00:10:50.960
You know, I can't really answer that one.
00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:56.320
I had to learn everything on the basically on the farm.
00:10:56.399 --> 00:10:59.279
I wasn't told much of my bat about my dad.
00:11:00.559 --> 00:11:03.279
He just kind of said, go at it, kid.
00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:06.720
The curlin, I taught myself.
00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:09.919
I had good people with me.
00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:12.320
Not much.
00:11:12.720 --> 00:11:13.360
Yeah.
00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:16.240
And I loved, that was the only sport I had.
00:11:17.679 --> 00:11:21.039
I didn't have time to play hockey much.
00:11:21.120 --> 00:11:23.120
I played hockey when I was young.
00:11:23.440 --> 00:11:25.279
But curling took over quit.
00:11:25.679 --> 00:11:28.000
Because, oh, yeah, now I know why.
00:11:28.159 --> 00:11:30.480
We could get artificial ice to curlin.
00:11:30.879 --> 00:11:37.039
The old hockey ice was on natural ice, and you about every time the game came up, there was no ice.
00:11:37.120 --> 00:11:39.840
It was chinook come over the hole.
00:11:39.919 --> 00:11:41.039
We didn't get to play.
00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:46.000
So as soon as you got to where you could play inside, where was that artificial ice?
00:11:46.080 --> 00:11:47.039
That's where you went to.
00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:47.919
Yeah.
00:11:48.159 --> 00:11:49.440
And Jensen.
00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:52.480
Not Jensen, sorry, town and country center.
00:11:52.639 --> 00:11:54.080
That's a mid-70s era build.
00:11:54.399 --> 00:11:55.440
Yeah, that was built.
00:11:55.679 --> 00:12:00.399
We built we there was a curl rink right beside the old post office.
00:12:01.440 --> 00:12:02.320
Two sheets.
00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:10.639
Played there for about at least 10 years, maybe then moved up to the town and country.
00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:11.840
Yeah, yeah.
00:12:12.080 --> 00:12:13.120
That makes sense.
00:12:13.759 --> 00:12:20.000
And were you involved with any of those like the the Plainsman kind of group of building committee and stuff?
00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:22.480
Or like tell them did you know any of those guys?
00:12:22.559 --> 00:12:23.919
Or no.
00:12:24.480 --> 00:12:25.120
Yeah.
00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:29.360
All I really knew was the curlin committee.
00:12:29.679 --> 00:12:38.559
When the when uh town of country first opened up, it was only four sheets.
00:12:39.759 --> 00:12:41.840
And we failed it in the first year.
00:12:42.080 --> 00:12:42.639
Boom.
00:12:42.720 --> 00:12:44.159
We went from two to four.
00:12:44.399 --> 00:12:46.480
Curling really came popular.
00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:53.759
So we we played for about I'd say four or five years, but they expanded to eight sheets.
00:12:54.960 --> 00:13:01.279
And it's always been it went up to Crossfield or curl little and not town.
00:13:01.360 --> 00:13:02.799
Just the curlin died.
00:13:02.960 --> 00:13:04.480
I don't know why.
00:13:06.799 --> 00:13:10.240
So when would have been the last time you curled?
00:13:11.600 --> 00:13:18.320
Well, I went in, I requit for a while, and then I went in and tried this new curlin called Stick Curlin.
00:13:18.480 --> 00:13:18.879
Yes.
00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:21.759
I played that for 10 years and I loved that too.
00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:22.799
Good on you.
00:13:22.960 --> 00:13:27.519
I played with an old fellow by the name of Elmer.
00:13:28.240 --> 00:13:30.159
He played on a scooter.
00:13:30.639 --> 00:13:30.799
Okay.
00:13:31.360 --> 00:13:32.879
Amazing how good he was.
00:13:33.039 --> 00:13:33.360
Yeah.
00:13:33.679 --> 00:13:46.960
He sat on a scooter, he played on a scooter, he shot off from a scooter, and he went to represent Alberta to Manitoba when he was, I'll guess, 60 years old.
00:13:47.200 --> 00:13:53.039
So when I walked into the rink, I showed him my I already showed him my curl.
00:13:53.360 --> 00:13:58.399
Bang, we just clicked like that, and I curled it together with him until he passed away two years ago.
00:13:58.480 --> 00:14:05.919
And then I got sick, so I would like to try it again, but I don't think I can handle it.
00:14:06.320 --> 00:14:10.080
But you played that last 10 years was up until just a couple of years ago?
00:14:10.320 --> 00:14:10.720
Yes.
00:14:10.960 --> 00:14:11.519
That's good.
00:14:11.679 --> 00:14:13.919
What did that do for you, being able to curl again?
00:14:14.320 --> 00:14:14.879
Great.
00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:15.360
Yeah.
00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:25.120
You went to the curlin rink, and it was full of old people that couldn't had stiff legs and stiff backs, and they just loved it.
00:14:25.440 --> 00:14:27.519
They just were in their glory.
00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:30.240
And most of them weren't too bad.
00:14:30.639 --> 00:14:31.279
Right?
00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:32.720
Yeah, actually.
00:14:32.960 --> 00:14:33.600
Yeah.
00:14:33.919 --> 00:14:34.799
Still the same.
00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:40.159
Some of the women were as good as the men because they learned to push the stick just as easy.
00:14:40.799 --> 00:14:41.440
Yeah.
00:14:41.759 --> 00:14:42.639
Good on you.
00:14:42.799 --> 00:14:43.440
Yeah.
00:14:43.919 --> 00:14:44.480
Yeah.
00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:48.799
And so now you don't have that outlet, but what do you what do you look forward to now?
00:14:48.879 --> 00:14:51.200
What's what's an outlet that you keep going?
00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:56.879
Well, staying alive, I guess.
00:14:57.440 --> 00:14:59.840
I'm in a senior's home there now.
00:15:00.879 --> 00:15:05.120
The poor old people I I f I f do feel.
00:15:05.519 --> 00:15:07.600
I think I'm hard done by you see.
00:15:08.080 --> 00:15:13.919
But when you start looking around in that home, my goodness the people.
00:15:15.279 --> 00:15:19.840
They're just from most of them got don't even know where they are.
00:15:20.559 --> 00:15:28.480
The ones that do are if they they remember something one day, they forget the next day.
00:15:29.200 --> 00:15:35.200
Some are honory, some cause fights until they get locked in their rooms.
00:15:40.159 --> 00:15:43.519
Attempt to basically hit other people.
00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:52.720
And the food in there and what they're fed is I just won't even talk about it.
00:15:54.960 --> 00:15:58.240
What the government does is terrible.
00:15:59.679 --> 00:16:01.360
But I'm lucky.
00:16:01.919 --> 00:16:03.039
I feel good.
00:16:03.279 --> 00:16:04.320
I'm diabetic.
00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:05.759
I'm not too bad.
00:16:07.039 --> 00:16:10.480
It's uh good.
00:16:10.720 --> 00:16:15.200
I uh got a couple, I got a good friend in there.
00:16:15.360 --> 00:16:17.440
We I've learned to play pool again.
00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:19.440
Yeah, that's good.
00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:24.399
And we're pretty good pool players.
00:16:24.480 --> 00:16:27.600
We're not no pros, but we have a lot of fun together.
00:16:27.759 --> 00:16:36.320
We play eight ball and uh we can come close to running the ball tables, not quite.
00:16:37.039 --> 00:16:40.480
But we've same eight five, six, seven shots without a miss.
00:16:42.559 --> 00:16:46.879
If we had smaller tables, I think we could run a set of balls.
00:16:47.120 --> 00:16:47.679
Yeah, yeah.
00:16:47.919 --> 00:16:52.639
And it's really even he wins, I win, he wins, so we have good competition.
00:16:53.519 --> 00:17:08.480
And he's a determined, he has to go at 1015 every morning, 1015, and I don't mean 1016, I mean 1015, and I'm sitting there chewing on my whatever.
00:17:09.839 --> 00:17:10.960
He wants you there.
00:17:11.599 --> 00:17:13.599
No, but that was good.
00:17:13.680 --> 00:17:14.240
It was good.
00:17:14.319 --> 00:17:17.759
It it makes me get the lead out of my ass and go, you know.
00:17:19.039 --> 00:17:23.119
Um, speaking of lead, you got this truck behind you.
00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:25.440
You were telling me a story about it earlier.
00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:26.720
Whose truck is this?
00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:30.240
And let's let's learn about this truck from your perspective a little bit, please.
00:17:30.559 --> 00:17:38.000
Well, this old truck behind me is a 1946 GMC.
00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:41.599
It was owned by my dad.
00:17:43.440 --> 00:17:44.720
We bought it.
00:17:45.119 --> 00:17:51.119
I'll say we bought it new, I don't know for sure, but we had it to 1954.
00:17:52.319 --> 00:17:53.680
Then we traded it off.
00:17:53.759 --> 00:17:59.279
We it just had a little wee box on it, and we're grain farmers and and cattle far.
00:17:59.759 --> 00:18:02.559
It was more for cattle because you could get more in the box.
00:18:02.799 --> 00:18:09.279
Traded it for another neighbor for a 1954 long box.
00:18:10.640 --> 00:18:13.839
So that's the last I seen in 1954.
00:18:15.359 --> 00:18:21.359
Three years ago, my brother-in-law was looking in the paper and he says, Isn't that your old truck?
00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:26.240
So I looked in the paper and I said, Yeah, I think it is.
00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:30.160
So we jumped in his truck and was at Red Deer.
00:18:30.799 --> 00:18:32.640
25 below zero again.
00:18:32.720 --> 00:18:34.559
We always pick the beautiful days.
00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:41.359
We're going up the highway with his diesel truck, and boom, boom, she starts to quit.
00:18:42.640 --> 00:18:46.720
Here's an old guy cannot want, not much better one driving.
00:18:47.200 --> 00:18:50.960
The old dog for chugging.
00:18:51.279 --> 00:18:54.720
But we made her up there, and I don't know why we're lucky.
00:18:55.680 --> 00:19:01.680
So he finds his truck in the back alley of a street in Red Deer, snow all over.
00:19:02.480 --> 00:19:14.799
And I looked at this truck, and I knew instantly it was Mars, because it had the name on the side, but it had the little nook in the hood where the dad had hit it with a rifle.
00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:19.759
So I looked at it, I knew instantly it was ours.
00:19:20.960 --> 00:19:24.480
So then we start the process of buying it.
00:19:25.039 --> 00:19:26.640
Well, this is pretty good.
00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:28.880
Me being I owned it.
00:19:30.400 --> 00:19:34.480
I would have paid anything to have it, but keep your mouth shut.
00:19:35.920 --> 00:19:38.400
So he he goes to tell me the history.
00:19:38.720 --> 00:19:40.319
No, we made a deal.
00:19:40.480 --> 00:19:41.759
He wanted 5,000.
00:19:41.839 --> 00:19:43.519
I offered him 2,000.
00:19:43.759 --> 00:19:47.759
Ended up at 2,500, which I was very happy with.
00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:49.200
So the deal was made.
00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:51.279
Then he goes to tell me the history.
00:19:51.519 --> 00:19:52.960
I says, Hold it.
00:19:53.279 --> 00:19:54.799
See that sun on there?
00:19:54.960 --> 00:19:55.599
That's me.
00:19:55.759 --> 00:19:57.599
You should have seen that guy's face.
00:19:57.759 --> 00:19:58.799
He just went.
00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:02.000
You didn't tell him that first.
00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:03.759
No, didn't tell him first.
00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:06.079
That's part of the dealing.
00:20:06.319 --> 00:20:07.680
No bit it's part of the deal.
00:20:08.720 --> 00:20:14.400
So we drove the old truck home, pulled the old truck home on a trailer, and it went from there.
00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:16.319
And you can see what Robert's done to it.
00:20:16.799 --> 00:20:19.759
Yeah, yeah, we'll have some talk about this shortly.
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:22.960
That's um yeah.
00:20:23.119 --> 00:20:27.599
Well, and there's work that you guys did and that your family name is known for.
00:20:27.759 --> 00:20:31.119
You still got land in the name or the pond in the name.
00:20:31.599 --> 00:20:36.720
Well, we don't have much land in the DeWitt name.
00:20:37.839 --> 00:20:40.720
It's but my sister still owns somewhere.
00:20:40.960 --> 00:20:41.599
Yeah.
00:20:42.160 --> 00:20:46.400
And she's a becker, and I tried to get her to come today just to help me talk a little.
00:20:46.480 --> 00:20:49.039
Because she knows the damn, but she wouldn't come.
00:20:49.759 --> 00:20:51.279
We'll try her again, maybe.
00:20:53.359 --> 00:20:57.599
She could answer a lot of questions I can, but I can answer pretty anything you want to know.
00:20:57.759 --> 00:20:58.240
Yeah.
00:20:58.559 --> 00:21:03.039
What I understand you got your hands in building that pond.
00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:05.200
Could you catch me up on that?
00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:07.200
Let's go back.
00:21:07.279 --> 00:21:08.799
We'll try and remember.
00:21:09.839 --> 00:21:10.559
19.
00:21:14.319 --> 00:21:16.000
Say 65.
00:21:17.920 --> 00:21:18.559
Yeah.
00:21:19.119 --> 00:21:27.119
Um Uncle George built that pond for the what's it called?
00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:27.680
I forget.
00:21:27.839 --> 00:21:40.319
Anyways, what it was built for, the in case there was ever a shortage of water down the creek, you could open the dam and give some water down the creek to cattle like and stuff, eh?
00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:45.599
So they built it when we were all kids.
00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:46.880
I can remember being there.
00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:48.000
My cousin worked on it.
00:21:48.079 --> 00:21:59.759
I can't say I worked on it, but my cousins want so then when the it never was never used with like the the house and still.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:05.599
The road they went and opened the gates one time and it lost all the water down because they couldn't close it.
00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:07.920
The water gate up and not down.
00:22:08.079 --> 00:22:08.160
Yeah.
00:22:08.799 --> 00:22:09.279
Oh no.
00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:11.359
So they finally got it reclosed.
00:22:11.599 --> 00:22:16.720
It built up again because there was it was spring loaded from the from from DeWitt's pond.
00:22:17.039 --> 00:22:18.720
Little pond up at the house.
00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:22.720
So not much more.
00:22:22.799 --> 00:22:22.960
Oh.
00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:25.599
It was darn near killed in that pond.
00:22:25.759 --> 00:22:27.440
I mean, darn near killed.
00:22:28.640 --> 00:22:31.519
Big Denver, my cousin and I were ducking.
00:22:32.160 --> 00:22:36.160
And we were sneaking up over the both of the shotguns.
00:22:37.359 --> 00:22:43.279
He stumbled, and we put a hole in the ground right there, right in front of me.
00:22:43.599 --> 00:22:44.960
I won't forget that.
00:22:45.119 --> 00:22:47.599
I could see this boom, and there's a hole.
00:22:47.759 --> 00:22:48.799
He could have killed me.
00:22:48.880 --> 00:22:51.359
He was I was that far from being shot.
00:22:53.680 --> 00:22:53.920
Yeah.
00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:56.079
Never fished in the pond.
00:22:56.319 --> 00:22:56.880
No, eh?
00:22:57.200 --> 00:22:59.279
No, I never threw a rod in it.
00:22:59.519 --> 00:23:00.240
How come?
00:23:02.480 --> 00:23:05.519
I honestly don't know because I like to fish a little bit.
00:23:05.839 --> 00:23:07.200
Okay, I'll tell you why.
00:23:07.440 --> 00:23:12.319
They had a little pond up at the buildings, which was about a half a mile up where it started.
00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:14.319
So we always fished there.
00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:18.480
Because we had it stocked, stocked fish, it was easier to catch them.
00:23:19.119 --> 00:23:22.960
But there's quite a few people went fishing out there.
00:23:25.519 --> 00:23:31.440
But when they stole the land, Uncle George stole the land.
00:23:32.240 --> 00:23:36.640
So the Fish and Game Association wanted to keep this pond.
00:23:38.079 --> 00:23:41.119
So he says, okay, I will give you the land.
00:23:42.079 --> 00:23:44.880
This little four-acre fish pond.
00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:47.839
And that's why it got named Dewey's Pond.
00:23:48.400 --> 00:23:51.839
Because really it's it's DeWitt's property.
00:23:52.079 --> 00:23:52.640
Yeah.
00:23:52.960 --> 00:24:00.559
But it was pulled out of the title, which was very hard to do, but because it was fishing aim, it was approved.
00:24:02.079 --> 00:24:09.519
So you needed it for watering cattle and having or what did yeah, what was the that was the idea, but it was never used, it was just built.
00:24:09.680 --> 00:24:10.000
Yeah.
00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:11.519
Was supposed to be.
00:24:13.039 --> 00:24:20.079
So if the down creek there was no, there was, say, there was not a water, there was pasture cattle at that time, and they needed water.
00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:22.240
Never was used for that.
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:23.200
Yeah.
00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:26.400
There's did you guys ever suffer for water?
00:24:26.720 --> 00:24:27.279
Yeah.
00:24:27.599 --> 00:24:28.000
Good.
00:24:28.240 --> 00:24:29.359
That was good years.
00:24:29.519 --> 00:24:31.119
No, there's lots of water.
00:24:31.279 --> 00:24:33.519
I don't know whose idea that was.
00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:38.400
And Uncle George was good enough to let to build a dam on his property.
00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:40.240
That's because he was a sportsman.
00:24:40.319 --> 00:24:45.200
He loved to hunt and he liked animals, so I could see why.
00:24:47.039 --> 00:24:58.480
Dad and Uncle George both owned the lama one time, but a few years before that, Dad came up um two miles north and they bought some land there and they separated.
00:24:58.559 --> 00:24:59.839
That's all I know.
00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:00.880
Yeah.
00:25:01.359 --> 00:25:03.839
I even personally I'm trying to figure out.
00:25:04.079 --> 00:25:07.359
It's like I told you I'm from Saskatchewan, South Regina.
00:25:09.519 --> 00:25:11.200
Pennington is the name of the town.
00:25:14.480 --> 00:25:15.119
I know Wavern.
00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:15.359
Yeah.
00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:16.400
I'm just teasing it.
00:25:17.119 --> 00:25:18.400
We're Saskatchewan, right?
00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:20.000
You messed with me earlier about that.
00:25:20.079 --> 00:25:20.240
Yeah.
00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:20.559
Yeah.
00:25:20.720 --> 00:25:21.920
We're all from Saskatchewan.
00:25:23.839 --> 00:25:31.519
Um trying to figure out the same thing about yeah, there's not a lot of land left in our name anymore, which I have to come to terms with.
00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:33.039
But yeah, for yourself.
00:25:33.839 --> 00:25:35.839
Does it mean anything having the pond in the name?
00:25:35.920 --> 00:25:38.480
Or like, yeah, what goes through your mind nowadays?
00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:39.759
Not really.
00:25:40.799 --> 00:25:41.359
Honestly.
00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:45.039
Because I wasn't really involved in it.
00:25:45.519 --> 00:25:45.920
Yeah.
00:25:46.160 --> 00:25:49.119
More other people seem to talk about it, I think, than I do.
00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:50.079
Yeah.
00:25:50.960 --> 00:25:52.960
What does legacy look like at this point?
00:25:53.039 --> 00:25:54.960
Like, where do you where do you look for that?
00:25:57.039 --> 00:25:57.839
Good question.
00:25:57.920 --> 00:25:58.319
I don't know.
00:25:58.559 --> 00:25:59.039
Reek.
00:26:01.599 --> 00:26:03.440
Well, what do you really mean by that?
00:26:03.680 --> 00:26:04.240
Legacy.
00:26:04.799 --> 00:26:05.039
Ah.
00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:10.799
Well, I think there's even like you talked about you call your grandson Ducky.
00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:11.599
Well, yeah.
00:26:11.839 --> 00:26:12.240
Yeah.
00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:14.880
Tell me a bit about your family here.
00:26:15.119 --> 00:26:15.440
Oh.
00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:19.759
Look into the next generations that you got you raised up.
00:26:20.559 --> 00:26:22.720
Well, I've got a son.
00:26:23.680 --> 00:26:25.599
I have two daughters.
00:26:26.319 --> 00:26:28.799
They all have their own families.
00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:36.640
My oldest daughter has a daughter, Juliana.
00:26:36.880 --> 00:26:38.400
She's about 25.
00:26:39.119 --> 00:26:40.240
27, 28.
00:26:40.640 --> 00:26:41.440
Oh God.
00:26:42.400 --> 00:26:43.839
I've lost a few years then.
00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:51.359
And anyways, her son, and he's 20, he's 25 then.
00:26:52.559 --> 00:27:00.160
He's just finishing his last big exam for his accounting.
00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:03.039
Yeah, but he what's the math called?
00:27:04.880 --> 00:27:05.440
CA?
00:27:05.759 --> 00:27:06.319
Yeah.
00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:09.359
Which is a chartered accountant.
00:27:09.839 --> 00:27:11.119
Chartered accountant, I guess.
00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:18.559
And that's that's about a five or six hour exam next Thursday.
00:27:20.400 --> 00:27:22.799
So we gotta believe for him to make it.
00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:26.640
It'll be tough because it's a fantastic job.
00:27:28.079 --> 00:27:32.160
Now we'll go down to my next girl, Marnie, her name is.
00:27:33.440 --> 00:27:42.960
She's got a boy through university in his second year working with Price Waterhouse Cooper.
00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:57.839
The little herd girl is in I think she's in her fourth year, third year in Montreal's uh what university is that Guelph?
00:27:59.440 --> 00:28:00.720
I don't know for sure.
00:28:01.279 --> 00:28:01.839
University?
00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:02.319
Yeah.
00:28:02.559 --> 00:28:03.759
I think it's Guelph.
00:28:04.799 --> 00:28:06.720
She's in Montreal, anyways.
00:28:07.519 --> 00:28:09.359
Doing her last year.
00:28:12.319 --> 00:28:18.559
And her math, her husband, is Price Waterhouse's Coosburg's vice president.
00:28:19.119 --> 00:28:19.839
Very cool.
00:28:20.079 --> 00:28:22.319
He's got a whale of a job, too.
00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:23.200
Yeah.
00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:24.640
It's a hard job.
00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:26.880
He's never home, the poor guy.
00:28:27.119 --> 00:28:29.920
He's always flying around the world doing something.
00:28:30.160 --> 00:28:32.720
But he's about ready to retire, I think.
00:28:33.759 --> 00:28:34.720
Who knows?
00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:38.319
He's got a lot of work.
00:28:39.440 --> 00:28:41.759
Then I'm down to my third.
00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:43.279
He's sitting over here.
00:28:43.519 --> 00:28:44.400
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:44.880 --> 00:28:47.519
He's got two little guys.
00:28:49.839 --> 00:28:54.319
Maverick, Dawkins, Ducklin, Daclin, I call him a ducky.
00:28:55.759 --> 00:28:56.960
And they're off.
00:28:58.480 --> 00:28:59.759
Oh brother.
00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:05.440
Thirteen and eleven am I right?
00:29:05.839 --> 00:29:06.640
Mom and Dad.
00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:08.559
Pretty good guess from the old guy.
00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:09.359
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:12.720 --> 00:29:15.119
And there's there are my DeWits.
00:29:15.599 --> 00:29:16.240
Yeah.
00:29:17.839 --> 00:29:19.519
They're the only DeWits.
00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:22.559
Common.
00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:30.720
I had DeWit brother, two DeWit cousins, and there's no boys, come on.
00:29:30.960 --> 00:29:31.519
None.
00:29:32.240 --> 00:29:33.519
And he had two.
00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:38.480
That means a lot to me.
00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:45.839
Because I remember when I my dad passed.
00:29:47.119 --> 00:29:51.920
And I had a I was having my family and I had one girl.
00:29:52.720 --> 00:29:55.279
And of course dad wanted a boy.
00:29:56.400 --> 00:30:00.319
Of course, along come the third girl, second girl.
00:30:02.400 --> 00:30:03.359
That hurt dad.
00:30:03.440 --> 00:30:04.480
That hurt him beyond.
00:30:06.799 --> 00:30:10.160
When he passed away, a year or two later.
00:30:10.559 --> 00:30:12.960
And along come the whoops, Robert.
00:30:14.160 --> 00:30:15.279
Guess what?
00:30:15.599 --> 00:30:16.240
Boy.
00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:23.440
Dad would have given anything to heaven.
00:30:24.079 --> 00:30:25.039
Anything.
00:30:26.880 --> 00:30:29.359
So how could I not name him Robert?
00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:31.759
A dad's name.
00:30:32.960 --> 00:30:35.519
So the name became Robert Oliver.
00:30:35.839 --> 00:30:39.119
My dad and my wife's dad was Oliver.
00:30:39.519 --> 00:30:40.480
No question.
00:30:40.799 --> 00:30:41.440
Yeah.
00:30:42.079 --> 00:30:43.200
In honor of them.
00:30:43.359 --> 00:30:43.680
Yeah.
00:30:43.759 --> 00:30:46.079
How could you how could you possibly?
00:30:48.240 --> 00:30:51.680
So we went from him and he gone through gone through school.
00:30:51.920 --> 00:30:56.720
He's got a good job, he's doing fantastic.
00:30:56.960 --> 00:30:58.960
So I'm pretty proud, old man.
00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:00.079
Yeah.
00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:11.759
And I'm proud of all my grandkids, but my boys are if I hate to say this, but I've had to choose, it's my boys.
00:31:14.079 --> 00:31:14.799
You love them.
00:31:14.960 --> 00:31:16.880
They're my boys, they're the wit boys.
00:31:17.039 --> 00:31:17.680
Yeah.
00:31:18.880 --> 00:31:25.039
What goes through your mind when thinking about getting to live your whole life here within these five miles?
00:31:25.359 --> 00:31:25.920
Lucky.
00:31:26.079 --> 00:31:27.599
Very, very lucky.
00:31:29.279 --> 00:31:39.119
To uh to sit in that home I'm in and see the condition of so many people.
00:31:39.839 --> 00:31:44.240
I know some of those people that they the family don't even come in and see them.
00:31:45.039 --> 00:31:46.319
You you wonder.
00:31:47.440 --> 00:31:49.200
But you can't blame them.
00:31:49.279 --> 00:31:58.960
There's this one guy that's just all he does is holler out in the hall and run up and down the one hall or swings at everybody.
00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:05.279
And his poor little wife comes in there and says with him, I don't well I'd leave her.
00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:08.960
So I'm I'm very happy.
00:32:10.559 --> 00:32:13.359
Could be a lot, lot, a lot worse.
00:32:14.640 --> 00:32:15.279
Yeah.
00:32:15.839 --> 00:32:17.839
And I thank God for that.
00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:25.759
But I'm a good I'm I'm happy.
00:32:27.440 --> 00:32:28.160
That's good.
00:32:28.319 --> 00:32:28.960
That's good.
00:32:29.119 --> 00:32:32.079
Not bad for having grown up here.
00:32:33.279 --> 00:32:38.400
Rode Bronx, rode steers, raised a bunch of cattle, raised some kids.
00:32:39.279 --> 00:32:40.079
It's a good life.
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:41.519
Good life.
00:32:43.920 --> 00:32:46.079
Farmed land here.
00:32:46.480 --> 00:32:48.720
Farmed land at Drayton Valley.
00:32:48.960 --> 00:32:49.440
Oh wow.
00:32:49.680 --> 00:32:53.519
Had cattle in Dray Teeth Valley for 17 years.
00:32:55.039 --> 00:33:00.480
Dad and I went up there when he was about the last four or five years of his life.
00:33:00.799 --> 00:33:03.359
He was the one that found it, so went and bought it.
00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:06.480
And he loved it up there.
00:33:06.640 --> 00:33:14.720
I would I really like that country, but I never would have moved because the wife just didn't want to move out of this.
00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:16.400
She was a nurse.
00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:17.440
Yeah.
00:33:17.759 --> 00:33:19.119
So she wasn't going nowhere.
00:33:19.359 --> 00:33:20.000
Mine too.
00:33:21.119 --> 00:33:22.240
Good pick.
00:33:24.640 --> 00:33:26.880
Lost her six years ago.
00:33:28.960 --> 00:33:30.960
It shouldn't have happened, but it did.
00:33:31.119 --> 00:33:33.759
I don't know what I'm left for, but I'm here.
00:33:34.319 --> 00:33:35.839
I'm sorry that you lost her.
00:33:37.039 --> 00:33:42.240
What's a message that you want the next generation here in Airdrie to hear?
00:33:47.279 --> 00:33:57.119
I guess that I was raised here, my family was raised here, and we're proud to be Airby people.
00:34:00.319 --> 00:34:20.559
It was um very it's a good a good town, a good that the town expanded probably too fast, but it grew up beside a city, so we live in one of the best provinces in the Canada.
00:34:20.960 --> 00:34:25.599
Maybe the best in Canada, maybe the best in the world, just about.
00:34:44.960 --> 00:34:48.800
So I do it over again.
00:34:52.239 --> 00:34:54.159
That's all we all want to say at the end.
00:34:54.320 --> 00:34:54.480
Yeah.
00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:56.719
Like in the last chapter of the book.
00:34:56.880 --> 00:35:06.480
And that's I you can call me a little whenever you need to, but like what's the right way to talk about being 83?
00:35:06.880 --> 00:35:09.440
What should I be saying instead of calling it the last chapter?
00:35:09.599 --> 00:35:11.760
Because that's maybe that's not kind.
00:35:14.960 --> 00:35:17.039
I'm gonna live a lot longer, don't worry.
00:35:17.199 --> 00:35:17.760
Yeah, yeah.
00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:22.960
I keep telling everybody that I've been dead once for 15 minutes, and that's the truth.
00:35:23.119 --> 00:35:24.719
I had a heart attack.
00:35:24.960 --> 00:35:27.519
Everything was going just friend, fine.
00:35:28.079 --> 00:35:31.440
And uh I was really just getting good.
00:35:31.599 --> 00:35:34.480
That's heart surgery, everything was good.
00:35:35.519 --> 00:35:37.199
Albert was so called.
00:35:38.400 --> 00:35:40.239
Well, one night something happened.
00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:41.840
I had a little boom, boom here.
00:35:41.920 --> 00:35:42.960
I can remember this.
00:35:43.679 --> 00:35:45.280
And I said, What's that?
00:35:45.360 --> 00:35:47.920
And I go, Doc, oh nothing, nothing, nothing.
00:35:48.159 --> 00:35:59.599
Well, I guess they I guess I went to sleep and they phoned the the kids and said, Come and see your dad isn't gonna make it.
00:36:01.440 --> 00:36:03.679
Of course, I don't know nothing, I'm out.
00:36:04.800 --> 00:36:09.519
So I guess I did die for for about up to 15 minutes, they said.
00:36:09.760 --> 00:36:10.800
Most people would die.
00:36:11.599 --> 00:36:12.800
I was alive.
00:36:13.440 --> 00:36:18.639
But my mark, my son-in-law said the nurse just pushed on me gradually.
00:36:19.760 --> 00:36:23.440
And that hurt for a long time, that thing.
00:36:23.679 --> 00:36:26.239
Anyways, the morning came.
00:36:26.719 --> 00:36:29.840
My daughter had flown in, Marnie from Toronto.
00:36:30.079 --> 00:36:31.519
She was standing there.
00:36:32.960 --> 00:36:37.119
I wakes up, I looks over, I says, Marne, what are you doing here?
00:36:37.519 --> 00:36:40.400
And you can still see the grin on her face.
00:36:40.880 --> 00:36:45.199
Dad was supposed to be dead, and he was asking her what she's supposed to do.
00:36:45.440 --> 00:36:48.000
It didn't affect my mind, it didn't do nothing.
00:36:48.159 --> 00:36:51.199
I'm sharper than just about everybody my age.
00:36:52.559 --> 00:36:56.719
So lucky, God willing, I'm lucky, whatever.
00:36:56.960 --> 00:36:59.840
So that's why I'm here.
00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:02.480
I don't know why I'm here, but I'm still here.
00:37:02.800 --> 00:37:09.519
And I'm I got good family, good everything.
00:37:09.760 --> 00:37:10.320
Yeah.
00:37:10.559 --> 00:37:12.320
Well, and let's push on that.
00:37:13.119 --> 00:37:15.760
Do you think do you actually not know why you're here?
00:37:18.320 --> 00:37:21.119
I'm here because God allowed me to be here.
00:37:21.440 --> 00:37:22.719
Because I should have died.
00:37:22.800 --> 00:37:24.239
I should never have lived.
00:37:24.880 --> 00:37:31.360
Most people that ever die for up to 50.
00:37:31.679 --> 00:37:33.840
It's just they're brain dead.
00:37:34.639 --> 00:37:37.760
They maybe come out of it, but they're they're damaged.
00:37:38.800 --> 00:37:40.719
It didn't seem to fizz me at all.
00:37:40.880 --> 00:37:42.639
I think I'm smarter now than I was.
00:37:44.239 --> 00:37:45.360
Something got back in place.
00:37:45.679 --> 00:37:47.039
Something got twisted.
00:37:49.119 --> 00:37:51.119
But that's I guess that's why.
00:37:51.360 --> 00:37:52.000
Yeah.
00:37:52.320 --> 00:37:57.039
And I and last thing, I I jumped around the question about your wife.
00:37:57.199 --> 00:37:59.679
But like, tell me a bit about your wife.
00:38:00.800 --> 00:38:16.480
I only had her for brother, let's say 42 years, she passed away of Parkinson's, which was a horrible thing to live with.
00:38:16.960 --> 00:38:22.320
On her situation for 10 or 15 years, very hard on me to handle it.
00:38:23.440 --> 00:38:27.440
And she was all see, Parkinson's is a terrible thing.
00:38:27.920 --> 00:38:38.320
But one of the things we find out afterwards, all her intestines all were plugged up, and that's normal for Parkinson's, but we're never told that.
00:38:38.719 --> 00:38:42.480
So she got so plugged up, she just was solid.
00:38:43.360 --> 00:38:46.559
So we she was in all this pain.
00:38:47.679 --> 00:38:57.599
I got a friend that I met saw today who lost a friend very young, um, in her early mid-40s.
00:38:58.239 --> 00:39:04.800
That was too short, but like, do you have any comfort or what words do you say to those that lose someone too young?
00:39:07.840 --> 00:39:08.719
Not really.
00:39:10.079 --> 00:39:11.440
That's tough.
00:39:11.920 --> 00:39:13.280
It's tough.
00:39:14.880 --> 00:39:23.199
It's maybe the I think the the worst possible thing you can have is to lose a child young.
00:39:23.440 --> 00:39:27.840
And the next worst thing to have would be to lose a partner, young.
00:39:28.159 --> 00:39:32.719
I think, or I've been k and it happened to me.
00:39:35.280 --> 00:39:39.679
So I guess that's about all I can say.
00:39:41.679 --> 00:39:46.559
Recognizing it's tough and just saying that is that's okay, that's enough.
00:39:49.039 --> 00:40:10.960
Being able to uh empathize with their grief is um young people count your days, look after days they could be short all the rest to it.
00:40:11.199 --> 00:40:12.239
You don't know.
00:40:12.960 --> 00:40:18.079
You could live to a hundred, you could live to 40.
00:40:21.920 --> 00:40:28.639
But that's about all I can say.
00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:30.320
Okay.
00:40:30.800 --> 00:40:32.719
Yeah, that's that's really good.
00:40:32.880 --> 00:40:33.199
Thanks.
00:40:33.519 --> 00:40:35.360
Telling us to count our days is perfect.
00:40:35.760 --> 00:40:36.480
Thank you.
00:40:36.719 --> 00:40:37.840
Thanks so much.
00:40:38.159 --> 00:40:40.000
A little bit different way to wrap up.
00:40:40.159 --> 00:40:41.360
Thank you so much, Albert.
00:40:41.519 --> 00:40:42.079
Thanks for your time.
00:40:42.639 --> 00:40:44.320
Thanks for enjoying it.
00:40:44.480 --> 00:40:45.599
Yeah, me too.
00:40:45.840 --> 00:40:46.320
Me too.
00:40:46.559 --> 00:40:48.320
Thanks for joining us on Airdrean Summit.
00:40:48.480 --> 00:40:55.039
I've just been sitting here in Albert's son's garage here in Airdrie, learning a little bit about his life, about Airdrie.
00:40:55.360 --> 00:41:01.840
Glad that I can sit in for Chris Glass today, and we'll be back again with you for more great episodes of Airdrie and Summit soon.
