When we were at Lincoln, on our way through to our mission, I was putting Oliver to bed and he was talking about being Line Leader. Now, to the little kids in the preschool, being Line Leader is a Big deal. He was worrying that he would not get to be line leader until his birthday and that they had told him that there would not be school for him that day. He was devastated and it was heart wrenching to hear this little boy agonize over not being line leader. I was told some time later that he did get to be the line leader (the one who leads the group on the hikes, and heads the line when they go anywhere or do some special activity. Classroom ‘boss for a day’ might be close to the description of tasks he would fill for the day. His little heart was breaking as he talked about the loss of his star appointment.
Well, fast forward to Sunday, 13 November, 2011. He had the assignment of being line leader on Monday 14th November, 2011, and so as to not be late for school, he got fully dressed before he went to bed so that he would not have to get ready on Monday morning. Yes, shoes and sox, pants, shirt and sweater – and he slept in these clothes and could not be dissuaded from them and persuaded to wear his pajamas. I guess there is nothing like being prepared for all events – even way before they are due to happen. Way to go Oliver………..preparation is everything. If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.
With the weather becoming colder and colder, it was a welcome surprise for it to be warmer than last week when we went out to the car. No ice to scrape off the windows today and that was wonderful. The trees have dropped more leaves since the cold snap last week, and now I can see houses across the river from the highway. I did not know they were there. It is as if someone took a palette knife to a painting and scraped off the top layer of paint to reveal the real painting underneath. In this case a painting of homes that date from the mid 1800’s and the rock quarry in the foreground has now been revealed..
We had to stop to put gas in the car and the small station had many advertisements for tobacco on its windows. One for chewing tobacco caught my attention. It sad in BIG LETTERS :- WARNNG! This product can cause gum disease and tooth loss. Guess the mouth cancer warning may have been considered too dramatic for front door of the store.
We have finished the Oxford county records and have started on the Penobscot records. These records are all typed and their outer cover is quite ragged. Someone decided to cover the calf skin on the hard outer cover with canvas and the canvas has not held up over the years. These records are well over 100 years old and they have a metal arrangement that the single pages could be threaded on as they were typed. Rather unique and I have not seen anything like this before. There is one drawback and that is the metal prongs are not flexible and it is very very difficult to open the books and keep them flat so that we can digitize them. We could take them apart but with our luck, we would drop the loose pages and then have to spend a long time putting the book back together …………….100+year old paper needs to be handled very carefully.
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