The Clicker
Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 30, 2015
Instead of moving to the Library for the heat this year, I can’t. It’s going to be a bit of a job site with some of the work it’s going to have to become a lab/classroom. It won’t look too different however!
So, that said, I needed to find a new home for the winter. I will miss my view of Mitchell House and the Observatory as I sit at the original library desk but now I will be in the Observatory – or at least the 1987 seminar room. So now I will be looking back at the Library building instead. A new view.
So anyway, I was over there cleaning off the desk and cleaning out one drawer of probably 20 years worth of office supply debris and what did I come across? The clicker! And I really did exclaim out loud “Oh look, the clicker!” For the tow of you who read this (haha), this clicker was used at open nights all through my youth (and perhaps Vladimir used it too, I don’t remember). But I noted its use by Lee Belserene the MMA’s Director of Astronomy in the 1970s and 1980s. She used to let my brother click us in when we arrived for an open night – I think she had a soft spot for him. I had written a short piece about her a few years ago. So nevertheless, I was very excited to see it and maybe I was exclaiming to her or to Maria, who knows what was going on in my unconscious. But now, for the winter anyway, I will look at it as it sits over my winter desk. I will have to introduce it to our new Director of Astronomy who starts in January – Regina Jorgenson – she may have met it before too when she worked with Vladimir but maybe not. We will find out!
JNLF
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Finished. Finis. Completed. Done. Accomplished. The Mitchell House roofwalk is now done. Back to looking a bit more normal up on the ridgeline. But as I may have noted in the other post about the roofwalk, the one that was removed due to its condition and how it sat on the roof’s ridge was far from the original – or even a nineteenth century one. I am including an image from about 1908 or so in order for you to see the Mitchell House without a walk – even then. Now, an interesting fact is that I am able to date the undated photo because in the west image – where you see the open year – you can actually see the shadow of the Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory – at the backside of the 1825 Kitchen. And given that shadow you also know its late afternoon since that side of the House, as noted, faces West. Another interesting feature is the long downspout – more like a side spout – that takes water from the front gutter, along the upper West façade of the House and across a window and then over the 1825 Kitchen roof where it terminated in a cistern – still in existence under the ground today. JNLF
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