I remember very well what I was doing on Monday 3 November 1952. I was 10 years old and I attended an American school in Buenos Aires called American Grammar School. Because my mother taught at the nearby high school I was given a scholarship as she could not have paid the high fees.

With my friends at recess (it was a hot Buenos Aires summer) we were running around screaming, “Eisenhower in the shower!” I have no idea who had told us about the presidential elections on the next day but somehow our man was Adlai Stevenson and not the general from Addison, Texas.

What did we know about these two forthright men? We were innocent and oblivious.

I remember very well what I was doing one 26 September, 1960. I was in our pool hall (Juniors & Seniors had that privilege) of my Roman Catholic boarding school St. Edward’s High School in Austin, Texas. We were not playing pool. We were watching the first TV debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Because Nixon was not wearing any Max Factor makeup that UV light penetrating TV lighting was making him look terrible.

There was then a form of misinformation. People against Kennedy were saying that he would have to obey his boss, the pope in Rome.

We were happy when he won. In 1962 our school annual The Edwardian was dedicated to Kennedy, who was then President of the United States. I must also add that on a previous page there was a large colour photograph of Pope John XXIII.  After writing this blog I read that dedication. It still stands particularly today 6 November 2024

In 1960, Austin was the most liberal city in Texas. In our school we had black students local Latinos and many more from Latin America.

First Man of the Land

Fall with Lauri Stallings - 5 November 2024

Autumn – Emily Dickinson

The morns are meeker than they were,

The nuts are getting brown;

The berry's cheek is plumper,

The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,

The field a scarlet gown.

Lest I should be old-fashioned,

I'll put a trinket on.

I am sure that I am not the only one today, 5 November, 2024 worried about elections in the United States of America.

A Mexican journalist at the beginning of the 20^th century said, “¡Pobre México, tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de Estados Unidos!”​​

That translates to, “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.”

Going to get some eye drops at Shopper’s Drug Mart and buying fruits and vegetables for dinner tonight with Hilary was a pleasant distraction on what is a sunny day.

And of course scanning fall colours involving a portrait I took years ago of Ballet BC dancer Lauri Stallings put me in the mood to get on my bed with Niño and Niña. It will be impossible to not think of my Rosemary and what she would say about the elections in the USA. She died on 9 December 2020 when Trump was still president. In the morning over break fast in bed, during the man’s presidency we would compare notes on what he had done the day before as seen in our phones and our daily delivered (hard copy) NYTimes.

Tonight Hilary and I will be visiting our Welsh neighbours, the Galsworthys to watch the proceedings in the US on BBC.

More Emily Dickinson blogs

A Favourite Just Noticed 

All the Witchcraft that we need 

It only gives our wish for blue 

My heart is laden 

Of bronze and blaze

The red and the white 

A Lady Red

Hands 

I took my power in my hands 

That clarifies the sight 

 Nature rarer uses yellow

Rosemary white and a bit of yellow 

Nature rarer uses yellow

Luck is not chance 

T is iris sir 

The white heat

I tried to be a rose 

nature rarer uses yellow 

The Tulip

Nor would I be a poet 

November left then clambered up
You cannot make remembrance grow
November
the maple wears a gayer scarf 

It seems that even though we live in Canada today we are just waiting for tomorrow’s elections in the US. I feel unsettled. I decided to putter in my oficina and look at some negatives in a box. These that I found I have seen before as I have scanned and put in blogs some of the pictures of Rosemary and me wearing the same shirts and the two of her not wearing anything but revealing nothing. 

This time I decided to scan the negatives and will place them here both in vertical and horizontal format.

There was one single negative of a couple that as a negative I could not recognize. I scanned it and so found out that the woman was a friend and teaching colleague in Mexico City who was Welsh. Her name was Vivien Worsdall and her English was absolutely impeccable. She insisted in saying luncheon and not lunch and sofas were always davenports. She gave me many tips and I became a better teacher of English to Mexican executives working in American companies. She adored Rosemary.

I had not thought of her for years. Finding this negative it almost feels like I have participated in a resurrection.

From the time I married Rosemary in 1968 and particularly when me moved to a little house in Arboledas, Estado de México I began taking portraits of wealthy Mexican families, of friends and of my family. I used to good clunkers, a Pentacon-F and an Asahi Pentax S-3. I had a good 85 mm Komura portrait lens that fit both SLRs.I processed the negatives in one of our two bathrooms and printed them there. It was this realization that I could earn a living as a portrait photographer that gave Rosemary the idea for the four of us to move to Vancouver. 

As a portrait photographer I find this as a heavy philosophical thought that will probably have me thinking about it tonight when I get into bed in anticipation of what will happen tomorrow.

In a small Welsh coincidence, my Welsh neighbours, the Galsworthys have invited me tomorrow to watch the proceedings on BBC. My daughter Hilary has invited herself and made cookies. It will be fun. I hope.

Rosa 'Bathsheba' - 4 November 2024

Bathsheba (/bæθˈʃiːbə/ or /ˈbæθʃɪbə/; Hebrew: בַּת־שֶׁבַע Baṯ-šeḇaʿ, lit. 'Daughter of Sheba' or 'Daughter of the Oath')was an Israelite queen consort. According to the Hebrew Bible, she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite and later of David, with whom she had all of her five children. Her status as the mother of Solomon, who succeeded David as monarch, made her the Gebirah (גְּבִירָה) of the Kingdom of Israel. She is best known for her appearance in the Book of Samuel, which recounts how she was summoned by David's royal messengers after he witnessed her bathing and lusted after her; David has Uriah killed and then marries Bathsheba.

Wikipedia

No matter what I do on any day these days the action reminds me of my Rosemary. Today I saw the only rose flowering in my fall garden, Rosa ‘Bathsheba’. I scanned it even though I have scanned it many times since I purchased the rose 3 years ago.  I had to find a new way of associating the rose with Rosemary. That was not tough.

I met my Rosemary in Mexico City mid December 1967 and by Christmas I had taken her to Veracruz to meet my mother who lived there. We were married in Coyoacán, on 8 February 1968..

At that time, and until recently Rosemary wore contact lenses (including the one-a-day ones), this meant that she never took showers and never swam in pools. When we lived in Burnaby, just as we were about to go somewhere, she would tell me (it happened more than once) that she had dropped one of her contacts on our terrible green shag carpet.

My mother had no tub so Rosemary took many showers (without her contact lenses and she really did not see well without them) during the day to escape Veracruz’s humid heat. Quite a few times when I heard the shower going I would go in to spy on her (my version of King David). Such was the sight of her in the shower that we would end up with shenanigans in bed which resulted in further showers.

Once Rosemary had her one a day contacts and later when she had laser surgery she would take many a tub bath. In our very nice Kitsilano bathtub I could see her from my bed. Many a time I simply took my clothes off and joined her in the tub. We used all kinds of Epson Salts. We lived an active bathtub life.

Now when I am in the tub and I can see the empty bed (two cats on it, though) I reminisce with melancholy those wonderful times.

My Rosemary, my Bathsheba – gone.