Helping with a Moravian Barn-Raising

Our first-ever Moravian Barn Raising was a big success! It was probably never realistic to get it finished on Saturday, so we took a more experiential approach teaching the kids some fundamentals of construction and safety. A smaller group came out later in the week and finished the primary construction. There’s still some finish work to do and it needs to be stained and roofed, but I am pretty happy with how everything ultimately turned out.

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FIELD NOTES: Random Cohabitation

In July of 1980, I received an invitation in the mail. It was from someone named Rod Smith, who introduced himself as my residence hall advisor for the upcoming fall quarter at Ohio University. He invited me to a "small get-together" at his house in Perrysburg for the incoming first-year students on his floor. I'll give Rod credit for trying, but I was the only person on that floor within reasonable driving distance, and I wasn't going to miss a night of work to attend his party. In retrospect, that might have been shortsighted of me. Except for a couple of high-school buddies who roomed together, no one on the first floor of James Hall that September had met or even communicated with anyone else until we showed up a day or two before classes. Apparently, that's not how it's done these days. I stumbled across a lengthy article from the Ohio University student newspaper, The Post, detailing how to go about selecting and vetting a roommate through social media....

FRIDAY MATINEE: Midnight Mass (🍺🍺🍺🍺)

I held off writing this review until I had seen all seven episodes of the new Netflix limited series “Midnight Mass.” I’ve been burned in the past by shows that start out well and then devolve into silliness as they progress. While “Mass" doesn’t completely stick the landing, I think even the East German judge would give it a solid 9. Taken as a whole, I think it is as effective a piece of horror as the combined “It” movies from a few years ago, and right on par with “Hereditary” and “Midsommar.” The story revolves around a man returning to his childhood island home after a prison stay for a drunk driving accident that killed a teen girl. Coincidentally, it is the same day the island’s beloved elderly priest, Monsignor Pruitt is supposed to return from a trip to the Holy Land. Unfortunately, the priest has taken ill and is being treated on the mainland. A temporary priest arrives to take his place. The story takes a little while to get going, and anyone who’s familiar with t...

Ancient Artifacts, Huntersville Edition

On Saturday, I replanted a flower bed near my garage. I have been trying to grow lavender and creeping jenny there for the past few years and the results have been underwhelming. I decided to pull everything out, double-dig the whole bed, add some peat to improve drainage and replant it. About halfway through the process, my shovel hit something metallic. Looking down, I was able to make out the remnants of some sort of cylindrical object. Believing that I might have stumbled onto a major archaeological find, I proceeded slowly, carefully removing the accumulated dirt and debris from around the object. Although it was now badly deformed and in two pieces, it was immediately clear to me that the artifact was originally a single tube-like structure, about five inches tall and two inches in diameter. It was made from a light, flexible metal and painted in bright red, green and white shapes. Although the condition of the object made it difficult to ascertain what the design might have ...

John B. Marek

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