| Parting with gear could be profitable
Eventually, my haystack-sized monument to chaotic life as an outdoorsman will be addressed on the outside chance, against betting odds, that somewhere deep inside are buried a few items of value. Like most fishermen, I have trouble letting go of tackle no matter its condition. Count me also among anglers who aren't entirely certain what they have. If we knew, after all, we might think twice about buying more. This sudden interest in neatness behind closed overhead doors coincides with announcement by the area's antique fishing tackle collectors of their annual show and auction. The 14th annual edition of the event is set for Feb. 15-17, beginning (wisely) one day after Valentine's Day, at the Crowne Plaza-Northwest hotel, 12801 Texas 290 at Tidwell.
Bluffs offer slow, seductive pace
Midway between Savannah and Sea Island on the Georgia coast, they sit -- uncelebrated, unusual, unspoiled. If you look hard, you can find them on the map: three contiguous fishing villages called Shellman Bluff, Contentment Bluff and Pleasure Bluff. No more than a few dozen people live full time along the high bluffs that give the villages their names. Most streets are not paved. Outside the mobile homes and small frame houses, almost every yard has a boat on a trailer. Everywhere are enormous, moss-draped oaks. Cell phone coverage is spotty here in northeastern McIntosh County, and tourists are rare enough so that locals instantly recognize anyone who "is not from around here." But travelers do find their way here, and they tend to return, sometimes over and over again.
City plans variety of ways to celebrate 150th anniversary
Many special celebratory events and features are set for the city's yearlong sesquicentennial celebration. They include: The Madison City Council will kick off the celebration at its regular 6 p.m. meeting on Monday at City Hall. Mayor Sandy Kirkindall will sign a proclamation declaring 2007 as Madison's Sesquicentennial Year. The Bob Jones High School Culinary Department will provide a cake. In late April or early May, John Rankin's historical book, "Memories of Madison - A Connected Community, 1857-2007," will arrive from the publisher and be available for sale. A Pioneer Days Celebration will feature costumed re-enactments with "Spirit Strolls" featuring a guide and storyteller wearing a frock coat and top hat recounting Madison's ghost and spooky tales, a cemetery stroll, book signings by Rankin, a historic home and garden tour and live music.
Unique and antique ready to emerge from hiding
There are musket balls from Fort Louisbourg, rare carpentry and shipbuilding tools, arrowheads unearthed from an ancient local burial mound. There is an Inuit kayak fashioned from sealskin in the 1800s, fancy woven Mik'maq baskets and a wooden shoe that belonged to one of New Brunswick's earliest French settlers. There are animal heads and birds of prey, kerosene headlamps from a Model-T Ford, and musical instruments and bottles from the Miramichi, including a container from Hickey's Drug Store in Chatham with its phone number - 16 - written on one side. All are locked up in one of Canada's greatest treasures - the Natural History Museum in Miramichi, a wonderful place where antiquities and oddities abound. Where else would one find tools used by prehistoric men, and a tiny boot worn by Tom Thumb? Or a piece of petrified wood discovered on the banks of the Little Southwest Miramichi, and an eight-legged kitten owned by a druggist from Douglastown.
ANTIQUE FURNITURE RESTORATION SERVICE
The Arts & Crafts Home is fortunate to be closely associated with the workshops of AD Restoration, a team of highly skilled and experienced antique furniture restorers, based in Brighton. We are leading specialists in 19th and 20th Century furniture restoration and renovation, working with Arts & Crafts furniture, Gothic Revival and Aesthetic Movement designs. We can offer FREE advice and FREE valuations for the repair, renovation and restoration of all your Arts & Crafts furniture. We have recently been commissioned to repair and renovate a unique group of furniture, designed by Sir Robert Lorimer, and made by Whytock and Reid. Sir Robert Lorimer and his Furniture Sir Robert Stodart Lorimer (1864 - 1929) was a prolific Scottish architect noted for his restoration work on historic houses and castles, and for promotion of the Arts and Crafts style.
|
