Throwback Thursday: Windsorites revisit audio from 30-year-old time capsule
'Just listening to my voice is like, amazing — makes me almost want to cry,' says Leah Pressnail
Rina Bezaire, Gordana Grmusa and Leah Pressnail participated in a Windsor time capsule project 30 years ago and had forgotten all about it. Now, the project has stirred up memories of times gone by.
Back in 1988, the Hiram Walker Historical Museum — now Museum Windsor — was celebrating its 30th anniversary, and compiled a box full of letters, photographs and catalogues of the time.
Included in that time capsule were cassette tapes from a CBC radio show where community members, including Bezaire, Grmusa and Pressnail, talked about their memories of Windsor and what they wanted future generations to know about their lives.
"To be honest, I had forgotten all about it," Bezaire said. "That's a long time ago, 30 years."
Barbara Peacock was newsreader and co-host of the radio program at the time, and said the time capsule is a "great thing."
"I think it makes long-time Windsorites and new Windsorites think about where we've been and where we're going," she said. "Because you're going to change your future and make it better by thinking about these things that have changed over the past 30 years and what can we do now?"
The box had been hiding away in the museum's storage space for the last three decades until it was reopened in May 2018.
Grmusa, Bezaire and Pressnail were each given an opportunity to listen to the recordings they had submitted.
Family, from generation to generation
Grmusa was a young mom when she called in to CBC three decades ago. She used it as an opportunity to share some family history with her son.
In 1988, Grmusa left this message for her son:
"I want to [send this] to my son. My dad was the 'D' for N&D supermarkets. And his grandfather was part of the first group of Serbian men who came over from Yugoslavia in the 1920s. And he worked the mines in Kirkland lake. I wanted my son to know that. And I also wanted him to know that yesterday he said his first sentence. And it was 'mama sit, Adam no.' Meaning that his mum was sitting and he wasn't."
Listening to the recording 30 years later made her emotional.
"That's way cool," she said.
Her son at the time was just two years old, and now he has a baby of his own.
"It goes by in a heartbeat and so many things, from first words, first sentences — which was part of my contribution — to, he is married with a baby," said Grmusa.
"Like, 30 years, wow."
Fashion trends
Bezaire runs Coquette Fashion Imports, a women's apparel store which has been open since 1976.
"We've been around for a while," she said. "I probably figured I wasn't going to be here, but here we are 30 years later. The store has been part of Windsor for 41 years," she said.
For the time capsule, she reflected on the fashion of the time.
Rina Bezaire's take on fashion in 1988:
"I think 1988 must exemplify the year of indecision or unknown style. It's going from the mini, mini skirts that they're really pushing, or have been for the last little while. And people are not real thrilled with it because I guess the majority of women don't have the greatest knees in the world. So the lengths are up and they're down. They're going from very full styles to very fitted styles. They're coming in with a look that goes back to like the 40s and 50s. They're going into a more feminine look. The big shoulder pads, some people are wearing them. Some people aren't. And this year, I think is kind of a confusion both for the designers and for the consumer. Nobody knows where it's going. They don't know what they're doing with fabrics. They're kind of panicking. They don't know what look is going to go. Because the mini skirt that they really pushed, which is the key piece that they've been trying to shove on everyone for the last little while isn't really going over that big. So they don't know what to do."
Listening back to what she said back in the 80s, she explained, not much has changed because fashion trends are constantly coming and going and repeating themselves.
Childhood memories
Leah Pressnail made her recording when she was just a teenager and she had even convinced her father to do the time capsule with her.
"I remember back at the time thinking about what I was going to be like 30 years later. I couldn't fathom. I was only 15 years old," she said.
"I didn't know even what time was then. I thought that already I'd lived a lifetime."
In her recording, she described what high school life was like for her in 1988.
Leah Pressnail was still Leah Hancock when she described her life in 1988:
"We have a nice home with a wash machine, dryer, and TV. I go to Walkerville Collegiate which is a public school. We have to go to grade 12, or 13 before we can graduate. I like to go horseback riding out in McGregor. It costs $8 per hour and is a lot of fun. My hobby is photography. Here are some types of teenagers: wankers, preps, scaries and punks. Some of them have red and other coloured hair all sticking out on their head. The music I listen to is pop rock. There are all types of music though from heavy metal to classical and dances from waltz to break dancing. Windsor is a really nice place to live and I hope I will be here when you open the time capsule."
"Just listening to my voice is like amazing. Makes me almost want to cry. I sounded so young and so much has changed from now and that time," she said, also finding some humour in the ways in which she described her fellow students.
She explained that at the time, "wankers" was used to describe people who wore a lot of leather and listened to heavy metal, and "scaries" were what might be referred to today as "goths."
As an adult, she's now married with kids, the way she had hoped she would be.
Hopes for the future
All three women hope to see Windsor continue to evolve in a positive way moving into the next three decades.
The time capsule items are on display at the museum at the Maison François Baby House.
The curator for the museum said the time capsule will be packed away once again at the end of the year — so it may make another appearance in another 30 years.
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