Life North of the 54th

Transcript

• 00:00 - Growing Up
• 17:24 - Young and Careless
• 31:24 - Newlyweds
• 46:33 - A Growing Family

00:00 - Growing Up

Opening Theme Music:
[bass guitar riff]

Garett:
Welcome to Life North of the 54th. I'm Garett Brown.

Preston:
And I'm Preston Brown and we're grateful to have you on our show. Today with us we have Ronald Brown. He is our father and we'll let him give a little introduction for himself.

Ron:
Well thank you. Thanks for having me on the show. I'm Ronald Brown. I'm Garett and Preston's dad. I've lived north of the 54 a little bit. It's great to have two young men doing a little podcast like this and to include me on it. They want to hear some stories. Do you want me to go into stories then?

Garett:
Yeah, it would be nice to hear some.

Ron:
I'll try and tell a little bit of chronological here. I was born in Moses Lake, Washington in 1966. And my dad moved to Fort St. John in 1968, in December of 1968. So I was too young to jump off the cart at the border and stay in the U.S. So I came north with my mom and dad. [chuckles] And at that time there was eight children that came north. Well, you've talked to Jim and he came north at different times, but he's the oldest and I was the youngest. So in '68 we moved up to Fort St. John and I remember, you know, the earliest memories that I have of living up there was in the house that my brother Jim owns now. I remember we all lived in the basement and we were still working on the finishing upstairs. And I remember times where we'd play with brothers and sisters and they'd carry me around a little bit. I remember this old wood stove that dad had that would keep the house warm. And as I grew up and started school and such, I remember going upstairs at times before the house was finished. And I'd see the big piles of drywall that we had and the rooms that were being made and living there with the family. But in my elementary years at school, we'd catch the bus and go to school. The school was about three miles away. We lived at mile 54 on the highway and I think the school was around 51 or 52, something like that. And if you've driven up there, you're familiar with the distances, but the time has changed now. The roads used to be a lot narrower then and we would, after school, there were times we would walk home and pick bottles in the ditch. We were the ones in the ditch looking for bottles so that we could turn them in for a little bit of money that they got us back then, you know.

Garett:
Yeah, yeah.

Ron:
Whether it was two cents or one cent a bottle, you know. But it was fun times trying to survive and make a little bit of extra cash once in a while. You know, I wouldn't let my kids walk home on that highway now. I also had a paper route up there that, a rural paper route, you carry papers a long ways with not very many papers. And so I remember, you know, we lived at 54 and I would deliver papers all the way out to mile 56.

Garett:
On foot?

Ron:
Well, on foot or I usually rode my bike. So I was riding my bike along the highway, you know, a big trucks would pass by and I wouldn't think anything of it. Nowadays, you know, it scared me to have my kids out there.

Garett:
Yeah.

Ron:
You've been riding bikes, you've been around traffic before and you just never know. But there were a few subdivisions north of us that I'd deliver papers for. And the Alaska Highway News, I don't know whether it's still around or not, but I used to deliver that. My brothers delivered it for a little bit too. On occasion, mom or dad or someone would drive us to deliver the papers if we were running late. And back in those days, we had primary at church during the week on a weekday. And so mom would come and pick us up from school and we would go in and we would do our primary activities and have our fun and then head home. The youth later on, you know, we would do that as well. A lot of times we'd just stay in town after school for youth activities because by the time we got home, it was time to leave, to go back in. So sometimes we'd just stay in town.

Garett:
Yeah.

Ron:
But most of my life, we rode the bus to school until I got my driver's license. And then it was freedom for me. Freedom for mom and dad. That's what I call it. When kids get their driver's license, it's freedom for mom and dad.

Garett:
Did you get a car too or did you borrow your parents' car or your brother's car or someone's?

Ron:
Yeah, both. [chuckles] I never, I really never had a car until I graduated. I borrowed dad's car. My brothers had some cars that we'd use. I remember we used to have an old green station wagon that dad ran for many years and then my dad and older brothers and I rebuilt the motor in it and then they ran it for a while and I drove it for a while. But it was all rear wheel drive stuff. So no four wheel drive. Even my dad's trucks were just rear wheel drive. You know, everything now is so common to have four wheel drive or all wheel drive. It makes such a difference.

Garett:
It does. Especially on those winter roads.

Ron:
Yeah. There's one time I was headed home after an ice storm and I didn't have good tires and I couldn't make it up the hill.

Garett:
Up the hill from Charlie Lake to mile 54?

Ron:
That is correct.

Garett:
[chuckles]

Ron:
I spun out on the hill and so I thought, oh, I'll just try taking the back road and work my way up and still couldn't make it up. Just about got there and spun out in the ditch and ended up walking home until dad could come and help me get the car. Going through high school and all my education, you know, people ask me where I grew up. I say Fort St. John because that's where I went through high school and played sports and played basketball. It was my senior year that I got my jump down enough that I could start forcing the ball down through the hoop, you know.

Garett:
Started dunking?

Ron:
Yeah, that's when I started dunking. You boys know what it's like to dunk. I can hardly reach the net now.

Garett:
I can still reach the rim, but I don't think my athleticism is increasing.

Preston:
I still have some of those skills, so I'm doing all right.

Ron:
You can still dunk it, can't you, Preston?

Preston:
Yeah, I have to get warmed up and I can't throw it down hard, but I can still put it in.

Ron:
That's good.

Garett:
Do you remember how many kids were going to the high school in Fort St. John when you were there?

Ron:
Well, my graduating class was about 300 or 350, something like that.

Garett:
And the high school, was it grades 9 through 12?

Ron:
The high school up there was 10 through 12. And some of the junior highs up there in Fort St. John, they had grade 10 in and the high school was mostly 11 and 12. I think I was about second or third tallest in the school. I just remember when we lined up to have our grand march or whatever, I remember I was right at the back with a couple of my friends. So it was kind of touch and go who was taller at that time.

Garett:
Yeah. Did they all play basketball?

Ron:
No. There was a couple, you know, I had friends that played basketball, but I was the tallest on the team. And there was another fellow that was in grade 11. He was as tall as I was. He had a little more jump than I could. I don't think they allow dunking anymore on warmups in high school ball because they just don't want rims damaged or, you know, intimidation from the other teams. But when I was doing it, there was a Spirit River team. We had a lot of fun with them because we would go back and forth and do different little dunks.

Garett:
During warmup?

Ron:
During warmup. It was hard to do a dunk in a game because you never had the exact timing and coordination to really do it. But, you know, we would watch each other and we just kind of spar back and forth a little bit. And it was fun. But, yeah, my younger brothers up at the church, they broke the backboard one year dunking.

Garett! That's unfortunate. It's a big mess.

Ron:
Yeah, it made a big mess. They got better backboards and spring loaded then. [laughs] But in the early 70s, that's when we finally qualified for a church building up there.

Garett:
Yeah, that's what Jim was saying.

Ron:
Yeah. So they built that and mom, my mom, your grandmother was the custodian. He was always the custodian up there for many years until they changed the way the custodial worked at the church. She says it put all my boys that went on missions on missions and helped them get that done. So it was something good. So we'd go and help mom all the time at the church doing the work.

Garett:
During the building phase, did the ward members volunteer to help build the building or were there service missionaries that came to help build the building or were there contractors that just came and built it?

Ron:
No, at that time, there was, I think it was a superintendent that came and the ward members volunteered a lot of time to build. There was a few paid people to build and that allowed the superintendent to, you know, keep the building going and different things. I remember working with them and helping out a little bit and such. But for the most part, you know, it was a superintendent that the church had hired. But nowadays, they just put it out for a contractor to bid it and build it. You know, I've grown up in Fort St. John. I watched a lot of things change. I remember the earliest days, there were two sets of streetlights in town. And then there's three and then there's four and then, you know, there's lots now.

Garett:
Yeah. Where were the first two? Do you remember that?

Ron:
Well, 100th and 100th.

Preston:
[chuckles]

Ron:
Yeah. And then just a little bit, one block west, there was another set. So, it would have been 100th and 102nd, I think, where the old Lido Theater was. But we grew up out in Charlie Lake. Dad had an acreage out there. And we did everything we could out there that we could think of, almost. We used to shoot the guns right out of the back, off the back porch. Not anymore, because, you know, people, there's a lot of growth that has happened out there.

Garett:
Did you guys have neighbours then, when you were growing up?

Ron:
We did. There was one neighbour on one side. There was a blank, an empty lot and then a neighbour. And for the longest time. And then on the other side, there was a neighbour that had bought three of the lots and built the house on one and he had the other ones empty. And then going between us and going down the backside of us, there was, it was all empty bush. But now they've developed that and put other roads in and people live down there. We used to have motorbikes and dune buggies and run them round and round on the acreage, on the acre.

Garett:
Did you buy the dune buggies and the dirt bikes or did you build them?

Ron:
I bought one motorbike. But my brother David, he bought a dune buggy and made another one. They were just made out of old Volkswagen Beetles. Where the motor was in the back and he would cut the frame and shorten it up and make it all work. And mostly my brothers had the toys. Later on, David had bought an Odyssey too that we ran around a little bit.

Garett:
Where would you go?

Ron Just around the yard, just in the back.

Garett:
Up and down the hill?

Ron:
Yeah, the yard is sloped. So we'd go down and around and back up. Just like a little racetrack. But the Odyssey is a four-wheel drive kind of dune buggy type thing.

Garett:
Yeah. In the snow as well?

Ron:
As much as we could. My friends had snowmobiles that we'd go snowmobiling once in a while, but not a lot. I think Jim mentioned once that we'd take cars out on the lake and pull tubes behind them. I remember doing things like that. Another story is my brother Jim and Steve, they rented some snow machines and went snowmobiling. And then unfortunately, they had an accident with one. And so they ended up buying the machine because it was cheaper to buy the machine than pay for it to get fixed. So they bought this old machine and they ended up fixing it what they could themselves. So we had that to run for a little bit. Had some fun there.

Preston:
Bit of a break it you buy it policy almost.

Ron:
Yeah. But there was one time that I remember we went out camping at One Island Lake for a fathers and sons camp. And it was a winter camp. I think it was my brother Steve and Jim. They had a couple of machines and they went and drove back towards Tumbler Ridge and then into Kinuseo Falls. But they took their snow machines in there. I mean, now in the summertime, you can drive in there with a car. You know, the roads have increased so much back there. And that's a really nice place to go visit. I remember Christmas time taking popcorn and stringing popcorn on thread, needle and thread, and putting it on the tree for decoration. You know, we didn't have all the fancy garland and everything. And months before Christmas, mom would start, whenever she used eggs, she would blow them out.

Garett:
Wow, that's a lot of work.

Ron:
What you do is you poke a hole in one side and then poke a hole in the other side and just kind of blow the yolk and the egg out of the shell. So then you have an empty shell. And at that point, we after, you know, we'd have a family home evening and we'd color and decorate these eggs to hang on the Christmas tree.

Garett:
As ornaments?

Ron:
As ornaments. And so you just put a toothpick and tie a string in the middle of it and push the toothpick inside and it would hold the egg. You could, you know, through the hole, you could hold the egg and put it on the tree. But the popcorn sometimes is so good that after, even after you put it on the tree, we'd go nibble on the popcorn.

Garett:
[laughs] Yeah. Can't resist some good popcorn.

Preston:
Especially with the pine needle topping, right?

Ron:
[chuckles] Yeah, we usually stayed away from that, the pine needle part, we put them in between the branches. Then after Christmas, we'd take the tree out back and put it up and let the birds eat the popcorn and we'd shoot the eggs with the .22.

17:24 - Young and Careless

Ron:
After I graduated from high school, I started working with my dad and Tim Jones. And that summer after I graduated, which was '84, we were mowing grass in the ditch between Dawson Creek, well, the BC-Alberta border there by Dawson Creek, all the way east through Spirit River and Rycroft and all the way out to Donley Corner, which is almost, you know, 200 kilometers.

Preston:
Almost an entirely straight line, too.

Ron:
Yeah, it's pretty straight. And, you know, when you're moving only five, seven miles an hour, mowing grass in the ditch, it takes a long time to cover 200 K.

Garett:
Yeah, it does.

Ron:
I was on the weed whipping end of things for most of the part. I'd go weed whip around the signs and the railing and make it look kind of, straighten it up a little bit after the big tractors went by. But, you know, I did that for the summer and then that fall it was time, well, what am I going to do now? So my brother Steve lived in Idaho Falls at the time and he was working down there. He had a house. So I went down and lived with him. And we had lots of fun. I was the youngest YSA (young single adult) there and he was the oldest. And there's a group of us that would hang out and go to the parties, go to the dances or such. And I worked during the day, usually from eight to five, and he worked at night from five o'clock to two or three in the morning because he worked on delivery trucks and they were all busy during the day. So when the trucks came back into the shop, that's when he had time to work on them, service them and keep the maintenance up on them. So he was always working the evenings and I was working the days. We'd see each other usually on the weekends. And sometimes I'd pick the girls up on the weekend and start doing something and then we'd meet up with Steve when he got off work and he'd take them home.

Garett:
[chuckles] And you'd go to bed?

Ron:
And I'd go to bed. [laughs] He would keep the party going.

Garett:
What job were you working down there?

Ron:
Actually, I was working the tire business down there. I've had experience in the tire business up in Fort St. John. During high school, I worked at the tire business after school for a couple hours a day. They gave me my spending money and gas money for basketball trips and such. Then when I left and went down south to Idaho Falls, I was looking for different jobs and found one in the tire business. I worked in the tire business for five months. Then I took a semester in Rexburg. It was Rick's College at the time. Still needed spending money, so I found this other job. I'd work from 9 o'clock at night until 6 o'clock in the morning in Idaho Falls. And I'd drive up to Rexburg and go to class from 7 o'clock to 1 o'clock. And then I'd go sleep.

Garett:
Sounds like a really healthy lifestyle.

Ron:
[chuckles] It's a good thing it was only for three or four months that I did that.

Preston:
Yeah, and that you were probably only 19 years old or so. Young man.

Ron:
Yeah, I had a little more go-go juice in my body then. I don't recover from illness quite as well as I did back then. Yeah, so you know that '84, '85 type thing. I did some different jobs down in Idaho Falls over time. Put my papers in for my mission down there and then left from Idaho Falls to serve a mission. And I served a mission for the church. Went to New Mexico down in the southern heat.

Garett:
In Albuquerque?

Ron:
Albuquerque. Yeah, you know, I should have turned left at Albuquerque.

Garett:
Depends on which way you're coming into Albuquerque. Yeah, you could end up anywhere.

Ron:
Yeah, that's correct. But that would have been my first Christmas without any snow.

Garett:
[chuckles] Whereabouts in New Mexico were you for Christmas there?

Ron:
That year I was in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Which is -- have you been to Las Cruces?

Garett:
Yeah, I had a physics conference in Las Cruces. It's a couple hours north of El Paso, but it's pretty far south.

Ron:
Yeah, that's right. I remember you saying you went to Las Cruces too. What's the university down there?

Preston:
Las Cruces University perhaps?

Ron:
No.

Garett:
Maybe it's the New Mexico State University?

Ron:
New Mexico State, yeah.

Garett:
I will look that up and then put a link in the show notes for what it actually is.

Ron:
Yeah, anyways, the fellow I taught, I first flew into on my mission and got to my companion in Las Cruces when I finally got there. That evening we went out and taught this fellow, and he was studying -- I can't remember what he was studying. He was studying the science there in Las Cruces. And it was a good experience. And we taught him and worked with him, and he was baptized. I think his fiancé was a member at the time, but, you know, then they got married. And then I went -- kind of kept in touch with him a little bit throughout my mission. Then I was transferred to several different places throughout the mission. And in my last area I got transferred my last month and got transferred back to El Paso. And so here I get into El Paso, and I got a month left on my mission. And lo and behold, his parents lived in El Paso. And I was able to talk to them, and we were able to teach them the gospel. And the night before I flew out of El Paso was their baptism. So the day I got in and the day I left, it was all part of the same family that accepted the gospel.

Garett:
That's really cool.

Ron:
It was kind of neat. And so then I come back to Canada, and so that would be '87 we got back to Canada.

Garett:
What time of year in 1987?

Ron:
It was October. Yeah, when I got back, Dad was doing some farming stuff, and so I went out with him and started driving truck for him for hauling some grain and such. And as fate would have it, I started working in a tire store again. Funny how tires have kept us busy up there in Fort St. John over the years.

Preston:
Just keep rolling.

Ron:
Yeah. I still have brothers and nephews in the tire business up there.

Garett:
Yep.

Ron:
So unique things happen. I was scheduled to go on a service call up to Pink Mountain, and I was scheduled to be up there for like a 15-, 16-hour day. Left early, went up to fix some tires, and there was supposed to be some other stuff up there, but it didn't come to fruition. So I come back, and I got back to Fort St. John and found out that there was a dance that was happening, an activity at the church. I think it was the Harvest Ball or something. And so I got back, and I got cleaned up and went to the church. That night was when I had first met Kim after my mission. And so that was the only time they were over in Fort St. John. Because she was from Fairview, they came over to Jolene's baptism. So your Aunt Jolene was baptized in '97.

Garett:
'87.

Ron:
Sorry, '87.

Preston:
Yeah.

Ron:
Man, decades pass so fast. I'm getting mixed up.

Garett:
No worries.

Ron:
And so after I'd met Kim, we started to date and see each other again. That was October, and by mid-December I'd proposed to her, and we set a date for marriage that next May of '88. And we set the day and everything, and then we realized that, hey, this is the same anniversary as Uncle Dave and Aunt Tammy have, except we were five years later.

Garett:
Did you keep it?

Ron:
Yeah, we kept it. And so we traveled to Idaho, and we were married in Idaho Falls Temple.

Garett:
Was it because you had more family down in Idaho at the time? I guess to get married in a temple, your choices, I guess, were going all the way to Cardston at that point or even farther south where we had more people.

Preston:
It was closed at that time for renovation.

Garett:
Oh.

Ron:
I think Cardston was closed for renovations.

Preston:
They were closed for, like, what, four or five years?

Ron:
Yeah.

Garett:
They did, like, some major modern renovations during those years.

Garett:
Okay.

Ron:
Yeah, because if you've been to the Cardston Temple, when you walk in, you'll see the water fountain. That used to be on the outside of the temple, and the doors to enter the temple were up behind the water fountain where the recommend desk is now.

Garett:
I see.

Ron:
And so they did do some major reno's on that Cardston. That's why we went to Idaho Falls is because the Cardston Temple was closed.

Garett:
Yeah, I see.

Ron:
Besides, she had relatives down there. So we had a little get together down there in Idaho Falls afterwards with friends, and Steve still lived, Uncle Steve still lived there at the time. So, yeah, it was a good -- got married in May, and we drove from there back up through Yellowstone and Montana. And Southern Alberta there, and stayed at West Edmonton Mall at Fantasyland Hotel for a couple of nights, and played at the amusement park and the water slides. And we got back up to Fort St. John and started our life together. Had this little apartment that we started out in. That was '88. And then January of '89, we had two kids.

Garett:
Yeah.

Ron:
That's when the twins were born, Travis and Lisa.

Garett:
There were some complications with that there.

Ron:
A little bit. We were living at Fort St. John at the time. You know, we were seeing a doctor, a specialist there and everything, and Kim was what's called toxic. She had to stay on bed rest and couldn't do anything. And they were watching all her blood sugars and all her vitals really close. And then things just kind of -- we weren't sure. And the doctor decided, well, it's easier to transfer mom with the babies inside to the special hospital rather than having a pre-delivery and trying to transfer mom and two babies.

Garett:
Yeah.

Ron:
So they flew Kim out to Vancouver. And I was able to fly on the medical shuttle with her at the time. And I stayed at your Aunt Mary Rose, the MacLennan's place, while Kim was in the hospital at Vancouver. So I learned the bus route to get there. I'm trying to think of the name of the hospital. I think it was Grey Nuns or something. I can't remember for sure. But it was the -- they called it the Baby Factory of BC.

Garett:
[chuckles]

Preston:
That's quite the name.

Ron:
It was a nickname because there were babies all -- the preemies were there. And they had this little -- they had some babies in there that were like one and two pound babies.

Garett:
Wow.

Ron:
Just tiny, tiny, tiny.

Garett:
Yeah.

Ron:
And they were all hooked up to the machines. But then, you know, January '89, Travis and Lisa were born. And Travis was, I think, four pounds, three ounces. And Lisa was three pounds, 14 ounces, something like that. And then they stayed down there for another couple weeks, I think it was. And I ended up coming back up and going to work. But then they transferred -- when opportunity came, they transferred them back up to Fort St. John Hospital. And I think we were able to bring them home five weeks later, something like that, after they were over five pounds each. But still, five-pound baby, that's pretty small.

Garett:
Yeah, that is pretty small.

Preston:
Definitely below average.

Ron:
Yeah.

Preston:
You don't really have in Fort St. John Hospital in the late '80s the special services that are required to handle situations like that.

Ron:
That is correct.

31:24 - Newlyweds

Ron:
So in the early summer of '90, we moved to Lethbridge and thought we might go down there. We really enjoyed our Lethbridge stay. It was a real struggle because things didn't work out for what we had hoped that they would work out. And I ended up back in a tire store. That's what I knew how to do. While we were living in Lethbridge, that's when you were born, and then Preston was born down there. And then we had four kids.

Preston:
What was some of the factors that took the family to Lethbridge?

Ron:
Well --

Preston:
You didn't really have any family in Lethbridge.

Ron:
No. It was an opportunity we thought we could do sales work. We were working with a company that was selling meat packages and food packages. And so we went there to try our task at selling food packages, but it didn't -- people just weren't buying bulk meat then. We couldn't find people to buy, you know, a half a side of beef or such. It was so expensive then we even had financing for them available, but it was tough because, you know, people didn't really want to finance and make payments for food.

Garett:
Yeah.

Preston:
I can understand that.

Garett:
Yeah, I understand that, too. I'd also be a rubbish salesman, so it's kind of brave to go and make the choice to work in sales.

Ron:
Yeah, so I tried that and ended up back in the tire business and ended up in sales and tire business for a while. Before we moved back out of there, I was selling tires into Medicine Hat, a road trip into Medicine Hat once a week, and had clients that I would take tires to and sell them. Then each week I'd also go out to Cranbrook and Creston and points in between I would take and sell tires to tire stores, wholesale tires is what I mostly did. The tire company I worked for, they brought in containers of tires, Hankook tires from Korea. So they would get them in and we'd wholesale them out. Living in Lethbridge, it was, I like Lethbridge. It's windy sometimes.

Garett:
Yeah, that's true. I have a few memories of Lethbridge. I remember a fantastic thunderstorm passing through.

Ron:
Yeah, there were those, that's for sure. But then after Lethbridge, we moved back up to north of Fort St. John to an oil patch field called LaPreece.

Garett:
Yeah, sort of what Jesse was saying, that I guess if you're from the Peace Country and you move south, you got to be careful if you move back, you end up going farther and farther north every time.

Ron:
[chuckles] You're right, I guess. Because he landed up further north up in Fort Nelson. You know, Fort Nelson at least has a grocery store. LaPreece didn't have anything. It was just a trailer with a generator and, you know, I bought an older truck. It had four-wheel drive. I needed four-wheel drive then.

Garett:
No doubt.

Ron:
Because we were back on some real bush roads and real oil patch roads.

Garett:
Yeah, I remember we were heading home one day and the culvert washed out or something, and we had to get pulled down and up the other side by a Cat, like a big bulldozer or something that was there, fixing the place because it was the only road in. Is that right?

Ron:
Yeah, I think there was that time. There's been so many times that that road has been mucked up and we couldn't get in and out without help.

Garett:
Even four-wheel drive is not quite enough for that place.

Ron:
Sometimes. But living out there, we've seen a lot of wildlife, seen a lot of animals, moose, deer, and bears. When we were living out there, my truck motor started giving me problems, and so I bought a used motor to put into it. I was out working on the motor, and Kim was inside making lunch, and all the kids were in the trailer. It came to a point where it was like I kind of looked around, and it just seemed like it was really quiet and eerie. Kim said, "Time to come in for lunch." I come in, and as I was eating, Kim went to get something, and then she came back, and she said, "Ron, come look at this." We went, and coming in the back towards the back porch, there's a big old black bear. It was like, "Ugh." That's where our dog food went. The bear had come in and took the dog dish because we noticed it was missing.

Garett:
[laughs]

Ron:
I think the bear was coming back for more. I got the gun, and I stood on the back porch, shot the bear. Because I was going to have nothing to do with a bear coming around in the daylight looking for stuff with my kids around there. I shot a bear off the back porch. I think it was Mother's Day, too, that I did that.

Garett:
Definitely not in season.

Ron:
It was more a safety concern than anything. Then we hauled the bear off into the bush on a cut line and just dumped it, let the rest of the animals finish it off and decompose however it does. Another time out there, we had some of your cousins stay in now. Everyone was asleep except Kim and I. Pretty soon, we seen this bear coming in through the yard and sniffing around the house. He left and never did show back up there again. We always had to be careful out there with bears. We were out there, we lived out there for, it would have been probably 10 months. While we were living out there, that's when Katie was born. You guys all went into town to stay in town when it was time for Katie to be born. I think you were staying with Uncle Dave and Aunt Tamara, or maybe Uncle Jim and Aunt Pam. But Grandma and Grandpa were helping, too. Or maybe Grandma and Grandpa were out at the LaPreece with us? I can't remember for sure.

Preston:
I can't remember either because I was pretty young.

Garett:
Yeah, I also don't remember.

Ron:
But yeah, Grandpa and Grandma Brown were still around at the time. When Katie was born, I got the call that the doctor was going to induce Kim. I got there like 10 minutes after Katie was born.

Garett:
Oh no!

Ron:
Katie was the only one that I missed being there when she was born. Even the doctor missed that one. The nurse delivered Katie that time. Then a few years later when it was time for Loretta to be born, they induced Kim after I got there. The doctor didn't leave the hospital until Loretta was born.

Garett:
Was it a short labor?

Ron:
Yeah.

Garett:
Okay.

Ron:
It was maybe two or three hours is all.

Garett:
I feel bad for the doctor if they were on the end of a 12-hour shift and had to stick around for another 18 hours.

Ron:
Yeah. Oh, hey. The first doctor, he was over at his office somewhere. When Katie was born, and then the next doctor, I think it was the same one, he just stayed in the lounge at the hospital. So when it was time, it was time.

Preston:
I do remember visiting Mom and Loretta after Loretta was born in the hospital. It was a cold December day, and the sun was just coming up.

Ron:
Yeah, that would have been a day or two later. Yeah, when Loretta was born, we were living in Won-o-won at the time.

Garett:
Yeah.

Ron:
In between LaPreece and Won-o-won, we lived out on Papa Meservy's place out in his cabin. I don't know whether you guys remember any of that.

Garett:
I do.

Preston:
I remember a little bit. I fell off the bed.

Garett:
Yeah, sure did. Fell off the bed. I have a scar on my lower lip. My tooth's going through my lip.

Preston:
Yeah.

Ron:
Yeah.

Garett:
Pretty sure we lost our dog, Duke, that time, didn't we?

Ron:
We were living in Won-o-won at the time.

Garett:
So we were just visiting?

Ron:
And we would go out and feed the cows for Papa while he was on vacation. And Duke, he was a really smart dog, but he wasn't wolf smart.

Garett:
Yeah.

Ron:
The wolves got him. And that's, you know, unfortunately that happens. I've lost two dogs. The second dog I lost to wolves was Smokey, with Dorothy. But that was years later.

Garett:
I'm glad that Papa could take a vacation, though. Farmers don't usually get vacations.

Ron:
No. Yeah, we were living in Won-o-won, and he wanted some time off. And so I'd go out and feed. We'd go out and feed the cows. And that was, yeah, that's the time we lost the dog.

Garett:
I recall it was wintertime.

Ron:
Yeah, there was snow on the ground. I think it was early December.

Garett:
Okay.

Ron:
Or late November.

Garett:
I mean, it seemed like winter, but, I mean, it could have been early October. [chuckles] Or March. [chuckles] Or May or something.

Ron:
[chuckles] No, I think he went to the Canadian National Rodeo in Edmonton, which is usually at the end, in November, towards the end of November.

Garett:
Okay.

Ron:
It was frozen, and there was a little bit of snow on the ground, because we could still drive through the fields.

Garett:
Yes.

Ron:
Yeah, there's times that you forget what time of year it is, because there's usually snow on the ground for at least six months out of the year.

Garett:
Yep.

Ron:
When we lived in Won-o-won, do you remember going to the Won-o-won dump and watching the bears at the Won-o-won dump?

Garett:
I do remember that, yeah.

Preston:
I remember that.

Ron:
I remember taking Dave and Tammy and their kids and Jim and Pam and their kids out there, and we'd sit there and watch them. They'd just do their thing. They'd all run away when you drove in there, but if you sat there, they'd all come back and start rubbishing through the garbage and finding stuff to eat. That brings us up to when Loretta was born. Yeah. '95.

Preston:
End of '95.

Ron:
Yeah, and then we were living in Won-o-won for another year and a bit. I was driving a fuel truck for a company up there, delivering fuel and methanol. Remember what you guys called the pumpkin truck?

Garett:
Sure do.

Preston:
It was green and orange.

Ron:
Orange cab and a green tank on it.

Garett:
Yeah.

Preston:
Like pumpkin.

Ron:
Yeah.

Garett:
A lopsided pumpkin.

Ron:
Yeah, that was a pretty good truck, what I used it for. It had lots of power.

Garett:
Did you go all over the place in that truck? I'm guessing you went to a bunch of oil and gas places.

Ron:
Yeah, all over up in that area, the fields up there. I'd have to chain up to get into places sometimes. I remember one night, they asked me to go deliver some methanol because they needed to inject it, and they were getting low. We had a big snowstorm. It snowed so much. It snowed like two or three feet overnight. This truck, you think of a big truck, not a pickup, but a five-ton. I would drive in this snow. I could see the crown of the road, but I would drive after this snowfall, and the snow would pile up in front of the truck and cover my headlight.

Garett:
Wow. [chuckles]

Ron:
I would hit the brakes and stop, and the snow was so fluffy, it would like a wave flow out in front, and I could see my headlights again. It would pile up that much. I had chains on. Once that truck had lots of power and traction with the chains on it, I could go almost anywhere with it. I joke I could climb trees with that truck.

Garett:
If they were lying down.

Ron:
There was only one time I forgot to chain up, and I was going up a hill and spun out. I wasn't loaded, but I came down the hill backwards.

Preston:
That's so scary. When you're steering at the front and you're trying to maintain control, but you're not only sliding backwards, you'd be sliding left or right as well, depending on the crown of the road.

Ron:
A little bit. I ended up in the snowbank in the ditch, got my shovel out, and dug myself out enough to where I could get chains on it, and then put the chains on the back axle, and was able to finish my trip.

Garett:
Did you have a bag phone or like a cell phone of some kind when you were driving the truck?

Ron:
I don't think I had a phone. I had a company radio, two-way radio.

Garett:
Yes.

Ron:
So I could call other people if I needed help.

Garett:
As long as they were generally close enough? I imagine the range would be pretty big.

Ron:
You had what was called a truck-to-truck, which was about, I think, three miles.

Garett:
Okay.

Ron:
But then they also had a repeater that was on top of Pink Mountain that would pick up and rebroadcast the radio frequency to whoever was out there. I never really had to call. I don't remember having to call for emergency at all on it. I usually was able to get out most everything I got myself into. [chuckles] It was an experience, and that got me into the -- I guess it kind of got my taste of oil and gas, because I was operating as a gas well operator out there in the LaPreece field. And in Won-o-won, we were driving truck in the oil and gas. Then the opportunity came to move to Grande Prairie. So in the spring of '97, it was actually the end of March, because I remember we had Kim's birthday in Grande Prairie the day after we moved there. And it was -- you know, it still had some snow piles, but most of the snow was melting around the yard when we moved out onto the acreage into the old farmhouse. When we moved in there, it had 10 bedrooms. What were we ever going to do with 10 bedrooms, huh?

Garett:
You always find stuff to put in it.

Ron:
[laughs]

Preston:
Yeah, 10 bedrooms, if you include the hot tub room.

Ron:
Yeah.

46:33 - A Growing Family

Garett:
So what's the choice to move to Grande Prairie, a financial choice and a job choice? I can't imagine that driving a truck was that great of a job.

Ron:
No, it was -- well, I bought Uncle Tim's place.

Garett:
Yes.

Ron:
And he had called me up, and he had his place kind of for sale for a couple of years, or for a year and a half. He called me up and said, "Hey, I'll help you buy this place. I can't guarantee you a job, but, you know, the job may be here for you when you get down here." And so I moved down there, and, you know, we moved onto the place. And then I started working for Uncle Tim part-time. And then when Uncle Tim gave his notice that he was moving, he said I was the guy to take over for him. And so I just carried on and took over his job in the measurement, meter proving in the oil and gas industry.

Garett:
Yeah.

Ron:
And, you know, we lived out there on the acreage and made sufficient money to survive on.

Garett:
Were we renting in Won-o-won then?

Ron:
In Won-o-won, we were renting. And that was another thing that kind of got us to be moving is we were paying really cheap rent in Won-o-won. And things were changing there. The places were selling, and they wanted to raise our rent from $500 a month to $1,200 a month.

Garett:
Wow! That does not seem worth it to live there for that much.

Ron:
And so it was time. We thought, well, now is the time to make a move. So we moved from Won-o-won to Grande Prairie.

Preston:
I remember that move. I remember getting in the truck with you and driving through the night and waking up in the new place. We got some snacks at the gas station in Won-o-won.

Ron:
Yeah, I took a truck and trailer down there first with a load.

Preston:
Yeah.

Ron:
Then I got a U-Haul and hauled the rest of it down.

Preston:
I think Travis, Garett, and I were with you in the truck.

Ron:
Yeah, I think you're right. And Kim stayed back with that first load. And then she came down. She followed us down on the next load.

Garett:
With the Suburban?

Ron:
Yes.

Garett:
Yeah. I remember when we lived in Won-o-won, coming back to Won-o-won from Fort St. John. We were with Mum, and we were telling her to go faster and faster. And she was indulging us. And she got pulled over by the cops for speeding.

Ron:
[laughs] I never heard that story.

Garett:
Well, they might have let her go. I don't know for sure. If you never heard it, then maybe she never got a ticket. But, yeah, she was going too fast. I don't know how fast. We just kept telling her, "Faster, faster."

Ron:
[laughs] Yeah.

Preston:
It's so hard not to go fast on that road. You take a corner up north of Fort St. John, it's just like a long downgrade and a long upgrade. It's like you don't see anyone. It's like, "Well, I could easily just go fast?" [chuckles]

Ron:
Yeah. And one time when you were coming back on that long down and up, Kim was behind this car, I think it was a little Bronco pulling another car on a tow trailer, and she watched that car get out of control and hit the ditch.

Garett:
Oh, man.

Ron:
And she called me right away, and I came because it wasn't that far out of Won-o-won. And I took the guys into the hospital to get checked out and such and kind of left them in Fort St. John so they could find a car, a rental, and everything and get things straightened out. But, yeah, we've seen many things on that highway.

Preston:
I do you remember a time coming, I don't know whether we were with mom and we were leaving Won-o-won or returning to Won-o-won, but we had car trouble, and we had to walk back to the town. We were already like a kilometre or two out, but we had to leave the car, and we walked down the highway back to Won-o-won.

Garett:
From south of Won-o-won?

Preston:
Yeah, we were south of Won-o-won. I'm pretty sure we were south of Won-o-won, but I don't remember.

Ron:
Yeah. There could have been a time that that happened. Do you remember after moving to Grande Prairie, you were out picking raspberries and you had the batteries in the Suburban went dead?

Preston:
I do remember that. Yeah, because we would play with the windows and the locks because we never had power windows and locks before, so that was kind of exciting for us. And we killed the battery on the Suburban.

Garett:
Was that at the Blum's?

Ron:
Yeah, it was at Rob Blum's farm.

Garett:
Yeah.

Preston:
Yeah, Rob Blum's farm.

Ron:
And it was like a mile or two to the closest neighbour.

Garett:
It was.

Preston:
Yeah, it was summer, and we walked down to the neighbour to make a phone call.

Ron:
But I remember it being hot and a long ways. Kim couldn't leave you there at the farm because you were all young. So you all walked to the neighbours. And I come out and rescued you.

Preston:
I remember Katie got scratched by the neighbour's cat.

Ron:
Is that the time she got scratched?

Preston:
Yeah. [chuckles] She was trying to pet the cat at the neighbour's place while we were making a phone call.

Garett:
Those darn kids don't know what to do.

Ron:
[chuckles]

Garett:
Yeah, I totally remember that. Opening and closing the doors too much. The interior lights were on so much.

Ron:
Yeah.

Garett:
I think we were playing so much with it because summertime, raspberries, sugar stuff. There were wasps and things everywhere on that farm. So I think we were pushing the windows up and down as the wasp would come close. And we'd like, quickly, quickly, get it up. Don't let the wasp in. And then it's like, oh, the wasp is gone. Okay, let's put the window back down now. Just burned it out. [chuckles]

Ron:
[chuckles] Yeah, so then, you know, living in Grande Prairie is pretty good. I've been here in Grande Prairie now for 24 years.

Preston:
Count up to 25.

Ron:
Yeah, almost 25 years. Wow, time goes by fast. But yeah, it was here at Grande Prairie in '99 when, like we had moved in in '97. So we were here basically two years when Kim passed away.

Garett:
Yeah.

Ron:
And so living up in the north there, we had a lot of fun up there. You know, I used, after jumping back in time here a little bit, after my mission, Kim was living in Fairview at the time and working, and I was in Fort St. John. So every weekend or every other weekend, either I was driving to Fairview or she was driving to Fort St. John, so we could see each other and make plans or whatever. I think she drove mostly because she had a little firefly, and she'd drive it over there, and I'd usually fuel it up before she went back. And so she'd usually have enough fuel to get back and drive back to Fort St. John the next weekend.

Garett:
[chuckles]

Ron:
[chuckles]

Garett:
What kind of work was she doing in Fairview?

Ron:
She was a teller at the Royal Bank. Then she tried to transfer to Fort St. John, and it didn't really happen for her, but that's okay, because after we got married and realized that we were expecting, she had morning sickness quite a bit. She was a stay-at-home mom pretty much right from when we got married, and I was working at a tire store, working on tires and putting on accessories on trucks. I think I was making $8 or $9 an hour is all. $8 or $9 an hour, that's below minimum wage now.

Garett:
Yeah.

Ron:
[chuckles] But that was back in '88, back before inflation ate everything away from us.

Garett:
Oh, it always does anyway.

Ron:
Yeah, it does.

Preston:
It's happened to every society in history. [chuckles]

Garett:
Yeah.

Ron:
But throughout the years, there's different activities that we did. I remember living up in the north there, and I started working for Uncle Tim again. He would pick me up after school, and he'd take me out, and at that time, he was doing custom farm work. And so he would take me out and get me going on cultivating these fields. So I was driving his Versatile 950 with a 40-foot cultivator, and you could cover a lot of dirt. You could turn a lot of dirt at 5 or 6 miles an hour with 40-feet-wide track behind you.

Garett:
Yeah.

Ron:
These are some big fields that we were in. They were up on top of the hills above Bear Flats. And so I've done work with Uncle Tim off and on for years. And when he offered the place in Grande Prairie for Kim and I, it was like, "Yep, I think it's time to go."

Garett:
Yeah.

Ron:
But during my youth years, you know, we canoed on the Peace River, and we'd get tractor tubes and slide down the Peace Hills in Taylor in the wintertime. We'd push them up and up and up and up, and then everyone would jump on and pile on the inner tube and slide down on the snow. I've been out hunting with Grandpa Brown a few times.

Garett:
Successfully?

Ron:
No. I've been out camping and fishing with my brothers. We've done a lot of different things up in this area. You know, living in the rural areas, you kind of see a little more nature and stuff. Living in the city, it's just concrete and steel, you know.

Garett:
Yeah. I know what you mean.

Well, Dad, I think we're definitely going to have to have you back on. I think there's a lot more you can tell us when we got to '99. Still another 20 years.

Ron:
Yeah. There's another 20 years. And those are the more exciting years because the kids are older. There are lots of things, yeah, we'll be able to talk about again.

Garett:
More stuff to break.

Ron:
More stuff to break. Yeah. Maybe you can tell me some of the stories that I don't know. [laughs]

Preston:
They say, "I don't know the same things you don't know."

Ron:
Yeah.

Preston:
We're grateful that we could have you on the show, Dad. Here's some of your stories of the younger men.

Ron:
Any other questions that you want me to answer or talk about?

Garett:
I think I have a lot more questions, but I don't think we have a lot more time. We'll have to have you back.

Ron:
Okay.

Garett:
And maybe Mom, too.

Ron:
No, that sounds good. Yeah, we definitely will.

Garett:
Thanks, Dad, for joining us today.

Ron:
It's been my pleasure.

Garett:
We'll see you then. I love you.

Preston:
Yeah, take care, Dad.

Ron:
Love you, too.

Garett:
Bye.

Preston:
Bye.

Ending Theme Music:
[bass guitar riff with drumbeat]