What do court clerks think about?

Monday!  The beginning of a new week and new adventures.  My adventure for Monday was finding that the clerks who wrote up the index book with docket notation did not do so in a very careful manner.  This book is not in alphabetical order or even numerical order.  The index in the back is missing some entries and is not as complete as the previous 2 books that I have worked with.  It will take forever for anyone to put the records of York county into some semblance of usability.  I wonder if they will ever do a searchable database with this set of records – or any of the court records for Maine?

After the archives, Bill went to the YMCA (this is our last paid up week) and I walked to Hallowell and back.  I visited the quilt shop there for about 10 minutes but none of the fabric screamed at me , “Buy me!  Buy ME!”

We ate hurriedly when we came home and then off to Line Dance Class.  I really like this class and now that I know a lot of the dances it is m ore fun and a real workout aerobically.  Pam, one of the girls we met there, asked me some time ago if I could help her sister do genealogy for the name Severance.  I found two entries for that name and sent them to her.  She seems pleased to have anything that will help her with this particular name.  Pam was excited that I had found anything but Pam is not into Genealogy at all.

When we came home we found a voice mail from the new couple who are coming to replace us.  They live in Florida.  They served a mission on the Reservation at Tuba city, Arizona some time ago and this is their first time in the genealogy area of mission work.

I sent her 32 pictures of our work at the archives and of Augusta etc.  by Picasa and Gmail but had to send an explanation of each picture through my Yahoo account.

I hope that they are happy with the apartment and the assignment at the archives.

   

Sunday 26 August - 25 days left

There was no fog this morning so I went for a short walk.  There are some noticeable changes in the trees and I am hoping that I will be here long enough to see a spectacular fall foliage.  According to the powers that be, this area is in for a heavy winter.  I am glad that we will not be here for it – I do not particularly like driving in snow and ice – did that for 20 years in Pennsylvania.

One of the speakers in church this morning talked about listening to and following the promptings of the Holy  Ghost and how by doing so we have a happier life.  Sometimes we are stubborn and do not wish to take advice from any quarter and life gets quite difficult when we follow that path.

After church, we were invited to a home for lunch.  They had cooked hamburgers on the grill and there was tomato, onion, lettuce, pickles and condiments along with water melon.  For dessert I brought the cake that Anna had saved for me and it was a hit.

They had a priesthood leadership meeting in Topsham and Bill went to that.  I got to stay home and read and work on the computer.

We are hoping that the couple that has been called to the New Hampshire Manchester mission are coming here to Augusta and not going to Vermont.  The couple from Vermont has finished their mission and has gone home.  We are working feverishly on the Washington and York county records and they need to be finished up but it will take a good year to eighteen months to do the rest of it.

Our trip essay

The beach and the ocean beckon to me.  They say, “Come and play” but the Atlantic Ocean is too cold for me to put my body into it yet there were people swimming in it at Old Orchard Beach.  What were they thinking?  Better yet, why would you parade around the beach in a swim suit if you did not have a body like you just stepped out of Seventeen or some fashion magazine?  I saved the people from seeing me in a swimsuit – Bill and I were in Jeans and tennis shoes; No bathing beauty here!

There were bikini clad bodies sporting miniscule to over whelming tattoos and some men who were in competition with the illustrated man from the movie long long ago.  Does your skin tan only where the ink is not?

The fashionistas were out in full force on the sidewalk in everything from the total cover up including large floppy hat to a bikini that was almost present  and loads of suntan lotion making the skin glisten in the sun.  The companies that make tanning lotion and sunscreen had a good week this week at Old Orchard Beach.

We ate at a small restaurant that boasted a parking lot and we asked if we could leave our car in their lot while we walked down to the beach and back.  The waiter said ok as long as we were not too long.  15 minutes tops and we had been to the beach and were back in our car and on our way to the Mall at Portland. 

We went to the Apple store – Apple is alive and well and all the devotees of the Apple Realm were busy looking over the merchandise, asking questions or playing with the latest Apple Toys on the various installations.  We were there to try to recharge Bill’s Iphone – he had forgotten to plug it in last night to recharge the battery.  Leaned that after 2-3 years the battery on these phones will not recharge and so they just give you another one in place of it – as long as you have a ‘plan’ with them.  Ours is with Verizon and we hope that in two years time we can get replacements as well.

I walked down the mall a little to hear the young lady singing.  I think I expected someone dressed as though she was in a cabaret setting, but she was bare legged, wearing flip flops and a raggy looking skirt and shirt.  Her hair was not even styled.  I thought that if you were selling yourself as a performer, at least get dressed up so that if someone was there to discover you, you would really be ready to be discovered.  As I was standing there, an old man pushing his oversized wheel c hair came by and just pushed his way to the front and stood there.  I thought he wanted to get through so that he could leave the mall – but no, he just wanted to be out in front to see the singer and to admire the leggy little dancers.  Papa Lockyer was right, when a man stops looking there is something wrong with him – he is either blind or dead….this old man was neither – I think he was window shopping or something.

As we were leaving the mall, we saw a store that had super large bags – at least they looked like bags that were somewhat like bean bags.  The salesman had a stuffed bag that was about 4 feet tall and very plump.  He pushed in the center of it and invited us to sit and experience this marvel.  It is very comfortable to sit in and desirable, but we have no room in our car for much more than what we brought with us.

On the way home we stopped in Hallowell and ate at the Lucky Garden.  Once is enough.  It is not a match for the Great Wall Chinese Buffet up by Walmart…..but you have to try at least once to see if you like what they have.  The best part of the experience there was seeing the river out the window.  The tide was coming in and I was watching a sand bar disappear under the water as I ate.

Today was a wonderful day.  The weather was fine and it was not too hot.  The best part was that Sara told us that Jacob has an appointment with the specialists at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota next week for a battery of tests that will take up 2 days.   The doctors at UN Omaha have told him they can do nothing more for him.  We are hoping and praying for a miracle at the Mayo Clinic.  His sister Chas will go with him – Sara now has a job and perhaps cannot take off time from work to be with Jacob.  He has many papers to fill out before he goes.  I know a little about that – I had to fill out pages and pages of info before I had my heart procedure done at Mayo.  We have his name on the prayer roll at the Boston Temple as well as the Mesa Temple.  Getting an appointment with Mayo is HUGE.  Jacob was able to get it through talking to the professors at UNL and one of them knows someone at Mayo and was able to arrange it.  What a blessing to have such a swift response.

Old Orchard beach and Portland Mall.

 A rental cottage on  Rte. 9 in Old Orchard Beach.  Just about every house we saw seemed to be a rental cottage with few if any being inhabited by local residents.

 Parking is at a premium.  This house/apartment block had a chain across the area where people could park if they wanted to sneak over to the beach without paying the exorbitant $15.00 or $20 (all day) parking fee.

 the road leading to the beach.  It seems that just about every road that went off towards the beach was lined with rentals and NO PARKING without permission signs.

 The next few photo's are of Old Orchard Beach.  It seems to stretch for miles and miles and the sand is white.  Up the coast at Bar Harbor and at Belfast and at Boothbay Harbor,and at Pemiquid Lighthouse, the sand is a dirty grey.  They tell me that the grey sand is from the effects of the Glacier that covered this area long ago. (Well before Global warming I bet)

 In the middle of this picture just above the horizon is a small dot in the sky.  It is not dirt on your monitor.  It is a person dangling from a paraglider that got up there by being pulled by a speed boat and once being aloft, stay aloft by finding updrafts.  This fellow came down into the ocean while his chase boat was roaring towards him.  I hope they fished him out of the drink in time - the sharks were disappointed for sure.

 One thing I noted was the number of beach umbrellas.  I guess some people had beach umbrellas in Australia when I was growing up and going to the beach there, but I do not remember too many of them.  We had one but the fool thing would not stay put in the sand and the wind kept picking it up and tossing it to the other end of the beach so we just left it at home.  It did not give too much shade anyway......so we gave our bodies up to the sun to destroy our skin and give us problems now that we are older.  I wonder what is the greatest implement that causes skin cancer or just plain skin problems - The Tanning salon, or bodies baking in the sun?

 More umbrellas stretching to as far as the eye can see.

 a quaint bird house (in the middle of the picture)

the decoration on this fence is made of Lobster pot markers that have been cut into the fence so that they stick out on both sides of the fence.  A clever way to stop people from stealing your fence decoration - make it an integral part of the fence.

 More Lobster pot markers used as decoration from the railing of the sun deck of this rental.

 Looking back up the street from the beach.

 Some motorized tricycles that the leisure bunch were riding.  I liked the petunias that grace the verandah of this house.  Some of the houses were bed and breakfast kinds of things.

 A very neat looking rental.

 some 'bun heads' preparing to dance for us at the Portland Mall.  Just prior to their performance, there was a young lady singing songs to canned music.  she was not that good either but I don't think she was busking.

 The tap dancers ready for their canned music to start so that they can tap on the hard cement floor and try to keep their balance if they happen to slip.

Aaaah! the demi-solo out in front of the group.

Processing the York Co. Papers.

 One cubic foot of tightly packed York county records

 a One cubic foot box...............they have loads of them at the archives on the shelves downstairs.

 Yes it's cold here.....this is me working at the York County records flattening them out.

 My desk where I am entering the records ready for digitizing.

 what the records look like when they come from the humidifier box.

 13ft. plus court case from York county.

 Records being flattened between tractor feed paper.  It's how they told us to do it!

Heavy boxes on top of the separated papers - trying to flatten them out but good!

Changes we really can live with.................

Not only is the weather changing but  our life situation is changing and the situation at the archives is changing.  We have 27 more days to get the Washington and York county records done…….whew!

Of a morning it is cool and soon to be crisp (by Arizona Standards at least) and I see more and more trees sporting red leaves.  I hope that we get to see the fall colors before we leave.  They were magnificent in Pennsylvania and I loved the fall there.  I loved the spring there and the summer, but it would have been even better if someone could have canceled winter altogether.  The ice and snow is no fun in Pa. or here in Maine – and we had an easy winter last winter so the locals tell me.

It is the end of one more week and there are not too many left to go.  I am still happy about the missionary conference and the spiritual uplift that it provided.  It is a noticeable contrast between the spiritual messages of conference compared to the cheating, killing and other chicanery that we read about in the court cases we are preparing to digitize.

Jason thought he would be through with his digitizing today but he has at least two more days to do because the images that he captured were not good and have to be done over.  He says that in the BDM that he is doing there are 4.94 million names.  Now, that’s a lot of people born in Maine, married in Maine and died in Maine.  Today Anne said that there was a lady who called up to get the dates of her three divorces – I guess marriage is something she does not do well?  She was at least 3 years off target with one of the marriages.

My assignment has been to flatten out the court records for York County.  Jeff has been humidifying them for me and I have been flattening them out ready for digitization.  He told me that we have now humidified 4cubic feet of records.  Each box is one cubic foot packed in tightly rolled bundles of court papers (tighter than sardines ), and I have just received the rest of the 4^th box.  He must think that I am superwoman or something because he thinks that I will have them all written up by the end of next week – yeah right!  Jeff is going on vacation for one week and he wanted to be sure that I had enough work to keep me busy while he was gone……………..and might I add, and then some!

We received notification from the mission home tonight that a family history couple will be coming to the New Hampshire Manchester mission.  We presume they will be coming to Augusta to finish off the project we have started.  We wish them luck…….they’ll need it.   They are coming from Florida and while they are here, they will avoid the Hurricane season – one reason to go on a mission I suppose.

These early 1800’s court papers are interesting in that they are almost like fabric when they are wet and like leather as they dry out.  They really do have a high rag content.  Jeff was telling me that Maine imported lots and lots of mummies from Egypt for the linen wrapping that they had around them.  They were using the linen to make paper but people started suffering from Cholera etc. and it was coming from the mummies so they shut down the factories in Hallowell that were tearing the mummies to pieces.  Imagine that, grave robbers in Hallowell tearing mummies apart to get the linen that they were wrapped in?  Apparently there was an inexhaustible supply of mummies to it does not sound too far-fetched for Joseph Smith to get a couple of Mummies and take the written records out of their wrappings and translate them to give us the Pearl of Great Price.  Makes me wonder what kind of mummies they unwrapped in the factory in Hallowell and what kinds of Egyptian treasures did they find and who regulated the importation and destruction of these mummies in Hallowell?  All kinds of  questions come to mind over this.

Bill wanted to go to the YMCA today but they are closed for deep cleaning and redoing of the gym floor.  I left him there to take the shuttle to FedEx and I stopped in Hallowell to see a store then drove back to the YMCA and imagine my surprise to see Bill Markham walking in the grounds.  We did not know that the Y had been closed for the cleaning event.  So we just drove home, ate dinner and did the laundry.  Such exciting times while on a mission to be sure.