When he was five years old, it was his job to go out and wake up the cows on the family farm.
That was in 1920.
Now, at 85, soon to be 86 years of age, Thorold Dupre is still up with the cows - although they don't live on his farm anymore - and out working the land.
Retire?
No way.
Dupre is the fourth generation of his family to live and work on the farm just outside Napanee which is now given over to soybeans. Dupre's son, Lyle, and Lyle's children, he said, will continue the tradition.
"This farm has been in the Dupre name for more than 150 years," Dupre said.
"My father was born here. The house is as good as the day it was built. When I die, I expect one of them will take over."
Given the family connections, both to the farm and to the area, this is a safe bet.
"I went to public school about a mile and a half from here," Dupre said, "and my father went there. Three generations went to one school: S.S. No. 12, the Long Schoolhouse. Now my daughter lives on the site."
As for the rest of the family, several of Dupre's siblings, as well as his children and grandchildren, still reside in the area.
'FARMS TOUCH'
"My family are right around," he said. "My son - our farms touch each other. [Combined], we've got almost 1,000 acres now. Some of it is bush, but about 600 acres is workable land."
He said taking to farm life wasn't a hard decision. When he finished his schooling, with a focus on typing and shorthand, Dupre said, his options were either to work the farm, or take a job at Gibbard Furniture for $12 a week.
He went for the farm.
"At that time, we had a 60-acre farm," he said. "We'd bring in a spring wagon, full of produce, about a ton all together, and we'd make about $25, $30 dollars for it.
"It was a living, but we had to work like the devil."
Work like the devil for sure: Dupre said his least favourite farm task involved onions, lots and lots of them.
"Every summer, it was my job to tend to an acre of onions," he said. This required much stooping and pulling.
"It's a wonder that I have any knees left."
He said that in many ways, despite the passage of decades, life on the farm hasn't changed much.
"Not an awful lot, really," he said. "I've got half a million dollars' worth of machinery now. [I had] about $200 worth when I started."
That whole retirement and growing old gracefully thing?
Not happening.
"I tell people I feel just as well as 50 years ago," he said. "I can't believe it. At 85, you shouldn't be doing hardly anything.
"I still ride my bicycle. I can take off after a cow if needed."