Crazy July by Nancy M Bell

This has been a year of opposites so far. The late winter and spring was very dry here in southern Alberta. So dry that by the end of June the pasture still crackled under my feet when I walked the fence line. Then July hit and down came the rain. In torrential downpours. We had 5 tornadoes touch down in 4 days! Like holy cow, what's with that. Even with all the rain if you dig down four inches in the garden you can find dry earth. Crazy!

Once again this July I was fortunate enough to be invited to read my poetry at Stephansson House just west of Red Deer, Alberta. This is the homestead of Stephan G Stephansson, an Icelandic poet who came to live in Alberta in the late 1800's. The site is an Alberta Historical Site and is very well preserved. The house is wonderful to wander through and the surrounding area is kept much as it was during Stephan's life. It should be on everyone's list if they visit this part of the country. Eight poets read their work, the theme this year was Nature and it was exciting to hear what everyone offered.

Getting back to the rain. Last week was Calgary Stampede when the whole city shuts down and parties. It all began on Friday July 8 with the Stampede Parade where thousands of people lined the streets of downtown Calgary to watch marching bands, horses, tons of floats and the always spectacular showing of the Treaty 7 tribes of the First Nations. This year they have representatives of the seven tribes doing an exhibition during the opening ceremonies of the rodeo each day. Each tribe has different ways of painting their faces and bodies as well as their mounts, the stories and meanings behind each colour and symbol are amazing.

The crops are progressing well with the prairies turning bright gold under the blooming canola while fields of wheat and barley wave in the wind like a sea of grass. There has been some attempts to grow drought resistant corn without much success. Here in Alberta corn is happy only in the south country down by Taber where sugar beets also thrive. A true sign that summer has reached the tipping point and is slipping toward autumn is the appearance of pick up trucks selling Taber corn out of the bed, ears of corn piled on the tail gate.

I have been busy working on the third book in the Longview Romance series tentatively titled Wedding Interrupted. If you want to catch up on what Cale and Michelle have been up to since the end of Storm's Refuge be sure to pick up Come Hell or High Water. It fits right into the theme of my blog this month as it features action at the Calgary Stampede and the Half a Mile of Hell which is the chuck wagon races as well as touching on the floods that inundated Calgary and surrounding area in 2013. Click on the cover to get your copy.

Until next month, stay happy, stay well.

THE WIZARD OF OZ and me

 

 

 

It’s seventy five years since the movie of the Wizard of Oz was made. It’s one hundred and fourteen years since the book was written, but everyone—probably everywhere—knows the story well. The movie images, especially, lurk in the back of the mind of every one who has ever seen it, whether in the movie theater or on the small screen at home.  From the tornado to the dramatic switch from drab reality to full color fantasy, everything about it was a visual treat, especially back in the days when such "special effects" were new, and we weren’t plied on a daily basis with mind-boggling CG.

I think everyone has their own recollection of the first time they saw The Wizard of Oz. I certainly do, and the memory is not entirely a happy one. I was born long enough ago to have seen the movie for the first time in a local theater. Nothing beats the screen for overwhelming effect, even when this screen was small by current standards.  The Little Art Theater, as it was called, was basically a long narrow room with a screen and little stage at one end. It occupied the middle of a 19^th Century three story, block-long brick building, the kind that lined most typical downtowns. The local college crowd viewed avant garde foreign films there—auteurs like Bergman, Renoir, Pasolini—hence the name, but our theater also showed standard Hollywood fare, because, then as now, folks need to make a living.  

 

 

My blonde, blue-eyed Aunt Jean, (now, unimaginably, gone,) took my Cousin Michael and I to see The Wizard of Oz. I can't have been more than six, perhaps even younger. Aunt Jean was a lady of standing in our little town, so I have a memory of her in a blue and white checked shirtwaist dress, low heels, a hat and white gloves. My cousin was younger, but we were both near-sighted, so we sat near the front on the aisle, if memory serves.  In those days, we both peered around the shoulder of whoever was in front of us, perched on the edge of our seats. Nevertheless, then as now impressionable, I was immediately swept away, (just like poor Dorothy!) into the fantasy.

The first scary thing was when wicked Agnes Gooch took away Toto to be put down. I had recently owned a puppy, one that had been squashed in the road right before my eyes, so I was familiar with the pain and sorrow of loss that comes at the death of a fur friend. Next, came the tornado. My home town is in western Ohio, so I was on a first name basis with those, too. I’d seen the fear grow in my father’s eyes whenever he studied our stormy, threatening, lightning-filled skies, searching for any sign of oncoming catastrophe.

Nerves already on edge, for me the grand finale came when the green-faced witch and her awful minions, the flying monkeys, took over the screen.  I was so far submerged in the fantasy that what happened next might have been expected. When the monkeys came flying to tear the poor Scarecrow apart, leaving his strawy insides all over the road—well, in sixties parlance—I flipped, and began to scream at the top of my lungs.

 

 

My aunt was mortified, as was my younger cousin—who was, as he pointed later when the dire subject came up again - a boy, and therefore impervious to fear. I was whisked out of my seat and marched into the lobby. Here, away from the movie, fear of my Aunt’s displeasure quickly displaced the nightmare in which I'd been submerged. I remember standing, sobbing under the too bright lobby lights, with my Aunt shaking me and scolding. 

 “Now, Judy Lee! If you don’t stop that nonsense at once, I will never take you to the movies ever again!” 

Eventually, we returned to the dark theater. I remember drowning in embarrassment and holding back from my earlier willing immersion in the story so the shameful loss of control wouldn't attack again. 

Fashions in child-rearing have certainly changed, but even now I bear my Aunt no ill-will, because according to the rules of the world in which we lived, her reaction was the correct one.  It's an amusing memory, I guess, and also one that is "period correct."

Anyway, Happy 75th Birthday to the Wicked Witch and all her minions. I've thought of her far more often over the years than I have of Dorothy.

 

 ~~Juliet Waldron

 

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