oe

No wonder we can’t remember where we put the keys when the price of gas in 1934 is stuck in the back of our mind!

HANDS UP anvone who can remember balbriggan.

No, the man in the plaid jacket, it wasn’t a Scottish Border War, And no, it wasn't that Julie An- drews movie, either. Give up?

It was che stuff they made our long winter underwear out of, Remember now? and how it was so smooth and secret when it was new, and how, after lots of wear- ings and some washings, it had to be folded over at the ankle, to get your stockings over it, and how it made a really ugly lumpy place?

How is it possible that we can recall infinite details of ancient underwear and long-gone movies and how best to install one’s seif in a rumble-seat, and we can’t remembzr what we had for dinner last night? Ask us about the Lindburgh case, about Betty Boop, about the chariot race in Ben Hur, we've all kinds of things to say.

We recall you could get a three-course dinner, with refills of coffee, for 25 cents at the Peter Pan on Granville Street in 1937. Cigarettes were 10 cents for a pack of 10 — Turrets, remember them? People were doing the Lambeth Walk about that time, having got over the Charleston. The streetcar motormen were passing a hunk of wood back and forth on- the Kerrisdale line, a good reason for carrying a book in your pocket at all times.

Our heads are like big roomy attics, full of things too good to discard. When we're asked for an

“Sapsavtnd & Se

opinion, ar an answer, we have to tummave through piles of stuff before We can speak.

No wonder the young get impa- tient with us. [Te gises us such a complicated siew of present fife when oweooare burdened = with remembering 10-cent pork chops; that bacon in 1932 was 32 cents a pound; that in 1940) you could have bought two nice bungalows for the price of one of today's cars. We have to hesitate when making judgments — our values of everything, not just monetary, were established in a different time.

In those years and years of ac- cumulating experience we grew all sorts of convictions, pruned back some of them, teok stands, jumped off a fev --ade judg- ments, met a lot «5: . ple, loved some of them. Ana ui, or most, of that stuff we can coax out of memory and shape into a com- Parison in a flash.

So why can’t we remember where we put the confounded phone number of that guy with the red hair — what’s his name? Why do we stride purposefully in- to rooms, and then stop dead in our tracks, absolutely blank as to what we came for? The only way to recover is to go back and re- enter. Works every time, but what a stouffie.

Obviously, a lot of what we remember has to do with the price of things. That’s because it's probably the most frequent of the jolts we endure these days. An ordinary everyday grocery order

Breakfast with Santa Bring the kids to Forster’s on December 15th,

for BREAKFAST WITH SANTA! Book now for either the 9:30 am or 11:00 am seating, Tickets are only $4.75 for Kids and Adults and must be pre-purchased at

Forster’.

b

emerald Park

350 East 2nd Street, North Vancouver 988-8353

Eleanor Godley

eo oe pany CERO

THE VINTAGE YEARS

costs what we used to expect to lay out for the Christmas fixings, including the bird. But there are all manners of amusing and poi- gnant and anachronistic and per- tnent things lying in wait for the summons to take the stage.

Some can be shared, though a lot of them are fragments that have to be carefully handled, carefully juxtaposed and tenderly comemplated before they come together and you can say, *‘Oh sure, that was the place (or the book, or the man, or the movie).”’

It makes a lot of difference, you find, whether your memories are of the city variety or entangled in what [ call the bush. There are cisterns and root-houses in my reflections, and Bennet buggies, and a cutter with a buffalo-robe, and one-roomed schools always icy-cold, and the thrill of the first

Ry

office party month, client entertaining month, get

Sunday, December 2, 1990 - North Shore News - 17

Memory overload

lamb’s) quarters and dandelion shoots that showed up on the dinner in late May. They would be the first fresh green scuff we'd seen or giten since the previous October.

City folks recollect: the exciting erystal set, that let them, all the way out in Cedar Conage. hear Mart Kenny and his Western Gentlemen downtown in the Hotel Vancouver.

Or they can render the cry from the rag-und-bone man in the alley, his voice rising like an operatic tenor’s on the “bhottles’’ finale. They could rent a cotton bathing suit at English Bay for 10 cents. (Bill Baker has one hanging up in his current display at the North Shore Archives — it has the well-known yellow stripe around the bottom.)

Trolley cars are in the city folks’ memories, not hay-wagons and tie-hackers. They rode the Belt Line, and smiled at the rubes sightseeing with Teddy Lyons. They could go down to the B.C. Pier and see the beautiful Empress boats unloading bales of silk that would be whisked across the con- tinent on speciat fast trains. Real romance,

They could take the midnight boat to Victoria, and be pampered with silver service. They went over to the North Vancouver ‘sticks’ for picnics, maybe even took the streetcar to the suspension bridge or the train to Horseshoe Bay.

We also remember when the world was reasonably sane. In New York, 50 years ago, I would visit friends in Greenwich Village and then, at two o’clock in the

yr

morning, board the subway alone and travel to the edge of Harlem where [ lived while attending Col- umbia. Last time [ was in that town ft wouldn't go outside the door of my hotel except to enter a tani.

i's) probably what we'd like most to hive back again, what we remember as the graces of Sife. The time to take the time: the courtesies now mocked as hypo- critical’ just the innocence of our dealings with one another. We didn’t go so fast, we didn't skip over the tops of events, there just weren'l so many events demand- ing attention. Life's a lot more crowded, now. and our accom- modation is already occupied by what went before and has never really left.

No wonder we can’: remember what we had for dinner last Thursday — there just isn’t room in the attic anymore for inconse- quentials.

Make your move.

PAIRTIOPACTION 8

{7 GOSH BY GOLLY, “IT’S TIME FOR O’DOULS.

It's that time of year again. . . # Time to make reservations at

O'Doul’s

together with family and

friends month.

Restaurant for

Brunch, Lunch or Dinner.

The incredible menu, affordable prices, private party sections and delightful decorations are reason enough. Not to mention our easy location and ample free

parking.

CHRISTMAS EVE ¢ DEC. 24 ¢ OPEN FOR DINNEA UNTIL 10 PM

CHRISTMAS DAY * DEC. 25

© 9 AM T0 3 PM BRUNCH © 4PM 70 10 PM SPECIAL CHRISTMAS DINNER

BOXING DAY * DEC. 26

© 7 AM TO 4 PM BRUNCH ¢ 5 PM 70 10 PM DINNER

NEW YEAR'S EVE ¢ DEC. 31 * SPECIAL A-LA-CARTE MENU

IN EFFECT FROM 5 PM

NEW YEAR'S DAY ° JAN. I

© OPEN 9 AM 70 10 PM

©, 2> GIFT CERTIFICATES AVAILABLE

. A 3s = o a ? 30 ° Q ° . . o

\ Char UP YOUR

HOLIDAY ENTERTAINING

AT O’DOULS.

TIS THE SEASON!

O/DOIL

HOTEL K RESTAURATT

1300 ROBSON STREET. VANCOUVER, BC. VGE 1C5

TEL: (604) 684-8461