November 21, 2002 - Warm Beach - 3
Note on 4/6/03: I lost the pictures for this page because of a mistake I made. Sorry. The same is true for all the pages from 9/2/02 through 10/5/02, and again from 11/15/02 through all of 12/28/02. If I'm able to retrieve them, I'll replace them eventually. Again, I'm very sorry.
Today was the last day of the "official" November SOWERS project here at Warm Beach. We say "official" because there's still work to be done, and the 4th week of any SOWERS project is a travel or catch up or whatever we want to do week. We're allowed to stay parked wherever we may be for an additional 7 days after the project is finished. Only our next project is right here, and rather than just sit around for this in-between week, we'll be volunteering to help out a few days. We'll be taking Thanksgiving off as well as the day before, just because.
The "paint shop" as it's unofficially known. It's really the Pines, and is usually used as a meeting room. All the props you see stacked (and many, many more) against the building on the porch will be installed during the "work weekend" which is the Friday after Thanksgiving, Saturday, and Sunday afternoon. And there's Barb working on a windmill. No, not the Barb that's married to me, but the one that's married to Wendell.
That's Elaine and Eloise and Brenda hard at work. Brenda (with the hat on) is part of the camp staff. Her husband, Patrick, is a semi-professional photographer, and she staunchly would not pose for pictures. That's OK, we'll still enjoy Thanksgiving dinner and day with them. Patrick and I have much in common, and after the holiday, you'll see more of him here. The painting is being done on 4 X 8 sheets of plywood that have been painted with a base coat of white paint, and then the image is projected onto them using an normal overhead projector. The outlines are drawn, and then painted. Pretty simple but difficult process. And there's "my" Barb doing some touch-up work on a Swiss chalet (or maybe it's German), also part of the Lights of Christmas display.
"Girls day out" for lunch. Us guys got even, we went to a Mexican restaurant. One of the "older" SOWER guys said that in all his years as a SOWER, the guys had never gone out for lunch. Several of us decided to make it a new tradition. In addition to the SOWERS, there are a couple of the staff as well. On the left, the woman turned around toward the camera at the end of the table is Jeannie. She's in charge of the Lights Of Christmas preparations, and besides being highly efficient, is a lot of fun to work around. The other staff person is Maggie, who's on Barb's right. And there's a better shot of the gals. Maggie, Joan, Elaine, Eleanor, Marion, Sue, and Sally, the Group Leader. Jeannie must have been taking the picture. Or maybe it was Eloise, who's not here in this shot either (actually it was me, Barb, taking the picture!). You can guess at the fun I had with Elaine, Eleanor, and Eloise all in the same group!
Marion painted the sign, and Keith her husband put it up with some help from Ray who escaped before I could get the camera out. There's Ray and I working on a cashier's desk for a conference, and probably someplace for the LOC (Lights Of Christmas) as well. Ray's drilling the 2" hole for the power cable for the cash register, and I'm doing what I do best. Watching.
Jim and Keith (this is Jim) were building a platform of some sort there in the shop with Ray and I, and there's Barb with a joint project. I'd cut out the miner earlier in the week from a 4 X 8 sheet of 1/2" plywood, and she painted part of it (not quite done yet either). It'll be fun next month to see where all this "stuff" ends up.
Remember Marion and Keith above with the pretty SOWERS Village sign? Well, during our morning coffee break, as we sat in our normal circle of chairs, Marion made a rather unusual request. She and Keith were sitting to Barb's left, and Barb was sitting to my left. She admitted that it was normally a violation of SOWERS regulations to make mention of money or request donations for any cause while we're on a project. In spite of that, she felt that she and Keith had come across a special need in the local community, and anybody that wanted to could donate as they felt, and she started an envelope going around the circle to her left, making Barb and I the last recipients of the envelope. In the envelope was a newspaper clipping explaining the need. One of the other guys and I were telling a story to the group while the envelope was going around, and I didn't pay much attention to the whole thing. Barb and I give what we feel led to already, and it's seldom that we give outside that, and when the envelope came to me, I just passed it on to Barb, and kept on with the story. She sort of sputtered when she pulled the newspaper clipping out, and I glanced at it briefly, and nearly died with embarrassment. I was told that not only did my face turn beet red, but so did my poor old bald head! (They really got him! bj)
Someday, some way, I'll get even. I'll sure have to admit there's a likeness, that's for sure. And all kidding aside, this actually was for a good cause, the Union Gospel Mission. One of the guys said he'd called them about something, and the recording mentioned that they have all the volunteers they need for both Thanksgiving and Christmas already. We sure had a good laugh, and me particularly.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, and please remember why we give thanks.