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To mark Canada’s sesquicentennial, the Citizen’s Bruce Deachman met and photographed 150 people in the Ottawa area, encouraging them to tell their stories that, combined, painted an intimate portrait of the region and the people who live, work and play here. The series, which was published daily leading up to Canada Day, was called Capital Voices. It continues on a somewhat less rigorously defined schedule.
“I started farming when I was 15, because my dad needed some help at home so I quit school. Just down 8th Line Road, about five kilometres from here. I sold the farm when I was 60, five years ago. I’ll be 65 in December. I was there for 45 years and raised three daughters. I built a house next door. And I’m still married to the same woman. Got married in 1978, so it’ll be 40 years next year.
“It was a dairy farm, between 60 and 80 cows, and then cash crops. It had its ups and downs like everything else, but my kids are healthy … we lucked out pretty good.
“But big stories … I don’t have any big stories. I played a lot of sports till I was about 35.”
Is that where the jacket is from, the Current Addition?
“Yeah, it was a fastball team in Ottawa that I played for a few years until I got too old, I guess — 28 or 29. But the jacket still fits. My wife said, ‘Put on your jacket. If you can still walk around with it, you’re doing all right.’ I also played some hockey when I was younger — Junior-B hockey. That was about it, really, and I worked most of the other time.
“Now we’re doing a lot of travelling. Been to Europe. We go to Florida every year now. We went to Denmark and Holland this year. And we do a road trip every year, usually, around Canada.
“We started travelling pretty much when I turned 60. We never had time to do that before. Farming was seven days a week, technically. When my kids were younger, my wife took them on holidays in the summer. It’s one of those jobs where if you went to a wedding at three o’clock, you had to go to the reception because you were milking the cows at three. Your life is dictated by cows. Any dairy farmer will tell you the same thing. They’re on a schedule: you milk them 12 hours apart. Some people milk three times a day; I didn’t. I just did it twice. We used to start at quarter after three in the morning, because the guys I had working for me had young kids and, in the winter especially, if we milked at quarter after three in the morning, we could milk at quarter after three at night. So then we could actually spend some time with our families.
“And to this day … I haven’t milked cows for 12 or 13 years, but I still get up at 3:30 in the morning. I drive all the way into town, at Conroy and Hunt Club, and have a coffee with guys at the Esso. There are seven or eight of us. And the girl that works there, she doesn’t open until 5:30, but for us she opens at 4:30, so she comes out and shoots the gab with us till 5:30, then we all leave. I’ve been doing that my whole life.
“And then I come out to Metcalfe for 6:30 and have breakfast with the same guys every morning. But not the same guys I have the coffee with. I always tell them they’re too cheap to buy coffee downtown. Been doing that for 15 years. Just a lot of lies every morning. Then I go for my five-kilometre walk every morning, rain or shine — except if it’s freezing rain or snow. I started that when I was 50, because I wasn’t doing the milking and all that stuff.
“I got out of farming without getting hurt. With milking cows, most of the time people’s knees are shot, but it never affected me for some reason. But that’s pure luck. And I have healthy kids and everything’s good. I’m very happy.”
— Del Armstrong, Metcalfe, Sept. 29, 2017.
bdeachman@postmedia.com
查看原文...
“I started farming when I was 15, because my dad needed some help at home so I quit school. Just down 8th Line Road, about five kilometres from here. I sold the farm when I was 60, five years ago. I’ll be 65 in December. I was there for 45 years and raised three daughters. I built a house next door. And I’m still married to the same woman. Got married in 1978, so it’ll be 40 years next year.
“It was a dairy farm, between 60 and 80 cows, and then cash crops. It had its ups and downs like everything else, but my kids are healthy … we lucked out pretty good.
“But big stories … I don’t have any big stories. I played a lot of sports till I was about 35.”
Is that where the jacket is from, the Current Addition?
“Yeah, it was a fastball team in Ottawa that I played for a few years until I got too old, I guess — 28 or 29. But the jacket still fits. My wife said, ‘Put on your jacket. If you can still walk around with it, you’re doing all right.’ I also played some hockey when I was younger — Junior-B hockey. That was about it, really, and I worked most of the other time.
“Now we’re doing a lot of travelling. Been to Europe. We go to Florida every year now. We went to Denmark and Holland this year. And we do a road trip every year, usually, around Canada.
“We started travelling pretty much when I turned 60. We never had time to do that before. Farming was seven days a week, technically. When my kids were younger, my wife took them on holidays in the summer. It’s one of those jobs where if you went to a wedding at three o’clock, you had to go to the reception because you were milking the cows at three. Your life is dictated by cows. Any dairy farmer will tell you the same thing. They’re on a schedule: you milk them 12 hours apart. Some people milk three times a day; I didn’t. I just did it twice. We used to start at quarter after three in the morning, because the guys I had working for me had young kids and, in the winter especially, if we milked at quarter after three in the morning, we could milk at quarter after three at night. So then we could actually spend some time with our families.
“And to this day … I haven’t milked cows for 12 or 13 years, but I still get up at 3:30 in the morning. I drive all the way into town, at Conroy and Hunt Club, and have a coffee with guys at the Esso. There are seven or eight of us. And the girl that works there, she doesn’t open until 5:30, but for us she opens at 4:30, so she comes out and shoots the gab with us till 5:30, then we all leave. I’ve been doing that my whole life.
“And then I come out to Metcalfe for 6:30 and have breakfast with the same guys every morning. But not the same guys I have the coffee with. I always tell them they’re too cheap to buy coffee downtown. Been doing that for 15 years. Just a lot of lies every morning. Then I go for my five-kilometre walk every morning, rain or shine — except if it’s freezing rain or snow. I started that when I was 50, because I wasn’t doing the milking and all that stuff.
“I got out of farming without getting hurt. With milking cows, most of the time people’s knees are shot, but it never affected me for some reason. But that’s pure luck. And I have healthy kids and everything’s good. I’m very happy.”
— Del Armstrong, Metcalfe, Sept. 29, 2017.
bdeachman@postmedia.com
查看原文...
