Saturday, May 28, 2011

The Dummy

Recently a movie came out in which the main character can only communicate through a beaver hand puppet. As I am not a fan of the actor, I won't see it but its premise reminds me of my father's friend's daughter. She could only speak when she was performing as a ventriloquist. She was extremely shy never making eye contact yet she could go on TV and do her act.

She came over for some publicity stills when I was 15 or 16. She is a year younger. She was wearing her usual shirt waist dress several sizes too large, anklets, greasy hair in a 1950s style and wing-tipped glasses. This was the late 1960s. I had my wire rimmed glasses and straight (finally my hair was stylish) and my Nehru paisley jacket.My father had a photography business on the side. Although our house was full of cameras, there were no pictures of me once I turned 5 as I was deemed 'unphotogenic'. The picture in my blog a few weeks back showing me as a 15 year old was the first picture my father took of me since I was 5. It was on the same night he was shooting the ventriloquist. He liked to use large format cameras giving 4x5 negatives. As film was expensive, he would make test shots with a Polaroid, which is the shot of me. No 4x5 film wasted on this one! In between shots ( I had to help with the lighting) I tried to talk to this girl but she just would look away.

Years later, she moved into the co-op where I lived. She was still wearing the same outfit from the 1950s even though now it was the early 70s.I was very annoyed. It was no co-incidence she was there so I assumed she moved in to spy on me for my father. She was without her dummy so she would not speak. I tried to be friendly in case she moved in to have a friend. She had none that I could tell. She abruptly moved out after a month or so without paying rent. I am Facebook friends with her cousin's son (weird story there) and have been told that her life became even sadder after college.

I've been busy gardening, wedding planning and baby sitting. Josh came back safe though vowing never to return there despite how nice the people were to him. He found the place to be the polar opposite of Germany. He and his wife stopped over to visit. Family BBQ tomorrow.

Carp have been found flopping on the soccer fields in the aftermath of the flood. Although we are on higher ground, we did not get away with no damage. Yesterday I noticed our house smelled. Today I found a throw rug in our lower level totally wet and smelly. We can not tell where the water came from. Hopefully it was just a one time occurrence.

1 comment:

Teri Bernstein said...

Saw the Beaver. I am not a fan of Mel's either, but this was different. I felt for him. And his family.
Glad your nuclear family is back. I am writing this from London, BTW...check out my literally foxy picture on Facebook...

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