Book a Demo!
CoCalc Logo Icon
StoreFeaturesDocsShareSupportNewsAboutPoliciesSign UpSign In
Download
29547 views
1
2
3
4
5
OK.
6
If you could state your name and your um, date of birth your age and where you were born and where, just basically, just a brief sketch of all the places you've lived, real quickly if you can.
7
8
9
Raymond Borel Junior, born September 20th 1968.
10
They tell me at Riverside Memorial Hospital or something in NJ.
11
There I resided until 1970 um, '70 or one when we moved to northeastern PA more specifically a little squirt of a town called Laceyville and there I lived until I was seven, 16 in 1985 and I moved here to Belmont, NC.
12
13
14
15
And how, OK can you tell me any flood stories about growing up in Penn?
16
17
18
Oh, we lived uh, not far from the Susquehanna River where our church was down that way, Skinners Eddy United Methodist Church specifically and I don't know if it was in the year that the king died there in '77 or if it was '78, but a flood came and course the kids were all you know told to leave school, parents would come get you, the buses ran special routes and so forth.
19
I remember going down to the church and there was a group of men there that were organizing an uh, evacuation of all the valuables of the church, take them to the second floor.
20
We had a large tractor-trailer parked out front and uh,
21
these guys all assembled to take the pews out of the church.
22
Well, of all these groups of adults there now.
23
I'm maybe, I'm maybe nine, 10 years old and uh, of all these adults assembled there not one of them had a pair of pliers or a wrench.
24
I fortunately remembered when Mom and I left to go to the church to bring a wrench and couple pairs of pliers because of course the pews were bolted to the floor.
25
This as a young child kind of stunned me you know that we're going to go evacuate pews from a church and we're not going to bring any tools with us of course this was predating Makita battery tools looking back in retrospect we could have used Makita tools would have been far more productive but carrying the pews out of that church and loading them in that truck and by the time we got done the trailer wheels were covered with water and uh, we just kind of made it by the skin of our teeth that we got everything out of there.
26
27
28
Yeah, um, how about because I know weather always reeked uh, certainly during the wintertime and all of the snowstorms that would come uh.
29
\\
30
31
32
// Ah yeah, fond, fond memories.
33
\\
34
35
36
One of my favorite,
37
one of my favorite stories is the one about with you and my brother Ryan, the one day that you went sledding.
38
39
40
Sleigh riding down a uh, property line that divided our house, our land from another neighbor that was kind of a, a swell or a ditch if you will there and that would freeze the water would freeze in that so you basically had a uh, like a luge, is that what it is?
41
42
43
Uh-huh.
44
45
46
Ice with a little bit of snow on top of it and we were in a little toboggan sled there not the, not the kind roll up there like a plastic sheet, but a boat sled.
47
48
49
Right.
50
51
52
And uh, we, we were moving pretty quickly down through there and I happened to glance up the road and there was a car coming.
53
So,
54
I have my sister's kid here and I'm going to kill him underneath this vehicle shortly.
55
56
So we uh, through tremendous diversionary tactics of dragging my leg and my elbow and so forth we managed to stop just at the, the edge of the road after blistering my elbow on a big knot of ice but uh, I don't think Marsha knew about that until a few years ago I guess I don't know it's been a while but uh, yeah the snow there in the winters were exciting to say the least.
57
I remember many mornings walking down to the bus where you know whatever you had in your nose would freeze.
58
It would just crunch and you went to blow your nose nothing liquid came out it was crystals and you'd get on the school bus and it would be so damn cold that the floor of the bus would just be a solid sheet of ice you'd have rock salt scattered on the floor of the bus in order to keep some kind of traction and uh, had a couple of deviant children there on the bus and one's name was Robbie Share.
59
He would pick chewing gum up off the floor and chew it disgusting things he was a deviant little sucker.
60
And uh, I don't remember
61
the specifics as to what he did, but the bus driver Louie was about four and a half feet tall driving a 72-passenger
62
diesel bus.
63
Uh, he would, he would try to straighten out Robbie, so he would call Robbie up to the front of the bus and he'd tell him, "Boy, I want you to sit there on that top step don't say a sound, don't make a sound, don't move, I don't want to even know you're there."
64
And every stop we make, now you got to remember when those bus doors open what little heat that's in that bus goes out that door and the cold comes in.
65
66
"Every time we stop I want you to get off and let whoever I'm letting on, in and then you get back in, sit on the step."
67
All the way through that hour and 15 minute bus route old Robbie get off, he'd stand outside the bus, let the kids on and he'd get back in.
68
I don't know whatever became of Robbie, not much I imagine.
69
And then snow, ice uh, I can remember me and another boy once we got about sixth or seventh grade we'd stop uh, you couldn't run with chains on your bus on state maintained highways.
70
You can do that on your, on your county roads and I think they call them a borough if I remember right up that way.
71
Um, you could run with chains on those secondary roads um, but once you got on a state road you couldn't, so it would be a point in our bus route that we would have to get out and it would be you know, I don't know 20, 25 degrees, wind blowing and we'd help Louie get the chains off the bus.
72
That was you know, you kind of felt important at that point because you've, you've graduated to next level of adolescence, you're now helping the bus driver.
73
We uh, we would run our safety drills at the elementary school.
74
75
And uh, the elementary school, as you got to the high school, of course that was different than it is down here, our elementary school only ran until sixth grade and we went to the high school building at seventh grade so you had seven through 12 all in one big building.
76
Of course you only had a thousand students through all those six grades.
77
78
79
Uh-huh.
80
81
82
But once you got to that point you still stopped at the elementary school and we would help those kids get off the bus, we would have emergency drills and that sort of thing.
83
You would open the back door and you felt like you were big stuff.
84
We had one spot on our route at the top of Browntown Mountain which was about a two mile drag downhill which, you know could be deadly for large trucks or cars on ice in any situation.
85
I can remember sitting there and Louie saying, "Everybody be quiet, shut-up."
86
It would be so damn foggy you could not see the yellow line on that divided highway in front of you and we to turn left out onto this highway.
87
We would all slide the windows down on the bus open the door, stick your head out the door, you couldn't hear anything coming that way, you couldn't hear anything coming the other way, and he'd just drop it in low and gun it, we would make it another morning.
88
That seems like that was two or three weeks out of the school year in the spring especially that the fog would just be outrageous.
89
We never had any uh,
90
never had any problems.
91
I can remember it being so cold again that uh, one circumstance coming from uh, Springhill where I live down into town which was Laceyville, the bus wouldn't run, it kept cutting off it was diesel.
92
It was so cold that the fuel does what they call congeals, the fuel becomes like gelatin.
93
We'd basically coasted down into town and got about 50 gallons of kerosene and pumped it in the fuel tank so that so that the fuel would actually run through the fuel lines and the bus would run.
94
And you're going to school in those conditions.
95
96
97
Right.
98
99
100
That was uh, that was the most exciting part of you know, most important, most exciting part of going to school was getting there for me.
101
102
Alive.
103
104
105
How about um, your motorcycle?
106
107
108
Um, yes y'all need to include that picture with my little dysentery here, uh disinter, I guess it is.
109
110
111
I guess it was 1979, my dad bought me a little Yamaha 80 motorcycle I could cruise through the fields and dirt roads and so forth which uh, I had real good luck with that I guess up until um, I don't know what year that was there.
112
Groundhog hole found the front tire of the motorcycle and I managed to fly over the handlebars.
113
I guess I lay there unconscious awhile.
114
I don't remember, but only, only a fractured collarbone, which I recommend to anyone that needs to break a bone, break a collarbone.
115
116
117
Uh-huh.
118
119
120
It's a relatively painless experience and not very cumbersome to deal with, not bad.
121
My son reminds me of a story I told him or I think his grandmother told him.
122
Our neighbor had a pool and we were kind of like the Hatfield's and McCoy's, they weren't very nice people and they didn't like us.
123
I guess I had a friend staying overnight.
124
We thought it would be cool to see just how far a BB would shoot.
125
126
127
Well we found out a couple of days later when the neighbor walked over and informed my dad that he found BB in the filter pump of his swimming pool.
128
So I guess they went that far.
129
We lived in uh, in dairy land country and uh, little things you missed which now I don't know if I like or not.
130
We had a barn, a dairy farm that was maybe quarter of a mile from the house and uh, Mama say, "We need milk."
131
Well, the town was three miles away and the barn was a 1,000 feet, so you grab your little stainless steel kettle with a lid on it and a handle.
132
You'd walk down the road with a dollar bill in your hand now this is in the mid-seventies, but still milk was twice that in the store I guess.
133
134
135
Uh-huh.
136
137
138
You'd go down to this big stainless steel vat that was would hold a thousand gallons of milk then you'll pull the lid of this vat and lower you're kettle down in to it.
139
Ice cold milk and uh, pull it out of course it was whole milk and cream on top.
140
If you forgot to shake it in the morning your cereal was kind of disgusting.
141
142
143
Yeah.
144
145
146
It was kind of like eating it with whipping cream.
147
But I know uh, your father used to love it.
148
You couldn't leave it if you didn't rinse your glass out after you got drinking after you got done drinking it would stick to the glass to the point where you'd have to scrape it.
149
Now they tell you that's not good to do.
150
You shouldn't drink that non-pasteurized milk, but hey, it never hurt us.
151
152
153
Um, what other, now I know you worked with your dad in the beginning there when you were quite younger.
154
155
156
Um, 12 or 13.
157
158
159
Your father is a, a builder.
160
161
162
Uh-hum.
163
164
165
And, and you took up the trade too.
166
167
168
Met my first girlfriend that way.
169
Walked through her bedroom around 6:30, seven o'clock in the morning you know.
170
171
172
Really?
173
174
175
Yeah.
176
We were putting siding on her house and beat on the door nobody comes to the door it's summertime everybody sleeping until 10:00.
177
We're there early in the morning to beat the heat.
178
I got to get the windows open in order to pin, bend the metal around them and so forth this girl and I had always had a love hate relationship on the bus,
179
I love to hate her.
180
And uh, me and my friend there we'd always sit together in the first or second seat on the bus.
181
Well when she, we would pick her up on the route, she'd want to sit with us.
182
It was the closest seat, she was only on the bus a few minutes and then we were dumping the elementary kids and we had plenty of room again.
183
So she, we would always fuss about her sitting with us but anyway this one morning I putting siding dad and I are putting siding on her house and nobody come to the door.
184
The door was unlocked and I had to get the windows open, so I just kind of go cruising through the house upstairs try to find my way to the window.
185
Well that window happened to be through her room, so I just kind of walked on through the room and she looked up at me and I said, "Good morning," and she just screamed.
186
I went on through, unlocked the window
187
and left.
188
Later we laughed about it, but wasn't really funny at the time for her I guess.
189
190
191
192
193
Do you remember the first jobs that you, that you did um, because, I, did you, I don't think you started working with your dad did you?
194
You got a job cutting siding wasn't it?
195
196
197
Well that was for Dad.
198
Yeah, he had a guy that would help him on Wednesdays, it was the local barber.
199
He was paying him five bucks an hour and he would, he could work all day Wednesday and uh, but I believe it was on that job there, that Kavalo, that Dad said, "Look boy you can read a tape measure better that this forty year old man can so I'll give you five bucks an hour if you prove you can do it."
200
Excuse me.
201
"You can prove what you can do."
202
203
204
Yeah.
205
206
207
So after two or three days he called Callgrove and said, "Don't bother coming in I found a guy better than you."
208
Well when Callgrove found out it was me that, that kind of hurt his feelings a little you know, but ever since then Pop and I worked all summers, every summer, we did the Kavalo job, then we built a barn the following year for the Reamuses down on the river.
209
I fell off that roof, there's a little miracle, I missed a boulder by about six inches which would have probably shattered my spine when I fell off that, but you get, you're lucky, everybody's here for a reason just what condition you're in when you're still here.
210
Fortunately I'm all in functioning.
211
212
213
Yeah.
214
215
216
All my digits um, still work.
217
218
219
Do you remember?
220
221
222
223
I didn't, oh, I, when I was a kid I don't even remember that son,
224
I only heard about it.
225
226
227
Do you remember any stories or do you have any stories about your grandparents?
228
229
230
Uh, not so much stories about Grandmom and Grandpop, um--
231
232
233
Because they were living in a, in an apartment basically.
234
235
236
Yeah, when I was about 12, I guess I was 11 or 12.
237
I went and stayed with Grandmom and Grandpop Borel in their little two bed, one bedroom apartment in NJ and uh, I guess I stayed five or six days.
238
Grandmom smoked Saratoga 120 cigarettes which are about eight and a half inches long.
239
Grandpop was a very quiet, somber man he wouldn't say much but uh, Gra ndmom was a little more boisterous.
240
They had a small poodle named Fifi, it was disgusting,
241
but I learned uh, you know how you learn respect for, for people in, in, different ways um, for you know, for all Grandpop didn't say much Grandpop had more love and affection for that dog and showed it to that dog probably more than most parents show to their kids today.
242
I mean man had hip replacements and bad knees and everything else and he'd get on his knees and play with that dog and give it it's medicine, put peanut butter on his finger and feed it to that dog to keep that dog alive.
243
Um, I know a lot of people wouldn't, couldn't I mean and for him he wouldn't have bent down to pick up a quarter because it would have hurt him too much.
244
245
246
Yeah.
247
248
249
Um, but he'd bend down and stay down to help that dog.
250
My grandmom was pretty much a chain smoker.
251
She uh, she'd had laryngitis and the doctor told her if you don't quit smoking you'll never talk.
252
She told him to shut-up and get her a pack of cigarettes.
253
She got gangrene in her foot and he said if you don't quit smoking you're going to lose your foot.
254
She said, "I'm going shoe shopping," and kept on smoking.
255
Died with both feet and talking the whole way.
256
Uh, // she would have smoking all the whole way.
257
//
258
259
260
// Smoking the whole way.
261
// Yeah.
262
263
264
And that time I spent with them was the coolest because grandmom would let me smoke and at 12, 13 years old
265
you know being able to
266
sit there and smoke cigarettes with grandma.
267
268
269
Do you smoke her Saratogas?
270
271
272
Oh yeah, man they were good cigarettes.
273
Now that was uh, man the most flavorful cigarette I'd ever smoked, course at 12 what did you ever smoke you know?
274
275
But uh, come mealtime boy this little apartment with central air conditioning running, the smoke hung about four and a half five feet down from the ceiling.
276
I mean literally you could just see it hang, it looked like a fire scene on the news it was awful.
277
I mean you have smoked potatoes and smoked roast beef, smoked sandwiches, smoked syrup, everything tasted like smoke.
278
And clothes, everything just reeked of it especially if you went outside for 15 minutes and actually got huh, fresh smog.
279
SF: Yeah.
280
281
282
And then came back in oh my gosh the second hand smoke in there was enough to kill uh, a farm full of people.
283
Terrible.
284
285
286
Well, I think what was worse about their place is not only the smoke hanging in the air, but they kept it at // 80 degrees.
287
//
288
289
290
// Uh-hum.
291
It was always warm.
292
//
293
294
295
// All the time.
296
// Even in the in, I mean NJ winters are really cold but--
297
298
299
And Grandpop would complain that it was still cold in there.
300
301
302
Yeah.
303
304
305
At 80 he was still cold.
306
307
308
Yeah.
309
310
311
He liked it a little warmer.
312
Not too many stories about Grandmom and Grandpop though they were pretty quiet.
313
314
315
Do you remember any stories about Grandma Mackton, your mom's a little bit?
316
317
318
The only stories I remember about
319
Grandmom Mackton would be uh, when uh, Grandpop Mackton uh, he was a watch repairman and so forth and this was even actually before my time, I remember this just being translated to me from my dad um, my sisters Marsha and Rayona would be over there visiting with my mom and dad, and Grandpop would be working on a watch and he'd drop a part.
320
Now you can picture the part out of a watch how small this is and for a guy that in his probably sixties at that point difficult for him to see, lighting in that day and time not being what it is now, of course he'd lose his part and he'd say, "Tootles," well first he'd have his fit, "Nothing but damn junk, junk, junk!"
321
He'd say about these watches he was fixing, "Nothing but a bunch of GD junk."
322
I can remember Mom and Dad saying Grandmom in the kitchen hollering, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy I wish you wouldn't talk like that in front of the girls."
323
Then Grandpop, he'd calm down, "Tootles, you see this part here.
324
I dropped one of those sons of bitches on the floor again.
325
326
Can you find one just like it for Grandpa?"
327
And he, they would get down there and they'd find it and find it for him.
328
I remember too Dad say that Grandmom would fuss at him for giving the girls money, I say I don't remember now how much it was but if pack of cigarettes was 15 cents he'd give the girls a quarter.
329
330
331
Uh-huh.
332
333
334
Now this is going back to the fifties and early sixties when you could still do that but he'd send these young girls, 10 or 11 years old maybe, down to the general store and get him a pack of cigarettes well, with the change they could buy licorice and candy and what not.
335
"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy send those girls to get those filthy cigarettes."
336
"Well they get candy, Mom."
337
338
You know that's how he justified it, they were getting something out of it.
339
He wasn't sending them there for nothing.
340
I'm told I'm a lot like him.
341
Which I don't know I never met him, don't remember him.
342
343
344
How about do remember any stories that, that you've been told by your, by your sisters about them growing up or have they told stories about you growing up that you can remember?
345
346
347
Well, some of them that uh, with your mother Marsha uh, I she was, I believe about 18 when I was born.
348
I was a mistake.
349
An oops.
350
And uh, everyone you know going out to eat or anything like that then uh, the waiter would say to my parents, "What would you like, what would you like?"
351
and then they ask my sister what would she like for my son.
352
She'd go, "Oh no, he's not mine.
353
He's their's."
354
You know she wasn't going to claim me.
355
356
My sister had uh, an apartment in NJ and I remember there was, she had a roommate, young girl which hindsight is 20/20 she used to say she was going to kidnap in the middle of the night, put me in bed with her.
357
I would just scream and scream you know that, "No, no, don't do that."
358
But stories I remember hearing one of uh, I believe it was Marsha uh, the wind caught the storm door there she was, she was uh, hanging on to the back storm door and I guess pulled it open a little bit to see what was going on and the wind caught it and threw her right out in the yard.
359
360
361
Yard.
362
363
364
Hello.
365
I don't know uh, any other fantastic tales that I have.
366
367
368
How about um, your kids?
369
You've got three kids now.
370
371
372
373
Uh-huh.
374
Yeah.
375
376
377
378
Born and raised in, in uh, // NC.
379
//
380
381
382
// NC.
383
// The fine county of Gaston.
384
Yeah, I have a son that uh, likes to relive the tragedy of his split lip.
385
Um, took a little spill and had to get a stitch, huh?
386
387
388
Uh-huh.
389
390
391
Huh, yeah.
392
But uh, no they've had pretty uneventful childhoods, I think we've had our moments of comedy.
393
394
395
Yeah.
396
397
398
We were helping my niece and nephew paint a new house that they bought and uh, he uh, little Raymond was with us.
399
He said, "Daddy I have to go poo-poo."
400
And I said, "Well son the Port-o-john is way down there in the neighborhood.
401
Hold it as long as you can.
402
403
Tell me when you feel it peeping out and then we'll run like hell."
404
405
And my one sister Rayona she reminds me of that story and laughs every time we tell it.
406
407
But you held it didn't you?
408
409
410
Um-huh.
411
412
413
I don't know, do I have any other fantastic stories I've told you?
414
415
416
I'm trying to remember.
417
I can, well you know we just relived the story today of when you built the house over on um, // Songbird.
418
//
419
420
421
// Songbird.
422
// We were there working.
423
424
425
And the day that you put the, the shower and the tub in.
426
Do you remember that?
427
428
429
Um, yeah when Dad busted my ear because he stopped moving.
430
431
432
Yeah.
433
434
435
Yeah.
436
And those moments of idiotic stupidity we uh, we put some scaffolding out on the front of the house and uh, I just shot a two-by-four out the side of the house with a couple of nails in it and got out there and climbed on top of it.
437
There's, my dad reminds me from time to time.
438
What if those nails would have pulled out?
439
But fortunately they didn't.
440
One story does come to my mind though where you painted the foundation coating on the house and got tar all over you.
441
442
Do you remember that?
443
444
445
Yeah.
446
447
448
And you said, "How do I get this tar off of me uncle?"
449
I said, "Well you can use paint thinner or turpentine or gasoline."
450
"Well what do you have?"
451
I said, "Well we got some // gasoline."
452
//
453
454
455
// Gasoline.
456
//
457
458
459
So you.
460
461
462
I thought it was lacquer thinner.
463
464
465
No it was gas because you washed your legs all over because you did it in shorts.
466
467
468
It was a hot day.
469
470
471
Then the next day I don't know if you weren't there.
472
473
474
No, I worked.
475
My ankle.
476
477
478
But you ended up with blood poisoning from all the gasoline.
479
480
481
Yeah.
482
Throwing up.
483
484
485
Um, the joys, joys and fun of construction.
486
487
488
Construction.
489
490
491
Your brother came to help us there.
492
Ninety-four degrees outside I got nothing on but a jock strap,
493
I'm still dying it's so hot.
494
You're sweating.
495
Grandpop's drowning, I mean everything on him is soaking wet and Ryan's got on a long, honest to God he had on a long sleeve shirt with the collar buttoned up.
496
497
498
I know.
499
I think he had on a short sleeve.
500
I know he had on blue jeans.
501
502
503
Yeah, I know he had on pants, he had on a long sleeve I think the cuffs were rolled up once or twice.
504
505
506
Yeah.
507
I couldn't have done it.
508
509
510
I would have died.
511
I'd a screamed.
512
513
514
Because that was, we would wake up at, at six in the morning.
515
516
517
We'd be sitting there waiting on daylight to be able to go to work.
518
519
520
Couldn't some mornings, couldn't even see just hoping that it would be cooler.
521
522
523
Yeah.
524
525
526
And the afternoon would come around around two.
527
528
529
Oh yeah, I want to quit early today.
530
531
532
We would be there until // five, // six o'clock at night.
533
534
535
// Five.
536
// Well it's starting to get cool now that's how you justify it.
537
538
539
Go in for an extra long lunch.
540
How about the day that um, how about the day that I would, to help you with the two by six's.
541
Rafters out on the back porch and I went to reach a board to hand it you and another board slipped.
542
Do you remember that?
543
It fell right across my foot.
544
545
546
Oh yeah!
547
Did a number on your toe didn't it?
548
549
550
Yeah.
551
552
553
Your mother wasn't real happy about that.
554
555
556
I think we hid it from her didn't we?
557
558
559
Yeah, you didn't tell her too much about it until later that you smashed your foot up pretty bad.
560
I forgot about that.
561
Grandpop slipped through the floor joists there too.
562
563
564
That's right.
565
566
567
568
That did a number on the inside of his leg.
569
570
571
That one time you were trying to take that floor joist.
572
You had put some type of beam between the two floor joists and you went to hit it with a hammer and you were hitting it backwards and it smacked it into your chest.
573
574
575
Smacked my chest.
576
Oh I've done that a number of times.
577
Had my head up between ceiling joists nailing rafters glanced off the rafter and hit myself in the head with a hammer.
578
579
580
How about um, how about this story of Grandpop and his son, of your dad?
581
582
583
Oh yeah.
584
That was when we first moved here to NC we uh, had a job across the street from where we build him a house uh, Truman house.
585
And uh, we were borrowing a guy's saw, chop saw, miter saw and um, I upstairs nailing down trim and I hear the saw every once in a while so I know he's down there working and all of a sudden don't hear the saw and I run out of new trim.
586
"Are you down there?"
587
I look nobody is standing at the saw.
588
I look around well he was right here.
589
I see a few drops of blood on the floor.
590
I look out the window and there he's booking across the yard heading for the house.
591
I get over to the house.
592
He said that saw drifted down and hit him right across the back of his thumb.
593
594
595
Ouch.
596
597
598
Yeah so he's kind of standing there at the kitchen sink and my mom's running around like a chicken with her head cut off.
599
600
"Need a Band-Aid, need some gauze, need some tape."
601
Well she can't find any of it.
602
My mom's not real organized when it comes to things like that.
603
604
Band-Aids are at the kitchen sink, the peroxide is in the basement you know, the gauze is in the bathroom and the tape for that is upstairs.
605
606
607
Right.
608
609
610
Oh lord, she's running around carrying on well, Dad makes the mistake of looking at his wound and his knees go out from under him.
611
He buckles down onto the floor.
612
I think uh-oh 200 pounds of mush going to be laying on the floor,
613
I'll never get him up you know.
614
615
So we quick think and I go, well grab a paper towel and wet it and throw a couple of ice cubes in and put it on his hand, get him up to his feet and haul him off to the emergency room.
616
Well meantime my Mom is running around she doesn't hardly know that we left.
617
She's still looking for Band-Aids.
618
619
Take him to the First Med Place.
620
They stitch him up good went back to work later that afternoon.
621
He's a trooper that way he, that doesn't make any difference as far as him being hurt he'll work.
622
623
624
Yeah.
625
626
627
He'll work it off.
628
I remember um, one of the best trips we had, which was why we've since created the Borel Family Reunion, was a funeral we had a funeral for my grandfather, Grandpop Borel.
629
My sisters and I decided we would all ride up together in // the upchuck wagon.
630
You were there, the upchuck wagon.
631
//
632
633
634
// I think yeah, Ryan and I were there.
635
// Yeah now you have to explain the upchuck wagon.
636
637
638
I believe it was a Dodge wasn't it?
639
640
641
If my father bought it, it would have to be a Dodge.
642
643
644
645
Yes that's true.
646
647
648
It was a Chevy.
649
650
651
// Oh.
652
//
653
654
655
// It was a Chevy.
656
// A Chevy conversion van at 70 miles an hour would make the freakiest noises which would wake my sister up to prompt her to poke me and tell m e to slow down.
657
658
And uh, somewhere in the middle of VA.
659
660
661
Because we were driving from // NC all the way up to Riverside, NJ.
662
//
663
664
665
// NC all the way up to Riverside, NJ.
666
// Of course we had to do it in a day because we couldn't take enough time everybody.
667
Somewhere in VA Marsha sees a billboard for this restaurant to eat at.
668
It's a very attractive billboard, but it was not anything franchised where you could actually say, "Oh yes I know that."
669
So we took a chance on it and started following the billboards.
670
I swear to God it must have been 17 miles later, like on three secondary roads, down a dirt road, at the end of a trail was this nice kind of western looking restaurant that we ended up eating at.
671
I believe that there was a pond even that it kind of overlooked in the back.
672
It was kind of, it was nice.
673
But it kind of killed an hour out of our trip as far as time, but we had a lot of fun at that uh, that funeral.
674
I had a cousin there that had a, he was I guess in his twenties and uh, he loaded the trunk of his car with beer and after the funeral we all kind of stood out in the parking lot drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and it wasn't um, until after Grandmom died and uh, we were sitting at uh, a cousin's house, sitting in his basement and um, his name was Raymond Ward and he was kind of hosting the post funeral procession there that goes on.
675
And I said to some of my cousins that I had only the last I had seen was at Grandpop's funeral.
676
I said, "You know, this really sucks we all have a really good time and it's a really sad occasion.
677
Why don't we do this in spite of not don't have a funeral let's just get together."
678
And we were just sitting there and the majority of the family at that point lived in PA and the rest of it lived here in NC and sitting there with him we just kind of said, "You know we ought to find a place in the middle."
679
And uh, my parents and I had stopped many times in a little town called New Market, VA which was just a // little, // yeah it seemed like a halfway point.
680
681
682
// Halfway.
683
//
684
685
686
And uh, so we uh, put some plans together.
687
My older sister Rayona she put together that reunion.
688
Turns out it was 226 miles to New Market from PA and 320 miles from NC to New Market.
689
And now we can sit around drink beer by the pool, smoke cigarettes and tell stories without somebody dying.
690
691
692
Right.
693
694
695
But I know, ironically I don't think, why in fact I know we had one reunion and then we lost a family member that Raymond Ward that we met at his house.
696
Any more interesting stories you know that I tell?
697
698
699
I was just, well I always thought the one with um, about Aunt Ann and the bird.
700
701
702
Aunt Ann and the bird?
703
704
705
The bird that, that flew into the house.
706
707
708
Oh well that was Rosemary, her mother was gone.
709
They lived across the street from us in PA.
710
That's my dad's brother and uh, his family and um, one of his daughters call over there and she says, "We got a bird stuck in the house and it won't get out."
711
And Aunt Ann has a lot of knick-knacks.
712
713
714
Uh-hum.
715
716
717
A lot of crystal and plates and she had a plate rail in the dining room that ran around, you know so far down from the ceiling and that damn little bird would walk behind those plates and you, you just knew he was going to knock a plate knock off, a plate off but he never did.
718
Chased him all the way up to the upstairs, I don't think the bird ever even pooped in the house not that we found--
719
720
721
Wow.
722
723
724
Not that we found, but he got upstairs in the house and we locked in the bedroom and opened all the windows in the bedroom and after about half an hour it kind of ran out, but I don't think Aunt Ann ever noticed that.
725
I don't think Aunt Ann noticed that bird was ever in the house.
726
727
728
729
I won't tell.
730
731
We won't let her see the tape.
732
733
734
OK.
735
736
737
738
Thank, thank you for your stories.
739
740
741
742