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Jan. 14th, 2010 11:58 pmMy niece and I were all prepared for hard work as official helpers in cleaning graves, but my mother has discovered the joys of Windex (designed for glass, not graves) and it was really a one person job. We checked out most of the family buried in Springvale, including both my fathers.
We discovered that Uncle Abe's tomb has been riven from side to side. We have no idea how, but his children knew about it and have the matter in hand. It was rather distressing to see, but it appears that Uncle Abe's body is OK and all will be well. All my other Springvale relatives are resting peacefully. (Hopefully we'll find time to visit my great-great grandmother, whose grave I have never seen, but today it just wasn't possible.)
Tonight Mum and I started sorting which slides ought to be kept from the vastiness of the family slide collection. We're doing my side of the family first, since I can' really help with Les's side. We got through a small box and have two big boxes to go. Possibly a couple of thousand slides. Once they've been sifted, the survivors (so far all but about ten) can be scanned. Our first job is to discover whose mysterious backside keeps appearing in one sequence, and who took the photo that made Werribee Gorge look dull (not me!), and who that mysterious woman was in that striking red jumper (Mum asked that latter and we determined it was her).
One sequence of pictures ought to be subtitled "You have stopped me from electrocuting myself. You have dumped me into this pram. I must sulk." We intend show the adult this important part of their childhood soon, very soon.
We also need to work out why there is a really good sequence of early birthday parties for me, but not for all my sisters. I'm not complaining. I now know that when I was four I had a chocolate birthday cake and we had bottles of soda water to drink (unflavoured, in the interest of fine teeth). Girls at seven often like pink and I was no exception, because my seventh birthday cake was a very pretty shade of pink. When I was eight I helped make my own cake and so it had a nice volcanic cone in the centre. I said it was Mt Fuji and decorated it accordingly, with chocolate icing and silver cashews. Just so that no-one could mistake it, I made sure it was labelled "Mt Fujiarna" the label said. I also have pictures of my cakes in 1966 and 1967. If we can reach the seventies, then the cakes become truly interesting, because I started mmy own to my own taste from then. My favourite was the year I made a buttercake and dyed it poison green. I smothered that poison green in icing and no-one knew how foul it looked until the cake was cut. One friend insisted on turning the light off to eat it. Apparently it tasted perfectly lovely.
The most interesting sequence of slides so far has been of a vintage car parade. Glenferrie Rd, Hawthorn in November 1967 was very mildly sixties. It wasn't that far from the Melbourne Shute describes in On the Beach. VWs and Holdens were the main parked cars and on-the-road modern cars. The parked cars were surrounded by people with sixties haircuts and clothes. Men wearing cardigans and women wearing sundresses. Not many of anything, not cars, not people. And through the empty street drove cars that were old-fashioned in the sixties, with men and women dressed in Edwardian costume, or twenties garb. It all looked small and friendly and a bit filmic.
I remembered most things, even though the slides went back to 1964. I remember Dad stuck his head out of a sunroof to take the photos of the vintage cars, for instance, and that we were parked outside his dental surgery. I could tel Mum that this beach was Rosebud, that one was the ocean beach at Sorrento and that beach was Tootgarook. I can't tell yo what those beaches are like now, but the sixties beaches are the beaches that I wont ever forget. Which is quite funny, in a way, because i looked at the pictures of my parties and just couldn't remember who my friends were. Except one of the three boys was Charles, who lived across the road and moved to Tasmania and died very young. He had dark hair, I think. I hope I'm wrong, because the unknown boy with dark hair was an exceptionally beautiful child. The two fairer boys were mucking up in a way that only little boys can do. Whoever child was Charles (and I'll no doubt recall the moment I'm off the computer), I'll have to remember that, along with Ann's children looking just like her at the same age, and one sister and myself looking so alike for two years that we could have been twins, that Charles is another person who needs remembering this weekend.
This isn't four days of unhappiness - it's four days of memory. Hopefully I'll settle some ghosts.
PS Everyone has a beautiful moment in their life and mine was when I was seven. I had no idea. I can now smile a smile of superiority and think "I once was beautiful; fortunately I recovered."
We discovered that Uncle Abe's tomb has been riven from side to side. We have no idea how, but his children knew about it and have the matter in hand. It was rather distressing to see, but it appears that Uncle Abe's body is OK and all will be well. All my other Springvale relatives are resting peacefully. (Hopefully we'll find time to visit my great-great grandmother, whose grave I have never seen, but today it just wasn't possible.)
Tonight Mum and I started sorting which slides ought to be kept from the vastiness of the family slide collection. We're doing my side of the family first, since I can' really help with Les's side. We got through a small box and have two big boxes to go. Possibly a couple of thousand slides. Once they've been sifted, the survivors (so far all but about ten) can be scanned. Our first job is to discover whose mysterious backside keeps appearing in one sequence, and who took the photo that made Werribee Gorge look dull (not me!), and who that mysterious woman was in that striking red jumper (Mum asked that latter and we determined it was her).
One sequence of pictures ought to be subtitled "You have stopped me from electrocuting myself. You have dumped me into this pram. I must sulk." We intend show the adult this important part of their childhood soon, very soon.
We also need to work out why there is a really good sequence of early birthday parties for me, but not for all my sisters. I'm not complaining. I now know that when I was four I had a chocolate birthday cake and we had bottles of soda water to drink (unflavoured, in the interest of fine teeth). Girls at seven often like pink and I was no exception, because my seventh birthday cake was a very pretty shade of pink. When I was eight I helped make my own cake and so it had a nice volcanic cone in the centre. I said it was Mt Fuji and decorated it accordingly, with chocolate icing and silver cashews. Just so that no-one could mistake it, I made sure it was labelled "Mt Fujiarna" the label said. I also have pictures of my cakes in 1966 and 1967. If we can reach the seventies, then the cakes become truly interesting, because I started mmy own to my own taste from then. My favourite was the year I made a buttercake and dyed it poison green. I smothered that poison green in icing and no-one knew how foul it looked until the cake was cut. One friend insisted on turning the light off to eat it. Apparently it tasted perfectly lovely.
The most interesting sequence of slides so far has been of a vintage car parade. Glenferrie Rd, Hawthorn in November 1967 was very mildly sixties. It wasn't that far from the Melbourne Shute describes in On the Beach. VWs and Holdens were the main parked cars and on-the-road modern cars. The parked cars were surrounded by people with sixties haircuts and clothes. Men wearing cardigans and women wearing sundresses. Not many of anything, not cars, not people. And through the empty street drove cars that were old-fashioned in the sixties, with men and women dressed in Edwardian costume, or twenties garb. It all looked small and friendly and a bit filmic.
I remembered most things, even though the slides went back to 1964. I remember Dad stuck his head out of a sunroof to take the photos of the vintage cars, for instance, and that we were parked outside his dental surgery. I could tel Mum that this beach was Rosebud, that one was the ocean beach at Sorrento and that beach was Tootgarook. I can't tell yo what those beaches are like now, but the sixties beaches are the beaches that I wont ever forget. Which is quite funny, in a way, because i looked at the pictures of my parties and just couldn't remember who my friends were. Except one of the three boys was Charles, who lived across the road and moved to Tasmania and died very young. He had dark hair, I think. I hope I'm wrong, because the unknown boy with dark hair was an exceptionally beautiful child. The two fairer boys were mucking up in a way that only little boys can do. Whoever child was Charles (and I'll no doubt recall the moment I'm off the computer), I'll have to remember that, along with Ann's children looking just like her at the same age, and one sister and myself looking so alike for two years that we could have been twins, that Charles is another person who needs remembering this weekend.
This isn't four days of unhappiness - it's four days of memory. Hopefully I'll settle some ghosts.
PS Everyone has a beautiful moment in their life and mine was when I was seven. I had no idea. I can now smile a smile of superiority and think "I once was beautiful; fortunately I recovered."