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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance-Times, 1984-07-04, Page 31Page 16--Crossroads—July 4, 1984 •••-• 011ellre •otti•'e Five new performers excitement. She's a terrific making their debuts at the performer! Blyth Festival, two old Also a newcomer to Blyth, avorites and a beautiful Fur Gerald Lenton as the tutor is Person named Lord Nelson a sympathetic and en - combine to create a couraging teacher to. Anna. masterpiece on the Blyth Audiences can't help but stage. "A Spider in The hurt for him when he House" neatly bridges two becomes involved in this worlds. A 1915 setting is dead-end triangle. It is part shared by an elderly aunt of a torn note written by him and her two nieces who are that gives the writer the living a quiet life in an- most insight into the deep ticipation of the end of the anguish -and concern this war when the elder niece's God-fearing man feltas he husband will be coming walked away from this home. Into this peaceful home. home comes a young man, a Andrew Martin Thomson, tutor who has been hired by though also new to Blyth, is the aunt to teach tb younger familiar to most of u§ niece. Anna at 16 is sweet because of his television and vivacious but her commercials. He lends emotional development and comedy to the play as the learning have been stifled by city boyfriend who has never a guilt complex since the had to shave or brush his death of her parents in a teeth without electricity. His tragic fire eight years stay at thehome also ends in earlier. unhappiness when he is The results are predic- scared away by the thought to 1e. Throw a handsome of making a personal young gentleman into the commitment. midst of the lives of two Jenny Munday also shows emotional lonely women and her flair for comedy in the trouble is just around the role of the film producer who corner! The trouble grows to has commissioned this catastrophic proportions and writer to produce a script ends in tragedy for all four of and must check periodically the characters. to see if progress is being Interspersed neatly bet- made so her investors won't ween the 1915 scenes is the desert her. She breezes in at 1980s story of a film script just the right moments for writer who has come to this. the discouraged writer — old home for inspiration for and for the audience. Many script. All around her are would have loved to share. traces of the past letters, her "indoor picnic". She can notes, a locked box buried in return to Blyth anytime! the garden — and as; she Laurel Paetz, who has learns more about these worked mainly in Western strangers from her past, a drama begins to form in her mind. A secondary, modern- day drama is provided by the writer and her live-in boyfriend who,, while living, in this secluded hideaway with few conveniences, learn a lot about the way their ancestors lived — and a lot about each other. Beth' Amos returns to Blyth for` her third season with the company and portrays Aunt Sarah as a stable and stern, yet loving, head of the family. The audience loves her and when tragedy strikes the family, grieves for her more than anyone else. Mary Ann Coles has also been at Blyth before, in 1979 performances and at workshops last summer. As the young writer struggling to find a story and some meaning in her own life, she becomes the one who ef' fectively makes the crossover t� the other life. Janet Land, who plays the young niece in her Blyth debut, is superb in what is the most dramatically demanding role in the play. Her outburts of enthusiasm and . joy which turn into jealousy, fear and '.anger, spark the production with 53 Canada, is the sedate and ladylike elder niece waiting patiently for ler husband to come home fr m the war. It is she' who tears . this' quiet family apart in a moment of weakness and it is her haunting face the audience - sees long after the play ends. A memorable performance by this Blyth newcomer. This excellent play ;was written by Brian Tremblay and its title comes from # poem recited by Aunt Sarah about Judgment Day. Lighting and special effects by Harry Frehner. are superb and the set is gorgeous, complete with priceless mirrored hall rack and old-fashioned victrola. The play runs 'for eight more performances in July 'and two in August and is a fine evening of en- tertainment. And beteg something for you to ponder — guess where the beautiful Lord Nelson ends up! Fish farming grows Production of "farm - grown" salmon and trout in Norway in 1982 rose 2,000 tons to 14,956 tons for a first- hand value of $65.7 million, 10 percent of the total year's value of all Norwegian fish- eries. THE BRAIN RESEARCH FUND Our main purpose is to find the cause of brain tumors in children and adults. Our goal is to discover atureo WE, NEED YOUR HELP! Your -financial support is vital both for medical research 'and to provide literature to patients. We are committed to the belief that_ withyour help we will in time be able to prevent suffering arid in- crease -the hope for cure in pa- tients- with brain tumors. Please help . send a donation today to BRAIN RESEARCH FUND c/o Victoria Hospital, London, Ont. We' are a non-profit, tax exempt, charitable organization. An contri- butions are 'tax deductible. Shirley Whittington Those lost • les and forgotten iegwarmers One of our sons lost his 10 - speed bike in the city a few years ago. And. then, while he was riding along in the streetcar a couple of days later he looked out the win- dow.and saw some boy riding his Rawleigh. He leapt off at the next stop and sprinted down the street. "Hey you!" he puffed. "Get off my bike!" The thief was so startled that he did. He made some feeble excuse about just bor- rowing the bike, and then fled on foot while Sonny rode home in triumph. Not all Lost articles are so handily recovered. The Toronto Transit Commission has warehouses full of stuff that passengers have left be- hind on streetcars and buses. A recent three-month period saw a harvest of 22,000 ob- jects, abandoned by their ab- sent-minded owners. False teeth, girdles, shovels, baby buggies — it's an amazing inventory. No wonder the TTC has periodic lost arti- cles auctions. We went to one last week- end. We were not alone. The su- burban arena was filled with a well-behaved crowd who paid close attention to the auctioneer, a natty gentle- man with a quicksilver tongue. "Two sleeping bags, " he carolled, "and they're eider down or feathers. Get it? Eider down or feathers. I hear a ten an' a ten and a - who'll ,gimme twenny. And there's a twenny anna twenny and a thirty. There's a thirty anna forty. Fortyfif- ty, fifty. Sixty once. Sixty twice. Sixty three times — and sold for sixty dollars."" He. paused for breath and continued. "Twenty woolen toques." Twenty woolen toques? Our first thought Was that anybody who "could mislay twenty woolen toques on a streetcar might very well mislay his head as well. Slowly it came to us that this Was a collection of caps, a smorgasbord of chapeaux, assembled by the blithe spirits in 'the TTC lost -and - found department. It was a warm day and bidding on the woolen hats was listless. They fetched only six dollars, a piddling thirty cents a head. Bidding was brisker on a more seasonal lot of twenty pair of sunglasses which left the auction block at twenty- two dollars. Lots of things were sold in lots of twenty — umbrellas, sweaters, gloves, paperbacks. A mental image formed of twenty progeny of an auction -mad Dad, clad in toques, gloves, sunglasses and sweaters, sitting under umbrellas, reading. The auction's voice inter- rupted our reveries. "A pair of jeans," he cried,"brand • new, with the sales slip. Who wants a pair of jeans?" "Not me," gagged a wag behind us. "I've already got one Jean. Don't know what I'd do with a pair." His wife' giggled. His friend bought a 35 mm camera for forty-five dollars. Binoculars went t for forty-two bucks and were followed by umbrellas and beach towels, umbrellas and leg warmers, ice skates, ski poles, gloves, and pantyhose and umbrellas. What fun it must be to be the,, driver of a streetcar! The working day must be fraught with sur- prises, at the end of the line anyway. We noted- tremendous in- terest in what the -auctioneer called "mystery packages". Some.. were locked suitcases full of ... who knows? Dope? Human limbs? Dirty "laun- . dry? They sold for sixty dol- . lars; ' each. Big cardboard cartons full of sporting goods, or toys or assorted clothing items sold for simi- lar amounts. Our interest,. palled after the fifth bunch of umbrellas. We threaded our way through the crowd to the exit. There's a •. little house on the highway on the outskirts of North Bay. It's the origin- al Dionne farmhouse, now a museum, and I went back to see it on the 50th anniversary of a birth that made medical history: About 4 a.m. on May 28, 1934, the Dionne Quintuplets made' their dramatic en- trance into this world. Even if you weren't around when the event occurred, the odds are that you're as familiar with their existence as you are with Niagara Falls, Mount . Everest or Queen Victoria. Even the country doctor, Dr. Alan Dafoe, who deliver- ed the last three- babies, -- didn't expect them to survive more than a few hours. Their combined weight was only 13 lbs. 5 oz. ' The infants were placed in a butcher's basket, the only thing available to hold them. The doctor put the basket be- side an old' wood stove in the kitchen to keep the tiny' babies warm, and turned his attention to the mother, Mrs. Elzira Dionne, who already had a family of five children. Oliva Dionne, the father, was in an understandable state' of shock! When the babies continued to live, the impact struck — history was in the making! Press people from every- where converged on the :farmhouse, originally located midway between the villages of Callender and Corbeil in the North • Bay area. Promoters sped to the scene, trying to get Papa Dionne to signcontracts for everything from circus ap- pearances to endorsement of soaps. Presents, five of each, came from all ',over the world. For a few months, the Quints lived with their fami- ly in the farn ouse, which Suddenly we bumped up against a- pair of familiar young people at the door. He was standing on a skate- board; working a softball in and out of a leather glove. She was smiling broadly and saying, "Look' what we got got sixty dollars." We delved into their big cardboard tartan and beheld a karate suit, a couple of foo balls, some squash rackets, a tennis racket, a set of hockey pads, another baseball glove, three wine- skins, a hunting knife, a motorcycle helmet, and a pair of green plastic beach thongs. It seemed reason- able to assume that the during the depths of the De- pression had neither electri- city nor running water. But they had become "the world's darlings". Everyone felt they should have the best of everything. They were taken from their- family „by the Ontario Government, de- clared wards of the State and a trust fund was set up for them. A special nursery with a glassed -in playground for public' observation was erected across from their home.,. For nine years they attended functions, endorsed products, up to 3,000 people a day would visit them. I recall. going to see them. „Ithvas like a carnival. There were concession booths everywhere. Everyone made money from the Quints, including their parents, rela- ' tives, Dr. Dafoe, even the midwives. The,. life -in -a -fishbowl sur- vival proved tragic for the Quints. Papa Dionne went to court and won his daughters back, taking them to live in an 18 -room mansion he, had 'built. He surrounded it with barbed wire. But it was too late. The Quints couldn't get along with their family, and eventually moved to the Montreal area. Today, only three survive. Emilie, an epileptic, died at the age of 19, and Marie died 'at 36 of a heart attack. The others live in St. Bruno, a Montreal suburb. Annette and Cecile are both separat- ed from _their husbands. Yvonne tried unsuccessfully to become a nun, Mrs. Dionne is an. invalid. Oliva died in 197.9. About 30,000 people, a year still visit the _ Quints' Museum. Some to re- call 4he days when the•story was unfolding, others to learn of the famous five and the childhood tnt was never their own, skateboard, baseball and glove had sprung from the same cornucopia. "We've already sold a bunchy stuff," said she. "We'll let the last tennis racket go for five dollars," said he. We handed them a fiver and ran for a streetcar. On board, the following ex- change took place: • "What a pair of athletes!" "What a pair of salemen! You haven't played .. tennis for ten years." "That's okay. We'll probably leave the dumb racket on the streetcar any- way." " Sic transit tennis rackets. 'Four Diamond' rating The American Automobile Association has awarded its "Four Diamond" rating to 1,400 hotels, motels and re- sorts in the United States, m, Canada and Mexico for 1983. 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