Cape Breton's Magazine

you could negotiate--there would be a thousand people there. (Was that a way of doubling your money, or selling your crop early and maybe make a killing?) That's right, it was a gamble on the crop. (Fu? ture market.) Futures market, that's what it was. My grandfather was more a businessman than my father. He was buying and selling the land. My father--he was a more person-- gives his shirt away. Raised a family, happy where he was. But we were growing up, you see, there was no room. We would say, "Dad, plant this or that." Because the bulbs were (a) set amount. We would say, "Why don't you get that piece of land INNER VISIONS, OUTER VOICES An Anthology of Cape Breton Poetry Inner Visions, Outer Voices represents the first published anthology of Cape Breton poetry. It contains poems by poets, both accomplished and aspiring, from 9 to 95, across more than a century of writing. Farley Mowat has described the book as "A vigorous, earthy, sometimes funny and sometimes tragic evocation of the human heart playing the poetic measure in Cape Breton." The Anthology is available in local retail stores or from the UCCB Press. (Hard Cover $17.95 - Available from UCCB Press Only) Soft Cover $11.95 For further information or to order now, contact: University College of Cape Breton Press P.O. Box 5300, Sydney, N.S. BIP 6L2 Tel. (902) 539-5300, Ext. 146 there, even pay a little more for it, anc put a crop of strawberries in. Or carrots." I'll never forget the day I passed him at doing the work. I watch that now in the young people, too--if somebody beats me, enjoy it, especially the new generation, because that's the ideal. And Father, of course, being in the business 34 years-- you're growing up, you're 15 and 16, you were just behind him, sometimes a lot of work, you know what I mean? It's just lik anything else. But from the day--"Ah! I got beat!" he would say. But he'd laugh b himself, because that's the ideal anyway, isn't it? That somebody beats you to it, especially the next generation. Because that makes them so much stronger. Because it encourages this bit of competitiveness of being--well, as parents, you know, the relationship, I guess. (Where's your mother in all this?) My mother--I know other farms, other friends of mine, where they would be on the old (kind of) husbandry. The women would be more involved, like looking after the pig and chickens. This type of work was all hard work. Now, Mother would clean the bulbs in the wintertime. These bulbs all had to be cleaned and counted--that would be part of her work. But she was not in? volved very much in farm. Well, (families) would say, 5 and age. And ''%rB' '''' • --''r I A DREAM I ' r"'!!'......:'' INTO u''mmtTTTT iJ IV reality K MART PLAZA i&VUtmnX; Kitchens Plus "the onlif name you need to know" raised mostly between, I 10 children on an aver- everything was done by hand-- there was no washing machine, and they were very clean--those washes were a ritual of 2, 3 days. Had to be bleached and hanged out, and on the lawn in the summertime. All ironed, everything had to be ironed. They made it hard on themselves, you know? And all the cooking and preserving. A lot of these women, unless their marriage was happy and there was enough to make ends meet, a lot of women in the past generation, they were slofies. we say in Dutch. You know, worn-out persons. Strained.... You know how our mothers were-- between raising 5 or 10 chil? dren, and washing by hand, pre? serving. I still can't stand it, throwing all the paper away. The bags were saved, we used the fertilizer bags, and they'd be all turned inside out, and coats made of it. I was 12, 14 years old before I saw a new shirt.. It was always hand-me-down, and turned inside out, and sewn. (And this was all your mother's work.) Yes. We had to be very thrifty to make ends meet, ap-