Stories from the Stringam Family Ranches of Southern Alberta

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



Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Elusive

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.

6 comments:

  1. At least you can remember when you could remember.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can't top Delores' comment! lol

    ReplyDelete
  3. Welcome to the club! I'm always forgetting things. Sometimes I try and make myself remember. Sometimes (more often) I just give up. Oh well. That's life.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Don't be too concerned. If American TV is anything like ours, that show will be rerun, re-rerun and re-re-rerun until you are able to remember every word.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love Delore's comment. And bow to her mastery.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm right there with you. Memory and eyesight have run off together somewhere...

    ReplyDelete

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