 Lisa Kates, November 2022. Among the newspapers and books piled on Theo’s footstool in her living room in Fonthill were copies of Canada’s History magazine. She was a subscriber. My love for the subject is another inheritance. I have a story I'd like to write for them in time. Imagining my grandmother after dinner with her feet up, apron on, inhaling a Peter Jackson while reading it is a pleasure, like eating poached apricots and custard in July. *** A good memory from first-year university is sitting in a Catherine Parr Trail College classroom and listening to Alan Wilson share his passion. The class was small enough to be held in the history department office. Maybe 12 of us around a large teak table in a quiet room with Danish floating bookcases, woven wall hangings, and big windows with a lush backdrop of trees and shrubs. A seasonal theatre for his animation. Canada came to life in that room (mostly settler history in 1983). One of the essays I wrote for him was about Nellie McClung. Teachers like that are a gift. *** Going to the Toronto Reference Library beats the loneliness of my desk by a lot. I'm reading a dense and delicious book over visits about how we tell history, The Past Is A Foreign Country, by David Lowenthal. It's adjacent reading and has made me laugh out loud in the Quiet Area. *** Women Non-White Non-binary Immigrants Refugees Journalists Academics Librarians Anyone in a war zone Among the people I worry about, along with all the other stuff in my life. Being of aid to humans fleeing oppression might happen on a scale. Are you having those conversations? History is each day that passes. *** I wish the Jacob Bank's song went on — I could listen to it for an hour. It led me to versions sung by Mahalia Jackson and Elvis. The horns and percussion on Loaded are all that. Stitching these three together was nice. 202419991991Comments are closed.
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