Page 33 - MLD Book

Ginger was all for that at first, but after the clothing needs were expanded to include casual clothing, we moved to the north entry after it was built in 1999. This caused a huge commotion later, led by Ginger and a few other stylish Calvary women, because they wanted the north entry to look like their living rooms and only be a comfortable spot on Sundays for parishioners to relax in! Ginger and I went round and round on that one, but that narrative belongs in 1999, yet to come.
I have a whole book devoted to a diary of what went on every day at Calvary during the sabbatical, and it makes for good reading and more than a few gasps at what went on and how very much fell on me. Mary Bingham’s funeral was at Calvary three days after Ben left for sabbatical, and there was every bit as much commotion as there had been for Barry’s a couple of years previously. But the overriding litany was that of June Waski, who started pulling her shenanigans the minute Ben got on sabbatical. Ginger of course wouldn’t have anything to do with that, because suddenly June was homeless and suicidal and totally uncooperative, and that meant she wasn’t Ginger’s kind of people. So it was up to Pat Mears and me and Michele Wogaman (Wiggins at that time!! Story on that later too) to deal with June. Wayside for a while, hotel for a while, got her off the bridge once...oh my! She spent a great deal of that spring and summer underfoot at Calvary while we were there trying to work. Finally things worked out for her and she got a place to live for quite a while. She ended up later at Friendship House on Fourth Street, rejoined the choir for a bit, demanded much from choir members who were nice to her, and died about a year ago, sometime in 2019.
As for the rest of 1995, I think I mentioned the pew collapsing and that’s why we got the new chairs. The actual date of the FALL was May 14, 1995! I noted that after it fell, the six ladies on that pew moved to the other side in the middle of the service, and Carla McCarty (a whole another story!) made sure she took her water bottle with her when she moved! It was also the year that Charlie Gruenberger donated the fish tank from his dental office to Calvary that is still in operation upstairs (the fish tank that is!!!), thanks to the loving care of Dorn Crawford! That fish tank had been the scene of many a root canal, mine having been one of them! Charlie and Jack Kersey, his lover, were also very generous handypersons around Calvary, They built shelves in my office for all my music and those shelves lasted until the fateful 2012, when Erdman had them ripped out the next week, I think. He didn’t think they were pretty. That office is now commandeered by Sally Reisz as treasurer. I used to love watching out the window at the goings on on the steps of the Unitarian Church next door. Many people sat on them and more than a few got LAID on them! And that’s the proper use of LAY AND LIE! Melvin always was quick to say that LAY always had a direct object!
1996