Hidden Treasures
In every city (town, village, hamlet…nay, country) there are little hidden gems. They lurk half hidden, half forgotten, off the beaten path and just out of reach around the corner. Above is one of ours; I call it the Statue Graveyard; others have called it a Sculpture Garden.
It is located in a back corner of the University adjacent to the river and the Meewasin walking trail. It is the final resting place of statues that have been donated to either the University or the city (I think); statues that may have had other homes or statues that are lost and lonely (perhaps).
Most of the statues are nameless as well as homeless. They are seldom seen. I came across them when I was temporally homeless myself and went to live at one of the campus dorms for a month a summer or so ago. These pictures were taken the Fall after on a cloudy, stormy Saturday. I haven’t gone back for winter pictures as the Statue Graveyard is over an hour walk from my place when the trail is walkable (and right now, for various reasons, it is not). So, I would have to take the long way around which would take two to three hours that I don’t feel like giving up right now. Even though, today I am being lazy and a stay-at-home enjoying the sunshine, like a cat, through half curtained windows.
Here, you can see University buildings in the background and construction cranes, from last year’s project, to the left and the right. I wonder, are the satellite dishes artifact or operational? Here is a field perfect for flying kites or family picnics right beside another of our museums. But no one goes to visit; the Statue Graveyard is always empty of living, breathing individuals, when I go there. There are, however, numerous gopher holes – watch your step if you go. You wouldn’t want to twist your ankle.
Starting this week and to the end of February, I will explore three of the statues and make up stories for you about them. I have a few supposes for you but little fact. I will be a pirate plundering pleasure from hidden treasures for my own (and hopefully, your) enjoyment.
See you next week.
Places I’ve Lived – the Hahn House
This is the first house I remember living in. It is the Hahn House; we called it that because we rented it from Mr. & Mrs. Hahn. This picture was taken after we moved out. At the front, of the picture, you can see the large garden space my mother used every year. When we lived there, there were two rows of raspberries at the bottom of the garden as well as many other common garden vegetables (potatoes, peas, corn etc).
The picture was probably taken in the 70s – notice the boarded up building across the street; that was a bakery when we were living in the Hahn House. The old fire house is to the right. There is an alley to the left. We use to play there a lot on spring, summer and fall evenings.
I lived in the Hahn House from the time I was a year old until we moved the Fall I was thirteen. It was a small house. I went back before they tore it down. I was about nineteen or twenty; the house seemed so small. It’s hard to imagine the five of us living there (Mom and four kids).
Though, truth be told, we didn’t spend a lot of our time inside. As kids, we roamed around town and in the alleys only coming home to eat. I liked to curl up in corners, on rainy or snowy days, and read. I would burrow under the bed or in a closet and read all afternoon.
The outside of the house was tar paper brick. It looked like this picture but had a brick pattern carved into it. Mom toilet trained us using an outhouse. We got indoor plumbing by the time I was four or so. I remember them building the addition.
Memory; this is about memory. It started out as a memory exercise. How much could I remember about that time, that house? How much did we have? Not a lot, not a lot to remember if you’re talking about possessions.
This is the main floor. Sorry, I can’t draw. My angles are off. However, I tried my best and used some floor plan symbols to show windows and doors. The window in the kitchen overlooked a wall. I’m sure I will tell you stories, sooner or later, about the basement. My older sisters were meanies and locked me down there occasionally.
But today, this is about memory. I remember the main floor better then upstairs. But I still don’t know if we had a kitchen table. My memory says yes; my mother says no. She remembered the kitchen window being over the stove because she almost set the curtains on fire. 
I wonder to if we had an armchair in the front room? It’s just at the corner of my memory that maybe there was.
Honestly, it looks like there was not much room for us all to sit in the front room. As a kid, I didn’t get to watch TV a lot. One, we only had two channels and two, we played outside most nights until bedtime. There were always a gaggle of kids to run around with.
The downstairs bedroom I shared with my mom. My two older sisters and baby brother slept upstairs. I didn’t have my own room until I was thirteen.
My eldest sister had the big room with a phone extension, my middle sister had the window and baby brother was in the small room. I don’t remember if he had a closet or a dresser? I think my older sisters shared a closet and had no dressers. I liked to hide in my big sister’s sloped closet, way back, and read.
My eldest sister was in last week and what she remembers is that all of us would end up in her bed. Which makes sense; my mother worked nights a lot and big sister would babysit. (She’s only four years older than me). We’d congregate in her room because it had both a door and a phone.
The bad part was that it also had a window and the town bar was across the street. We’d lie there listening to the drunks and try to fall asleep before mom got home. You’re thinking, bad parent, aren’t you?
She wasn’t. She was doing her best after Dad left her with four kids, too many bills and no money. We didn’t get public assistance right away and even then money was always tight. We managed, that’s what families did and still do. We were lucky that both sets of grandparents were near by and that many in town helped when they could.
But, this is about memory and housing. If you try to draw your first place of residence, what would you remember?
Ow
It was a mostly lazy, uneventful weekend. I did a lot of nothing. I went to Toastmasters. I finished reading an overdue book. I slept in till ten am. I made home-made soup.
Then I got ambitious. I decided to bake a blueberry pie. I don’t bake a lot of pies.
Anyone, courting me and asking my parents: “Can she bake a cherry pie?” would have gotten a resounding “no.”
Today’s pie was the third pie I ever attempted. I am old. I have been living on my own for over twenty years. In the good old days, I would have been expected to have made many, many pies by now.
I tried a Pumpkin pie first, straight from the pumpkin, one Thanksgiving when I was in my early twenties. It was underdone and mushy. 
I made an Apple pie, last year. It was passable, but oh, the mess it made in my oven. I filled the pie crust too full and it overflowed. I tried to clean the oven when it was still warm and almost burned myself. I can’t have a dirty oven.
Today, I attempted a Blueberry pie.
Today, I did burn myself; Bad. Oh okay, maybe not that bad. But it HURTS! And it’s my right hand. I have to do the dishes with my left hand which I’m not use to and this is making the job awkward and it’s taking longer than usual.
I have a blister on the knuckle of my right pinkie and the skin peeled off the finger beside it. Thankfully, I had ointment and bandages. I dropped hot blueberry pie filling on my hand and then when I peeled it off, off came skin as well.
I’m tempted to break the blister even though I know better. It’ll hurt more if I break it and be more of a nuisance.
So, I have decided I am not this person; the sort of person who delights in making pies. I am not attendant enough for complicated baking. As my scars would attest to if they could speak. I am good at brief tasks, liking making soup – put it together, let it simmer, ignore it and suddenly there is soup!
I’m good with creating worlds via words not pies out of berries & flour & sugar. Good thing I live now and not in the good, old days.
Writing Memoir
“Sometimes my memory’s a liar. Sometimes it’s merely asleep at the switch. I’m not inclined to trust it unequivocally, and yet I have to if I’m going to write about early times.” (p. x)
As many of you have probably noticed by now, much of this blog contains my memoirs. I like to write about how I perceive all these events that make up my life. This blog is written by me about things I like to imagine that I have an intimate knowledge of. Okay, I probably have an intimate, unequivocal knowledge of. My memoir writings are based on my personal observation and my observations and interpretations alone. Anyone else describing the same event would do so differently.
Why am I telling you this? Because I write memoir and I’m trying to do so in an honest and fair way; which is hard, which may be impossible. Right now, 90% of my family is unaware of my blog. I don’t know when I’ll tell them about it. But each day it is harder and harder to stay silent. I communicate best through the written word and I’d like their (unequivocal) input on my writing. I am a writer. I write. I want to be read. I want to be read and understood by the people I care about. Is this possible? Is it possible to blog honestly about my life knowing that those others involved in the stories are also reading and judging?
Googling memoir writing gets me over 7 million hits. Like this journal, and this lesson plan, and this link to memoirs written by others. Adding blog to my search term gives me over16 million hits. Six word memoirs are really popular right now. My university recently did them as a contest. Wow.
I found a new resource and now must make time to explore this.
What an overabundance of talking about ourselves. I don’t know about you but I was taught that it was impolite to talk this much about ones’ self. I was taught to be polite; that it is better to say nothing. So, all my life, I have been silent.
Lying is done with words and also with silence. Adrienne Rich
No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow. Alice Walker
Memoir writing is a growing field as we baby boomers age…we like to talk about ourselves, don’t we? Though, for me, it’s not a new field. I’ve always been over introspective.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Martin Luther King, Jr
I write memoir, not autobiography.
An autobiography is the story of an entire life, but a memoir is just one story from that life.
I don’t presume that this is the truth, the whole truth or the absolute truth. It is what it is. It is how I see things.
“Remembering, I’ve discovered, is curious work. The memory is a house in which there are many mansions; enter into one of them, and a hidden door can spring open, luring you into a portion of the past you haven’t visited in years.” (p. xv)
The older I get the more I realize how many stories have been lost because of perceived or chosen silences. I want to know all the stories, good, bad, indifferent, of my ancestors. So, many of them or gone or going and I still choose to be too polite face to face.
“I thought of asking my mother…but I kept forgetting…and then she was gone, and that became one more question I’d never be able to ask.” (p. 36)
So, I say to my family and friends; “Let me tell my stories. Participate if you want to. I can no longer be silent.”
I’m exhausted from not talking. Sam Goldwyn
Quotes with page numbers taken from:
Step By Step: A Pedestrian Memoir
by Lawrence Block
New York: Willam Morrow, 2009
Angels at the WDM
I celebrate Christmas along with many other winter festivals – the season for me starts with the Solstice. I’m agnostic for the most part but was raised in the Christian church so I get nostalgic over certain rituals, customs, and stories.
Here’s what the Eaton’s angels mean to me – they are participating in a story. Well, two stories really or perhaps, two parts of the same story. I’m all about the story, any story, all stories. My whole world revolves around stories.
These angels are busy being generous and helpful. They are making what people need no matter where the people are or who they think they are. Royalty as well as peasants would appreciate these angel’s gifts.
They are sweet little angels; not the serious, forbidding traditional angels. They are traditional type cherubs; small angels, portrayed as child-like with innocent rosy faces. These angels are busy, helpful, cheerful – they would toil for centuries never complaining about the ungratefulness of modern society. This is the trait I hate most in myself; the sacrificing my wants to take care of others’ wishes and dreams.
Here we have the story of the sewing circle:
Obviously only female angels were regulated to this task. = ;-0
There are angels sewing and knitting. Look at the detail in that yarn cabinet; the many colours – orange, yellow, pink, red. Look at the tiny sewing machine. It actually works. Watch the needle move up and down. Our knitting angel has glasses. She’s ruined her eyes knitting those tiny garments for your dolls.
Here is a close-up of the quilting angels. My mom quilted using a frame like this. I still have quilts she made that have remnants of my old wardrobe in them. It’s strange sometimes to fall asleep comforted by this physical closeness of the past. Look closely. Such sparkly halos. Such transparent, invisible wings. Such tiny fingers. Such devotion to task.
These angels are not at all like Margaret Atwood’s Angel of Suicide.
Here is the story of the Angel’s Workshop. Here we can see that there are male angels as well. They get to hammer and use the lathe. The female angels get to paint pretty pictures (yawn). Where are Georgia O’Keefe’s flowers?
The men get to hammer and hang out talking with giant wooden soldiers. They get to make noise as they make toys. The women are kept busy doing the finishing touches and painting pretty picture of holly leaves.
Perhaps that half finished doll to the right of this blond angel is the Angel of Suicide. I seem to remember that the angel of suicide has no face.
These angels are all very white aren’t they? You couldn’t get away with that now. I’d like to see a more multi-cultural, gender neutral remake of these workshops.
Cynical of me to notice all the complications. But if you’ve been reading awhile, you already know I’m pragmatic and cynical. Go to the bottom of my Ravishing R post for my favourite quote about angels.
Not very holiday-like, is it.
I do like this part of the Eaton’s display. It’s my second favourite – after the Winterkins. I just sometimes wish I could still view the displays through child-like eyes. The holidays were much more fun when I didn’t complicate them with such cynical observations.
I hope your holidays were filled with more good occurrences than bad.
Blessings on the New Year.
Silent Interlude
I am in a maudlin mood.
I went home for the holidays; home still meaning the place where I was raised. It is too quiet. The people I want to see are either gone or spread too far apart. I would need weeks to see everyone.
I drove the truck. If I finally buy a vehicle, it will be a truck. I visited with various dogs and was, mostly, ignored by my sister’s cats. There were too many places to go and not enough time.
I was suppose to come home (my apartment) on Monday and be at work on Tuesday. My aunt/godmother died Christmas Eve which was also her wedding anniversary. I stayed for the funeral and came home yesterday. There is never enough time.
I watch one generation age and die. I watch the next one come up and age. Somewhere the two intersect.
My cousin becomes his dad who becomes his dad (my paternal grandfather long gone already). My nephew starts to look like the old pictures of my young maternal grandfather. My niece reluctantly turns into her mother. I become my mother, she becomes hers and eventually I will morph into my maternal grandmother’s looks and soul.
I miss the steady never quite achieved I can count on them for anything ancestors.
Remember, there is never enough time.
Eaton’s Holiday Display
As mentioned last week, I spent the end of last month at the WDM enjoying their Holiday displays and talking pictures with my relatively new camera. I haven’t taken a lot of experimental shots and even fewer night shots. My goal at the WDM was to take decent pictures of the lighted Christmas trees. It didn’t go well. I posted two pictures last week; scroll down to last week’s post and you’ll see them in all their blurriness. I’ll keep working on taking better lighted pictures over the holiday.
Today’s post is about another Holiday tradition of mine.
Though I’m not sure tradition is the right word, since tradition usually implies a long-established or inherited way of acting. I’ve being going to see the Eaton’s Christmas display, on and off, since my teens. I first saw it at around age 15; thus not every year. For a bit of history on Eaton’s displays go here.
The first time I saw the display I was probably around fifteen because this is when we, my family & I, first started to travel regularly to this city, as my eldest sister started university here around then. At that time the display would have been at the Eaton’s store. One of the few places we shopped regularly.
Growing up, both Eaton’s and Sears were very exotic to us as these were the catalogues we ordered things from in our small Saskatchewan town. I remember waiting eagerly for Halloween to be over and the Christmas wish books to come.
We, my younger brother and I, would spend months exploring the catalogues. They were exotic, these were items we didn’t see in our day to day life, and I never thought that these were things that I could own.
I don’t remember making Christmas lists or visiting Santa to ask for what I wanted. We were poor. I knew we were poor and I understood I was to be grateful for what I got no matter what it was. I remember wanting a Thumbelina doll so bad and never getting one. She moved, just like a real baby, when you pulled her string.
Here's what she looked like in 1967.
I can't believe I use to think she was cute
In a roundabout way, I guess I’m saying we didn’t have a lot of yearly traditions. Things happened when they happened. There was a yearly Christmas movie day put on by the local movie theatre, there were Sunday school and school contests but there were not a lot of trips elsewhere.
I remember, as a teen, being intrigued by the Eaton’s display. It moved. Skaters skated and Angels stitched. This tells me the display was probably created in the 1960’s because it used basic electronics to set the figures in motion with simple mechanical movements and hidden turntables.
The WDM now houses this display as I discovered last year when I went to view the Christmas trees. I hadn’t seen the Eaton’s display since I left the city in 1991.
The display is mostly non-religious. It is a secular holiday display. Santa is there; that is, the center of the display deals with about 15 panel boxes detailing the story of the Boy who Grew up to be Santa Claus. Which I have no picture of it because it’s not one of my favourites. The biblical story is not there but there are angels which I will show you next week.
It is a very literary displays overall!
There are nursery rhyme characters.
This one rocks, high up above, and you can read the rhyme for yourself. (Well, probably not in this picture – blurry again. The boat was rocking).
I love the Fuzzy Wuzzy bears. I love to say Fuzzy Wuzzy bears. Who are the Fuzzy Wuzzy bears?
There are books between the panels, like this -
And like this -
Heidi is a favourite of mine, both the book and the Shirley Temple movie.
The last four pictures deals with my favourite part of the Eaton’s display: the Winterkins’ Playground. Most everything moves. I got good photos because I realized, by the time I got to them, that the displays are set on motion sensors. This is something the WDM set up when they acquired the display. (I talked to one of the volunteers later and this is what he told me). It’s a good thing I was there early before the crowd!
The playground is so pretty, so sparkly. I love the abundance of white and blue. It reminds me of the best of winter; snow, snow, snow and fun and not too cold.
Look at that merry-go-around and the parachute ride. Doesn’t everyone look like they’re having fun?
Can you imagine riding that Ferris wheel? What are the snow people, the Winterkins, celebrating?
Look a non-blurry action shot...
Can you guess what the Winterkins are celebrating? I think that they are having a Winter Festival to celebrate the Solstice. The Solstice is tomorrow, December 21 at 11:47 am CST. The days will be getting longer now. Go out. Celebrate.
May your celebration of this season of holidays draw deep from the abundant joy, fierce hopes, and enduring traditions of all of our ancestors.
My next post will be posted on Monday, December 28th as I will be unplugged over the Christmas period as I travel into the depths of rural Saskatchewan. LOL.
Moonlight and Vodka
Two weeks ago I walked to the WDM, a 45 minute walk from my apartment. The day was brisk, Fall-like; I stayed out all morning. A quick walk there and a leisurely hour-long stroll back home.
It was a perfect day.
Now, all this last week and half-way into next week, it is and will be so damn cold.
As Chris De Burgh sings:
Tonight there’s a band, it ain’t such a bad one,
Play me a song, don’t make it a sad one,
I can’t even talk to these Russian girls,
The beer is lousy and the food is worse,
And it’s so damn cold, yes it’s so damn cold,
I know it’s hard to believe,
But I haven’t been warm for a week;
Yes, I haven’t been warm for a week. I walk everywhere so outside is cold; my apartment has base heaters that go up to 5 (no idea what my indoor temperature is but I have two outside walls and my couch sits alongside one of them) and work has not gone over 66 F all week – we’re a non-profit and currently need a new furnace.
This weekend, I made homemade chicken soup (yum) and now I have a small layer of ice inside on my windows.
The worst parts of Canadian Winters are the cold snaps. It feels like everything is frozen enough to break in half; me included. 
Outside is dark and dreary!
Okay, I lie. The sun did shine yesterday and today for a few hours. From Noon until three if I remember correctly. And, I was lucky – I didn’t have to leave the apartment all weekend so I stayed safe from the vicious wind chill created by Old Man Winter and Jack Frost. At least the fishes are inside, away from icy habitats, and staying warm.
There were some lovely Holiday trees at the WDM when I was there as they were hosting the 2009 Festival of Trees.
Below are my two favourites:
Diggin’ in for Christmas was designed by Zenia Dziadyk, Stephanie Baliski and Brenda Ackerman. I love that they used the Danger and Caution tape to make bows. It would be a perfect tree for a little one enthralled with construction, and what under eight year old is not!
A Contractor’s Christmas was designed by Gail Allan, Sherry Klein and Brenda Hesje. Look at the tiny construction hats and Santa’s blue hammer. I love this. A great tree for your favourite do it yourselfer; Mike Holmes perhaps.
I leave you with Christmas oranges, a good stiff drink (vodka is my 1st choice) to warm you up and moonlight. The moon is bright tonight and when it is this cold the stars appear crisp and sparkly. Sometimes, Winter is not so horrid after all (now if only I didn’t have to go to work next week).
Polytechnique (the movie)
Last year’s post, Remembering, gave you my personal point of view about this day: Dec 6th, the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.
This year, I wonder is twenty years long enough to mark history? To go from emotion to analysis. Where is the dividing line between present/past/history? How many years/generations does it take?
In 1989 14 women students were murdered by a male at the Montreal University École Polytechnique just because they were women studying in unconventional fields; they were studying to be engineers.
Director Denis Villeneuve tells this story in a minimalist manner in his movie Polytechnique.
I avoided this movie. I wasn’t sure if this was how I wanted to spend a few hours of my life; remembering horror. It’s only been twenty years; it’s too recent. It’s not history yet.
I was worried that the movie would be either exploitative or inept, or one of those movies that tries to explain the “psychology” behind insane rampages, that aims for sympathy for the assassin. And assassin he was.
In fact, Polytechnique is a sparse work.
The film is in black and white, making things more depressing, interspersed along with shots of snow. This is winter in Canada. There is a cabin fever vibe.
The brutal & raw movie parallels what to me is the worst of winter; the aloneness, the cold, the snow.
The movie starts off showing the truth of student life; you line up for the photocopier and the laundry, search for cards and quarters. You have intense discussion about ideas, both academic and real, as you struggle to educate yourself into a new life that seems full of possibilities.
The movie has no gratuitous violence, no gratuitous emotion, no excesses of any kind. Unsentimental, and completely moving. It stops your breath. The tears are constantly at the back of your eyes as you struggle not to cry, not to obscure your vision. You want to see and at the same time want to look away.
This isn’t some sensationalist gory ode to a mass murderer, but rather a memorial to the victims of that day, both the dead and the survivors.
The filmmakers have not exploited the tragedy, but showed it respectfully, and dedicated it to those who lost their lives that day.
As if I could ever forget. This is my 9/11. My OMG what the hell was that moment. Did the radio really just say 14 women dead? Why? WHY!
Polytechnique was released on February 6, 2009 in Quebec and on March 20, 2009 in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary. I’m glad it was released well before today, the 20th year since it happened. (I can’t write anniversary. anniversaries are happy events).
Here are some additional facts about the movie and my comments on such (in brackets)!
- The name of the perpetrator is never once mentioned in the film. (I saw him listed somewhere as assassin and this seems to make the most sense to me.)
- The film was shot in black and white in order to avoid the presence of blood on screen. (I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have watched it in colour; I would have walked out and missed a compelling, educational experience).
- Filmed simultaneously in English and French. (Bravo, for including all of us and I’m sorry more people out west here aren’t aware of the movie. I only found out about it because I live close to one of the only independent theatres in Saskatchewan.)
- The movie was screened for the family members of the victims before being released commercially. The film was released with their blessing. (Thank you to the families and the filmmakers for their courage.)
This McGill University paper article tells us not only names of the deceased but makes these names real to me with facts about their lives and dreams. Facts that before now never registered within me. Are these women more real to me now because I have a visual to sit alongside my emotional reaction to that day?
If you want to explore the movie further go to IMDB or the Official site which is also sparse.
Je me souviens … Geneviève Bergeron, 21; Hélène Colgan, 23; Nathalie Croteau, 23; Barbara Daigneault, 22; Anne-Marie Edward, 21; Maud Haviernick, 29; Barbara Klucznik Widajewicz, 31; Maryse Laganière, 25; Maryse Leclair, 23; Anne-Marie Lemay, 27; Sonia Pelletier, 23; Michèle Richard, 21; Annie St-Arneault, 23; Annie Turcotte, 21.
Can U tell me how to get (back) to Sesame Street?
January 24, 2010 at 7:42 pm (Book Commentary) (Children's Television Workshop, Grouch, Louise Gikow, nostalgia, Oscar, Sesame Street A Celebration)
I am in a nostalgic mood. I am also slightly grouchy, like Oscar on a good day.
You have to remember that I am old. Though I never watched the first episode when it first aired I was alive and slightly older than the target audience range of 4 & 5 year olds.
I first started watching regularly in the early seventies, with the kids I babysat and with my new younger half-sisters who would wow me with their ESP skills as they told me what would be on the show next. (Years later, one of them clued me into the fact that they got Sesame Street twice a day and I was usually there in the evening when the repeat episode was on. Yes, I was a naive teenager!)
This was the era of John John and Roosevelt Franklin. When Wanda the Witch lost her wig on a windy Wednesday and Prairie Dawn was the resident female Muppet. I learnt, today from the book, that Prairie Dawn was the daughter of hippies and I remember her fondly as one of my early feminist influences. She was unstoppable and would dare anything.
I also fondly remember Buffy St. Marie and her honest portrayal of aboriginal lifestyles. I already knew Lily Tomlin’s Edith Anne from Laugh-in and Linda Bove’s librarian was an early influence on my present career.
It surprised me that I could name 90% of the people and characters on the front and back of the book. I even remembered the ubiquitous Lefty who was always going “psst,” to Ernie as he tried to sell him something as unique as the letter U.
The book brought back the sadness I felt at Mr. Hopper’s death. The memory of Gina’s & Mile’s slight, teasing romance as young teenagers. The amazement at watching Big Bird roller-skate at a time when I knew how hard it would be to do this as a puppeteer. The show was diverse and always strived for racial balance, gender balance, ethnic balance and disability balance among its cast of people and Muppets.
The last time I was watching regularly was when Maria & Luis were married. The younger regular characters from that era, Gina, Miles and Gabi are all grown up now. In fact, Gina has gone on to become a veterinarian on Sesame Street and single mom, recently adopting from overseas. (I feel like I am catching up with old friends here.) Mr. Hopper’s has evolved into a convenience store rather than a soda shop. Everywhere, it seems soda shops are disappearing.
I gave a speech this month, at Toastmasters, on the many jobs that Grover has had. I counted 49. Numbers are important when talking about Sesame Street. Currently, the show has 26 episodes per season so that every letter of the alphabet gets highlighted in its own episode.
The book comes with a DVD which includes the first episode. Unfortunately, it doesn’t include the Ladybug’s Picnic. The lyrics are in the book. It seems that one of the things that the Ladybugs discuss at their picnic is the high cost of fire insurance for Ladybugs; which is, of course, an inside reference to this nursery rhyme.
I can’t stop smiling and reminiscing. I want to go back to Sesame Street. I think I’m half way to purchasing this anniversary collection to cheer me up when I feel slightly grouchy (like Oscar).
For additional fun and information there is a bibliography at the back of the book, Sesame Street online, Muppet wiki online, Tough Pigs or search Sesame Street over at YouTube – you may never leave.
Permalink 1 Comment