My fascination continues with the beauty of the writing in these books that we are asked to capture

 I wish that my handwriting was as good as this.  This was really easy to read.

 Elder and Sister Duncan visited us from Vermont.  they also do capturing of records.

 this is one of the most damaged books that we have ever had to capture.  It is tied together with Red tape.  the cover that is disintegrating is cowhide but it is slowly disappearing.  We almost had to do this book by placing one section of pages at a time on the cradle.

Actual Government issue RED TAPE.  It has faded to be pink because of time but it is made of cotton and it is really quite strong.  I went to the Record Preservation office to get something to hold the book together because it is not held together by much if anything and I did not want the pages to end up all over the floor.  They are damaged enough by water, they did not need to be dropped on the floor as well.  they had a box of these pieces of tape there and they let me have a few pieces to tie together to keep the book in one piece, instead of pieces.

We have many sayings in the English language and one of the common sayings in the Archives of the State of Maine is “Red Tape”.  Red tape prevents a lot of things from happening in short order because the bureaucracy needs to follow a flow chart or something.

Well, today I saw actual red tape.  Well, now it is faded pink, but it is red tape nonetheless,  I had to tie some short pieces of it together to hold the book together that we just digitized.  This book was literally falling apart and only a few sections remained intact and we had to adjust each and every page so that it got captured.

I have had a very happy experience this week.  I have reconnected with my friend Maian in Johnstown.  She was the one who helped me through many situations with David.  Myself, and other ladies helped her through her divorce.  We all helped each other with our “child raising” problems and we did it walking together each and every day.  I asked her what she was doing for Lent this year.  Each year that we were together in Johnstown, she did stations of the cross service during Lent.  She said that this year she was not doing stations of the Cross but rather she was reading the Bible in a quest to get to know the Lord a lot better.  Marian is a great inspiration to me with her commitment to being a better person by paying attention to her worship.

Anne, who works here in the Archives is also a committed Christian and she reminds me a lot of Marian.  I have told each of them how much they each resemble each other.  It is not often in life that we meet people who make an indelible mark in our minds that does not get erased over the passage of time.  I have not seen Marian for 17 years and have just met Anne when we came to work her in the Archives.  I consider myself very fortunate to have met both of them.