HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen-38Th Reunion, 1999-09-08, Page 34PAGE A -14. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBERS, 1999.
11999 Huron Pioneer Thresher Reunion & Hobby Show
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Theatre director tells vivid memories of threshing era
LIFTOFF
Young men initiated into the rights of summer by joining a threshing crew were
typically the subjects of much good natured ribbing from the practiced hands.
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“It’s a vivid memory — it’s a huge one for
me,” says Paul Thompson, director of Blyth
Festival’s Death of the Hired Man, of his
first time threshing experience as a young
boy.
Son of an Atwood-area veterinarian,
Thompson moved to Guelph following his
father’s death. His uncles, feeling they had
the responsibility of making a man of him,
put him to work on the farm for three
summers.
Being in the bam doing the first threshing
formed a lasting memory. “I just went,
‘Wow’. Initially, seen from my perspective,
the idea was ‘Could I survive it?’”
Thompson, who gained international
prominence with his collective The Farm
Show keeps coming back to his rural roots.
For Hired Man, now running at Blyth
Festival until Sept. 12, Thompson did some
development work and sketched out the
characters for the actors to further develop.
This was done through conversations with
farmers, who recall the days of the transition
from threshing to combining. The actors also
took lessons in stooking sheaves and
threshing at an area farm.
Thompson said he hoped to find a way to
show the tremendous change that came over
the rural community when the threshing era
ended. Again, one of my vivid memories is
that any time some kind of economic
exchange took place there was the reach into
the back pocket... the hand coming out. You
never saw how much money was in that
wallet. It was always done slightly on the
side.”
This move from the cautious approach to
farming and life to the mid-1950s when a
person would buy a new combine, unproven
technology that cost approximately the same
as a 100-acre farm, fascinates Thompson.
Another recollection of the times was the
hectic activity in the bam when over a dozen
people set to the task. The crews spoke little,
but there was always plenty going on.
Part of the camaraderie focussed on the
ribbing of the young unskilled workers.
What they experienced in that barn is
difficult for young people today to envision.
The air was full of dust and noise and
because of the season, heat.
Thompson said he was first put to work in
the granary, “which is a horrible job and
obviously people only do it when they have
to.”
Rotated to other jobs he eventually found
his “perfect calling” as a ‘pitcher’. “I wasn’t
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