welcome i am richard betts town historian and editor of the belmont historical society no let up in november the year two thousand alice shea curator of the historical society and i had the pleasure of interviewing ralph j burns a ninety seven year resident of belmont ralph died in february two thousand and three at the age of one hundred one but through this video he has left us with many vivid memories of growing up in belmont i hope you will enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed doing it three nights he's nineteen zero three yeah that's ninety seven years yeah it's going to talk to us and i'm going to whether i should say i'm going to talk with him about growing up in  have probably three to four miles unless you are the little bit into the options yes or apples with growing on cherries what he showed them off horticultural hall in boston which had a big three or four day time to have people come into the died to celebrate the town's centennial oh yes you talk about the cattle being driven down grove grocery on the way to the other two are enough right that's right that must've been quite a si around there so that was us a sad day we didn't want to drown the cows all we wanted to do is sort of put them off their regular c the front gate of the mountain of the cemetery get you really in fact we got them in several of them we had to chase all over the cemetery to get them out because the people who worked in the cemetery told us they would boys were allowed out to help run the so called fire engine which we call it was much easier than the house if the houses on fire actually we had to get the people from the newly iraq to fire up on a good many of those were called call fine because when they heard the five bell call they left the fonz and they came running i recall two of them or mr green bush and would come in on late carriage and he drove himself and he was the chief of the fire department and his name was john lennon oh and he lived on the lawn help yes is that right so we did they get the water at the fire because the the question for did that did that carry water in that well my guess is it did you not sure about it but i get on fire and i remember two men who were carpenters in our lawn and they were also called firemen and i remember when as they would get the jobs to quit the rows back together oh boy so they really did tumble duty that's right that's funny that's for that's a true story is that right i won't probably why they seem to be on fire a lot and many of our runs as boys we went to the program so you want to see the brickyard when it was in operation oh yes yes and carried was minoa and they sat on big high seats on those high wagons and they made beautiful targets from a small body to call that the indian home in the a hole it was a series on circles which rain have had figured out and we went to city hall to find this out and we found out that that's when the indians there were two of them one of them is right near the entrance to the fresh one golf course oh and the other one is down and back home normally history that's the one the good about y caddies anywhere from one dollar fifty to three dollars but in my day as a canny club did not allow tips and there was only one man so we all tried very odd pushing each other this way and that way to get mr weeds back so we would back some real money because he would give you fifty cents for nine homes we would be divided have we could save the money so save the town taxpayers money by knocking down what department had said build up that they said they needed to run that upon yes the thing i remember about you would try meeting you never afraid to stand up and speak speak your priest whether it was popular or not popular whatever you felt was right for the turn of don't want you were right there well that's a compliment jack and i excepted it as such and i i did my best you just simply did and i enjoyed it as a matter of fact i enjoyed the debating back and forth well i must say that was one of the big we we formed a committee took calls building a biscuit factory town and were in for a very hard time of it because it wasn't flat was probably as good a speaker as we had in belmont and when we went against watson we know that it would be a busy night and we did not want to have any of those buildings built in and particularly built in  enjoyed that work you had to be elected to that job yes and having a good living in belmont for such a long time and watching belmont grow and watching the different neighborhoods come into being i think i was i was pretty good sixteen years you were to serve with a whole lot of different people well i did yes i did a very very responsible job well it is one committee we devoted all the money money was voted by the war committee yes which are always call for a lot of opposition because that's what we were supposed to do i remember being at a town meeting of those days and of the ten times opinion i always looked up to the people that were on the work committee they would give my opinion made up of mostly the outstanding citizens of the town well you could say that  i could say for the warrant committee that they were interested people yes and there was not enough to understand finance and they  truth well that's how we how we brought his family up to you know another one of your major accomplishments was serving on the new library building committee somewhere by somebody very recently that somebody is talking about tearing down the vibratory and i sure will