Restore & Preserve

The Restore & Preserve article came out today. This means that I could now be considered a minor celebrity in town, and I may cause a minor stir as I head in to the Minor Theater to watch a movie staring minors - but who knows.

For those of you that don’t have total recall of every word I’ve ever written, here’s the gist of what is going on. Restore & Preserve is a monthly insert in our local newspaper. Every month it profiles certain people or properties in the area that stand out for reasons of restoration or preservation. After listing my house on the Local Register of Historic Places I found that there was a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about what it means to have your house listed. I emailed the Editor or Restore & Preserve and suggested she do a story on what it means to have your house on the list. She emailed me back and says that sounds like a great idea, why don’t we do it on you and your house. At first being reluctant because I normally shun the lime-light, I was eventually brought on-board through threats and intimidation by the newspapers hired goons (just kidding).

Anywho, several months passed and eventually Kathy Dillon, the editor, and a photographer showed up at my house and the results of all this is a very nice article in the newspaper about me, my house, and the insane amount of work I’m doing on it. I’ll never forget the very first question out of Kathy’s mouth, along with the look on her face - “You’re doing this all by yourself?” (The Look: You can’t be serious)

Restore & Preserve is the size of a folded newspaper. This months issue is 12 pages, so that would be 6 pages of a full-size newspaper. Two properties were highlighted in this issue – mine and another. There was also an article about historic gardens, one about the 1897 Pioneer Hall getting some restoration work (it is home to a fraternal orginization called The Native Sons), and another short piece about a benefit for The Clark Museum. And of course, gobs of advertisements. The last three pieces took up a full-page (with adds) and the rest was devoted to the two houses.

Both of the properties high-lighted got 4 pages each, and then the front cover makes up the 12th page. The title of mine was, “Rise, decline and rebirth of a beauty”. Kathy does all the writing and she did a very good job of conveying the house and the work I’ve done. It was a flattering article with many quotes by me. If you hadn’t noticed, I can be long-winded. There are 7 photographs and one with me in it. I’m standing in front of my dumb-waiter door looking at it longingly and lovingly ~ sigh ~. All in all it was a lot of fun.

I did buy 5 copies of the paper today so I can send off a few copies to family. I really didn’t want to draw a lot of attention to myself so I bought newspapers at several different locations around town today. The really funning thing about all this was that I’ve really been waiting for the past few weeks to see what Kathy would write about the house. I couldn’t wait to read the article. Then after I read it, it was kind of like – well, yea, I knew all that. It was as if I expected her to reveal new secrets to me or something. Essentially she was taking what I told her and put it down in her words in the newspaper. No big surprise for me. Still, a lot of fun, though.

I’ve started doing hand exercises because I’m sure many, many people are going to want my autograph over the next few days. Any second now my adoring fans will be lining up at the door – wait, what’s that - oh, never mind, it’s just the cat. Well, I’m sure the parade of fans will start and any second. Yep, any second.

Oh, and, I will be only sending 1 copy to my Mother.