70 FarmNews First > BetterFarming.com Better Farming November 2016 RURAL ROOTS The Telephone Man Climbing those poles took spurs, brawn and ingenuity. by CAMPBELL CORK T here was a time when Clayton Newton knew where every telephone was located in every house and farm in and around the village of Clifford in Wellington County. Clayton was the “telephone man” for Wightman Telephone for some 40 years (from 1950 to 1990), and there wasn’t a telephone in the area that he didn’t service or install. “The townspeople and the country people didn’t move from place to place that much,” Clayton said. “If you asked me where a person’s telephone was located in their home, I could tell you. Of course, people only had one telephone then.” Clayton came from an era when the telephone man climbed poles with spurs strapped to his legs, dug five feet deep post holes by hand and raised poles by hand. Clayton worked a lot with compa- ny owner, Ray Wightman. They were a good team, especially when it came to raising telephone poles. Being the shorter of the two, Clayton would start walking the pole up and Ray would fall in behind, guiding the pole above their heads. When they got it up as far as they could reach, one man would get a pike pole to raise it the rest of the way. “I used spurs all the time,” Clayton said. “These young fellows today, they can’t even climb.” “One day, Ray and I were going up a pole. I told Ray to wait until I got to the top before he started up. “I went up to the crossarms (wood added to the pole to support the telephone lines). I don’t know what happened but down the pole I went and hit the ground right beside Ray. “He looked up and said, ‘I thought you were going up the pole.’ I said, ‘I did.’ “It took all the skin off the insides of my arms.” Today, there is still a sliver from that pole embedded in Clayton’s arm. He figured it would work its way out over the years. But it never did. He can still feel it in there: a souvenir. “I think I must have stepped on a knot. Those black jack poles (made from black jack pine) were bad for cracks. Your spur would go in but when you put your weight on it to bring your bottom leg up, down you would go. “Not all poles froze, but cedar poles could be full of water about an inch below the surface. They would freeze on the cold side. You would go up alright, but if you went to go around the pole while you were up there the spur might hit the ice. You really had to jab it in. “Sometimes it felt like you did all your climbing in the winter. Those were the ones you remembered, anyway.” They brought back old poles to the shop after replacing them. Those poles ended up as fire wood. “They would often be full of big ants,” Clayton said. “The trick was to get the entire piece of wood into the stove and the stove door shut before the ants started jumping.” Dynamite was often used to blast a large boulder out of the way or to empty a wet spot in order to dig a post hole. Every telephone man had a bit of dynamite in his truck. The blasting caps were kept in the glove box, well away from the sticks of dynamite. You could just go into the hardware store and get dynamite by signing for it, Clayton said, smiling to himself at the memory. It’s not like that any more. “Today, you have to hire people to do blasting,” Clayton said. Clayton recalled another amusing anecdote from his years as the telephone man. “One time I was up a pole outside the Neustadt post office when Annie Knapp walked by on the sidewalk below. “‘Good morning, Annie,’” I said. “She looked everywhere but up. I said it again: ‘Good morning, Annie.’ “Finally after a few times she spied me up there. “‘You rascal,’ she said.” BF Campbell Cork lives and writes in Mount Forest. RayWightman up a pole on spurs, 1949. Wightman family collection photo Making the most of your OFA membership Better Farming is your trusted source for insight, analysis, and investigative reporting on Ontario agriculture. RATES AT A GLANCE One-year subscription for non-OFA members $41 Your OFA member subscription cost per year $0