Foggy Memories

I had a much busier day than yesterday – of course, that didn't take much since I really didn't do anything yesterday! I hadn't slept well Monday night and ended up being really draggy all day. I made up for it today

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After we did our podcast this morning, I set myself up at a table in our front window, plugged in the Christmas tree on that table and started Christmas music on Pandora. I got our Christmas cards all addressed. I need to write notes in a couple of them, and add a Christmas ornament to one, and they'll be ready to mail out.

A cold weather front started through mid day, so we decided to run to the grocery store before lunchtime, to get that over with before it got colder. We ran by Subway – bless their Customer Appreciation Month!! We got their $2 meatball subs for lunch. They were really yummy.

After lunch, I set up the ironing board and got ready to finish up the Christmas ornaments. I decided to try something new this year and used a fabric fuse to fasten together the aida cloth ornaments and the backing fabric. It seems to have worked fairly well – I'm letting them completely cool and fuse before I cut the Christmas-stocking shapes out. It was definitely easier than sewing them.

We ran some errands and took care of some business this afternoon. It's been really damp and overcast all day, and the temp had dropped a little over 10 degrees between 11:15 and 2. From the way my joints feel, it's dropped more since then!

The colder temps did away with the fog we'd had for a couple of days. Heavy fog always makes me think of a time during my second year of college. I was working through college work study for the music department. There were three professors in the department – vocal, instrumental, and keyboard. The keyboard instructor was preparing for a year's sabbatical to finish her doctorate, so we were documenting her responsibilities for the person handling her job for the coming year. The entire Music Department was housed in Stewart Chapel, as well as set decorations and props for the Theater Department.

One cold February night, there was a growing commotion on campus as people realized the Chapel was on fire. Everyone ran to the quadrangle to watch the fire. Seven or eight area fire departments came to assist – all the buildings on campus were fairly closed together. One of the music majors desperately tried to get inside the building to the keyboard instructor's office – he was afraid that the notes for her doctoral thesis were inside.

That was a really long night. Even after the fire was out and we all drifted back to our dorms, it was very difficult to go to sleep. Everyone was wound up, and there was some concern about the possibility of more problems as a result of the fire. We were all tired the next day, except for one student who'd felt tired and went to bed around 8 the night before – he'd managed to sleep through all the commotion, the eight or nine fire departments coming into town, everything!!! We all had a good laugh at his expense over his sound sleeping!

A few days after the fire, and at least two subsequent rekindlings, the brick shell of the building had to come down because it was deemed a real safety hazard. And so the next morning, we all came out of our dorms to an eerily foggy morning, with with echoing sound of a wrecking ball hitting against the brick. The fog was so thick that you couldn't see much, but the sound was enough. It was a heartbreaking time as that beautiful old structure was brought down, as well as knowing everything lost in that fire – the beautiful grand piano, the pipe organ in process of being rebuilt.

That foggy day at Missouri Valley College was indeed memorable.