Bill, I would not rest tonight unless I posted that I hold it against no one that he or she holds a firm opinion on a subject. Yours is against tobacco. Mine is against television. I some time ago forbad TV in my living quarters and have lived better without it.

I warrant that I will smoke no tobacco in your presence, real or virtual, if you will undertake to make no mention of television shows in mine -- or God forbid, turn one on! I have long maintained that in the unlikely event that I had children in the house I'd banish both tobacco and television as evil influences. Drinking, well, I think children should start with wine about eleven or twelve, suitably watered, but that is a different matter.

You may wander into a party or pub and complain of the smoke, but I wander in and curse the age in which I live, if there is a television present and in operation. Our lives are lived to a laugh track.

Anyway, what's a proper gathering in the tree house without a quarrel between the boys?

More to the point of the thread, I have uncovered an old lumberman's song from Prince Edward Island, allegedly traditional, though I doubt it. It is from The Prince Edward Island Music Series, Volume I. There is not much timber on PEI itself, which is mostly potato farms and enterprises funded by the federal government, but historically the Island boys and men went to work in the forests of New Brunswick and New England. (See also "Peter Emberlay", which is in the database in a somewhat corrupt version; I have at hand what is allegedly the original version though I have never heard it sung that way)

THE BOYS OF THE ISLAND

(Chorus, with which it starts)
The boys of the Island are surely good fellows,
Moonshine and women, they love them the same.
Up river it’s slavin', and sweatin', and swearin'.
And fightin' and drinkin's their downriver game.

You sporting young fellows from Prince Edward Island,
You think on your farms you are doing no good,
With your mind never easy, continually crazy,
You go off to Bangor to work in the wood.

Well a suit of new clothes is prepared for the journey,
Shiny new boots made by Sherwood or Clark,
And a fine sturdy spud bag filled up with good homespun,
Then the young Islander makes his embark.

(Repeat Chorus)

It's true, the good fellows they earn lots of money,
But the curse of old bushmen is on them also.
The money it vanished like snow in the springtime,
And back to the woods every fall they must go.

A lumberman's life is a sad meditation,
It's made up of hardships, bad luck and bad rum,
But if there's a hereafter, according to Scripture,
The worst of your days, boys, is still yet to come.

(Repeat Chorus)