Sometime after I moved into my current office at 77 Little Bridge Street (that is, when I began renting the office from Messrs. Jack Levi and Billy Guthrie), an addition was put on the back of the building (I think the purpose was to house part of the medical practice of a young doctor from Town). In any event, the addition was appropriately enough built of red brick, in fact old red brick, which I thought made a nice match for the rest of the building. What I did not know was that the old brick had actually come from the burned out wreckage of the Museum in Appleton. It appears that the fellow who was doing the construction of the addition had decided that there was little harm in removing the debris from the site following the recent unfortunate blaze of the Museum, and in defence he may even have been correct in that observation under other circumstances. However, in this case he was wrong. Very wrong.
One of the motivating forces behind the Museum was (and no doubt still is) Miss Jean Steel from Blakeney. Jean has a tough veneer to match her equally tough approach to most matters (though frankly I think that she is probably a lot less tough than she appears at times to be). Yet she is a determined force and not one to be dealt with lightly. As it turned out on this particular day that I was gazing out my office window, looking at the rear of the new (now virtually completed) addition, I could see Jean in what appeared to be a very heated debate (or, more exactly, attack) upon this witless contractor. She was giving new meaning to the metaphor of walking up one side and down the other of this blighter! The contractor was visibly distressed, and even though he was clearly a powerful man, you could tell the thought of his personal safety was not totally remote to him at this time. Of course, in spite of all her rants and raves, it was too late to do much about the matter, barring a court action and other such unpleasant undertakings. The problem, I later learned in conversation with Jean, was that the Museum had hoped to sell each of the bricks for a small sum in order to raise money for the new structure (which happily has since been installed by Drummond Bros. house movers). I ended up buying one of the bricks, complete with some sort of certificate of authenticity. My mother subsequently made a needle-point cover for the brick (and the certificate), and I use it as a door stop in myhome.
As a post scriptum, I chanced to speak about this incident (after I had written about it) with Miss Steel's long-time friend, Mrs. Dawn Leduc. Mrs. Leduc informed me that the contractor had in fact subsequently offered an apology to Miss Steel, who replied, “No apology needed - just $450!” for which I understand he proceeded to write a cheque. Mrs. Leduc commented that this was the “first donation” which they received to rebuild the Museum. As a further aside, but interestingly connected with this matter of the bricks, Mrs. Leduc pointed out to me that the bricks which were used to build the original Museum (and which of course now form part of my own office building) were made on the property formerly belonging to Jas. Metcalf, and is so indicated on a replica I have at my office of an ancient Township of Ramsay map, identified by the symbol “B.Y.”, meaning “Brick Yard” located on the East Half Lot 14, Con. 8 at the corner of what is now Hwy. 29 (15) and Perth Street on the edge of Almonte.
One of the motivating forces behind the Museum was (and no doubt still is) Miss Jean Steel from Blakeney. Jean has a tough veneer to match her equally tough approach to most matters (though frankly I think that she is probably a lot less tough than she appears at times to be). Yet she is a determined force and not one to be dealt with lightly. As it turned out on this particular day that I was gazing out my office window, looking at the rear of the new (now virtually completed) addition, I could see Jean in what appeared to be a very heated debate (or, more exactly, attack) upon this witless contractor. She was giving new meaning to the metaphor of walking up one side and down the other of this blighter! The contractor was visibly distressed, and even though he was clearly a powerful man, you could tell the thought of his personal safety was not totally remote to him at this time. Of course, in spite of all her rants and raves, it was too late to do much about the matter, barring a court action and other such unpleasant undertakings. The problem, I later learned in conversation with Jean, was that the Museum had hoped to sell each of the bricks for a small sum in order to raise money for the new structure (which happily has since been installed by Drummond Bros. house movers). I ended up buying one of the bricks, complete with some sort of certificate of authenticity. My mother subsequently made a needle-point cover for the brick (and the certificate), and I use it as a door stop in myhome.
As a post scriptum, I chanced to speak about this incident (after I had written about it) with Miss Steel's long-time friend, Mrs. Dawn Leduc. Mrs. Leduc informed me that the contractor had in fact subsequently offered an apology to Miss Steel, who replied, “No apology needed - just $450!” for which I understand he proceeded to write a cheque. Mrs. Leduc commented that this was the “first donation” which they received to rebuild the Museum. As a further aside, but interestingly connected with this matter of the bricks, Mrs. Leduc pointed out to me that the bricks which were used to build the original Museum (and which of course now form part of my own office building) were made on the property formerly belonging to Jas. Metcalf, and is so indicated on a replica I have at my office of an ancient Township of Ramsay map, identified by the symbol “B.Y.”, meaning “Brick Yard” located on the East Half Lot 14, Con. 8 at the corner of what is now Hwy. 29 (15) and Perth Street on the edge of Almonte.
No comments:
Post a Comment