In His Minds Eye An Evening With Jim Marshall

Bring Back The Porch is exited to present a live to tape podcast in partnership with the Medicine Hat Historical Society, featuring Brian Konrad and Jim Marshall. Jim is a celebrated artist whose work is deeply embedded in the cultural fabric of Medicine Hat. With a career spanning decades, Jim shares his experiences growing up in our vibrant community and how it has shaped his artistic vision. Join us as we dive into his stories, insights, and valuable lessons for aspiring artists.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
01:44 The Marshall Family Legacy in Medicine Hat
05:27 Growing Up in Medicine Hat: Childhood Memories
10:47 School Days and Early Influences
16:24 Sports and Community Engagement
22:08 Adventures and Life Lessons
28:01 Career Aspirations and Early Jobs
33:39 High School Experiences and Social Life
35:54 Summer Jobs and Life Lessons
41:26 Adventures in Toronto
49:16 Transitioning to Printing and Art
56:40 Building a Career in Art
01:03:06 Historical Preservation and Community Engagement
01:08:45 Creating Murals and Artistic Expression
01:16:44 Enduring Passion for Adventure

About Jim Marshall
Jim Marshall is a prominent artist known for his distinctive style and contributions to the art scene in Medicine Hat and beyond. With roots that trace back to the early settlers of the region, his work reflects both the history and the evolving landscape of his hometown. His understanding of the local culture and heritage adds depth to his art, making it resonate with audiences across generations.

Growing Up in Medicine Hat: A Historical Perspective
Jim reminisces about his childhood in Medicine Hat during the 1940s and 50s. His family history is rich, with ancestors who settled in the area during the late 19th century. Jim describes how his great-grandparents, who emigrated from Ireland and Scotland, established deep roots in the community, contributing to its development through their trades, including baking and carpentry.

From Childhood Memories to Artistic Expression
Jim shares poignant memories of his youth that influenced his artistic journey. He recalls his early experiences with art, including a memorable incident in school where he created a model out of plasticine. This moment, while fleeting, ignited a passion for art that would shape his future.

The Evolution of an Artist: Insights and Inspirations
Throughout the evening, Jim elaborates on the evolution of his artistic style and the inspirations behind his work. He discusses the various influences that have shaped his approach, from local landscapes to global art movements. His commitment to capturing the essence of Medicine Hat is evident in his pieces, which blend personal narrative with broader cultural themes.

Challenges Faced and Overcome
Every artist faces challenges, and Jim is no exception. He openly discusses the obstacles he encountered in his career, including self-doubt and external criticism. However, it is his resilience and dedication to his craft that have allowed him to persevere and continue creating meaningful art.

Jim’s journey is a testament to the power of art to tell stories and connect generations. His insights remind us that every artist has a unique path shaped by their experiences and influences. As you explore your own artistic journey, consider how your roots and experiences can inform your work.

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Transcript

0:00

Hey, this is Brian again. And I'd like to ask you to do a favour. We can't do this work without people like you. So if you can, please, like, share, subscribe. Tell your friends about bring back the porch. Hello. Recently, we moved off the porch and onto the stage of the historic Monarch Theatre. We were there at the invitation of the Medicine Hat Historical Society, to spend an evening with renowned local artist James Marshall. His work is seen all over Medicine Hat and around the world. And we invite you now to join us as we spend an hour and a half with James as he talks about growing up in medicine and in the 40s and 50s and becoming an artist. This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. And I am very pleased to be here tonight because, when Bruce sent me the email, he said, would you be interested in being a moderator on An Evening with Jim Marshall? And I thought maybe for two seconds I hit yes, because I have been a fan of Jim Marshall's work all my life. Getting to know Jim over the last two weeks here as we've been preparing for this has been a joy for me, because he's told me lots of stories about things that happened when he was growing up. And Medciine Hat all good, knowledge for future episodes. One of the things you said to me, though, was why me? And I said, why not you? Your fingerprint is everywhere. You cannot go anywhere in Madison that without seeing your work. So I'm honoured to be here tonight, Jim. Thank you. Yeah. Now, I. Thought I had deep roots in this community because my grandfather came here in 1904. Your family history here in Medicine Hat goes a long ways past mine. So. But you, a great great grandfather. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us about how Marshall came to be here in Medicine Hat. I've always been real glad that when they got here, they stayed. My dad's grandparents, came from Ireland, from Dublin, and they came to Medicine Hat and they stayed. And my mom was, great grandparents, the Richardsons, Richardsons bakery, came from Glasgow, Scotland, and they stayed. And I'm ever so glad. So are we. You know what? You're that West. You. I don't actually. Okay. But I think right at the turn of the century, somewhere around the 1890s. Okay. So that would be when I was still a town. So how many marshals were there? Well, there were five brothers. All of them in in building, carpentry finishers, painters. And they built a number of really nice homes and medicine hat. That's one of them, that they built for their parents on, Allowance Avenue. And it's still there, and I did a, research and, I think we're up to about 18, really nice, mostly two story homes, throughout throughout the city. My mom's, Family were bankers back to Scotland. When they came to Canada, they they stayed in Toronto for a while, built a bakery there, and then decided to keep on moving. And they went to Winnipeg, built a bakery there, and, finally came to Medicine Man. I'm glad for that. My great grandfather, Richardson, but the original the first bakery had medicine. They had the Leonard Bakery, which is down on fourth Street southeast, and and the plants, the building's still there. It's not a bakery anymore, but, My grandfather, he carry it on to Redcliffe and build a pink pastry bakery in Redcliffe. And his building was a victim in the big tornado that went through, red Cliff. His building was flattened. So he go back to Medicine Hat, took over the bakery down in the flats on fourth Street southeast. And my great grandfather, Richardson, went over, to fourth Street southwest almost at Kershaw Drive and built a bakery there. That building is still there, too, I believe. Is it. That building isn't there? Oh, it's not there. Okay. That building was the Richardson's, before I was really noticing things. It was sold out when he retired to Western's. Okay, so it was always Western Bakery. When I was a kid, I lived right across the. Street, so the air always smelled good with fresh bakery. I used to sneak in there quite a bit. Now we come to your dad, Val. My dad. My dad was quite a guy. He was born and raised in medicine. Had, raised in the flats, mainly, went to Montreal Street School and ultimately Alexandra, in grade ten, he lost his father. And so he had to go to work, and he went downtown looking for a job. And he got a job. The he. And that was the printing. And, he stayed there pretty well the rest of his life. Except for the time spent in the Army. Mom, she started off at the flats. On fourth Street. what we My dad, And, went to Montreal Street School and, worked hard. And he had done some printing until the war. Now, that was out of necessity because of your passing of his father. Yes. That was, and he actually took to make a little bit more money in because he was keen about the military. Anyway, he joined the, the local militia as well. And, during the Second World War, he, he got called up really, really quickly because of being in the Army already. He, trained in Calvary to start with. He, he was also selected to go down to Helena, Montana, to take a commando. Course, and small weapons and, some hand-to-hand training and, then he went back, to Calgary to train troops to start, I think he was also, training at the, armories. Yeah, he was training at the armories. And. I think you have a picture of that. Good, Thanks for telling me. Well. There's not school. Yeah, yeah. There you go. Yeah, yeah. Well, he was, he was there with his best friend, training out in front of the building on the road. They were marching, and my mother and her best friend, Jenny Dryden were walking by on the way downtown to go to a movie. Probably. Probably her. And, my dad said to, Craig, do you see that gal, that pretty girl with the dark hair? I'm going to marry that girl. And he did. That was me mom. And they gave a wedding picture. Okay. Yeah. Wedding that year there. And then the honeymoon. Well he's kind of. There's Bonnie and Clyde. It's quite a distinguished couple. I remember the the end of the war. My my grandmother passed away, when mom was carrying me. My dad was in the army, and, mom was on her own, and my grandfather was on her own. So we we moved in with my grandfather, spent the whole war with him. And I do remember the end of the war as a kid. It was a ramp in the back of the house that they walked out on to hang clothes on the clothesline, and we sat on that and watched the fireworks from Crescent Heights Hill. You know, it was fired off about where the, Madison Golf Club houses. Yeah. And, I remember it like it was yesterday. You would have been about six years old then. Yeah, because you were born April 10th, 1939. It was. That to be an old dude. Means you got another birthday coming up. Yeah, I was I was really not very aware of my dad. For the first six years of my life, And, it was pretty neat when he came home, I was going to a rural school at the time, and I remember, him having breakfast with me and my. We were still staying at my grandpa, and, he was somewhere else. His mind was, miles away, and he was sitting there thinking, first day at home. And, he was going to work that day downtown. And we were having breakfast, and he was eating, toast with strawberry jam. And I. Remember. Yeah. I think you have another picture of your dad, too, I think so. I'm sure glad you're here. Yeah. Yeah. Now, that said motor barracks, I think up in Calgary or Motor Stadium. Where where the training at your father took. I should have had that up when he was. You know, his arm is that there is there you can see he's a pretty tough guy. And you can't imagine being raised by a man after he came home. All army, all discipline, I imagine. And you couldn't go wrong. I couldn't I was in grade one in Earl Kitchener. I remember walking the first day to school with my mom, and then when dad came home and we had this breakfast and his staring out the window kind of goofy, and I was really keen to get to know him, and, we, we walked together. He was heading downtown, toward. And I was heading to Earl Kitchener, so I took the wrong with him down third Street to the armories. We parted company there. A friend of mine, Jimmy, right, met me there, and we carried on to rural Kitchener. And my dad trundled down Third Street Hill to his his shop. What's next? Grade two three. Grade two. Kitchener School with Miss Henderson. Miss Henderson, there were two miss Henderson's, one was the principal at Earl Kitchener and the other was, a roving, art teacher for all the public schools in town. She was a really neat lady. And of course, because she was teaching art and I was keen about her and, she introduced us to plasticine. That's what I mean. I had never seen it before. And she said, we're going to muddle things out of this. You gave me a nice, good lump and said, fix something with it. She said, the whole class. But everybody needs something. And we all got working away, making things. And she came around to see what I was doing, and I was modeling a horse, and she seemed to be very impressed and got all excited and said she wanted to go get her sister to have a look. Her sister was the principal. She was the principal. Well, they were gone. I crushed it. Why would I do something? And she was so upset. Why did you do that? She said. I don't know. I see today that we missed a lot of money. The first creation of James Marshall. Anyway, she did forgive me. And, we let it go in that, I think he moved into a two story house. Yes. And then he started making a little money, and. And he bought the two story house on fourth Street southwest. We all moved in there, and, that's where I was totally raised. In that house, I, I had two brothers, by the way. I forgot to mention that my two brothers came along after the war. A couple of nice lads, and, they got to live in a couple of more places. I, I, only lived in that house on fourth and for a little while. House on eighth Street, southwest. In. Great. Three. Well, it was to move to an art school. Yeah. And my, my friend Ralph Richardson, my cousin, Ralph Richardson, who was a couple of years older than me, warned me that there was going to be, a hazy, One of one of two things is going to happen there is they're going to take the grain is the big grain. Eight you're going to take grain trees and they're going to take you down the basement and dunk your head in the toilet. Ralph said that's what happened to me. And he always claimed because he had lots of hair. When he was older. And I obviously don't. And I think it was probably because the guy had done. The other thing that they were going to do is chase you down, take you to the back of the school grounds where there was a huge pile of tumbleweeds. They pulled down your pants. One kid got your wrists and the other your ankles, and you got hitched in the double. I think I take the toilet. No. Anyway, the, the warning, was good for me. I owed him, I owed bread, and it took them a month to catch me. Great. Big kid by the name of Allen Turk. God, I swear he shaved it. Great. He, So he might have been there for a while. You finally got. And you told me inside the bakery at Weston's Bakery on fourth Street where I was hiding. And, he did get me. Dragged me all the way back to Canal school, where there was a game waiting. My pants came down and I told him. Wasn't all that. Rowing and. Great race. Oh, the great thing. Yeah, well, let's talk about some of the teachers you had. Yeah. Good night. School and some really good teachers and board. Remember Ernie Bloch? I was a student of Ernie Bloch. Ernie Bloch typing in Lethbridge. Well, he had that thing if you were a little bad in schooling. Yeah. But there's not. And there was Mr. McKenzie, everybody called him by. He was a really neat guy. Mr. Milligan was the teacher was the principal. And Dorothy Williams, who became Dorothy Jones, was one of the teachers. And we had an athletic teacher, Mr. Stevens, Dick Stevens. You know, they became pretty good friends. He was a real runner. And I was a runner, too. I loved running and, well, we were, in school, there became, a big race in medicine Hat. It started in Red Cliff at the, town hall, and you ran down the Red Cliff highway and through Riverside and across the Finley Bridge to the City Hall in Medicine Hat, and it was wide open to the city. And all of the students in, in the school system were invited to be in it. So it was a fair gang of people running down the highway. And, Mr. Stephenson won the seniors and I won the junior. Well, do you remember what you won? You remember what the prize was? We got a nice big trophy. Oh, that big. Congratulations. And I lost. So. And then you also, I think a baseball player. Well, we did play baseball and track and running, and that's. And that's where we played Murderball. Murderball? Where by bullet and I'd school was football with no rules. And we got, we had a pretty good team. But one thing I have to mention though about grade eight, miss wins, and I was in her homeroom, and, she announced at the end of the year that she was failing the entire class except two girls. So obviously, I was one. It was a little shocking to go home and face the assignment. But, I met some good guys, Oh, there's some of my early drawings. Yeah, airplanes. That's during. The war. I drew these. Earl kitchen or school, my house that I lived in and forth and grew up in. And that's what it looked like on the prairie. My house is that place right there. You can see all kinds of prairie behind me. I walked across the prairie completely to canard school. Back in those days. Yeah, just. To help orient people here at the top of the pictures, the South Saskatchewan River Lions Park. And then as you go on a little bit further south, that dark line is the CP rail yards. So we're looking, to the east from roughly, I suppose, somewhere near where the hospital is today. Well, this this is fourth Gershaw Drive third, which is now the, the fat string downtown. There's the armories in the hill, third Street Hill and Division area. And there was a big swamp there too. You had to walk through a swamp I think to get to that school. The swamp ran ran all the way down seventh Street to the top of the hill. Right. Yeah. And it's still. There. That still carries the water today. So rural. You're still there's me and my little Shetland pony that I had staked out on the back. Nice little horse. Except he always tried to bite me when I was getting on. And, He trampled me lots of times when I was pregnant. Women from where I had staked out on the prairie because he knew he was getting old at that point. So he was pretty in a pretty big hurry to get to the little barn. I used to ride with Freddy Hall, and Freddy all was a great guy, and mostly, you know. Or did, And I would get my horse saddle down to his place early in the morning so I could get in on breakfast at their place. His mom was a great, really put a good breakfast together. And, I tied my horse up to the there fence at the back, and we, we had our breakfast and came out and by God, my horse was gone. And so was a section of their fence. So, we we decided we'd probably find everything down and we just came Tim Cooley. Now, at that time, it was just a natural gully. And we went down in the valley and yep, there she was. The and the fence still tied on and looking for these sheep. These guys I know, he said. Look at his face. Anyway, we cut him loose, took the horse up the hill and then went back down and carried that back up the hill, and we had to put it all back together again. And we sort of gave up the ride, and I didn't know. Anyway, there's the Westminster sculptor. Bill, Webb was the leader, skipper. And he was a great guy. He was a tank commander in his day and tank sergeant in the in the war told us a lot of good stories when we were kids. And he was a, a great guy for taking his camping and, staying overnight in places out on the country. And it was really quite fantastic time. A number of us joined the Air Cadets as well, and, that was a good time. We used to go to Claire's home, in the air. Cadets from around the Alberta held, in fact, me at Claire's home air base, and we we, competed against each other as air cadets in track and field and then we got to ride in, Harvard Airplanes for. 20 minutes or so. And that was pretty thrilling. What's next? Well, we're going to talk a little bit about the slough and how you used to make fun in the winter time by skating on this slough. Yeah, that's when you froze in the winter. And we did skate on it. It was a telephone pole and then was put up when my mom was a kid, and they used to skate on that slough as well when she was a little girl. And, they put a light on this pole and they could skate at night when we got to skating there. And then years later, the pole was there. But the length but the pole didn't stay. And, when it got chopped down and we cut it up and made a raft. And that way we could get across the slough to the night school. Ken, for us, he was the main, skipper on the raft. And and we ask most of the teachers that lived on that side of the slough so that if they want to ride, we'd give them a ride. Mary car was the only one that. This home decided not to. She wrote about the school she tried to ride through on the road through the slough. He didn't. Know she was in. She had gone on but on the raft she stayed right. Go. That was one of the the busy schools on the Southwest Hill from early in what by 1912, 1914, all the way still going today. They was built in 1912. And, and it's been a good school all the way. You got a job in grade seven? I did. I got a job in my dad's printing job, and, Well. He gave you a job after school and on Saturday mornings. Yeah, he washed. Washed? He got the presses after school every day at 4:00. I do delivered passes. First of all. And I had a bike with a great big carrier on it. My dad put this huge carrier on it. And if you've had that carrier full of packed printing, I can't imagine how have you. I had a few crashes and, I wrote this bike for another couple or three years from town delivering stuff and in Washington presses and then sweeping the floors, and it took me till about 8:00 by the time I was finished and one really cold winter night, it was a heck of a blizzard blowing. And, I wonder how I was going to walk all the way home from downtown on to eighth Street, near Shore Drive and and, I got this bright idea because furniture was next door, and they always had big cardboard boxes at the back of the building. And I put one at one end was sealed and the other end was open always. So I cut a little slot and it put the box over my head in the slot, and the seal, and I walked all the way home under a cardboard box. Now, with that stupidity or ingenuity. Necessity is the mother of invention. I must have looked pretty stupid. You had a career day at Carnot that had a very, That's right. Yeah. Ron Dooley and I went to career day. Ron and I met at grade one at Earl pensioners, and we were old buddy, and, we went and toured all of the all the people with the career ideas of, you know what? We could become one day, that sort of thing. And we wandered through the mall and then we were going Toronto's after we did this and I said to rod, what are you going to do? Have you decided, what are we going to. Yeah, I'm going to be an engineer. I'm going to be an engineer. Yeah. He says. And he became an engineer. I couldn't believe it. He asked me what I was going to do and I didn't have a clue. I said, I have no idea. Yeah, I didn't know in grade 12. Yeah. But then you went off to Alexandria School, where football became something. That we in grade nine, grades. Most of us should have been in grade nine, but. And we were playing Murderball, and, so we were pretty good at football, and there was, kind of a. A little bit of play off between Leonard Cooper and Dick Stephen. There was a competition there, and Dick Stevens challenged Cooper to put a team together of high school students to play his great new, great, nice, just coming to the Heisman. And, we played them, at the very start of the 29 school year, and we played to A00 time. So we played pretty good So, you get a driver's license or. Drivers license, and I had to deliver a bunch of parcels. So I'm a 16 year old kid, and I had to drive a whole big load of things down on Maple Leaf Mill. And my dad said, well, you'll have to pay the station wagon. So I loaded the station wagon up and drove down, and then I went over the bridge. I noticed, a beautiful big gravel parking lot, and I parked in front of the the building and unloaded the parcels and, got back in the car and I put it in reverse. I really gunner and spun the wheels, and I was spinning back, and I cranked the wheel, and I spun the car and went spinning through the gravel to the bridge and down to the bridge and shot. And I pulled in the back lane to park the car, and my dad was standing at the back door. That was kind of strange. Walked over and up the steps. He held out his hand and I put the keys in his hand and he said, you're back on your back. You know I'm the last time I drove this guy. Yeah. So when you get a job working at the airport. Yeah. Nice summer job. Well I had no job at the printing and. And I got a job at the, at the airport. I rode my motorcycle out there every day to work through the summer. Bill Francis was in charge there. He was a an ex pilot from the Second World War. He was a really neat guy. And my job was gassing airplanes, washing airplanes, and moving them in and out of the the hangars. And I was in my glory there, I must say. Also at the airport was Professor Coleman. And if I remember at the paper just recently, there was a aircraft called a. That, was being filmed at the airport by Professor Coleman, and he had a number of people in medicine and helping. He designed it. But there were other people like, the Shannon brothers. The Shannon brothers had a motel at the bottom of Dunmore Hill just before you go over the creek. And, he had a big shop there, and he was, they built a lot of things in that shop. They were gas fitters and that sort of thing. They did all the gas lines in the first class. And, and all of the health and medicine have, and they did quite a bit of the iron work on the. And doctor, the only thought to have a motorcycle engine in it and a seat up front. The wife. I don't think I would want to get on it. I think they, got they got a test pilot from person. He was a pilot, and they came and sat in the front seat and burns from Burns holdovers. If some of you older ones. People probably remember Burns photos downtown right there, just two doors over from the minor. He was one of the investors and helpers, and he had a nice big DeSoto car, and he pulled their the. They know the doctor from the hangar to the run home. I was permitted to ride my motorcycle on the runway long as I stayed right out on the edge and didn't get away. And this pilot strapped himself into the front seat, and, and they fired this thing up, and the wings were slapping up and down, and they started to move forward. And I carried on on my bike with him, and he got going up from the airspeed, but he didn't ride off the ground, and it so a little frustration amongst the investors and it was several of them in the DeSoto. So they hooked a big long rope on the thing and pulled it back up to the starting gate again, and then maneuvered the DeSoto in front of me and the doctor and stretched out the rope. Now they do the whole thing down the runway. And they did. They pulled it down the runway and they got up a pretty good speed. That DeSoto had lots of power. And then or a doctor got up in the air about the length of the roll. And then, on to the pavement. I heard every swear word. And it was every time. You expanded your vocabulary. And he stopped off. He didn't wait for a ride or anything. He took off from the runway two. They see him at the airport to get his car, and he was gone. Yeah. So you were one of the first classes at medicine that high school? Yeah, we were one of the first classes. And then another high. And I think the class ahead of us, my former class, we were the first grade. And then you were still playing sports though. Where were the, sports fields. Oh, always playing sports. You know. You were playing at, Bassett Reserve, wherever that was. I remember it was where Safeway's Division Avenue okay is today. It was a big ballpark there and we played our, medicine football games against other schools in the past. Reserve. Okay. And we also played, down in Riverside and on a baseball diamond there, too. Okay. Because we didn't have a field all the time. I was in high school. We didn't we didn't have the outdoor facilities at all. You know, later. They really got great stuff there. Now, we practiced football on the prairie. I've got four teeth on the prairie there. So. Yeah. Everybody was pretty busy. High school was a busy place. And you were spending a lot of time at Ernie's. Oh, yeah. Ernie's. Well, Ernie's was where the boys are now. The chocolate shop for the girls. You never walked across the road. When we did. Oh, okay. Yeah. And the girls came over there just to see what it was like. Okay. Yeah, it was all pretty good, you know. Now Ernie's was in the Aberdeen shopping area there between Aberdeen and Belfast Street, right. Across the street from each other. Yeah. So great. Yeah. I think you got a summer job working on the CPR. I did, well, actually, Dundee Crane and I, we got a job with the CPR again. Can you imagine that, little high school class going to work at the extra day where you work ten hours, 12 hours a day carrying jacks and weighing 50 pounds, shoveling gravel? It was crazy. But we did last all summer, a lot of them did. You know, there was a real mix of characters there. There was some guys that were from an institution that weren't too bad. There were a lot of guys from Europe, and they everybody called DPS back in the day, real good guys. And there were several of them working there, some good fights, broken lunches. It was a real education. We slept in a boxcar. We ate along the tracks for lunch and ate in a boxcar for supper. Breakfast. It was pretty good. And I imagine it was pretty. Hot. When we got a weekend off. We had freight trains going through and ran like the Dickens to catch them and jump on. And, 11I remember the best was, we couldn't catch, the car we wanted. We caught a, car that had flow cycle about this time. And when we got out and we found out it was, coal, oh, you can imagine, once that thing gets up to speed, what it was like to be in a coal car, we were as black and as. And when we jumped off the train and you had to jump off while the train was still going, a pretty good clip because they had yarn balls and the cigars station back in the day. They didn't take kindly the guys off the train and, we jumped off, in the dark like it was in the morning. And, you know, there were switches and things along the tracks and why we didn't get ourselves killed. I had no idea. And we we got ourselves sorted out, and we were so dirty, so glad we decided to go up the hill. Cool. I went through the fence and leave our clothes on and go for a swim. Well, it didn't help a lot, but it did help somebody. When I got home and it was really, really a hot summer, I had a bedroom and, downstairs in the basement on eighth Street, and, mom decided to sleep in my bedroom when it was a lot cooler and my brothers were sleeping in the rumpus room, and, I decided not to disturb anybody. I would just take the the screen off the bedroom window, trying to crawl in. Next thing I knew, I was getting beaten to death on a hockey stick. My mom got on the bedroom. Oh, boy. And then you got a job at the glass factory? Yeah. Another summer job? Yeah. That was. We never lost a good jobs at the glass factory the first two years. Well, two summers I wasn't for summer. I was in the boxing room and where they boxed up all this stuff. And that's where all the girls were. And they couldn't stand being around all those girls. And, the second year, first place. And we got into the machine room, and we were spent the whole summer barreling beer glasses. And it's a really, really hot job. So they had two guys on it. You worked a half an hour on, half an hour off, and, it said I and were clean, clean up around that sort of thing. Yeah. the last job I got at at summer and I was in grade 11, and Gordon flew and I were coming around to the end of that summer, and, we decided then we weren't going to work at the glass factory. Another summer. We were going to load our gear into this car by 1949 and head down east, and I go back to school. And, the night before we were to leave, I went up to his house to get his stuff so we could get away from him. And he took the longest time to come out. And when I pulled up to his house in to play around, come on out. And then finally he came out and he leaned into my car and he said, I decided, I'm not going. And I said, oh, you're not going to go in here? Okay. Well, see, and I drove back down, down to my house. I jumped the car up, blocked it, took all the wheels off that night. And the next, next day I got on the Canadian. Now, you had also been working at the C.P.R. again at the roundhouse. I work I, I knew what I was going to do that. Yeah. I think I have a picture of the roundhouse, too. Yeah. I was we were planning to go and we were. Yeah. Some money up and I, I got a job at the roundhouse and, and I was related to Ray Collier, he was a, he was the foreman there and he got me, he let me work double shifts.

So I go to work at 8: 45:13

00 in the morning and go home at 8:00 at night. And, I made quite a little bit of money. And then I went to pick up Gordon's stuff, and he wasn't going to go. And so I, I ended up at the train station, the next night, and I was gone. Yeah. And I spent, the whole trip to Toronto, taken to Toronto, riding in the observation car and, slept there to, because I didn't want to. I had to take a seat. And there was some nice people I met there. They were drawn. I didn't know a thing about Toronto, what I was going to do or where I was going to go. And, I asked at one point would be, an easy place to stay for a while. It would be expensive. And, and I did kind of cool out and look for a job that time. And they said, well, I'll stay at the one in Central White, down there. So I thought, good idea. So I did, I stayed at the Y. I lost it there. There was a track and swimming pool and, and, you know, a heck of a good place to stay. And you guys there, I met a good guy, a guy by the name of Bruce Saint John who's a little older fella. He was from British, from the Barbadians. He was from Barbourville, a black guy. And he's just a sweet, sweetest guy ever. And he was studying, opera. He was a classical singer, and he was studying at a Toronto conservatory. But, I say I was 17, he was, some 21 or so, and he like, and in those days, the jazz band, like Louis Armstrong and the Count Basie and all those guys, they were traveling the big circle, and they were coming to Toronto and putting on shows at the Theatre there. And, we both really liked that stuff. So we buy a ticket to go and talk in these plays. Jazz Fest, and they were really good. And then he finished up in the conservatory and went back to Barbados and, I, I had a part time job at the printing shop and, but, wasn't making much money. And, I saw in the paper, And when they were looking for people to build switchboards and install, build buildings, wire them all up switchboards and it would take them somewhere and install them. And back in those days, all the offices, big offices had such boards in them. And that's how the phone services, work. And, I was a little under age, actually, I was only 17.5 of them, and it had to be a line. And he did the math, and he wasn't going to let me, go to the school. So and then he started over after I kind of whined a bit and, he let me go and, I learned and, and he said the best re reason that he let me go is that I had really incredible eyes and and I did I, I, I had the highest mark they ever got at me. And you had to have really good color. Like, my dad couldn't do it. He was colorblind. And we went to our first job in Niagara Falls to install, I think our him there and, one of the instructors, 1 or 2 of us, two students, and we installed it real nicely. It took us a couple of weeks and, because it was pretty easy to install one and another, they build it, and then we went for beer after and he said, you guys are pretty good guys that I, I really feel I to tell you that you're going to be obsolete in no time flat because they're not going to do these big, switchboards anymore. There's a whole new technology coming up, and you're not going to be. And you won't. You won't be working anymore, Bill. So we wonder, what were we going to do? Those two guys went back to Toronto and I said, I'm going to join the Marines. And I went across the border to Buffalo and went to the marine station there, and they wouldn't take. Maybe because I was a foreigner and and and if they did, they foreigners from time to time. But they weren't there. But they said, why do you want to join anyway? And, I, you know, I wanted to see if I could do the, the boot camp. And I was really wanting to know if I could do boot camp. Yeah, I think it does. And I think you got a picture of boot camp somewhere here. No I don't. Oh, you. Oh, you could okay. Like that again. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, and the guy said to me, well, he said if that's all you're interested in and he said there is another ten, nearby, same instructors, same stuff. You're just not going to be a marine, so let's do it. So I did, and I enrolled. I climbed those those barricades, you and I, and you ran all the time. And I would have run if you didn't. If you weren't allowed to walk anywhere, if you weren't going to the bathroom or going to lunch or anything you ran. You had to run all the time, and you ran out of the country and up the hills and everywhere. It was just amazing. Crawled through and called culverts full of mud. And, yeah, you did. You did all kinds of stuff. And then, of course, you learn to shoot. And, they were also teaching us, about, spying a little bit on, on, because it was a covert operation. So they, they wanted you to. If they sent you somewhere, then you knew spy with troops that you weren't doing any shooting or anything. You just kind of see what's going on. You could have been James Marshall, the spy Marshall, James Marshall. But anyway, I didn't get that. I couldn't get that far. It got terminated and we were disbanded, and I went back to Toronto and came on. But that was an adventure. Yeah, but when you were in the East, you did do a little work in a printing plant, and you learned about it. And I worked at a printing plant. Printing plants were changing. They were all the, you know, hot metal, liner types and all that sort of stuff. Coffee made on metal strips that were long, thin to a form on a pressed printing. And, there was a new thing happening called awesome printing or lithography. And I when I was down East at the time, I got a little job in a printing shop, and they were already into it down me. And so my learn to run a press and I, I hung around there after hours and watched what they did in the dark rooms and, and and, the makeup rooms and stuff. I got a pretty good idea what was gonna be with all of them. And when I came home, I was telling my dad about it, and, and and the foreman of the shop, Ron Corn. And, they were all already getting excited about getting in on the Theatre and, preparing for it, and, They built a darkroom. I think. Well, we built a door darkroom. We bought a small camera and had a small printing press, but they thought if we're going to really get into this, we should send it back to Toronto. And. And you could take the course that and Ryerson with, Kodak. And, so I went back to Toronto and I spent some time at Ryerson, and I did that. I got into more things there than just printing. But, I took some art classes there, too, and, I learned a fair bit and came back home, and we we changed the shop completely. And, we had a lady that had a millinery shop in the and and part of the shop, printing shop and she would moved out, and then we moved upstairs into her space, and that was good. And then what happened was, and there's yeah. We're back to about 1960s now. So, Bob Butler was a good pal of mine. He was working at Benny Motors as a as a parts guy. I said, do you want to train for, when I was on the air and, he said, yeah, I'd like to do that. I don't think I'm going anywhere here. So he came over. I, I did train him, and he worked with me, and we worked a number of years together and, Horse furniture had a great big fire farm, and I had worked late that night. We were doing books and we went to Husky for supper. And then when we came back with, we noticed that the board was on fire. We saw, fire and smoke on the top of the building, and boy, did it turn into a fire. Anyway, the pretty picture is this little building in the middle. Right there. There's brewer's furniture. It's on fire. And we get. We get not burned, but we we got a lot of water and and we got grounded, and we were done in that building. And so we made a deal on this. This was a motor car supply. And they were closing and that building became available. We thought, well, if we fixed it all up, we could we could. Do do that. So. It became that your office is upstairs now. That's now where Bernie Leahy's real estate offices. And that's the home of Bring Back the Porch. So, that turned into a real nice, pretty job. But I got itchy feet, and, I left the business, and, went to work that I. It's down in history. You had a a thing for flying, though aircraft was. If we passed on that, I. Well, you had an opportunity to take some flying training. Okay, well, yeah, a little bit before that, I did take some flying training, and there was a number of guys that I knew. Roy Solecki was one them and, we, Had some good training. Roy Lasky and I bought this airplane, and, before we bought it, though, when we rented a plane, after we got our license and we flew it up to corner, and we drew straws to see who would land the plane on top of the bench at home and who had taken off and, you know, land on the grass in between the trees. And, I got the, the joy of taking it off. And he landed and, we wanted to prove that we we were real pilots. If you could get off on that and land there, you were doing pretty good. And, then we bought this guy. And this is a globe Swift. With just was, an American training aircraft, during the Second World War. It was a nice airplane. It was fast. It was scary. It stalled at about 100. You remember Jim Simpson, who had freelance photos? He wanted to take a picture of a plane flying real low along the runway. And so I said, I'll do it. So I took it up and around and got right down on the deck. He took that shot. Couldn't deliver, but we had him for a number of years, when I went with I. And so they had two airplanes. And there is the brake plant. In red cloth. And red. In my day, I excel. I had 7 or 8 plant plants. Malcolm could correct me on that. Somewhere around that 7 or 8 and, I worked for his dad. And I was appointed, marketing director, so I was in charge of marketing, and it was a good position for me. I knew a little bit about the business, but, boy, when I saw that clay there, I got ideas. Tell me. That's a. Because I was already piloting by then. And drawing and painting. But I was into pottery and making a three dimensional sculptures and then. And when I saw that clay and I realized that there could be something done that this and long story short, I spent a decade in the 1970s and I so, traveling all over the country, I really loved it. It was just absolute super, super place to work. Great people, great company. And, but I wasn't there for a career. And I knew Malcolm was coming from university, and I thought, well, I'll make some room. And, And then I think Frank Westgarth was instrumental in helping you. He, retired from his painting business, and he won. He was an artist as well. And, he wanted to start a little gallery. We had no gallery. Snap. And really, we don't almost again, I wish we had, you know. His original was up on the hill. By the Anthony where it used to. Be. Okay, Across from the chocolate shop. And then, he retired from that family, and, Neil Burbidge took a look at over bought it, and he ran it there for a little while, and he had a building built on South Railway Street, which is there It was quite the time, though, because you were. You changed jobs, decided to step out as an entrepreneur, and you came up with this idea of having. And we were doing drawings and paintings stuff and selling and we did really well. Well, that gallery was. And then when he closed the gallery everything went. Yeah. And, and I had this idea about carving bricks. Yes. And I happened to know somebody that was working there and I was able to get bricks unfired and I did carve them and, and Malcolm actually let me build a small studio and part of the brick plant that, wasn't being in use or the old, the old, place plant used to be. And I created a studio there and built up, like, some mike and I built a a big easel in there and, and, I created murals for the first time in there. I remember you telling me that you were in with a group of architects and telling them about your ideas, and their faces lit up. Yeah, and that was when you knew you had something. Yeah, well, when? Before you left, I know I, I was going to these conferences, of architects and museums in Vancouver, and, the architects all went to it, and we had a, booth and a display and that kind of thing. And I put a little easel in there. I carved some bricks. Well, well, when the show was over and I got a big crowd and I knew I had something going on because one of the architects is really proud of her. So that was your moment. So I knew I had a job. I moved on. Yeah. I think you have a photo of the Cottonwood Gallery. Here's Cottonwood Gallery, the the last gallery. And I did a mural for them. Yeah. Let me tell everybody. When you made those brick murals, you would have them on a big easel and you'd be up on scaffolding, working on it. And there's a big easel. Slope is back a little bit, has a shelf, 100% bricks on you lay the bricks up like you're laying bricks with spaces in between. I tell used to, trim the, block that they would make for me, and I could use that as mortar in between. And that way when I carve, I can carve right through all the clay. I wouldn't have these interruptions every joint. And worked out a really good system and built some very big murals. One, probably the biggest one was 50ft long and ten feet high. We built some really nice but that's just half of the job. Once you finished it, you got to take it apart. Carve it? Yeah. Then you glaze color parts of it, and, then you take it apart, brick by brick, put it in a drying rack, leave it there for a month to dry it, and then you take it and brick by brick and lo and kiln. And I built a big kiln to fire them in and, fire them and then, 3 or 4 days later, it's cool enough to unload and, you put them into boxes and their boxes and have, compartments. And so you protected, you load the boxes on, on a truck or a trailer, and when you got the job, you take a bricklayer with you, or you get one where you're working, and, you work with the bricklayer. He lays bricks, and I go along behind him and do all the mortar. And you have to know which brick goes where. So you've numbered them or how did you are number. Number on the top. And you just play the row by row, on, on the easel and it's all viral. And you come. Almost like putting a puzzle back together. Yeah, it's pretty neat. Emergent. Really, really. Well. And, he lays the bricks there, and I tool the joints and usually add color, a strip of color in there as well to match the bricks. And or the glaze whichever. And it works out really, really neat. Once it's once it's dry and cured, it's there forever. Yeah. They're nothing happens. And they are all over the world. Well, I did a lot across Canada, pretty much. I didn't get to Quebec or the Maritimes, but pretty well all of the other provinces. Montana and the states. A couple of murals there. Even got over to Japan. One there, and there's two that I had something to do with in and go. So I had a good run. You're also got to you mentioned to you got into the Alberta Historical Society. You got a nice little commission to travel around doing drawings of some historical buildings. Yes. You did. I was I had a show at the Glenpool and there was a booklet printed of all those drawings, and, it went really very well. And I was really keen about saving these historic buildings. So we formed a committee, and I worked with 4 or 5 guys, and, and traveled around, Alberta, and, and, a lot of the models I grew and, to try and save them I started to worry about room two and, Ted Graham was, was mayor back then. And I said at the time we had a committee and medicine had to, look after the historic buildings we have because we had some real good. We lost a lot to. And, he agreed, and we formed a committee, and I was the first, chair of that. We had a nice group of people that I worked with, and, we, did save a number, but we didn't lose, you know, and, what I regret the most was the carbon. Sanctuary Cities Academy. Increases. Academy? Yeah. I refused to drive up on the drive. Yeah, well, you'll be glad to know that the windows have been saved. In the windows. Robert Wiseman has saved them. The new school. The Holy Trinity, school that is, being built right now. So in a way, everything's coming full circle. Yeah. Bruce was saying, you know, that he has trouble drawing stick figures and he is he has company with me. How in the world do you spend how much time did it take you to do a drawing like City Hall? I never wanted to know. No, you just you take it from an old picture and you just start crying. No, I think take it from a picture. All right? No. And I do. And architecturally, I find a drafting table. And, I do all the down main coordinates and the horizontal. Then I just start. Filling it in. So how big would it have been? The physical. But what you just did okay. So three by five, three feet by five feet maybe so three. You. Yeah. And and brick buildings and I and of course I love brick building but boy all those bricks and stuff and. And that's where your eyesight comes in. Yeah. I've got to realize and I, you know, well, I, I had a nice exhibition at mall as a result of that, that first, thing where I went around the problem and, we did that. We had an Alberta committee that saved buildings, and then we got them going here and met us there, which is good. It started really with the old styles when they were going to knock down the most of us. And I was still working with my dad at the time, and I, I said to them, they knocked down a beautiful building like that. And he said, well they want to build a new one. Yeah. I said how, how can we get that stopped. He's going to talk to Harry like oh yeah. Yeah. For those who may not know the, the sandstone post office was just across the street here. I think there might be a major, you know. Kitty corner to city or across the street from City Hall. Now, there you are. You're making the mural that is outside the council chamber in in the new city hall. Now, that's when I started making murals and got my studio built at home. And, the first mural that I really did officially was this one. And it was the Rotary Club actually, that I belong to. So this Rotary Club sponsored it and they, they wanted to put in something in the new City hall or something of art in the new city Hall, but something that was hard to get rid of, you know, if they got, you know, when they get bored, little tired of to get something better and that thing goes, you know. Yeah. So I said, I got the perfect idea, if you got lots of money. And I presented this idea, I had a sketch similar to that, and it wasn't quite like that and turned them on, and they, they went for doing and, that that's me at the studio. Working on the top half of it. It was big enough that I had to do it in two, two pieces. I think that thing was was about 14ft. 14ft. And, probably. Yeah. The same way. Do. So this is just the top half. And it's still there today. And there it is in place. Yep. So that one was done with small bricks and regular sized brick and glazed color. That's history carved right. Later I got into doing multicolored things, adding glazes and things like that. Now when you're carving the brick it's still soft. It's not. Hard. Oh it's, it's it's soft. Yeah. And then I covered it in plastic while I'm working on it. I don't know that one before. It shows the plastic a little bit, but I'm really at the very end right here. Now, normally I would start at the top, just do a little bit. I, I skipped a beat here, actually. I would, after I made, usually I had my kids help me lead a break up. Mike and Steve and, we, we laid the bricks up and I thought of calling it back in those days, in between the bricks, I cut strips and and, I would carve a draw the image out on the, on the bricks just with a steel, tool. And I could just sketch it out, have marks on the face. Then I can then I'd carve away the back and then detail the foreground, and, that's what I'm doing there. And then when I'm all done, I started, the, the highest numbered brick and taken down and then just come down one at a time into the drawing. Right now, when this brick is soft, how fast do you have to work before it hardens? And you got to keep it covered? Okay. So you keep it. Okay? Keep it moist. I have it open to draw the whole thing up quickly, and then I cover it all over with plastic, and then I just open little sections and it's it's a little tricky, but it works. And, It's a little tricky putting the two pieces together. So the murals though. We're. I guess the moment for you, that was what kept you as an artist, kept you. You weren't a starving artist after this. You got pretty good money. And there were a major piece of art and a lot of volume there. And they were very unique. There was nothing like that going on except 5000 years ago. The abalone. I didn't invent it. Yeah. And but they didn't do it the same as I did. But same idea and now we're doing pretty good. We do it for a little money for holidays. And our archeology interests were. We're, keen, and we decided to go down. We we worked hard all, every every month. But October, we took October off. Once we got pretty settled and house all moved and whatnot. And, we loaded up a little camper and and we went down to the southwest, Arizona, Utah, then that sort of country, and looked up only the ruins of the, people and, toured all the museums and so on, and just had a hell of a good time. And camp Hoban and I had different vehicles, and they all got down there, and there's a Land Rover or Land Cruiser, different camper. So different tires, different campers, that, and we went into some pretty crazy places. Usually only jeeps go down into the mesa, and down to the Grand Canyon and so on. I got that suburban down there and, And your knuckles were pretty white. There, really. I, I stopped at the ranger station because I left the camper at the ranger station and, took the suburban down and then came back up, and I went in, and they were they were closed when I went down. And, I, I went in to see them and I said, where do you come from? Well, I was down in the bottom of the mesa and we hiked down there, and I took them, took my car down. You took the car down. What can't you take down? And it's parked outside. And what I look at, you see, if you cut that thing down there. But I did. Yeah. Yeah. There's me mom, that's a picture of mom and 100 years old, and she meant she got to be 12 days short of one and one. Oh, and, she had to be in this. And I wanted to tell you about, this is, I'm on. I did the West Coast Trail. I got 2 or 3 pictures of me walking the trail. It's, I think it's 48 miles. And, it's a lot of up and down and I had two friends go to go with me. First guy helped out on, training before we went. And the other guy last the first day, that was it. So I gave him the keys to my car, and, I carried on on my own. The first day was beautiful, sunny and everything from there. On a rainy day, I, and I think I was about another seven. And this is on, the wrong way that there was a ladder all through there. They got to climb. Part of the trail. Yeah, yeah. You know, and lots of stone walls and climb to. And you were how old when you did this? I was 70 years old. I was the oldest guy there. Amazing. And then the rain was. I traveled alone after that. One guy quit. And I did catch up to three young people over walking. Two girls and a guy, and one girl was had such a love for her that I couldn't stand her. After the first day. I just had them and, caught up to another guy and we and he had, a young boy with them that was doing okay. He was maybe 12 or 13 and, we were we had, you have to walk the beach some of it to, and, and then when you're going off the beach to the trail and climbing up to the trail, you got to get over all these dreadlocks that are along the edge of the sea. They're the ocean and they're wet and slippery. And of course, it's raining. And, and we both fell out for lunch were really slippery. And what happened with me is that we were gators, and I put my strap under my foot in a branch in the on the logs in the temple, and, he fell too, but he was out. And so I had I spent two days helping him, get to a place where they could get out and, and you can use a c. I had a cell phone and you could phone, and they would send a rescue unit to a certain place, and they can. And I could have gone out with them. The other guy that the other guy that I was walking with and his kid, they went with him and I carried on, I think I was eight days. Eight days? Well, you did something that I never would have even attempted, because that just amazes me that you would go 46 miles through all of this at the age of 70. Yeah, well. Good exercise. Yeah. Good. And now you're coming up on your. 8087. 87th birthday and you're not stopping. Oh. No. You're just going to keep on going. I go to work every day. Yeah. Why is that. I don't know if I want to do the trail again but I, I think I could do it. Yeah. Okay. Well, Jim. Thank you. This has been, an enjoyable evening, and I'll turn things over to Bruce. This episode was produced in partnership with the Madison at Historical Society. Special thanks to James Marshall. Produced by Brian Conrad and Matt Schneider. Technical director Bob Schneider. Production team Curtis Nash and Serena Groner. Music by Epidemic Sound. I'm.