Readers Write

Dear Perry, would you be so kind, to fill a request and sing a song we love best...?

There’s a blast from the past for you!

They talk about ear bugs, songs that stick in our minds that we sometimes just can’t shake. This one goes way back to the Dark Ages of black and white, 17-inch screen television and the Perry Como Show, one of my father’s favourites.

I say one of my father’s favourites (along with the, shudder, likes of Lawrence Welk—“Wunnerful, wunnerful”—God, I hated that show), as Perry Como was pretty square for my generation. Elvis was just coming into fashion although I never became a fan of his either, even though I tried to because all my friends and schoolmates were enthralled with the new rock and roll. So why does that introduction to Perry Como’s viewers’ requests remain indelibly embedded in my mind, most of a lifetime later?

Not that it matters. I’m just using it as a roundabout lead to next week’s Chronicles when I turn the tables on my readers—that’s you—and, instead of doing all the work of researching and writing a new post, I’m going to let you do most of the work for me.

Never a week goes by but I receive fascinating emails from both regular readers and from those who track me down online with queries and, not as common but best of all, offers to share their family histories and scrapbooks. These come from close to home and from afar, two of the most recent and most promising being from the Maritimes and the United Kingdom. I shall be sharing them with you next week and in due course.

I know you’ll find them every bit as intriguing as I have.

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Photo caption: A descendant of Duncan Dr. Watson Dykes who has inherited the family archives and scrapbooks has kindly offered to send me photos of Dr. and Mrs. Dykes. Dr. Dykes served his patients at all hours and served as community health officer during the Spanish 'Flu epidemic of a century ago. This is a great example of what sometimes comes to me through the joys of email.