A book start to finish: part 2 the inspiration continued

The Discovery Channel phoned because they were doing a segment on strange and or outrageous wills.* Could we do some photos of the fender for them.  Sure. I took some shots and sent them a copy of the case report in the 1948 Canadian Bar Review vol. 26. But the glare off the glass was too much for them.  More photos please.  More photos were taken.  Contact info to the professional who had taken a shot for the On Campus News was offered.  Nope.  Could the case be opened?  Sure, we’ll just find the key…..key? What key?  The key to what? Who would have that key?  Try this key?  No?  This one?  No?  The Discovery Channel offered to pay to have the case broken into.  As no key continued to be found the break in was arranged.  Facilities Management sent their experts, the case was taken into the Head Librarian's office, and behind closed doors, shhhh it’s a library, the case was opened and a new lock installed.  The fender was removed briefly and thoroughly photographed. 

Oh, that key.

Then Discovery Channel asked if we knew anything else about Mr. Harris.  And I was off.  For years I had seen the fender as everyone else had seen the fender, as evidence, as a noteworthy case in estate law, but as to the person who had actually lain trapped under the tractor all those years ago, breathing through the pain, scrabbling to get his knife out of his pocket and scratching those words into the side of his tractor?  He had disappeared.  I set out to find out what I could about him.

*I don't know what title they decided on in the end, or even if a show was finally produced on the subject. 

You can see why Discovery Channel didn't want my poor little photos.

past and future

audio books



Postcards of the past's future.  Pretty spot on for a 90 year projection (the artist was predicting 2000). Better guess about the future than George Orwell.  Mind you, given a bad apple or six and some hard times we may just make it to 1984 yet.  There are links all about to a more complete set of these (including fly by drink pickup).  Put "Villemard" in your google search will find them for you (I tried Bing because my work computer defaults to it, and once again....useless).  The most complete set I've seen is Tom Wigley's flickr stream. I tried to find out Villemard first name and after 10 minutes I can tell you with some certainty that it was probably Adolphe. 

video telegraph

I love the Edwardian feel of these images.  They are positively steampunk.  Makes me think of my favourite murder mystery series:  Murdoch.

A book start to finish: part 1 the inspiration

The thing about a book, aside from the fact that you will still be able to use if after you've spilt coffee on it and it has been handed down from your great grandmother to you, is what is inside it.  What's inside it makes it worth hanging onto when your great gran passes it on to you and your uncle Dwayne drank coffee on it the morning of his wedding and knocked over his mug in a nervous action checking on the ring in his pocket. I have been planning a book for the library where I work because we've got a little story and that little story grew a bit over the summer and I thought it should have a little book to go with the bits left over from the event and the legends that surround them. 

The first bit is the sad bit.  In June of 1948, a farmer, named Cecil George Harris, told his wife he was going out to do some work and he'd be home around 10pm.  He did not arrive.  Mrs. Harris went out and found poor George pinned in a nasty manner by his farm equipment.  She got neighbours and they got George out, but two days later George gave it all up.  When his tractor was inspected it turned out George had not been entirely idle during his hours of captivity.  He had used his penknife to scratch a will into the fender of his tractor.  That fender was used a court case about George's will and proved useful because everything did indeed 'go to the wife'.  The tractor fender, now evidence pretending to be a tractor fender, was kept in the court house in Kerrobert.*  Many years later the court house was closed and in a fit of keen preservation the fender was presented to the College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan.  They dutifully built a lovely case and the fender was set up in the Law Library on display.

Until this summer when I took a phone call from the Discovery Channel.....

*The Kerrobert Court House is now used as the Town Hall and an art Gallery.  And John George Diefenbaker, whose murder case seems to be responsible for its ghost, is a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan College of Law and his portrait hangs over my desk and haunts me.

I stand corrected

I spent the weekend with my mother and let her know I'd blogged about Rasputin on Friday.  No, no, the prof didn't meet Rasputin, he met Kerensky, the Russian Prime Minister from July to November of 1917.*  It was Kerensky who had the pleasure of meeting Grigori and the bugs in his beard.  So that's four degrees of separation through time from Rasputin to me.  Further from the bugs.  Not a bad thing.

*Kerensky fled Russia shortly after the revolution, and eventually moved to the United States where he worked as a professor and lecturer up until his death. 

Today's history nugget

Thought I think I should call this the Rasputin file.  My mother took Russian history when she was at University, she took so much they gave her a master's degree.  One of her prof's had actually met Rasputin.  He told the students that good old Grigori had bugs in his beard.  (Who is surprised?)  Something I never fail to remember when I hear of Rasputin.  And you note that is only three degrees of separation in time from Rasputin to me.  In any case I flipped open a book upon checking it in today and....did you know...Charles Darwin's dad was 6'2 and 336 lbs?