Recharging the Batteries

The week has run away from me.

Last weekend more than 400 were welcomed here for the two day Open House. Aided by Peter and Barbara Whitfield, Lee Coscia, and Nancy Fay, Julie and I put the best foot forward and had a good time doing it.  I saw many familiar faces and the recurrent theme was enthusiasm to be out of the rain (on Sunday) and to hear a story or two. Guests who had already been to Lawson Tower wanted to know how many steps to the top of the Light.  They were pooped from climbing the hundred plus at Lawson.

Friday night saw the annual Luminaria. Haley and I pitched in with the placing and the lighting of the candles on both jetties.  There was a less frantic feeling than in the past two years.  People walked the Point and out on the breakwaters but the buzz was subdued.  I took a different approach to the photography this year too.  I decided to be creative with the camera and abandoned the conventional. Some of the results are below.

 

 

  

It was great fun to fool around with the lights; a twist here and a slide there and the red and green of the navigation lights along with the candles and the moon were mixed up like a highway scene. I got the one below entirely by accident. A young man was walking by as I was chatting at the fence and his toy created this flare across the screen.

Another twist to the weekend was the question of where to fly our signal flags. "Don't Give Up the Ship" has become a mania here on Cedar Point, and all across Scituate. I couldn't take that flag off the pole and with it there the signal flags would end up in the bushes. Improvisation was called for and that is a school teacher's strength.

Hanging them off the Tower has shown off the colors and prompted question after question. It is always good to get people talking.

Preparations continue for the reconstruction of the utility room. A storage pod will be arriving next week for the furniture and appliances we have in there. In the middle of this week I was finally able to confirm the date for the building of that wing. In an 1838 Report Naval officer Edward Carpender writes the the (then current keeper) had built the wing for a tenant. Others had written this but I never knew how they knew. Thanks to Jeremy D'Entremont and to Dave Ball who helped out in that search. The binders are bulging with documents and with pictures. All that remains is to discover a picture of the store that operated out of that wing in the 20's and 30's. C'mon, I know its out there!!