West Virginia Industrial School for Boys, Part I - Featured in September's Wonderful West Virginia Magazine

Click over here for information on my latest publication:
The Taylor County, West Virginia site - August 22, 2008 posting.

You ask, 'Where have you been?' and 'Why aren't you keeping your blog updated?'
Because of The 123. We are very close to opening and I am busy. Happily busy, but very busy.
You can click over to The Grafton 123 blog site for today's quick post to see what's up.

Oregon Trip - Post 4 - Bronze in the Park

Okay, here's the post about the other bronze sculptures in the park.


There were beautiful, thriving flowering plants hanging from every light post in town. Every morning, a pick-up truck with a water tank in the back would slowly cruise through town and stop at every flower. Alongside the water tank, there stood a man who hosed down every plant until the water dripped out the bottom.

s


This sign says, "A Century Just Blew By:"


There were quite a few signs with historical information; I'll get to some of those later, but this Trout Statue sign will be the first:

These intertwined bronze trout are the focal point of the park:



Can you read this?

It says,
"Troutdale's
'Rainbow Splendor'
by
Rip Caswell
Captain John Harlow named his farm, and later Troutdale, for the trout he raised in a dale.
'In the rook bordered fish pond where the fountain was playing...' said Ben Hur Lampman, one of Oregon's most eloquent fisherman in 'Coming of the Pond Fishes.'
Generously donated to the City of Troutdale by: Richard L. Weyhrich, Gary A. Weyhrich, Mark D. Weyhrich, Karen A. Weyhrich, Tube Specialties Company, Inc."



These cute little kids I like better than the fish, though:

"Hitchin' a Ride" by Carolyn Williams



"Amanda Jane" by Carolyn Williams

Oregon Trip - Post 2

Okay, so I lied; I am not posting the bronze statue pictures right now.

I am posting this Cigar shop photo:


Cigar store, complete with:

A cigar store Indian!

I think they must bring him in at night, because he wasn't there the first time I walked past early in the morning. I bet he weighs quite a bit, but I suppose they figure he's not too heavy for a couple of motivated thieves to throw him in the back of their pick-up truck in the middle of the night.

Oregon Trip - Post 1

I have no idea how many Oregon posts there will be, but I'll start here.

I flew into Portland and stayed in Troutdale, about 10 miles east. I stayed in a box motel: brand-name, clean, basic, suburban.
Fine, but definitely nothing exciting.

The main street tourist business district, however, was pretty cool. It's a perfect example of what Grafton is heading towards, so I found it particularly interesting.

The first thing I took an interest in was this bronze casting gallery:


I would have stopped in for myself, but because my friend, Debbie, is starting to cast some of her creations in bronze, I was excited to see that they had tours of the foundry (is that the proper name for art casting?). Unfortunately, the tours were closed for remodeling, so I had to settle for the display Gallery.
The Gallery was hard to miss with this life-sized moose sitting on the sidewalk out front:





Inside there were more life-sized creatures:











Come to find out, Debbie has already been there. She even got the tour.

I have more pictures of bronze sculptures in the city park. I'll post those next....

Busy, busy, busy...

I'm uploading pictures from my trip to Oregon right now. The Oregon trip was a Coffee Business class, so a lot of that information will be posted (and cross-posted) over at The 123 blog.
Since I haven't been updating as much as I like to here, I feel like I'm just jumping in blurting out a bunch of irrelevant information. But I'm going to do it anyway, because somewhere, somehow, most of what I say connects here or to another blog (123 or TC), so it's not as random as it seems if you're just beginning to read here.

Here's what I have to do today:
1. Finish the final edit for a magazine article for the October issue of the Wonderful West Virginia Magazine and return it.
2. Finish the minutes for the Taylor County Arts Council and email them (I'm only about 3 weeks late with this...)
3. Buy a mailbox and anchor it to the brick wall of The 123.
4. Get M & G motivated -again- with their math flash cards. G is still doing addition and subtraction; M is doing multiplication. [Bribery is involved with motivation.]
5. Crank music and swing the 12g kettlebell for 20-30 minutes.
6. Drink more coffee (like I need it).
7. Take at least two more baby steps towards setting up the paperwork for opening The 123.
8. Go to the Post Office (before closing, hopefully) and get the mailbox recognized for delivery(Our mailman downtown is very cool and already looking forward to the Coffee House opening).
9. Insurance.
10. Reschedule dental appointment.
11. Get this week's Bulletin Board.

And now that I'm (finally) emptying my camera's memory card, I'll have room to take more pictures. One of those pictures should be the Grafton Post Office. It is very big, old and imposing structure on the west end of downtown's Main Street.

All this -and more- are my excuses reasons for holding off on the flash fiction series that I mentioned at some point previously.

Relaxing

Okay, not really relaxing, more like working on stuff I want to.

I'll tell you more about my weekend later....

'Shoot to Win'

I followed this down Route 50, coming back from Preston County:



I've always said that I am going to get a bumper sticker made especially for PC that says "Weird Load," but this guy wins for the day because, for once, our load wasn't all that weird.
What were we hauling? You'll have to wait until I get time to post about it over at The Grafton 123 House of Coffee blog site.....

Mother's Day and Other Postings...

I've been blogging, but in other places...

• If you have a mother, go check this out: The Home of Mother's Day


• If you have an interest in (or a picture of) The West Virginia Industrial School for Boys (officially named The West Virginia Reform School prior to 1914), check this out: Industrial School for Boys - Call for Pictures


• Check out Grafton's streetscaping project: The New Sidewalks in Grafton


• And, of course, The Grafton 123 - I have avoided posting about the boredom of the drywall mudding marathon, but the mess in the parking lot has gotten some attention. There's more activity happening out there, too, so keep checking in.

And me? What am I doing?

Building peanut men, of course:

***cross-posted at The Grafton 123 blog

Drywalling vs. Gardening

I'm still mudding drywall over at The 123. I'm just about ready to start sanding. I'm not sure which is less fun.

The weather is cooperating, though. If you can call 50 and rainy cooperative. As long as the weather is nasty I'll be inside anyway, so might as well work on the drywall. Nice weather is too tempting; I spent all last week playing in the dirt with my new rototiller and didn't get anything done at The 123. I did, however, get a bunch of ground turned over and yard work done.

It's supposed to clear up by the end of the week, so I have to spend as much time on the inside work as I can (Gee, I sound like a kid who can't wait to get out of school, huh?).

We Can Do It!

PC gave me this poster for Christmas:




There are several reasons why I like Rosie the Riveter, but the empowerment implied in the image is my main attraction.
What better place to hang it than in my office?

It only took me three months to hang it up.

Quick Check

What have I been doing?

1. Research for what will probably be my next book. I've had two false starts this past year and, even with all the other stuff going on, I hope to make this idea stick. A 75,000 word novel...? Anyway, I spent several hours today looking through wills from as early as 1844 through 1950. Much more to say, but moving on.... (I said this was a quick check, remember?)
2. Floor planning for The 123. Using my own brain (including common sense and construction know-how), multiple books, & our consultants, I've come up with a floor plan. That I will alter. Again. And again.... I'm getting closer, though.
3. Getting outside as much as possible even though the weather is crappy in an attempt to stave off (is that a real usage for 'stave' or am I making it up?) the winter blues.
4. Looking for a giant coffee cup. Really.
5. Building The 123's new website and trying to organize it so that it makes sense. I want to pack in tons of info, but it's bare bones right now; I'm building and leaving room without making it seem too skimpy right now. Or at least I'm trying.
6. Drawing pictures of what the outside main entrance will look like.
7. Trying to keep the laundry pile from taking over the basement.
8. Trying to keep the dirty dishes from taking over the kitchen.
9. Trying to keep the kids from taking over my sanity.
10. Trying to keep the dog's foot from getting infected.
11. Trying....

So, lots of 123 stuff. Lots of normal stuff. Lots of stuff.

It's still raining!

Screech called me from school to ask if I'd pick her up. At first I thought she was sick, but school is being dismissed early because of flooding.
So, sure, no problem. I'll pick them all up because the bus route goes through some tight spots right along Sandy Creek which can get really high pretty fast.
The only problem is our bridge is flooded! I can't get out! I drove down the driveway not really thinking anything about it, but when I rounded the turn it was obvious that I wasn't going anywhere. Unless I wanted to try it, and then I'd be going over the falls. But, nope, not trying it.

Fortunately, PC is making the rounds (3 kids at 3 schools). They'll end up at The 123 because they can't get home.

The bridge should still be there when the water goes down. I'm not sure I want to be the first one to try it out, but it has been there for a while - 40 years? I know it survived the big flood of 1985 because the neighbor was telling me about him and his wife using a rope tied off to a tree to drag him through the water. Yikes! Scary. And cold.

I feel totally ineffective. I can't get anywhere to do anything so I've been on the phone trying to get through to the schools, "Do not put him on the bus!" was essentially the message. What would happen if I wasn't calling? If I didn't know they were coming home early? If the kids got off the bus (assuming the bus driver would let them off with Swamp Run crossing our driveway) what would they do? Surely, with that much water they would know not to try to cross it. Surely. It's a little scary to think about. I think they'd know to go to H's and not try to cross....?


Before all this rain started, I'd decided I wanted a kayak. Hmmm....

Amazon Novel Contest

I mentioned, over at the Grafton 123, that I entered my dusty novel in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest and I've had several requests to post an excerpt.

I have to go re-read the fine print of the rules and then I will.

Stay tuned.