40th Anniversary EK History Display of Blessed Memory

[mikekn]

At EK 12th Night this past weekend complexated and I had the final showing of the East Kingdom 40th Anniversary display. We had all the usual items, plus a few new things. Appearing for the first time was the original Order of the Portable Feast scroll. We also had a small collection of old photos in need of identification.

By all reports, the display was very well received. Many people were identified in four of the photos, but no hits in the rest of them. After court, everything was taken down and packed into the car. For a moment I was surprised at how well it fit into the car, until I remembered that we still had all of our stuff back at the hotel.

Fast forward to the next morning and we are trying to fit everything back into the car. I'm moving stuff around and suddenly ask, "Where is the rest of the history display?" Missing was the display board and the all the poster frames - usually kept stacked on the bin. violet_amy and complexated said that finnfinnegan had brought them out to the car. Finn was just pulling out from the hotel when we stopped and asked if he remembered what happened to them. When he brought them out, there was no space for them so he placed them on the roof and told me (twice). Thus my first "Oh shit" moment of being a peer.... I had completely forgotten about them after he told me, and we had driven off with them still sitting on the roof.

We made some quick phone calls and checked email to see if anyone had spotted them and grabbed them. Lots of no answers and no luck.

We drove back to the site on the off chance we could find them there. Did I mention it had snowed over night? We checked the area where we had loaded the car. We checked the exit where we took our first left turn (expecting them to have fallen off quickly). All clear. Nothing in the snow banks created by the plows. Somebody must have spotted them and picked them up. Not much we could do until we got home and were able to get in touch with folks.

We got ready to head home - the GPS said our best route was to take a right out of the school. I decided to go left for a little while and look around - just in case. As we slowly headed up the road, complexated spotted something sticking out of the snow by the side of the road. I pulled over and she hopped out to go look. I put on the blinkers and got out to join her.

This is when the car started to roll forward with Amy in the back seat.... Seems I had failed to put the car into park, or effectively set the hand break. Thankfully, she was able to reach up and shift it into park before going too far.

Naomi had in fact spotted a part of the history display. An empty poster frame which had held the first part of the Order of the Portable Feast scroll. The scroll was too big to fit into the frame so we had rigged up a two piece frame for it, but took it out and rolled it up for transportation. Further digging brought out the display board, beaten and broken into three parts, the laminated East Kingdom History sign, two more poster frames, and a newspaper clipping that had gotten pulled off the display.

The two poster frames contained the second two parts of the Portable Feast scroll. The frames were both soaked and damaged, but the scrolls inside were dry and unharmed. The display board held a mixture of newspaper clippings and original documents. All of the original documents survived, some had gotten a little wet, but none got soaked or damaged. Two of the newspaper articles got torn, and one completely ruined (but we have multiple copies of that one!).

After we extracted and dried everything off, we stored them back in the car. The display board and frames were a loss and were taken to a near by dumpster. I probably should have taken a picture of them, but then again maybe not...

Completely lost was the laminated 40th Anniversary sign, and a poster frame containing 24 old unidentified photos. We still have the negatives for these photos, so we will be making a new set of prints (and scanning them).

As potential disasters go, this one turned out not nearly as bad as it could have. I was able to drive home knowing that very little was lost and we had a story with a mostly happy ending to tell.

Vigil/Elevation stuff coming soon!

Comments

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on your elevation!

[mikekn]

Thanks!

[complexated.livejournal.com]

As we were headed back to the school, everyone was really tense and worried, the song "Yesterday" came on (we were listening to the Beatles). While in the car after finding the display, the song "Here Comes the Sun" came on.

[bertana.livejournal.com]

Apparently, the universe decided you needed a little panic to make your elevation day truly memorable! :P

I can only imagine how awful it must have felt when you realized they'd been on the roof of your car. I'm so glad you found things! (Good eye, Naomi!)

*hugs* And congrats again!

[mikekn]

Yeah, nothing like a little extra oomph to fix things in memory.

Thanks :)

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

How incredibly stressful! I'm relieved you found the hard-to-replace bit.

[danabren.livejournal.com]

If this was the worst thing that you have to deal with as a Peer, you are sooooo ahead of the game ;)

Congratulations!

[mikekn]

I suspect you are right, but at the time I was like - "shit I've only been at this a day!" :)

Thanks!

[ubiq31.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the elevation...and congratulations on being tested ;)

[mikekn]

Thanks :)

[auntiero.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the elevation! And woot for finding at least some of the things.

BTW, thanks for asking C to herald you in to court. It meant a lot to him. :)

[violet-amy.livejournal.com]

It was more like strong-armed him into doing it. I appreciated it a lot.

[mikekn]

Thanks!

I'm glad he was there to help us out :)

[handymonkey]

Sorry I couldn't make it to your vigil. I spent a good bit of the afternoon speaking to Laurel via Wreath. Boffo on your elevation; remember to use your powers for good. :-) Great piece of luck finding the missing history collection pieces, and well done to violet_amy for her backseat driving skills and complexated for her alert spotting!

[mikekn]

Thanks :)

Good luck in your new job!

[handymonkey]

Thank you! :-)

[kandy-elizabet.livejournal.com]

Argh, we were so busy chatting when we left the site, we didn't notice anything (I think you left before we did) -- I tend to watch the road less than the sides of the road. Glad it mostly worked out.

[violet-amy.livejournal.com]

I think all of us just wanted to get out of the cold as quickly as possible!

[suba-al-hadid.livejournal.com]

Congrats on being elevated!

Glad you found stuff.

[mikekn]

Thanks!

[bds-duncan.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on your elevation; it's truly deserved.

[mikekn]

Thank you!

[jducoeur]

Oy. I always say that every elevation should have something unique about it, but that's not really what I intend! Many sympathies -- I did that to a scroll once, under similar circumstances and with similar results.

Anyway, congrats! Hope things went well aside from that...