Ephemera: items of fleeting use, or lasting a single day. A single item would be called an ephemeron. In the course of history, "ephemera" has described a fever (perhaps a 24-hour bug) and actual insects like mayflies. But at present, ephemera usually refers to the scraps of paper that show a glimpse into the specific past. Like my grandmother's Red Cross Life Saving Corps certification card: And this a ticket stub: Which give a little color to this snapshot of Ruthie: Ninety years of fleeting days since she was a kid at college with her life a big unknown ahead of her.
2 Comments
George A.
5/21/2016 08:27:40 pm
Ephemera are fun. Not long ago I rediscovered my long forgotten ISI gamma skating test card from 1976. Don't know where the other cards have drifted off to or why the gamma card survived but fun to find it. Just wish I hadn't stepped away from skating 40 years ago. It's v. hard to turn back the hands of time.
Reply
Amy
5/21/2016 09:17:05 pm
George -- glad you found that bit of ephemera; turning back the hands of time is like twisting the arm of an octopus. Not just hard, but really really hard.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
About the Blog
A lot of ground gets covered on this blog -- from sailboat racing to book suggestions to plain old piffle. FollowTrying to keep track? Follow me on Facebook or Twitter or if you use an aggregator, click the RSS option below.
Old school? Sign up for the newsletter and I'll shoot you a short e-mail when there's something new.
Archives
January 2023
Categories
All
|