Page 17 - Dan Alex MacLeod "I Moved Houses"

ISSUE : Issue 35

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1983/12/1

moving. Agent in North Sydney, I gave them a pretty salty letter. I said, "I've paid insurance for--I think it was 8 years." I said, "I never collected one 50 from you. And now," I said, "after paying all that money, I don't have any protection." I knew they weren't supposed to refund money but I told them, "You should refund some of my.money." No, they stopped insuring them. Well, you'd be responsible, you know (Did I hear once that a woman baked bread inside while you moved her house?) No, she cooked supper. We were moving right along and they cooked supper. That was nothing. (You must have left the flues up in those.. Pipe. The minute we took a flue down, we had to put pipe up. In all the houses we moved--if the people were living in them. The people cooked supper. That was up in Loch Lomond. We went in and had supper with them. You know, once you got loaded, you had lots of rubber under those houses. You wouldn't even notice it. But there was one house. We were putting it on the foundation. Well, that's tricky business. You know, the foundation is up, and something might break, a cable might break or something. I went in the house, and the stove was red hot--she had 2 or 3 little kids--red hot, and hot water on it, and everything else. I was telling her, "You're crazy." I said, "If a cable breaks, that house'11 go back." I knew this wouldn't happen, but I was trying to scare her. It didn't bother her a bit. No troub? le. Oh, moving houses is a challenge, you know. Every house you move is different. It's a challenge. When we jacked up houses to put a foundation under them--we used to do that, too--block foundations--we discon? nected the sewer and the water and jacked them up. And then we got a tube--a truck tube or a car tube--and put it on the pipe, for the sewer. They could still use the sewer. They stayed up in the house--they never got out of it. See, the sill is here, the other sill is over here. That house can go like that, but it wouldn't move off our rails, it'd still be there. Oh, we had good jacks; we'd raise a house up pretty fast. We got some of our equipment from VJinnipeg and some of it from Halifax. (How did you know what to get?) Oh, I don't know. Up here, I guess. (You keep saying, "Up here," but you're not bom with that knowledge, or are you?) Oh, I think so. (You were sort of born with the ability to figure out how to move buildings?) Oh yeah, I think so. I think everybody's born with the ability to do something. If he puts it to work. (And you think that's kind of a talent that's God- given rather than learned?) Yeah, I think, so. (You never did any reading up on it?) Well, what could you read? Did you ever see anything written on moving buildings? I never did. Never even heard of it. Well, I was reading about a fellow that was mov? ing buildings--I think it was in the pa- per--a fellow just like myself. And they were going to move something--it had some? thing to do with the army. And he figured the blocks, and all this, the amount of tons and all this that was going to be on the gear for pulling it. And engineers went in there--and he was perfect. He had it. Now, that was out of here (indicating his head). ' CONTINUED NEXT PAGE Qualified Dispensers Always in Attendance OWL DRUGSTORE Daniel T. McKeough, Proprietor Convalescent and Sick Room Supplies Sales & Rental Drug Sundries and Cosmetics Located on Commercial Street, or write to P.O.Box 125 794-3611 North Sydney ALWAYS AT YOUR SERVICE CHICKEN CHALET fried Soutlets to serve you- C.B. Shopping Plaza, Sydney River Sydney Shopping Mall, Prince St. Blowers St., North Sydney Sterling Mali, Glace Bay Piummer Aye., New Waterford

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