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| Eugene Zdrojewski's high-school athletics patch. 13.5mm by barely 1mm. Red felt cutout applied to buff felt. |
The film we discuss here is up on Tye's Youtube channel, here. Thanks, Tye!
There is more on the background to this film here.
The link to this and to all the films will be on the right sidebar of the G&C website.
All the films have the same detailed names on the Youtube channel and on the DVDs sent out some time ago.
Zdro Films II starts off in a celebratory way, with a trip by Great Lakes passenger liner to Michigan, en route to Orchard Lake Seminary.
Dim the lights - flip the switch - Where's my glass?
Three travelers: JPZ, Eleanor, and who is the third? That is, who is the woman with brown hair done up in a white knitted snood?
At 0:29 she is sitting on a bench on deck, with Eleanor. She's pretty chummy with Eleanor. Is she a Kotwas?
Correction: The lady is Julia Mostkowska Zdrojewska, mother of Eugene and Casimir. The other lady is her younger sister, Olivia, "Auntie Ollie."
2:00 Nice shoulder pads on the 1941 women's suit tailoring.
Where is Orchard Lake, Michigan? Ah, here.
2:16 JPZ has handed over the camera to the young lady; here are JPZ and Eleanor in the frame. Nice lifeboat.
Correction: Julia.
JPZ is wearing a boater. How appropriate! Oh, I love this.
2:34 Oh my - Detroit. A city that is now largely wrecked and partly turned into garden patches.
2:53 I wonder if that is Henry Ford. I mean a statue of Henry Ford.
3:45 That horrible monumentalist architectural style, beloved of all dictators of the 1930s, turns up here on some Catholic monument? Did the world go completely crazy mid-century?
6:04 Okay there's Dad: Eugene John Zdrojewski as a high-school senior, I conclude. He graduated high school in 1941. He did his first two years of college also at Orchard Lake. He was drafted into the Army in 1943.
If you play the sequence from 6:04 in slow motion, with EJZ and the two ladies walking along, you can see him gesturing with his hands and turning his head as he speaks. His manner is so strikingly characteristic. Where's my Kleenex?
And the stride looks familiar: it's the stride of a sailor on land . . . or wait . . . a priest navigating around while wearing a cassock. Heavy skirts make for that slowly rolling gait. How about that theory? After all, he was surrounded by priests and nuns, all with the gait. Who could avoid subconscious imitation?
6:23 Mystery Lady is wearing Spectator shoes. Aren't they gorgeous?
Correction: Auntie Ollie was a stylish woman, all her life. She also had a terrific sense of humor.
Correction: Auntie Ollie was a stylish woman, all her life. She also had a terrific sense of humor.
7:38 EJZ in quarter-profile. Andrew looks quite a bit like him, doesn't he?
8:05 What's with the sow and piglets all of a sudden? The Zdrojewski family must have strong agrarian roots, that's all.
9:18 That tan building looks like a dorm, doesn't it? There were 8 boys in his class. Did the cooks really put saltpeter into the oatmeal to dampen the adolescent longings? Or is that just a story people love to tell?
9:45 They must be proceeding in alphabetical order. Great place, end of the line. Right?
10:30 Genie brandishes his high-school diploma. And somewhere in these movies, Johnny does the exact same thing, but in a white jacket. And somewhere in the photo collection, Casimir brandishes his diploma with a similar great big smile. I'll have to find those and put them up.
11:23 Wow! A windmill! Just like Chrosno!
11:45 What are we touring now? Ford's birthplace?
12:11 Statues rolling out to ring the bells in the bell tower! This is great! It says "?????-BENNETT" above the arch. Is this building a train station?
12:52 Spectator shoes again, in case you missed them the first time. Great styles in the forties: feminine, yet fitted and tailored suits and coats, with those notched lapels. Very lively and sharp-looking. Was it the influence of all the military uniforms around?
13:15 See how in the display of little Ford automobiles in the Ford Rotunda, "Alaska" of course has its own section, separate from the United States. It looks strange to us time-travellers, but Alaska Statehood was 8 years in the future.
13:30s As our gent with the boater gazes at the correctly-rotating and accurately-tilted model planet, we notice that the balustrade has giant pink "V8" motifs. It can't be the vegetable juice referenced here. So Ford invented the V8 engine? Who knew?
Clever of JPZ to finish the sequence with a shot of summer fun in summertime waters.
School's out!
School's out!
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