This is the first in a new blog category for me: Photographic Memory.
Each will feature a photo from my life
and the memories it provokes.
Marjorie Mae Thompson
& Andrew Sheldon Gibson
July 1942
It’s a warm and sunny weekend afternoon. Dad and I have come into Calgary from the farm. I’ve been working there for him, since the university year ended. Sheldon has the weekend off from the Imperial Oil seismic crew where he is working. It is such fun to be together again. At university in Edmonton we’ve been “going steady”—a state somewhere between dating and being formally engaged to be married—but with both of us working out of town, it’s rare to have a summer day together.
I want Sheldon to see the farm, the school I attended, the area where I grew up. Mom wants to restock the food in the farm house, so out we come from Calgary. While she is doing that, Dad drives us over to see the South Valley School.
In the small town of Claresholm, where his Dad was the bank manager, Sheldon went to what seems to me like a big school—four rooms for eight grades. I spent my first eight years of school in this one-room school. But “big” school or small, we both have happy memories of those early years.
As Dad takes a picture of us, leaning up against the school, I’m glad I’m wearing my favourite summer skirt today. The colours are so nice, blue and pink stripes, and I love the way it flares. Sheldon likes it when I wear pretty things.
As we stand there, squinting into the sun, I can hear a meadowlark singing, and feel the prairie breeze blowing by. I’m warmed by the summer sun and by my love for Sheldon. It’s a day to remember.
