Monthly Archives: February 2015

This old lamp is new

In June of 1974, Elsie R Bogue,  one of the greatest influences of my young life passed away at 81 years old. She was the person who spent endless hours with me playing the card game “Flinch.”  She was my neighbor and a friend and I treasure the tea cart and lamp that she left to me. As I grew older I became more and more concerned that the lamp with its original wiring would short and start a fire. The lamp is a table lamp with a heavy outer green glass shade lined with white glass,  a brass stand and its cloth covered wire had a plug that still had its cardboard holder thingie (Sorry for the technical chatter) to keep the wires away from the prongs. 

Once or twice I talked to someone about re-wiring it but I never did it because it just would not be the same lamp with a plastic cord. So it sat unused on the teacart.  Then one day I mentioned it to electrician and neighbor, George Fratoni. George enjoys the research and the delicacy of re-wiring old lamps, chandeliers and displays and safely returning them to life. He told me he would re-wire it only if he could maintain the history and integrity of the lamp.    

Oh my did he ever! My lamp looks just like it always has except now I can pull its chains to turn it on in comfortable safety and I have honored the memory of my neighbor by keeping the lamp looking the same as she passed it to me.  

Years ago I took down a chandelier in my home, even though I loved it,  because the electrician said it was dangerous and could not be re-wired. Now if I can just remember where I stored it, I think I found the person to re-store it.

Re-wiring treasured lamps and chandeliers is a wonderful gift for someone you care about and when it is done well  it is an even greater gift or tribute. George Fratoni did a wonderful job and I cannot thank him enough for maintaining the integrity and the memory of my lamp. If you have a lamp or a chandelier that you think might be a challenge for George, give him a call at 860.625.5776.   

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com   

Food Recycling Coming Soon

It is happening already in Seattle, Washington and it is scheduled to begin in Connecticut within the next ten years. A new city law in Seattle makes it illegal to put food into trash cans. First warnings are a bright red tag being tied to the trash bin signaling to all that there is food in the trash and the law has been extensively violated.   The law took effect to keep food out of the land fill.
Seattle officials estimate that every family throws away 400 pounds of food each year. The city provides each household with a bin to fill with their food and yard waste for municipal composting that can be purchased back for yards and gardens. Eventually single households will pay $1 per violation, but apartments, condos and other commercial buildings may be fined $50 per violation.  
Eddie Oquendo is a Norwich resident with his eye on this future. Oquendo and Helen Yu have formed a company in Norwich called Rucoil, LLC . Oquendo has patented a kiosk machine that can accept filled one gallon containers and exchange them for an empty one with credit based on weight credited to your account through the use of a bar code on the container.
Oquendo’s kiosks can be adjusted for cooking oil, truck oil, and motor oil as well as kitchen waste. The difference between Seattle and Oquendo’s kiosk being that Seattle picks up their bins through trash collection and does not credit the resident; all money made from the waste goes to the City. Oquendo’s plan would pay the resident directly through a membership account signaled by the bar code. The owner of the kiosk would sell the contents of the filled containers to a food recycling or anaerobic digestion facility who in turn would sell either the compost or a methane gas product, to fuel power plants to produce electricity or further be refined into vehicle grade transportation fuel.  
Oquendo’s dream as a visionary and inventor  ”is to make a better world for his children and community by developing the tools to make living a greener life easier for everyone.” The manufacturing of Rucoil’s kiosks will employ 4 – 50 people locally and is currently the only project like it in the world.
Visit www.rucoil.net for further information and details on the kiosk and other projects.
Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com

A Writer’s Celebration

On or about January 25th the Scots celebrate Robert Burns Day. Burns was a Scottish poet born on January 25, 1759 (He was the guy that wrote Auld Lang Syne.)and today many people and organizations have a Burn’s supper or a Burn’s Night. They have toasts and read bits of his works aloud.

Norwich, CT has been the birth place and home of a number of writers. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a Norwich writers’ celebration. A day or evening where the restaurants and bars each choose a different Norwich Writer to celebrate and honor with a specially named drink or meal or perhaps a bit of entertainment. A short reading of the honorees work perhaps?

The libraries in town could each choose a few of the writers to honor. There is a library at Three Rivers and NFA and the Tech Schools and they could work with Otis Library. Every school advertises it has a writing center, this would be an opportunity for them to use it.  The ‘Open Mic’ locations could have a special local authors night that month.

Other places in the world are loud and proud of what their residents have done. Don’t you think that it’s time Norwich, CT became loud and proud of who we are and who we have produced?  Let’s discover E. Annie Proulx, Brittany Goodwin, Wally Lamb, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney, Donald Mitchell and Pat Gagliardo.

Why are we allowing other places to be prouder of these authors than we are?

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com

SEAT is having a meeting

On Tuesday night, February 24th from 6 PM – 8 PM at the Norwich Transportation Center  will be a public community meeting about the SEAT Bus Study. All the people involved are going to be there and will be willing to talk about their findings so far and to hear from the public.

The representatives of SEAT want  to show off their work. They want to talk about the improvements they have made and the ones they want to make. They want to talk to the people who use the busses and the ones that want to use the busses.  And this is really important, it will be served by SEAT runs 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9. YOU can ride the bus to and from the meeting!

This is a chance for your voice to be heard about the bus system. This is an opportunity to make the suggestions that you have been muttering about. If you can’t make the meeting in Norwich there will be another presentation in New London Union Station on Wednesday, February 25th from 6 PM – 8 PM and it will be served by SEAT runs   1, 2, 3, 12, 14 and 108.

Well done and thank you SEAT!

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com

Daguerrotype or Photograph

How do you know it’s a daguerrotype and not a photograph?

The 1850’s gave us our first framed photographs but they weren’t really photographs. The images were probably daguerrotypes. Daguerrotypes were a photographic process invented in 1839 by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre and were popular until the mid-1860’s.

The Daguerrotype is a glass image was encased with a glass cover and a mat that was held together with a “preserver” strip along the edge so you have to hold the glass at an angle in order to see the image.

First we know that a daguerrotype format limits the time frame from 1839 – mid-1860’s.

Then we have to look at the fashions the people are wearing and hope that they are wearing the fashion of the day.

The sleeve for a woman of the 1850’s was narrow at the shoulder and flared at the wrist. Sometimes if you look closely enough you can see a white undersleeve peeking out.

Dresses often had a broad collar and buttoned in the front as they did their own dressing without assistance and the full skirts were still gathered over hoops.  

The woman’s long hair was usually parted in the center and gathered over the ears.

Men’s fashions of the 1850’s are a little easier to distinguish. A dressed up man would wear a 2-inch-wide bowtie over a turned up collar so just a half inch or so of the collar can be seen. The sleeves were narrow and their coats were very fitted until the mid 1850’s and then they became a little looser.  

Men kept their chins clean shaven but their hair was well oiled and long on the top.  

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Great Backyard Bird Count 2015

The Great Backyard Bird Count will be Friday February 13th through 16th, 2015. It is a great fun activity toddlers to seniors. It can be done inside or outside. It’s just spending 15 minutes counting the types and kinds of birds you see and then reporting your count on www.birdcount.org.

You can do it looking out your kitchen or schoolroom window, while sitting in the park, while visiting someone in a protected environment. You and a friend can look at the same space from different angles and compare your counts on the phone.  

Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society review the information to learn how the birds are doing, how we can better protect them and ourselves as we share the same environment.

There is no special time and you are encouraged to do it more than once and report your findings each time. Norwich, CT has twice been the most reported community in Connecticut.

It sounds strange to think that the researchers are looking at the trends of not just which birds are present in an area but which birds are missing from an area. Which birds have changed their migration pattern or times.

The bird count site is a live count site meaning that when you enter your numbers you can watch the numbers in your city climb up. It’s entertaining, it’s fun and you can even do this with people living in other cities, states and countries and then compare the results of your respective areas.  

Don’t even try to tell me you don’t have the time. Your observation can be while you are waiting in the car for someone. You don’t know your birds? I bet you know your basic red Cardinal, blue bird, sparrow, duck, and swan. That is  a start or you can ask someone else, “Do you know what that bird is?”  or you can get a picture book of birds.

Go for a walk. Sit down by any window. Look out the windshield of your car. The hardest part will be remembering to have a pen and paper to write the numbers down to report to www.birdcount.org and visit the site for more information and be sure to check out the latest educational and promotional resources.

Be a citizen scientist and participate this year! There is no cost to participate and no one or organization will bother you in the future unless you sign up for it.

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com  

Commuters need bathrooms too

James Redeker was a very lucky man that in 30 years of commuting by train he never once had to use a bathroom. Department of Transportation Commissioner Redeker was able to time his arrivals at the commuter stations within five minutes of a train leaving. My guess is that he never left his house or his office late. Never had a child to drop off or pick up on the way, or a spouse that needed to be dropped off or followed to a garage for a repair and he certainly was never part of a rideshare. Never had an infection, took blood pressure pills, was pregnant, elderly or travelled with a person who was. I say this because the Commissioner has decided that bathrooms are not necessary in the commuter stations that will be built along the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield line.

I can speak for no one else but it will take me about an hour before I can reach any of the planned commuter train stations. I will need to visit a bathroom when I get to the station. Yes. I could probably “hold it” until I got on the train but what if I missed the train and had to wait for the next one? Or the train was late? Or the bathroom was out of order? What if there was a line? What about the people who have issues using facilities on moving transportation – planes, trains and busses?

Transportation authorities in Connecticut have a history of believing that restrooms are not a necessary for travelers through Connecticut on our highways and now apparently in our train stations. No wonder we have so few travelers compared to other New England states and so few businesses looking to locate here. Denying people the opportunity to go to the bathroom is a form of torture. Ever needed to use a rest room but had to “hold it?”

Redeker claims the lack of bathrooms will be a “cost saving measure.” As a tax payer, I will happily have my taxes pay for bathrooms. I object for my taxes to be used for grandiose offices for commissioners, expensive lunches, and a great many other things but I want to be very clear, I will never, ever, object to my tax dollars being used for public bathrooms.

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com

Hanky Incident

It must have been a slow news day on August 3, 1859 in Illinois because an incident in Moodus, CT made the paper there. It seems “An ingenious rascal posted himself close by the railroad track at Moosup station when the Methodist excursion train was returning from Providence to Norwich Ct, on Saturday, and as the ladies’ waved their handkerchiefs from the car windows, he reached up and caught a whole armful of them at once. He escaped with his plunder.”

Now doesn’t that give you a whole different image of train travel? What was going on on that train? Where were they coming from? What was the activity that had the ladies in such high spirits?

How many women today carry a handkerchief? A delicate square of thin cloth decorated perhaps with a light scent, a bit of embroidery or perhaps an edge of hand tatted lace. So much was signaled with that square! Waved in the air it could draw the attention of a friend in a crowd so loud screaming or yelling in a crowd would not be necessary or it could wipe away a stray tear or two.    

Handkerchief use began in ancient Greece to wipe perspiration from the faces, hands, and mouths of the upper class. During the Renaissance, if a man were in good favor with his lady, she would offer him her handkerchief as a symbol of their love, or vice-versa. It was Marie Antoinette’s husband Louis XVI who decreed the length of handkerchiefs in France be equal to their width.

Eventually, men and women used their hankies for flirtation. If a woman was interested in a certain man, she would draw the handkerchief across her cheek, which translated into I love you. If she hated the man, she would draw the handkerchief through her hands.  A tissue just does not the same.

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