One of Irving's uncles was a farmer. He owned and operated a fairly large farm near Kleinburg, Ontario. Eventually part of his farm was taken over to become part of a vast system around the Toronto area, given over to conservation areas, meant as recreational facilities for the growing population. Until it was, however, and his uncle became too old to farm, it was a going concern.

It was also fairly anomalous that a Jew would be a farmer, since that generation had emigrated to Canada from Europe, and there were laws restricting Jews from owning and operating farmland in Poland where they came from. His uncle's sons, all three of them, worked on the farm when they weren't attending school, as they grew up. Eventually none of them became farmers; one in particular became a professor of dentistry, the others businessmen.

When Irving was growing up he spent some of his favourite summers at the farm, and there he learned what farmwork was like; tough. He has fond memories of working and living on the farm. How the infuriated hens would peck him when he was sent down to the henhouse to gather eggs. How prickly the stalks were on bare skin in the summer and fall bringing in t he sheaves, as it were. The contraption his uncle had put together on a pulley system to move grain into storage; another one to help clean out the barn. His uncle's furious response when the bull had pulled himself loose and was banging about the barn, hauling around half of the stall.

Even I have memories of that farm, since when we were around fourteen, fifteen he would sometimes take me out there with him to visit with his aunt and uncle. It was all new to me. A railroad track ran through the farm and he showed me how to put pennies on the rail, so they would be flattened after the train ran over them. A branch of the Little Humber River ran through the farm, and he would sometimes fish there, using cornmeal as bait. At one point Irving had got himself an old Lee Enfield 22 rifle and we did target practise there. I remember he hit a bird once, and was so distraught he never picked that rifle up again.

When I was quite a bit younger I had spent two summer seasons at a fresh-air camp for underprivileged children that was located nearby. I can recall being by myself quite a bit there, making no friends, and simply roaming about, loving the summer-green acreage, the trees, the brook that ran through the area. I remember once, close to the gate of the camp I had seen a young boy pause at the gate, look through into the interior of the vast green space, from the exterior of an equally vast green space. I felt convinced years afterward that it had been Irving, wandering about, curious about what lay beyond close to where he was living with his uncle and aunt and cousins.

He doesn't think so, he cannot recall any such incident, but I cling to it, regardless.