File: macinnislargus-oh-decline_culturallosses_M.mp3
Speakers:
LM – Largus MacInnis
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
LM See, when radio started coming in, well, probably there'd be a place that had a radio, and there'd be old time music on sometimes, and there'd be a crowd gather in to listen to the radio, and they'd probably dance. And then television, that changed everything different. There was an old guy up at the East Point, Percy Beaton. When the televisions came in, he said there's no good a goin' to visit anywheres. "Now," he said "you can't talk with the television going," and he said "If a bunch goes to the woods, you can't talk with the chain saw, the noise of the chain saw. So," he said, "it's a different world altogether."
KP I think he has a point. What do you miss about it [the old days] most?
LM Oh, it's not what you'd call neighborliness now. Like, when I was young, there'd be a bunch come in, and well, they didn't have any music, they'd sit – Get 'round the table and play cards, and entertain themselves that way. There'd probably be six or eight come into a house of an evening and they'd play an eight hand game of cards or a six hand game. I'd sit there and play cards to 12 or 1 o'clock in the morning, especially in the winter time. The nights were long, they'd have a good wood fire going. But they always entertained themselves some way. If somebody came along with a fiddle, they'd dance. And probably some more of them, if they didn't want to dance, they'd get a table in a room somewheres and they'd play cards. But they always could make entertainment.
KP And now?
LM Well, now when you go into a house the television is on. And if you – There's not too many people come in, you know, because they have television home, and they'll sit and watch television home. They don't gather in neighbors' houses like they used to when I was a young fellow growing up. It's mostly television, or not you'd jump in a car and you go for a drive somewheres.