The IODE of Carleton Place 1985

 

 

 

“The 68-year-old Carleton Place Captain Hooper chapter, named after one member’s husband who was taken prisoner in the Boer War, is one of the oldest and more active chapters in the region. Members set up a fund-raising table in a hardware store last November and in five days raised $9,543 in relief aid for victims of the Ethiopian famine. Now they’re in the midst of distributing, through local physicians and the public health unit, 500 little plastic containers that will help ambulance attendants should they be called to the homes of the elderly. The elderly will fill out forms outlining their medical histories and medication, and put the forms inside the Vials for Life. The containers will then be placed in the refrigerator and Vial for Life stickers placed on the fridge and the front door to alert ambulance attendants.

The chapter is also behind the push for the restoration of Carleton Place’s 85-year-old town hall. The women have raised about $7,000 to contribute to the project, but are holding it in trust until town council decides the future of the grey stone building. Every year, the women give out $500 in prizes to promising English and history students at Carleton Place high school. They also serve dinner four times a year at the town’s three senior citizens’ homes. The Captain Hooper chapter is also co-ordinating the’ VIP (Values, Influence and Peers) program with the town police and public schools. The program aims to curb crime in its infancy and police officers talk to Grade 6 students about vandalism.

The chapter also invites guest speakers to its monthly meetings. “We don’t concentrate on the flower arrangers and the cosmeticians,” says member Mary Cook, a 27-year member. “We try alternatives to the fluffy kind of meetings.”

The IODE, always a monarchist organization, still has a fondness for the Queen. Among the old clippings, scrapbooks and account books handed over to Knox when she became regent is an album of photographs of Her Royal Highness. The Captain Hooper chapter also updates the flags and pictures of the Queen at the local schools. Among the Ottawa chapters, the Laurentian chapter is best known because it conducts the popular house and garden tours each May. These are fund-raising tours for the public through some of the area’s most luxurious homes.

Last year, Wing Commander Guy Gibson V.C. chapter and Lord Dundonald chapter donated a bedroom and sitting room valued at $6,000 to Unitarian House; each chapter looked after a single-parent family last Christmas, and members give receptions for new Canadians at the citizenship courts. . The national chapter of the IODE spends $1.6 million annually on social service, education and citizenship programs. Its longest-standing project is the war memorial scholarships awarded annually to Canadian university students for post-graduate work in Canada and overseas. The scholarships are valued at $12,000 each and eight to 10 now are given out each year. Some 500 students have received war memorial scholarships since they were first given out in 1920. IODE chapters across the country also give out hundreds of scholar-, ships to high school students each year. ,” The national chapter is also working hard in Labrador, providing bursaries to help promising students pay for post-secondary education, furnishing community halls, stocking empty library shelves and supplying instruments for two school bands. Chapters in the Maritime provinces also just donated $27,000 for kidney research at the Isaak Walton Killam Hospital in Halifax”.

February 1985

Fact-Did you know the IODE is one of the oldest charitable organizations in Carleton Place?

 

The Second I.O.D.E. House Tour

Sweet Child O Mine —Carleton Place Nursery School Graduates 1988

Courtney Schmidt, what were you looking at?:)

 

Number 5 on the Billboard Charts of 1988

 

 

Remembering the Fast Times of the Canadian 80’s

I looked at a newspaper clipping today that featured the 80’s rock band “Platinum Blonde” from Toronto and smiled. I began to have flashbacks of one of my favourite eras- the 80’s. I remembered my “big hair” that contained so much hairspray I must have busted a hole in the ozone layer. I saw Platinum Blonde at least 6 times and thought guys were really pretty in those days. I loved their feminine clothing and the way they looked like a modern day Victorian swashbuckler. Some days when I think of the past I can’t help but head bang and throw devil fingers in the air while I play air guitar in memory of the hair bands that once were.

It was the time of Trivial Pursuit, Boom Boxes and Baby on Board signs. I wore shoulder pads that could also be used as a bullet proof vest, bodysuits and  wore Flashdance bottoms as my regular clothing. My motto was that if I had to pay good money for underwear then I was going to wear it as clothing, which I did. Nothing was sacred and as former customer Lee Aaron sang, “I was the Metal Queen.”

Canadian bands like Darby Mills & The Headpins and Holly Woods from Toronto were competing with the male bands and evening up the score. They did not wear brands like Ocean Pacific, Guess, Jordache, or Esprit. These women could rock with the best of them and the once Phallic guitar solos belonging to the axe wielding male metal heads now also belonged to the ladies.Because no one was using Spandex, my clothing was featured in Flare Magazine and Jo-Anne and Caryl Citron of the cool Cat’s Cradle store in Toronto carried my MC Hammer influenced designs. With my crimped hair and my side ponytail life was good, as I danced to the tunes of Flock of Seagulls while celebrities saved farms and tried to Feed the World.

Movies like Flashdance, Footloose and Desperately Seeking Susan made me want to dance while Ferris Bueller, or anything from John Hughes made me smile. “Heathers” had hope for beating the bullies that were somewhere “Lost in America”. Madonna ruled my world and I loved the teenage Patrick Dempsey movies because “hot girls were just in love” with him and it held hope for the nerds.

I owned 4 Swatch Watches and ripped my pantyhose to wear under Lycra leggings. Leggings had me at the word ‘hello’ and in the late 90’s my oldest son looked at me shook his head and said,

“Mum, the 80’s are over!”

Hanging my head still wearing a big hair bow I shook my rubber bracelets and sighed,

“I just wanted to ‘feel it again’.”

I mixed up my TV viewing with lovable ALF, Kids in the Hall and SCTV. John Candy was my hero and I laughingly told Catherine O’Hara when she visited my store one day that I wanted to bear his children. People suddenly wanted to ‘take off to the great white north’ and Geddy Lee from Rush made it okay for me to say ‘eh’ to my American friends. Beauty eh?

I wore my black Ray Bans even though life was sunny and full of “pretty things.”  It seems now that the 80’s was the last decade where everybody felt totally optimistic about their future. “Isn’t that special?” No Future now! “Like gag me with a spoon” with today’s bleak look on life. We wore sunglasses at night.

“It was better to look good than to feel good.” “Nothing but Champagne wishes and caviar dreams” from Robin Leech and “Totally Tubular” songs from Valley Girls. Nobody “pitied the fool” that asked “where’s the beef” and screamed “You look mahhhvellous!!”

Now I still wear my “Sunglasses at Night”  so I can keep track of the 80’s visions in my eyes and dodge the lighting from those patio lanterns! HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

A few of my designs from the late 80’s in Flare Magazine and Linda in her pink bodysuit and huge padded shoulder in her store Flash Cadilac. Buy Linda Secaspina’s Books— Flashbacks of Little Miss Flash Cadilac and 5 others on Amazon or Amazon Canada or Wisteria at 62 Bridge Street in Carleton Place

Take Me to Your Litre — The Anti-Metric Gas Station

I have to truthfully say my metric knowledge is still non-existent. This old gal refuses to leave the world of quarts, yards, and Fahrenheit due to stubbornness. In doing some reading today I forgot that in 1983 Peterborough MP Bill Domm led the parliamentary fight against metric and brought it to the Carleton Place area. He said the country was throwing away money on silly costly promotion schemes such as hiring cooking experts for a cross-country tour to demonstrate the delights of metric cuisine. So the Conservatives put their money where their mouth was and set up a flourishing Freedom to Measure service station near Carleton Place on Highway 7. It was said that motorists were driving out of their way to gas up on imperial gallons instead of price.  The MP’s couldn’t wait to be taken to court on the issue, but in the last article I could find the Liberal government never charged them.

“Metric,” said Bill Domm, ‘is dead and preparing to lie down.”

Wonder how that worked out for him. Metric is still not working for me.:)

CBC Digital 1986 News Report

 

The Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
21 Feb 1983, Mon  •  Page 3

Play it Again Sam! – Zoomers

Play it Again Sam! – Zoomers.

 

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head for days? Susan Root, a  63-year-old British woman has had the 1950’s classic “How Much is that Doggie in the Window?” stuck in her head for three years, with no end in sight. That particular song was the very first song I sang in public and to this day I can still sing it from memory- but have it stuck in my head for years? That’s like comparing I Ran So Far Away by Flock of Seagulls stuck in my head since 1983. Didn’t Bon Jovi made a career out of this problem?