Pull up a stump and enjoy the fire! This is an oral history about thriving during the great depression.
This here is a story about the great oppression n on 100 years ago. name a Staying Alive on gopher Tales There was this big family of bohunks. they were Ukrainian a good hardworking people. but somebody in a land office in Europe or Winnipeg and sold them the worst piece of land and the whole of SCH Lake Country Even in the good times they could expect a fine crop or Russian Thistle and mustard.
I Should say they could only seed about 50 acres of what they had. They sure got hooked by that land agent. but it was land and when you come starving from the Ukraine it don't matter what land it is, it's land. In the bad times they were starving but these people always had an inner strength to fall back on.
Look at their sons and daughters today. Doctors and lawyers, accountants, businessmen, nurses. Too bad many felt they had to change their name I can recognize them anyway just the way their head is shaped and the way their faces are put together. Now this family Bodner Chuck had 160 Acres down the road from us and just first raid for goers.
the Gophers lived on my wheat across the fence line so I offered them a scent of tail for bounty on each gopher the government gave another scent. shell cost you about a half a Cent and if you got a gopher for every Two Shots you made a penny. So they had this one kid with a 22 shooting Gophers along the road allowances and he get maybe 20 or so a day and that kid was a bloody great shot. Now the rest of the family Mama Babushka an old man bod as we called him and about six kids with water.
They'd fill up three barrels those 45 gallon Imperial oil barrels and put them on a stone boat and go out to the Gopher country. They drive the horse to a colony of the C and each kid mama would put her foot over a hole and they had a couple of Scruffy dogs and they'd set them by the two other holes Gophers You know are always digging fresh holes so old bod would go to the ones with the new dirt around them and start pouring in pales of water. Don't take much to fill up a gopher hole or a set of them and the things Panic too You can hear them squeaking warnings to each other. One of the kids would yell out in ookie and that had meant she felt something push against her foot.
up would come her foot and WAP the dog would have broken its back. Sometimes these Bodner chucks would get out four or five Gophers in one deal Papa Gopher Mama Gopher and all the little ones. Those people who work at that all day sun would be blazing, dust could be blowing and there they'd be pouring water and whacking. Gophers Once a doctor from Winnipeg visited me and my wife, he stood there fascinated.
He watched them from across the field for quite some time. He said it was like a scene out of one of them crazy Russian novels I figure I kept those people eating for about three Summers me and the government and I got to give them credit too. They helped save me about 10 or 15 Acres of good crop. That's how tough it was that big family couldn't have made more than 80 cents a day. Those people lived on next to nothing for for for for for for for for for. but.
As a descendant of tough Ukrainian Cossacks, my Great Grandfather rode with the cavalry in WWI, and was as tough as a coffin nail, the only thing tougher was my Great Grandmother, who’s pirogies were our New Year’s Day treat, made each by hand into her 90’s. People are just built different now, but as long as we remember them, the legacy has a chance to live on. Thanks for the story.
As of this post, 59 down trodden souls with nothing but dislike in their hearts, sad people.
My best friend Mickey and I used to hunt rats at a dairy farm for 25 cents a rat back in the 1950's. A box of 22 cal, was ~ 50 cents. We were poor but not too poor. Just on the lower end of the social spectra in the Plymouth area of Massachusetts. We also hunted wood chucks for the same price. This was how we earned spending money some of which we gave to our parents to help out. We both ate a lot of wild rabbit, and other small game.
I survived a couple of stays in Ontario, over by Tobermory and Grand Bend, totally sustaining my nutritional needs by eating beaver tails. It got to be kinda monotonous, but they don't all taste the same if you put a different flavor souce on them.
bet they ate the gophers!
Got me worried this is where you see things going during this coming robotics and AI transition.
Reading gulag archipelago right now. I love America. Or what it was anyway
my family came over from that place called the ukraine in the early 90s. my last name actually ends with CHUK. They didn't have much but a 50 dollar bill, few suitcases of clothes, some pictures, us and each other. my father went from being a big shot director of a plant that employed hundreds of people to being a superintendent assistant. A highly educated and skilled man who was grateful for the opportunity to fix toilets and take out the trash. Both of my parents ended up going ro college after that and are now retired. I am doing fairly well myself and have them to thank for it. I hope I can raise my kids to appreciate opportunity and work hard, as my parents taught me
Your fireside chats have kept me warm on many nights Mr. Ave, long after the ambers have turned to ash that has been shoveled out into a bucket. A longtime fan of many years
Ted
Thanks for spinning the yarn Uncle Bumblefuq!
I haven't heard anyone say, "bohonk" since my dad died in 91.
Enjoy your story telling. You sir are delightfully confusing to me. Are you a machinist, millwright, electrican, mechanic, philosopher or chef. I don't know and guess it does really matter. Keep making great videos. Merci de Louisiane.
I was born with nothing and have about half of it left. Trying to make it last.
Back during the Great Depression, my grandfather and his brothers would run down cottontail rabbits. They would take turns running until the rabbit was exhausted. Then off it went to be dressed and hung in the smokehouse. It sure 🎉beat living on snowballs and wish sandwiches. A wish sandwich is two pieces of bread and you wish there was something good between them.
Thank you. Reminds me of the old country I've never seen, but whose blood flows hot through my veins nevertheless.