Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/08/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I grew up in the small town of Castlegar, British Columbia in Canada. We were a typical resource industry town, with one exception, a very large population of Russian religious emigrants called Doukabours. Charming people really but, as with any large religious group, there was a small splinter group as well, quite violent in the early twenties, called "The Sons of Freedom". They believed in the purity of the natural state and that possessions and "trappings" were sent from the "other" guy to distract their worship of the "not other" guy. As with most firmly held beliefs, a great deal of time was taken up with destroying unbeliever's possessions which annoyed the local authorities to no end. So after a S of F helped a unbeliever to rid themselves of their possessions, by burning down their houses, the local authorities would pack them off to prison. This precipitated hunger strikes by the prisoners and, of course, protest marches by those not yet incarcerated or just released. What is the point of this long build up? Well one fact I forgot to mention was that the Doukabours had a very starchy diet were usually about as wide as they were tall. During the protests the ladies would start singing hymns and get quite stirred up and feel very close to the "not other" guy, faster than you could say beached whale, off came the clothes. Strangely, it was always the ladies not the men! Hmm, perhaps there are nuances of the sects beliefs I am not completely familiar with. In the twenties and thirties I am sure the sight of hard working farm girls getting close to their maker would have been moving indeed; however, by the time I came along, in the sixties and seventies, it was a sight indeed! The whole thing was pretty tragic at the end. The not very little old ladies in their late seventies or eighties going on hunger strikes until the authorities couldn't stand the guilt any more, but, the first thing the ladies they would do when released would be to get the matches and head over to the neighbours! Back to jail with the grannies. More protests and excitement would result. The sight of a group of grannies in the buff was very sobering to this adolescent and may well have gone a long way to explaining the rather low number of unwed mothers in the area. I hope you do not mind this long OT comment especially as I actually could not bring myself to look at the pictures. Brings back too many painful memories. :-) John Collier > From: brian stevens <BrianDavidStevens@excite.com> > > Hi guys and gals > sorry for lurking recently, have been busy! new work just for kyle at > http://35mmf8.org/naked/index.htm > the whole site has moved to > http://35mmf8.org > enjoy and sorry about the spam! >