Lloyd Graham, my maternal grandfather, was born in 1907, the second oldest of James and Addie's seven children.

"All alive - we had a family dinner just last week," he points out.

"My mother's mother was 95 when she died, and mother was 94. My grandmother Graham was 82 when she died, so there are some long years in life for us, I hope." So do I, Gramps, so do I.

The farm my grandfather grew up on - about two miles from where my parents live now - was owned by Lloyd's grandfather, and it's still in the family. My cousin Anna and her family now live in the big, boxy frame house.

Lloyd attended school in nearby Hulbert, which barely qualifies as a hamlet. A handful of houses scattered along a strip of road, the cheese factory was a focal point.

"We had to get up at 4:30 a.m. and milk the cows, get the chores done, and go to the factory - all before breakfast," he recalls.

"We had a mile and three-eights to walk to school. Sometimes we got a ride on the milk wagons going to the factory. There was no cars then."

I know, Gramps. I may be young, but I realize there was life before the automobile.

Although he doesn't remember when he got his first car (a Briscoe) my grandfather still has the permit for it upstairs. That's the kind of man he his; when his memory starts to go, he'll have a thousands scraps of paper filed neatly away to jog it.

It was in another car that young Lloyd was hit by a train going 80 miles an hour.

"The train was - not me. It completely wrecked the car and I crawled out alive - I was just sore the next morning. That train was going to Montreal, and when it came back the next day, I took it up to a school in Flanders."

Lloyd went to Normal school (teacher's college) in Ottawa after he completed high school. He got his certificate, and taught for six years in various parts of Ontario. While teaching, he studied radio repair and opened up shop in Iroquois, Ontario.

"My parents wanted me to be a teacher - I really didn't like it. I preferred other things," he says.

I guess, in those days, kids really did do what they were told.

He later taught returned war veterans at Toronto's Ryerson Polytechnical Institute - radio theory and industrial electronics. He'd had his druthers, and much preferred teaching veterans to tutoring youngsters.

Lloyd left Iroquois and headed to Belleville to work for a radio company for a couple of years; that's where he met Grace, my grandmother.

"Then I went to Toronto in 1945, and worked at Research Enterprises, a war plant making radar and electronic equipment for the services."

He ended up supervisor of electrical test and component parts before moving on to General Electric, where he began working in a new field - communications. He installed the systems in police and fire vehicles and taxis, and made sure they were kept shipshape.

It wasn't long before he was switched to another new field - television.

"I worked on the first TV sets made by GE in Canada," he recalls.

By then he was service manager in GE's head office, moving on to X-ray installation and servicing in hospitals.

After a year, he and his brother (also in Toronto at the time) returned to Eastern Ontario, settled in South Mountain, and opened their own service and repair shop. The store they worked out of is gone now, but I remember wandering in there on hot, lazy afternoons, to be greeted by still, dark, grease-scented air.

My grandfather gave up the shop after many years, only to take on the job of clerk-treasurer of the town of Chesterville, Ontario. After 12 years there, he retired for good.

Now, tending to his plants and garden take up most of his time. An unused bedroom has been invaded by geraniums of all shapes and sizes - 'the green room.'

I came away from my talk with my grandparents clutching one of their geraniums, with the advice that it would flourish best on rainwater. I don't seem to have time to put the garbage out, but Grandpa wants me to bring rainwater in. Sorry, Gramps. My intentions are good, but my time is short. It's tap water or nothing.

He and Grandma share their garden with Steve and Ann, their young neighbors. My grandparents are tickled pink with the francophone couple and their three young children.

One of the children, a girl of three, comes to visit quite often. And, although you could spit and hit Steve and Ann's house, Grandpa makes the tot phone home when she's finished chatting, to let her mother know she's on her way. That's the kind of man my grandfather is.

Written by Lori MacDonald.