The count of books that we have digitized is now up to 24 and each has well over 300 pages in them to digitize and some of them are up to almost 600 pages. There are 5 books of indexes that we have digitized as well. It may seem to be a dull and repetitive job to do this work, but the staff at the archives are most appreciative of our efforts to preserve the court records. I have noticed that the quality of the paper has changed appreciably. The older books of Oxford county which date from about 1827 have heavy paper that has a high rag content. There is no bleed through of ink but in these later ones, dating about 1870+ the paper is thin and does not have high rag content, if at all, and there is bleed through of ink from the page before. This casts a shadow over the writing on both sides and I hope that our efforts to digitize the books, yields a readable record for those who will eventually research in these court records. The writing in the books remains a subject of excitement to me to see the uniform hand and the clarity of the penmanship.
From time to time words jump off the page – words like disgraceful, vicious, ungentlemanly, cruel, intoxicating liquor, libel, wanton, disregarded his/her marriage vows and went after lewd women/men and many other disquieting words. I guess the parade of human misery is all written here for anyone to see. It is quite surprising to me to see so many court cases where divorce was granted and the decision to leave the children with this parent or that parent after the ‘dirty washing of the marriage’ had been paraded for all to hear. I guess my perception of the colonial era of this part of the country was idyllic with husband and wife working together to eke out a living in the harsh environment and that they worked for the good of the marriage and children. However, it has become apparent that there is not much difference between the people of former generations and those of today – the same temptations exist and people succumb at approximately the same rate, but in today’s world, people do not get a jail term for adultery or for selling intoxicating liquor.
While Bill was at the YMCA I decided to go walking in the community because the weather was so nice. Oh yes, it was cold, but the sun was shining and the opportunity to walk outside, rather than round the small track at the YMCA was what I wanted to do most. As I left the dressing room at the Y, I saw a sign that said “Please no aerosols – Lungs at work here”. This refers to not using aerosol perfumes and body sprays or deodorants etc. Well, the sewerage plant for Augusta is right next to the YMCA and even though they have covers over the tanks, the sewer gas was very evident…………….and it spoiled the whole atmosphere. I wonder if the YMCA objects to the smell of sewer gas and I also wonder how the lungs respond to the malodorous gas? My lungs are not too happy about having to breathe this stuff. There were young men practicing their football in the field next door and I wondered if they were affected by the sewer gas smell. I guess not because they were running and jumping and chasing the ball which was quite wet from being on the ground that was still trying to dry out from the last snow storm.
I made a discovery as I was walking – the curbing in Augusta is made of blocks of granite. Apparently there is a lot of granite in this area and it has been cut for use as foundations for homes, curbing for streets, decorative granite boulders for lawns (and to prevent cars from plowing into homes and front lawns if they slide off the road during winter), as well as the state capitol seems to be made of this pretty gray granite. I noticed also that they seem to have used ground up granite in the paving materials for the sidewalks and roads. Across the river from our apartment there is a granite pit. At first I thought it was a boney pile similar to the boney piles of Pennsylvania. They call it boney pile in Pa when in fact it is a slag pile made by separating the coal from the rock. The granite machine works all day and it makes quite a racket. At the side of the road just a little way from our apartment, one can see where they cut through granite to make way for the road and with just a thin layer of soil and grass on top of that. They built the house close to the road and its base sits on this grass topped knoll, and it has granite blocks for its foundation. Talk about building on a solid foundation!!!!!
The Occupy Augusta crowd seems to have settled in for the season. They have strung up lights and they have a grill going t o cook their food and the city even supplied them with porta-potties. I do wonder about their needs being met – physical, emotional, social, psychological. They seem to have bonded into a sort of community and I wonder what will take place in their lives when their “camp-in” is over. It is slated to be over on November 5. At the disbanding of any group there are mental and relational gaps that develop and this affects the individual for the rest of their lives. The same sort of thing happens at the end of a mission – for a specified length of time we are part of a group of missionaries and then at the end of the time, we are released and left to mull over what happened during the time of service and a feeling of loss of that camaraderie. Group Process has always been an interesting topic for me and this particular group process of people who are protesting Wall Street etc. present a hazard to life in the park (their tents are blocking out the sun on the grass where they are living, and when they move, the grass will be quite dead and very yellow) and they are living there without heat except for the bottled gas grill and vagrants are starting to gather with them. Makes for an interesting mix and crime is sometimes the by-product of such a group. In the local paper a lady was featured as being afraid to let her two small daughters out into her yard to play while this ragtag bunch was living in the park just across from her home.
Thursday, 3rd November, 2011
We spent all day today in a missionary conference. This is the first missionary conference Bill has ever been to and he did not know quite what to expect. I, on the other hand, have been at many missionary conferences when I was on a mission in Japan and when I was Relief Society President in Johnstown, when it was my responsibility to provide the food for the missionaries at lunch time (and clean up afterwards.) The sisters of the ward helped cook the food and set the tables and when the missionaries had eaten lunch and gone back into the meeting, our job was to clean up after them. Today the ward members had prepared homemade Chicken Cordon Bleu, mashed potatoes, green beans and corn with gravy, and the members of the wards had provided cakes etc. for dessert. Really delicious food.
The theme for the conference was “Lift where you stand” meaning that our job is to lift those around us to help them have better lives and find hope in the teachings of Jesus. The churches around here have notice boards out front usually quoting a scripture or voicing a cute saying to catch your attention. Recently a church in the city had a sign out front that said, “not praying for seven days tends to make one weak”. The one that caught the attention of someone here said “Don’t pray about the Book of Mormon, That’s how they get you.” I guess it is evident that religious intolerance has not gone to hibernate for the winter or left for warmer climates etc. Joseph Smith was born in Vermont, up here in New England - two states west of Maine, and in 1820 the religious fervor was at fever pitch with ministers warmly (sometimes more than warmly) contending with each other for proselytes to their various systems of belief. There is room for everyone in this world, and it is a blessing that they have not tarred and feathered anyone for a while. They used to tar and feather anyone who was in a different belief system than the run of the mill preacher’s circuit.
We had a very good experience at the mission conference and it has bolstered our resolve to do our very very best to digitize the records which is our main focus while on this mission.
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