Shopping the Birthright Rummage Sale I

The annual Birthright rummage sale took place last weekend. Like most events, there is a lot of work behind the scenes. It begins the Sunday before when the Saint Augustine Church basement is prepped. Tables and clothing racks are set up and extra chairs are put away.
By Tuesday there was a fair amount of stuff in corner.
On Thursday a pack of people take the pile, sort it, and set it out on tables.
This year it was all set up by Thursday at noon. Compared to years in the past, there was not a lot of stuff. In the year of Katrina, the amount of stuff was noticeably down as people sent loads of clothing south (where most of it probably ended up in landfills). This year was the amount of clothing and stuff was as depressed.
Toys took a tremendous hit. Usually the piles of toys are much higher than this.
The same with shoes, most of which fit on the pie rack. In the past there have been twice as many shoes.
The pile of books may look impressive, but often there are many boxes spread out on the floor.
It is good to see at least one table where some of the stuff had to be put on the floor in boxes. This is what the sale looked like as the doors were ready to be opened at 9:00 on Friday.
Dozens of people were ready to start shopping. Many even brought their own bags to fill for $2.00. The price per paper grocery bag has not changed for many years.
At about 9:30 it was hard to walk around the basement because there were so many people looking through the tables. By the way, the different things are on different tables. Some have women's pants, other women's blouses, others men's shirts, etc.
By the end of the day the tables were much emptier. Below is what was left of the toy section.
Remember the books? There were still a few left, but they probably were not what most people would want to read.Tomorrow we will look at the end of the sale.

Going to church the Iroquois Valley way

(I thought it would be interesting to use Sundays to focus on Rensselaer's churches and to see how many Sundays I can go before I run out of material. Indiana is richly endowed with religious denominations, with influences from North and South, East and West. This is part of that series of posts.)

The Iroquois Valley Christian Church is located west of Rensselaer at 2335 Bunkum Rd. According to the "Church Services Directory" in the Rensselaer Republican, the senior minister is Scott Chastain. It has Sunday school at 9:00 a.m. and blended worship at 10:00 a.m.
I could not find a web site for this church, nor could I find any organization or fellowship of churches to which it belongs. Like a fair number of Rensselaer churches, it appears to be an independent or non denominational church. I found it linked to this camp and other than a lot of directories, not much more.

Renovations

I did not pay attention to the renovation at the Lafayette Bank and Trust for several weeks, until I noticed the dumpster on the street and what appeared to be bricked-up windows.
The bank did have a sign announcing the renovation, and I had actually seen a sign about it earlier, but ingored it.
However, a couple weeks ago I had a check to cash and decided to go in and see what was happening. The main entrance no longer led to the tellers. Instead, it lead to construction.
A smaller door led into a new teller's area. Along the side was plastic that separated the working part of the bank from the under-construction side.
What had appeared to be bricked-up windows were not. Instead, the renovation was creating new windows. In the picture below there on three on the left that have been punched all the way, while two window openings and a doorway still need to have bricks removed.

In the picture below a workman is knocking out bricks for the doorway.
The bank is not the only building with some sort of renovation underway. On Kellner between Cullin and Weston there is an old building that appears to have been a garage of some sort that I noticed looked really dilapidated. It had a hole in the back wall,
Below is how the hole looked from the rear of the building.
A few weeks ago I noticed that there was activity here, and the whole back wall had been taken down.
I do not know what this building has been used for in the past and I do not know what the plans are for its future. Because there has never been anything interesting in it, I have not really noticed it in the past. If you have information, leave it in the comments.

Spring equinox

Happy spring equinox, the day on which the sun is directly over the equator. It is also the day on which the sun rises due east and sets due west. If we were on the north pole, we would be welcoming the sunrise. (Actually, because the atmosphere distorts light rays a bit, the sun rises a bit before the spring equinox at north pole and sets a bit after the fall equinox.)
Te picture above shows the sun setting at the end of Jackson Street. You can see three light poles for the softball field.

A picture of the flood

The graph showing gage height tells the story in a different, more analytical way. Aren't the shapes interesting? They indicate that the river rises faster after a big rain than it declines.