In seminar yesterday, the students were reading
Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty. Our presenter led us through an activity that involved writing a letter to a stranger, structured around five questions. One of those questions involved oatmeal, another enduring friendships.
When I was in grade eight, our French teacher (I
loved her!) connected us with a school in Quebec and assigned us pen friends — much as happens in
Celia. I sent one of the photos in the following set to my pen friend in Quebec. He wrote back once or twice, but as these things usually go, after the assignment was done, we forgot about it. Yesterday's seminar reminded me of it — and of these pictures from roughly the same era. As we all know, every picture has a story to tell.
***
1. Bonjour, c'est moi! This is the picture I sent to my pen friend. If he sent one in return, I don't have it. This photo was taken on New Year's Day 1983. Goodness only knows how I convinced my parents to get the film processed within the same calendar year.
2. Maternal grandparents: Another picture with my little C-110. The fancy china is on the table, so this is probably Christmas dinner, 1981. The "Beware Fo Pig" poster in the background is a demonstration of my poor talents in the industrial arts — in particular, setting type by hand. Of course I'd grow up to be an editor!
3. Family resemblance: Same dinner as #2 above. My mum and her mum. My mother looks so young! In this picture she's more than a decade younger than I am now. This is definitely Christmas dinner.
4. Family friends: This is Jason, the son of my parents' friends Roger and Darlene. The setting is my old bedroom (before I moved to the front bedroom), and the picture was taken in January 1982. My parents lost touch with Roger and Darlene, as with so many other friends, but Jason's younger sister Alyssa ended up working in St. Albert in the late 1990s, at the same time I was editing a book for the same business. It's difficult to start knowing someone again when nearly twenty years have passed. I heard Jason was well at the time and hope that's still true.
5. Party animals (a, b, c): All of these pictures were taken in December 1982, the event of my thirteenth birthday. The scene is my parents' basement, complete with dark faux-wood panelling. Photo A features my friends Rick and Kim. I love the expressions on both faces! Photo B is of Elaine, plus Kim's arm intruding on the left. Elaine was the girl with whom I went to my first "rock" concert: Air Supply at the Jubilee Auditorium, July 1982. We were still good friends at the time of this photo, but in grade nine things were very different. Photo C is of Jody, with whom I went to school from kindergarten to grade nine. You can't tell from the image, but he was a very small boy; he also had a wild sense of humour. With his back to us is Kent, one of the boys from my grade-eight home room. (Did you ever have to invite a boy's best friend to get a boy to come to a party? For this one, I did.) I love the details in the background of this series. For instance, that's my very own record player behind Jody. When the party was over and the guests had left, my father put up our Christmas tree.
5. Teen angst: Another birthday party, this one Kerri's thirteenth, in January 1983. In the foreground are Sheri and Raquel. Raquel and I were close through grades eight and nine and then lost touch when we went to different (and rival!) high schools. No idea about Sheri. In the background, to the left, are Kim and Rick, at the time a short-lived couple — "going around" together. To the right are Jody and my friend Tanya Lee. I'm deep in the shadows, wearing red.
6. Choose unemployment: For one day of my life — in late May 1983 — I worked for Dickee-Dee, the bike-pedalling ice-cream sellers. This picture was taken at the end of my "shift"; the photographer was my boyfriend at the time, Daryl (close friend of Rick, above). The location is the Londondale Centre on 144 Avenue; the store I'm entering is Little Gem, owned by the Lee family. At the time, their daughter, Grace, was part of the group I spent time with. We weren't close, but we were bonded through piano playing. At Grace's birthday party (of which I have no pictures) I ate the first Korean food of my life — and enjoyed it.
7. The old homestead: There's no date on this photo but it is unhelpfully captioned "Boxing Day" — I suspect 1982 because of the car in front of the house. This monster is the car I learned to drive in, so there's really no rational reason I'm so nervous in my current tiny-tiny car.
8. Cat and mouse: This is my first cat, Annie. She knows there are mice in the walls, and she caught them. I love — and despair about — the details of my childhood captured in this picture. No date on this one, but I'd guess it's late 1981 or early 1982, based on the appliances.
9. A new era: This picture was taken in July 1984 at the Strathcona Science Park. The photographer was my father, but the man I was dating at the time took a bunch of pictures of me that day, too. What you can't know from this picture is that my mother was furious at me because of the way I was dressed — ironic, since these are some of the last clothes she bought for me. But oh to be fourteen and fearless again. Well, then again, maybe not ...
Bonne chance to my erstwhile pen friend, who never saw the bigger story of my life in this period (lucky for him!). There's a letter in each of these pictures. What would
you write about
your pictures?
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