Unfortunately, the nice weather was not to last: Saturday was a gray, depressing rainy day. I was so pissed in that I messed up my morning workout at the “Y” on the Concept 2 rowing machine. My sweatshirt became untucked and was jamming the seat rollers. I had to stop to take it off. The time I missed knocked off the distance I needed to best my last rating!
Saturday was the day to start a new project. I had ordered new cardboard pegs for the record cabinet which were delivered on Thursday. The reason so many of these specialized cabinets survived the demise of the cylinder record was: the record pegs were easily removed allowing the cabinets to be used for other purposes. The pegs were stripped from my cabinet a long time ago….
The first task was to install the cardboard caps to one end of the tube. This was easily accomplished by first putting a few drops of white glue near the top end of the tube. The cap was inserted into the bottom end of the tube and pushed through with a small individual serving whiskey bottle! It was the perfect size for the task. The "endcaps" were installed in all the 254 pegs working in groups of ten.
The new pegs must be installed into the cabinet with hide glue. This animal glue has been used for centuries. The beauty of it is: it holds strong, but if need be, it can be reversed. I had just a little bit of this glue left. The stuff I use is in crystal form. You add water and then heat. I mix the glue and water in a heavy glass jar and then use a hot water bath to melt it all together. I had just enough glue to repeg two of the six shelves of my cabinet.
This Sunday morning I got to the “Y” for an early workout at 7:40. They are open till 9:00 a.m. For whatever reason it was closed. Nobody was there: DAMN! I figured I’d check Blowe’s to see if they had any hide glue in the squeeze bottle. I know it is sold in that fashion. Naturally it is not available and the people I talked to did not have a clue to what it even was.
The internet to the rescue again: A pound of animal hide glue crystals will be sent to me next week. This is good as the glue in dry crystal form can be stored forever. The bottled stuff has a short shelf life. That glue I had was in my possession for over 30 years!
It was a sad afternoon. I put my elbow on the computer desk and felt cold. Looking at the right sleeve of my shirt, I realized the elbow had ripped through on my Pendleton wool shirt. Not just any shirt, but the shirt I bought with Christmas money my dad gave me in 1984. It was his last Christmas. You can’t keep everything forever, but I sure try!
I knew I had some old pictures of me in that shirt so I was on a quest going through photo albums. Not a good thing to do on a gloomy day. Talk about bringing on a feeling of melancholy when the weather already had me vulnerable. I was just blown away thinking I was sorting through pictures of me from 20+ years ago…….
Wilmington, PA January 1989. I still have the vest. I wore it rowing Friday. I sewed it from a Frostline Kit in January 1982.
My shirt some twenty + years later!
Installing the new cardboard pegs in the cylinder record cabinet.
With my good friend Diane at Toni’s wedding wearing my glow in the dark eyes! That jacket was horrible. I don't remember who gave it to me. I still have that dress shirt. It is a pale blue with a white collar and white french cuffs. I bought it for the "summer of weddings" in 1974. That shirt outlasted most of the weddings it attended!!!
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