The Lancaster Bomber: The Heart of the Museum

It was October 2014.  Rob and I were invited to his cousin Peter's daughter's wedding in Dundas at a beautiful old church with stain glass windows and ornate archways.  The wedding couple, Crystal and A.J., held their reception in a unique place:  the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum.  The guest of honour was Vera.  Vera is not a person, but a plane, one of two airworthy Lancaster bombers left in the world.  Here is her story.

Victory Aircraft Ltd where the Avro Lancaster was built courtesy www.bombercommandmuseum.ca

VeRA, named after her call letters V-RA, was one of hundreds of Lancasters built in Canada. Made of 55,000 separate parts, she was designed and built by AVRO in Malton, Ontario.  The four engine Lancaster had been "the best night bomber of the Second World War" according to a Luftwaffe commander.  In 156,000 sorties. the Lancaster dropped two-thirds of the bombs on Europe during World War II.  In fact, my father in law, Albert Jonasson, remembers hiding in his basement in Germany as the Lancasters zoomed overhead on their way to bomb Hamburg.  The Lancaster was nicknamed "The Workhorse" of D-Day in 1944.  Therefore, the Royal Air Force was intending to fly Lancasters, including VeRA, in the proposed invasion of Japan, named Operation Tiger Force, in 1945.

A Lancaster bomber over Hamburg, Germany courtesy
http://ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=3232.

However, after the atom bomb was dropped on Japan, the country surrendered and the Lancaster was no longer needed for combat. Instead,  What happened to the other Lancasters?  Three thousand two hundred and forty nine of the bombers were lost during the Second World War.  Many of those that survived were sold to Canadian farmers for a few hundred dollars.  Still others were used to train air force crews and for search and rescue missions.  VeRA fell into the latter category.

Lancaster bombers over England circa 1944 courtesy media.winnipegfreepress.com.

For fourteen years, VeRA had no purpose.  Then, in 1977, she was purchased for $10,000 by the Canadian Warplane Museum in Hamilton, Ontario.  My husband's cousin, Peter Jonasson, who used to put together model airplanes as a kid, and whose father fought in the Second World War, found out about the purchase of the Lancaster bomber.  He introduced himself to the crew that intended to restore the airplane.  They loved his enthusiasm and appreciated his knowledge of wiring, and welcomed him aboard to help with Vera's restoration.

In 1988, the bomber was fully restored and ready to fly.  Some people expected about 200 specatators on the day of its first flight.  Instead, 20,000 spectators, including Peter Jonasson, lined the runway at Hamilton Airport the day that if first flew after 25 years of sitting on the tarmac.  VeRA took its place in the Warplane Heritage Museum, "the heart of the museum".  She was mounted as a World War II memorial outside the Canadian Legion in Goderich.

Lancaster bomber at Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum courtesy upload.wikimedia.org.

Today, VeRA remains only one of two airworthy Lancaster bombers in the world.  This past summer, VeRA was reunited with the other Lancaster for a seven week airshow in Britain.  She came home, just in time for Peter's daughter's wedding to take her place behind the head table.  Congratulations, Crystal and A.J.!  May your marriage be as strong and as enduring as the Lancaster bomber!

How to Find Inspiration for Your Poetry

"Ideas come from  everything." (Alfred Hitchcock)

As I said in a recent post, keep a journal of ideas to serve as inspiration for your poetry.  Write down your emotions and descriptions.  The Writers Relief website recommends keeping a file for newspaper and magazine clippings, sketches and quotes to use as inspiration for your writing http://writersrelief.com/blog/2008/03/poetry-finding-your-inspiration/.

Wikihow suggests visiting a place that can serve as a setting for a poem.  Why not take a trip to a forest or garden, waterfalls or river?  "Find the natural rhythm of everyday life," suggests Wikihow (http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Inspiration-for-Poetry).  Use all five senses to take in the experience.  Brainstorm words and phrases to describe the experience ex. active verbs and vivid nouns.

Nature isn't the only source of inspiration.  Visit your local park or cafe.  Take a bus or train ride. Write down your observations.  You'd be amazed at how underneath the ordinary lies the extraordinary.

Keep your sense on alert at all times, even in your own home.  Keep a notebook at your bedside to record dreams or ideas that come to you in the middle of the night.  Go online to find writing prompts ex. "What if?" scenarios.  Scan the newspaper and magazine headlines for ideas.  Study paintings or photographs.  My poem "Sunset over the Ice" is based on a famous painting by Frederic Church. Study your scrapbooks; maybe a vacation photo will spark a memory.

Perhaps you have a family member who inspires you.  I wrote a poem about my husband's grandma who survived the war called "On Prussian Plains" which I read at her funeral in 2007.  Think of a special spot you like to visit.  I wrote a poem about a bridge that Rob and I like to stand on when we visit St. Mary's.  Study old postcards.  I found a postcard called "Greetings from Holly Beach" which spurred me on to write a poem about Hurricane Rita.  There's a map on the wall of my in-law's cottage called "The Ghostfleet of Long Point".  I penned a poem of the same name.

Maybe an injustice has taken place which has moved you to write a poem.  Oprah Winfrey talked about a young black mother of ten being gunned down on her way home from work as she searched in a ditch for her wallet.  Her story inspired me to write "Justice for Johnnie Mae".  An occasion is also a good reason to write a poem.  When my cousin Jeff got married I did a bit of research on his new bride and wrote a poem about the new couple.  

Note:  For more inspiration, read The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.

http://imgarcade.com/1/pretty-sunset-pictures-with-trees/

Glenna's Goal Book

"Ask and it shall be given you; seek and you shall find; knock and the door shall be open." 

(Matthew 7:7)

In 1977, Glenna Salsbury was a single mom with three daughters, a car payment and a house payment.  She also had big dreams.  She attended a seminar about goal setting where the speaker talked about a principle called I x V + Reality (Imagination x Vividness = Reality).  Glenna put the theory to the test.  Knowing that the brain works in images rather than words, she decided to make a goal picture book.  She bought a scrapbook and filled it with pictures from old magazines which represented her dreams, including:

1.  a good looking man
2.  a woman in a wedding gown & a man in a tuxedo
3.  a bouquet of flowers
4.  a diamond
5.  a Caribbean Island
6.  a lovely new home
7.  new furniture
8.  a Vice President of a corporation

She studied her goal book regularly, imprinting the images on her brain.  Eight weeks later, a good looking man pulled up beside her in his sports car.  He asked her out on a date, where he presented her with a bouquet of flowers.  Within a year, he presented her with a diamond ring.  After two years of dating, they married in California.  They honeymooned on St. John's Island in the Caribbean.  A year later, they moved into their lovely home filled with new furniture.  At that point, Glenna showed her husband her goal book.  At the same time, she became vice president of human resources at her company.  Never give up on your dreams!  Glenna is living proof.

Source:  "Glenna's Goal Book", Chicken Soup for the Soul (1993) at http://www.chickensoup.com/book-story/36234/glennas-goal-book.

Click here to read about one woman's attempt to make a goal book:
http://thatprecariousgait.com/2011/04/24/you-cant-get-it-if-you-dont-ask-for-it/.

bowmanfamilyservices.com

How to Plan a Wedding on a Budget

Today we were invited to my sister Laurie's house for my niece Cassandra's engagement party. Cassandra is my first niece or nephew to get married.  I was so excited to hear about her wedding plans.  She knows how to find a deal!  It would be so easy to spend $10,000 and up on a wedding. However, if you shop around like my niece, you can get a lot more for less.  Here are ten suggestions:

1.  Get married in the off season and save hundreds or even thousands of dollars (November to April).

2.  Get married on a Friday or Sunday rather than Saturday.

3.  Get married at a location that hasn't renovated recently.  Rob and I had our wedding reception at the Dundas Valley Golf & Curling Club.  They hadn't renovated in about 25 years, so the prices were reasonable, but it was still neat and clean.  The food was excellent and the view magnificent (it sat on the escarpment overlooking the city of Hamilton).

4.  Cut the guest list.  You save on food, drinks, invitations and even centrepieces.

5.  Buy flowers in season.  Stick to one or two types.

6.  Offer beer and wine rather than a full bar.

7.  Serve a one or two tiered cake and then supplement it with a sheet cake (hidden in the kitchen).

8.  Order single page wedding invitations to save on paper.

9.  E-mail your invitations.

10.  Make your wedding cake the favours.

11.  Serve comfort foods like barbecue chicken or mac and cheese which are often cheaper.

12.  Have bigger tables which require less centrepieces and table cloths.

thelakeview.com

Congratulations, Cassandra!

http://www.beckishort.co.uk/marriage-proposal-ideas.php

I remember the day my niece, Cassandra, was born.  She had dark eyes and dark hair.  Her hair stuck straight up on her head like a porcupine.  I remember the flowered dress she wore to my wedding, still a babe in her mother’s arms.  I remember her running around double fisting bologna at the Germania Club after my mother-in-law passed away.  "Go! Go! Go!" was the toddler’s motto.  

Cassandra made beautiful music with the Hamilton Children's Choir.  She and her sister Amanda filled the old St. James Anglican Church with song.  Cassandra helped her sister blow out the candles on their birthday cake at their double birthday party.  Around the time she turned seven, she had just learned the formula for a joke and she made up one herself:  “What do you call a girl standing on a cat? --  A statue.”  Rob and I got a kick out of that one. 

Cassandra and her sister munched on chocolate Easter bunnies at my house on Thanksgiving Day 1998.  I wondered how they lasted for six months in their fridge without being gobbled up.  Later that year, when Rob and I were in the process of adopting our newborn son, Cassandra suggested that we take Thomas to Grandma and Grandpa's house for three weeks to hide out, just in case his birth parents changed their mind.  That's how much she wanted a new cousin!  

Cassandra used to come for sleepovers at my house with her sister.  Rob used to take them to Lynden Park Mall shopping sometimes.  Their favourite store was Claire’s.  Cassandra always did have a flair for fashion. 

I remember Cassandra’s first communion, dressed in a pretty white gown, her dark hair in ringlets.  I remember her grade 8 Graduation.  I remember her Grade 12 Graduation.  She was the life of the party! 

Tonight, to the strains of a pianist, cellist, guitarist and three violinists, Cassandra got engaged.  An ensemble of Kyle's friends played her favourite song, "Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die".  

What happened to the past 23 years?  Congratulations, Cassandra!  May God bless you and Kyle in your forthcoming marriage!

                                

"Heroes get remembered, but legends never die" quote by Babe Ruth courtesy m1.behance.net.

The Lancaster Bomber: The Heart of the Museum

What a beautiful day for a wedding!  Rob and I were invited to his cousin Peter's daughter's wedding in Dundas at a beautiful old church with stain glass windows and ornate archways.  The wedding couple, Crystal and A.J., held their reception in a unique place:  the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum.  The guest of honour was Vera.  Vera is not a person, but a plane, one of two airworthy Lancaster bombers left in the world.  Here is her story.

Victory Aircraft Ltd where the Avro Lancaster was built courtesy www.bombercommandmuseum.ca

VeRA, named after her call letters V-RA, was one of hundreds of Lancasters built in Canada. Made of 55,000 separate parts, she was designed and built by AVRO in Malton, Ontario.  The four engine Lancaster had been "the best night bomber of the Second World War" according to a Luftwaffe commander.  In 156,000 sorties. the Lancaster dropped two-thirds of the bombs on Europe during World War II.  In fact, my father in law, Albert Jonasson, remembers hiding in his basement in Germany as the Lancasters zoomed overhead on their way to bomb Hamburg.  The Lancaster was nicknamed "The Workhorse" of D-Day in 1944.  Therefore, the Royal Air Force was intending to fly Lancasters, including VeRA, in the proposed invasion of Japan, named Operation Tiger Force, in 1945.

A Lancaster bomber over Hamburg, Germany courtesy
http://ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=3232.

However, after the atom bomb was dropped on Japan, the country surrendered and the Lancaster was no longer needed for combat. Instead,  What happened to the other Lancasters?  Three thousand two hundred and forty nine of the bombers were lost during the Second World War.  Many of those that survived were sold to Canadian farmers for a few hundred dollars.  Still others were used to train air force crews and for search and rescue missions.  VeRA fell into the latter category.

Lancaster bombers over England circa 1944 courtesy media.winnipegfreepress.com.

For fourteen years, VeRA had no purpose.  Then, in 1977, she was purchased for $10,000 by the Canadian Warplane Museum in Hamilton, Ontario.  My husband's cousin, Peter Jonasson, who used to put together model airplanes as a kid, and whose father fought in the Second World War, found out about the purchase of the Lancaster bomber.  He introduced himself to the crew that intended to restore the airplane.  They loved his enthusiasm and appreciated his knowledge of wiring, and welcomed him aboard to help with Vera's restoration.

In 1988, the bomber was fully restored and ready to fly.  Some people expected about 200 specatators on the day of its first flight.  Instead, 20,000 spectators, including Peter Jonasson, lined the runway at Hamilton Airport the day that if first flew after 25 years of sitting on the tarmac.  VeRA took its place in the Warplane Heritage Museum, "the heart of the museum".  She was mounted as a World War II memorial outside the Canadian Legion in Goderich.

Lancaster bomber at Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum courtesy upload.wikimedia.org.

Today, VeRA remains only one of two airworthy Lancaster bombers in the world.  This past summer, VeRA was reunited with the other Lancaster for a seven week airshow in Britain.  She came home, just in time for Peter's daughter's wedding to take her place behind the head table.  Congratulations, Crystal and A.J.!  May your marriage be as strong and as enduring as the Lancaster bomber!