A2 - Wednesday, June 29, 1983 - North Shore News

strictly personal

by Bob Hunter

h, nostalgia...!

IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG with being in

love with objects?

When you get down to it,
an object is a thing. It lacks a
soul. It might be beautiful.
But isn’t it weird, really, for
flesh and blood creatures to
care, to have feelings, for
things that have no life of
their own?

I'm not thinking of objects
like bars of gold that have a
value that can be traded in
for a swimming pool or a
new pair of Deck Paws. And
I don’t mean objects like a
sepia photograph of Grand-
ma and Grandpa, which

evokes human emotion.

It’s the other things, like
the large purple and white
barnacle I picked up on a
beach many years ago (I
forgot where, exactly) but
which now fills me with
warm feelings whenever I
look at it.

Or, the plastic statue of
the Virgin Mary that I
stumbled across in an attic
which belonged to my late
father, even though he was
never a religious man. The
thing somehow gives my ner-

Little tells big
how it’s done

VANCOUVER has come to
North Vancouver for help in
dealing with the province
about the controversial B.C.
Place development.

North Vancouver City
council has decided to help
out its sister municipality by
giving Vancouver copies of
the arrangements it made
with the province for the
Lonsdale Quay develop-

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OTOGRAP HC
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INBEPENBENT
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ment, which, like B.C.
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itiative within municipal
boundaries.

North Vancouver council
members were only too hap-
py to help out the larger
municipality, and Alderman
Stella Jo Dean even wanted
to give Vancouver advice on
how to negotiate with the
province.

.-- Because your
photography deserves
the very best ... ©
UPICOUTEN,

Sa

}

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vous system a quick buzz
when I chance to focus on it
for a moment.

Or the key from a San
Francisco motel room where
my wife and I once, er,

stayed. And that, too,
rekindles old passions.
What prompted these

musings was the discovery a
week ago that my coffee
mug was missing.

When I say “my coffee
mug” I mean a thick white
ship's mug that was given to
me on a very special occa-
sion over a decade ago and
which I carted around
through thick and thin,
somehow never losing it.

In fact, it wasn't really that
I carted it around so much as
it seemed to be following
me. I know cups aren't sup-
posed to do that, but after
enough years had passed,
the damned mug felt like
part-of me.

I got so used to drinking
out of it while hard at work
at the typewriter that it
almost became part of my
thinking process. It was
heavy, you see.
Authoritative. It allowed no
whimpering over life’s tasks.

The mug was vaguely in-
destructible. Moreover, it
had a personality. It was

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almost as though I could
evaluate events and ideas to
some degree by balancing this
mug in my hand.

The discovery that my
precious mug was missing
came in the form of a slow-
motion shock wave. It wasn't
exactly that I was rendered
helpless, but I did plunge in-
to a combination of depres-
sion and outrage that left me
stuck in a quite loathsome
behavior mode.

The mug in fact eventuaily
came back to me — broken,
but glued together, which
was fine. Now it sits proudly
on a shelf in front of my
typewriter put out to
pasture, as it were.

It has been reassigned
from holding coffee to
holding other souvenirs from
other adventures, like swiz-
zle sticks from obscure
airlines and a pair of barber's
scissors used by my grand-
father. Of course the mug
can’t come anywhere close
to holding a fraction of all
the mementos that have pil-
ed up over the years — the
safety belt buckle picked up
from the South China Sea,
the white glove dropped by a
traffic cop in Nassau, the
Coca-Cola bottle cap from
Bangkok, the eraser — call-
ed a “rubber” in England —
from Charles and Di's wed-
ding, the box of matches
from Tokyo...

I guess the secret is that
we use objects like this to
capture moments that would
otherwise be lost in the blur
of a million little events. Ah,
nostalgia. Don't knock it. It’s
cheap and it’s a safe trip.

Enjoy.

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