Restoration Work

Yesterday I showed you some of the ethereal photographs I took of the church restoration.  Today I will show you some of the more straightforward images of the church and the work going on.  This view is interesting because of the missing stained glass in two of the windows.  All the walls visible have already been painted.

This is a view of the altar, with scaffolding in the archway.  Up on the scaffolding is a painter who is using a stencil to apply a design on to the recently painted arch.

This is one of a series of fourteen relief sculptures called "Stations of the Cross" which are arranged on the walls around the church.  Originally, there was just a blue background behind the figures, and the buildings that you can see that are gray, were painted blue as well.  So these have all been carefully repainted, and are quite beautiful.

This is a wooden cross painted gold, one of fourteen,  and there is one of these on top of the arch of each of the stations of the cross.  They have been freshly painted and await being reinstalled on the walls.

These are some of the arches which have been repainted, as well as the columns, and you can see the stenciling which has been applied to undersides of the arches.

Ethereal

Our church is closed for about three months because it is being refurbished.  They are repainting it, and making some changes in where the tabernacle, the altar, the chair for the celebrant and the baptismal font are located.  The huge part of the project is that they are removing each of the stained-glass windows, and sending them to Iowa for repair.  It is kind of a historical moment for the church, so I volunteered to take some photographs for the historical record.  The thing that struck me first were some of the statues in the church that were covered with plastic for protection during the construction.

This is the organ and some chairs, also covered.

This is the Sanctuary, covered with construction materials and scaffolding.  What a huge project.  The finished painting that I have seen is just beautiful!

Sears Roebuck

They announced a month ago that this Sears in Hicksville will be closing in April.  When I first came to Long Island in 1966, this was the place I came for tools.  When we were first married and living in an apartment, Kathy bought me a 10" Sears bench saw, which I used to build bookcases and furniture for our apartment.  I still use this saw.  When we bought our house, I bought even more tools at Sears to do all the improvements and repairs.  My friend Jimmy Wildey always made fun of me, saying "For Ken, the world begins and ends at Sears!"  

We needed some vacuum cleaner bags for our Sears vacuum, so I went by the store. I hadn't been by there in quite a while.  They were out of vacuum cleaner bags, so I wandered around for a while.  It was depressing seeing the tool department, above, with very few tools on display. We also bought our last washer and dryer here, and Sears was the first place I came to buy automobile batteries for all our cars.

I could be partially blamed for Sears decline.  When the Home Depot stores opened I stopped coming to this store.  I am not sure why, but I guess it was becauseHome Depot had tools and lumber and all the other things I needed for my projects, all in one place.

There was an interesting story in the paper about this painting.  It was done by a local artist back in 1965, and it has been hanging in a stairway all this time.  It is a beautiful painting and lists historical people connected to New York State.  The concern is to find a museum or organization who can accept and display this painting.  Because it is such a large painting, they are having trouble finding a home for this work of art.

A Portrait, A Story...

After Sister Victorine's funeral, there was a luncheon for all the people who came to the service.  It was held in the Mother House, and the nuns who live there were having their lunch as well.  Two of the nuns sat down at our table and I started a conversation with one.  This is Sister Annunciata.  We talked about a number of things, then I asked her when she knew for sure that she wanted to enter the Convent.  She said it was in her later years in High School. Then she told me a story.  She had a math teacher named Sister Rita when she was in the sixth grade.  Sister Rita was one of Sister Victorine's sisters, and everyone loved her.  When Sister Annunciata was talking with her mother about her decision on the Convent, her mother said "When you were in Sister Rita's presence,  there was a light that came into your eyes..."

I Need To Learn How to do This...

When we go upstate, we usually drive through Binghamton, and we always stop at the Wegman's grocery store for lunch.  I always get "beef on a weck" - that's the upstate term for roast beef on a Kimmelweck seeded roll and I always get a latte.  This time my latte came with a design on top.  I have seen that before, but never at Wegman's.  I asked the woman who made my drink "How do you DO that?"  She said it was all about how she poured the steamed milk into the top of the drink.  I asked if she had used a stick or something, but she said she hadn't.  So now I need to learn how to do this!  Why?  Because I am a curious guy.

Old Bridge, New Bridge

The New NY Bridge has been open for a while now.  Look at the difference between the old Tappan Zee Bridge on the left, and the new bridge on the right.  The old bridge, opened in 1955, is a cantiliever truss bridge.  The new bridge is called the "Governor Mario Cuomo Bridge" and it is a cable stayed bridge.  How different the technology is, and how spectacular it is!  This view is looking west, heading upstate. 

This is a view headed east, returning from upstate.  The photograph below shows a better view of the cables that run from the vertical pylons to support the bridge deck.  I have not kept track of when this new bridge was announced, and when construction began, but now feels like the bridge was built in record time.  Construction began in 2013 and the first of two spans opened in 2017.  It is scheduled to be completed in 2018 when the second span opens.

North Country Winter Wonderland

So we went to the funeral in Watertown, but a winter storm moved in, and we had to stay over an extra day before coming home.  The thing is, in the North Country,  it may not be the amount of snow that falls - I think the total was only 8 inches.  It is the howling wind that blows snow across the roads, causing "whiteouts" that obscure the road so thoroughly that you can't see ten feet in front of you.  Several of the people who live in Watertown said "Do not even THINK of driving home in this weather."  So we drove home today on completely clear roads, while surrounded by a winter wonderland, on Route 81, between Watertown and Syracuse.  They were expecting another 7 to 14 inches of snow tonight!