Early shopping

Until last week I never have had a chance to try out the cute shopping carts at Strack and Van Til with a little kid. They are fun==this little girl liked the cart a lot, and was quite happy to drive the cart all over the store. It sure makes shopping better when the little ones are happy instead of whining.

For somewhat older kids, the store has these small, kid-sized carts. One mother gave each of her two kids a small cart and filled them with her shopping. She did not bother with a big cart and the kids were kept busy helping.

On the topic of shopping, on the way to the store I noticed that the space that was once the Doghouse behind Jordan Floral is now being converted into a beauty shop, Foxy's Hair Salon. (I once thought I should try to catalog all the beauty shops and salons in Rensselaer, and decided it would be too much work. There are a lot, they change constantly, and some are small and are part-time.)

Onward to winter

Last week we had some unseasonally warm weather, and the large piles of leaves were very inviting to this little girl. She thought it was great fun to be buried in the leaves. And also to stomp through them. (I still like to do that once in a while--it brings back memories of childhood.)

Most of the trees are bare, but this oak sapling (which is growing in the wrong place so I will soon have to cut it out) still had some very pretty leaves. I liked the golden brown and orange colors in them.

There is not much of fall left--we are halfway through November. The days are short, the sun is low, and soon we will be enjoying the beauty of freshly fallen snow.

The Saint Augustine fall bazaar

The annual Saint Augustine Bazaar was held last Thursday. For most people who attend, it begins with a turkey dinner in the church basement.

Then people can walk over to the school where there are kids games. This little girl was having a hard time with a golf club. She would have done better at the fishing booth, but there was no fishing booth this year. The fishing booth was great for the little ones because no skill at all was required. The kids always enjoy the little prizes that are often thrown away the next day.

Many of the adults enjoy the raffles and the big wheel. For some reason people are more willing to donate to charities when it is done in a gambling form. That has been true since the beginning of the United States--in the early days of the republic, lotteries were used to fund a number of things that taxes would be used for today.

I was not going to write about the bazaar until I discovered from some old-timers that they did not remember the beginnings of this annual event. One said that before the present church was constructed (which was in 1939), the bazaar was held in the old armory, which was where the fire station is now. He recalled that in the old days live chickens and ducks were the prizes that people were playing for, or turkeys that had to be cleaned and plucked.  He said that Gehring Farms used to donate fifty pound sacks of potatoes and onions. When we first went to the bazaar, frozen turkeys were common prizes. Now food is rare (except for popcorn), and money is common.

Are there any other church festivals or dinners in the area that have as long a history as the Saint Augustine bazaar?

Verterans Day 2010

The annual Veterans Day ceremonies were held in the new addition to Weston Cemetery yesterday . The invocation was given by Fr. Gilbert from Saint Joseph's College and the main speaker was sheriff-elect Terry Risner.

The ceremonies concluded with a 21-gun salute and taps.

Here is a brief note on the history of Veterans Day and why the ceremonies in Weston Cemetery were on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

Pictures from the North Newton Township School--the basement

Months ago I posted pictures of the decaying North Newton Township School and promised more. I have had the pictures ready to go for months, but just have not gotten around to writing the text.

One of the things I found most interesting was that the old water and heating systems were still there. The tank below was part of the water supply. 

And the machine below seems to be the water pump.

Even though I have never lived in the country, I do have some experience with what you have to do when you do not have city water. Fifty years ago I lived in Little Falls, Minnesota, and though we were well within the town boundaries, for some reason we had our own well. There was a pump and a small tank that kept the water pressurized. What I saw in the school looks like a bigger version of the water well that we had when I was a kid.

The building itself is probably beyond repair. Notice the severe buckling of this wall.

The old coal-fired boiler was also still there.

Below is a close-up of the label you can see in the picture above.

After sitting idle for about sixty years, the old boiler has plenty of rust. Also notice the old push-button wall switch. Do you remember them? There may still be a few at Saint Joes--there was one a year ago on the third floor of the science building.

My guess is that this room was for coal storage. The counterpart of this room at the old South Newton Township School is one of the few rooms that is still a room. Notice how the concrete floor has been cracked. I was told that this was the result of the freeze-thaw cycles of the seasons.

I never lived with a coal furnace--in every house I have lived in, they had been replaced by oil or natural gas. When I moved into my present house, the furnace was an old coal burner that had been converted first to oil and then to natural gas. After a few years, it developed some leakage, and we had the monster replaced. It had some similarities to this one, but our system is hot water and this one looks like it was steam.

You can see the name of the boiler company on the door. The picture below shows it better, the Kewanee Boiler company. It was in Kewanee, Illinois, and a search on the internet revealed its history. Started in 1868, it shut down in 2002. The assets of the company are now owned by a Pennsylvania company which services the old boilers. I wonder if they could get this one back to working order.

I did not take some of these pictures--they are beyond the capabilities of my camera. My son took them with a much better camera. You probably cannot tell, but the room that the boiler is in is completely dark.

I have more pictures, and one of these days I may do a final post on this old building.