Page 18 - Dan Alex MacLeod "I Moved Houses"

ISSUE : Issue 35

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1983/12/1

(Did you have any schooling that would have prepared you for this?) Grade 7. I was started in September in Grade 8, and my uncle and his wife died in November, and we had 10 cows and 3 horses and 30 sheep--just my grandfather there, 1918. He'd be--what?--78. He'd be a year younger than I am now. My father had died when I was a kid. I was only--what?--14 years then, 1918. So, that was the end of my schooling. (Your mother was up in Boston at the time.) Yeah. She had to go and earn money. See, everybody was poor then. She had to go and earn money. She came home when my uncle died, and his wife. But she didn't know a thing about farming, she had never been on a farm. All she was doing was worrying. I'd go to the woods. We had a pretty snappy black mare. I'd load the firewood on. The mare used to run away on me and come home, and I wouldn't be there. I'd meet my mother halfways home, going out looking to see what happened to me. We moved a service station from Inverness to Baddeck. That was a big job. That was pretty close to the fall, there was ice on the road. So, the owner wasn't ready to set it up for the winter, you know. So, when we'took it there, we were going to leave it there all winter. Oh, it was up, we didn't want to put it back down on the ground. You know, we'd have to jack it up again. So we brought it over. Then we got 6-by-6s and we drove them in the ground this way--nailed them to it--this way-- that way--we braced it so it was there. And the motel was up above--you know, on the hill? I was having breakfast here one morning after a storm, and the roof had blown off the motel, and I was listening to hear what happened to that service sta? tion. It never moved. We put it there so it couldn't move. Another time we took a house up to Murphy Road, and got along okay. Then we came back and got another one, the same kind. We got over to Coxheath--there was a big cable coming up from the hollow here, go? ing across the road, only 11 feet from the bank of the road, that's all the height it was off the ground. So, I called the Power Commission. Oh, they'd see what they could do tomorrow. I said, "You've got to see it within the hour." "No, can't." "Well," I said, "we'll hit it." "Oh, there's so many volts on." "I don't care how many," I said, "I'll hit that so fast, boy, and it will come down." And I said, "I'll give you one hour to be here." I said, "You should be put in jail for a wire only 11 feet, if it's high tension, like you were saying." I'll bet you in half an hour there were 5 trucks there. And he wasn't going to come for us till next day. We always were careful. But they've got to move wires. I don't know, I think they've changed the law. But at that time, if you gave them 24 hours notice, they had to move them. See, when those wires were put across the road, there was an act--if it's not changed in the last 15 or 20 years-- where anything was going through the road, they had to move the wires to let that thing through. It didn't say "house," or anything, but that was the act. They weren't to block the road with those wires. Now, I don't know if that's changed today or not. That'd be hard, to move houses on roads today. Traffic is so much heavier. You're dealing with a different class of people. We could see that, the last years we were moving. When we were moving first, people wanted to get out of your way--you know, they were courteous. Later years, they weren't. I think they want to do things the hard way for you. The only thing I know is, if you move a house, it's got to go on the third founda? tion. Pretty near, I'd say, 80% of the houses we moved, we moved them the second time, or somebody moved them the second time, or they had been moved before we moved them. They've got to go on the third foundation--why, I don't know. And I al? ways said, when we'd be moving a house, it'd be moved again. And a lot of the houses we moved were moved again. Some day I'm going to go over it. I've got a diary, you know. Since January 1, 1935, WINTER HOURS: 7.30 A.M. TO 9.00 P.M. Bonnie Jean Restaurant Home-Cooked Meals with Fresh Vegetables Gift Shop Groceries and Meats On Highway 105 near the Seal Island Bridge Isle Royale Beverages Ltd, Coke. (18) Your authorized COCA-COLA bottler 564-8130 526-4439 245 Welton Street Sydney. N. S. VHS Tapes, Movie & VCR Rentals, Yamaha Audio, Video Accessories, Commodore VIC 20 Computers, Panasonic B&B; Video Ltd. SALES & RENTALS PORT HAWKESBURY CENTRE 625-3150 '''' Homes Are Our Business iKl Kent Homes ??'E=B Builders, of: '''''' HEARTHSTONE COMPONENT HOMES KENCRAFT MINI HOMES KENT MODULAR HOMES For further information, contact your Area Manager: 322 Welton St. Sydney, N. S. 539-4219 Main St., Dartmouth, N. S 434-7600 46 Robie St., Truro, N. S. 895-2879 P. 0. Box 3456, Station "B", Saint John, N. B 657-5550 P. 0. Box 50, Buctouche, N. B. 743-2482 P. 0. Box 355, Kentville, N. S. 678-6330 1229 Regent St., Fredericton, N. B 455-2732 P. 0. Box 956, Bathurst, N. B. 546-3274

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