Norman Rockwell Moments

Every year our local library has a Book Sale.  Since our lovely Carnegie Library has a finite amount of space, annually they offer up well loved books to the community for a princely sum of $5.00 per bag of books.  Each year the Beynon family, bibliophiles all, walk down early to hunt for treasures.  This year, prior engagements kept us away from the library until late in the afternoon  -about a half hour before the library closed.  I thought all the real treasures would have gone, but I was wrong.

Sitting right out on top was this:

It's a beautiful book with a complete history of Rockwell's life and features spectacular pull-outs like this:

Click on the image for the full effect.

And after we got the book it seemed to me that I was seeing Rockwell Moments everywhere.  As I walked the boy to school yesterday morning - I with his back pack and with the dog on her leash and he carrying a basketball under his arm - I noticed a couple of drivers look and smile at the scene.

In fact, on the Sunday I was able to snap this picture, which I could see as a Rockwell painting:

Last night we went for a walk in the Elora Gorge - a few miles from our house.  Again, Rockwell moments abounded.

Here's one:

And another:

As we were leaving the magnificent natural splendor of the gorge the wee  lad found something decidedly NOT Norman Rockwell.  This has more of a Roswell feel to it, as you can tell from the look on the boy's face:

Again - click on the image for the full effect...

Heritage

I'm dragging myself around today, travelling from coffee cup to coffee cup.  Last night was our final presentation for a series of Heritage Lectures at our local centre for the arts.  I have a little project that I spearhead.  It's a park in called BT Corner which commemorates the Beatty family who brought industry in a big way to our little town.  As part of our lecture series I presented on the park specifically and making heritage interesting and accessible in general.

This is the entry to the park - seen on this blog several times before.  Here's a little about the materials used and why.  The replica grist millstone pays homage to the very first industries in town.  Mills were the cornerstone of our community and without them and the agricultural landscape surrounding Fergus, the Beatty Brohters would never have come here.  The limestone boulders surrounding the millstone represent the building material of choice for buildings in this area.  The sandblasted stainless steel sign bearing the BT logo reminds us of the Beatty foundry which was located in the building directly across the street from the sign.

You can see the factory attached to the foundry in this picture.  The factory found reuse as the Fergus Market for many years before having a makeover five years ago and become the more upscale, Fergus Marketplace.  In the foreground is a dry stone wall which highlights the Scottish roots of the town.  It will house the interpretive panels.  It looks really, really nice.

And finally here's just a really nice shot of the stonecutter's hammer and the design drawings sitting on the wall as it was being built.

The lecture series seems to have been a success.  Turnouts were good, though I suppose you always wish there we more folks in the seats.

When I wasn't presenting, I had the pleasure of sitting with local actor, Colin Fox.  We spoke a bit and he seems a delightful man with a genuine concern for the heritage of his community.  We'd met briefly before at the Elora Writer's Festival and I've had occasion to bump into him at events around town.  I needed to tell him that he has thrilled my kids with his work on the animated tv show, Atomic Betty.

Work on Gerry has slowed as I find myself needing a little extra polish on Loremaster.  More on that as things develop.

I think that I shall never see...

A poem.

Today I unexpectedly found myself writing a poem.

Over the last few weeks I've been plugging away at Gerry, my kid's story about an orphaned giant.  Each day I've become a little more immersed in Gerry's world and things are flowing nicely.  Today, however, I opened my notebook to where I left off Gerry last night, tapped the page a few times with my pen, then leafed ahead a dozen pages to a blank sheet.

I wrote these words:

Llewellyn never smiled again

And then the first three verses of a poem bled out of my pen onto the paper.  I'm heading back to my notebook now.