Sydney in the ’70s
It must have been in 1975 or ’76. I was still living in California but came up to Oysterville with Charlie and Marta for Christmas. We arrived a few days early, just in time for my folks’ Christmas Party which was always a gala event. We had all brought our ‘best bib and tucker’ as directed by my mother and looked forward to the big evening with great anticipation.
Mom, always ‘the hostess with the mostess,’ had invited a number of ‘young people’ for our benefit – some, not really ‘young’ by any usual standard, but closer in age to me than to her. Among them were Noel and Pat Thomas, Gordon Schoewe and Roy Gustafson who, it would turn out, became life-long friends.
Patty and Noel in the ’70s
The details of the party mostly escape me except that Charlie spent the preparation hours in his room building an exact cardboard miniature of the Oysterville Church – exact except for the slot in the roof into which people could drop money; the folks had decided that the party should be a fund-raiser for the restoration of the church.
I also remember that Charlie and Marta disappeared partway into the evening’s festivities and later learned they had gone upstairs with Jimmy and Jeff Campiche (and maybe a few others) to play cribbage. Or was it poker? Anyway, I couldn’t find them and leave it to a mom to be annoyed… I’m pretty sure no one else noticed.
Gordon and Sydney in the ’70s
What Noel and Pat and Gordon and Roy remembered for years and years was the dress I was wearing – “long, slinky, red, and dripping with fringe” as Gordon always insisted. And they all always agreed.
Though the long, slinky, fringy parts of their memories were true, the dress was actually burnt orange and brown in color. I still have it somewhere – waiting for twenty or twenty-five pounds to disappear so I can wear it again. But then… the memory is so much better than the reality, why bother?
I have a burgundy dress with fring. I will get it out for Christmas!