…watching old V8 movies of us as kids and meeting up with friends from university

Thursday was a laid back day. I couldn’t sleep past 6:00 am so I got up and wrote my first post about the flight to Calgary. I took my time getting showered and dressed and then I went downstairs to join my sisters for breakfast.

My middle sister had given each of us a DVD that she had transposed from VHS. Years ago our mom took all the old V8 movies that my Dad had taken of us as kids and had them put onto videotape. It’s pretty rough and of course there’s no soundtrack. We decided to watch the DVD together, not realizing that it was over two hours. It was great seeing all those clips again. It brought back great memories and we couldn’t help but notice how different life was 50 years ago.

The one thing that really struck us was how formally our parents dressed. Outings to the park, going on picnics and day trips to Niagara Falls involved dressing in your Sunday best. Mom wore heels, dresses, hats and gloves and Dad wore dress pants, jackets and ties and of course all the ‘sisters’ wore dresses and party shoes. The only time I saw us in trousers was when I went roller skating down the sidewalk by our house in the Junction. Good thing too, because I took a couple of nasty spills.

It was also interesting to see the transition from long hair to short hair and then back to long hair when we were teenagers. My Mom wore her hair in a bun for many years and her hair was actually quite dark. Sometime in the 60s she cut her hair short and became a blonde. I never saw her with long hair ever again.

I’m sure there’s some way of copying bits and pieces of the DVD to share with you but I just haven’t figured out how to do that. I’m thinking I need to go to Garage Band and cut and paste segments onto a Youtube video but I’ll have to investigate that a bit more. If any of you have any suggestions I’d be more than grateful.

After lunch, I arranged to meet two friends from university at the Learning Centre in Fish Creek Park. Melissa McKinnon who I follow on WordPress has an exhibition there and one of the things I wanted to do when I got to Calgary was check out her work. I’ve seen it on-line but there’s nothing like seeing it up close and personal. The staff at the centre were very friendly and told us how successful Melissa’s opening was. Her paintings are beautiful and it looks like half or more are already sold. You can check out her blog, here.

I haven’t been to Calgary in over 20 years but I have seen my sister and my friends, L & L, on numerous occasions in Toronto. It’s been great seeing them on their home turf, something that’s long overdue. My next trip will be with my husband. He hasn’t been to Calgary in 38 years.