Our small town Memorial Day parade

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Historical Society, Memorial Day, parades, postaday2013, small town

This morning at 10:30 I opened the Historical Society for the town; viewing all of its war-time memorabilia before the parade is an important part of our Blandford tradition. We had a nice turn out, at least 35 people looking at the pictures of all of our servicemen, all of the articles written about our townspeople throughout the various armed conflicts, the canteens, the powder cases, the pieces of uniforms from the revolutionary war and the civil war, we have quite a little collection going and everyone is proud of it.

Our parade is very small and nothing ever changes, but I think that it is precisely that fact that makes it so special. We get the fly over’s from fighter planes from Westover Air force base and we get the gun salute from our older veteran’s. I like watching the High School Band, it brings back memories from when the baby boy and the baby girl had their band responsibilities, we went from town to town to participate in all seven hill town parades for Memorial Day. Those days were fun but exhausting for the babies as well as for us. I watched the band members today thinking that I was very happy to pass the baton onto others.

We were very lucky with the weather today; Saturday and Sunday were so cold and wet, a parade would have been miserable. Today we had bright sun, a coolish breeze and the temperature in the low sixties. It was infinitely better than the rain and 40’s of Saturday and Sunday, I can promise you that.

I do appreciate the small town feel of very many things, especially parades.

Preparations for tomorrow’s Memorial Day celebrations

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baking, Historical Society, Memorial Day, postday2013, veteran's

As the curator for the Blandford Historical Society, I have taken over my mother-in-law’s responsibilities, in particular, her role in preparing and organizing the Blandford veteran exhibit at the Historical Society which is open prior and after the Memorial Day parade. I spent two hours cleaning up and vacuuming the Historical Society upstairs and downstairs so that all of our exhibits are at their best when everyone comes to see their service men in picture frames and all the war time memorabilia that the Historical Society has collected over the years.

Of course as usual, part of my responsibility is to provide beverages and homemade goodies, so as soon as I got home from cleaning and setting up, I got to baking. I made small French cakes called financiers. These little cakes are really very tasty and quite easy to make, I bookmarked the recipe. I had to translate the recipe and the measurements from French to English which wasn’t too hard. The recipe itself is interesting; it’s mostly egg whites, chopped walnuts, melted butter, confectioner’s sugar and a little bit of flour. My hubby and the baby girl loved them and got a little peeved when I announced that these little cakes were for the Historical Society. I told them that I was going to make a banana walnut bread for them and I did. Hopefully that will keep them happy.

A look back at Blandford’s Scottish Festival

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Historical Society, postaday2013, Scottish Festival, shortbread cookies, White Church

Tonight’s Historical Society program was really informative and enjoyable. It was held at the Blandford White Church which was built in the 1820’s and restored starting in 1994 and finished being restored in 1999. The committee members in charge of the White Church were compelled to inform the town in 1990, that steps needed to be taken to do something with the White Church because as of 1990, it was becoming a liability. Through a small donation they were able to restore the foundation. but that was as far as it went and so for four years, the White Church stood on cinder blocks. In 1994, Blandford found an extremely capable and energetic woman in the name of Mrs. Southworth who decided between parking cars for the Blandford Fair and organizing a Scottish Festival honoring the Scottish roots of our small town, that it would be the shot in the arm needed in terms of generating monies. Believe it or not, there was even more, in terms of good will, one of our residents is an accomplished opera conductor who proposed holding an opera that was such a hit, that it became an annual event. So between these three events, our White Church has been fully restored and we are very proud of it.

My hazelnut shortbread cookies were a hit, the other shortbread cookies were store bought, but still good. It always makes me happy to see others delight in my baked goodies. I had a lot of fun and I am so happy that I went. I am tired and ready for bed, in the immortal lyrics of the Sound of Music “so long, farewell, a vie de zein, good night, to you and you and you Good Night” Love that movie.

Our Historical Society meeting

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archives, digitize, finances, Historical Society, postaday2013

This evening we had our, I think that they are quarterly or maybe more often then that, Director’s meeting. These meetings are always very laid back and pleasant. Our ambitious President sets the agenda and gives us a blow by blow account of the finances, the upcoming projects, the various programs and he does it all without being bossy or overbearing. When I describe him as ambitious, it’s because he does a lot of the projects himself. He really enjoys being outdoors and physically active so he is always the first to volunteer his time and energy. He doesn’t however, force or guilt anyone into doing something that they don’t want to do. I really like that about our fearless leader.

We are being led into the digital age by our newest Vice President of Programs; Chips has taken our collection by storm; he has been digitizing and reconciling the ascension book with the digital record. It is a massive job, I know this because I had tried to do it last, just without the digitizing, and it was a nightmare. Nothing made sense because it had been done in such a haphazard fashion. Chips lives for this type of puzzle and he has gone to town with it and I am extremely grateful for everything that he has done.

My contribution to the next program which is May16th, our treasurer will be exploring the twentieth anniversary of the Scottish festival, will be pecan shortbread cookies. In French they are called Sables and they are quite yummy. I’m glad that my fellow Directors are happy with my contributions, it’s what I do best.

The history of the Boy Scout’s: A Historical Society program

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Boy Scouts, Historical Society, history, lecture, postaday2013, program

Last night’s program was a hit. We were in luck, the speaker was informative, enthusiastic and engaging. Ironically he is from Blandford, he moved here in 1978 and I have never seen the man before last night. I was very happy to meet him, his name is Bob and he had been with the Boy Scouts association for 60 years. His position is one of volunteer, both his time and his services in the legal capacity. I wasn’t the only one who had never met Bob, the only one who knew Bob was his childhood friend who lives on his road, Chips, who also serves as a director in the Historical Society so that is how we came about the program. Chips is wonderful when it comes to getting his old friends and colleagues donate their time and expertise for our entertainment.

I learned so much about the Boy Scouts. I had no idea that the Boy Scouts were started in Great Britain by a famous military hero Baron Robert Baden-Powell who after his military exploits wrote a book on military scouting that was adopted by young Englishmen in their boarding schools and taken into the field.

Bob spoke so eloquently of Baron Robert Baden-Powell, he really brought him to life. He spoke of his adventures in killing the pig with a short pointy stick, receiving India’s highest honor after killing the pig with his short stick and writing a book about it. In all seriousness, Baden-Powell with his colleagues were wild boar hunting without any weapons other than short swords, that was a sign of a real hunter, wild boars are very feral and fearless, so the physical risk to themselves and their horse was great. Baden-Powell won the highest award as the premier wild pig killer because after his horse was gored by the wild boar, he bravely put the boar down. His exploits in India led him to many promotions and then off to South Africa. All of this was in the late 1800’s and very early 1900. Somewhere in old British Rhodesia, Baden-Powell successfully held his city in a 200 plus day siege against enemy forces three times the size of his force. He went home to Great Britain after this, a national hero. His fans were the young men who read his book on military scouting and they aspired to be scouts.

My caneles were a huge hit and I am so happy that I made them because no one else brought anything else. It was my goodies and that was it. They threw themselves on my little caneles and kept saying “who made these?” “What is this?” These are so good” I was so happy. I love baking. A very pleasant evening.

Another interesting program at the Blandford Historical Society

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Blandford, Blandford war veterans, Historical Society, postaday2012, potluck dinner

Tonight we had another educational program at our Historical Society, it was a slide show of every Blandford resident who served our nation’s military; from the Revolutionary War to the present day. There were actually three hundred strong from Blandford who served in the Revolutionary War, our own General Knox, who became a close personal friend to General George Washington, was included with an accompanying picture. I was surprised to see a Jones amongst the 300, my friends laughed along with me, saying that he was fighting on the wrong side. The Civil War hadn’t as many combatants, but there was one young man of note, he was only twenty years of age and he made his way all the way down to Philadelphia and took part in twenty battles. He actually captured a confederate flag during one of those battles. We have the copy of that confederate flag with the square of the original flag and the young man’s Congressional Medal of Honor on display at our Historical Society. I was particularly impressed with the young man’s courage, patriotism and sense of duty, walking from Blandford, MA to Philadelphia, PA isn’t a small feat, even on horseback it takes courage and determination. We moved along in history to the Spanish American War and we had the one soldier, he was in a group picture honoring the veteran’s returning home from World War 1, he was featured along with the old white bearded Civil War veterans and the brand new veterans just come home in 1918. As we moved forward to both World Wars, the audience became more lively because old family members, old friends of the family were present in every slide, it was a nice trip down nostalgic lane for our society’s members, quite a few of them were featured when we got to Korea and Vietnam. They were all young and handsome in their nice starched and pressed uniforms, I could tell that they were very proud of their time serving the military and our country.

The slide show started after we had finished our potluck dinner, I wasn’t very creative this time, I brought brownies and I wasn’t the only one. This gathering could have been called potluck dessert because the dessert table was very well represented as opposed to the dinner table. I was happy because there was an excellent chicken curry salad and a lovely barley, tomato, cucumber, cilantro salad and finger sandwiches. Passing by the dessert table on my way to sit down, I couldn’t help but linger to see what delectables might tempt me later on. There was a gorgeous fruit platter, there were chocolate covered strawberries, cheesecake balls rolled in ground nuts, chocolate glazed chocolate squares, banana bread, blueberry muffins, banana walnut bread, brownies, brownies with walnuts, fudge and more brownies. I might be missing something, but wasn’t that one huge spread of sweets? It was a lovely night at the Historical Society.