In the Beginning

I just love this picture of the High Altar taken around 1905 by Charles Frederic Zabriskie. Everything looks so shiny new and clean. I always imagine this was taken on Maundy Thursday since there appears to be an empty tabernacle and only the bare minimum of adornment. Those are the original solemn six candlesticks which are so much finer than the ones we have now. Alas something happened to three of them somewhere along the way as we now only possess three of them, two at the baptistry and one only recently rescued from a life converted to a lamp under a very large and ugly shade. I suppose someone decided that a candle without a pair could hardly have a life of its own and so fitted its insides with an electric cord and put a large shade over it so that it was hardly recognizable as the beautiful candlestick it once was, sitting proudly on the High Altar. As I was refinishing the West End door those many weeks it gave me some good light but then one day it stopped working and I was faced with either repairing it or doing what I had been longing to do for years: turn it back into a candlestick. It seemed to fairly shout at me to do the latter and after some weeks of sitting in the electric room, one Saturday it just demanded that I take the electrical wiring from its guts and restore it to its intended purpose. It took three Saturdays to actually accomplish this restorative surgery since it was very well made and the final step of taking out the three foot rod that held it together involved also sawing off six inches of it to make it fit again. I lost a few ounces of blood in the procedure but I finally managed to get the eight individual sections back together and upright, not an easy operation at all, but well worth the effort. It now sits atop the marble plinth in the Sunday School room, which had been without a purpose itself for many years. I felt sure people would think this was all well and good, but apparently someone was so offended that they complained to the vestry about my audacity in converting it back to a candlestick. Oh well, you can't please everyone!

This has been a very busy month and I have spent many hours getting the Zabriskie web pages finished, struggling mightily with Dreamweaver and Photoshop and finally being enlightened by a colleague at work only this past week about resampling so that now the photos don't take up a gazillion bytes. I think Charles Frederic will be pleased and I hope someday soon we can get an exhibit of his photos here to New York. I wish I had more of them to display but that will have to wait for another trip to Cooperstown. I hope I can get up there in the summer this time and experience it in its most wonderful state.

I also had a very nice treat last week when my cousin, Laura Hazelbaker, came through town with Ray Price, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson on the "Last of the Breed" tour. She plays fiddle with Ray's band, the Cherokee Cowboys, and was able to sneak me in backstage at Radio City to hear the show. It was great to meet Ray and hang out with him and and the band on their bus afterward. He is one of my all time favorites, and still sounds as good as ever, even at 81! Merle and Willie were great also and it was a wonderful warm night at the High Church of Honky Tonk, a nice respite in the midst of a chilled and somber Lent.

Today was polishing day at the Shrine Church and we got most of it done. Tuesday we shall finally, God willing, get the new lantern installed over the West End door and get the new sign up. Thursday I shall spend most of the day there getting ready for Maundy Thursday. I'm MC, as I have been for the past several years, and it takes all day to get everything set up, but it's my favorite service I think. Here's praying we don't have any major blowouts in the sacristy this week as we often have. Lord grant a blessed Holy Week to us all.