Stories from the Stringam Family Ranches of Southern Alberta

From the 50s and 60s to today . . .



Monday, November 24, 2014

Memories

Yep. Back then, the brain . . . worked.
The summer I was ten, my oldest sister, Chris, volunteered to run a summer day camp for the kids in Milk River.
We had a marvelous time.
Games. Treats. Crafts. Treats. Contests. Treats. Activities. More treats.
I was ten.
Anything to do with food took priority.
Hmm. Still does in fact.
Moving on . . .
Chris put heart and soul into the program.
There were no parameters laid out, so she had to come up with the guidelines and curriculum herself.
She did a wonderful job.
Part way through the summer, she decided that it would be fun if she got all of the kids involved in performing a play.
And not just any play.
The Wizard of Oz.
A fairly ambitious undertaking for a seventeen year old girl and her group of pre-teens.
First, she had to come up with a script.
That was all right, because our family had the story on an LP.
LP.
Go ahead. Google it. We'll wait . . .
And that's where I came in.
I had one talent as a child.
I could memorize.
If I listened to it once, I could pretty much give a detailed description.
If I listened to it a lot?
I could recite it.
With voice inflections and sound effects.
And that was what I did.
For three days, I recited and Chris wrote.
The entire hour-and-a-half of 'The Wizard of Oz'.
As it had been recorded.
We had our script . . .
I should mention here that we never got to perform our play.
We simply ran out of time.
But we learned something important.
If you wanted anything remembered, let Diane listen to it ad infinitum for a couple of days and it was there forever.
Word perfect.
This skill stayed with me for a while.
In fact, I played the lead some years later in 'The Rented Christmas', and memorized the entire play.
To the point that I served as the prompter.
On stage.
My point in telling you all of this is simply to reminisce.
And to lament.
I've been trying to figure out what I watched last night on TV.
I know it was a good movie. And that I enjoyed it immensely.
I can't - for the life of me – remember.
Oh, for just a portion of that bygone talent!
Sigh.

10 comments:

  1. I'm with you sister.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You have no idea how much I relate to this. Well, you do. If you can remember!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sadly, I'm with you on this one too. In fact, I'm not 100% sure why I came on the Internet just now. I think it might have had something to do with work. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. At least you had an amazing memory when you were younger. I never, ever did - and now it's worse!

    Seriously, that's pretty awesome that you could memorize such a lot in a short time. Maybe that's why your stories here have such fine detail.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Whew! Glad it's not just me! I can't remember what I did 5 minutes ago but I can remember when I could hear a phone number and it was with me for life!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yes, you were very blessed with an incredible memory. Some comfort any knowing that you are now a little more like me.
    Loved this one and blessings for the smiles....

    ReplyDelete
  7. I know where it went! You had ME!

    Seriously, if I'm reading something and I like it, it is in my head FOR-E-VER!

    Including, and especially, useless points of trivia... hmmm. This will take some reviewing...

    ReplyDelete
  8. WHY is the memory one of the first things to go?

    ReplyDelete
  9. My memory has always been better for some things than others ... but it is generally worse overall. Although sometimes I think this is just because when my husband insists he told me something, he just forgot to! :)

    ReplyDelete

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