7 books for 7 days

My cousin Ellisa is doing a Facebook challenge, and yesterday she nominated me thusly:

Day 4 - I have accepted a challenge from Michelle van der Merwe so I will be publishing the covers of seven books that I love (one per day). No explanation or comments, only the cover. Each time, I will ask another person to raise to the challenge with me for a week. The idea is to promote reading around the planet. Let's have fun and offer ourselves the gift of travelling, through a book, with friends. Today I nominate Myrna Layton.

So I guess I will do it, but I am also going to choose a theme, which I won't tell on Facebook but which is going to be Canadian Women Authors.

Meet me in St. Louis (Louis)

I hope, you few readers, that you are singing those words! The title is wasted if you are only reading, so if you didn't sing, it is time for a redo! (Even though it looks like "Lu-iss" in English, make sure you sing it with French pronunciation "Lu-ee"...)

So I was just in St. Louis, MO (You can think "Lu-iss") for a few days. It was my second time there, so I was not all that excited about going. I just really don't enjoy flying, honestly, and since I had looong delays on both flights, it made for a loooong day.

But at the end of it, I would be at the MLA conference, and would get to see my friends--after going to this conference for 17 years, I have made some good friends. Anita was going to be my room mate. She was not loving the idea of traveling to the conference, either. Since she lives in Nebraska, she had loooong delays on her flights as well, with lots of wet snow added. So we were quite the pair of room mates--neither of us especially wanting to be there, but thinking "Well at least I will get to spend some time with (Anita/Myrna) so that will be fun."

Anita's first grandchild was born on Monday Feb. 18, so that was where she really wanted to be, if she had had her 'druthers. And I just wanted...I don't know what I wanted. I am just getting a wee bit of conference burn-out.

However, there were cool things at our hotel! Which was good, because it was kind of isolated, and it was cold outside. So it is a good thing it was a very big hotel with things to see and do, and enough to eat--and not too much to eat, which can be its own problem at a conference.

Our hotel was the Union Station, a Hilton Hotel. Which is a pretty awesome venue. They are hard at work building an aquarium in it, which will be super cool, but it was, alas, not there yet. But here are some things I took pictures of, even though at the web site I just pointed you to, there are other pictures which may be better than the ones I took.

The lobby:

At nights, there is a light show in the lobby, and also a great deal of socializing goes on for the drinking crowd. So, when on Friday and Saturday nights, the lobby had been booked for A) a private party and B) a wedding, some of our dear MLA friends were a bit po'd. Because did I mention this hotel is not close to very many or any other venues? So.

However, those of us who are not drinkers did not care. We were just happy that the lobby is separated from the hotel by a cat walk, with a bunch of stuff in between. So no matter how loud the lobby gets, the rooms are quiet.

Here is a view out the window at the end of the catwalk, after you are actually in the hotel part of the building:

You can see a court yard, which we walked through a few times, and beyond it a pool of water. In the pool of water, at night, every hour on the hour, would be the fire show. Which involves colored lights, music played quite loudly, and fire. Like this:

It was super cold, and even in the restaurant, Landry's Seafood, it was so cold by the windows, but the bursts of flame were really quite warming. And kind of cool to watch, too. I am just wondering, who thinks, "Hey, in this pool--let's have a fire show!" It just seems so random to me. But there you go.

The light show in the lobby is pretty amazing, honestly. I liked it a lot. (They ran it during the day on Saturday, to make up somewhat for not running it Friday night for us hotel guests who could not enjoy it with the private party. Because those private parties? They rent the lobby for $20K a night. And us? We pay our measly little $138 per night or whatever it was we paid.) These pictures in no way do it justice. It was very, very neat. Like, how it would be the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and then birds fluttering and then it would be wiped away and become something else. Very imaginative. And also with music, but with less quality to the sound than the images enjoyed. And ending with faux fireworks, which were not my favorite parts. The earlier things were. Very cool. Maybe one day, when they have the aquarium finished, I will go back and watch the light show again.

AT MLA, I often help with the Silent Auction, but was booted off this year to give others the opportunity to help. Which was fine with me, because I was super tired this year. But I did bid on things. Every year, people knit cool things, and then they donate them to the auction and people are such cheapskates they bid unrealistically low amounts for items that took people hours and hours of time, plus materials, to make. And every year, I try to bid people up without having to actually buy the things myself. This year I ended up having to buy two of the items.  I can't remember who made the hat but it has horses on it. (Are they horses?) So I thought Josie might like it.

And my friend Lisa Philpott from the University of Western Ontario, now called simply Western (which is so silly, is it not? Because exactly WHAT is Western about Ontario, unless you are talking about Western Ontario? It makes no sense.)--Lisa always makes some really cool knitted creation. This year, "Meet me in St. Louis, Louis, Meet me at the fair..." And this is worth HUNDREDS of dollars. But I got it for much less than that, but at least I bid it up to not a completely insulting amount.

Isn't that cool? I have no clue what I will do with it. Put my actual purse inside it, and use it for the conversation it might create?

There is usually some cool nerdy library thing there, and this year there were coasters. I did not mean to buy them, but in my effort to raise the bidding, I accidentally "won" them as well--for a price! I think that David or Patrick would get a kick out of these coasters:

Janet and I left on Saturday afternoon--even though that meant we would be missing the MLA Big Band, which is always a treat, but we wanted to get home for Sunday. Otherwise, we would have to be traveling all day on Sunday, and why is that better than traveling all night on Saturday?

It was smooth sailing (no delays, but actually, quite a bit of air turbulence, so I am lying about the smooth sailing) to Dallas/ Fort Worth, where we were so lucky (NOT objects of sympathy as old ladies) to be offered a ride on an airport cart by a very nice young man. So that was fun. I have never done that before! (Although, we missed all those steps we would have gotten had we had to walk the whole long way that it was.) Speaking of very nice young men, on both flights, the young men I sat beside were absolute and very impressive gentlemen in word and deed. Both lifted my case down for me, and helped others, and were so very gracious. I was impressed.

Janet was not feeling well, and her left ear drum actually popped, like with blood and all, on the Texas to SLC flight. That was not fun. I played lots of games of Sherlock on my phone, and tried to sleep on both flights, but was absolutely wiped when I got home. Nice to be in my own bed. Nice to have the travel behind me. 

Primarily speaking: the way it was

The new Sunday schedule for Primary has made me think back to The Way It Was--the way Primary was for Myrna as a little girl.

Primary was held after school, either on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. In our Taber Third Ward building, we were the only ward to meet in that building, so I suppose the Primary presidency just decided what night to have it based on the needs of the families in the ward. This is what our building looked like when I was a child:

I always supposed that this building was very old, and the chapel part at the right hand side of this photo was--but the rest of the building was added only in the 1950s. It was dedicated on Sunday 29 August 1954 by Elder Sterling W. Sill.

I have some great memories of this building! It was such an important place for me! For example, see those wide platforms along the stairs on the right hand side. While waiting for our parents, we children would take turns jumping off! That would never fly in today's world, am I right? Someone might get hurt! Someone might sue the church!

So back to Primary--I attended school at Dr. Hamman, which was on the western edge of town at the time. The church was on the eastern side of town. It was probably a ten minute walk away. Maybe 15, because the town was not that big! However, the way things worked in Taber was that buses would arrive at Dr. Hamman, St. Patrick's, St. Mary's and Westlake schools, and the children at those schools would get on board and be shuttled to Central School and W. R. Myers School, which were located across the street from each other, and also across the street from my Taber Third Ward church building. On a Primary day, it was a matter of crossing the street, once I got off the bus.

On this map, you can see Dr. Hamman School on the top left, and the church on the bottom right. It is actually not very far away at all! Yet it seemed really, really far to me. I was often in a panic at school, afraid that I would miss the bus and be stranded so far away from my ride home. Or my ride to the church, as the case may be. In my six years at Dr. Hamman, I only missed the bus once, and had to walk to the church, and was so amazed that after my loooooong walk, the buses were still there at Central/Myers--although barely! I seem to remember that I was crying all the way as I scurried along.

Primary workers, such as my mother, would start to arrive at the church at 3:30, in preparation for prayer meeting which started at 3:45. This was a meeting led by the presidency at which the teachers would meet. The secretary would read the minutes from the previous week. I remember Betty Jensen having that calling for years and years. She was so organized. There would be a spiritual thought by one of the teachers, and then a prayer. Then they would go out and meet the children.

The babysitters, who were young women age twelve and up, would run across the street from Myers school to be there to care for the children of the teachers who were at prayer meeting, and to keep some semblance of order with the children who would either cross the street from Central, or get off the buses from the other schools. The gym was always open in the church, and the children would run around and let off steam in there until it was time for Primary to start.

Junior Primary met downstairs, in the Junior Sunday School room. Senior Primary met upstairs, in the chapel. When the teachers got out of prayer meeting, they would help to shepherd the children to where they needed to go. There would be prelude music playing, and the children would file in and sit in their assigned rows. Primary would start at about 4:00, and only lasted for an hour. I know this because after Primary, we would often go shopping, since we were in town. Primary day was our only day in town except Sunday, and we didn't shop on Sundays. (Most of the stores were closed on Sundays, too.) Going to town was a luxury, so since we were already there, we would make stops at the Sears or Eatons store fronts, or go to the grocery store, or to Bodie's if we needed clothes. And all the stores closed at 6 pm, so clearly, if we had time to make multiple stops--and we did--we must have had an hour to do so.

At 5 pm, Cubs started. My brother Bruce was a cub leader, so he would stay at the church and miss our shopping trips. We would go back at 6, when cubs ended, pick him up, and then head home.

So, we only had an hour for Primary, which is pretty close to what we have now, under the new schedule. But they have put in a ten minute break, so I guess we only have 50 minutes now. Still, it is more similar than different. Except I am an old person now, and the way it was for 39 years-ish--that is a lifetime or more to many people!