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How is it that I can remember every word, every bit of musical phrasing, every nuance from every song from my early years (Mitch Ryder And The Detroit Wheels, Abba, The Band, Credence Clearwater’s Revival’s Bad Moon Rising, Judi Collins’ rendition of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now) but had a bit of a time recalling the last four digits of our phone number when somebody asked me for it last night?

So begins one of Judy Pollard Smith’s journal entries, which she started to write to mark her seventieth birthday.

As a fan of the memoirs, journals, and letters of famous people, she wanted to explore whether the journals of everyday people have value. How do others perceive us when we look seventy on the outside but feel twenty-seven on the inside?

She writes about light and weighty topics – from relaxing with a favorite book to considering the removal of reminders of Canada’s colonial past. “How can the past be erased for all its faults?” she writes. “If the current vein continues, Canada will end up with a revisionist history, without truth.”

The More the Merrier offers a glimpse of the rich experiences of a seventy-year-old woman living life to the fullest.

The More the Merrier