Cape Breton's Magazine

But when we decided--I thought I talked him into it, anyway--about going on tele? vision with Lloyd Maclnnes. And he said, "What'11 we put on?" So that's when I de? cided on the overalls. Because he saw them and I saw them, you know, the old fellows used to come in town. (You wore the old neckties and plaid shirts.) But it worked. Like I say, we'd walk out on a stage and just stand there, and look them over and--they were laughing and clapping. It's a great feeling, you know. 'Cause I see people really work hard, you know. (To get laughs, you mean.) Yeah. And the people are there like this (arms folded, silent), you know, waiting. Nothing worse. If you walked out and nothing--no reaction from the people. It's 10 times harder to get going. When you walk out on the stage and people start this--Allan claps--right off the bat before you open your mouth--you're in, you're laughing. Hughie was about 7 or 8 years older than me. So, I'm going on 80, he'd be going on 88 or somewhere around there if he were alive. I was pretty well shook up over it. You know, we were--Allan chucicles--like Hughie said, "Well, remember the night we slept together in that hotel?" We actually did! We got in a one-horse town, which wasn't on the schedule.... We were (based) in To? ronto. And we ended up going to 5 differ? ent towns. Somebody'd come up and see us at the show in Toronto, and, "How much omsGoim We're only 560 kilometres from stem to stem, but boast more than 7,360 kilometres of secluded beaches, secret coves and quiet coastal inlets where you can get away from it all. Couldn't you use a little of this right now? will you take to come to this place, and that place?" We went to 5 different towns. And one of them--the hotel--we laughed. It's the only way we could stay there--we laughed about it, we were so tired. Talk about a crummy joint. You never saw the like in your life. We didn't get to sleep for hours, because Hughie started--he couldn't help it, he was just full of dev? ilment all the time anyway. "Are you asleep?" "No, no. I can't get to sleep." "Me neither. You having trouble with the things that are crawling around?" Well, you know what happens then, you can't sleep! He said, "My God!" he said, "they're doing a construction job here." "What do you mean?" He said, "Two of them, trying to build a bridge from one cheek over to the other cheek!" The stuff he would come up with was price? less. Oh, 3 o'clock in the morning we were still laughing. Finally, we must have fal? len asleep; we were exhausted. And when we looked around the room when we got up in the morning, I said, "If my wife saw me sleeping here, she wouldn't let me in the house!" (We played) every schoolhouse and church hall and auditorium, in every town in Cape Breton. Down North and up to Hawkesbury and all--every-where that you could go, in any direction, we were there. (Were you usually the only thing on the show?) Well, no, in most cases--after we were going for awhile we found out, you know, two hours is a lot of stuff. So we just said, we'll have to just tell the people, now, "Have some musicians there, and some singers." (But you would do two hours sometimes.) Oh, yeah. This was brand new, you know. Bertha (Allan's wife) was--I told you before, I think-- Call for your FREE 304 page Travel Guide and your FREE Adventure Package Catalogue. And start planning your trip back to nature. 1-800-565-0000 operator #196 NOVA SCOTIA Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation Great IVIusic from Cape Breton! Winston "Scotty" Fitzgerald "Classic Cuts" Compact Disc: $19.95 • Cassette Tape: $11.95 22 medleys (49 tunes) from the man who set the standard for the fiddle in Cape Breton • See Order Form on Page 75 •