mowing machine

while in italy, the 1st canadian infantry division was part of the british 8th army. as a demolitions expert, grampa and other like sappers often were lent out and worked with other commonwealth troops. on one mission four canadian engineers (grampa included) were sent to do a job for the british. they were to go behind enemy lines and blow up a bridge and were given a security team of six gurka riflemen. the gurkas were world class soldiers who had a long history of serving in the british army. they set out through the mountains and made it safeley through german lines. finding the bridge ungaurded the sappers set their charges and blew it up. they new now that getting back to thier own lines would not be as easy as the trip out. there would be the enemy hunting them and also the enemy line on the alert for thier return. after a pow-wow the ten men decided that thier best chance of getting back was to split up and go in ones or twos; grampa was on his own. he would move slowly at night and hide during the day. just before light on the day after they blew the bridge grampa found a good hiding place in some thick brush on the edge of a hayfield and settled in to get some sleep. at about noon after the dew had lifted, an italian farmer showed up at the hayfield with an ox and an ox drawn mowing machine, grampa kept an eye on the farmer but wasn't worried about being discovered; he had a good hiding place. the farmer cut his hay and grampa tryed to get some sleep. during the afternoon the mowing machine broke down; grampa watched the old farmer trying to fix it for about an hour. grampa had a similar mower on the farm in ireland and thought "what the hell"; he walked out of the bush and went to work fixing the mower for the old farmer; he soon had it working fine. the farmer was very happy and although they did not share a langauge it became clear that grampa was coming home for supper. after food and vino, when it was dark, the farmer guided grampa to another italian farm house; here, he was hidden and fed all the next day. then at night that farmer guided him through german and back to british lines. a bit of kindness payed off; grampa had a great love for the italian people.

gold tooth

grampa had a gold eye tooth; he got this in the mines at flin flon, 37, 38?,courtesy of joe skoda, who was his lifelong friend; grampa was a shift boss in the mines in flin flon mb; joe was a big fella; he played defence for the flin flon bombers; never crossed the center line but them that crossed coming the other way had to pay for it. coming up out of the mine shaft one night the ladder gave way and big joe went down until the heel of his boot was planted in grampas' mouth and his tooth was gone....ow...joe is a story on his own....

live or die

after several years as a driller underground in the hardrock mines of ontario grampa got too much rock dust in his lungs;(there was no health and safety watch for workers back then) the doc told him he needed to get out of the mines for a while to heal up. between the time of mining and when he headed west to homestead in alberta grampa worked in the logging camps of northern quebec. while up there he and some other loggers were crossing a frozen lake when grampa went through the ice into the water. his buds were able to pull him out of the water but it was so cold that by the time they got him to camp his feet were frozen and turning black. it took a couple of days to get him to a doctor, "he pulled the skin off my feet like taking off a pair of socks". the doc told grampa he would need to have his feet amputated. grampa told him "i will live or die but i will live or die with my feet." in the days of no social safety net a serious injury like this would be a real wreck! his recovery was slow and painfull; he was helped out by the hemples who were from the same part of ireland as grampa and who were his lifelong friends. after healing up, grampa headed west to look up sandy....another adventure on the horizon....