I had always assumed the abdication crisis of 1936 was first set in motion when the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, met Wallis Simpson in 1931, but it seems David Windsor might have been finding the prospect of leading the British Empire too daunting a task as far back as 1924, if this gossipy bit from the November 6, 1924 CharlottetownGuardian is any indication.
Silly Rumor About Prince of Wales LONDON, Nov. 6.- The Prince of Wales may possibly renounce his right to the throne of England. This rumor kept the Prince eager company during his trip from America on the liner Olympic last week and greeted him as it was whispered through the crowds when he arrived at Southampton, home again after his vacation. This rumor set the whole boat buzzing before the voyage was half way done. The Prince himself scoffed at it. But one of his aides went to the trouble of issuing official denial. Perhaps the circulation of the rumor was one reason for the extraordinary censorship on the Olympic. As soon as it was discovered that there were several newspapermen on board, orders were issued that every message must be ok’d both by the purser and Captain Lascelles, the Prince’s secretary. Very few messages passed this board of censorship, and any that did were limited to twenty words. During the voyage the prince danced chiefly with Mrs. H. P. Peabody of New York, and Miss Esme Magann, of Toronto, whom he met in Canada and who made the trip with her mother, Mrs. Plunkett Magann.
And who could blame him for wanting out? He’d had a lovely visit to North America, being feted and paraded everywhere he went. He visited his Alberta ranch to play cowboy for a bit, and generally seemed to have a “Wales” of a time golfing and dancing and looking dapper and rich. Why spoil all that fun with the boring ceremonial grind of being a constitutional monarch?
My decades-old bookmark for the Journal Pioneer newspaper that continued to bounce me over to the Saltwire Network PEI news at https://www.saltwire.com/prince-edward-island/ for the past few years today dumped me into domain name purgatory.
UPDATE November 5, 2024, – it’s back, with another one year registration!
The Journal Pioneer is larger than The Guardian this morning, with a huge white border around each page. The Guardian is the same size as it was yesterday.
There have been a few drips of change here and there since Postmedia bought the Saltwire network in August. Yesterday the cartoons in The Guardian were in colour for the first time I can remember. The Saltwire branding has been almost completely removed from both papers.
Will Postmedia keep two papers on PEI? Only time will tell. I hope we didn’t witness the Journal supernova today.
Don’t care about the alternative facts in the MSM: Ed Begley Jr. time travelled from the 1980s to perform in the Island Fringe Festival this year, so help me St. Eligius.
I heard on the news this morning that some plant based beverages have been recalled across Canada due to possible listeria contamination. When I later walked by the empty cooler shelves at a local store, this yellow-and-red tag was next to all the price labels where the recalled products usually sit.
I know the tag must have something to do with the recall, but what is it supposed to be telling me? There was no information posted about the recall or what to do if I had already purchased product, which luckily I hadn’t. Is the tag telling me to call someone? Is it a re-call? Colour me perplexed.
When official photos are taken, make sure they take two: one happy and one solemn.
Or maybe just buy a couple of ads a year without someone’s mug on it? Trust me, we won’t notice the lack of smiling politicians as much as we will take note of ghoulish grinning.
It’s cool, bright and sunny here this morning. Around 3:30 this afternoon, we will step outside our house and watch the moon eat the sun. We should experience 2 minutes and 47 seconds of totality here. I bought viewing glasses months ago, signed up to do some citizen science, and now just have to wait for this once-in-many-lifetimes event.
If what I heard on CBC is true and a total solar eclipse only happens in a specific location on average every 375 years, the last time a total solar eclipse occurred where we live would have been around 1650, and this land would be have been covered by an ancient forest: beautiful tall white pine, red oak, birch, maple, spruce. The red squirrels, chickadees, blue jays, crows and ravens we see here year-round would be flying and running around, perhaps joined by a now-extirpated species, the black bear. My ancestors were still all in the UK, 100 years from even thinking about heading west, so maybe a Mi’kmaq family were on the river fishing when early night came and went.
When bidden, Perplexity “curated” a playlist for the event, but left off some obvious (to my human brain anyway) choices: Moonlight Sonata, Claire de Lune, Here Comes The Sun. And, of course, You’re So Vain, with its line about some pompous fella taking his Learjet to Nova Scotia to see the 1972 solar eclipse. Did you know Carly Simon’s daughter, Sally, now lives in Halifax? The media has truly covered every angle under the sun.
We won’t be blasting music here, but will instead watch and listen to how the birds and animals around us respond. I’m going to let our little flock of hens run around the yard and watch them head back to the safety of their coop as it starts to get dark, then wait to see if they reemerge after their shortest night ever. I will report.
60 years ago tonight, Cassius Clay beat world heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston at a match in Miami Beach. Soon after that fight, Clay would take the name Cassius X and then Muhammad Ali.
A few days earlier, the Beatles returned to England after a successful short tour of the US, the start of Beatlemania on this continent. They appeared three times on The Ed Sullivan Show, the biggest variety program on American television, watched by tens of millions each week. Their second appearance was broadcast live from Miami Beach on February 16.
It just so happened that my parents, Harold and Vivian, took their first vacation to Florida in February 1964 and were in Miami Beach on February 16. They were both 41 and had been married for 19 years. They had worked hard to build up their general store business, so were overdue some fun and relaxation. They travelled with my mother’s cousin and her husband. By all accounts, they all had a marvellous time soaking up the sun and seeing the sights of Miami and Daytona.
Harold and Vivian Phillips, Miami Beach, February 1964. They obviously had a snazzy TV in their room, but my mother doesn’t remember if they watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan on February 16. With few stations on the TV, my guess is they did, but she was more a Perry Como fan and never really got the Beatles.
Bill for nine nights at the Golden Nugget motel, Miami Beach, February 1964.
My father lugged his 8mm Kodak film camera with him, taking plenty of shots of palm trees, orange groves, alligators and swimming pools. He took some footage of BOAC and KLM airplanes outside a terminal somewhere along their Summerside>Moncton>Montreal>NYC>Miami route.
BOAC and KLM planes, 1964
Their handwritten tickets listed their NY airport as IDL for Idlewild, except Idlewild had been renamed JFK in December 1963 just after the assassination of the US president, but obviously the change had been recent enough that no one was used to it.
Moncton to Miami $132.99 return via Tran-Canada and Eastern airlines.YSU (Summerside) to YQM (Moncton) $14.00 return
One day, the four travellers hopped in their rented convertible and drove around the Miami area, my father aiming his camera at the passing buildings and advertising banner towing planes. When we watched this reel when I was a child, this short sequence would just slip by, but when I had the film digitized, I was able to pause it and have a better look, and quickly fell down a rabbit hole of early 1960s popular culture.
Miami Beach, February 1964, showing advertising banner towing planes, Sonny Liston’s training headquarters at Surfside, Florida, and Hotel Deauville with Mitzi Gaynor on the marquee.
I knew who Mitzi Gaynor was from her movie roles and appearances on television variety shows when I was a child. I looked up the Hotel Deauville and learned it was where the Beatles had stayed in Miami and where their second Ed Sullivan appearance had been recorded, a show that also included Gaynor. Then I read about Sonny Liston’s training camp in Surfside, just north of Miami Beach, and of him appearing on the Ed Sullivan show the same night as the Beatles, and the Beatles also meeting Cassius Clay and posing for a famous photo, and the February 25 boxing match. So much was going on!
The Beatles meeting Cassius Clay/Muhammed Ali at the 5th St. Gym, Miami
I’ve done a few presentations about my father’s film footage to local groups and have used this little clip to encourage people to look at their own photos and videos and to save, document and share what they have. It might take many years before something becomes important or interesting, but if you haven’t saved it, you’ll never know.
What my father filmed isn’t as important as footage of the Beatles or Liston or Ali or even Mitzi Gaynor would be, certainly, but he did capture a few seconds of a time in US history when the country was still trying to come to terms with the assassination of their president only three months earlier, square old Ed Sullivan was kicking off Beatlemania using the huge influence of his television program, and Clay/Ali was on his way to becoming an important sports star as well as a towering figure in the black power, civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements.
What do you have in that cardboard box in your attic or closet? Nothing much? Look again.
Earlier this week I changed the tagline for my blog to Always looking for connections. When I’ve been asked what I write about on my website, I’ve said it’s about community and family history, a bit of DIY, anything that has caught my interest, really, everything and nothing.
But I realized recently that what I get most from writing here is figuring out how I’m connected to other people, both alive and dead, how the past is connected to the present, how one thought leads to another. Writing this blog helps me find my place in the midst of churn and the passage of time.
News is spreading across, well, the world of the death of Leo Cheverie, a widely-known and hugely loved Islander. I met Leo 7 years ago when I was working on an outdoor theatre show. He had volunteered to help park cars, cheerfully donning a safety vest and capably Tetrising vehicles to make the best use of the space available. We got chatting and quickly we connected the dots: he knew my neighbour’s nephew, perhaps a vague connection, but that’s enough here. I know you. We are connected.
When I asked Leo if he was going to stay to see the show, the only real perk of volunteering for a sold-out show, he said he wished he could, but he had just come from volunteering at another event and had promised to sell 50/50 tickets at a concert later that evening. Three volunteer roles in one day was probably not unusual for Leo, which is how he was known everywhere.
I bumped into Leo a few times since then: at a rally, at a meeting, and on social media. The last time I saw him was in December 2021, when he and I joined a mutual friend who was visiting PEI and staying at a beautiful Summerside inn. The heritage home was decorated for Christmas, and we had a lovely time talking, drinking tea and eating Christmas cookies in the inn’s parlour.
The afternoon slipped away, snow started to fall and I had to start for home. I hugged Leo and made him promise to visit me during his summer solstice trip, when he and a friend would start their day at the East Point lighthouse and drive across the province to end up in North Cape, stopping to visit folks along the way. I’m not sure he was ever able to make that longest-day pilgrimage again as he was diagnosed with cancer in spring 2022.
I can’t claim any deeper connection to Leo than what I’ve written here, but I admired and liked him so much, and his example makes me want to do more, do it cheerfully, do it tirelessly. To nurture old connections and find new.
Deborah and Mike Scholes have been in Sussex, New Brunswick for weeks waiting for the right weather conditions to allow them to start their journey across the Atlantic in a hot air balloon. Today was the day, and they lifted off at about 9:45 am local time.
I checked their live tracking system and their initial path from Sussex had them heading to Moncton, then Shediac, and if they stayed on that course it looked as though they would be passing close to Tyne Valley, not far from where I live. Never one to miss the opportunity to stare at something going overhead and wave at it, I gathered my camera and zoom lens and got ready to head off just after lunch to find them.
When I checked the map one more time before I left, they had started to head slightly more to the east, which meant I had a bit further to drive than I had planned. I decided to go instead to Union Corner Provincial Park, and the tracking map later confirmed I had picked the right spot! I made good time, but arrived a few minutes too late to see them. It was also pretty cloudy.
I hopped in the car again and headed towards Summerside. As I zipped along Route 11 in St. Nicholas, I looked up and there they were, 12,896.3 feet above me, travelling at 23.5 mph!
View of balloon from Muddy Creek, PEI. I swear it’s there!See it?
That’s an open gondola, folks.
I knew the Linkletter Community Centre about 10 minutes away would have a clear view from their parking lot, so I continued on there and was able to watch the balloon for a few minutes as it floated on toward Malpeque Bay.
And yes, I gave a little wave, which is completely silly, but the child in me needs to emerge every so often, and young me would definitely have waved to the brave adventurers floating toward the ocean.
Update July 21, 2023 – Due to technical issues, Deborah and Mike had to land their balloon this morning near Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador. Must have been a huge disappointment for them, but I don’t doubt they will try again. And if you have seen the musical Come From Away, you know that you are guaranteed a warm welcome and safe harbour if you land in NL!
