TRANSCRIPTJG - James Gibson, interviewee; LR2 - Lyn(ette) Roberts, interviewee / LR - Lyn Royce, interviewer
LR2: [both chuckling] But growing up, we used to call it the Emancipation Day Picnic...
JG: Mhmm.
LR2: ...because it was August the 1st, that it would be.
JG: Something like that.
LR2: ...and that was, that was THE event in the black community. Oh yeah...
JG: It sure was.
LR2: ...you always got a new... Like... Maybe twice a year, I'd get a new outfit.
JG: Yeah.
LR2: But you always got a new dress for that, that, that pi...
JG: Yeah. I mean y'...
LR2: Then it changed into the 'big picnic.'
JG: Yes! Yes...
LR2: You always got something new for the 'big picnic.' It was, it was amazing. I can't remember the year it stopped.
JG: I don't, I don't know when it stopped. But I know I lost a couple of jobs because I went there.
LR2: Oh yeah.
JG: I went to the 'big picnic.'
LR2: That's right. Nothing stopped you.
JG: No, no.
LR2: That was, you had to go to the picnic.
JG: I said, 'I have to take tomorrow off because...' They'd, 'No, you have to come to work tomorrow.' I said, 'Oh yeah.' [grumbling] Shi-hit, I ain't goin'... [LR2 laughs] I come in at the next day: 'You're fired!' [laughs]
LR2: Oh yeah, that, that was really... And you know who started the 'big picnic?' Lawyer Pitt. Remember Lawyer Pitt?
JG: Was it Pitt?
LR2: That's what I heard; he started the 'big picnic.'
JG: Really?
LR2: Yeah. And I don't know when it stopped, but, um, apparently, a group in St Catharines is trying to revitalize it, but it won't be the same.
JG: No it won't.
LR2: It won't be the same. That was just... uuuuh!
JG: It won't work, either.
LR2: It was just, it was unbelievable. Then when you start getting in your teens, all the guys from Buffalo used to come...
JG: Yeah...
LR2: ...so you had to get dressed up...
JG: Yeah! Hip up...
LR2: Leave me alone!
JG: Oh yeah! Oh yeah...
LR2: But then in the uh, the uh, picnic area, with the, with the covered bit there?
JG: Pavilion.
LR2: Everybody would get off the boat and run...
JG: Run t' get...
LR2: ...run to get a good table, you know? Good spot under there. Oh yeah! That was...
JG: The other day, uh, we were, we were walking , I took my sister, we were walking down in Port Dalhousie there...
LR2: Mhmm.
JG: And, uh, she said, 'Well, where, where is the picnic tables we used to...?' So I said, 'There they are over there.' She says, 'Oh no, they were bigger than that.' I says, 'You were smaller then!' [laughs]
LR2: That's right!
JG: I said, 'That's them.'
LR2: Oh yeah.
JG: And I said, 'Don't you remember? Okay? The boat used to pull up here on this wharf, and our, our parents would be telling us, 'Now you get out there and get us a table.''
LR2: That's right!
JG: Okay? And the minute we could, we hit that thing - WRHRRRR! - and we were runnin' to get a table. Right?
LR2: That's right.
JG: Remember that?
LR2: Oh yes, yes.
LR: So you guys came from Toronto to go to this picnic?
JG: In Port Dalhousie.
LR2: Mhmm.
LR: In Port Dalhousie?!
LR2: Yeah. I don't know why he [referencing Lawyer Pitt] selected... Well, maybe because Niagara-on-the-Lake, this is where the, the Act [to Abolish Slavery in 1793] was signed, I don't know the reasoning behind it, but apparently he uh, he, he started that picnic, Lawyer Pitt. I must ask my sister 'cause she worked for him. My sister Eva?
JG: Yeah, yeah.
LR2: But my understanding is that he started it.
JG: Check it out.
LR2: Yeah, I gotta. I gotta...
JG: And see what's happening there.
LR2: But, oh that...
JG: Because that was...
LR2: ...it was the event of the year.
JG: ...that was something.
LR2: Oh yeah.
JG: As far as black people was concerned, that was it.
LR2: That was it.
JG: It was just like Christmas, man.
LR2: Oh yeah!
JG: Just like, you had to have Christmas, and you had to go to the 'big picnic.'
LR2: Y' had to go to the 'big picnic.' |
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