I Never Met Jennifer Black

In the early'70's, Brandon University in Brandon, Manitoba,  was a fantastic place to be, and anyone who was lucky enough to have been there at that time will never forget the experience. I was one of the people who had the good fortune of being on the BU campus from 1973-1977, and the memories of the time spent there couldn't be more vivid in my mind. I met some sensational individuals while out there, I'm in Ontario now, and their names and faces are as clear in my mind as when I met them some forty years ago.

I was also privileged to have photographed some of the most beautiful women on campus back then. I had some experience in the medium before arriving at BU, and was shooting for the Quill, the student paper, and the yearbook. Some of the women approached me to have their portraits done, and I approached many of them because I wanted to stay current on photographic techniques, and simply because I wanted to photograph them. And, to say that they were beautiful is no exaggeration...Theresa Lee, Kitty Reese, Eleanor Thompson, Judy Rottman, Marie Gross, Myra Amy, Carol Justice...and the list goes on.

But, I never photographed Jennifer Black. As a matter of fact, I never even met Jennifer Black. I almost did, several times, but, something always got in the way. I was having supper with a friend in the university dining hall one evening when she came in and sat at the table across from us. I asked my buddy who she was, and he told me her name, and I told him, at that time, that I was going to ask her to sit for a portrait.

Jennifer Black was strikingly good-looking. She had shoulder-length, dark hair, and a soft, warm smile, but, it was her eyes that drew you to her. When Coots and Gillespie wrote the line, "You intoxicate my soul with your eyes," in their 1938 song, You Go to My Head, they were thinking about Jennifer Black. With the warmth of her smile, charming and inviting, she could caress you, but, with her eyes, intriguing and mysterious, she could leave you tongue-tied.

I couldn't wait to point a lens at her...to see what the Spring sunlight would do to her hair and her face. But, the eyes are the focal point of any portrait, and Jennifer Black's eyes wouldn't leave me alone. What secrets would they reveal as she glanced downward or to the side, or looked directly into my lens?  What would they say about her that her smile or her voice weren't saying? That's the dynamic of portraiture, and that's what I would discover. Unfortunately, I never did.

More than once I started to her room in McMaster Hall to introduce myself and ask her to sit for me, but, I always managed to get distracted. I would run into someone en route from Darrach Hall, where I lived, and end up going in a different direction. I looked for her several times in the dining hall or the cafeteria, but, never saw her there again. She graduated from the education program at BU in 1974, and I don't know where she went after that. I left Brandon in 1977 with very few regrets, but, never having photographed or met Jennifer Black was right at the top of the list.

So, Jennifer Black, with the captivating smile and the mysterious eyes, wherever you are, I hope life has been good to you.

Growing up catholic

Growing up in the catholic church in the 1950's certainly had its challenges. There were rules for everything, and the rules that weren't contained in the Baltimore catechism came out of the mouths of the nuns who taught us. Under pain of mortal sin, we had to attend mass every Sunday and on all holy days of obligation. And, we had to pray...lots...all the time. When we weren't saying the rosary or the Angelus or making novenas to the saints to get souls out of purgatory, we were encouraged to stop at any time during the day and say a short prayer, and then continue with whatever we were doing. These short prayers were called ejaculations. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul", would be an example of a short ejaculation.

Keeping that in mind, back in the day, there was an incident that occurred in the small, working-class neighbourhood where I grew up, that would lend some levity to our prayer life. Part of that neighbourhood was made up of Italian families, and Edith Sicoli was the matriarch. The Trans-Canada highway passed through our little town back then, and the Sicoli home which contained a small grocery store at the front,  stood on the north side of it. At any time of the day, Edith Sicoli could be heard shouting at the neighbourhood children to watch for cars as they crossed the highway on their way to Riverside Park. And tragically, Edith Sicoli was killed crossing that same highway one afternoon when she stepped into the second section of a double-decker log truck. Edith, and her husband, Joe, were well-known far and wide, and when the news got out about Edith Sicoli's death, sympathy cards and letters of condolence started to come in from all over the country.

There was one old man in our town, an insurance agent, who was very close to Edith and Joe Sicoli, but at the time of her death, he was too ill to attend the wake or the funeral. So, like so many others, he sent a sympathy card to Joe and the family, and inside the card he placed a note expressing his grief, and apologizing for being unable to attend. And at the end of the note, he wrote, in his own shakey hand, "Dear Joe, please be assured that I remember dear Edith every night before I fall asleep, with a small ejaculation".

Needless to say, since the sexual revolution of the 1960's, Roman Catholics no longer ejaculate.

Edith Spadafore Sicoli...Requiescant in Pace.