Lost & Found: a Letter

As Remembrance Day approaches, a letter one hundred years ago to a pilot who spent months in Germany's Holzminden POW camp:

Lost & Found: A Doily

My wonderfully skilled grandmother. Crochet, embroidery, smocking, you name it. And they were merely adjuncts to her training as a seamstress. She met the height of fashion at the turn of the twentieth century. How many saved items do I have like this? Most fabulous of all, a pristine, crocheted, ten-foot long, grand dining table cloth. To a child with a dining room table.

Lost and Found: Pointe Shoes

The last pair of shoes. 

Shoe rescue, before most of the dirt and sweat and breakdown takes place. Hours spent darning the satin toes for extended life. Sewing the ribbon ties with the strongest thread. The pounding and abuse they took! 

All for that illusion of gliding and airborne, weightless movement.

Lost and Found: Meat Loaf

Not exactly lost ... let's say revived. Last year a concert by slimmed-down drama master Meat Loaf himself.

This year, those rip-roaring rock n' roll songs from the 80s found again. Was it a good idea to make a stage musical from Bat Out Of Hell? Why not?? That was on composer Jim Steinman's mind before the bestselling album ever hit the airwaves.

A slim story indeed, inexplicably set in a dystopian future, but same old thrill, powered by exciting sets and exceptional singers perfect for the songs. Rock on, Meat and Steinman!!

Lost and Found: Autographs

Autograph books were a widespread fad in the 1950s ... how many years did that last, I wonder. Most girls of a certain age had a favourite rhyme memorized for requests to fill a page in my book.  A lot of them started with "Roses are red, ..."!

A cousin wrote:

My favourite elementary school teacher was well-prepared:

And my aunt! Words for the ages:

This is much more representative of my autograph book entries and boarding school days:

Lost and Found: TCA

Aha! How old is this? Cleaning out old files.

Probably old enough to still have ashtrays on the airplane. Please arrive 20 minutes before your flight! And look at those state of the art planes.

A trip to Trinidad and Puerto Rico many moons ago. A visit with my cousin, then living in Fajardo, PR. Reminds me that going south if possible was a goal during winters at The Lakehead.

Lost & Found: Flat Penny

See this? We don't have them in Canada any more. Too inconsequential; troublemakers.

Remember that? What we did as kids. That's pretty much what mine looked like. If I could find it. If I ever saved one of them.

That was good for at least a half day's adventure. Hiking to the railway track on a hot summer day and carefully placing the penny on a rail. Carefully, meaning you had to mark the spot somehow, remember the point.

Hide in the bushes until the train had gone by. Of course the penny was no longer on the rail and had often spun off on a mysterious trajectory. Great competition ensued to be first to find it.

Lost, but not exactly found. This house lacks a decent flat penny.

Lost & Found: Freckles

Stillman's Freckle Cream

OMG, teenage saviour. Pasted on my face every night clogging my pores. But it worked!

So amazing to make your acquaintance again. How are you, Stillman's, after all this time? Selling big in southeast Asia, I hear. But not welcome in first world countries ... what is this rumour about mercury levels? Dear Stillman of honoured memory, should I be worried?

Freckles and spots are universal. So is vanity.

We are all sisters.

Maybe the odd brother too.

#childhoodagoniesandrepercussions

Oh for heavens' sake, I thought I posted this in June!!

Lost & Found: Sewing

Came across these in the moving and culling process. OMG are Butterick, McCall, and Vogue still selling patterns?! Are people still sewing?

Could I throw them out? Or do they "give me joy"? The sewing machine itself went the way of a yard sale in a prior downsizing. Use it or lose it.

But oh yes, so long ago, the happiness of fabric stores -- colour and design -- the dizzying array of trims -- pins pins pins -- the challenge of shoulder seams -- bright faces, a new dress!

We rise again in the faces of our children ... some famdamily joy lives on.

Lost & Found: Phantom

"THE SPECTACULAR NEW PRODUCTION" (2015-2016)

LOST ... the excitement of newness because of course everyone knows the story by now and a falling chandelier can only be effective the first time. ... like twenty-five years ago. Then, Colm Wilkinson was perfect of course but it was the voice of Rebecca Caine that blew me away. Lloyd Webber's music eclipsed all he'd done before and call me a fan because I love every note of it.*

FOUND ... Amazing sets, just amazing. Special effects were executed with startling fire. Spectacular indeed. The standout for me was Phantom himself with a superb voice, so memorable in The Music of the Night, could bring you to tears. But oddly, the character was not as sympathetic as before. I was not lost in a dreamy world of haunting music for days after. Imbuing the obsessed man with more of a back story, and over-playing Christine's ambivalence in the last scenes didn't work for me.

Nevertheless, wonderful hours of entertainment. Merci, Princess of Wales Theatre! Special thanks to "keepemflying."

* [Ed.: As an example, my amenable children grew up knowing every song and nuance of Jesus Christ Superstar ☺]  

Lost & Found: a guest book

OMG

A "Guest Book" from university days, that followed me from Winnipeg to Thunder Bay to Toronto. 

Bought for fun when my brother and I shared an apartment and a car to get back and forth. 

Who on earth were some of these drunks people?

Do people still do guest books?

Selected abstruse comments, their meaning obscured by the beer scotch years.

In Winnipeg:

"I am the still turning point in the Anglican crisis."

"There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn."

"Garbage à la pointe arretée et pivotée, vive l'existence."

"Friend of the turning point."

" ♫ Life presents a dismal picture ..."

In Thunder Bay (much illegible script):

"Who hid my bottle?"

"Wider sidewalks please."

"Phone those buggers, B - my coat!"

"Great boola boola time!"

In Toronto:

"From i phelta thi."

"More beer."

"Have you got five dollars?"

" ♪ Life presents a dismal picture ..."

"I just don't know if I'm impressed or not."

And hidden in the middle, this:

♫ Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end ... ♪

Lost and Found: A Tale of Two Cities

My mother's copy of a classic for a high school English course in the 1930s.
Port Arthur Collegiate Institute.

Lost and Found: Common Prayer

Times past ... a little treasure, worn and used before I first found it.

The page with the publishing data had been cut out.

Lost and Found: An Icon

This iconic design, still used by maple syrup producers everywhere, was created by Dick Marvin, illustrator extraordinaire in his own right. 

The Marvins were the other half of our MerriMar Maple Syrup business in the 1980s.

Our sugar shack near Moffat, Ontario, was used as a basis for the drawing, although we did not have horses!

The "candy kitchen" was the scene of temperature-exacting production of maple butter and maple sugar candies.

RIP, MerriMar.

Lost and Found: Upper Egypt

In the examination and dispersal of old junk department; digging up the midden; decluttering; what to keep, what to toss. An absolutely virtuous, praiseworthy enterprise. Yadda.

What to do with? The scrapbook is bulging. Must have been 2008? Not 2011. Warm memories of cruising the Nile, the nocturnal wedding celebration at Edfu, bantering with vendors in tiny boats below us at the locks, flying across Lake Nasser. 

Toss the paper, keep the image.