28 - Sunday, December 18, 1994 ~— North Shore News

ool

THE VINTAGE Y YEARS

YOU EVER been en a
dig? You Know all those
learned people in Tilley
Hats in some place like
Lillooet or Patagonia
delving for ancient evi-
dence? Pottery shards,
bone carvings, that sort
of thing?

No? well, nor I, until this
last weekend when I set up one

of my: own, _

-T was rooting around, you
see, looking for the notebook in
which I have kept a running
inventory‘of Christmas cards
sent, and Christmas cards
received, with all changes of
address carefully entered and
corrected, since .1958. It’s an
invaluable household item,
practically a totem, we can’t do
Christmas without the dam.

thing. But when you’ve moved —

house as many times as I have,
__ Stuff gets into peculiar places,
and you have to dig.

Lovely to see it again. It’s a
proper bound book of lined
paper, oh, say eight by 10 in.,
I’ve had a succession of them’
for.writing things down. .

“The very first page was
‘oy headed up “March 16, 1951,”
‘then a dash, then $90.00.

Plainly it was the day after pay-

_-day and I was full of ideas of a

New, Start. Cash dispersal. It’s
always been a problem for me.
Cash comes in, swoosh, but

_..” goes out shwooshier than it

- came in. Why can’t I get it into

-- a'proper rhythm?

There is a bit of other stuff.

in the front, too, a recipe for
.“Carres de chocolat avec le
glacage,” a fragment from my
French Period: Also a long arti-
cle describing a trip I'd made
with my brand-new husband

_ who drove me to Prince George
in his freight truck in the Fal! of
“42, You'd probably enjoy the
truck ride, too, but the part ’'m
longing to tell you about, or

. remind you about, really, is the
Stuff that’s listed in what's sup-
posed to be an account of
where the money went. This
outlay is for me, my darling
and our six year old daughter.

First on the list, pay the B.C.

Electric bill, which is $9.46.
Think about that for a while. A
month’s electricity for less than
10 bucks. You'll be thinking we

washing machine and a refrig-
erator and we paid less than 10
bucks for the juice. Hoo boy.

Next on the list was three
dollars for Dr. Townsley in the
Village, and then came T.
Eaton, needing $27.14, almost
a third of my stipend.
Everything else in the pay-peri-
od is simply daily items of food
and drink, but listen to these
prices. On the 16th of March |
bought what we required in
groceries for a dollar forty-one
— wouldn't get you a box of
Rice Krispies in these days. I
also paid 85 cents for meat and
then skipped across to the
Totem, a kind of nickel-and-
dime store on Edgemont, and
spent 82 more cents. Cigarettes
used up another 74. cents (we
both ‘sinoked at that time) and
there’s an entry for thirty cents
for busfare which puzzles me.
The bus was a sometime thing
in those days. In any case, at
the end of one day, I'm down to
$46.28.

Next day, March 17, gro-
ceries and meat came to
$25.00, plus an-extra thirty
cents frittered away on buns.
Buns? I’ve now got $20.98 left

in the kitty, This next one is
pretty shocking. On March 19
there is an outlay of five dollars

‘for whiskey! It isn’t the amaz-

ing price so much as my gall
that astounds me — we've got
to live a dozen days yet and the
woman in charge of the purse
shoots five dollars on booze! |
was only in my early thirties

then, and already on the down-.’

hill slide, obviously.

Drycleaning took three dol-
lars more, and in addition |
spent 66 cents on bread plus 60
cents on hand cream. Easter
cards took 7-4 cents, and Lee
Yee, our itinerant vegetable dis-
penser, got $1.05. That’s $11.93
left, and twelve days to go. But
I'd forgotten there was the,
Family Allowance cheque. It
came, all six dollars of it, and
I’m saved, and a good thing,
since Easter’s early and treats
for the child amount altogether
to $2.69! And on Easter Sunday
the church got two dollars, in
spite of everything.

But with milk at 63 cents,
and meat for dinner for 84, we
could do it, as we did. I
wouldn’t mind having another
shot at it, at those prices, eh?.’

Brealde on the North Shore! ;
Capers’ Classic
‘Breakfast

Fresh-squeezed organic O.J.
Free-range scrambled eggs,
Thick slices of organic sunseed toast,
Capers’ Own Raspberry Jam,

A steaming cup of organic coffee.
Everyday 8 am - 10 am

99

Offer expires Des 31,1994
No substitutions, please

Capers? Whole Food Market & Restaurant :
. 2496 Marine Dr. WestVan, 925-3374

‘. Daryl Wing
': Pharmacist
Ca)sule Comments
At this holiday time, may we
extend our thanks forthe _
pleasant relationships of the
past year and our hopes for
your cantinuing prosperity,
good health and happiness in
the year ahead.

Thank : you to our marvellous
staff who reflect that helpful,
caring and personable atti-
tude that has been a trade-
mark of our pharmacy for so
many yzars.

}

MANY KITTENS
North Shore Humane

“Volunteers 926-2180

“ORPHAN

_WV SPCA 922- 4622 |

DORIS ORR

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Sale ends Dec, 24/94

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. must have been living in a
“ chicken coop, but no, we were i
_ living on Beaumont in the
Highlands in a two-bedroom-
. and-basement house, and we
had an electric stove and a |