And who might these two lovelies be...? The one in the bow-tie pinafore (it was bright red corduroy), proudly displaying her brand-new bowl hair-cut (someone, a neighbor I think or maybe my mother literally placed a bowl on my head before cutting off my longish golden locks...) and a plastered-on sort of smile would be me and the cutie on the platform holding the unplanned for co-inhabitant of this picture (=teddy) would be my sister Louisa. We had a professional photographer come to our apartment in Hurlstone Park (an inner-west suburb of Sydney) to take a set of pictures. I remember it well. I was excited and when told to smile, well smile I did. My sister on the other hand....I remember the photographer doing his darndest to get her to crack a grin, including waving this teddy at her/us...apparently the only way he could even elicit the hint of a Mona-Lisa-sh grin was to have her actually hold on to the teddy, who thus became immortalized in this portrait. Maybe I'll call her Mona-L(ou) isa from now on....
