The Last of Her Birthday Money

"You can see from my eyes that
there is an idea coming to me."

I sent Hebe some money for her birthday.


She used part of the money to buy a new backpack -- one that has a lunch box attached.


She used the other part of her money to buy a new helmet for her bike.


Then she sent a letter to me, via her mother's account.

"This is part of my idea."

This is what she said:

"I bought a new helmet to wear when I ride my bike."

"I hope the snow melts soon."

I had to write to Hebe and ask her if I could blog her words, and if I could put up her pictures.


She said, "Oh alright.".


I love sending birthday money.

"And now this is the best part of my idea."

I get maximum returns on my dollar: 3 pictures, 2 emails and a good laugh.


Arta

Words from the Past

Today is my mother's birthday.  She was born in 1914.  Wanting to celebrate her life in some way, I went to a copy of her life story that I own -- the pages now yellowing and the gestetner ink now fading.  I wanted to find some excerpt to share ... something in her words about her life.

Unable to choose one segment to type, I got trapped page after page, trying to read between the lines, trying to make the paragraphs into essays.

Ultimately having to choose something, here are her words about when Elsworth was born and about her life on the southern Alberta prairie.

In 1919 I remember Elsworth was born.   We must have been living out at Delbonita but Mama had come into Raymond to have the baby, because the baby was born at Grandma Scoville's house.  The Dr. delivered the baby but mother got blood poisoning and milk leg.  At one point she stopped breathing and Papa jumped up on the ged and pounded on her chest, and she started breathing again.  Elsworth was born April 21 and for weeks Mama lay in that room before she was well enough to come out.   

While Mama was laying there ill there were only a few times that they would let us in to see her....  I remember Mama got up and came out on the lawn on the first of July.  I remember her sitting out in a chair ....  At Grandma Scoville's there was a most beautiful silver maple tree.  The back of the leaves were all silver and the fronts were all green. Mama and Pap didn't want to have more children right away but they thought that the time they wouldn't get caught was the time when they would. 

We learned to play in the ditches when Mama was sick.  The ditch was a narrow one and the water only about up to our knees.  We made mud pies and got our dresses  muddy. We would be dirty and have our feet cut on the glass but it was fun because it was so hot and we would get cool.

It wasn't long before we piled in the wagon and started for Delbonita.  The night we went out ot the farm something broke down, so Papa walked with Lenore and me and the baby to the two-roomed house that we lived in.  The Wiley's lived over one mile away and they had seen the light.  Mrs. Wiley came that mile and said, "Where is your mother." Lenore told her that Mama was back in the wagon because she couldn't walk and that Papa had left us and gone back to get mother.  Lenore said to come in and see the baby. Sister Wiley just went on to see mother and Lenore was hurt to think that she didn't want to see the baby. 

When I as about four and a half we moved from Delbonita to Wrentham and it was here that I started to go to school.   

We used to look for birds' nests on the way to school and they could be found about every ten feet.  The country was wild then. It wasn't even ploughed.  We would look at them and run on.  We would find about ten every night and we wouldn't touch the eggs. Mother would say, "Look at them, but never touch them."  We used to sit down on our dinner buckets and rest.  When we got home we were so tired we had to lay down or sit down.  In that house, there was just one room and it had a folding bed.  Every night we pulled it down and slept on it. (p2-3)

Happpy Birthday, Wyora.

Thank you for leaving us some words that let me imagine your childhood.

Arta

Sonic Escape

Sonic Escape

Sonic Escape is a flute, cello and violin ensemble based in New York.  They claim to live there half the time.  Then they laugh for tomorrow they fly home for a night and then begin another journey which will take them to India.

During the question period someone asked them about their travel accommodations.  Apparently when they know they are coming to Calgary, for instance, they do apartment swapping.   They stayed in Canmore for a few days and someone from Canmore flies to New York.

They live in an apartment that is not even 500 square feet, but they say that they can swap for accommodations in castles, everyone wants to go to New York so badly.

Their programme was eclectic -- a bit of everything, including the Air on the G String and a piece that one of their members had written after being plagued by a mosquito in their room all night.

A lovely evening.

Catch them if you get a chance.

Arta

Santiago

... Santiago ...

We have arrived in Santiago.

Greg just got up from a cat nap. We are going to walk around tonight. Our apartment is $317 for 6 nights. Cheapest hotels in Santiago --especially over London. Three flights, Edmonton, Toronto then Santiago. We are old so we paid for a seat on the last two flights, aisle seats.

Took a cab from the airport. Tomorrow, Sunday, we will go on the Hop-On Hop-Off because traffic is less on Sundays so we can take the ride more often. About 30 degrees outside, no air conditioning in apartment but not too hot.

Love,

Wyona

PS We are suppose to be enjoying our Texas grandchildren while Trent and Jamie are off holidaying. However, they did not go so we took the holiday.

Holding the Entertaining Bar High

The old people in our ward are incredibly social. Someone will advertise in the ward bulletin that there will be a party, bring a salad or dessert and bring your friends. Saturday’s party was still on my mind Sunday afternoon when I received a call from the hostess, saying that she had found the purse I left behind.

When I went to pick it up I thanked her again for the fun, saying that I was going to blog the evening and wished I had taken a few pictures. She giggled and said, well, ok, but don’t use my name.

I will honour her request. She has a lovely home, and had tables set up for about forty people. But as the doorbell kept ringing and people continued to drive up, Bill called for help from some of his friends. “Go to my garage and bring in a couple of tables from there. And get the round table from downstairs. We will just squeeze everyone over a bit. There is room for all.” In his inimitable way, after the blessing was said he warned people, “There are too many of you. Those at the end of the line are not going to get any food. There is nothing I can do about it.”

Mrs. She-Who-Does-Not-Want-To-Be-Named had cooked an eighteen pound roast, and a huge pork loin, done a roaster full of baby potatoes and made three appetizers: stuffed mushrooms, baby quiches and a new zucchini appetizer that she found in the Jean Pare Appetizer Cookbook. She could have single-handedly fed everyone with no other help.

As the guests arrived, everyone had food in hand. I sat at a table with people I didn’t know. “Is this your first time at Mrs. She-Who-Does-Not-Want-To-Be-Named’s house,” I asked. Some nodded. “Well, I can tell you from forty years of experience, if you are invited to a party here, make sure you don’t miss it. The hosts are generous. They will let you stay all night. Their guest list always includes people you will have wanted to have spent an evening with – maybe her opera friends, or his extended family, or church friends you haven’t seen for years. Always some mix of her children and grandchildren will be seated somewhere.”

Later in the evening I sat to talk with Peggy Estabrooks, Jackie Richards and Erva Sherwood. Someone came by and I stood up to say a few words to them before they left. When I sat down, I do not know what had happened at that table of women, but they were laughing so hard that Erva had a handkerchief and was wiping the tears from her cheeks. I know that moment like that can’t be recreated, but I did want to know who had masterminded the joke that had the women unable to stop laughing. The others pointed to Peggy who denied that truth by shaking her head, but the twinkle in her eye gave her away.

The next day I tried to think how many people had been there. I told Bill that I thought as many as 60 people might have been there. Dead on, he said. Sixty-one.

What is there to say about a couple who are both in the eighties and can host that kind of party.

Arta

The Western

I signed up for two film courses this semester: The Western and Canadian Film and T.V.

I am a ten minute walk from the university. I go Monday afternoon, Tuesday morning and then all day Thursday, where I get a mixture of film, lectures and student presentations.

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 I grew up at the Saturday afternoon matinee at the Plaza where I saw a B-Western every Saturday. I can still remember the thrill of the lights going down, and the cheers from the audience as the pre-movie serial began to roll. Now I get to sit in lectures and hear about the life of the Western, one of the few genres that is truly American.

 Last week the whole lecture was on genre-mix: the Western cross over into Science-Fiction.

Based on a true story,
this is the tale of Josephine Monaghan

Today the topic was Gender in the Western. I was taking notes as though I were going to prepare for an essay or write an exam.

The professor talked about the stock plot, the exaggerated homo-social world, the bad girl, the Hawksian woman (women who appear in movies directed by Howard Hawks), the captivity narratives, the revisionist westerns. The professor pauses sometimes to ask if there are questions, but there are none.

 Most of the students in the class were born long after the Western Genre began its decline and this is the first time they have looked in depth at the Western.

The story is about a man returning
to his abandoned wife after seven years 
of drifting from job to job throughout the southwest. 
The embittered woman will only let him stay 
if he agrees to move in as a hired hand.

We watch a problematic clip of Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter. I want to know what to make of the voyeur who observes violence but does nothing.

The professor launches into a mini-lecture on the worshipful male, whose job it is to return masculinity to the hero. 

No one is sadder than I am when the class ends. I come home and study my notes while I eat my supper. I wonder why I am doing this, but I can’t stop myself. Beside my dessert is my text book and begin to read a few of the unassigned essays from it. I

f I could change my life in any way, it would be to have time to do more film.

Arta

The Back Pack

From Hebe:

Here is what I bought with half of my birthday money.

I wanted a regular knapsack for school instead of the one on wheels that my mom bought me in kindergarten.

This one has a detachable lunch box.

I'm so excited.

Hebe