Community Service

The newspaper where I work decided it would help their image in the Woodpile if all the employees did some volunteer community service. A list of volunteer opportunities was circulated through the office. Participation was mandatory. Here are some of the options: There was trash clean up along the pond, scrubbing bird feeders, digging burrows for the senior living complex …. Hmmm, not very glamorous and definitely hard work. What else is there?  What about the Greenwood Public Library? That sounded like an easy one, a quick way to get my 25 community service hours without breaking a sweat.

All volunteers are expect go through library training to learn the Dewey decimal system, how to use the computer card catalog, how to check out and check in books, collect overdue fines, basic reference assistance, and the proper way to eject disruptive patrons from the library. As you can guess there was 25 hours of training before the 25 hours of volunteer service. I never imagined how much work is involved in running a library.

We had to memorize the library's three simple rules:

(1) No cell phones

(2) No drinks or food

(3) No talking

Simple to learn, hard to put into practice!

My first task was shelving returned books. The most popular section of the library is sci-fi/fantasy.  It is well stocked with Star Trek novels, DVDs, and Lord of the Rings books.

Why do libraries have such high shelves that you have rock climb to reach?

I discovered there are two unauthorized “biographies” about me. I started reading them. Wow, I never knew I had so many adventures. Apparently I am quite the party animal in the garden. I have learned so much about myself. This is what you get for being a famous international blogger.

How can I help you?

“I want to check these out.” I asked “What are they for?” The high school student ‘munk indicated he was checking out the cliff notes to “Lord of the Rings.” What? Exactly how big is the actual novel?

The birding club was a week overdue with the bird guide. I really felt bad having to make them pay the fine. (Okay, not really). The fun part of the job is collecting the overdue fines. They are paid in sunflower seeds.

I was a bit hungry that afternoon and ate the fines. Hmmm, I better make sure no one saw me.

Friday was my first day at the reference desk. I was told I must sit behind the desk. How I am suppose to help patrons if I can’t see over the desk?

First task was to count to fines. “Don’t we have a library assistant to do the grunt work? Oh, that’s me. Hey, boss these seeds seems a bit on the light side.”

Head Librarian Nutcracker discovered that some juvenile delinquent paid his fine with sunflower shells glued together. (The youngster got a week of library detention.)

I was looking forward to my role as reference librarian. I planned on being a fountain of knowledge,  dispensing sage advice and helping the patrons. My first reference question was from a biology teacher who was doing a chart for her classroom on the average life span of mammals. I asked “You want to look up every North American mammal?” And she replied “Yup.” …. Doing reference isn’t as glamorous as it sounds. It took all afternoon to answer my first question.

Head librarian yells, “WHOSE CELL PHONE WAS THAT? Where’s my hammer, I going take care of this permanently.” After handling that situation head librarian Nutcracker asked me if I had seen his phone, he was expecting an important call from the library accreditation committee. I pointed to what remained of the cell phone he just demolished and offered him a roll of duck tape to fix his phone.

A blast from the past

I bought an old 1940s underground Navy workshop at auction for $1. It is a bit of a fixer upper. I plan on turning it into a climate controlled unit to store my rare and vintage sunflower seed collection. (The wife said it can’t stay in burrow anymore.) I wiped the grime off the name plate on the workshop door and it said Richard T. James, Mechanical Engineer, U.S. Navy. It took me a week to remove the rusty old parts and other debris in the place. Most of it was junk. I discovered the previous owner was an antiques dealer and sold off all the good stuff. I did find one rather curious coiled spring. It didn’t look very practical or useful. So, I gave it to my cousin Vinnie the P. as a birthday present. The rest of my family gave me the “what a cheapskate” look when Vinnie opened the present. Vinnie gave it a close inspection and then asked me where I got it. I admitted I found it in Richard James 1940s workshop. You wouldn’t believe it, but, Vinnie was grinning from cheek to cheek and gave me a big hug. “Chippy, this is the best birthday present ever!!!!” I said “Okay … what exactly is this contraption?” Vinnie gave me a strange look and said, “This is the original prototype of a precompressed helical spring toy invented by Mr. James and first sold to the public at Gimbels department store in Philadelphia in November 1945. It has gone on to sell 300 million units since. It is made from Swedish steel and has 98 coils. It was marketed as a low cost children’s toy and originally sold for $1. Richard’s wife Betty named it the Slinky.” Suffice to say none of the other presents ever got opened. Instead we went outside to “play” with it. I must admit it was a lot of fun.

We stretched the slinky like a burrow entrance. The challenge of this game was to run through it without causing it to spring back together.

I started to run through it when it started to spring back …

I grabbed on for dear life while I flew through the air at nearly the speed of sound and then it came to a sudden stop … Wow, you got to try this, it 10x’s scarcer than a roller coaster ride!

If you are curious, Vinnie had it appraised for insurance purposes at Sotheby’s in New York and it was valued at one million dollars. Vinnie plans on opening a museum at the Woodpile with this prototype slinky as the center piece of his collection of mechanical inventions. Vinnie’s Gutenberg printing press will be demoted to the second most important invention. Yes, there will be plenty of replicas to play with.

I found an old photograph of Richard James and his invention in an filing cabinet in the workshop. I can show this photo because the Navy recently declassified all information regarding a secret WWII program that hired chipmunk engineers to work on top secret projects. Richard and Betty James had to hire human actors to portray them when they marketed their slinky toy.

Regal Swan Families

You may recall that I have a day job as the editor of the Woodpile’s newspaper. (Being a blogging superstar is unfortunately not financially rewarding). One of the regular and more mundane tasks of the job is to print the birth announcements. Once in awhile this can actually be exciting. Two different royal family couples made announcements recently. Yes, we do have a royal family at Woodpile Kingdom: Swans. The royal couple in the pond on the south side of the Woodpile just announced the arrival of eight little ones. (My wife fainted with the very thought of eight babies!) They have been avoiding the press and we only got one photo to share. The royal couple in the pond on the north side of the Woodpile just loves the cameras. They only have four.

The two royal couples are in separate ponds because they are constantly feuding with each other. It keeps our gossip column writer very busy and sells a lot of newspapers.

Our only photo of the south pond royal family

The north pond family (from the last week of May)

Aren’t they adorable?

 

Time for a “swan boat” ride (look for the head between the wings)

These photos are from two weeks later. Boy, do they grow fast.

Here they are training for proper swan posture.

On Board the Nao Santa Maria

The crew of H.M.S. Nutcracker insisted I buy tickets to tour the Nao Santa Maria. They were charging $10 for adult tickets, that’s a lot of sunflower seeds. I can’t afford that! So, we sorta snuck aboard through a knothole. That’s not a typo, it is a knothole rather than porthole. The knot in one of the boards had popped out. She is showing her age after 525 years.

 

No problem we can fit through.

 Okay, it is a bit of a tight squeeze

The ship is 90 feet long and 29 feet wide. It seemed gargantuan to us but must have really been crammed for the 45 sailors on board.  They had to sleep in the open on the main deck. Below deck was all filled with supplies. The crew ate pound cake, legumes, salted fish and meat, dried fruit and wine. I would never survive – no sunflower seeds.

Here she is against the Newburyport skyline

Santa Maria tied up at the harbor wharf.

Merry and Spitfire pose on the canon. (They think they were pirates in a past life).

The ship even had a “crows nest”

The Captain had his own cabin

Even 525 years ago, you couldn’t escape the “paperwork”

The tiller looks over engineered.

The tools of the period.

Spitfire was fascinated by the rigging.

Spitfire prepares to man the ropes for the main sail.

The capstan for raising the anchors

They even had a “dinner bell”.

We have to get a couple of these for the woodpile.
[Swivel cannons which were normally mounted on the deck rails]

A Sailing Adventure

The gang is all excited. They have been reading about the planned arrival of the tall ship Nao Santa Maria at Newburyport on the Merrimack River this weekend. If the name sounds familiar, you might remember it from your school history class. This is a replica of one of the three ships Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas. I had planned on using my smart phone app to call us an Uber but Merry pointed out they didn’t have cars in 1492. The rest of the gang joined in and challenged me to make this a real history adventure. (They might regret this!)

While I was surfing the internet on my phone looking for some brilliant travel adventure ideas, I sort of wasn’t looking where I was going and walked into some gray painted oak boards. My phone went flying to who knows where, and I got quite a knock on the head. After the stars cleared from my vision, the answer to my adventure was right in front of me. The Woodpile’s pirate ship had been pulled ashore for some repairs. We could sail our own ship down the Powwow River to the Merrimack River to meet the Santa Maria. How hard could it be?

The Tropiflys were concerned that the harbor patrol might impound a pirate ship, so, they made a new flag. We re-christened the ship the H.M.S. Nutcracker. I am not sure if we came up with the name before or after we drank the case of champagne.

I am experiencing a “minor” technical difficulty.

Did anyone see me? Apparently not. Now how to I upright this thing?

Chippy “We’re all set, time go.” Merry to Chippy, “Ahem, I think we need to put it into the water first.”

We have reached downtown Amesbury without incident. Amesbury is a former mill town. Before electricity, combustion engines and even steam power, the mills were powered by water wheels and turbines. They took advantage of the steep drop in elevation afforded by the falls to run the machinery of the woolen mills … Hey gang, we need to stop the ship NOW there is a waterfall ahead!!!

Lucky for us, Spitfire can lift 20x her own weight. She flew the ship over the falls while the rest of the gang walked around.

We followed the Powwow River from downtown Amesbury to the mighty Merrimack River. The Amesbury stretch of the Merrimack River has a long history of boat building. The most famous landmark is Lowell’s Boat Shop. Originally started in 1793 by Simeon Lowell, it is the longest continuously operated boat shop in the United States. It is best known for its dories. Today it is a working museum.

Here is a fun fact: did you know that there was a silver mine underneath the boat shop? No, I am not pulling your fur over your eyes. According to the Newburyport Daily Herald, on November 11, 1875 a contributor wrote “… I refer to the mining operations on the land and directly beneath the shop of Wm. D. Lowell, Esq. Early in the fall Mr. Lowell discovered in a crevice a short distance from [the] high water mark, indications of silver and lead … The shaft now being sunk is some fifteen feet from [the] high water mark, directly beneath the boat shop.”

Spitfire flew over to take a closer look. Outside of the shop is the shallop from the Mayflower II undergoing restoration work using traditional tools and techniques.

Three dories are tied up in the river. The museum shop allows folks to rent one of them and take them for a row on the water.

We reached the mouth of the Merrimack River and we were engulfed in a fog bank. We couldn’t see a thing. Without modern navigational equipment we were in serious trouble!

We ran aground on the Plum Island side across from the North Jetty. Thankfully, we missed the rocks (just barely). After all of that adventure, it turns out the Santa Maria was running late and would becoming in on the midnight high tide.

The next morning we woke up to learn that the Santa Maria had dock in the wee hours of the night.