November 26, 2008. Chevy Chase, Md. Memory.

Sometimes I can remember and sometimes I can not. Often a picture will trigger the whole event and then the memory of the event floods back in vivid color. I am sure I have cheerfully suppressed a lot of activities. In fact, my sister Carol recounts many stories about me that I have no memory ever occurred. These events often have miss-behaving, so I probably forget those stories immediately. It is interesting to try to figure out what you remember about years ago and what you have forgotten. For instance, I have a clear memory of the Thanksgiving day I spent with the Dumertons. My Mother and Father and I stopped off in Calgary to visit their family friends and Salvation Army Officers. I was fifteen and they had two sons, Billy and Berty, who were seventeen. I liked Billy. They also had two daughter, who were eighteen and nineteen, but I paid no attention to them at all, in fact I have no recollection that they were there. Along with several other friends we spent the whole day playing football and Monopoly. We had a blast. I was the only girl playing the games. The next day Mother, Father and I boarded the train for Vancouver, to continue on for my brother's wedding. Of course, we all looked forward to next June, when the Dumertons were coming to Toronto. The reason I remember this day of football is that Billy, on his way to Toronto was killed in a car accident, so that day was the last time I saw Billy.

Now what I don't remember is remarkable. This was October, 1953 and I was fifteen. I do not remember what I did that weekend in Vancouver. I can't recall where we stayed. I know I went to the wedding and I recall what I wore, but for the life of me I do not know who I visited and how I got around. We three moved to Toronto in July, 1953, and my sister and brother stayed in Vancouver, Carol to be in the wedding and Dave to marry Irene. I moved to Toronto on the train, along with my Mother and Father. I don't even recall if Carol came back with us to Toronto, or if she joined us at the end of the year. Carol was eighteen. I must have behaved myself, because Carol tells no stories about me concerning that time period. I suspect that I can not recall much about that weekend because my boyfriend John had already started going out with another girl, which I thought was tacky. Not only that but the Salvation Army officers who followed my Father in the job and who took over our house was the girl he went out with and ultimately married. I laughed about it. I do recall that I loved eating in the dining car on the train, with it's white table clothes, but the rest of the trip, other than the football game is a bit of a blur. Memory is a funny thing.