The Power Outage

When I awoke for the first time this morning the red, glowing numbers on the digital clock read 4:48. I reluctantly got out from under the down duvet and tiptoed to the bathroom so as not to wake my warm and light-sleeping husband. Back in my feather nest I settled down to sleep once more. I woke up again, a muted morning light in the room causing me to lift my head to check the time, concerned I had overslept. This time the clock was blank. The power was out. My husband, awake by then, acknowledged the power outage and we snuggled down under the duvet to let the fact sink in.

When I was a child a power outage at my parents' house only meant one inconvenience: no electricity to power the lights, television or kitchen stove. The gas furnace still worked and our water, provided by the city where we lived, still ran hot and cold. During power outages my family sat together in our living room, talking comfortably by candlelight, enjoying the novelty.

Where I live now, in a small, rural town in the eastern Fraser Valley my well water requires an electric pump to fill the pipes and thus, the kettle. The gas furnace requires an electric ingnition to send the heat through our two story B.C. box of a house. We have one gas fireplace with the pilot light left on all winter in case of a power outage. We rarely use the fireplace because it is in the downstairs family room next to our bedroom. The family room used to be used more often and much of the space was taken up by a ping-pong table. With the boys gone most of the year now, the ping-pong table sits in the garage as the girls rarely use it. They do use the piano which is in the room along with my husband's cycling trainer, weights and medicine ball. Other than the addition of a dart board on the wall, the family room is fairly bare now.

Needing to find out the time, I rose and put on some warm clothes. I climbed the stairs, listening to the wind howling outside. The upstairs was full of early morning light; the day promising sunshine, at least, after two solid days of blowing snow. I turned on the battery powered radio - another safety feature in our house along with an easily found flashlight and a case of bottled water - and waited for some news of the whys and wherefores of our power outage. I found out that the elementary school near our house was closed for the day due to the outage, but that was it. The high school my daughters attend was open. So, ours was the only area of the town affected. I woke the girls who complained about their school being open. I asked them if they would rather stay at home in a cold house with no power or go to school where it was warm and the computers worked. They chose the latter.

My kind husband set up his Primus stove in the garage and heated water so we could all start the day with a hot drink. Then, he gathered his razor and some other toiletries, put his suit in a garment bag and left for work where he could have a shower. The girls, their hot beverages encased in thermal mugs went off to school bundled up against the windchill.

I, left at home to cope in a cold house, changed into even warmer clothing. I ate my cold granola and yogurt and willed the power to return so I could get to work on the computer. I put away the dishes and tidied the kitchen as best I could. By 9 a.m. I was cold again, all traces of the warmth of the mug of instant espresso gone. I put on my crocheted hat and the Pashmina shawl that my eldest had bought for me on a hot sunny day at a market in Venice. I went downstairs to sit by the fireplace. I pulled the chair out of my bedroom, sat down with a blanket across my lap and put my feet on the tiles of the fireplace hearth. I proceeded to read a few pages of my fat historical novel. The gas fireplace was a pathetic match for the frigid room and the wind howling down the chimney; the fireplace had once been a real one for burning actual logs cut from trees, not formed in a mold from some kind of flame-proof ceramic material.

I could have put on another sweater and pulled the down duvet off my bed to wrap around my entire body like a caterpillar's coccoon. I would have been perfectly cozy if somewhat immobilized. While I considered the duvet, my mind began to wander off the page of Rutherfurd's London to a cafe downtown where there would be heat, light and real, hot coffee.

Bundled in my heavy coat I walked down the road from my house. The BC Hydro crew was working at the end of the first block, cutting the limbs off a tall, scraggly cedar that, having finally succumed to the night's relentless wind, had fallen on the power lines, causing the outage. I made my way around the trucks and estimated the power to be back on by noon.

Larry, the owner of the Oasis cafe welcomed me. He, probably noticing my unwashed hat-hair, asked if my power was out. "It's good for us," he said cheerfully. The place was busy and I recognized some neighbours. Ordering an Americano and a blueberry scone I sat down at a table by a window to enjoy looking out at the cold, bright morning from my perch in the warm cafe. After reading through the Life and Arts section of the Globe and Mail left on the table by a previous reader, and finishing my scone, I took out my notebook and pen and began to write.

L.M. Montgomery - a First Love in Literature

In my early years as a dedicated reader of novels, when it came to authors, I tended toward serial monogomy. Noel Streatfield, the author of Ballet Shoes, The Painted Garden, White Boots, and several others was my first real love as a reader, but when the time came for me to move on from her delightful books for children I was at a bit of a loss.

Every time I would talk about needing something to read my family would suggest Anne of Green Gables. "You'll love it," my sisters insisted, and because they insisted I resisted. I finally gave in when I was fifteen - my sisters had all moved out by then - and tentatively began the book that would change my life. I was not prepared to enjoy it, but by the first chapter I was hooked and would remain an Anne fan for life. And not just an Anne fan, but a fan of the writing of her creator Lucy Maud Montgomery. I would spend the next several years scouring second hand book stores for copies of her many books, building up my collection which I read over and over until Jane Austen became my new obsession in my mid-twenties. I credit L.M. Montgomery for helping me greatly through my teen years, for giving me another world to inhabit in my imagination, adding much light to the very real world I lived in every day.

I did not identify with the character of Anne as much as with the general tone, humour and background wisdom of the books themselves. Anne, with her red-haired temper, her heedless ways and her enormous scholarly discipline was not a mirror image of myself, but I did admire her goodness, her loyalty and her literary gifts. I was encouraged by her strength of character and desired to emulate at least some of what she represented. The first few times I read the books I read them for the plot alone. L.M. Montgomery is known for her descriptive passages of the land she loved so well, but I will admit I skipped over many of them to find out what happened next to the people in the books. A good book has that quality, even when you read it for the second or third time and know what ultimately happens, you still want to have the satisfaction of finding out, again, exactly how it happens. By the time I was in my early twenties I still read the books once a year, but by then I was revelling in the descriptions which painted such a beautiful picture of the land, sea and sky of Prince Edward Island and other Maritime provinces. The Blue Castle is set in Muskoka, Ontario and I still read it every few years for its pictures painted so masterfully in words by the author who had moved to Ontario after her marriage.

My mother often said that she liked Montgomery's Emily books even better than the sunny Anne ones. She felt the Emily books were deeper and more reflective of the author's own life as a burgeoning writer. I read the three Emily books immediately after I had read the eight Anne novels, and I could see what my mother meant. I imagined that a lot of authors identified with them, especially those who had known they were writers from a young age. The road to authorship is not easy for the character of Emily; the literary colours in the novels are in various shades of light and darkness, intimating the depth of emotion lived in real life by Montgomery. The happy ending is there, but it is hard won.

When I get into something, I really get into it, so when L.M. Montgomery's journals were published I read them. Her selected journals filled five large volumes and I expected them to reflect the light and happy endings of her novels. What I discovered was that Montgomery's life was a complex blend of light and dark, of longing for the freedom of an intuitive and highly spiritual artist while 'keeping up appearances' in Canadian WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) society of the early part of the twentieth century. I read them during a particularly hard time in my own young life, which perhaps was not fair to either myself or to Montgomery whom I admired so much. Her journals sent me spiralling downwards into a blue funk. I was disappointed in her for some of her choices in life and in love (as disappointed as I was in myself at that time for some of my own choices), and I had a hard time reconciling the author of my favourite books with the author of journals which suggested so much personal disappointment and emotional trauma.

I think, after giving it another twenty-odd years, I might read the journals again. I will probably read them with a more open mind and with much more compassion and empathy this time. In 2008 Montgomery's family came out with an admission that Lucy Maud suffered from depression and had, in the end, taken her own life. Her family revealed the truth in hopes that it would help to remove the stigma surrounding mental illness in our society. And while that news about her death made me sad beyond words, I have a bookshelf full of proof that inside Lucy Maud Montgomery's often troubled heart and mind was also a mystical land of humour, insight, love, and joy of the greatest kind which she shared with her readers through her writing, a refuge for her and for all of those who feel deeply and attempt to live sensitively on this earth.

A mature L.M. Montgomery

For those of you who read the end of my previous post I have an update: My dad was able to go home from the hospital yesterday. Such good news for him and for all my family! Many thanks for your kind wishes and prayers.

Thoughts from a Sports Fan. Sort of.

I remember moving to Strathcona Park Lodge where we had no cable television for a couple of years. The kids and I were happy with rented movies and borrowed VHS tapes from the library, but by year two, after enduring many, many evenings with me and my collection of Jane Austen made-for-TV movies, my husband made a decision: we were going to get a sattelite dish. With the FIFAWorld Cup of soccer and the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics coming up that year he just could not stand our TV-free existence any longer. My husband is, by far, the biggest sports fan in our house. He will happily watch anything from darts to football. I spent a great deal of our first months of married life watching the various tennis tournaments with him and our two male roommates, Derek and Finn, at Panorama Resort where we all worked for the summer of '92. Over the years of being the wife of a sports-enthusiast, and picking up a certain amount of interest in it through osmosis or resignation - perhaps a bit of both - I developed into a fan of tennis stars Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf and later, Roger Federer whom I still cheer for although other younger players are outshining his star on a regular basis now. The year the Blue Jays won the World Series in baseball I was cheering just as much as anyone, although I have not cared much about baseball since. I will admit that it was indeed good to be able to watch and cheer on the Canadians competing in Salt Lake for the 2002 Olympics. We had come 24th in the medal rankings in Sydney and then 4th in Salt Lake behind Norway, Germany and the USA. Not too shabby!

The Winter Olympics are an exciting time for many Canadians, I think because we, like many winter nations get the rare chance to really show the world what we are made of. Besides the obvious skill and talent of our athletes, many of them are well spoken and generous to athletes from other countries, even supplying them with equipment when they have not the funding to supply it for themselves. The more medals we win the more this fact about our people comes to light. Our athletes are proud to represent our country and know that their country is proud of them in return.

I have been a fan of the Games since I was a young girl stuck in the house one rainy summer with not much else to do besides read and watch the summer Olympics. I distinctly remember Romania's Nadia Comaneci and her perfect score for her gymnastics routine; I could barely believe her talent. Back then in the early 1980's, the Cold War was raging and boycotting the games was rampant. 65 countries boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, which led the USSR to lead 14 Eastern Bloc countries to boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Some athletes from the boycotting countries still managed to compete under the Olympic flag. Every Olympics seem to be fraught with calls for boycotts for environmental concerns, for human rights concerns, for political reasons, and for the huge amount of money spent by the hosting country to put on the Games when it could be spending it on projects like affordable housing and improved health care for its citizens. (I heard yesterday in an interview with the head of the Sochi Olympic Committee that they spent about two billion dollars putting on the Olympics and seven billion basically building a city to host them in.) Despite these protests the Games continue to go on, every two years, alternating between the Summer Olympic Games and the Winter Olympic Games.

One could argue that the Games serve to shine a spotlight on the hosting country, for better or for worse. Hopefully, after the Games, the host country works at dealing with whatever problems have come to light while it realizes how to best take advantage of the good things the world has discovered about it - Sochi looks like a beautiful place to visit with its dramatic mountains and Black Sea shorline. The Olympics have also served to gain equality for women in sport in most countries, as every sport over the years has been gradually represented by both sexes to the point where we now care just as much about how, for instance, the female mogul skiers do as the males. 'Equality' and 'Peace among nations' are phrases one hears linked with the goals of the Games. To me, the Olympic Games are always a bit of a litmus test of the global climate at the time. If you look back in history, you can find elements of this global climate in everything from the choices of team logos and uniforms to the various scandals which have come to light, scandals which have demonstrated, at long last, a general distaste in the sporting community for things such as the notoriously dubious judging in figure skating and incidences of blood-doping among athletes.

A poster featuring a dove of peace - of large concern
during the days of the Iron Curtain.

My youngest has just become keen on the Olympics this year. She announced this morning that she likes the Luge and other similar events best because of the uncomplicated judging aspect.There is nothing to get muddled about in her mind - no subjective elements like in many of the other sports. You are either the fastest down the track or you are not. She and I cheered on our mogul skiers on Monday. The moguls are one of my very favourite events, perhaps because I have attempted to ski moguls myself and can appreciate how much strength and skill it takes to do what these athletes do. Our Canadians, both from Quebec, topped the podium and it was quite a thrill for my daughter to witness their climb from the top twelve to the top six, and then, oh glory be, to the win! She was so inspired she made some Olympic themed cookies that afternoon.

I have always enjoyed the figure skating events, but I will admit, here and now, that I got a little bored after watching short program after short program of the Pairs Figure Skating event this year. So many of the routines began to look the same after a while: side by side triple jumps, throw triple 'sow cows' or however they are spelled, that over-the-head spin they do, the footwork section, etc. Oh, I appreciate the work that went into their skating and their routines, but perhaps as I get older I realize that for me, something is missing in figure skating. I suppose when one is watching a sporting event which involves artistry, one has to expect the technical elements to trump whatever else is going on, because that is what sport is about. Artistry, on the other hand, is more subjectively judged. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Canadian pair, Duhamel and Radford, because they really appeared to be dancing their routine, rather than powering through the technical elements like so many of the others. They were in third place after the short program. The Russians, in first and second place, certainly deserved to be there. Their programs were virtually flawless and ticked all the judges' boxes, but what I could not stop thinking about while watching their routines was the beautiful dancing in the ballet interpretation of War and Peace in the opening ceremonies this year. That really does it for me. While I enjoy figure skating, ballet is just that much more special, I suppose because while it involves serious athleticism, it is the artistry that trumps everything else - the athleticism is merely a vehicle for the art. That being said, and for someone generally on the outside of the sporting world looking in, I find the Games fascinating for so many reasons, and will continue to be impressed by these young athletes and what they can train and push their bodies to do.

Speaking of sports fans, my dear Dad is currently in the hospital. He is having some heart trouble, but is in good hands. I was half-way through editing this post when I got the message. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. 

Hollywood North goes Bucolic, Part Two

Last summer I wrote a post about a television show being filmed in our little town, which, through the vision of set designers and the skill of carpenters has been transformed into Wayward Pines, Idaho. I wrote about attending the casting call with my youngest daughter and about hoping she would get a call-back. She did not, but judging by the experience my friend Sue had of standing in the pouring rain in the middle of the night for four hours after spending five hours waiting in the high school gymnasium and earning minimum wage for her troubles, my daughter decided that being an extra might be better left to more hearty types on this occasion at least.

The cast and crew of the appropriately named Fox TV show Wayward Pines directed by M.Night Shyamalan have returned once per month since September to film the local outdoor scenes for each episode, and each time they come it seems the weather is either incredibly rainy or punishingly cold. The crew, dressed in multiple layers of black clothing scurry or stand around, depending on their position, drink plenty of coffee and maintain a general demeanor of helpful politeness to our town's citizens.

During actual filming, while the crew handles the flow of traffic around the site and answers questions, I have seen Matt Dillon posing for photos with local groupies between takes and M. Night talking with curious children. Overall, I think our town has embraced the project. The local businesses are benefitting financially from providing services to the crew and from the inconvenience of being part of the set. Our downtown has improved in appearance - so much so, that an artist friend returning briefly at Christmas from his studies in Ontario, and having no idea of the filming taking place, asked me what was 'with' the main street, and was it some kind of downtown revitalization project. The fact is, the additions to our downtown community have improved it and most of us will truly miss the extra pretty buildings, the whimsical signage, and general aura of 'lights, camera, action' which have made our quiet town, temporarily at least, a more vibrant place.

All the initial press about the show indicated that filming would wrap up this February. If the show is renewed for another season I suppose we will get to keep our pretend shops for a while longer, or they will, at least, be returned to us later in the year - I am not sure because I am quite shy about asking the crew a lot of questions. The one crew member I have managed to have any kind of real chat with was telling me about an area of Vancouver where a western-themed TV show is filmed. The set has been up for ten years now and has become a fixture in that community. This morning, not knowing the fate of our own particular set, I took my camera out in the frigid January sunshine to photograph it for what might just be the last time.

On the days leading up to filming, the crew adds the signs and other details to existing buildings:

The Newspaper office becomes a cafe

We suddenly have a theatre in town

This 'stone' bank is a wood and styrofoam facade...

 

 It covers an auto parts store

A welcome addition to our town if it were real

My friend Joanne's print shop becomes the Wayward Pines Chamber of Commerce

The facades that line the North side of the street fool visitors when their storefront windows are decorated and the signage put up: 

And this little sign in a shop window gives an indication of how things really are in the mysterious fictional town of Wayward Pines: 

This evening, the crew are going to 'blow up' a vehicle during filming. I might walk down with my younger daughter and check it out. If it's not too cold.

Click on the photos for an elarged-version slide show. And have a great weekend!

Chasing the Light along the Mighty Fraser

When the sun is shining, January can be a beautiful month around here. The skeletal trees open up the landscape instead of filling it in as they do so lushly in the warmer months. This past Saturday, my daughters and I went to do some shopping in the mid-sized city which is about a twenty minute drive from our town if you go via the freeway, about twenty-five minutes if you go by the pretty old country road. My older daughter is learning to drive, so we went by the old country road, had a successful day in the city and then came home the same way. We were crossing the railroad tracks just before the roundabout which takes us over the bridge to our little town, when I made a mental note to come back sometime soon and take some photos in the area. The very next afternoon, my younger daughter and I took our cameras - she got a shiny new red one for Christmas - and set off to catch the light in the later part of the day. We drove back over the bridge, through the roundabout, across the tracks and then found a place to park. Then, walking back up the road to the train tracks we started our little adventure. We had to wait for a train to pass. Several of the cars were skillfully decorated with grafitti art:

Once the train had passed we ventured down the track a little, but not too far because the sides were dense with brambles. If another train came we would have to jump into them. No, thank-you.

A beautiful, unobstructed-by-wires view of Mt. Cheam across someone's backyard was one of my objectives for going down the tracks. It's a wonderful feeling knowing we were way up on the top of that mountain just this past summer.

I was sidetracked by this scene and the collection of old tin washtubs hanging on a shed in the backyard. I began to take a photo of it when a friendly man and his dog called out to me, hoping I was not an employee from the city finding fault with his property or something like that. I assured him I was just admiring his washtubs and I hoped he did not mind. His wife and baby came across the property to greet us as well. We introduced ourselves and had a great little chat, but we had to cut it short if we were going to keep on chasing the last light of the day. 

We left the tracks just before we saw another train coming along in the distance. We walked back to the car and noticed this modern house behind some hedges near where we had parked. The house was quite a contrast to the century old one with the washtubs. My daughter liked the green door. I wished I could tresspass and see the house from the front, but no. Walking down the railroad tracks was enough law-breaking for one afternoon, for the pair of us anyway.

We got back in the car and drove down a side road towards the river. We found these mirrored views along the way.

We parked again down by the Fraser River and walked across the hard-packed silt to the water, the sun laying streaks across the ground and gilding the bridge in the distance.

This bridge across the Fraser was built in the late 1950's. Before that, people were transported across by a ferry on cables which stretched from shore to shore. Earlier in the century, travellers could take a trip down the river to New Westminster on a paddlewheeled ship, making stops in other riverside communities along the way.

Back toward the West, the sun was hanging lower and lower in the sky.

And in the meantime, my daughter was finding a subject to capture with her camera. I captured her.

Then, I turned my attention to her subject, a bald eagle far up in a tree.

It was time to go home, but we had a delivery to make first. After we made it, I took some photos in a hazelnut plantation, while my daughter video'd a squirrel jumping around looking for last year's nuts. The light was falling fast and the effect was gloomy in the grove of trees.

We got back in the car for the short drive home. "We sure live in a beautiful place," remarked my daughter. I agreed. All of the scenery we had enjoyed on our little light-chasing adventure was within just eight kilometers of our house.

In our twenty years as a family, we have lived in five places. In each of them we have found 'our' spots, the places we felt at home. In all of them we found mountains and water. In all of them we found light, even if we had to chase it sometimes.

"There's no place like home," said the girl in the new red shoes.

Please click on the photos if you would like to seem them enlarged. Wishing you a good, light-filled week!

Handsome is as Handsome Does

Occasionally, as I was growing up, I heard my mother describe a young man of our acquaintance as a ‘wolf’.  A ‘wolf’, my mother explained, was someone with a predatory nature, particularly toward young, innocent girls (Little Red Riding Hood anyone?), and once identified, a ‘wolf’ was to be avoided at all costs by my three sisters and me.  Wolves came in many different styles of sheep’s clothing, but the costume of which I believe my mother was most wary was of the smooth-talking, preppy frat boy type.  Interestingly enough, she distrusted a guy with a squeaky clean appearance, and often for good reason; after all, she was a teenager in the 50’s and knew this type very well.  She knew these boys could be very crafty wolves - the type to flatter a girl’s parents and then take her out, get her drunk and take advantage.  But, as everyone knows, teenagers often rebel against their parents’ ways and wishes, if only to assert a certain amount of independence, and I was no different.  In high school I developed a crush on a boy of the preppy frat boy type which seemed to resurface in the 80’s.  He was the kind of boy featured in teen magazines, the type to make young, otherwise intelligent girls act silly.  He wore name brand polo shirts with the collar turned up in various shades of pastel, leather loafers, and sported spiky, gelled hair. To my mind he had the face of an angel, and I pointed him out to my mom one day.

“He’s very ‘pretty’, isn’t he,” she said with a curl of her lip.
“He’s not pretty, Mom, he’s handsome,” I protested.
“Handsome is as handsome does,” was her short but pointed reply.

A Very Handsome James Spader as the preppy jerk in Pretty in Pink
-definitely a wolf

To my utter bewilderment at the time, the boys my mom generally favoured were the long-haired rocker types, especially if they played an instrument.  I’m not sure why - perhaps she felt they held an honest disregard for convention.  I had five older siblings with many types of friends, maybe all the rocker kids she knew were just really nice people.  At my high school these kinds of boys were called ‘head bangers’. They usually went around with girls who sported similar rocker hairstyles ornamented with feathered roach clips and head bands.  They tended to answer teachers’ questions in monosyllables and didn’t usually top the academic charts.  Some were even classified as ‘stoners’, an even less desirable label in the upper echelon of my school.  Though friendly with some of the head bangers, I was certainly not their type and, admittedly, they were not mine.  I continued to develop crushes on the ‘wrong’ sorts of boys, often preppy jocks who usually weren’t interested in me beyond a nod in the hallway or as someone’s little sister. My preference for that certain type of boy continued until, as often happens when we begin to grow up, something came along to widen my view of the world.

I took piano lessons until I was fifteen, and in my last year I once again participated in the local music festival. My piece was very difficult and I could not get it right, no matter how hard I practiced.  On the day of the festival, thirteen young pianists assembled on the front pew of the Nelson United Church.  The lights were dim, except for on the stage, and at the desk of the adjudicators, making them look like pale distant ghosts owning only heads and pen-holding hands.  I was extremely nervous but glad to be in the middle of the pack, not at the front.  Sitting next to me was a boy I had never seen before.  He had long, blonde hair, an Iron Maiden t-shirt, and jeans on – mom’s type.   “This should be interesting,” I remember thinking to myself as he approached the bench when they called his name.  I fully expected to hear a less than stellar performance, maybe a laboured rendition of that Leila Fletcher classic ‘My Little Birch Canoe’, or at best, a choppy interpretation of Beethoven's 'Fur Elise'.  I do not remember what he played, maybe Chopin, maybe Rachmaninoff, but it was a shock to see and hear this long-haired dude blast his way through his challenging piece with such skill and confidence. I was dumbfounded, and after the thunderous applause died down, I was *gasp!* next. As I rose to go up to the stage I could hear people whispering about the long haired pianist:  “Who is he?”  “Where is he from?” Then I heard someone say, “He’s ___ ___ from The Valley.  His family is so talented”.   I was really nervous now – rattled, actually.  My pre-conceived notions had just been turned upside down.  How could I possibly follow Rocker Valley Boy's performance!  I sat down on the bench.  I started to play.  I stopped after a few bars and started again. I stopped again, and started again.  I screwed up so badly the adjudicators took pity on me and allowed me to get my music, even though we were supposed to have memorized our pieces.  I got through my nasty piece somehow and with a limping heart and downcast eyes I returned to my seat.  Mortified, and afraid to look at my mom and sister in the audience, let alone at the blonde piano star beside me, I kept my gaze downward.

Quietly, from beside me Rocker Valley Boy spoke.  “Hey, that was pretty good,” he said.
“No, it wasn’t, and you know it,” I managed to whisper.
He turned to look at me.  I finally looked up at him, barely meeting his eyes. “Yeah, it was,” he said, smiling encouragingly.  “Don’t worry about it.”
I was immediately cheered by his friendly and generous words. I could breathe again.  He wasn’t lying either, so I couldn’t accuse him of mere flattery: later, the adjudicator even praised the bits between the screw ups.

I developed a sort of admiration for Rocker Valley Boy out of appreciation for what he did for me that festival day.  On rare occasions I would see him in town and feel a little flutter of the heart.  There is no telling when the words of our mothers will come true.

What's in a Signature?

A few years ago I was with my kids in a music store which sold new and used equipment and sheet music, and smelled of musty basements, when I came across a paper-bound 1950 copy of The Trapp Family Book of Christmas Songs. I looked through it, noticing a signature on the inside front cover.

I asked the price of the book and the proprietor said I could have it for free. Surprised, I gladly took the book with me when we left the store. I was not convinced the signature was Maria von Trapp's but I rarely turn down a free book, especially one with beautiful arrangements of old European Christmas carols. Some years, I rarely sit down at the piano except at Christmas time when I pull out all the books of carols I have been collecting for the past twenty years.

A few months after I found the book, my mom, a historian and archivist, came down for a visit. She found it by the piano and began looking through it. She thought the signature might be geniune, but I still did not have a way of finding out - the internet had turned up nothing - short of researching and contacting hard-to-find experts. As far as I knew, the Antiques Road Show was not going to be visiting my area any time soon. As is common with me, after a short time I completely forgot about the whole thing until I was reminded of it this week. My fellow blogger Lucille posted about finding the English comedic novelist Barbara Pym's signature in a cook book she had acquired, and I thought perhaps I should try looking up the official signature of Maria von Trapp. Obviously, this time I had more luck. The signature was identical to the one in my copy of the book.

I then went on to see how much a signed paperback copy might be worth. I found one example selling for eighty-three dollars. Not bad, especially considering my initial investment of zero dollars.

The monetary value of the book is one thing, but the tangible fact of the flowing signature in plain blue ink of such a personality as Maria von Trapp of The Sound of Music fame is quite another. When I was a young girl my mom read me Maria von Trapp's autobiographies while I brushed her hair. When The Sound of Music was re-shown on the big screen in our town, she took my brother and me to see it. Every year between Christmas and New Year's when the film came on TV, my group of teenage friends and I would gather at one of our homes and have our own 'sing-along Sound of Music'. The character of Maria von Trapp has been part of my stock pile of childhood heroes for almost as long as I can remember. When examining the signature once again, I thought of the hand and the spirit that pressed pen to the paper in my posession. I read The Trapp Family Singers again, recently, and watched a biography of her on television. As an adult able to read between the lines, I realized that Maria von Trapp was not an easy person to live with. She drove her children very hard and had outrageous flares of temper - unlike the film, the captain von Trapp seems to have been the mild one who kept the family at peace. The von Trapps were immigrants to America after escaping the Nazi plans for the good captain to fight for their side - that part of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and film is true. Like many immigrants, they were determined to succeed and make a life in their new country - and Maria was their driving force. I cannot say I blame her. Immigrants must have felt a great deal of pressure in those days, and they must have also felt a good deal of fear at being aliens in a new country. One of her more sensitive children did run away and ended up having shock therapy - a favourite treatment in the 1950's and 60's to treat mental breakdown. The family made a living as a successful touring choir. The book I have would probably have been sold at one of their concerts. They also had a cottage industry in their home and everyone in the family used their considerable artistic talents to make objects for sale when they were not touring. The family carries on with their cottage industry today at their Vermont mountain resort Trapp Family Lodge.

My son Galen, a collector who frequents garage sales in summer came home with a DVD special edition of The Sound of Music and gave it to me last year to replace our old VHS cassette copy. Last summer, my youngest daughter wanted to watch it, so I watched part of it with her. Afterwards, she watched the special interview with all the grown up actors who played the von Trapp children, but when I said I was going to watch the biography of Maria von Trapp, my daughter asked me to please wait until she was either not at home or in bed. She said she was not ready to know the truth about the story and about the Maria von Trapp beyond Julie Andrews just yet. Perhaps she knew instinctively what is said about meeting your heroes -that you shouldn't, at least until you know more about the world and human nature, can look past your hero's faults and celebrate their successes and their contributions to human history.