It’s summer then in Manitoba and I was working in the driveway when I heard a kind of crackling noise. On checking into it I found that the roof of the driveway was on fire. Luckily John Cross was hauling grain in at the time and he carried water from the neighboring people while I was up on the roof trying to put out the fire. We got the fire out without too much damage. We had put out a call for people of the Winnipeg Fire Department and they arrived about 10 minutes after the fire was out. To make sure it stayed out they sprayed water all over the place and then we really had a mess to clean up.

It is a famous saying that you cannot get farmers to agree on anything. I must say that the fall and winter of 1968 showed me that that saying is not true. The fall of 1968 was a very wet year and all the grain had been threshed tough or damp. The Pool put in a dryer and we dried grain day and night. We always had to have people ready to bring in their grain and there were many times that a farmer would get a phone call to bring in his grain in a couple of hours regardless of the time. It was really nice to see the farmers get together and go out and really help one another. Many farmers put in many a sleepless night hauling grain in and out.

I could go on and on telling stories about being an elevator man during the time that I was at the elevator.

There are people around who will remember emptying those terrible annexes. I remember carrying all those grain doors to cooper up the cars – papering the doors – patching the holes and cracks in those old wooden cars. I remember times when you would take grain in all day and load cars all night. Many a time I would go home at 2 or 3 in the morning hoping it would rain only to wake up to find farmers lined up to get into the famous elevator.

As I drive by the elevator now I see about 20 cars lined up to be loaded and in a short while they are loaded. In my time it would have taken a week to load that many rail cars. As I think back over the times gone by to the times of today, I think how much easier it must be to run the elevator today. I know they handle much more grain than we did back then, they also handle more fertilizers, more spray and other things. I also see those big elevators with those big bins, electric car movers and I think back to the days when we had to shovel out those flat bottomed bins – also use those jacks to move the cars.

As I stop and think about it, it was 45 years ago when I started in the elevator so when we see all the changes going on around us I guess it is only right that there should be changes in the grain business. What with all the changes made, if someone ever were to ask me “Would you do it again?” I just might say yes.

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