Sid, Merty, & Milt Interview Tape 3

Merton, Milton, and Sidney Holman Interview, Tape 3

Transcription note

I had a hard time distinguishing between Merton and Sidney’s voices. Some of the identifications of the speakers are likely wrong.

Transcript at 0 seconds: (00:00)

Milton Holman (MIH): ...50th anniversary, too.

Sidney Holman (SH): Is that the same one in there?

MIH: No, I haven't got a picture like that.

SH: Boy Sid, huh? That's who he is.

MIH: That's the Boy Sid.

SH: Boy Sidney.

MIH: He's got a run for us. We're the oldest.

SH: Yeah, Boy Sid. Young boy.

MIH: Hey, that's what my mother says. I got to listen to him. He's older than I am.

Merton Holman (MEH): 20 minutes. Ma says, take care of your little kid brother, Merton. I'm old.

Russell Magnaghi (RM): Oh, so you're older than he is.

MEH: 20 minutes. I'm the boss. Take care of your little kid brother, Merton. That was Ma's pun with us guys, yeah.

Transcript at 43 seconds: (00:43)

RM: So then, you've seen a lot of change here in Negaunee over the years.

MIH: Oh, from mine towers and now there's nothing left. They're all gone.

SH: Yeah. They're all cut down.

MIH: Yep.

SH: Incidentally, that Negaunee Mine over here reverted to being called the Bunker Hill. After a few years back, it was called the Negaunee Mine. And they sunk the shaft deeper, and then they called it the Bunker Hill after that.

RM: And then moved it?

SH: Nope.

RM: No.

SH: It's the same place.

RM: Same place, okay.

MIH: Just sunk it deeper.

RM: Yeah.

SH: They sunk the shaft deeper. That's all.

MIH: Oh, I didn't very man [inaudible word].

SH: I worked in the Negaunee Mine for a little while.

RM: Oh, yeah. I didn't ask you. Did you guys work in the mines?

SH and MIH: Oh, yeah.

SH: Yeah, I started in the mine in 1941. No, what am I talking about? 1945, [19]46, when I got out of the war.

MIH: Out of the war.

SH: Yeah, I got out of the Army, I started working.

Transcript at 1 minute and 55 seconds: (01:55)

RM: So, you didn't go to work in the mine when you were younger?

SH: Nope. Couldn't get a job. There was no jobs to get.

MIH: During the…

RM: Oh, this is during the Depression.

MIH: Depression and stuff, you couldn't get.

RM: Yeah, yeah.

MEH: Yeah, that's an old bugger.

MIH: Yeah, that's what I found in the shale.

RM: Oh, yeah. That's a beautiful shale.

SH: Yeah, that’s a nice shale.

MIH: How many years ago was it I found that?

SH: Oh, when we used to go fish down there.

MIH: Yeah. We were pretty young.

RM: The best what is.

MIH: Yeah.

RM: Negaunee, Michigan. [says something inaudible; seems to be reading off of a bottle] Lyson (??)… Lyson (??) and Hayes. [inaudible word] Brewing Company.

MIH: Hold it up to the light there. You can see.

RM: All the imperfections, yeah.

MIH: But you can see the glass got bubbles in it. [someone makes inaudible comment] Yeah, because the top was put on after. You can see that.

SH: It says registered, whatever that means.

MEH: Yeah, it's all out of whack.

RM: Yeah.

MIH: Yeah, I thought I'd keep that.

SH: Anything that falls on this floor breaks. Don't drop it on the floor.

MEH: Well, now that you are [inaudible word] as much as me, I'll try not to drop that.

MIH: I want my floor like that.

SH: You want a floor like that?

Transcript at 3 minutes and 38 seconds: (3:38)

RM: Well.

MIH: What else?

SH: Anything else for you?

RM: So, do you guys maintain your heritage or…?

MIH: Oh, yeah.

MEH: We're still a bunch of Methodists.

RM: And you still make the pasties?

SH: We still make the pasties, and we--

RM: You’re the pasty maker?

SH: Well, I'm alone now. She used to make them, but now I'm alone. And I attempt it, but they don't turn out that great.

MIH: I used to come up here every Thursday, and they had made pasties for the [inaudible word].

RM: Oh, so you continued doing it every Thursday?

MIH: Oh, yeah.

SH: Yeah. Up until Jenny passed away, every Thursday he was up here for a pasty.

MIH: And Jenny quite a few times threatened me, “If you don't be good, no more pasties.”

RM: [laughs]

SH: Once in a while, my older brother used to come in here for a pasty. And he would sit down, and he'd put a pasty in front of me, and he'd say, “Only one?” Only one.

MIH: Boy Joe.

SH: Boy Joe.

MIH: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we carry on them old traditions.

SH: We still get together on Fourth of July. At Christmas, we were just down at my sister's in Marquette.

RM: Oh?

SH: To Mitzi’s [Millicent Holman McCuen] place down there.

RM: Uh-huh. Oh, the group?

SH: Yeah, what's left. Yeah.

RM: How many are left now?

SH: There's us and Bobby and Shorty and Mitzi.

RM: Oh.

SH: And there's a couple that aren't here, one in Washington and one in Rockford.

RM: Oh.

SH: Bobby headed for Florida this week.

RM: Oh, that's--yeah. I know what you’re talking about.

MIH: Yeah, I still carry on the tradition with my bunch of kids. I still make a turkey every Christmas and have the bunch over, and usually I got twenty-some there.

RM: Oh.

MIH: I think I got twenty-eight grandchildren.

SH: Twenty-eight.

MIH: Oh, I didn't take that picture. I got Kenny's baby. He gave me a picture yesterday. I went to the Bunny Bread for brunch. He worked there for thirty-five years, so, and one of my grandchildren worked there. It's a great-grandchild now.

SH: Now, your child worked there, too.

MIH: Yeah, one of my sons worked at Bunny Bread where I used to work, the youngest one.

Transcript at 6 minutes and 34 seconds: (6:34)

RM: So, you worked—did you work—oh, you weren’t here when I was asking. Did you ever work in the mines?

MIH: Oh, yeah.

RM: You did?

MIH: Tracy.

SH: For almost twenty years.

RM: Oh, twenty years. Oh.

SH: Yeah, I got twenty-eight years in, and then I busted my head (??) in (??). [says something inaudible]

MIH: In short, he went underground, and when the timbers started screaming and smoking, I guess he said that's the end of it. Didn't--wasn't that it?

SH: Well, not all of it.

MEH: He--well, you know, he suffers a little bit from claustrophobia.

MIH: He didn't like it down there.

MEH: And the motors underground, if you spin them open, wide open, they take off.

MIH: Oh, yeah.

MEH: Shorty done that. And there he was, feet in the box and him coming behind, but he was strong enough that he got back up in there. Yeah, the motors, they take off right from under you.

MIH: Yeah.

RM: The motors, the cars?

MEH: It's electric train.

RM: Yeah. Yeah.

MEH: It's the engine, like.

RM: Yeah.

SH: It was… I… That job I liked. That's the best job I ever had. Unfortunately, we lost a few guys there, too. My hunting partner. The boss came over one midnight shift. He come over, he said, “Ray just got hurt.” He said--my hunting partner, we were supposed to go hunting the next day. Went over there. He had fallen down a raise. A raise is a hole that you put up. He's up there about 80 feet, and they just blasted. He went up again to open up, and they found him down at the bottom. He had smacked his head on a pipe when he got to the bottom there. He died. So, the gas got him, or a chunk knocked him off the ladder or something.

MEH: Yeah, a lot of guys got it that way. Lots of them.

MIH: Why don't you take out the pickled ham now? Have you got pasties in the oven?

Transcript at 8 minutes and 55 seconds: (8:55)

RM: Now, have you seen--you know Ernie Ronn.

MEH: Oh, yeah.

RM: Have you seen his book?

MEH: No, but I sure want to. You have it?

MIH: Eino Ronn?

MEH: Ernie.

SH: Ernie. Yeah, Milton has it.

RM: 52 Steps Underground.

SH: You have it?

MIH: Oh, yeah.

SH: You do have it.

MIH: Yeah.

RM: Because if you worked in the mine there, he goes through the whole thing…

MEH, MIH, SH: Yeah.

RM: …of working there and Ann Street growing up.

SH: Yeah, I've heard a lot about it. Yeah.

RM: Because it was the Center for UP [Upper Peninsula] Studies that published it.

SH: Probably everybody mentioned in the book we know.

RM: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And he talks about growing up, a lot of the stories you're telling. Well, you've added a lot of new information as well.

SH: Some things in there make you laugh, a dog with his thing pointing backwards so you don’t--his beagle--so you don't get hung up on the logs. [all laugh] He's got some funny stuff in there.

RM: Oh, you've read it?

SH: Yeah, I've seen it. Yeah, a few swear words in there.

RM: We kind of wondered about, you know, should we... I think we left some of the--we left it out. We just put the, you know, F dash, dash, dash.

MIH: Yeah.

RM: You know, kids could read it or something. You know, we want to keep the flavor of it, but I didn't want to overdo it. [inaudible word] somebody [inaudible word].

SH: Were you in cahoots with him on that thing?

RM: Yeah.

SH: Oh. Oh.

RM: We--well, he had a number of people, you know, go over it, and then we got... We… I had to go over the last copy We had about two or three people go over it, and then the Center published it. So, we have—so, it’s, yeah, selling. [inaudible sentence]. But yeah, it's gone real well. People like it. And see, part of the problem is that mining heritage--you know, again, you guys, you know, you live here, and you know it, but boy, a lot of people come into town and say, “Oh, mining!” They don't know anything about it. You know, you get a book like that out--or like when I was up doing a talk at [Van] Riper State Park, and a bunch of people from out of town. I was talking about the food mall (??). When I got done, they want a pasty. Where do you get pasties? Cudighi, how do you get that? And they were--oh, they were all excited. I said, “Gee, I should have had a, you know, a little brochure to hand out.” You know, go here, go there. And they were just fascinated that there was all this kind of history up here and, you know, people. You know, the thing is now, when you drive on the road, there's nothing. There's no mine shafts.

SH: Yeah.

RM: I mean, no indication. So, you can almost drive through here if you--not much to tell you.

Transcript at 11 minutes and 51 seconds: (11:51)

SH: You know that the camaraderie that develops underground is something. I mentioned to you about our get-togethers that we have with Tracy Mine. It shut down in 1970, [19]70 or [29]71, and we had reunions up until 1990, maybe one or two, something like that. Every couple years, we'd have a get-together. And then, it shut down because the committee guys were getting older and so was everybody else, and it always landed on those committee guys, you know, so we quit having them. So about two-and-a-half years ago, I thought, “I haven't seen those guys for quite a while.” So, I called the guy in Ishpeming, and I said, “How about we make some phone calls and see if we can get those guys together?” So he said, “Yeah, okay.” So, we got a date down at Dangles (??) in the loop down in Negaunee here, and we had 9 o'clock in the morning on the third Thursday, 40 guys showed up, just like that. Yesterday, there was 54 of us.

RM: Oh, my word.

SH: Yeah. Yeah.

RM: So when do you do it?

SH: Every two months.

RM: Oh, every two months. Oh, that's nice.

SH: Yeah, I split it up. Now, we got a guy that makes a roster for us. We got a computer. So, he makes it for us, and he sends me three copies. And I give one to Bob Richards [phonetic spelling] and one to Willy [phonetic spelling] in Marquette. We all call 40 guys, and it works slick. We were all there yesterday. They come in, they have breakfast, they shoot the breeze for a couple of hours, and they hit the road. No ties. You know, it’s--yeah, they have a little buffet made for us there.

RM: Oh, nice. That's good.

SH: Yeah, they still get together. Yeah. Yeah.

MIH: Do any mining, do you?

SH: Oh, yeah. Some of that. Some of that. But we don't tell all the stories.

MIH: Put up the big camera (??) and the small stuff.

SH: Yeah, we don't tell all the stories. That cudighi, kureka, Oskar Wainio [phonetic spelling]. Oskar was an old friend from Palmer. He just, “Yahh…” He was one of those guys. They were always needling Oskar. Oskar, let's go get a cudighi. “Yeah, kureka, kureka, yeah,” he’d say. [RM laughs]

MIH: Yeah. Yeah.

Transcript at 14 minutes and 7 seconds: (14:07)

RM: Didn’t the--you know, as you talk to the, you know, the different groups, now the Finns, kind of, they would usually… The immigrants would sound like…

MIH: [imitates accent] Yeah. Kureka, kureka.

RM: Yeah. Kind of a heavy, heavy talk. And the Cornish wouldn't pick up any of that.

SH: No.

MIH: No.

RM: And the--and then, how'd the Italians, how would they fit into that? Did they tend more to sound like the Finns?

SH: No. I think… I think they were…

RM: Separate?

SH: On their own, yeah. Yeah.

RM: Yeah. So, the different groups then had...

SH: Different slang.

RM: Yeah, different slang and sounds and so on. Because see, you can't go and hear that today. You know, they're all gone.

SH: Yeah, they're [inaudible word].

RM: You can’t go down to Negaunee and hear, you know, immigrants talking.

SH: The only one that you hear the Finn is Reino Pinsala [phonetic spelling]. [exaggerated accent] “Ah, you betcha.” He's still there, boy.

MEH: Yeah.

SH: He's Finn from...

MEH: Yeah, how old is he?

SH: I suppose he's 70, pushing 80, eh?

MEH: I don't know how old Joanie is. Yeah.

MIH: Joanie’s husband, too.

SH: Joanie must be 73, 74, maybe?

MEH: Yeah.

SH: That's...

MIH: [in accent] “Hey, Tony, can I take this road to L’Anse? I don't care.”

SH: [in accent] “Go ahead, take it. Who cares?” Yeah.

MIH: [laughs]

SH: Yeah. Yeah, there was a Finn, you guys.

Transcript at 15 minutes and 49 seconds: (15:49)

RM: So--so over the years, besides the mines closing and everything changing then, you also lost the immigrants, …

MIH: Oh, yeah.

RM: …like your mother and your uncle and so on and so on. So, the sounds of Negaunee at that time are no longer here.

SH: Not only Negaunee. Palmer, Palmer, Palmer, Michigan. Saturday morning down in Palmer at the post office. If you didn't talk Finn, you didn't know what the hell anybody was saying down there because all those old Finns were talking Finn, you know. They'd come there in the morning to get their…their checks or for their mail, whatever, and they all talked Finn.

MIH: Yeah, you almost think they're ignorant, eh?

SH: And now they're gone. There's nobody there that talks Finn anymore.

MEH: Well, every Sunday morning, my friend from Ishpeming--well, he was from Negaunee, Kelly Keppola [phonetic spelling]--every Sunday morning, he comes here and sits right there and watches Carl [Pellonpaa, the host of Finland Calling]. Tell him about every Sunday morning. Comes for--he's Finn, and he used to drink coffee all the time. Now, he comes, “Where's my tea?”

RM: Oh.

MEH: And he sits there and watches Carl, and then he translates some of the stuff that Carl says in Finn, you know.

SH: Yeah, I get Carl on my radio out in my sugar shack. I listen to him on Sunday morning.

MEH: Oh, yeah. Yeah, Kelly, every Sunday.

MIH: I do that when I'm just getting out of bed.

MEH: Oh, yeah?

SH: Things do change along the way.

RM: Yep.

MIH: Yeah, I'd like to live in Negaunee again.

RM: Where do you live now?

MIH: Skandia.

RM: Oh.

MIH: But I love my location.

Transcript at 17 minutes and 39 seconds: (17:39)

RM: Well now, you know, when we were talking earlier, you mentioned you were looking at the map of these locations, and somebody said something about farming or people had farms around here.

SH: Yeah, mostly hay farms, I suppose, eh? Oh, out here you had the spud field, out by where the slaughterhouse was before, maybe. Yeah. Cairns [phonetic spelling] had a spud field up there.

MEH: Joe Cairns.

SH: Yeah.

MEH: Joe Cairn had a--

MIH: Heiskinen [phonetic spelling], didn't he?

SH: Heiskinen was out north. But they were all dairy, eh?

MEH: Yeah, from where Reino Lakenen [phonetic spelling] was [inaudible word]. They were dairy, too, eh? And Sastamoinens [phonetic spelling] had a dairy farm out there.

MIH: Yeah, a lot of the people here in town had their own cows.

RM: Yeah. But these people you're talking about had commercial dairy.

MIH: Yeah.

SH: Yeah. As a matter of fact, they would sell it to Northern Dairy, probably, eh?

MIH: Or to Buck Dairy.

SH: Buck, I don't remember.

Transcript at 18 minutes and 45 seconds: (18:45)

RM: Wasn’t there--weren't there some farms out at Cascade? Is that out by the corner (??) of Cascade?

SH: Yeah. Yeah, there's farms out there.

RM: Yeah.

SH: Some dairy farms in the east of town there.

MIH: Sastamoinens were out Ann Street somewhere, 488.

SH: [says something inaudible]

MEH: How about Pete Jacobson [phonetic spelling]?

MIH: [laughs] Yeah.

SH: The Sastamoinen was out north.

MEH: Yeah, Sastamoinen, yeah.

RM: So, there were quite a few dairy farms then around here.

SH: Yeah. As a matter of fact, I won 30 quarts of milk.

MIH: Sastamoinen’s?

SH: Well, sort of. At the Girl Scout Jamboree, they had a watch. No, the prize was 30 quarts of milk delivered by Northern Dairy, so. They said, “Okay, we've got the winner. The winner's coming up here.” It turns out to be Sastamoinen. So he gets up there, and he said, “You won.” He says, “What am I going to do with 30 quarts of milk?” So, everybody turned their tickets away. He said, “We'll have another one.” They gave him a watch. So, I picked one off the floor. 30 quarts of milk. Northern Dairy delivered one once a day for 30 days. Yeah. I mean, that's living right, boy.

RM: Yeah.

MIH: Lifesaver, isn't it?

MEH: Yeah. [inaudible word] right there. [laughs] That one? Yeah.

SH: Yeah, that was a deal.

RM: Yeah.

SH: And along with that, we had Jimmy the Crow. It was a crow that used to–I don't know where the hell he came from, but he could talk. What he would say is, “Don't fall. Don't fall,” and maybe over here--

MIH: “Hey, Joe.”

SH: “Hey, Joe.” And I don't know what ever happened to that.

MEH: I know.

SH: What's that?

MEH: Ma told me what happened to that crow.

SH: That's not the same one out there.

MEH: Oh, it ain't, eh?

SH: No.

MEH: Oh.

SH: That was a different one. This was Jimmy. He was the one out to Beverly Hills [neighborhood in Negaunee] when we lived there. He used to come around in the morning and tap the milk bottles. See--

MEH: Pull all the caps off the milk bottles.

SH: Knock the bloody corks off, you know, that were delivered. Now, where he came from is beyond me. I was going to school one morning, and the bugger came and landed on my shoulder, and I pert near freaked out. And he flew up on a pole, and he followed me to school from pole to pole. And get this one now. This sounds really weird. I got up in my room, and he was on the window sill. And then, he disappeared. When I got home that night, he was at our yard, and he stayed there for – Finally, he wound up down at your place, eh? Because Pa couldn't take it anymore. My dad would be planting flowers.

MIH: No, that was a different crow.

SH: No, this was that one. This was – yeah. My dad would be planting, and the bloody crow would come behind pulling the stuff out as my dad was putting it in there. [laughs] My mom went downtown, which she seldom ever got out of the house. She came back, and she thought there had been a heck of a wind. All of her clothes that she hung up were on the ground, but all the clothespins were in one pile. So, the crow had gone pulling them out. Finally, one day, someone took a shot at the crow, and they missed the crow and got the lady next door. They slugged one right through our neighbor's wall--Rachel [phonetic spelling]--our neighbor’s wall and hit the lady in the arm. And I wonder who the hell that was that shot that. Huh?

MEH: She got hit in the breast.

SH: Is that where it was?

MEH: Yeah.

SH: And so then, it was after that that I come home from school, and there was a hell of a ruckus going on downstairs. Pa had the crow down there, and I asked Ma–I mean, they were both hollering, Pa and the crow--and I asked Ma what was going on. She says, “Well, they're gonna take the crow out to Skandia,” and they went to Skandia. And I thought it came back after that. It flew back again.

MEH: I think Ma told you a story there.

SH: Yeah?

MEH: She might have told a little white lie.

SH: Oh, yeah, like somebody knocked off the crow?

MEH: I think so.

SH: Yeah.

MEH: Well, the story Ma told me is that the people that lived across the alley–

SH: You mean when they first tried to burn it? They tried to throw it in the furnace or--

MEH: No, they slammed the window on it.

SH: Oh, yeah? Gree--Not grease. Nault [phonetic spelling].

MEH: Nault. Nault slammed the window on it. Put something on the window sill for it and--

SH: Oh, yeah?

MEH: The story Mom told me.

RM: So, this crow caused a lot of–it intruded in your life..

SH: Yeah, you might say. Well, not in my life so much because I thought he was kind of nice.

RM: Yeah.

SH: I mean, I had a project every night after school. I'd take my wagon and go over the railroad tracks to the mine there and get them clippings off the end of the timbers and haul them back. The crow would come right with me. And I'd haul them back, and I'd be throwing them in the basement. And every time I'd grab one, he'd grab it, too, you know, and he was monkeying around there all the time. And where he came from? Right – Right there.

MIH: Down my house. I was making an addition, and I left everything on the roof. And I went out to go to work the next day. I could not find the nails. The crow took them all away. I never ever found them. Kept them in the box.

SH: He's got them yet. [all laugh] Yeah, that--

Transcript at 24 minutes and 35 seconds: (24:35)

MIH: Oh, this is going to be different than anything, Cornish or anything, but did you ever hear of the burning of the White House?

RM: No.

MIH: Well, I –

SH: You mean during the Civil War, that burning?

MIH: My killer (??) dug up a woman medallion or whatever you call it on that says that the White House recently painted to hide the marks of the fight.

SH: You found that where?

MIH: In my garden.

RM: Yeah.

MIH: You remember that?

SH: Yeah, during the Civil War.

RM: It was--no, no, no, no, no, no. When was it? It was--when were we in Washington? [19]95. They were painting. They were redoing the White House and they pulled some stuff off, and they had the black from the fire from the War of 1812 when the British burned the White House.

SH: Oh, 1812.

RM: And they—yeah--and they exposed the old building, and part of it was the fire from that. I mean, part of the exposure showed the burnt area.

SH: Oh. Oh.

RM: Yeah, I remember that. And the building was like a cream color–

SH: What are you looking for, tyke (??)?

MIH: It’s in--

SH: What is it? Why didn’t you bring it with you?

RM: Put me on it, you said.

SH: Well, I'm glad somebody else is gone. I might have [inaudible word] nut.

MIH: A little bit more.

Transcript at 26 minutes and 7 seconds: (26:07)

RM: Wait a minute. What was the other thing your mother said?

MIH: Give me a drop of hot. Drop of ‘ot. H-O-T, but it's O-T.

RM: Oh.

SH: You want a drop of hot?

MIH: Drop of hot.

RM: Okay.

MEH: Yes. Only got a drop good? Okay.

RM: And wait, and you said something else about--before that. You mentioned something else she said.

SH: He's gone. He'll never remember that.

MEH: If he'd done something nice, then mother would say, “Oh, the dear Adam (??).”

SH: Yeah, the dear Adam (??).

MEH: Oh, the dear Adam (??). The dear boy.

MIH: Yeah, not nice boy. The dear Adam (??).

MEH: The dear Adam (??).

SH: And I was always doing things.

MEH: Oh, my gosh. You didn't get that very often.

SH: I was the--well, they couldn’t have them after me. I was the nice one. Can't do any better than that.

MIH: Don't you touch my baby boy.

RM: [laughs] So, the two of you had to watch him…

MEH: Oh, yeah.

RM: …when he went out.

MIH: Straighten him up.

SH: It got to the point where on pasty day, I'd have to grab my pasty and run up a tree with it because they’d always try to take it away from me. That's the way they were.

MEH: Yeah. The good old days.

MIH: Little arm (??) or--

MEH: Good old days.

Transcript at 27 minutes and 31 seconds: (27:31)

RM: Now, let's see. I want to--

MEH: I would say that my wife got it from Joe's wife. My brother Joe?

RM: Oh, okay.

MEH: And originally probably from my mother.

RM: Okay.

MEH: That's probably where that came from.

RM: All right. Oh, now here it says mix with hands. That would be munching?

MEH: Yep, that would be munching.

RM: Mixing with the hands. Okay, mix with hands. Okay. [pause] Now, could I make a copy of this?

MEH: Oh, yeah.

RM: So, I can leave (??) and then send it back to you?

SH: Give it to Joe, maybe.

RM: I'll just put it in the mail and give it back. Okay.

MEH: Give it to Susie. Then you can ask her if she's a Lucy Stoner.

RM: Oh. [all laugh]

MEH: Just to see if she remembers what a Lucy Stoner is. I think she does.

RM: No, but now it's gonna be--they're hopefully gonna shut it down.

SH: Oh, when they have their break, eh?

RM: Yeah, today's kind of the last day. You know, I’m supposed to get back, and I have to go to one of the offices and take care of some business before they close because then they won’t open till—yeah well, a few offices will be open after Christmas, but then maybe not till depending on the 7th of January, kind of just take those weeks and--well, you know, the partial week just kind of gives everybody a holiday ‘cause the thing is, [laughs] you end up--you don't get that much work done. You know, I mean people are there, but nothing's happening.

SH: I got that day off too. You? You got that day off?

MEH: I don't know. I've got lots of work here to do. You've got it off, you got to help me.

SH: Yeah, I've got that day off.

MEH: Some help.

MIH: You can help me with the turkey.

MEH: The turkey?

MIH: I make my dressing the night before Christmas Eve.

SH: Just like your ma.

MIH: Stuff ‘em in the morning.

RM: And what is in the dressing?

MIH: Mine’s different. What I do--Mom didn't have a pressure cooker. She used to have to boil everything until it got real tender. But with the pressure cooker, I only have to put it under 10 pounds pressure for about 15 minutes, and that's the gizzard and the heart and the liver and the neck. And then, everything falls off of the bones. And the juice that's in there--I put in quite a bit of water in the pressure cooker. And then, I take three pounds of ground beef, and everything goes through the grinder, the heart, the liver, everything. Even the bread I put in there. But mom didn't used to put the bread through the grinder, did she?

MEH: Yes, she did.

MIH: She did, eh?

MEH: That went through there.

MIH: Through the hand grinder.

MEH: Through the hand grinder, yeah.

MIH: Yeah, and...

RM: Okay.

MIH: Then, I take all that stuff out of the pressure cooker and grind it all and then put it in a big iron frying pan, about a 14-inch frying pan. And then, I take the ingredients from the pressure cooker, which was onions and salt and pepper and maybe a little bit of sage, ground sage, and start mincing that in the frying pan with all that ground beef and everything and everything that was ground up, the heart and the liver and everything else. And then, I leave that. I keep that going for about three hours in that pan with the cover so it doesn't get dry. I'll roll and let it simmer. And every once in a while, I take some more of that juice out of the pressure cooker and mix with it and keep it good and moist. And then, the more you put in there and the more it cooks down, the more the ingredients are into that meat, and that's where the flavor comes from. And I usually use all that stuff that's in there until it steams out and it's really flavorful.

MEH: Oh, that makes a beautiful dressing.

MIH: And then, I take it and put it in a bowl and let it cool until morning in a refrigerator. Then, I take it and stuff it into the turkey in the morning. Try to get it in the oven by 10 o'clock so it's in the oven for about four or five hours. Oh, that makes a beautiful dressing.

RM: This is what your mom used to make?

MIH: Yep. That's her recipe.

RM: Yeah.

MIH: Yep. My son one year come down with a turkey they had raised. 42 pounds.

MEH: Like that?

MIH: I couldn't get that thing in the oven, so one of the girls that worked at the store at Walmart, I said, “Well, we'll see if they can do it down there.” They couldn't cook it, but they smoked it. Oh, that was, you know. They smoked that.

SH: What do you call the smoked turkey? [all laugh]

MIH: The drumstick was like the back leg of a deer.

SH: Kids could ride on them.

MIH: Yeah. It was big.

Transcript at 33 minutes and 28 seconds: (33:28)

RM: Now, do you have a farm out in…?

MIH: No, I got two acres out there.

RM: Oh.

MIH: And I used to raise all kinds of stuff up until my wife died. And we had chickens that got up to 16 pounds, and they could stand on the floor and eat off of that table. And what I did, the stuff with their mash, I'd get all the crumbs from the bakery where I worked and mix with their mash, and oh, they dearly loved it. And I never let them run out of it, always kept it there all the time, and there were Rock Cornish. There's another Cornish thing then. There were broad-breasted Rock Cornish. Oh, they were some huge, they were.

SH: Some huge, yeah?

MIH: Oh, they were handsome things to look at. Yep, so. And the people didn't believe that they were that big, and I think Mother came down that time, too, for Christmas or something. It was already in the wintertime, and I kept them until Christmas. I brought one in, and he could eat off of that table, standing on the floor.

RM: Geez.

MIH: And I used to run my chickens on wire, not on the ground or anything. But they got so heavy, they were cutting their feet on that chicken wire, so they had to cover it with straw.

RM: So what did they weigh, 20?

MIH: Pardon?

RM: How much did they weigh, the chickens?

MIH: Well, I don't know exactly how much they weighed, but they must have weighed about 15 pounds anyway. Like a small turkey they were, really. Yep.

RM: Incredible.

MIH: But--and I got them chickens from… [pause] It was Montgomery Ward’s, I think.

RM: Really?

MIH: Yep. Ordered them from there.

RM: Yeah.

MIH: But then one time, they sent me some eggs. They run out of chickens, and I had to have the eggs. And they got big, too. I put them under another hen.

RM: Oh, these weren't Rock? They were a different type of chicken?

MIH: No, they were Rock Cornish eggs.

RM: Oh.

MIH: You couldn't get many Rock Cornish eggs because, you know, where they raise chickens, they don't keep the roosters there, so the eggs ain't no good.

RM: Mm-hmm.

MIH: Yep. Yeah, I used to have a menagerie out there. I raised everything. Conservation department used to bring me ducks and rabbits and that that were homeless. They'd bring them to me to raise. Then, I'd let--leave them go, and I had four ducks one time, mallards that they brought me. I kept them in a cage until fall, then I left them out. And they start getting on top of the cage, trying their wings and that. This is about when the geese and ducks were heading south. And they took off, and they flew out over the hill and hit a tree, and they walked all day and all night. [all laugh] And them ducks came back for two years, but then one of the neighbors got caught by the conservation department carrying a duck home.

RM: Oh.

MIH: He didn't arrest him for shooting a duck out of season. He arrested him because he was too young to have a gun.

RM: Oh.

MIH: That was something. Yeah. Yeah.

RM: Well, I better let you guys... [tape cuts out]