Page 88 - Donnie MacDermid of Margaree Valley: "It could have been worse!"

ISSUE : Issue 73

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1998/6/1

making boxes for R.B. Jamieson's fish plant, down there. Fillet box? es. Putting them together. Nailing the sides and ends in them, eh? And the bottoms in them. Now, I'll never forget that. Mermaid Brand Fil? lets. That's what they were called. And of course, you had to get--the ends and everything on the sides was all stamped. And you had to get them all right, you know. If you got one side upside down, or an end up? side down, you didn't get paid for that box. You only got paid for three- quarters of a cent, anyway, for the box. For putting that together. Sev? enty-five cents a hundred. (Seventy- five cents a hun? dred? Three- quarters of a cent a box. Big money.) Big money. Well, you know. I did make a couple of weeks pay that's pretty good there. (But you never stopped.) Well. I guess, no. Like I say, the first day I was there, I was work? ing beside this guy. He was called- name. Great big tall twelve kids, making fed them. But he was You should see that The Underground House That Donnie Built Here are four snapshots of steps in the building of the underground house that the MacDermids live in today. The portion that is aboveground can be seen on page 87. That's only a small part of the dwelling. Shown below, clockwise from upper left: laying out the footers on the floor of the excavation; the walls of concrete blocks show the shape of the rooms; the house being roofed over before the earth is pushed back; and a portion of the greenhouse section that lets light into the house below. (Now, Donnie, you have to tell me honestly • when you first brought the kJea to your wife that you wanted to bulW a house underground, what was the response?) Donnie: She didn't like It. She don't like it yet, I don't think. Doris: Said I'll be underground tong enough! Donnie: I'll tell you, there's a lot of advantages to it. One thing, it's very draft-free, you know. It's very soundproof too. You don't hear traffic, trucks rolling up and down the road • you never hear them. We used to have neighbours here with barking dogs, you never hear them either. Don't hear anything. Even thunder? storms • got to be a pretty bad one before you hear it down there. You see the lightning flashes, but the thunder, you don't really hear it very heavy down there. So K's got a bt of advantages. (You were taking a big risk here. First, your wife wasn't that excited about living underground. Then, you want? ed her to work on it!) Well, her and my daughter, lives next door here • she helped me too. She'd carry the rocks to me and I'd put them up, after supper every evening, and Saturdays and that, if I wasnl working. That's what we dkl. And I suppose a few on Sundays too, likely. Whenever there were a few minutes to spare, we'd put up some rocks. And I had some of the fellows, when I was running the shop then at the time • some of the fellows from the shop used to come down and help, too. I had lots of help. We got it done, anyway. Took us all summer. We start? ed in March, and we moved in • what • ?November, was it? Doris: No. We moved in the 14th of September. Donnie: September. See, everything is concrete blocks, between the rooms and everything. There's a tot of exposed btock, you see, to condense. Of course, once I covered it over with the styrofoam and gyprock, that stopped all that. So it's become very comfortable. Very easy to warm. Like I say, you can almost warm it with an argument! Doris: Lots of them. Donnie: A few of them. But anyway, we lived through it. Bernard Long was his fellow. He brought up boxes like this. And a terrific nailer. guy drive a nail. He was just like a machine. Just like a riv? eter going across the end of that box. And of course, he is here right beside me. Boy that looks easy. And of course, I tried it, eh. Well, I'll tell you. I had fingers Riverside Cleaners COIN LAUNDROMAT • KINGS ROAD, SYDNEY Quality Drycleaning Complete Sewing Service WE BUY AND WE SELL AND WE'RE AS NEAR AS YOUR TELEPHONE Sid's Used Furniture Phone 564-6123 436 Charlotte Street, Sydney Real Estate & Insurance "If you're thinking of selling your home, give us a call." Serving Industrial Cape Breton and North Victoria R. Hickey & Co. p. O. Box 96, North Sydney B2A 3M1 Gerald Brennan Jr., IVIgr. "And remember: No sale, no charge." 794-3119

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