From Coal Oil Lights to Satellites
Memoirs of a Haliburton County Redneck
Ray Miller
Introduction
I believe there have been greater technical and environmental changes during my lifetime than in any other time in known history.
I will attempt to take you through these changes by relating interesting experiences during my life. You will notice the changes taking place as you read. It will become evident that there is gradually more money, fantastic inventions, and more travel as vehicles and roadways improve.
Every chapter is an event that actually occurred, based entirely on memory, verified by entries in my Father's, Mother's and my own diaries. I have vivid recollection of things as they happened.
About Me
I was born on May 25, 1937 in a house on a dirt (not gravel) road between Minden and Kinmount, Ontario, Canada, to a couple struggling through the Depression, with rumours of another war on the horizon. I was the youngest of four children. Hazel was then 16, Floyd 9, and Mabel 5.
We were not sheltered from the real things in life as children. My parents often said, "If they're old enough to ask the question, they are old enough to know the answer." We were not told that storks delivered babies. We were present when animals produced their young, and often were called upon to assist at a very early age. I helped turn a calf in the birth canal when I was seven, and the procedure was explained as we went. We were not sheltered from the breeding process either.
Slaughter was a way of life. We raised animals so we would have meat.
War was not kept a mystery. Our soldiers went to war, where they would be shot at and could be killed. If I didn't understand what was happening when news came of the war, my parents would take time to explain it. There is no need to lie to children. Lies only have to be explained later, and they cause a child to distrust everyone.
During my pre-school years, we had to make use of all sources of food or income in order to survive. My parents sometimes spoke of a time before my birth when they went to town to do the weekly shopping with ten dozen eggs, which they hoped to trade to the local grocer, and fifty-eight cents. This was all the money they had to their name at that time.
We lived on two hundred acres of which only thirty was workable for agricultural purposes. The remainder was woodland or pasture, and like most of Haliburton County, consisted of a thin layer of sod clinging to rock. Indeed, as I look back now, the land that we cultivated was only a few inches of soil with rocks showing above ground in several places. We would work the fields for crops, and many stones appeared. We would pick those by hand and pile them where the land was not workable. Although the fields are grown up now with trees, these stone piles are still evident.
Everyone in the neighbourhood was the same. No one had much, but friends and neighbours worked together for a united cause. That cause was survival. There was no jealousy or envy. Neighbours admired each other and were happy to help each other get ahead in any way possible.
Times were tough, but thanks to hard work, which the family shared, we never went to bed hungry, and there was always a trace of humour to cheer us through rough times.
Things are better now; people have many more material things. Nevertheless, I sometimes look back and cherish the simpler life of my childhood.
Ray Y.C. Miller, Author.
