the Walnut Diary

In his early teens David Roberts chose a 1929 Ford Model-A as his personal vehicle while the rest of us bashed around in a Jeep, VW Beetles, and various family sedans.  The green coupe sat in pride of place next to his father’s Jaguar for as long as I lived in Westport, Ontario.

After Queen’s, David went on to a career at the University of Toronto where he was one of the editors of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.  Later in life he returned to his fascination with Ford automobiles in his book on the rise of the Ford Motor Company in Canada under the auspices of Gordon McGregor, a well-connected entrepreneur who managed to persuade Henry Ford to open a branch plant across the river in Windsor, Ontario.

Gordon McGregor’s family left him well set socially and politically, though he worked at a variety of sales jobs before he found himself saddled with the declining family wagon factory.  His pleasant disposition and good sense of humour eased his way socially, but it was his magnificent singing voice which gained him entry into a wider circle than most.  On one of these performances at a church in Detroit he met Henry Ford, a self-educated mechanic intent upon building automobiles, and the two hit it off.

McGregor had a factory, and financing, but no product.  Ford had great mechanical ingenuity, boundless ambition, and little money.  Ford may have been naïve in allowing McGregor access to his patents and parts in return for a share of Ford Canada, but the two developed a trust which lasted until McGregor’s premature death in 1922.  By this time inexpensive Model-Ts had revolutionized life in the vast tracts of rural Canada as well as contributing to the development of modern life in urban areas which had suddenly become less dependent upon horses for urban commerce.

The book is at its best in the early chapters where Roberts traces the many steps McGregor took to take his company from a few employees assembling a pile of Ford parts on a pair of sawhorses to the increases in production with new buildings and capital expenditures as sales increased.  McGregor’s father William had served two terms as an MP in Sir Wilfred Laurier’s government.  His father’s son, Gordon knew his way around the Laurentian elite, and proved an excellent fixer of problems, be they federal, provincial, or municipal.  One of his lifelong tasks was cleaning up the Detroit River by promoting municipal water and sewage services for Ford City, the area where the factory buildings developed on the shore of the river, and where the auto workers sought homes.  One example of Gordon’s touch was getting a new federal charter for Ford Canada after the company outgrew its provincial charter.  One month Ford was provincial; the next month it was federal.  Gordon McGregor had the knack of getting good results from bureaucracies and newspapers.

But I digress.  It is all too easy to get caught up in the many activities, causes, and vacations of the McGregor Family, but the reader’s true interest is no doubt in the evolution of the Ford automobiles.  While re-reading the book I found myself wandering to You-Tube for visual input to match the content I was absorbing.  Surely enough, the first and best review of a Model-T which I found was of a Canadian model which was a far cry from the bare bones Detroit fare of the early years.  McGregor’s goal was to build his T’s with locally sourced parts as much as possible, providing significant spin-off benefits to machine shops and foundries in Windsor and Toronto.  A fellow named Goodyear began turning up in the narrative, selling his tires where he could, particularly at the auto shows where Ford Canada participated enthusiastically, though was looked down upon by other manufacturers without the massive technological infusion which Ford Canada had received.

BTW:  Canadian Model-Ts had all wheels and tires of the same size to simplify repairs.  Detroit T’s were forced to carry twice as many spares on long journeys, to negligible benefit.

One of the most interesting videos on Ford motors which I have seen shows a skilled workman replacing babbit bearings in a disassembled Model-T engine.  These engines may have persevered for many years, but they certainly would have required maintenance.  As long as they received oil and didn’t get too hot, they would do a good job, but the main bearings were made of solder, basically.  They could be melted out in seconds with an acetylene torch, and renewed in not much more time with another application of molten babbit.  The success of Ford Canada is a testament to the skilled trades developing in Ontario at the time, making good use of the inventions and innovations of Henry Ford, but also making large strides in metallurgy and industrial machining processes such heat treatment and accurate cylinder boring.

The Model-T became an enduring success because the cars could be repaired easily.

A large proportion of the Model-Ts which were marketed around the world in McGregor’s era were built in Windsor.  In early years McGregor needed to keep up production during the winter months when local orders dried up.  Because Canada is a member of the British Commonwealth, trade benefits accrued to Ford Canada which were not available to Ford Detroit.  McGregor went on a world tour to sell cars.  He was particularly successful in Australia, New Zealand, India and Ceylon.  Australians preferred to buy the bare chassis model and build the coachwork locally, so apparently there were some unusual Model-Ts in the southern hemisphere.  Exports kept the Ford City factory busy through the winters until Canadians learned how to use their Model-Ts in all seasons. 

Over the course of the first decade of production, Ford Canada made its owners, shareholders and dealers considerable wealth.  Where McGregor most clearly differed from his mentor had to do with Henry Ford’s peace mission to Europe in an effort to stop the War.  McGregor muted his opinions about the war, dutifully supported the Commonwealth and Victory Bond campaign, and made an effort to buffer the anti-Semitic utterances of Henry Ford when he could.

Gordon McGregor in personality was a sort of de-caffeinated Henry Ford, lacking his ideological bitterness.  This odd couple gave birth to the automobile which built a society.

The last time I walked the property I came home with three small dog ticks, so my wife suggested pointedly that I cut down on the bringing home of arachnid pets if I wished to continue to eat as well as exercise.

To that end, today I mowed a one-mile path, 5′ wide, on a route which by and large avoided overhanging pine trees. Then I walked same route, only to discover a location where I had run over an entire patch of white morels.

A Quora questioner asked me to tell the story of the weirdest piece of driving on a public road I have ever seen.  There were a number of examples from that summer of 1970, not all of them my own creation, but this is the one I chose to recount.

It was 5:30 in the afternoon on a very hot day in August of 1970. The place was a highway overpass on the 401, the major highway through Ontario. I was working on an asphalt crew just outside Kingston, and as the sun got higher, the drivers grew sillier. The speed limit on the 401 at that time was 70 mph. We knew from experience to watch out for light green license plates from neighbouring Quebec. Ontario Place had opened that summer, so a lot of tourist traffic was making its way up and down the 401.

We had the traffic forced over into the centre lane, five or six trucks lined up ahead of the paver and the three rollers strung back at intervals over a half mile behind it on the right-hand lane.  Three flagmen and a few cones had the job of swinging the oncoming traffic into a single lane on the left.

All of the sudden a lime-green Mustang Mach-1 with a Quebec license plate appeared on the wrong side of the back roller, then slalomed around the other two rollers inside the cones before the driver realized that he was on soft asphalt and he had to get rid of some speed right then! He threw the Mustang sideways, or maybe the brakes weren’t balanced. Anyway, we weren’t quite over the driving lanes of the underpass below, so those of us who could jumped off and dove under the guard rail.  The Mustang slid sideways until it stopped against the back ledge of the paver with a thump.

Hot asphalt had sprayed everywhere. The car was pretty messy, but drivable, so they took the guy’s insurance details and got him out of there. Traffic was heavy, eh?

There was no saving 100 yards of pavement. The only thing was to bring in loaders, pick it up, and send it back to the plant for re-manufacture.

Glen Lawrence, the company owner, swore that the Division Street Bridge was jinxed. Two previous times that summer he had to pick up the asphalt on that stretch. Once it was jammed electronics on a paver, another time the mix got too cold to roll properly and the inspector rejected it, and then this yob from Quebec slid through it sideways.

I wonder what sort of story the driver told his pals to account for his new car covered with asphalt?

After they released me from hospital Bet took the mower and cut three trails to the woods through the long grass.  Then she made us walk them a couple of times per day.  Last week I added to the cumulative distance by mowing around another eight-acre field. The roads through the woodlot make fine walking as well at this time of year.  I look forward to the trails now, though Bet and Taffy don’t always come along.

By the time we visited the chief heart specialist at the Kingston Heart Unit last week, my numbers were all very good.  He wheeled out a new diabetes pill which protects against heart attacks and kidney failure with only the occasional amputated foot if you don’t drink enough water.

There’s a sort of all-or-nothing culture in this department and none of them seem to have met a diuretic they didn’t like.

Then came the stress test. I’d never tried a treadmill before and found the nurse’s cheerleader attitude confusing.  

For months everyone had programmed me: “We call your heart condition the widow-maker. Do nothing strenuous or you may die without warning, or at the very least tear your chest apart.”  The entire staff of Kingston General Hospital was on about this.  Family, friends and the homework reading material sang the same hymns.  

Then this young heretic wanted me to knock myself out to impress her.

There was no upper limit on her demands.

I hadn’t seen yearning like this since I told the Liberal Party I would only send them money if they did NOT call me to ask for it.  

That works, by the way.

So I left some room for improvement on the next stress test, but the lungs, legs and refurbished heart worked fine for almost six minutes, flat out, as the nurse increased the treadmill’s speed and slope.  This is a non-athelete speaking here, remember.

My offer to take any cancellation at all got the physiotherapy moved from late February to early November. I argued there isn’t much one can do around a farm tractor to prepare it for winter snow removal if one can only lift 15 pounds. 

The first session is Thursday at Hotel Dieu.

In summary, I’m far from back to normal in strength and flexibility, but I don’t need pain killers any more, the healing’s going well, and blood sugar and hemoglobin are good. 

Apart from occasional trouble dragging the appropriate noun out of memory while speaking, my brain functions reasonably well.  I heard Bet tell someone one day that my disposition is good.

The lazy nouns may not be a bad tradeoff for a 20 lb. weight loss.

It’s a relief to drive again.

And I still can’t play the piano. 

UPDATE: December 3, 2017

Yesterday I helped Les Parrott cut dead ash trees on his lot. I felled most of them with his saw while he ran the winch on my tractor to add a reasonable margin of accuracy and safety to the operation. Today, after our walk in the woods, I decided to plant walnuts. I gathered a five gallon pail of nuts from the orchard and spent a pleasant two hours interplanting the seeds among pines in the shelter belt along the north border of the property.

Both jobs were moderately strenuous and it felt great to work again.

Rehabilitation is ongoing at the Hotel Dieu Heart Clinic. This organization has my unequivocal approval. The staff are very professional (blood pressure checked five times per session, blood sugar checked before and after, medications carefully supervised, pulse rates monitored electronically throughout), but they are also immensely likeable. Bet goes shopping for the two hours after she drops me off, and she continues to remark at what a happy group — staff and patients — she encounters when she comes in at the end of a session.

It’s a four-month program with two sessions per week plus homework. The moderated floor exercises and stretches provide the discipline I couldn’t manage on my own (I’m lazy and hate to stretch) and the exercise machines enable us to train our hearts to handle heavier workloads.

I leave each session feeling lucky to have first-rate, free health care like this, especially with this group of very nice physiotherapists and nurses.