THE RAM’S HEAD REVIEW

July 15, 2007

Hello, Fellow Rams. Great meeting on Thursday with five of us present, and four of us read something we had written.

Bob said he received an actual note and some pictures in the mail from Susan. I guess she and her family are still in transit on their way to Nfld. And Bob also received a letter from someone in the jewellery business. So that was two actual letters he received. Canada Post hasn’t died yet.

Margaret read first from her Peabody collection. She decided the year is 1935 for these stories. We hear Rev. Peasly gets up to make breakfast for the men on the yellow bus, but they’re gone. He then hears over the radio that criminals on a yellow bus are wanted for bank robberies, so now he’s afraid he’ll get arrested. The police arrive and question him, wanting to know if he has seen these men on a yellow bus. He tells them he can’t remember anything. Then after they leave, we learn they only wanted to thank him for the donation of the parrot to the Salvation Army.

Ellie read of a youth watching Tassi at the lakeshore. He sees her in a trance state, but then she returns to this world. She recovers and feels she should return to the village. There is a lot of suspense in this storytelling and we really hope Ellie will finish this story.

Bob read us a note Michael had written to him Nov. 24/04. It strongly suggested Bob write a personal narrative of Jacoby Bros. Jewellers instead of an encyclopedia of the industry in B.C. He admitted that in 2004, he wasn’t ready to hear that advice. After feeling unispired to write for so long, Bob has decided that’s what he will do, as the personal anecdotes are more fun to write. He read to us his rewrite on Henry Birks, which read very well and was also entertaining. In 1912-1913 they were the largest jeweller in North America. At that time they had stores in Vancouver, Toronto and Winnipeg.

I had done some more clustering. This time the exercise was based on a major childhood experience (good or bad). I did the clustering and then wrote a short vignette from that. Then I had to write another vignette first person, present tense from the same material. I ended up with a day in my life in the summer of 1957, a happy time for me when I was 6 years old. Doing this exercise caused me to remember a number of incidents I had completely forgotten about for years. Interesting exercise.

Gemma wasn’t willing to read thinking we might not be interested in her writing, so we all assured her we do want to hear more of her dog stories and more of her series of myths that she was recording.

Because I had made sugar free blueberry sauce, I served everyone spongecake with ice cream and sauce. Wonderful treat after a hot day. Food for the child in us after food for the writer’s soul. What could be better than that?

Next meeting here at my place Thursday, July 19th at 7:00 p.m. Look forward to seeing you then.

Lisa