On 5/25/2010 3:13 AM, Cuyler Page wrote:
> During the several years of restoring the operational machinery in the 
> Grist Mill at Keremeos
cp,

That is an excellently fine story about setting things right. Thank you.

An early histo presto project for me was restoration of windows and such 
at the Marine Commandants barracks in DC. As I worked there was an 
occasional opening and closing of doors with nobody present. I was 
perturbed by it until finally I mentioned it to one of the Marine guards 
posted with us. He quite casually said that it was the ghost of 
Commandant so-and-so and that they all knew about him. At the least it 
was confirmed that I was not hallucinating. Other than that the only 
thing we could ever get our usually stoic guard to say was how much he 
wanted to go kill people.

One of the rules of that job, issued by the Commandant's wife, was that 
nobody on the job was allowed to bring a boom-box above the 1st floor, 
inside or outside of the building... she refered to it as a 'life 
support system'. I never did meet her or the Commandant.

We enjoyed weekends getting invited access to watch the Marine Corp 
Band. The gays in the bars on K Street enjoyed watching all the good 
looking Marines jog past.

Marines regularly went around with a can of black spray paint touching 
up all of the iron railings. Never know when someone important will show up.

We had to build a small bluestone patio. Based on the elevations shown 
on the drawings I laid out stakes with strings to show where the pitches 
would go to. I then asked the Contract Officer, a Navy guy, to look at 
them as I thought they were odd. He approved them -- I was real 
insistent on getting an approval in writing in those days. We built it 
and it looked like a turtle's backside. Everyone freaked over that. We 
had to rebuild it and the Marine's had to do some impromptu earth 
grading. It all had to be redone prior to President Reagan attending a 
barbecue w/ the Commandant. What I learned is don't look too close at 
the drawings and specifications but do figure out what the intended 
result is.

][<

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