My eldest daughter Alexandra when she still lived with us, which was at least 21 years ago, started my basement filing system. To this day I can see the difference between her neat printing on the file labels and my terrible attempt at legibility.

Such is the size of my files that there is stuff there that I cannot find unless I know the name or the incident. While returning some files today I was in section Erbe, Kathryn - F to Fs and I found this curious connection of Fs: Freedman, Fuller, Furs and Futral. Adele Freedman wrote about architecture for the Globe & Mail for many years. Janice Fuller and her Little Sisters Bookstore fought Canada Customs for years in order to import gay/lesbian related literature. Elizabeth Futral is an American soprano that I photographed twice for two roles. One was for Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and the other for his Daughter of the Regiment. In the latter opera a French regiment adopts a little tom girl who before they (the soldiers) know it grows up to be a gorgeous girl. I tried to convey her double roll by taking pictures of her as the young soldier and as the woman. I put the pictures into a Pugwash, Nova Scotia pewter frame and scanned them with some of my grandmother’s sheet music on top.

As for Erbe, Kathryn she is an actress. I recognize the location as the Sun Room of the Vancouver Hotel. The fur pictures escape my memory completely. I had no idea I had ever taken anything like them.