August 16, 2003 - Nacogdoches, TX - 2 (Pilgrim Pines)
Ah, yes. Our project at Pilgrim Pines Camp and Conference Center, located on Lake Swanzey, NH. Hang in there, I'll get this all caught up pretty soon now. The young man by the ladder is Adam, a recent high school graduate. Excellent worker, and respectful of old guys who go a bit slower and don't know as much about building as he does. As a final project for his shop class, he'd built the frame for this storage shed. Not a single nail in it, and all built with 4X4, 4X6 and 6X6 timbers. Stout. REAL stout. And square. And plumb. I was in awe. And being the camp director's son made no difference in his attitude at all. Teenagers like this young man give me great hope for our country's future. I'm rigging my "headgear" to keep the sweat from blinding me completely. I think this was the last day I wore long pants, too. Our first job was to enclose the shed. Barb and I were the only SOWERS on this project, but there were other volunteers that are part of the camp/conference center. Like Turk, there in the background in the green shirt.
Some of the details of the shed framing, and a small pond nearby keeping us supplied with mosquitoes and frogs.
We spent almost every weekend visiting some of Barb's family. Nice thing about being the only SOWERS on the project was the guilt-free escape to visit family. On a project, we'll usually spend the weekends bumming around with the other SOWERS getting to know them and enjoying their company. This worked out just great for us. Sister Carol and her husband Guy have a spare bedroom upstairs that belonged to Tracy before she got married, and we'd spend our nights there, rather than driving the 60 some odd miles back "home."
On the route between the family and home is this house/cabin. Its builder must have taken Jesus' story about the man building his house on a stone (Matthew, chapter 7 & Luke chapter 6) literally! We chuckled about it every time we went by.
Extra stairs for the house/cabin must have been worth it. And have you ever seen a crow scarecrow before? This was our first. In a field near Lake Swanzey.
For some reason I don't understand but do believe, covered bridges are an attraction. There were 4 or 5 of them in the area, and not all of them were old. There was one built quite recently, 2001. Looks just like the old ones--a different definition of historic preservation I guess.
Lots of work, and sturdy timbers used in these bridges. All of them are one way, have weight limits, and, of course, clearance limits. We couldn't take our rig through any of them. Occasionally they'd have a separate area for foot traffic like this one, but not for the most part.
Never did see anybody going quite that slow, nor did we ever see anybody paying the $5 either. This is about the most modern of the bridges we saw.
That's Turk and his well restored Model A. Nice job, and the second time he and his family have restored it in the 40 some odd years they've had it. He was justifiably proud of it, and would drive it any time it didn't look like rain. Which wasn't very often while we were there.
Nothing like a night at the theater. Particularly if the fragrance of the day is "Off by Johnson & Johnson." That's the light bank up there in the trees, with the sound station below it, and then a shot of the stage with "plenty of open seating." The play is one that they've been doing in Swanzey for, like, 65 years, and I'll let Barb give you the details of the author and all that. I'm just the photographer.....some of the time. Well, Barb has the brochures at "home" in the coach and we're now in a hotel, and I can't remember his name either. But it's important because of its significance to the theater as we know it today. (October 23, 2003 - finally found the brochure!) The name of the play is "The Old Homestead" and it's by Denman Thompson. He was an aging song-and-dance man in the mid 1880's who had never earned more than $25.00 a week when he's struck with arthritis that threatens his career, such as it is. He has a wife and three children to support. He recalls the years of his adolescence, when he lived in the small New Hampshire town of Swanzey, and writes a play containing a thinly veiled autobiography and characters based on people he knew in town. He creates a role in the play for himself that doesn't require much strenuous movement. The play becomes a smashing success. It runs for 200 weeks in New York, 100 in Philadelphia, and has a European tour, including a command performance for Queen Victoria. With some of the $3 million he earns from all this, he builds an ornate home for his family in the New Hampshire town of his boyhood. He will never write another play. By the time of his death at the age of 77, he has performed the leading role in the play 15,000 times. The play falls into obscurity and is forgotten. Then in 1939, while casting about for a fund-raising idea, a couple of community organizations in Swanzey decided to "dust it off". Many townspeople in the troupe today started their volunteer work as children and are now bringing their children to assure the play will continue as an expression of the town's respect for tradition. Except for a break in the schedule during the war years, it has gone on ever since. It was one of the first, if not the first home-grown theater production of its kind and gained incredible popularity, touring even beyond our borders.
The orchestra wasn't in the normal pit, nor were they the pits. They were actually one of the reasons we were here. We'd been told to get here early just to hear them, and we were glad we did. They looked like maybe some of the members also had their kids playing with them, and more than one looked like they could have had their grandchildren playing with them. Quite the age range, and we'd highly recommend listening to them. And lest you think this is some kind of primitive operation, let the sign assure you it's not.
And there's proof the facilities exist. Now the quartet times two was made up of gentlemen again with a wide range of ages. The fellow third from the right wasn't acting.....well, yes, he actually was acting his age. But then again, they sounded good. And I had both hearing aids in, too!
The actors got into their parts as much as they got into their costumes. Great fun for them and us, and a wonderful effort for a community theater. And then it was off to visit sister Donna at her and her husband David's "camp" in NH, near Laconia. Barb's mom, Barb, and her little sister Donna. Barb was the baby in the family for 17 years, then Donna came along and stole the title. At that point I'm told, Pa moved upstairs. Ma has three grandkids older than her youngest daughter.
Donna and David's place is right across the street from the lake, and it's beautiful there amongst the trees, even if one is getting a tad closer to them than they'd like.
This place is really for the kids, and they were all over the place. "King Of The Rock" was a title shared equally from what I observed. When we first visited a couple of years ago, the trailer was all they had. While it was nice enough, the rooms they added on made it a lot more comfortable for them, and the roof assures a long life for the trailer.
Seeing the extra propane tank out front reminded me that we had a large propane tank for two years while in our trailer before hitting the road full time. And who ever heard of Halloween in July? Well, these kids, that's who. Like I said, this place is really into the kids, and this apparently is an annual tradition. Maybe Barb remembers the girls names, but I'm afraid my mind is mush tonight. They're cute and fun to be around at any rate.
Neighbor across the way enjoys her flowers, and so did we. Barb has worn these kind of stretchy shoe laces for several years, and gave a pair to Ma, who took a liking to them right away. No more tying shoes, and no more hassle with getting them on and off. I have a pair on my tennies and like them just fine too. These are Ma's first pair and she's showing them off.