Page 22 - A Visit with Herman Murphy, Ingonish

ISSUE : Issue 62

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1993/1/1

We got up the next morning, and they were frozen that stiff that we had a hell of a job to get our legs down in it. Now, we got breakfast, and we got down and get the horse, and feed him, and wait around for him to have a bite. He could get lots of hay in the night. And all he'd need to do was eat a gallon of oats in the morning. And start away. And during the night it had changed from rainstorm to northwest, and a blizzard, that you couldn't see a hundred feet ahead of you. And we had to walk back that 5 miles to where we had left the sleigh the day before, face that right back there that Sunday morning! Herman laughing. Oh boy. And I got all of $90 a month for that. Buy two horses, and feed them, hired help, and pay the stabling in Neil's Har? bour and everything else, for $90 a month! (And wonderful places to stay!) Well, there was no central heating in these days. There was nothing but just your coal stove down below, or your wood stove. Once the fire went out--there was no insulation in the buildings, you know, not a thing at all. And when we got up in the morning, that's right, our breeches were froze that hard we had a job to get our legs down in them! We swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Our Service Bay Diagnostic System always tells the truth. SBDS hooks right up to your vehicle so that you and your mechanic both know exactly what's wrong. Quickly and accurately. SBDS also provides a detailed print-out of the problem. So all you find on your bill is the truth. seni/'icE E But the truth doesn't have to hurt. n WE SERVICE ANY FORD OR MERCURY CAR OR TRUCK. AND WE DO IT FASTER THAN ANYONE! WE MADE THIS $40,000.00 INVESTMENT SO THAT WE CAN FIX IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. PLAZA LINCOLN MERCURY SALES LTD. 33 TERMINAL ROAD SYDNEY, NOVA SCOTIA 567-1616 And then to get out and face 5 miles back, into that. And that was mostly all over a barren they had burned off years before that. I suppose there was 3 1/2 miles of it anyway was barren, burned off, and nothing but just a blizzard. (That's just to get the mail through.) Just to get the mail through. (What year are we talking about?) That would be about 19-and-35 (You drove mail through the Depression years. Pretty rough times.) It was just about as rough as it is today. Yes, that was the time, in the '30s, they made the road between Cape North and Pleasant Bay--over the mountain there. Before that, it was on? ly a footpath. In wintertime they had a trail cut up over the mountain there, and a dogteam used to bring the mail from Cape North over to Pleasant Bay. And in the '30s, the early '30s--up till '33 or '4 or some? thing like that--while I was on the road, on the mail--it was hard to get a job anywhere. So the government put on a program to put that road through from Cape North over the mountain, over North Mountain. They would take, say, from Glace Bay, 15 men. From Wa- terford take 15 men. From Sydney or Louisbourg, or North Sydney, take another 15. They'd have about 150 men down on that North Moun? tain. And they'd leave them there for two weeks. To give them something to do, you know, for to help them out. They would be there for two weeks, and then they would have to go home, and they'd get a new crowd in. They'd scatter the work as much as possible--get a new crowd in for two weeks. There was one time there was a bunch of them got down there for two weeks. Oh, I was on the mail. I used to help a lot of them back and forth. I'd be go? ing through, you know, and they'd be walking. All travelling in these years, there was no cars, there was no anything like that, because it was all--in win? tertime it was--foot travel was the only thing. And I used to help a lot of them along. But there was one day I was coming back. And I had--oh, I went down ear? ly in the morning. And it came very, very mild, from the last day of March. And Dan MacDowell, who was sup? posed to meet me about 9 or half past 9 in the morning, he never got through till WE HAVE A FLEET OF 12 LOAN VEHICLES THAT YOU CAN RESERVE FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE.

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